One More Time (13 page)

“Jimmy, you can’t make this right. Don’t you see? You just can’t. What’s done is done.”

He dropped his hand and sighed. “Won’t you at least let me try?”

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but you are not Amelia’s father, truly. If you think about it, this is a good thing. You didn’t want kids. I did. I’m not the right woman for you. I never have been.” He opened his mouth to argue, but I cut him off. “And you aren’t the right man for me.”

“And
he
is?” Jimmy snarled.

Cocking my head, I asked, “He who?” I wanted him to say Dillon’s name. I wanted to hear him acknowledge he wasn’t Amelia’s father, that someone else was but he didn’t. Unfortunately, Amelia chose that moment to wake up and give a loud wail. “I think we’ve said all that needs to be said here. Don’t you? Let yourself out, please. I have to take care of the baby.” I left Jimmy standing in the kitchen while I tended to Amelia. When I returned to for a glass of water fifteen minutes later, he was gone. Things were definitely looking up.

Sally rolled home shortly after and I told her about Jimmy’s visit.

“It sounds to me as if he’s up to something,” she said. “To just leave without giving you hell or threatening you in some way isn’t normal Jimmy behavior.” I had to agree with her.

Two hours later, I had just finished nursing Amelia and was contemplating turning in early when the doorbell rang. Protective barks echoed through the house.

“Sally, can you get that?” I shouted. I heard her clomp down the stairs and her voice as she answered the door.

“Isabella, can you please come in here?” Sally called out a few minutes later. I could tell from her tone that something was wrong. First of all, Sally never called me Isabella. Second, the word please was not in her vocabulary.

Scrambling off the bed, I hurried to the living room and paused to process what greeted me there. Two policemen stood in the middle of our living room floor. One of them was showing a document to a very pale looking Sally.
What has my sister done now?

Seeing me enter the room, Sally calmly said, “I think we now know what Jimmy has been up to.” A trickle of panic bubbled in my chest.

“Are you Miss Isabella Fisher?” One of the policemen asked.

“Yes, I am. What can I do for you?”

“We have a warrant to search the house,” he replied.

Another bubble of panic sprouted. Only, this one was bigger. “What for?” I barely managed to get out.

The second officer gave me a sympathetic look before answering, “Drugs, ma’am.”

My eyes shot to Sally and back to the policeman. “Drugs?” I squeaked. “What do you mean drugs?”

“We were directed to search the grounds for illegal substances.”

“This has Jimmy written all over it,” Sally snarled.

Officer number two said, “ma’am?” as if to hurry me along.

“Oh, yes. Go right ahead,” I told him. I had nothing to hide. Still, the whole thing wasn’t sitting right with me.
What has Jimmy done?

“Thanks for cooperating. We’ll try not to make a mess.”

I turned to Sally, who looked as stunned as I felt, and told her to stay put. Then I hauled it to the bedroom where I carefully picked a sleeping Amelia up from the bed.

Ten minutes later the officers summoned us to the living room. They had found a small Zip-Lock baggy full of red and white pills lodged behind the teapot in one of my kitchen cabinets.
Well done, Jimmy.

“This is a set up,” Sally told the policemen. “Isabella has a douche of an ex-boyfriend who is also a lawyer. He has been harassing her for months. You can look it up. She has a restraining order against him, which he refuses to obey. He came to visit her earlier today and must have planted those,” she nodded at the baggy of pills.

Officer one shook his head. “That may be, but we were ordered by a judge to search this house for illegal substances and it appears we have found illegal substances.” He held up the baggy. “We have to confiscate and take Miss Fisher into custody for questioning.”

“They’re mine!” Sally shouted, causing all of us to jump and Amelia to start wailing. “You caught me!” She held her hands together at the wrists and said “Cuff me, not her.”

“Sally, don’t!” I shouted.

Officer two stared at us as if we were insane. Shaking his head back and forth, he said, “Hang on.” We watched as they moved to the kitchen to discuss things.

“Have you lost your brain?” I quietly scoffed. “They will arrest you!”

