Mending Hope (Contemporary Western Romance) (License to Love Series:Book 2) (6 page)

“Were you just going to leave me out?” he asked, smiling. 

Alyssa smiled and gave a short chuckle back.  “I thought you might want to catch a little extra sleep,” she told him before looking down at his engorged member and taking it in her free hand, slowly stroking it as he watched her. “But I can tell that you have other plans.”

He smiled and responded by kissing her deeply as the water glided over them.  By the time they were done the water in the shower had started to run cool. 

“See what you did?  Now I’m running late.” Alyssa joked as she jumped out of the shower and toweled off.  They were supposed to meet for breakfast in less than ten minutes and she hadn’t even dried her hair yet.  Instead she wrapped it up in a quick bun and pulled on her suit pants and blouse. 

“What I did?” he asked, whispering in her ear as he kissed the nape of her neck before licking away a stray droplet of water.

“Can’t you focus on anything else?” she teased, brushing him away as she struggled to get ready. 

“As long as I’m near you I can’t,” he said as he winked.  Then he disappeared into the other room to get dressed and to give her time to get ready.

“Today is important for Clara,” she reminded him as she slipped on her shoes and then carried her make-up bag into the bathroom so she could swipe on some mascara and lipstick.  “Even though it is just the preliminary hearing to go over all of the pre-trial motions, it’ll be the first time that she’s seen him since the attack.  I know how important it is for her to make sure she goes, so that he’ll know that she isn’t afraid.”

“I can’t imagine,” Woody told her as he turned her around and looked deep into her eyes. “If I was Shad, I think I would have a problem being in the same room with him and not jumping over the table and choking him with my bare hands.  I don’t even want to think about what I would do if someone hurt you.”

She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.  “Thankfully you don’t have to.”

Woody nodded, seemingly lost in solemn thought over the proposition of someone hurting her, and then trailed away his thoughts as he headed towards the door.  “I’m going to head on to the kitchen and give you a few minutes to finish getting ready,” he told her as he returned her kiss very briefly and walked over to the door.

Alyssa was walking on cloud nine as she finished getting ready.  However, a few minutes later she was digging through her suitcase to try and find a pair of earrings when she came across her wedding ring.  Even though she didn’t wear it anymore, she still carried it with her. 

When she had gone back to pack up some of her things at her house, she had grabbed this jewelry box, unable to imagine living her life without it.  That had been before Woody and that night in the barn.  In the ten days since then she had hardly even thought about Kyle.  It was as if the weight of his accident had finally faded from her shoulders. 

Now, however, as she sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the ring, she could almost feel the guilt come crashing back down over her.  She put the ring on her finger and closed her eyes, thinking about the other life, the one that she had left behind in Wichita Falls.

Her eyes still closed, she whispered good-bye and tucked the ring back into her jewelry case.  She sighed.  It felt good to have that weight finally dissolving, to be able to put that part of her life away in a forgotten jewelry container.  Maybe it was about time for something different, maybe it was time to embrace the new possibilities in her life and stop living in the “what ifs” of life.

*

Woody had walked back to where he was storing his bike, intending to ride it around to the front door.  However he now patted down his pockets only to realize that he’d left his keys and wallet on the nightstand.  Smiling to himself, he started to whistle softly as he walked back toward the room.

He approached the door and realized it was still ajar from when he’d left.  He pushed it open and immediately saw Alyssa sitting on the edge of the bed, her eyes closed, and a single tear trailing down her cheek.  Taking a step toward her, Woody reached out but then he stopped when he realized that she was wearing her wedding ring. 

He might not have noticed, but it glinted in the morning sunlight that slanted through the windows.  The picture caught him completely by surprise.  In fact Woody would not have believed it if you’d told him that it was possible to feel jealous of someone who was dead, but that was before he’d seen her crying over the ring.  Now his insides felt enraged, but there was nothing there for them to lash out at. 

