Once Upon A Half-Time: A Secret Baby Romance (61 page)

I swallowed, pushing the door open and glancing inside. I heard nothing. Was that good or bad?

My finger poised over the speed dial for Maddox, and I slipped inside, flipping on a light and expecting a masked murderer, a creepy little ghost child, or worse of all—Nolan.

No one waited inside. Everything was still. Untouched.

The hairs on my arms rose. Just enough was out of place. The rug kicked up by the door. My magazines scattered in the wrong order on counter. The sink was wet, like someone ran water. They even stole a chocolate chip cookie.

I crossed to the dining room table and gasped.

A Zippo lighter stood on its edge, left as a message for me.

Someone had been in my apartment.

And, next time they visited, they’d burn it to the ground.

“
I
t’s an easy job
.” Nolan waved the envelope in front of my face, like I was a dog chasing a steak. “Believe it or not, you’re the only one I trust to do it.”

“Bullshit.”

I popped the collar on my jacket. Didn’t matter. This time of night, everything was cold. That uncomfortable clammy after midnight when only these type of deals were struck. I worried our conversation echoed over the town. It didn’t. Nolan parked on the quiet edge of Highland Street and leaned out of the SUV’s window. He gave me the plans.

“You’re a good electrician. My family’s barn has lights with bad wiring. Need you to fix it.”

“You joking?”

“Even you could use an honest day’s work.”

Neither of us ever worked an honest day in our lives. I sneered. “I’m not electrocuting myself on your property for Matthias’s wages.”

Nolan snorted. “Of course not. That old man would’ve gone broke without Josie’s candy shop fronting him money for tools. I’ll pay you what I’d give for your…other jobs. For the discretion.”

“You’re afraid to be seen with me doing electrical work?”

“I’m running an election campaign. Can’t have felons working on my property.”

“Right.”

“You better keep this quiet. Don’t tell Josie.”

Like I’d be stupid enough to tell her. I gritted my teeth and took the money. “When do I start?”

“Sooner the better.”

This was a mistake, but at least I’d have a couple grand for whatever expenses came up. Money for a new pair of jeans. Court fees. A pizza and movie for Josie.

I’d stuff the remainder in Chief Craig’s pocket to stay the fuck away from my sister.

The more things changed, the more they had tendency to screw you over. I was gone a year and everything was still fucked up. Chelsea got lucky I was out of prison and could save her ass, though Christ only knew how long it’d last. I couldn’t support both my sister and Josie. I didn’t need to eat, but they did.

Josie worked four days a week at the Saint Christie Reporter, organizing her superiors’ desks because she had no other duties. She didn’t belong at the newspaper. She should have been in her kitchen; making cupcakes and covering herself head to toe in flour. I’d make it happen for her, as soon as I found the arsonist responsible for the fire.

Until then, I’d earn whatever money I could to help her and keep my sister out of trouble.

The Rhys family owned a farm five miles outside of town. Nolan went into law, but he kept the land. Only reason I knew or cared was because Chelsea had always liked the house. She used to talk about working a farm with a family, everyone helping out and depending on each other for a better life. I hated to remind her, but we did work together when we were kids. We sold what Dad told us to sell on the same corner. I got the black eyes when the deals went bad. Chelsea got it worse.

I did the job for Nolan and got out as quick as I could while still doing the quality of work that would have made Matthias proud. Never thought I’d actually like a trade. I wasn’t the best with customers, and I dropped out of high school in the tenth grade. But the job was a challenge and kept me busy. I liked that, and I liked even more that it was a respectable living. Something I could use to support Josie and the family I was determined to make with her.

But I was an idiot.

No honest jobs existed—just opportunities to take what you needed to get taken by those making a profit from you. Nolan’s profit wasn’t money. He’d pay for one pound of Josie’s flesh at a time.

I woke the next morning at six. Some jackass pounded against Josie’s door.

I didn’t like rude awakenings, and I liked even less that they scared the piss out of Josie. She peeked out a window and frowned. I warned her not to open the door, but she didn’t listen.

Damn innocent girl. She let the monster into her home.

“Chief Craig?” Josie hadn’t worn anything to bed last night. My orders. She struggled to bind her robe before she flashed those perfect curves to a man sleazy enough to look. “Is everything okay?”

The chief stared past her. He sneered at me. “Sorry, Josie. It’s not.”

She panicked, and her nails scratched the door. “Is it Granddad?”

