Only Her Read online

  Questions rolled around in her mind incessantly – what did he know – when did he know it – why was she a suspect – why didn't he try to help her – why was he there when she was arrested if he wasn't going to do anything about it?

  Her first stint in jail, months ago, was nothing like this one. She was so completely traumatized that she simply went to bed and slept, even as she knew her phone was blowing up on the bed beside her – mostly friends from work who she had no interest in talking to. She didn't want to see or deal with anyone. Even television held no attraction for her. She put it on just so she could get to sleep – avoiding the military history channel that he liked to play for her, just for that reason.

  When she woke, she just felt numb. She didn't know what to do with herself with no job and no – no Dev. The police had cautioned her not to leave town – but she hardly felt like traveling.

  She had no one to travel with.

  Anna snorted, modifying that thought in her mind down to—she had no one.

  Things became much harder as the days became weeks and she found that her assets were frozen. She had no money and was in danger of not being able to afford her cheap-assed hotel room for another night. At least she had no appetite, so there was no reason to spend what little money she had on food.

  In desperation, she called Dari from a burner phone she'd bought when she was more flush.

  "Hello"? came the cautious inquiry.

  "Daria?"

  She heard a huge sigh of relief. "Anna! How are you – where are you? Kurt's been frantic trying to get a hold of you – to find you – whose phone is this?"

  Anna ignored all of her questions. "I wouldn't call you but I'm kind of desperate." She would have preferred not to call someone who was attached to Aces, but all of her friends were work friends, so she didn't have much choice.

  "What do you need, honey?"

  That term of endearment reminded her of Dev, and her eyes watered yet again. She always thought that she'd cried over him for the last time, but then something dredged up a memory and she was devastated all over again.

  Anna cleared her throat, trying to make her voice sound less shaky than she knew it did. "I need money. My accounts have been seized, and I'm trying to live off cash as much as possible. I don't want them to find me."

  "The cops?"

  There was silence from the other end of the phone.

  Daria's exclamation was soft. "Oh. I see. Kurt and Dev."

  She opened her mouth to degrade herself and beg her friend for a little money, but Daria beat her to it with a more than generous offer.

  "I've got fifteen hundred in cash I can give you. You tell me where you want to meet. I won't say anything to anyone. I hope you know that." She didn't mention to Anna that the two men she most wanted to avoid in this world were already all over her – reminding her every time they saw her that if she was contacted by Anna, she had to tell them. They had investigators looking for her, but as far as Daria knew, they didn't have a clue as to where Anna was, either.

  And she wasn't about to tell them, considering what they'd done to her friend.

  Not that much of anyone saw them very often, anymore. Dev had once been a staple on the floor – even as the owner – shaking people's hands and giving out gift cards occasionally. But the two of them seemed to be holed up in Dev's old office – which most people didn't even know still existed – most of the time now, doing no one knew what.

  She and Anna met a few hours later, in a part of town that Daria didn't frequent and didn't much want to go into, especially not carrying so much money. But bad neighborhoods had never bothered Anna, so she pulled up, parked her son's beater near the pawn shop Anna had mentioned she'd be at, and got out of the car.

  She didn't even recognize the other woman when she approached her. She looked like a street person – unhealthily skinny, her clothes hanging off her, her usual pink cheeked complexion sallow and dull and with eyes that were frighteningly dead.

  Having seen her, Daria insisted on buying her breakfast but it was a waste of money. Anna had some of the coffee, but none of the surprisingly delicious meal. When they parted, Dari hugged the other woman, saying in a cautionary tone, "You need to take care of yourself. There's a light at the end of this tunnel, I promise you, even though I know you can't see it now. Call me any time – I'll get you anything you need. I love you, Anna."

  She watched tears fill her friend's bloodshot, tear swollen eyes. "I love you, too, Dary."

  Several days later, in a different motel room, although not one of any better quality, she heard a knock at the door and sat bolt upright.

  No one was supposed to know she was here, and she was paid up through the end of the week for this room, so who the fuck was knocking so insistently at her door?

  Was it Dev?

  Her heart dropped into the floor, she began to pant and her mouth went dry.

  "Miss Valente?"

  Some of her fear receded. It was not a voice she recognized, and a peep through the hole showed that it wasn't even a cop.

  "Miss Valente? You need to come with me immediately. I'm your lawyer, and we are due in court in a half an hour."

  No matter what he said, he was most definitely not her lawyer. She had been given a public defendant for her bail hearing, and this person was not that man, and she said as much through the door. "Who's paying you?" she asked, because she certainly wasn't.

  As if she didn't know already.

  The man sighed. "Devon Greco."

  "I no longer require your services," Anna said dully.

  "Yes, but, ma'am, you are due to go to court. I'm here. Whatever your beef with Mr. Greco, I can represent you better than a public defender, I'm familiar with your case, and I'm standing right in front of you."

  Anna repeated what she'd just said.

  "Fine. Even if you don't want me to represent you, I would highly suggest you make that court date, or the judge is likely to issue a warrant for failure to appear and you'll be arrested. If I could find you, they can. You have a good day."

