Royce (47 page)

“Back massage?”  Royce couldn’t figure what was going on, Joy was happy, Jameson looked like he’d seen a ghost and Rosa was crying over at the sink.  He looked at them and studied Jameson for a moment, then Joy, she was so happy.  “Yeah he learned it in India and it took away the pain, you have to show him Jameson," Joy was saying and Rosa started chuckling at the sink and Royce looked at her.  What was going on?

Rosa was crying at the sink because she thought Jameson was in bed with her mistress and that hurt her to think that the senora would do that with him.  She didn’t like Jameson, he was always watching the senora.  She’d seen him watching the senora when she was down on the beach.  He stood on the back porch where no one could see and watched the senora for a long time, and whenever he came in the casa he paused and looked for the senora and when he found her he came in, and most of the time he just appeared from nowhere, like a ghost.   And that’s what happened today he just appeared from nowhere and she saw him going up the stairs so she went to check and the door was closed and she heard what sounded like making love to her, but when she heard it was a back rub she was happy.  She still didn’t like him but he rubbed the senora’s pain away and she was happy and went happily back to work. 

“I’m starved babe you want to eat something with me?  Jameson you want to stay and have something?”  “No, I need to get back to work.”  “Everything is okay isn’t it, nothing’s happened back home has it?”  Royce hadn’t seen him look so pale and tormented before, he was such a tough man, a man of few words, a man of character, he didn’t know what had pained him so. “No, no sir Mr. Harrington, I must go check on some things,” he said. “Okay then,”  Jameson left and Joy went to the refrigerator.  Royce really wasn’t hungry he’d had breakfast not too long ago, but seeing her happy and hungry he’d gladly share a meal with her after worrying about her not eating for days now.

Jameson went back and paced, “How could you let yourself get so caught up like that?” He scolded himself, “You know your relationship with her is ruined!  You blew it!  Fuck!”  Well he’d just have to recuse himself and maybe switch out with Reggie, send Reggie here and he’d go back to Dallas, besides he hadn’t seen Nicole in three years, three long years!  He reminded himself she wasn’t his wife anymore and when he told her he was leaving and didn’t know for how long she said, “Maybe we can end this charade we’ve been playing Carl.  This distance might be good for us,” and he took her in his arms and said, “You’ll never be free of me,” and passionately kissed her, and like Royce he had a secret account he sent money to and like Bobby he sent little messages in three or four words, “Hope you’re well,” “Miss you,” “Give Chase a hug for me,” little things like that.  He thought about sending for her when the search had gone cold but the logistics and the threat to his client was high so he chose Lita instead and that had worked out well.  Lita didn’t press him to be anything to her, he lived his life and she lived hers.  All he expected was for her to be there when he showed up and he showed up most nights hard and wanting after listening to Joy and Royce over the headphones, even if they didn’t make love, just hearing them banter, talk and just be together made him want to hold someone and frequently he gave Lita money, “Here buy yourself something nice,” he’d say and she turned out to be a good lay. 

He paced and walked.  What was he going to do?  He went in the closet and put the headphones on and listened.  They were eating and talking about horses and the ranch, he marveled at how they spoke in nothing but Spanish even to each other.  “That little colt is going to sell well.  He’s beautiful to look at with the markings of his father and mother,” Royce was saying and he could tell he was chewing. “He is, but you know Justin wants him, he wants you to give him to him for his birthday or Christmas.  He’ll be seven Royce and there’s nothing like a pony for a little boy,” she said.  “I know and that’s my dilemma, make the money that I bred him for or keep a prize winning stallion to make my son happy,” and he could tell he was smiling saying this. 

Royce loved that his boys loved  horses and ranch life, even though theirs was unorthodox in this beautiful serene setting with mountains and a beach out back and not like he grew up isolated on thousands of acres in the middle of nowhere.

Jameson couldn’t help it he took the headphones off and thought about Joy. 