“No, no. Matt’s fine, but…”

Fucker. I recognized his grin. Hard to forget a punchable face. I pulled my shirt off the couch and tugged it over my head.

Josie wasn’t gonna like this.

“Mr. Maddox has to come with me,” Chief Craig said. “I got some questions for him.”

Josie hadn’t heard that phrase for a year. Her eyes closed, and she opened the door wider. Her glance to me was as subtle as a kick to the nuts.

“Seriously?” She wasn’t even mad, just exasperated. “What happened?”

“We’ll talk at the station.” Chief Craig acted friendly, but I knew he couldn’t wait for the handcuffs. Maybe if I went willingly, he wouldn’t humiliate me in front of Josie. “You better come with me, son.”

“Sure,” I said. “Got my lawyer on speed dial.”

That was a lie. I didn’t have the money for an attorney, not when I shoved every spare dollar I had into the chief’s pocket like some rented whore.

Like how he treated my sister.

“I’ll be back.” I didn’t want Josie following, but she was already rushing to the bedroom to get dressed. “Don’t worry.”

She didn’t answer. Probably deserved that even though I didn’t know why the fuck the chief was hauling me into the station. For the first time, I was actually behaving.

I should have suspected it. Nolan Rhys met us at the station.

That son of a bitch faked a scowl when he saw me. No sense hiding it—he loved watching me get frisked and handcuffed. Bastard wanted a cavity search too, but Saint Christie wasn’t exactly the NYPD. Chief Craig forced me in the chair next to his lieutenant’s desk. He offered me coffee, but I was their guest enough times to know better. The grounds they had in the machine were probably the same ones from a year ago, last time they held me in a cell.

“You can save us some time here, Maddox.” Chief Craig shuffled the paperwork for the booking. He studied me over his reading glasses. “We found the campaign signs. We know what happened. Let’s get this over with so Josie doesn’t have to watch me fingerprint you.”

“You don’t have those on file?” I asked.

“You burned your hand in the fire,” he said. “Can’t be too careful now, can we? Especially when it comes to men on parole.”

What the hell was he talking about? I ignored the chill on my spine. “Wouldn’t want to hamper your investigation.”

Nolan adjusted his tie. “I told you we could resolve this quickly and quietly.”

I snorted. “Gonna tell me what I did?”

“A confession would save us time,” Nolan said.

“Right. But that would ruin your fun.” I shrugged. “This is your moment of glory, Rhys. You get to play victim, prosecutor, judge, and executioner.”

“If only. What do you have to say for yourself?”

A lot of things I prepared to slur at his feet, but not once the front door swung open and Josie hurried inside. She tossed her curls in a headband, but she forgot to match the orange material to her vibrant pink yoga pants. Chief Craig tried to keep her away, but she prepared for war. She slammed a newspaper onto the lieutenant’s desk and stared only at Nolan.

“Imagine my surprise when Sean calls me—not because he wanted to offer me some hours to help with this afternoon’s issue, but because he wanted a
quote
.” She crinkled the front page’s headline. “Your campaign signs were burned
last night, and you think it was
Maddox
?”

Nolan hadn’t expected her attitude, but he never did take the time to know Josie, not when he only wanted the curves hidden in her yoga pants. He smiled, offering her a seat that she immediately refused.

“A majority of my campaign signs were pulled from yards during the night,” he said. “The rest I had stored in my family’s barn. Someone burned the lot of them on the edge of my family’s property.” Nolan sipped the coffee Chief Craig offered, grimaced, and set it down. “I’m not a betting man. I only put my chips down when I’m expecting to win. But…given the circumstances…”

Josie bore the insult to her grandfather’s debts with more poise than I did. She didn’t back down. “You’re going to accuse Maddox of vandalism…
why
? Just because he’s in town?”

“It’s a serious crime when a politician is targeted,” Nolan said.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Maddox didn’t do this.” She pointed at me. “Tell them.”

“I didn’t do it,” I said, for all the good it’d do.

“Josie.” Chief Craig edged between her and Nolan, just as a precaution. “You might want to do Maddox a favor and call his parole officer and lawyer.”

“He didn’t do it,” she said. “Why would he jeopardize his parole?
When
would he have done this? What evidence do you even have?”

The chief hid his smirk. “Maddox was on Mayor Rhys’s property.”

“No, he wasn’t!”