  A few seconds later, Anna thought better of her 'fuck you' stance and came out the door. "All right."

  The lawyer gave her the once over. She looked like a bag lady without the shopping cart, as if she'd been sleeping in her clothes. He wished they had time for him to suggest that she change into something less Salvation Army looking, but they didn't.

  They made it to court with a few minutes to spare. When her case was called, she shuffled to the defendant's table to sit next to him. But when the two men who had hired him appeared in court to sit in the row of seats behind her, about halfway through the proceedings, she nearly jumped out of her skin, physically picking up and moving her chair as far away from them as she could get and still be there with him.

  The lawyer conferred with Dev, who came up to the table to do so, talking to the other man the whole time, while his eyes drank in the welcome sight of her – and his stomach twisted at how small and beaten she looked, like an abused dog cringing against his cage at the pound.

  The new evidence that the two men produced and the lawyer introduced – when shown to the prosecuting attorney and the judge – was more than enough to get her case dismissed.

  Dev heaved a huge sigh of relief, knowing that, even in an expensive suit, he couldn't look much better than she did. He and Kurt had spent the entire time – since she'd been arrested – trying to track down who had framed her so expertly, and they had finally done it just this morning, in the wee hours, half killing themselves in the process.

  It was Tarin Simms and Jennifer Stewart. Tarin, having apparently put Jennifer up to it, repaying all of Jenny's kindness by pressuring her into getting Tarin access to the computer systems at night so she could hack them. Finding Anna's information, in particular, because Tarin mistakenly thought that the woman she had considered to be a mentor had been instrumental in getting her canned, taking no responsibility for her own actions in that instance at all.

/>   Tarin had spent her time in jail becoming quite an expert in computers – she might have been irresponsible in the extreme, but she wasn't stupid, and she didn't intend to be poor all her life.

  Neither did Jenny, apparently, whose taste for the finer things in life had been a contributing factor in her letting Tarin into the building and at the computers late at night. She didn't care who ended up taking the rap for what they were doing – she just wanted the money.

  When the judge finally banged his gavel and said, "Case dismissed," Dev wanted to jump up and hug Anna, but she barely acknowledged that she was now a free woman, and she certainly didn't do so much as spare him a glance. She walked by his optimistically open face the same way she'd walked by him in the lobby of the casino when she'd been arrested – as if he no longer existed to her.

  Everything in him – every atom in his body – wanted to follow her. To crowd her into his car in whatever way was necessary and to take her away from this place for a while, to spend all of his time apologizing to her and making it up to her and making love to her – and feeding her, which she apparently wasn't doing for herself.

  He waited as long as he could. He'd let her leave without him to go back to that horrible little hotel room, he assumed, as he sat alone in his old apartment. He hadn't been able to go back to the place he'd shared with her during this entire time. Too many memories. Too many reminders of happier times.

  But it was only the end of the day before he got in his car and drove to the motel, parking in front of her room and sitting there for a while, trying to work up his courage, then laughing at himself about just how true that was. Eventually, he got out of the car to go knock on the door.

  "Anna, it's Dev."

  No response, but then he couldn't say he was surprised. He certainly wasn't her favorite person in the world at this point.

  "Anna, please come to the door. I need to talk to you."

  The door opened and he felt a rush of relief, but then a large man of just about his size, with bright ginger hair, yelled at him, "There's no Anna here, dude! Stop fucking knocking on my door!"

  A trip to the office, such as it was, revealed that she had left hours ago, essentially right after she'd been released, as close as he could pin it down. Dev's heart sank. She could be anywhere by now. She had access to her own money now that she'd been proven innocent.

  She probably wasn't even in the country any more, not that he could really blame her.

  He sighed and stared at the dirty pavement for a moment, then drew a deep breath and stalked determinedly to his car.

  She'd always loved this place. Her parents used to take her here on rare occasions, and she'd fallen in love with it. Her mother's best friend still owned it – was still going strong all these years later – but since she was now living on the East coast, she was only too happy to let Anna stay there. Ruth had been more of a mother to her than her own mother, by far, and she'd long since told Anna that she considered her a daughter, and that she would be the sole recipient of her not inconsiderable estate when the inevitable happened.

  Anna hadn't wanted to hear about it then, but she certainly was grateful for Ruth's undying devotion now, or she wouldn't have had any clue where to go when life as she knew it had ceased to exist.

  It was a small, two bedroom, one floor cabin right on the Oregon coast, in Florence, which was one of those small towns one drove through on scenic highways and never really noticed. It was unremarkable, and that was what Anna liked about it. It had gorgeous stretches of largely pristine beach and relatively few tourists, especially since she was here in the off-season.

  She had taken to walking those beaches daily, at least, losing herself in the sand beneath her feet and the soothing sounds of the ocean in her ears.

  It was almost enough, but not quite yet.

  She didn't think that anything would ever be enough to make her forget him, no matter what he'd done to her. It was like having a limb ripped off. The memory of having that limb was still there, deep seated and ingrained in the brain. Some people even still felt phantom pain in the limb they'd lost, as if it was still there.