Grabbing his wallet and keys he walked out the door and back down the hall.  Of course he knew that she still loved and cared for her husband, but seeing her grieve like that was different.  He wasn’t sure what to think or how to react to someone who was so clearly pining over a dead man. 

True he’d been the one to tell her that they all lived with ghosts, but knowing that he could never equal the man who was gone was harder for him to process than he’d have thought.  After all they were together for years, and the two of them had only been together for a few days.  It was going to take time. 

Woody turned down the hallway and headed to the kitchen, so engrossed in his thoughts that he completely forgot that Shad and Clara didn’t know he’d been staying over with Alyssa.  He walked in through the side entrance and heard Shad chuckling. 

“What?” Woody asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Shad said smiling.  “Clara and I just had a bet about when you two would decide to quit trying to hide the fact you were staying here at night.”

Woody paused for a second before he realized what they were saying. 

“You mean, you’ve known all along?” Woody asked, his eyebrow arched in disbelief.

Shad and Clara exchanged a knowing glance, both of them smiling at each other and giggling under their breath.

Woody couldn’t help but to be lost in thought from their discovery.  His bad mood was evaporating in the midst of their happiness.  “Well then, how long were you going to force me to wake up at the crack of dawn and drive to work then?” Woody tried to joke in order to try to hide his pain.

“As long as you inflicted it on yourself,” Shad said.

“What he means,” Clara interrupted, putting a hand over Shad’s arm, “is that we didn’t want to intrude on your life.  If you two weren’t willing to tell us what was going on, then we didn’t want to force the issue.”

Woody nodded as he walked over to where Clara and Shad were sitting.  “I thought we were doing so well but I know that she still has feelings for her husband.  And I feel like I’m competing with a dead man.”

Clara rounded the edge of the counter and hugged Woody, whispering in his ear.  “Don’t worry about that.  I can tell you that his ghost is fading every day that she spends with you.”

“Thanks,” Woody whispered back before he dropped her hug.

Shad studied Woody before he spoke.  “Have you told her everything?  Did you tell her about mom?  Did you let her know that you didn’t want kids?  Those are important things to a woman.”

“He didn’t have to,” Alyssa’s voice broke through on the far side of the room and they all turned to look at her. 

“Sorry, I wasn’t trying to butt in on your personal life.  I just…” Shad’s voice trailed off, as Woody started talking as well.

“I forgot and came into the kitchen from the hallway on your side of the house.  They figured out the rest,” Woody told her. 

Alyssa quietly walked into the room and grabbed a piece of toast from the counter before answering.  “Well, I guess the good news is that you don’t have to worry about waking up before sunrise anymore.”

Her smile was weak and Woody knew that walking in on that conversation had startled her but she was determined to throw it off.  He knew she didn’t want to cause any problems for Clara before they had to go and see Chuck Sanders in court. 

“Why all this talk about us anyway?” Alyssa asked.  “Aren’t we supposed to be getting ready to go to court and make a united front against this asshole?”

Now it was Clara’s turn to have the false smile. “I had almost tricked myself into forgetting,” she told them.  “Part of me is glad to be getting this first confrontation since the attack over with, but a large part of me is still unsure.”

Shad stepped closer to her and put his arm across her shoulders, hugging her tightly to his chest before leaning down and kissing the top of her head. 

“That’s why we’re all going,” he reminded her.  “So this isn’t something you have to do alone.  We’ll go with you every day as long as you need us, won’t we?”

Woody and Alyssa both nodded in agreement.

Ten minutes later they were heading for the door, and Woody noticed that even though Clara was putting on a brave face,  her hand had started to tremble a little.  He looked over at Alyssa and thought of what he would do if something like that had happened to her.  When he realized how much anger started to bubble up even at the mere hint or suggestion of such a thing he knew that he could no longer keep his own pain from her.

She had told him everything about Kyle up front, but he hadn’t filled her in on his mother’s death.  It was about time that was rectified.  Once they were in the car, he turned to her. 

“After we are through with court I would like it if you would go somewhere with me,” Woody asked of Alyssa.  “There’s something I need to show you.” 