He sat there his mind a thousand miles away, he touched her, touched her soft skin, he could feel it as he moved his hands across it, and he made her cry out in pleasure as the pain left her body.  “Oh, ah,” he heard her cry out and he remembered how hot his crotch was against her, the heat was undeniable.
Arggghhh,
he thought and that’s where you messed up,
you couldn’t just help her, do the massage and help her! 
He went back to being angry at himself, all he wanted to do was take away her pain.  He’d done this plenty of times on other women and nothing. 
Yeah, CIA agents, women you weren’t interested in and a couple of whores in Thailand you thought could use it, whores you didn’t sleep with, 
he reminded himself,
but the women you wanted, the ones before your wife you were hard as hell, so don’t kid yourself,
he also reminded himself. “I just wanted to help,"  and yes he knew it was a possibility what could happen but he took the chance to help her.

He left, he had to get out the house, he wished Lita was home, but she was at work, he walked the beach, and came back.  He checked in with Reggie and Tommy, “What’s going on anything new?”  The reports from Reggie were boring as far as the Harrington case,  “Nothing new on my end on the Harrington case.  Tommy’s heading back though,"  he said.  He’d had Tommy and the new guy, Conrad switch out on Gibeau the last couple of years, so it wouldn’t get to monotonous, but the fact remained Walker still wanted Royce found and he couldn't let that happen until he found out who was behind he hit.  “Oh good, I’ll catch up with him, what about the other cases?”  Reggie went over what was going on at the office.  He gave him advice on how to proceed, and then he said, “I might need a change myself.  I’ve been on this case and away too long. I’ll let you know when the arrangements have been made," he said and hung up.

His stomach was growling and he looked at the clock, it was one o’clock, lunch time.  Joy had him trained now to go over and eat at one o’clock every day,.
I’m not going over there today,
he thought, 
I can’t have her looking at me funny. 
The table was always full, it was usually Royce, Ricardo, Rosa, Valerie always came in from her surveillance, Joy, and all the children, and him. 

He couldn’t face them today or ever again and he heard a knock at the door.  He looked through the window, it was Joy standing there holding little Christopher’s hand.  
Shit!
He opened the door, she was smiling at him.

“I want you to know my pain is still gone and I want you to come to la comida,” she looked at him and he saw a softness in her eyes, “Don’t get weird on me Jameson.  You helped me when no one else could and I’ll always be grateful for that.  Please come to lunch like you always do, don’t let this change anything okay,” she reached for his hand, “Come on, you’re still the professional man of few words to me.  I’ll always see you like that,” she said holding his hand and smiling softly at him and he followed her, seeing her smile like that he couldn’t help but follow.  He went with her to the house, everyone was there except Royce, “Where’s Mr. Harrington”, he asked and Joy smiled, that was the Jameson she knew, he would never drop the formalities, “Oh he’s still at the ranch, he’s not hungry said I fed him too much today," she laughed. 

He sat down and they started to eat, “I’m glad you’re feeling much better senora,"  Valerie said, she spoke in Spanish all the time now too.

Valerie ate and listened to Joy, “Oh gracias, it was this Indian massage technique Jameson knew that helped.” “Jameson?”  Valerie stopped chewing and looked at him.  “Oh yes it worked wonderfully,"  and Jameson felt himself go red, and Valerie laughed, “You know massaging huh, so why the red face?”  She teased, and he knew he’d never hear the end of it if he didn’t make light of it or pull the boss role on her.  He looked up smiling deciding to make light of it, “It’s not in my job description okay," he joked and they burst out laughing, all of them just cracked up including him.

Her pain didn't return and four weeks later right on schedule in a tub of warm birthing water Joy gave birth to a beautiful baby girl.

Royce looked down at his baby girl.  She was dark haired and pale and as she nursed at her mother’s breast she opened her little eyes and he saw the blue, “Her eyes are blue baby,” he said and fell immediately in love.

Joy named her Autumn Joy Harrington and as she grew she did have blue eyes like her father and a face like her mother’s.  She stole Royce’s heart the minute she was born and he hoped he’d do better with her than he did with Karen.  Karen was lost to him he knew that, she’d never be his little girl again.  This one he held close to his heart and for him life couldn’t have been better.

Months passed and Autumn was two years old now, and the case wasn’t closed.  Jameson had been with the Harrington’s for five years and away from Texas and his wife and he was no closer to solving this case.  Tammy gave up nothing and finally he stopped sending in undercovers, and he wondered had she called off the hit.  Lita had been a welcome distraction and he had to admit he was getting lax, nothing had made its way over here and Gibeau was still on the case and hadn’t even thought of Europe, he was moving slowly across Canada.  They were like family and he and Valerie were part of it.

