American Heroes Series - 03 - Purgatory (24 page)

Nash cocked an eyebrow. “They
would have resisted arrest regardless of my presence and you know it,” he
pointed out, watching the detective reluctantly agree. “Are you going to do a
lineup with Penny?”

The detective nodded. “We’ll hold
the Loreaus a couple of days to cool their heels and then we’ll give Ms. Penny
a call to come on down and take a look,” he said. “We should give the girl a
couple of days to recover before we upset her again.”

Nash seemed to cool drastically.
He realized he’d been agitated and abrupt, something that wasn’t like him at
all. Usually, he was as cool and amiable as they come. The emotion of the
situation had him on edge and he visibly calmed now that the Loreaus were
finally in custody.

“Thank you,” he said. “Give a
call when y’all are ready and we’ll bring Penny over.”

The detective simply waved him
off and climbed into his vehicle. Nash made his way back to his cruiser, his
gaze drifting over The Bottoms once more, a place he had been warned about all
his life. He still couldn’t believe that Ms. Leon tried to whack him with her
cane but, then again, he really wasn’t surprised with anything the Loreaus
did.   He knew his brother would get a laugh out of it when he told him that
part, at least.

As he pulled down the rutted,
overgrown driveway and ended up on the road, he found that all he could think
of was returning to Elliot.  He just couldn’t think of anything else. He knew
it was late, but that didn’t matter. He had to hold her, be with her, and if he
pulled into her driveway and she was asleep, he wouldn’t wake her. He’d sleep
in his car just to be near her.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Elliot came home to one deputy’s
unit parked on the main street in next to her driveway entrance and, when she
pulled down the gravel drive, there were three private security patrol cars in
her driveway. Nash had called off the private security on the weekend because
he was around, but he’d apparently changed his mind. They were all over the
place.

Elliot took Penelope and Alec
into the house, locking up the big front door until Penelope, half-way to the
dark stair case, called out to her.

“Mom, the dog,” she said. “We
can’t just leave him outside.”

Elliot dutifully unlocked the
door. “I’ll go get him.”

“No,” Alec moved past her. “I’ll
get him. You and Pen go up to bed.”

Elliot did as her son told her,
going upstairs to get Penelope settled in for bed.  Penelope’s bedroom had an
attached bathroom that was in about the same condition that Elliot’s was, but
Penelope wanted to take a bath so Elliot filled up the claw foot bathtub with
warm water thanks to their new water heater and pipes that the plumbers had
carefully laid through the walls and floorboards over the past week. Elliot
left her daughter in the tub, going to her room to take off her shoes and get
ready for bed.

Passing Alec’s room, Elliot could
hear her son talking to someone. Curious, she poked her head inside and two
pairs of eyes looking back at her, one set of blue and one set of brown. 
Wolfgang was laying on Alec’s bed, his ears happily perking up when Elliot
stuck her head in.

“Is he going to sleep with you?”
she asked.

Alec nodded happily. “We’re
buddies, dude.”

“Then make sure you take him out
to pee first thing in the morning, okay? We don’t want him having an accident
on these floors.”

Alec nodded to his mom, waving at
her when she told him good-night. Going across the hall to her bedroom, she
went to the table next to her enormous four poster bed and turned on the light,
smiling at the electricity she now had in her bedroom. Little by little, the
house was starting to come together and feeling more and more like home.

 Exhausted, she got into her pink
pajamas and prepared for the night.

She was rattled awake some time
later by her cell phone going off.  Groggy, she slapped at the phone on her
night stand, finally grasping it and glancing at the time before she answered. 
1:44 a.m
.  She didn’t even bother looking at the caller I.D.

“Hello?” she asked sleepily.

“Hey, it’s Nash,” came the deep,
soft voice. “Are you asleep?”

Elliot smiled at the sound of his
voice. “I was,” she said. “Where are you?”

“In your driveway. I thought I’d
come in if you were still awake, but it sounds like I woke you up.  Sorry ‘bout
that.”

Elliot sat up and tossed the
covers back. “I’m coming right down to unlock the door.”

“Are you sure?”

“Meet me at the front door.”

She hung up the phone and lit a
candle, still next to her bed, to light her way downstairs. The house was
incredibly dark and in spite of the electricians working twelve hour days,
there was much of the house that was still not wired.  Padding down the
upstairs hall, she happened to peer in on her daughter just to make sure she
was alright. She grinned at what she saw in the room and continued down the
stairs.

Nash smiled at her as she opened
the front door.  Elliot was so glad to see him that she immediately lifted her
mouth to him for a kiss, which he responded to gladly. His big arms went around
her as she pulled him inside the entry hall and shut the door behind him.

“Did you just get off work?” she
asked as he nuzzled her neck.

He nodded, hugging her tightly. “I
just finished,” he murmured. “I had to come and see how you were. How’s Penny?”

Elliot took his hand, leading him
down the dark and shadowed hall.

“She’s okay,” she whispered as
they took the stairs. “They sent her home with antibiotics, painkillers and the
morning after pill. Did you talk to the Sorrento detectives?”

Nash was careful in how he
answered her. “I have,” he replied honestly. “They told me that they’ve put a
rush on the rape kit.  We should know the results in the next couple of days.
She’s also going to have to identify her attackers in a lineup if she can.”

Elliot grew depressed. “She
doesn’t seem to think they touched her but she really doesn’t know,” she said
softly. “I hope those bastards pay for every little thing they did to my little
girl.”

Nash kept a straight face,
thinking of the arrests earlier that evening. “If I have anything to say about
it, they will.”