“Better me than you! You have her to think of,” she nodded at Amelia, who was finally settling down.

A minute later they returned to inform us that we had thirty minutes to get our affairs in order before they took us both down to the police station for questioning.
Crap!

I immediately called Uncle Charlie and told him to get here fast. He arrived fifteen minutes later. To say he was angry was putting it mildly.

“Jimmy did this?” he asked. Sally and I both nodded.

The officers were nice enough to let me show Uncle Charlie the frozen milk and explain to him how to heat it up.

“Are you going to call Dillon or do you want me to do it?” Uncle Charlie pointedly asked. If the time spent with Dillon taught me anything, it was that he had very resourceful friends. As much as I hated it, I told Uncle Charlie to call. After giving him a tearful hug and Amelia a kiss on the top of the head, Sally and I walked out the door and got into the back of the police cruiser.

Five hours later, we were still in jail. My boobs were leaking all over the place and I had to pee like a race horse.

“What is taking so long? Hello people! We have a woman with serious boob distress here!” Sally shouted through the bars.

“I can’t believe Jimmy did this to me,” I said out loud.

Sally let out a rude snort. “You also couldn’t believe he threatened to tie you to the bedpost when you stayed out drinking with me…and refused to let you pee.”

“Don’t mention the word pee right now,” I groaned.

“And how about the time you told him you didn’t like the pasta dish he made because you were allergic to mushrooms, and he made you eat all of it anyway. You broke out in hives all over,” she continued. “You also couldn’t believe he did that. Oh! My favorite has to be the time you walked in on him screwing his associate and calling her his baby girl! I seem to recall you not believing that happened either!” she shouted. Yes, Sally had reached the end of her rope.

A commotion interrupted her tirade and we both turned to see what it was.

Dillon!

He was heading our way with Cas and two men I had never seen before. He had a scary look on his face. Following behind them was a man in a suit, three policemen and Uncle Charlie with a screaming Amelia.
Thank God.

“Holy shit,” Sally whispered.
Holy shit is right
. Dillon was mad. No, more like livid.

“We will be discussing the shit I just heard later.” He told me. “For now, Officer Morgan here has offered us a room so you can feed
our
daughter.” I didn’t miss the fact he stressed the word our in that statement, nor that he was giving me a possessive me-Tarzan-you-Jane look. “Garrett, Bobby, and Cas will help Sally and the police figure this all out. As soon as you are through nursing, we will join them.”

Taking Amelia from my uncle, I bravely said, “You can go with Cas and everyone. I can feed Amelia and join you when I’m done.”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth he was in my face. “Do you have any idea how badly I want to spank your ass right now?” he quietly asked. My eyes shot from Amelia up to his and widened in shock and embarrassment.

“Dillon!” I exclaimed.

“Let’s go,” he said. Reaching down, he took a fretting Amelia from me and, like a pro, shifted her onto his shoulder, where he steadily balanced her with one large hand. His other hand shot out and latched onto mine. I sputtered in protest as he dragged me across the room and out the door. Cas winked as I passed by and Sally giggled. I was not humored…at all.

Officer Morgan showed us where the bathroom was. I was afraid for a second that Dillon was going to follow me in. When he paused outside the door, I gave a sigh of relief and got to it. As soon as I was done, Officer Morgan led us to an office.

“Shout when you’re done,” he told Dillon with a smirk on his face. Again, I did not see the humor. They shook hands, like old buds, and he closed the door behind him as he left the room.

“Wait! You know him?” I asked.

“We went to high school together,” Dillon clipped, as he handed Amelia to me with a burp cloth.

I sighed when she latched on and started sucking. The relief was more than welcome. Looking up at him, I asked the stupidest question ever. “What now?”

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the desk. “First we talk about why you ran.”

“Now?” I asked, clearly exasperated.

“Now.”

“I think I was pretty clear in the note I left, don’t you?” I dryly asked.

“The note you left said Amelia was mine and so was Dana. I saw the clothes. I knew what she had done. Did you ever consider asking me about it?” His grey eyes stared through me and I squirmed.