  She certainly did.

  But she was reasonably content, had begun to eat again, finally, especially since one morning, not long after she arrived, she had gotten up out of bed, intending to head to the bathroom, and ended up on the floor instead, from low blood sugar, the clinic doc had said.

  It was the first time in her life that someone had looked at her and told her to eat more!

  She was still scads skinnier than she'd ever been in her life. Deep, agonizing depression would do that for her, apparently.

  Still, the walking, the solitude, and the anonymity did her good. She was smaller, but she was tougher and stronger.

  And that was a good thing.

  It helped her deal with what happened next.

  It was a Wednesday morning, she thought, although she hadn't really done well keeping track of the days lately, especially since she had no job, although that was going to have to be rectified soon or she was going to mow through all of her savings. Mid-morning found her doing her favorite walk along Heceta Beach, on the return trip towards the parking lot and her car.

  She wasn't paying much attention, spending most of her time looking down for interesting shells or to the side at the rolling waves. But when she looked up again to see how far the park was, she saw a lone figure standing on the beach, not walking, just standing there, staring at her, hands in his pockets, and she knew immediately.

  He'd chosen this spot well. What was she going to do, dive into the ocean to avoid him? No. Running would be useless – he'd have her to ground in seconds with those heavily muscled runner's legs of his. There was nothing she could do to get away from him.

  Anna almost smiled. That had been true for quite some time.

  So she did the only thing she could do – she continued walking, going down by the waves to get her feet wet sometimes, meandering as she always did, but as she got closer, she set her course determinedly right for him.

  She even spoke first, once she got there.

  "Dev." She considered calling him Mr. Greco, but that sounded stupid, even to her own mind.

  He should have looked ridiculous, standing there on the beach in Italian leather shoes and a beautiful, obviously hand tailored suit, judging by the way it hugged his body, gawking at her like a teenage boy with his first woman, but he didn't.

  He just looked gorgeous, as always, and Anna was surprised and gratified to know that it no longer hurt like the fires of Hell to look at him.

  It did still hurt, yes. But it was bearable, as it hadn't been at first.

  He, too, looked noticeably thinner than he had, leaner, harder, with more lines on his face, a trace of stubble that she'd never seen him sport, and there was a graying at his temples that hadn't been there before, too.

  So he hadn't gotten away completely unscathed, either.

  Somehow, that made her feel a bit better.

  "I'm sorry it took so long for me to get here, but I came as soon as I found out where you were. Walked right out of a meeting and onto a plane."

  Anna laughed softly and walked by him as if he was of no matter to her at all, while inside, she was struggling to maintain the strength she had found here, without him.

  And Dev wasn't making it easy to do that by his mere existence so close to her.

  He fell into step beside her.

  "I didn't want to be found, you realize."

  "I know, especially not by me."

  She didn't contradict him. She didn't say anything at all.

  They made it to her car and she fished her keys from her pocket, unlocking it, but he leaned against the door, blocking her entrance.

  "I'm so sor –"

  Anna forced herself to look up at him and meet his eyes, saying quietly, peacefully, "You're forgiven."

  Dev was floored.

  She almost smiled. She'd always liked surprising him.


  Were those tears she saw in his eyes before he looked down quickly? Nah. Dev never cried. He'd told her once, in a moment of candor, that he'd learned not to around his mother, and she thought that said a lot about the man he had become.

  But there was no denying that his voice was unsteady when he spoke. "Wow. Thank you. That's so much more than I deserve."

  His humility was almost her undoing, but she managed to steel herself against it. "You're welcome. Would you move, please? I'd like to go home. I'm cold." She was very proud of just how calm and neutral she sounded.

  Dev could see how she was shaking and that nudged him to comply with her request, although what he wanted to do was to warm her within his arms; he doubted she'd allow that.

  She got into the small, nondescript car and drove away from him without a wave, a good bye, or so much as a look back at him.

  Dev got into his own car and sat there for a long time, alternately panting and punching the steering wheel, elated at having found her but worried that it was too late.

  That it had been too late the moment he allowed her to be arrested for something she hadn't done.

  But he refused to accept that. He refused to accept that he was consigned to a life without her.

  Because that meant he had no life.

  She had been waiting for it. It was inevitable. He'd found her, and he wasn't going to just leave her alone. She knew him better than to think that he would. It was just a matter of time before he knocked on her door.

  As it happened, he did so just about the time she was going to settle down in front of the television and eat dinner.

  Anna answered the door, he was standing there in a pair of jeans that obscenely outlined parts of him that she would rather forget and an altogether too tightly fitted dark green t-shirt.

  He looked amazing and she wanted him.

  She'd always wanted him, even when she was sitting in a jail cell at his behest. She'd never been able – and probably never would be able – to excise that man's sexual hold over her.

  But she was going to ignore it, if it killed her.

  "Dev. What can I do for you?"

  He immediately crowded himself against the door, as if he expected that he was going to have to put fight his way in, but she simply turned and walked away, apparently not caring one way or the other whether he was in or out.