Bound and Freed Boxed Set (32 page)

The day John was due to leave the hospital, André
Chevalier unexpectedly arrived.

John was sitting in a comfortable chair, under Kelly's
careful eye. Using her left hand, her right in a sling and splint, Kelly was
packing John's few possessions. She was going to drive him to her hotel.
Luckily Kelly's Infiniti G coupe had automatic transmission so she could drive
with one hand.

Kelly's parents had wanted them both to come live with
them, but even though everyone was getting on fine, and they had both accepted
her engagement, Kelly didn't want to push it. Besides, living with her parents
would seriously curtail their hopefully soon to be resumed sex life.

"
Mon ami!
You are well?" André asked as
he strode with confident elegance into the room.

"André," John shouted and struggled to his
feet. The two men hugged and kissed both cheeks in that French way. Kelly was
surprised because ordinarily John didn't like people touching him, but that was
clearly not the case with his friend.

"André, may I introduce you to my fiancée, Kelly
Flynn?"

"The beautiful Kelly,
je suis
enchanté,
" André said and his grin flashed white against his
tan skin. He captured her hand, lifted it and with sexy male grace, and kissed
it.

Kelly's eyes bugged out of her head and she felt a little
zing of awareness when André took her hand.
Whew.
The famous André
Chevalier! John's best friend in the whole world. Talk about sexual magnetism.
This guy had it in spades.

"C'est
un très grand plaisir
de vous
rencontrer.
Vous avez été un
bon
ami pour
l'amour de
ma vie,
"
Kelly said.

André's eyes lit with surprise and
pleasure
.
"Mon
Dieu
vous parlez français !
Bravo!"

"Okay you two," John said.
"I only got a few words of that. English please."

André's eyes sparkled, "Your clever
woman said that it was her very great pleasure to meet the good friend of the
love of her life. You speak French well, Kelly. And you, John, my young prince,
I see you have found your rose.

Kelly grinned with happiness. John spoke of André all the
time.
The man was well dressed and handsome. Not
John Taylor movie-star handsome, but he had an unmistakable Dom presence. Kelly
had felt it almost like an electric shock when he had touched her, and she had
instantly fallen under his spell. He wore perfectly tailored charcoal slacks,
with a well ironed, crisp white shirt with a black leather jacket. Whatever
that scent he was wearing was, it smelled heavenly

André was healthy and fit with a flat stomach and broad
shoulders. He looked to be about the same height as John. Dark hair, dark eyes,
and a pleasant face. Kelly thought his eyes were amazing. There was keen
intelligence in those eyes – and natural authority.

"What are you doing here?" John asked.

"You have lost your home,
oui?
And you need a
place to stay?"

"Kelly and I were going to live in a hotel until we
find something, but what do you have in mind?"

"One of my clients works in real estate here in
Portland," André said. "He has friends who have gone on a round the
world tour on the ocean liner and they will be away for months. They have a
house that they wish to have reputable people live in. I desire for you,
mon
ami,
to have a beautiful, restful home in which you can recover your heath.
There are gardens, and oh, many things that you will both enjoy. I am told that
it is a big house on a lake near here,
comprenez
vo
us
?"

"Lake Oswego?" Kelly asked.

"
Oui, oui
, the same."

John shook his head. "André, you never cease to
astonish me. How did you work that out?"

Giving them both a boyish grin André said, "Me? I am
very clever. When I heard you lost the home, I immediately asked my friend, and
voila!"

"Your timing is amazing," John said with no
attempt to hide his awe.

"
Eh bien,
this
is assuredly true," André agreed with a mischievous glint in his eyes.
"Oh, many, many have told me this already,
n'est pas
?"

They all laughed at this boasting sexual reference.

John, Kelly and André left the hospital together, André
carrying the bag, and teasing them both playfully about their injuries. Kelly
had her right hand in a sling, and John had his left hand in a sling. This was
fortunate however, André explained to them, because if they needed to row a
boat all would be well, as long as they both sat on the correct side.

The home was a mansion, directly on Lake Oswego just past
Northlake Drive.
They passed through the gated entry and
when Kelly saw the house, she knew it must be worth ten million dollars or
more. Adorned with Columbia River Rock, and copper clad windows, many of the
internal walls were covered in walnut. It had boat lifts, an elevator, high
ceilings, a full bar, dedicated media room, billiard and work out room and a
six car garage.

Oh yeah,
Kelly thought.
We
can definitely rest and recuperate here
.

