On the Line (40 page)

“Actually, that worries me too,” he said. “Obviously I didn’t help, I can believe
those charges will be dropped. But Patrick and I talked about it, and the charges
against him aren’t so clear.”

“Patrick didn’t shoot Richard,” Janelle firmly stated.

“He’s not so sure about that,” Nathan whispered, and Janelle’s jaw dropped. “He was
so angry at him for kidnapping Zach and terrified because Kelsey had been shot that
he was running on pure adrenaline. He honestly can’t remember whose hand the gun
was in and whose finger pulled the trigger.”

Janelle covered her mouth with shaky fingers. She laid her head back against his
shoulder and he started to swing them slowly. He tightened his arms around her and
they sat in silence for a few more minutes, until she sat up and looked at him.

“I don’t care. As far as I’m concerned, it was in defense of my sister and my son.
Any prosecutor or juror who can overlook that has no heart,” she said angrily. “I
will fight tooth and nail to see that both of you have your records cleared of this
mess. Richard was a nasty person and his own actions caused his death. No one else
deserves to be punished for it.”

Nathan’s lips lifted as his heart lightened. He lowered his lips to hers and took
them in a kiss that he’d meant as a simple, loving gesture, but that quickly heated
his blood and had him wanting more. He pulled back and looked at her face, her eyes
closed, her lips relaxed and slightly puckered. She slowly lifted her lids, and he
grinned down at her as she focused on his face.

“I love you so much,” he said and her smile widened.

“Good,” she stated. “Because I’m not letting you get away this time.”

“I hope you don’t have to.” He moved to kiss her again, and she pulled her head away,
her lips pressed tightly together and her eyes narrowed.

“Would you stop being so negative?” she scolded, her eyes became dark and stormy.

“It’s reality, Janelle. We may have to face it sooner or later,” he replied.

“Or not at all,” she snapped. She closed her eyes and bowed her head as she blew
air through her lips. When she looked at him, the seas had calmed
and her eyes were
back to their brilliant blue. “But, I’ll indulge you. If you go to prison, I will
write every day and visit as often as possible. And when you get out, I’ll be the
first one you see.” She sat up and slid her arms around her neck. “I’ll throw my
arms around your neck and kiss you like this.” She demonstrated with a long, slow
kiss and electricity traveled through his body, sparking everything in him to life,
making him forget everything but her. She broke the kiss, and he saw her eyes had
darkened again and were full of lust and desire. “And I’ll bring you home and we’ll
pick up where we left off.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he agreed huskily.

She laughed lightly. “I’m finally doing what I want to do because it makes me happy,
not because someone else has told me it’s the right thing to do. Do you really think
I’m going to let anything stand in the way of that?”

He shook his head and leaned toward her. She threw him off balance when she quickly
stood and moved to the edge of the porch, turning to prop her hips against the rail.
He grabbed the ends of the blanket and followed her, wrapping them both in the woolen
warmth as he put his arms around her.

“Can we worry about tomorrow, tomorrow?” Janelle asked as she slipped her arms around
his back, and he nodded. “Good. I want to at least pretend things are normal for
a little while. Like there’s nothing hanging over us, threatening our happiness together.”

She laid her head on his chest, and he relished the feel of her body against his,
hope springing again in him that they really could make this work. He thought for
a moment about Patrick’s plans to marry Kelsey and wondered, albeit briefly, if the
same future was in store for him and Janelle. Once upon a time, while they were having
their affair, he had thought it was possible. He’d lost faith when she’d ended the
affair, but now things were starting to look up for them.

As soon as this case was settled, one way or another.

“So, what’s on the agenda for our normal life tomorrow?” Nathan asked softly and
felt her laugh against his chest.

She looked up at him. “School in the morning and therapy in the afternoon.”

“Sounds exciting.”

Her head fell back as she laughed. “You have no idea.”

Thirty

Janelle sat with Zach and Nathan in Andrew’s waiting room, waiting for their appointment
to begin. She hadn’t even needed to ask Nathan to join her. Now that their relationship
was out in the open and the worst had happened, there was no need for him to stay
home. He’d been more aware of the time than she had been, making sure they were out
the door earlier than she probably would have been with just Zach. As a result, they
were early for the first time since the first therapy session.

