Things Made Right (9 page)

She realized he had followed her train of thought without needing a conductor to give him directions. “What if I can’t ever have kids?” she tearfully asked. “Will you still want
me
?”

He tipped her face back so he could look into her eyes. “For starters, the doctors said it was too soon to tell. But we need to get you back on the pill. The discussion about having a baby is moot until you’ve got your degree.”

“I need to work while I’m in school,” she said. “We’ll need the money.”

He smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. “Wait here.”

“Why?”

He arched an eyebrow at her.

“Yes, Sir,” she quickly said.

“Good girl.” He kissed her. “I’ll let that one go.” He climbed out of bed and disappeared into the living room. She couldn’t help but watch his ass as he walked out of the room.

He was a damn good-looking man. Especially naked.

He returned with several pieces of paper and reached over to turn on the bedside lamp before he sat on the edge of the bed. Then he laid the papers out on the bed.

“Pick one,” he said.

As she squinted, she realized what they were. “Acceptance letters?”

He let her snuggle against his side, his arm around her shoulders. “Yep. You pick.”

“But…” She stared at them. There were eight of them, from law schools all over the continental US. From Pennsylvania to California, and Florida to Illinois. “You want
me
to pick your law school?”

He tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “I want you to be happy. I don’t give a shit where we live as long as you’re happy there. You pick.”

“But your family is here.”

“So? So’s yours. But to be honest, my father’s going to be really pissed off when he realizes that, other than law school, I have no plans to follow in his footsteps and seek public office. I don’t want to be elected. I just want to be an attorney. That’s all.” He indicated the letters. “Pick one, or I’ll shuffle them and have you randomly pick one.”

Intimidated, she studied them all again, unsure. She looked up into his eyes, wondering if this was a joke, or a test.

Then again, he had said he wanted to make her happy.

He nodded toward them. “Do you trust me?” he asked her.

She nodded.

“Then trust me when I say I want you to do this. I told you, it’s not all about me getting what I want.”

“This is big.”

“And it’s how I want it to be.”

From the look on his face, she suspected he was totally serious. “Can I ask for one thing?”

“What’s that, sweetheart?”

“Promise me you’ll never share me with anyone else. And you’ll never cheat on me.”

His expression softened, almost breaking her heart with his tenderness. He kissed her, long and slow. “Sweetheart, as long as I’m physically able, I promise, I will never allow another man to touch you like that. Ever. And I will never,
ever
cheat on you. You are the only woman I will ever want.”

Stroking his cheek, she nodded and returned her attention to the papers. She couldn’t make up her mind. There was a huge country out there he was offering her. She hadn’t traveled a lot, but remembered one vacation to Walt Disney World when she was about twelve. Her and her parents.

It had been a fun time, the only time she’d been to Florida. Hell, the only time she’d been out of the Northeast.

She reached down and picked the letter from Stetson Law School just outside of Tampa and handed it to him.

He smiled as he read it. “Florida it is. We’ll fill out your application to the University of South Florida as soon as we can get you one. We’ll need your transcripts.”

“Yes, Sir.”

She knew instinctively it wouldn’t do any good to protest, to tell him no, it was okay, that she could sit out a semester.

She knew he wouldn’t hear of it. Not now, not since he’d made up his mind this was how it would be.

He leaned in and tenderly kissed her. “We’re going to be happy together,” he said. “We’ll start over down there, make our lives down there. We can come up and visit your family, have them come visit us.”

“You don’t want to live up here?”

“Not unless you do. I’m sick of winter. I’d like to be able to walk around in shorts in December and not worry about you having to drive in snow and ice.” He laced his fingers through hers and kissed her again. “Loren, will you please marry me?” he whispered.

She tearfully nodded. “Yes, Sir. I want that more than anything.”

Now…

Loren sat at an outside table, in the shade but with her sunglasses securely in place. She’d opted to meet the woman at a nice restaurant in St. Pete, on the Intracoastal. Arriving nearly thirty minutes early, Loren had the hostess seat her on the back deck, in a shaded spot.