Lucille Irwin came into the
police interview room, looking slim and pale. Her normally stern face seemed
softer, less combative, yet more lined. John mentally chastised himself,
genuinely troubled. He had made the woman wait to see what would happen for weeks,
and that was far too long to torment anyone.

She wore her usual light
blue uniform shirt and dark blue slacks, but those slacks looked loose on her
now.

"Mr. Taylor, I wanted to say that I'm sorry,"
she began.

"Please," John said. "Sit down." John
gestured to the chair across the table from him, and Lucille sat.

"May I call you Lucille?" he asked.

"Of course," she said.

"Thank you. You may call me, John. Please tell me
why you are sorry, Lucille," John asked her in his best, soothing, yet
compelling Dom voice.

"It was wrong, it was against the law," she
said.

"No," John said. "You already knew it was
wrong, Lucille. You were aware that your actions were against the law, that you
could get in trouble, and even lose your job. Yet you did it anyway. So that is
not why you're sorry. Tell me why you are sorry."

Lucille expelled a deep breath. "Lorenzo showed me
your police record of four years ago." John saw that the woman was deeply
upset. She looked like she might cry. Lucille cleared her throat. "And then
he let me watch that video of you, your father and your mother."

There was a long, long pause of a full minute or more
while Lucille got her breath back. John remained motionless, his face schooled
into neutrality, while she regained her composure.

"I am sorry for your childhood, John," she said
in a breathless rush, as if she was running to get speed up to jump a hurdle,
or perhaps a number of them. "I'm sorry you were raised by monsters, and I
can't believe that you are a normal person after all that you went
through."

"Thank you, Lucille," John said quietly. He
didn’t think he was exactly 'normal' but he wasn't going to tell her that.

"And I'm sorry I added to your pain by upsetting
your fiancée and her parents," she added.

"Thank you." John stood up and began to slowly
walk back and forth across the small interview room, his left arm was still in
a sling, and the other was in his pocket. He stopped from the other side of the
room and faced Lucille. "You risked your career. Why? Why did you do it,
Lucille? I really need to understand."

"I don’t know why," she said.

John paced up until he stood directly in front to her.
"Yes you do," he said.

"I don’t!"

"Liar," he said without any heat.

John backed off, walking back the length of the room. G
enerally
there was a good reason for any inexplicable behavior, even though not an
obvious reason at the time. "Do you think that if you tell me, that I will
judge you, Lucille? Or that maybe I won't understand?"

"No," she said in a small voice.

"I can assure you that I will understand," John
said. "You risked your career, Lucille without any reason at all?"

"I was thinking of Kelly."

"Thank you," he said with genuine appreciation,
coming back toward her. "Very good. What about her?"

"I thought that you were manipulating her, that she
imagined that she was 'in love' when in fact you were an animal-torturing
sociopath. I wanted to help her to see that," Lucille said.

"Excellent," John said, sitting back down
across from her at the interview table. "Now we are getting somewhere. You
do know that Detective Martin felt the same way that you did?"

"Yes, of course."

"But he didn't feel compelled to break the law,
Lucille," John softly reminded her. "This was personal for you,
Lucille, wasn't it? Why was that? Did someone manipulate
you
and break
your heart?"

Lucille remained silent.

John stood up and began pacing once more, letting her
turn that last question over in her mind. John's
movements were uniform and intentional, like waves against the shore, walking
toward her and then withdrawing and walking away. He would get his answers.
With patience and persistence, like chipping rock into sand, John knew he would
wear the woman down. He was 'Father John the confessor' after all.

John paused and studied Lucille. Her breath, her pulse,
her movements, her skin… Lucille Irwin was trapped with him in this room,
helpless and vulnerable from the big stick John was wielding, the very real threat
to her career. The woman was an open book to a knowing and experienced Dom, and
John was going to force her to tell her secrets whether she wanted to or not.

Why?
John thought
. Why am I
doing this?
The answer came to him and he suppressed the impulse to laugh.
Because
making people squirm and own up, forcing them to tell me their secrets is
serious fun for me.

John walked toward her and stopped three feet away.
"I was watching you from the first moment you came to my home, Lucille,
did you know that?" he said softly. "Shall I tell you what I
observed? I saw a woman who was in disagreement with her partner, who was
irritated and argumentative, and I wondered if you had both just had a fight.
But the next time I saw you, you were exactly the same. I came to the
conclusion that you act that way with men in general. Am I right, Lucille? Who
hurt you? Are you going to tell me?"

