Sea of Dreams (The American Heroes Series Book 2) (49 page)

Gina had to take Spike home early because he had a belly ache. Marshall and Gabrielle bowed out early, leaving Betty and Beck Sr. to babysit with Emma as Blakesley and Beck put the little girls to bed.  Crosby wanted a story, so Beck lay down with her on her twin bed and read her two stories.   Even though he had a living room full of guests, his girls were most important and he took the time with them.  With two stories read, he had to fight down additional requests for stories, kissing pouting faces as he shut off the light and closed the door.  Blakesley was already in with Cadee and they put her to bed, too, with Nikki now sleeping in the very small fourth bedroom next to Cadee’s room.  Peeking in on Lizzie and her two friends, they completed their sweep of the upper floor and ended up back downstairs with Beck’s men.

Blakesley sat with Beck and his men for about a half hour before pleading exhaustion and retiring to the bedroom.  Betty and Beck Sr. were sitting on the bed, watching television, as Emma slept peacefully in her grandfather’s arms.  Blakesley grinned as she walked up to the pair and peered down at her child.

“Well,” she said with satisfaction. “It looks like Grandpa finally got to hold his granddaughter.”

Beck Sr. wriggled his eyebrows. “It was a battle, let me tell you,” he exaggerated. “Betty is fierce.  I almost lost an eye.”

Blakesley laughed softly.  “Well, I’m glad you got your turn,” she said. “I think I’m going to go to bed now, so you two are relieved until tomorrow.”

Beck Sr. and Betty climbed off the bed, and Beck Sr. carefully put his granddaughter in her lovely new bassinet.  The baby fussed a little bit but Blakesley turned her on her side and put a pillow against her back, covering her with a fluffy blanket.   The three of them stood there and watched the baby settle down, suckling her little pacifier furiously.

“The question now is how long she’s going to stay there,” Blakesley whispered. “Beck will come in here and bring her to bed with him.”

Betty smiled. “He’s attached to her.”

Blakesley nodded her head. “Yes, he is, but I don’t like him sleeping with her. It scares me.  I’m afraid either one of us will roll over on her.  Besides, she needs to learn to sleep in her own bed.”

“You’re mean, Mommy,” Beck Sr. grunted.

Blakesley grinned at him as Betty silently shooed him out of the room.  Whispering their good-nights, Blakesley shut the door behind them, went into the bathroom, and got ready for bed.  She could hear the men laughing in the living room as she scrubbed her face and settled in to bed.  Checking on the sleeping baby one last time and pulling the bassinet up next to her side of the bed, she turned off the light and began flipping through the channels.

Nothing much seemed to be on the tube on the late Thursday night.   She watched the cooking channel for awhile before flipping to the news.  It was the top of the hour on the late news and after two relatively boring stories, she picked up the remote to turn the television off when a graphic of the  Hollyhock Restaurant suddenly appeared on screen. Shocked, Blakesley turned up the volume.  The female anchor with short red hair was speaking in a monotone.

“… nearly two years ago convicted Ed Masterson of the murder for Marielle  Graciano at the Hollyhock Restaurant in Hollywood. Once the go-to restaurant for the stars, the murder caused sensational headlines with the trial that followed.  However, our sources have received information that a key witness in the murder has recanted his statement, which put Masterson on appeal before a grand jury.  With no physical evidence other than the eye witness linking Ed Masterson to the murder, sources tell NBC news that Ed Masterson will soon be a free man. Now, moving on to the health report, American’s are….”

Blakesley shut the television off.  She sat there, quivering uncontrollably,  grabbing at her cell phone and going into the bathroom to call her lawyer so she wouldn’t wake the baby.  Robert’s phone rang six times before going to voicemail and she left a rather rattling message. 

Hanging up the call, she went back into the bedroom and tried to calm down.   Climbing in to bed, she lay there for what seemed like hours, listening to Beck and his men out in the living room laughing and talking. It was comforting to listen to them, knowing that nothing bad could happen to her or the girls with Beck around.  He wouldn’t let it. He’d kill Ed if the man tried anything, and that brought her a great deal of comfort.