She didn’t want to be here any longer than necessary, and hoped Melody Axlerod wouldn’t cause her any problems in the future.

Not telling Ross about this ate her up inside, but Loren knew she’d take the punishment without complaint. She’d promised not to ask him about that night, not to talk about it.

And in their nearly thirty years of marriage, she’d never violated that promise.

And she never would. Ross wouldn’t even know what he was punishing her for, unless he asked her.

And if he asked, she’d be forced to tell him, because she couldn’t lie to him.

Maybe he wouldn’t ask.

She hoped he wouldn’t.

Loren ordered a glass of water. More to have something in her hands than to have something to drink. She didn’t want iced tea, that might send her to the bathroom too much. She wanted this done as quickly as possible, hopefully with little drama.

She didn’t know exactly what Melody Axlerod knew about what happened. Considering the way the campus cops had acted, and the fact that no one had ever followed up with her with any questions after the “accident,” Loren had operated on the comforting belief that no record remained of
that
night.

She’d hoped.

Ross didn’t have a public Facebook profile for himself. He had one for the office, an official page for the firm, but he didn’t even have Loren friended on Facebook. He had his profile set so only friends of friends could send him friend requests, and there was absolutely no information on his profile except the information for the firm.

But Ross hadn’t been in the fraternity. As far as she knew, he didn’t share any classes with the four guys. In the days, then weeks that followed the incident, he’d never even been questioned, his name never brought up.

The few times she’d heard him talking with anyone about it in the days immediately following, he’d always responded with an appropriate level of shock and dismay, saying something like, “Yeah, I left Loren’s early that next morning and didn’t even see the news until that night. I heard about it from others talking about it at school.”

Loren stared out over the water, trying to keep her mind calm. She’d worn one of her heavier day collars today, a chunky stainless steel necklace with a tag on it. It hung under her blouse, comforting weight against her flesh. She’d thought about wearing one of her leather play collars around her wrist, wrapped a couple of times and buckled, like a funky bracelet, but opted not to.

She could do this. She’d survived what had happened
that
night. And the aftermath. Yes, with Ross’ help and love and guidance, but she was stronger now. She was no longer the terrified, traumatized coed.

Tilly would call me a tough bitch, if I could even confide in her about this.

Which, of course, she couldn’t. She shouldn’t have even told Sully, except she’d needed his counsel.

And that will mean more strokes.

It was a gorgeous afternoon, just breezy enough to temper the warmth of the day, a few clouds in the sky but no rain in the forecast. Even the tide cooperated, coming in and not going out to give them an unpleasantly aromatic addition to their waterfront seats.

The hostess showed a woman out to the table about five minutes early. Loren didn’t stand, but she did lean forward and offered her hand. “Melody?”

The woman looked to be in her late thirties, maybe. Certainly not older than forty. “Yes. Loren?” Loren nodded. “Thank you for meeting with me.” She slid into the seat across the round table from Loren.

Loren wouldn’t make this easy on the woman. Loren didn’t know what the woman wanted, and she didn’t want to give anything away.

Being married to an attorney hadn’t been wasted on Loren.

After the waitress came and took Melody’s drink order, the woman seemed to settle in, her body stiff as she stared at the table for a moment. “I guess you’re wondering why I wanted to talk to you and wouldn’t do it over the phone or in an e-mail.”

“Yes, I was.”

Maybe Melody had thought Loren would be a chatterbox. The younger woman seemed knocked off-kilter by Loren’s lack of nervous chatter.

Let them run their mouths, Ross always said about a negotiation. Let them fill the silence.

“My brother died when I was very young,” Melody finally said. “I barely remember him. I was the baby, and he was the eldest.”

Loren nodded but didn’t reply.

