Keeping Her Safe

While she would toss and turn in her bed and wonder why on earth Daniel Fortune had had to send her a man like Vincent.

A man who reminded her that no matter how much progress she had made over the years, she still had weaknesses. Ah well, no matter; by morning she would have those weaknesses harnessed.

Vincent wasn’t going to get under her skin again. And he’d probably soon be gone. Those notes were most likely written in the heat of the moment and would soon stop.

Reporters got them all the time. There was no real danger other than Vincent’s masculine appeal.

Vincent spent a long time staring up at the ceiling that night. He had half a mind to call Derek and ask him if everything was all right. The other half of his mind wanted to drive to Natalie’s house and tell Derek that he would take care of things from here on out.

Which was stupid and wrong. Derek was a good guard. He knew how to do his job.

Even if Natalie tried to give him the slip? Vincent wondered, and he almost smiled at that. He remembered her climbing from that window, remembered her giving him that knowing smile and tossing his own words back at him. She was sassy and determined and she cared about her subjects. He had to admire that about her. Her green eyes were alive with intelligence and indignation at the injustice done to her friends. She was a beautiful woman on a mission, and she was determined to do her job no matter what. Could Derek handle that?

“The better question is, can you handle that?” Vincent asked himself. He was attracted to her, and he never allowed that to happen on a job.

But he would handle it this time.

Somehow.

“This is so difficult to handle,” Blake Jamison said two days later in a conversation with Ryan Fortune, head of the Fortune family and empire and now a new friend and relative whom Blake cherished. “I don’t really understand how all of this can have happened. In the years since we’ve been married, Darcy and I have led a dull but mostly contented existence. My family has had its problems, but this…this is so…I don’t know how to handle this. How is it that one of my sons—”

His voice broke. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“You don’t have to explain anything to us,” Patrick Fortune, Ryan’s cousin, said. Patrick’s banking business had led to a life in New York but he was spending more time in Texas these days and planned to retire here soon. His opinion carried weight. “I’m sure you know that the Fortunes have had their own history of family problems over the years.”

“Yes, but for one of my sons to kill his own brother!” Blake practically yelled the words. “How does a man deal with that?”

“I don’t think he does, Blake,” Ryan said quietly. “I don’t think you’ll ever be able to reconcile the fact that Jason was able to kill not once, but twice, and that one of those he murdered was his own brother.”

Blake ran one hand through his hair, mussing it. Not that it mattered. Did anything matter anymore?

“I spent years trying to locate Jason. I don’t know what else Darcy and I could have done. We tried so many things. We tried to reach him, to change him. He was always difficult, but still, he was mine. I thought he would change as he grew up. I thought he was still mine. I understand that he seemed to be an exemplary employee while he was working for you.” Blake raised his eyes questioningly, hopefully, to Ryan.

“He seemed to be. But there’s a lot we still don’t know. Like the woman he killed. He passed her off as his wife. It appears that she wasn’t. The police said that her real name was Melissa Anderson, not Melissa Wilkes.”

“If that reporter, Natalie McCabe, hadn’t seen what happened and reported it, he might still be on the loose.”

Ryan shook his head. “They would have found him in time. Family members always get questioned. The fact that he claimed to be married to her and wasn’t would have only made the authorities more suspicious. Natalie’s witnessing the act only speeded up the process.”

Blake nodded. “I’m glad she turned him in. That’s a terrible thing for a father to say.” Tears filled his throat, and he paused, searching for words. “There’s a sickness in him, I think. He has to be sick.” But sickness implied that no one was to blame. That wasn’t what he meant to say.

Blake held up his hand as if to add something, but he didn’t know what was left to say. He had fathered three sons. Emmett was missing, Christopher was dead, and Jason might as well be dead.

“You can’t change what has happened, Blake,” Ryan was saying softly. “Don’t even try to make sense of it. It’s impossible. You’ll drive yourself crazy.”

“I know. I have to learn to live with this.”

“You have to learn that you’re not to blame for Jason being in prison for murder,” Patrick said. “Don’t go down that road. As Ryan said, this isn’t your doing.”

“Christopher was a good man,” Blake said, barely able to even mouth the words. “I can’t forgive Jason.”

“You don’t have to,” Ryan said tersely. “Not unless you want to.”

Blake shook his head. “I can’t, but I have to see him. I have to try to understand. I have to learn to deal with all of this somehow.”

In his heart, Blake knew that he had to learn to deal with his own part in what had happened. Despite what Patrick and Ryan had said, Blake knew that he was not blameless in all of this. Not by a long shot.

Jason had been a problem child, and Blake had let it pass. He had ignored Darcy’s pleas to keep his children away from their grandfather, Farley. Farley had been half-crazy and jealous of the Fortune family, telling his grandson, Jason, about how Kingston Fortune had been fathered by a Jamison and how some of Kingston’s money and power should have belonged to the Jamisons. Never mind that Kingston’s father hadn’t even known he’d had a son, or that Kingston had been raised by the Fortune family. Farley ranted and raved to Jason, and Jason, already a troubled young man who idolized his grandfather, had listened to his grandfather’s demented ravings of injustice for years.

Deep down inside, Blake knew that he was to blame. He should have paid more attention to Jason, loved his son enough to try harder to save him from himself. If he had done that, maybe Jason’s idolization of Farley wouldn’t have happened. Farley had been a dangerous man.

Now Blake couldn’t help wondering just how dangerous and depraved Jason really was, and what he would do now that he was trapped.

“I have to try to do something,” Blake said.

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