It didn’t take much longer before Lucille Irwin crumbled
and with the break came the tears. What was it with women and tears? How did they
do that? John felt as if crying would probably make him feel better, too. If
only he could figure out how to do it.

Yes, Lucille explained in hitching breaths, she had been
in an abusive relationship. And yes she had loved him and he was cruel to her,
and broke her heart.

"When was this?" John asked, moving to sit back
down across from her.

"Over a year ago," she replied.
"I
knew it was a mistake to get close," Lucille said roiling between anger
and grief, "a mistake to believe that Jonathan loved me. I learned long
ago never to depend on someone because they will disappoint you or hurt you, or
not be there when you need them. I knew that I could only depend on
myself."

John waited, but it appeared that for now, that was all
Lucille planned to say.

"Lucille," he said leaning toward her.
"I'm talking to you now because I think you deserve another chance. You're
smart, you're keen, and I think you can be an excellent detective." John
leaned back in his chair.

Lucille had her hands folded in her lap, and was looking
down at them.

"Look at me, Lucille," he ordered in a
commanding tone, and her eyes snapped to his face. "You know my history. I
have had experience with betrayal myself."

Lucille nodded and she colored, but she continued looking
at him as requested.

"I can tell you this," John said. "A year
is taking far too long for you to recover from this betrayal. You are a young
woman. You should have bounced back by now. Do you know why you haven't?"

"No," she said.

"You are still upset, Lucille, because it was not
Jonathan that upset you."

Lucille recoiled back in her chair, and her eyes flashed
in disagreement.

Leaning forward, John said, "No, Lucille, listen to
me. I know what I'm talking about. Your problem is coming from a betrayal from
an earlier man, a father, a step-father, a brother, perhaps a male relative of
some sort. I don't know who it was. Yet I do know that it was an important man
in your life. This man destroyed your trust, probably from when you were a
child, and you have never recovered from it."

Lucille
Irwin
had suffered childhood
abuse - John knew this without one ounce of doubt. Was her abuse physical?
Mental? Or perhaps sexual? Maybe she had suffered abandonment or neglect, some
of the worst forms of abuse. A man had done this, too. It was men that she
didn’t trust.

John studied Lucille, watching as the
gears seemed to shift in her mind, and her eyes widened,
brightening with sudden understanding.

John nodded when he saw that
she understood. "You know what I'm talking about, don’t you,
Lucille?" he said in a soft and soothing voice.

"Yes," Lucille
whispered.

"Father?" he asked.

"Step-father," she whispered.

"I see," John said. "Thank you for telling
me, Lucille. You are an amazing woman."

When Lucille frowned and looked confused, John said,
"It was brave to speak to me of your pain. And what you did in going to
the Flynn's home with my police record
took an
extraordinary amount of courage or madness or both. You broke the law, Lucille
and you risked your career, because you wanted to save Kelly from me. I think
your intentions were good. You had Kelly's best interests at heart."

John gave her the warmest smile he was
capable of. "I simply have to like you for that."

"Oh," Lucille said and her eyes
welled once more. "Thank you."

"Have you heard the expression, '
If
the only tool you have is a hammer you tend to see every problem as a nail?'
Abraham Lincoln said it."

"Yes," Lucille said. "I'm not completely
sure what it means in this case. Do you think it applies to me?"

"Yes," John said. "It means that if your
knowledge is limited, you try to fix every problem with the same solution. And
you do that because that's all you know. In your case, Lucille, you have been
behaving as if all men are untrustworthy bastards, because that is what you
know. You treat men differently than you treat women, Lucille. I suspect that
your conduct is largely an unconscious, yet consistent habit. Anyway, I would
like you to get some counseling. Does the Police Service arrange for
that?"

"I think so." She said. "I've never looked
into it."

"Well," John said, "counseling is a
stipulation of my agreement not to proceed with any complaint. I don’t want to
cause trouble for you, Lucille. As I say, you were brave and I like you for
what you tried to do for Kelly. But I also know that you're going to screw up
again without professional help."

"I see," Lucille said frowning in thought, and
then anxiously biting her lower lip.

"I hope you'll get counseling because you want to
sort yourself out," John said.

The woman looked at him: vulnerable, confused and utterly
exposed. He felt the soft tendrils of human connection and the heady power from
his natural inclination to dominate her. John couldn’t help but admire her courage.

"But either way, Lucille, you're going to get
help," John smiled kindly to lessen the blow, "because I say
so."

Lucille Irwin's eyes widened, and taken by surprise and
relief, she burst out laughing.