It was actually quite a relief—she hated always being late.

Andrew’s office door opened, and the blond-haired man stepped out. “Zach,” he called
with a smile.

“Hi, Andrew,” Zach replied as he jumped out of his seat.

Nathan stood and turned, taking Janelle’s hand. She rose to her feet and moved to
his side.

“Nathan Harris?” Andrew said and started toward them. He pushed his silver-framed
glasses up to the bridge of his nose then held out his hand. “It’s so good to see
you again, how have you been?”

Nathan gave Janelle a once-over, and she felt flushed from the look in his eyes.
“Not bad,” he answered as he took the therapist’s hand and shook it.

“What are you doing here?” Andrew looked from Janelle and Nathan’s clasped hands
to the grin on Zach’s face and back at Nathan. “You’re the police puppet?”

“The what?” Nathan questioned as Janelle laughed.

“We’ll explain later,” Janelle said as she gave his hand a squeeze and turned to
Andrew. “Are you ready for us?”

“Yes, come on in.” Andrew waved his arm toward his door, and Zach led the way into
the room.

Zach walked directly to the bookshelf against the back wall and started perusing
the baskets. Janelle led Nathan to the familiar white couch at the side of the room.
She sat in her usual spot, on the end closest to Andrew’s brown leather chair. Nathan
sat beside her in the middle of the sofa.

Andrew walked over to the window closest to Zach and sat on the sill with his arms
folded across his chest and a small smile on his lips. “What would you like to play
with today, Zach?”

Zach continued to rummage through the white wicker baskets until he found the one
he was looking for. He turned to Andrew with a grin. “Can I play with the sand table?”

“Absolutely,” Andrew replied and walked beside Zach to the other side of the room.

Andrew took the top completely off of the table that Zach had used for coloring and
tilted it against the wall. Underneath was a hidden sandbox of sorts. Zach had used
it once for therapy with, in Janelle’s opinion, horrific results. He’d created a
scene where he’d used plastic animals to represent the different people in his life.
He was a big dog in the middle of the action, with a monster on one side and his
family on the other.

Fittingly, the two-headed monster had been Richard, but he’d been stomping on the
unicorn Zach had used to represent Kelsey. Neither Nathan nor Patrick had been in
the scene—neither of them had been around when Zach had done the table the first
time. Mary had been a giant spider pushing Janelle’s lioness toward the monster,
George had been a bear protecting Zoe’s puppy in the background.

But Zach had enjoyed playing with the table at the end of every session, as Andrew
and Janelle had talked about what had happened during the therapeutic playtime.

Andrew made sure Zach was comfortable with the plastic tub of animals then walked
to his brown chair beside Janelle. “How was he this weekend? I heard you guys had
a lot going on at your house,” Andrew immediately asked, his brows nearly colliding
above the bridge of his glasses.

Janelle rolled her eyes and Nathan let out a low groan. “Of course you heard,” Janelle
muttered then glanced at Zach. “The children witnessed the arrest and part of the
argument that came afterward.”

“Argument between whom?” Andrew asked, picking his notepad and pen up off the table
beside him. “And what was said that he heard?”

“The fight was between us—Kelsey and me—and our mother. Then Dad got involved after
he sent the kids inside,” Janelle answered and told him what she could remember of
what was said and by whom.

“Kelsey called her a bitch?” Nathan interrupted.

Janelle turned to him and his mouth was open, the corners of his lips turned up slightly.
She nodded and he laughed once.

“The kids heard that?” Andrew asked.

“Yes.” Janelle continued her story with only a few more interruptions for clarification
from Andrew. He asked about the children’s behavior over the weekend, she told him
of the second argument Kelsey had had with their mother, and the resulting ban. When
she talked about the kids’ cuddly and subdued behavior, he hadn’t seemed too concerned.
He asked about the kids’ reaction to Nathan and Patrick’s return the day before.

