Penelope (22 page)

He moved right to her, but the darkness of his eyes wasn’t passionate or even kind. “You’ll do what I say.”

Penelope gave him a valiant shove with her hands. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

“Well I am. And you’re staying right here. With the girls.”

Penelope looked toward the room. She hated that she was the most likely choice to stay with the girls, but that didn’t mean he had to treat her like that.

“Why don’t you stay with the girls? I’ll go see what happened up there.”

He only raised his brows. “After your bout of false labor, you’re lucky you’re not at my place with my mother hovering over you. Now back down and stay here.”

Penelope let out a grunt. “Fine.”

“Fine.”

“I’m not weak you know.” She’d said the words but even she didn’t believe them.

“I know. You’re doing more than anyone right now just growing a healthy baby. So keep doing that,” he pointed, “in there.”

Penelope let her shoulders drop and went back into her bedroom where Vivian’s girls were sleeping.

Brock stood outside the door for a minute while everyone else went up into the attic. When he was sure she wasn’t coming back out, he made his way up too.

Vivian was on the phone with Darby, who Brock assumed was a police officer and one she knew well enough to call on his cell phone.

“Okay, Darby is on his way,” she said as Brock cleared the steps into the attic.

Amelia looked around the room then toward Vivian. “So who is Darby? And how come you know him so well?”

Vivian narrowed her stare on Amelia. “Adam and I grew up with him, if you must know.”

“So he’s a friend of Adam’s?”

Vivian tucked her phone into her back pocket. “Was.”

That seemed to humor Amelia and she crossed her arms, cocked her hip, and waited—as they all seemed to be—for the rest of that story.

Vivian finally dropped her shoulders and let out a ragged breath. “Fine. I was dating Darby when I met Adam. But that was forever ago and it really doesn’t matter much.”

“He still likes you,” Amelia prodded.

“He’s a nice guy.”

“One you’d like to get cozy with now?”

Vivian launched toward Amelia when Sam stepped in. “You two need to stop that.” He threw Amelia a look and then turned his attention back to Vivian. “He can help us?”

“Yeah. He’s had a few run-ins with Stella too.”

Brock hooked his thumbs into his front pockets. “What kind of run-ins?”

“She has a few DUI’s under her belt. She doesn’t know I know about them, but I do.”

Amelia grinned. “What did his dad see in her?”

Vivian shrugged. “Now that I know about his paternity I don’t know. What makes a man stay with a woman like that?”

When they heard the knock at the front door Vivian walked back downstairs and the rest of them began to look around.

Amelia walked by the reading area near the window. “She tore all of these books off the shelves. She has no respect for anything.”

“But the boxes in the corner are left alone,” Sam noted. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Amelia looked closer at the books. “She not only tore the books down, she tore out pages. That’s so wrong.”

Vivian walked up the steps with a man well over six and a half feet tall. Even Brock had to crank his neck to look up at him.

He was extremely skinny with a pock marked face and a tooth pick clenched between widely gapped teeth.

Brock wasn’t one to admire the look of a man, but even he could say Vivian had done better when she’d met Sergeant Monroe. Brock would admit, Adam Monroe was a nice looking man.

“This is Darby.” She pointed a thumb toward the tall man. “This is Brock, Amelia, and you might have met Sam.”

“Ya, I think we crossed paths a few times,” he said slowly as the toothpick dangled from between his teeth.

“I think you’re right,” Sam added. “But the reason we called you was we had a break in. Someone was up here and they were looking for something specific.”

“It don’t look like much,” Darby gave a slow nod as he looked around the room. “What’d they take?”

“As far as we can tell they only ripped through these old books.”

Darby nodded again. In less than three steps he walked across the entire attic and was standing next to Amelia who looked dwarfed by the man’s height.

“Have ya touched the books?”

Amelia shook her head. “Not yet.”

Darby pulled his cell phone from his pocket and began to take pictures. “So you think someone just busted up some books. Maybe the attic got rattled by that tornado a few weeks back.”

Sam stepped forward toward Amelia. It was obvious she was about to go after the dimwitted police officer. Everyone had seen her fists ball up at her side.

“We’ve been up here since then. The house used to belong to Adam Monroe’s grandmother. She had a reading area up here.”

Darby looked around again. “Why?”

“Why does it matter to you?” Amelia burst. “What we need is some help finding the person who was in here. Penelope saw someone run out of the house.”

Darby opened his mouth wide enough to turn the toothpick around in his mouth and stick it through a different gap in his teeth.

“Who’s Penelope?”

Vivian and Amelia exchanged looks before Vivian moved toward Darby. “She’s a dear friend and Brock’s fiancée.”

“Where is she? I’ll need a statement.”

“She’s asleep,” Brock said, his eyes firm on Darby. “She’s seven months pregnant. We’re trying to keep her calm.”

“Fiancée, huh?” Darby shifted his weight to his other foot. “Jumped the gun a bit did ya? Knocked her up first?”

Now Brock’s hands were fisted into balls at his side. Who was this guy? He was supposed to help them?

“Things are a bit different in the twenty-first century.”

“Guess they are. At least Vivian had a solid marriage. Just like I do. Four kids.”

How unlucky they were, Brock thought.

“Listen, I’m gonna need a statement from her. I’ll come back by tomorrow.”

That was much too soon for Brock. “I’ll let her know.”

“Darby, we want to keep this quiet. We’re going to have kids in this house in a few weeks and I don’t want to lose those who have already signed up.”

“Heard about your business. Nice venture.”