Alyssa nodded.  It was the slow understanding nod of someone who was unsure of what was going to happen, but she didn’t ask and he didn’t say anything else on the trip into town.

*

When they went into the courtroom they positioned themselves strategically around Clara with Shad on one side and Alyssa and Woody on the other.  But when they marched Chuck Sanders into the courtroom wearing his orange jumpsuit as he shuffled in between two guards, Clara still grabbed Alyssa’s hand and clenched it in her sweaty fist. 

This was the first time Alyssa had seen him, and while she had expected the crazed madman that Clara had described, what she saw instead was entirely different.  It looked as if he’d had a recent haircut, because his black hair was trimmed neatly and brushed back away from his eyes.  He was tall and thin, but together his features reminded her more of an Ichabod Crane type character than a psychopath. 

But then he turned his eyes toward them and gave Clara a little half smile, and it was enough to cause her skin to crawl and her stomach to clench.  In that brief moment she glimpsed how deep his insanity could run and she knew that the façade he was holding out for court was nothing more than a cheap mask that could be dropped at any moment of his choosing.

The judge entered shortly thereafter.  He was a somewhat older, rotund man with black hair that was just beginning to grey at the temples.  Everyone in the room stood when the bailiff called for all to rise. The disciplined uniformity of the move created quite a stir in the air.  Even though there weren’t that many people in Stanhope, the county courthouse still managed to reach capacity as this trial was bigger than anything they had seen in ages.  When they all sat again, the room was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop, even void of the occasional shuffling of feet or cough.  Alyssa felt the walls closing in on her and for a moment she fought back the urge to flee in panic.  Woody shifted in his seat and put his arm around her. 

She leaned into him, glad that they could finally be open about their relationship.  The only butterflies in her stomach now were about this trial, and whatever it was that he wanted to talk to her about afterward.  She studied him from the corner of her eye, hoping to catch just a glimpse or a clue about what was on his mind, but she was pulled back to the situation at hand by the judge’s loud voice.

“Charles Sanders, you are accused of assault and battery, kidnapping, burglary, breaking and entering, and tampering with official police records. How do you plead?”

The man that was seated next to Sanders rose to answer.  Even though Alyssa had been told that this was the man’s step-brother, she could not believe that the two had come from the same home.  The brother was just as tall, but where Chuck was lanky, this man was more filled in.  His shoulders were relatively broad under his suit, and she speculated that he probably had to have them custom sewn, in order to get a good fit.

His hair was a dirty blonde, and the contrast between that and his tanned skin was beautiful.  There was nothing of resemblance between the two of them except the name. 

“My client pleads ‘not guilty’ by reason of mental disease or defect,” he said, and then turned to look down at his stepbrother.  When he did, Alyssa noticed that he grimaced when he spoke, and there was more than a hint of distain in his slate grey eyes.  Perhaps the family differences went even deeper than it seemed.

“Bond?” The judge asked. 

They were seated directly behind the prosecutor, so when she stood up to respond to the judge’s inquiry she motioned to them. “The defendant has been accused of heinous crimes against Shad Brandt and Clara Roberts.  We ask that he be remanded to the custody of the state until the trial.”

The judge nodded and then turned to the defense.  “Any rebuttals, counselor?”

“No, your honor, we’re fine with remand as long as he can be treated for his psychiatric condition whilst in custody.”

“Your honor,” the prosecutor interrupted, and Alyssa swung her attention back to the lady in the blue business suit. “Mr. Sanders has caused a lot of disruption and problems in Clara Robert’s life with the use of nothing more than the Internet.  He is one of the best hackers that the FBI has record of.  I feel that he should be severely limited on his social interaction as well as his access to technology from the outside.  If he is released for psychiatric visits, then those need to be very closely monitored as well, to make sure that he has no access to any form of computer, including cell phones, e-readers, etc.  Nothing is safe in the hands of a hacker who is as skilled as he is.”