“They seem to be handling everything pretty well,” Janelle answered.

Andrew set his pen on top of the notepad and laid them in his lap. “How are you doing
with it?”

Janelle looked at Nathan, and he squeezed her hand reassuringly. “We’re dealing with
it,” she said with a shrug as she turned to Andrew. “It is what it is, and there’s
not much we can do about it.”

Andrew nodded and remained silent for a while as he watched Zach at the sand table.
A moment later, he stood and walked toward Zach. He bent over Zach’s shoulder and
started asking him questions about the table.

Nathan inched closer to Janelle. “Sounds like I missed some fireworks this weekend,”
he whispered across her ear. She turned to him and caught the huge grin just before
he was able to make it disappear.

She tried not to laugh as she shook her head. “If you’d been there, we may not have
had the show.”

“True,” he agreed. “So what are the puppets you were talking about earlier?”

Janelle explained the puppet play they’d started with and what Zach had done with
them. She stood and tugged him to his feet then walked him to the row of baskets.
Janelle began demonstrating what Zach had done
with the toys during his therapy sessions.
Nathan listened attentively, asking questions when he had them, showing an obvious
interest in Zach’s recovery.

“Janelle, Nathan,” Andrew called to them from the other end of the room. “Would you
like to see this?”

Janelle put the puppet back in Zach’s personal basket and then walked to the sand
table to look at the scene. She hoped it wasn’t as horrible as the first one had
been.

She was pleasantly surprised by what she saw.

The two-headed monster was still there, but it was lying on its side in the middle
of the sand pile. In a circle around it were the rest of the animals. Kelsey’s unicorn
was standing up with a larger horse beside her that Janelle could only assume was
supposed to be Patrick. On the other side of Kelsey’s unicorn was Zach’s big dog,
and on the other side of him was Zoe’s puppy. Janelle’s lioness stood next to the
puppy with a large male lion beside her.

Janelle looked at Nathan and whispered, “It looks like you’re a lion.”

Nathan smiled but continued to look at the scene with a confused expression. She
explained what all of the animals in the scene represented, including the bear that
stood between the lion and the stallion with a smaller bear behind it, out of the
circle. Janelle realized, with some sadness, that the smaller bear was Mary.

“Very good, Zach,” Andrew said as he took a few pictures of the sand scene. “If you’d
like to continue to play with it, go ahead. I’m going to talk to your mom and Nathan
for a bit.”

Zach smiled and pulled two small animals out of the tub then knelt down to play in
the sand. Andrew led Janelle and Nathan back to their seats on the sofa as he sat
in the brown leather chair. He set his camera and notepad on the table behind him
and turned to Janelle with a slight grin.

“I think he’ll be fine,” Andrew stated.

Janelle’s heart skipped a beat and happy tears stung her eyes. “Really?”

“Given everything that happened last weekend, I’m surprised to see him so calm. His
sand table shows growth, not just in him, but in all of you. Except for that little
bear on the outside of the circle, it seems you’ve all come together as a family.
That’s a good thing,” Andrew said. “Any idea who that bear was?”

“I’m guessing my mother,” Janelle answered softly. “Her spider wasn’t there.”

“Ah, that’s right.” Andrew pointed to the table. “He’s obviously accepted the adoption,
he’s at peace with the power shift between you and your mother, and,” Andrew looked
at Nathan, “he’s apparently gained two male role models that he’s happy with.”

Zach ran over to Nathan and grabbed his hand. “Would you like to see my puppets?”
he asked excitedly.

“I would love to see your puppets,” Nathan said as he ruffled Zach’s hair. “I understand
I’m a police puppet.”

Zach nodded quickly. “And Patrick is a superhero.”

Nathan frowned. “Patrick gets to be a superhero?” he whined then turned and winked
at Janelle.

“You’re both superheroes, but there was only one puppet,” Zach replied as he pulled
Nathan to his feet.

“Well, then, I guess I understand,” Nathan said as they walked away.

Janelle watched them, a soft, peaceful smile on her lips. “We’re all happy with his
new role models.”