“Okay, maybe I was a bit hasty,” I admitted.

His left eyebrow shot to the ceiling. “Ya think?”

“However, you and Elvira obviously have history together. You say it’s over and she…doesn’t. I don’t want in the middle of that. She,” I nodded my head to Amelia, “doesn’t need to be in the middle of that.”

“Do you think I would do that?” he asked. I didn’t answer him because, honestly, I didn’t know. “Wow,” he mouthed and I felt the need to explain.

“My dad cheated on my mom and left us when I was a baby. Two weeks before I met you, I walked in on Jimmy having sex with his co-worker. When Elvira,” I paused and asked, “What’s her real name, again?”

“Dana,” he answered.

“When Dana showed up and told me you two were very much together, I just snapped. Enough is enough.”

“For the record, I have not been with Dana since well before I met you.”

“She thinks you are,” I retorted.

“She can think it all she wants, Isabella. It doesn’t make it true. Case in point, look at Jimmy. He thinks Amelia is his and the two of you are going to get back together and be one happy family. Are you?”

“Absolutely not,” I answered. Both of his eyebrows shot to the ceiling as if to say, you see? And I did see. I saw all too clearly. “So, you didn’t tell her I was your cousin?”

Chuckling, he sat down and wrapped his arms around me. “Is that what she told you?”

“Yes. She said you enjoyed spending all your time naked with her and she was going to find you at Dragonfly for a quickie.” I made air quotes as I said the word quickie and could feel Dillon’s body shake with laughter. “It’s not funny. It was horrible,” I murmured.

“Baby,” he whispered, kissing the side of my head. “I promise I took care of Dana. Now, let’s say we take care of Jimmy.”

I turned my head up to tell him about what Jimmy had done and was met with his lips on mine. The next thing I knew, we were all over each other. When Amelia let out a squeal of protest, Dillon pulled back and looked down at her.

“She’s mine,” he whispered. Before I could respond, he said, “As soon as we get this cleared up, you two are coming back to Charlotte with me.”

Wait, what?

“I can’t come back to Charlotte with you. I have a place here. I have a job. Sally and my uncle are here.”

“Your job is teaching guitar lessons part time and barely making ends meet. The majority of your money comes from selling your music. Am I right?”

“Well, yes but….”

“You can write anywhere, Ibby.” My heart melted when he called me Ibby and he knew it. “Just hear me out,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about buying a place near Cas. It has three bedrooms. Milly and Sally can have the upstairs. You can work at Dragonfly and gig every Saturday night. Sally can work the shifts you don’t and we’ll pay her extra to watch Milly when we can’t.”

“But my place here,” I protested. I loved my place in Charleston.

“As if sensing my hesitancy, he said, “Keep it. In fact, use the money you make at Dragonfly and gigging to pay for it until you find a renter. No one says you have to give it up.” He grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Let me take care of the two of you. Give me the chance to get to know my daughter. Please? If it doesn’t work out, then at least we can say we tried. Plus, I want you as far away from Jimmy as possible. The guy is bad news.”

Tell me about it.
“I’m not telling you no, Dillon, but I’m also not saying yes. Let me think about it and talk to both Sally and my uncle.”

“Fair enough,” he said.

He helped me change Amelia and then took me out and introduced me to his friends. Strangely enough, it just so happened that when the lab tech at the police station went to get the pills to test them, they were nowhere to be found. Apparently, Jimmy had burned a few bridges there as well over the years.

It was two in the morning when we were finally released and much too late for anyone to drive back to Charlotte. Sally and I made up beds and the sofa for Dillon’s friends. By three a.m. we called it a night.

Dillon in my bed again was the best feeling in the world. He worshipped me with his mouth and hands and slowly brought me to orgasm. The second time around he filled me up. It was greedy and fast and everything I needed. As I pulled him over with me my heart melted. This man was under my skin and it scared me. I laid awake most of the night thinking and, by the time everyone woke, I had my answer.

Dillon

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