Blakesley was finally drifting off to sleep when Beck came into the bedroom quietly.  She could hear him moving around, going into the bathroom to brush his teeth,  then coming back out to take his clothes off.  She could hear the soft drift of his jeans as he tossed them aside.   Then he came around the side of the bed and she peeped an eye open, watching him bend over the bassinet to look at the baby.  The moment he stuck his hands in to lift her out, Blakesley stopped him.

“Hold it,” she hissed. “Leave her alone, Daddy. She’s sleeping soundly. You’re just going to wake her up.”

He retracted his hands like the kid who got caught with the cookie jar.  She could see his teeth gleaming in the darkness.

“You’re supposed to be asleep,” he said.

She rolled on to her back and looked at him. “I knew you were going to come in here and try to steal her,” she whispered, grinning. “Get into bed with me and leave her alone.”

“Please?”

“Absolutely not,” she pulled the covers back on the bed beside her. “Get into bed and snuggle with me.”

He leapt into bed over her, jostling her, listening to her giggle as he swallowed her up in his big arms and nuzzled her neck.   Nuzzling turned into heated kisses as he suckled her earlobe, and she could feel his stiff erection against her buttocks. 

“You’re going to make yourself miserable if you don’t stop,” she murmured.

He stopped kissing her and sighed heavily. “I know,” he groaned. “I can’t help it. Sorry. I’m a dirty dog, I know.”

She laughed softly. “No, you’re not, but you know what the doctor said. No sex for six weeks at least.”

“Can I at least play with you?”

She turned to look at him. “Seriously?” she wanted to know. “I just had a baby six days ago and you want to know if you can
play
with me?”

He looked property contrite, but there was humor to it. “Bad question?”

She shrugged. “If you touch my boobs, they’ll leak all over you, and if you try to touch something else, there are nine stitches down there that won’t react too well.  That’s the price you pay for your new daughter. Sorry, I didn’t make the rules.”

He grinned and pulled her close, snuggling against her. “I don’t care about the leaking part.”

She gasped with soft outrage, slapping weakly at his arm. “No, Beck. Not now. Talk to me next week and see how I feel, but not now. I’m too sore and don’t feel particularly sexy.”

His humor faded and he kissed her, hugging her tightly.  “I know, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll leave you alone.  But you’re still the sexiest and most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen, no matter what.”

She grinned.  “Nice save,” she settled down with him behind her.  As they lay there in the darkness, her eyes remained open and her smile faded.  She couldn’t help the heavy thoughts on her mind. “I saw something on the news tonight about Ed.”

Beck had his face shoved into the back of her head, her hair all over his face and neck.  He often slept like that because the scent of her brought him extreme comfort. Her statement had his eyes opening.

“What about him?” he mumbled.

“The news said that his case had been appealed and he’d be a free man soon.”

“Did you call your lawyer?”

“I left him a voicemail.  I can’t understand why he wouldn’t call me to tell me this personally. Why did I have to see it on the news?”

Beck rolled over and looked at her in the darkness. “You seem pretty calm about it.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know why. I should be freaking out, but I just can’t seem to get worked up about it. I feel kind of numb, to be truthful.”

Beck could see her lovely profile in the shadows, studying her expression for a moment. “Baby, I’ve never asked you what really happened with all of that,” he said softly, “because I figured you’d tell me when you were ready.  It’s been almost a year and you haven’t told me anything about it so now, as your husband, I’m asking.  What really went on with you and Ed and all of that mess?”

She rolled onto her side so she was facing him.  “It was pretty much just what I’d told you,” she said quietly. “He murdered his whore and then the girls and I endured the trial that followed. What I didn’t know was that through his mistress, he began laundering money for a branch of the Columbian drug cartel, a branch that called themselves the
la ira de Dios
.”

“The wrath of God,” he murmured in translation.

Blakesley nodded, snuggling up to him in the darkness. “Anyway, the whole trial was just sickening. The lawyers hammered away at witnesses, at Ed’s character, and my character, all sorts of terrible things.  The defense kept trying to pull me into it by saying I knew what was going on but the cops cleared me of that.”

“Did you know what was going on?” he asked softly.

She shook her head. “Not a clue,” she said. “I guess it was my fault that I didn’t know. Ed and I had kind of drifted apart since Charlotte’s birth, so I just didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to him or what he was doing.”

“Why did you drift apart?”