“I’ve read all the stories about the accident,” Melody continued. “Watched news footage. Studied the accident reports.” She sat back while the waitress set a glass of iced tea in front of her. When they were alone again, she continued. “My kids never got to know their uncle. After the accident, my parents ended up getting divorced. It pretty much destroyed my family.”

Your brother destroyed my chance to have a family.

But Loren didn’t say that.

She didn’t say anything.

Finally, Melody looked at her. “A woman contacted me after she saw me at the memorial. She said she’d been to a party at their fraternity house a few weeks before the accident and there was apparently an…incident.”

It took every ounce of will Loren had not to react.

Melody continued. “She said she thought the girl had been drugged and…things happened. My brother and his three friends…did things. She didn’t know anything else except that she thought her name was Lauren Mills. I couldn’t find anyone by that name, but I did find you. Loren Miller.”

She stared at Loren.

Loren stared back.

“Is there anything you’d like to tell me?” Melody finally asked, her voice sounding a little shrill.

“About what?” Loren finally asked.

“Well? Was that you at the party? Look, I just want to know about my brother.”

“I didn’t know your brother.” That wasn’t a lie. “I didn’t know his friends.” Again, not a lie. She’d only met them
that
night. “The night your brother and his friends died, my husband—who was my boyfriend at the time—and I were at my apartment. I found out about it on the morning news the next morning. I don’t know what you want me to tell you.”

Still not lies.

Melody examined her nails. They were bitten down to the quicks and unpainted. “In the past couple of weeks, I’ve found out about at least three other women my brother and his friends…drugged at parties. From some of the stories his frat brothers told me, there were more. Were you one of them?”

Loren leaned in. “If your brother and his friends had done that to me, believe me, I would have filed a police report about it. And they’d likely still be alive because they’d have been in jail and not out drinking the night of the accident.”

Again, not a lie. She had filed a report about it.

And had the fucking campus cops dug their thumbs out of their asses and pursued the investigation, Charles and his fuck buddies would have been alive, because they would have been in jail.

It would have been made right.

The way it should have been made right from the start. Not just for her, but for all of their victims.

The waitress returned to take their food orders. Melody stared at her hands. Loren wasn’t hungry, but she ordered an appetizer. When they were alone again, Loren decided to ask.

“Why didn’t those other three women file reports?”

Melody drew in a shaky breath. “One of them said she tried, but the campus cops didn’t do anything and put the blame on her for drinking.”

“Ah. What about the other two?”

“They were told by my brother and his friends that if they did file reports, that they’d get taken to another party and it would be even worse.”

“Wow.” Loren went for bland disinterest. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“And I found a notation where an officer talked with a Loren Miller a few weeks before the accident, but no report was filed, and nothing was listed about why he talked to you.”

Loren cocked her head, thinking.

This wasn’t a lie. She
was
thinking. “Oh. I know what that was about. Somebody broke into my car. I talked to the campus police about it and filed a report. I needed a report for the insurance claim.”

Technically not a lie, although that had happened her first semester there.

Melody wore an expression somewhere between disappointed and resigned. “You didn’t know my brother at all?”

“No, sorry. I won’t be of any help to you.”

“I grew up idolizing my brother. My two other brothers talked about him all the time. I was the baby.” She had pulled her napkin into her lap and from what Loren could see, it looked like Melody was nervously playing with it. “I even named my first son after him.”

She sadly shook her head. “The more I find out about him, it looks like maybe he wasn’t the guy my parents and my brothers thought he was and always told me about him.” She let out a snort. “After everything in the news the past couple of years about rape cultures on campuses, I don’t find it hard to believe, it’s sad to say.”

When Melody looked up, Loren noticed she was close to tears, her eyes too bright. “If my brother was some sort of a monster, I want to apologize to the people he hurt. I know I can’t fix anything he did, but I spent a lot of years angry, when I was old enough to realize what his death did to my family, thinking that there had to be a reason he died. There had to be something more than just a stupid accident. Especially since it killed our family in the process. But the more I learn…”