Royce loved his life.  He had his family and Joy, and he and Bobby had been communicating for years in little cryptic messages through the Cayman account that only he and Bobby could understand and at first he was fearful.  Bobby’s messages were always about danger and staying put, but in the last few years nothing, and if Jameson didn’t remind him that a private investigator was still searching he would have closed the case and sent him packing and lived this idyllic life. 

He was taking a siesta down at the beach and catching some rays in just his swim trunks, his chest bare and loving the feel of the sea breeze against his skin.  It was Sunday and a beautiful June summer day.  The kids were in the water and the waves were rushing in.  Royce watched them riding on wave gliders and surf boards.  Justin was eight and thought he could do anything Deon did, Lindsey was a teenaged beauty and Royce had no idea how much she looked like Joy until she started growing up, he always saw Michael in her, but she had Joy’s mannerisms and was built like her too. “We’re going to have trouble when she starts dating,” he told Joy, “Don’t make me think on that,” she knew that already, the Spanish boys already liked Lindsey. 

He was sitting under the blue umbrella reading the Spanish paper and watching the children, Jameson was on the phone, and Joy had just gone up to put Autumn down for her nap.  The other kids were hanging out with friends in the water having fun.  Christopher was practicing on his little foam surf board and Lindsey was close by in a bikini that he thought showed too much, which he knew he was just being an over protective father, since the swimsuits her friends were wearing showed more, two of them actually had on thongs.  He looked up from his paper and saw Joy coming down the stairs and he watched her for a moment.  She had a little slip of a dress on over her bathing suit, it was white with spaghetti straps and she was still so beautiful to him, he watched her a moment longer and then turned back to his paper.

Jameson left the beach to take an urgent call from Reggie.  He went in the little house next door so he couldn’t be overheard, Valerie was in her room.  They’d been roommates now for five years and he’d gotten use to having a woman in the house, her woman smells, finding her woman’s under things in the dryer, her habits.  Thank god like him she was neat and orderly or he would have sent her back. 

“They made Tommy,” Reggie was saying and he was upset, “We didn’t know, we hadn’t heard from him, he’s gone Jameson,” “Gone?  What do you mean gone?”  “They got him, he’s dead,” and just then he heard a helicopter and it was so out of the ordinary he perked up and walked over to the window and picked up his binoculars.  The phone still to his ear he peered at the helicopter and dropped the phone, “Load up Valerie it’s a hit!”

Joy was coming down the steps and was almost to Royce.  She heard the helicopter too and it was so out of the ordinary she shaded her eyes and looked up.  Royce too looked up, he paused in reading his paper, he’d heard the helicopter too, it was awfully low.  He saw it hovering there and then he heard Jameson running and screaming, “Get down Mrs. Harrington!  Get down!  Get down!”  Then Royce saw a man in the open doorway of the helicopter and before he could comprehend what was going on he heard shots in rapid succession, “RAT TAT TAT TAT!  RAT TAT TAT TAT!”  He looked at Joy and he saw bullets bouncing at her feet.  He saw a puff of smoke from the dust waft up as each one hit the ground.  She stood there frozen and he dropped the paper and it blew off in the breeze and before he knew what he was doing he jumped the retention wall and ran to her, “Get down!  Get down!”  He yelled and he saw Jameson on one knee shooting rapid fire at the helicopter, RAT TAT TAT TAT!  RAT TAT TAT TAT!   Valerie was on the other side shooting too, BANG, BANG, BANG!  He pulled Joy so hard to the ground they fell and rolled down the slope and fell over the retention wall and plopped on the sand.

“Oh my god the kids!”  She screamed and moved to get up and he grabbed her and lay on top of her, “No Joy stay down!  Stay down!”  He yelled at her and she tried to push him off frantic, “No Royce the kids!” She was yelling and trying to get to them.  He held her there with all his strength. “Royce, Royce,” she pleaded looking up at him.  He held her down, “Stay down,” and the realization hit her, she sobbed, “No Royce no!”  She sobbed.