That answer seemed to satisfy
her. They reached the top of the stairs and instead of heading down the hall to
Elliot’s bedroom, Elliot took him to the rear of the house where Penelope’s
bedroom was.  She looked at him and put her fingers to her lips in a silencing
gesture as she quietly, carefully opened the door.

“Look for yourself,” she
whispered with a smile.

Curious, Nash stuck his head in
and was immediately greeted by a familiar face. Wolfgang was sleeping next to
Penelope on her bed. The dog was all stretched out, as happy as a lark, as
Penelope slept with her arm over the dog. They made a companionable pair.
Grinning, Nash pulled his head back and quietly shut the door.

“I knew I had lost my dog, I just
didn’t realize how far gone he already was,” he whispered.

Elliot snickered softly as they
headed back towards her bedroom. “Alec originally had him in his room, but when
Wolfgang saw Penelope, he ran right to her and wouldn’t come back no matter
what Alec did,” she grinned at the memories. “Alec is deeply hurt, just so you
are aware. I may have to buy him a dog of his own just so he won’t be so upset
about it.”

They entered Elliot’s bedroom and
she blew out the candle as Nash quietly shut the door. Elliot went over to the
bed and flopped wearily upon it.

“Wow,” she sighed. “What a day.”

Nash’s gaze was on her as he
walked towards the bed, shoving his hands into his pockets. “And how is Mom
doing after all is said and done?”

“Fine.” She sighed again, gazing
up at him. “Are you just going to stand there?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, aren’t you going to take
your clothes off and get into bed with me?”

Nash didn’t move. He continued to
stand there and gaze at her before finally lowering himself onto the edge of
the bed.  He seemed quiet and subdued, but Elliot attributed it to the busy day
he’d had. She crawled over to him, laying her head in his lap and smiling up at
him.

“We saw you on the news tonight,”
she said, reaching up to toy with his shirt. “What was that all about?”

He drew in a thoughtful breath.
“The media wanted to know about the shootings in Darrow,” he said. “It must
have been a slow news day.”

“You looked really handsome, my
friend.”

He grinned modestly, running his
hand through her blond hair, feeling the texture against his skin.

“Thank you, ma’am. I’m glad you
think so.”

He didn’t say anything more; in
fact, he seemed content just to sit there and run his fingers through her
hair.  Elliot watched him intently.

“What’s wrong?” she asked softly.
“Why are you so quiet?”

He shrugged. “I guess I’ve just
got a lot on my mind.”

“Can I help?”

He shrugged faintly. “Maybe,” he
said softly. “Maybe not.”

“You’re starting to scare me,
Nash. What’s wrong?”

He gazed down into her beautiful
face with a thousand things on his mind. He wasn’t sure how to approach it
other than just come out with it and pray she didn’t negatively react.
Tonight’s episode at The Bottoms had done something to him, something that had
him eating his guts out.  He had to talk to her about it or explode.

“I’ve known you for exactly one
week,” he said softly.

As he looked down at her, she
started tearing up. “You’re having second thoughts?”

He scooped her up into his arms,
hugging her tightly against his broad chest. “No, no, honey, not at all,” he
murmured into the side of her head. “In fact, just the opposite.”

She sniffled. “What do you mean?”

He loosened his embrace so he
could look her in the face. “You know, it’s kind of funny,” he snorted softly.
“I’ve only really had one special woman in my life, as long as I can remember.
I met Julie when we were both in the eighth grade and we were never apart after
that.  We got married as soon as we graduated high school and I went to college
and did my stint in the Marine Corps while married to her. We had the boys, had
our life together, but I can’t really say that I was deliriously happy. We were
together and that’s just the way it was.”

Elliot was watching him
seriously. “Is that why you divorced her? Because you were bored?”

He shook his head. “No,” he said
matter-of-factly. “She divorced me but I didn’t give her a choice. I found out
she’d been having an affair with one of the doctors at her hospital so I told
her she could divorce me to save her pride or I would divorce her.  The stigma
of divorce is still pretty big around here, so I did the gentlemanly thing even
though she was the one who cheated.”

Elliot looked at him sadly,
putting a hand on his cheek. “You didn’t deserve that,” she murmured. “You’re
such a wonderful man. I don’t understand how she could have done that to you.”

He shrugged. “The truth was, I
really wasn’t all that broken up about it. I can’t remember when I stopped
loving Julie and, in fact, I can’t even remember when I actually
did
love her.  We were just always together, like two peas in a pod, but I can’t
say that either of us was really happy and if I think really hard about it, I
don’t ever think we were
in
love, if that makes any sense.”

Elliot listened seriously. “So
why were you with her? You have a right to be happy, you know.”

He smiled faintly. “I know,” he
said softly. “I was with her because that’s what my mother expected.  There is
no divorce in my family, or at least there wasn’t until Julie divorced me. 
Anyway, when we divorced six years ago, I wasn’t happy or sad. It’s just the
way it was.  I had my career and that was enough, at least until I met you.”

She returned his smile, cocking
her head as she stroked the left side of his head. “And now look at the trouble
you’re in.”

He laughed softly, pulling her
more closely against him.

“Ellie, I knew the moment I
looked at you that you were what I had been waiting for all my life. Your
beauty, your brains, your sense of humor has me hooked.  I never knew what it
was like to be in love until I met you and now that I know, it’s a feeling I
don’t ever want to lose.” He sighed, grasping for words. “I guess what I’m
trying to say is that whether I’ve known you one day, one week, one year or
ten, I will always feel this way about you. I don’t want to walk out of your
door and go back to my house, six miles away, where it’s cold and lonely and
you’re not there.  Everything I love is within these walls; you, Penny, Alec,
and that big ol’ dumb dog. My heart is here, with you. I want to be here, too.”