“Thank you.”

Darby started for the stairs. “Who y’all think would do this?”

Vivian touched his arm. “I think it was Stella Monroe.”

Darby thoughtfully took the toothpick out from between his teeth. “You’re actually standing there telling me you think Stella Monroe did this?”

“Yes.”

“You said that other girl saw someone run from the house.”

“Yes. She saw them run down the street.”

“Anyone go after her?”

Brock nodded. “The three of us did.”

Darby ran a long tongue over that nasty set of teeth in his mouth. “The three of you ran after an almost sixty-year-old woman and lost her?”

When put like that they didn’t look like the stellar athletes they were. Well—at least him and Amelia.

“She was far ahead of us before we knew she’d run,” Amelia added.

“Right.” Darby tucked his phone back into his shirt pocket. “Funny thing is, last I heard Stella Monroe was in rehab. But I suppose she could have gotten out. People don’t like to be locked up for any reason.” He gave them all a wave. “I’ll stop back by tomorrow.”

Sleep should have come easily to Brock. He’d hosted a huge barbecue for his family and friends. They’d surprised Penelope with a baby shower and they both had proposed to each other. But because some psycho had decided to break into the house—now his soldier senses were on alert and he didn’t like that.

When gunfire was in the distance or there were bombs being set off, men didn’t sleep well. When the scar where a bullet had lodged itself into your shoulder began to throb and burn, it tended to keep a man up pacing the floor. But when that man had the most beautiful woman next to him, snoring softly, growing the baby that Brock would father, he was so pissed that he couldn’t sleep.

Part of him wanted to go upstairs and look around. Another part of him wanted to sit on the porch with a baseball bat and wait for someone to come around. And yet another part didn’t want to leave Penelope’s side. He couldn’t deal with it if anything happened to her.

He’d wait out the hours until dawn. He’d keep touching her skin, holding her hand, caressing her cheek. The door was locked to the bedroom. The house was locked up tight. The tornado that had blown through a few weeks ago hadn’t shaken the house. He wasn’t going to let some deviant shake them.

Darby, no matter what an eyesore, would figure out who had been there. But it plagued him—Stella Monroe was in rehab?

As night finally closed in on him, Brock drifted away, but he drifted too far. Sergeant Monroe was gazing at pictures of his new wife with a smile.

“She’s something else,” he said with that easy way the man had. Brock had always thought if he had that easy way he’d have all the ladies. But he wasn’t smooth like Sergeant Monroe.

“What’s her name?” Brock asked as he polished his boot on his lap.

“Penelope. Isn’t that pretty?”

Brock had thought so. But then they weren’t in the tent anymore. They were covered in dust and the desert heat beat down on them and it alone threatened to kill them.

“On that ridge,” Sergeant Monroe nodded. “Keep low and…”

The first shot rang out. Brock’s head was clouded with the dust, the guns, the screams, and then the pain.

He was blinded by it all. His body thrashed against the ground. The pain was immense and it wouldn’t stop.

“Hold still. Hold still!” Sergeant Monroe was there pressing something to his shoulder. There was blood. Lots of blood. Then it grew quiet.

When Brock’s eyes opened Sergeant Monroe was still there. Brock’s arm was bandaged, and Sergeant Monroe was in
his
arms—bleeding.

“Take care of her,” he said as he coughed and blood trickled from his mouth. “Penelope. She’s your responsibility. She’s yours. They’re yours to take care of.”

The words grew faint until they were only an echo in the dark.

Brock sat up in the bed with a start. His eyes flew open and then winced against the sunlight in the room.

Sweat poured down his face. The pillow was wet. His hair was wet. His breath came in pants.

He was alone in the bed.

It took him a moment to remember where he was. That was until he saw Penelope sitting in the rocking chair clutching the bear the girls had made her.

Her eyes were wide as she watched him.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked, not sure what had happened.

“You were talking to Adam. You were screaming for him.”

“I was?”

She nodded. “You were screaming and thrashing around. I had to move. I thought you’d hit me.”

He got to his knees and his legs tangled in the sheets. He pulled himself from the cotton prison and went to her.

She didn’t let go of the bear and she didn’t move toward him, so he approached her slowly.

“I wouldn’t have hurt you.”

Penelope nodded. “But I was scared.”

Okay, he needed help. This wasn’t the first dream. It obviously wasn’t going to be the last.

“Don’t ever be scared of me. But you did the right thing. You moved. That’s okay to do.”

She nodded again and then winced. “Those contractions are back too.”

That was sobering enough to have him on his knees in front of her.

“How far?”

“I don’t know. I was so scared that…”

He took her hands and kissed them. “Breathe. Do your breathing.”

Penelope began to take her deep breaths and Brock moved only far enough from her to grab a shirt and put it on.

“Have you had another?”

She shook her head.

“Keep breathing.” He moved to the bedside table where she had a bottle of water. “Here, drink a sip of this. Just a sip.”

Penelope sipped slowly and then let out a breath. Her eyes closed and she kept breathing.

“I’m tired.”

“Okay, let’s get you on the bed and prop your feet up. Let’s see what happens.”

He helped her from the chair and to the bed where he lowered her down.

“I think I’m okay now,” she said.

“You’re exhausted and I think that’s all my fault.”

Penelope rubbed her hands over her stomach. “I think I was afraid someone would break in.”

“Not going to happen,” he assured her. “I’m going to get an alarm system and some new locks on the doors.”

She smiled as her eyes drifted closed. “Don’t go too far.”