She shrugged. “I guess you had to know Ed and the kind of relationship we had,” she whispered. “He was an extremely arrogant man.  At first, I found that kind of attractive but as the years went by, it just got old. He was very hard on me, on my appearance, afraid I would let myself go and embarrass him.”

Beck scowled. “Seriously?”

She nodded. “He was really adamant that I take care of myself, which I do anyway, but I was always afraid that if I got breast cancer or had a bad accident and was scarred, he would just up and leave.  He was just that superficial.  Anyway, I think I started distancing myself from him over the years just as an act of self-protection.  He got mean and critical and aloof as time went on.  By the time he was arrested, I was shocked and upset, of course, but part of me didn’t really care.  That sounds cruel, but it was true.”

Beck digested the information. “Did he ever hit you or threaten you? I mean, the guy murdered his mistress. I’d be surprised if he didn’t lift a hand to you or showed that side of himself to you during the course of your marriage.”

She shook her head. “Never,” she said firmly. “In all the years I knew him, he never even hinted at that, which is why a murder charge really shocked me. I had no idea he was capable of that kind of thing.”

“So what did the Columbians do to you?”

“Do? Nothing. But they tried.  Ed was preparing to spill the names of the big gang leaders in Los Angeles so the Columbians thought that if they threatened or killed me, Ed would keep his mouth shut.  They messed with my brakes, which ended up being nothing, thank God, because my car crashed into a stop sign and the mechanic discovered what had happened, and then one day when I was picking Cadee up from school, someone took a shot at me but hit my car door instead.”

He stroked her head. “That’s awful. What happened after that?”

She shifted, settling down against him and feeling increasingly sleepy. “LAPD really stepped up my protection and the protection of the girls.  Ed ended up not testifying about the cartel in a plea deal, so the Columbians left me alone.  I haven’t heard from them or about them since, thank God. That was really a scary time.”

He kissed her forehead. “I’ll bet,” he murmured. “So if Ed is released, what then? Will he try to contact you? I’ll bet the man will want to see his children and maybe have even some kind of custody arrangement.”

Blakesley suddenly pulled away from him, sitting up and glaring at him. “I have full custody of my girls,” she hissed. “He’s never going to get anywhere near them.  I came down to San Diego to start a new life, and that means a life without that bastard.  I have you now and you’re all the father my girls will ever need.  I’ll kill Ed if he tries anything, I swear it.”

He pulled her back down on the bed next to him, soothing her gently. “No worries,” he murmured, kissing her angry cheek. “I’ll kill him first. Those girls are mine.”

She settled down quickly, snuggling into his embrace and closing her eyes. “Yes, they are,” she whispered. “But… this was kind of what I was trying to warn you off of when we first met. Remember I told you the troubles that follow me around? I mean this, although I had no idea that Ed’s release would come about.”

“Like I said earlier, you seem much calmer than you did when you first found out.”

She opened her eyes and looked up at him, seeing his handsome features outlined in the darkness. “It was a knee-jerk reaction,” she admitted softly. “Don’t get me wrong; I’m still upset about it. But I know that Ed can’t hurt me or the girls with you around. We have such a happy life, Beck. Nothing can hurt us at all, not even Ed and the drama that surrounds him.”

He smiled and kissed her, growing more amorous until she pulled away.  He was growing engorged again and groaned miserably when she laughed at his agony.

“You belong to me, as do those three little blond girls upstairs asleep,” he whispered. “If Ed Masterson comes anywhere near my wife and family, he’ll have to answer to me, pure and simple.  And not even Ed and the entire Columbian drug cartel can survive a bout with the U.S. Navy, I promise you that.”

“I know,” she kissed him softly.  “I believe you.”

“Do you think he knows you remarried?”

She shrugged. “No one from my side would have told him. I doubt it.”

Beck sighed faintly and snuggled down with her, feeling pretty weary himself.  “Maybe you’d better find a picture of him so if he shows up on our doorstep, I know who he is.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said softly. Then she paused. “Beck?”

“What, baby?”

“Thank you. For everything, thank you.”

He hugged her as they both began to drift off to sleep.  Blakesley was just about there when fusses and cries came from the bassinet beside the bed.   She sighed heavily and opened her eyes just about the time Beck was climbing out of bed.  He went to the bassinet and picked the baby up as she began to cry for her midnight feeding, handing her off to Blakesley when she unbuttoned her pajama top.