Son of a
bitch
. Why did it take me this long to see through Nolan? He wouldn’t piss on his own campaign just to toss me in jail overnight. They’d never get enough evidence to prove it was me, and that worked for him. He wasn’t after me.

He struck at Josie.

Nolan took too much enjoyment from this. I’d have broken his damn neck if he smiled any wider at her. “Maddox was at my barn yesterday.”

“I don’t believe you.”

This hurt more than getting cuffed and slammed into a cell. “Sweets, I was there. I was doing a job.”

If it were any other gig, I would have tried to impress her with my work ethic. Anything, no matter how small, was worth it if I could prove to her I wasn’t a complete deadbeat with a record who couldn’t hold a job unless he was holding a gun.

I hadn’t told her about Nolan because I didn’t want to piss her off.

Ironies of ironies.

“You’re
working
for Nolan?” Her voice caught somewhere between disbelief and rage. “Why?”

Nolan answered for me. “I hired him to rewire my barn lights. He did a job and was paid for it.”

“Why would you hire him?”

“Oh, well, before his arrest, I paid him to do all sorts of odds and ends for me.”

It was a strange feeling to watch another man break my girl’s heart. Nolan did it masterfully. Deliberately. He watched as every passing second struck her like a slap to the face.

“You’ve worked with him before?” Josie whispered to me. “Even
now
? You…you
helped
him?”

“I needed the work, Sweets.” Wasn’t that the same excuse every asshole gave to justify his ends? “I figured I’d fix his barn and get some…extra money.”

Chief Craig raised an eyebrow. That bastard knew exactly why I took the job, and he practically salivated over the thought of another grand in his pocket. And why not? Either he got money from me or he got his dick sucked by a woman too doped up to realize when she was getting abused.

“I didn’t set the signs on fire,” I said. “I was in and out of his property during the day. I came back home. Stayed in.”

“This happened during the night,” Chief Craig said.

“So?”

“Where were you last night?”

Nolan listened too intently, imagining why Josie squirmed. That little fucker meant for her to admit it aloud. He had warned me to stay away from her as part of our
agreement
for my parole. He treated her like she was his property, like she belonged to him and I trespassed. Now he’d shame her and make her explain where she spent the night.

That was easy. She stayed in my arms, in our bed.

Having orgasm after orgasm as she rode me throughout the night.

But I doubted she wanted him to know that.

“I was at home,” I said.

Chief Craig cleared his throat. “Is anyone willing to…substantiate that claim?”

Josie lowered her gaze. She had no reason to look so humiliated. So
scared
.

“He was with me.”

“All night?” Nolan interrogated her behavior more than mine.

“Yes.”

“Are you sure? You couldn’t know where he was at all times. What about when you slept?”

“She said I was there,” I said. “I have an alibi.”

“Josie, are you certain?” The chief ignored me.

She sucked in a desperate breath. “We…weren’t sleeping the whole night. He didn’t leave the house.”

Hardly left the bed.

Nolan’s stare burned through me. I could practically smell the gasoline he used to ignite his own campaign property.

“Could have just asked me, Nolan,” I said. “Saved yourself the dirty work.”

Nolan regained his composure. “If Josie says he was with her
all night
, then I suppose he’d have no reason to leave her. The vandals might be one of the Braddock’s kids, some sort of practical joke.”

Chief Craig moved slow, disappointment threading his motions. He’d have to try harder to land my ass back in jail, and I was sure he’d try.

“Fine. You’re free to go, Maddox. But don’t give me a reason to haul you in here again.” His voice lowered. “Don’t want anything to happen to those you leave behind.”

Asshole
. Nolan threatened Josie, and the chief harassed my sister. No one was safe in this godforsaken town.

And it was about to get worse.

Josie didn’t wait for me. The station’s chime twinkled as the door slammed behind her.

Fuck
.

I knew it was possible that she’d find out about my jobs for Nolan sooner or later, but I’d hoped it’d stay a secret. She’d never forgive me for taking a job from him. Nolan was more than an obsession to her—he was the cause of everything evil in the town. She didn’t care that other men had the same reasons to burn her shop, and she ignored every logical explanation that proved Nolan wasn’t the arsonist. He was just a lecherous bastard who’d never torch a building that would have benefited him financially.

But she wouldn’t forgive me for my desperation.

I had to try.

Nolan stopped me before I chased her, stepping in front of the door. I wasn’t in the mood for threats, and murder would be too damn noticeable in the middle of the police station.