Protecting The Single Mom

“She gave me a brownie tonight at the party,” Danny said.

“Party?” Trent cocked his head toward Cate.

Cate paused, her eyes locked on Trent. “It was a baby shower.”

“Oh,” he said, and turned to Danny. “So, I’ll see you at the Sunflower Festival?”

“Sure,” Danny replied quickly.

Cate noticed that Danny didn’t look to her for approval. He was too busy smiling at the detective.

“I’ll be going,” Trent said as he opened the door fully. “Make sure all the doors are locked, and double-check your windows, too.”

Cate’s eyes widened. “The windows.”

“They are locked, right? You always check them, right?” he asked warily.

“Uh. No.”

“What about the basement windows where someone can crawl in?”

“Those I had boarded up and sealed when we moved in. I try never to go down there if I can help it.”

“Yeah,” Danny chimed in. “It’s spooky.”

She nodded. “It is.”

“Do you want me to check the windows for you?”

“No, I can do it. There aren’t that many,” she said.

“Okay.” Trent stepped out. “Lock up behind me.”

“Goodbye... Detective Davis.” She closed the door and locked it.

Cate felt as if she’d run a gauntlet through swinging knife blades. Police. The last thing she needed in her life right now was a cop. Now or ever.

* * *

TRENT WENT TO his car. As he drove away, he noticed that Cate and Danny were watching him leave from the living-room window.

Purposefully, he drove down two blocks, then doubled back, turning off his headlights so she wouldn’t see him returning. He parked four doors away.

As his eyes tracked over to the house, he noticed as each of the lights was turned off. The last one was at the far right end of the house. Presumably, Cate’s bedroom.

Cate.

He’d never paid much attention to her when he’d seen her around town. Thinking about it, he realized she was the kind of woman who didn’t meet a man’s eyes. She didn’t flirt. Didn’t smile much, either. Now he knew why.

She was pretty enough. Soft peachy skin. Thick brunette hair that hung in a straight cut just past her chin.

Trent flung even the hint of Cate out of his head. With his PTSD, he wasn’t relationship material—for anybody. To save everyone heartache, it was best for him to bury romantic emotions.

Cate was simply part of his investigation. That was all.

Trent’s life worked best with him alone. No one to hear his screams in the night. No one to talk him down from another nightmare. No one to whom he’d have to describe what it was like to have his best buddy blown to pieces right before his eyes. The IED should have been detected. It would have been better if Trent had been the one to die. Trent didn’t have a wife and kids. But Parker had.

The vision of Parker’s bloody body pieces strewed over the sand was burned on his soul. It was part of him. He couldn’t right click and delete it. Shoot it or kill it. It lived deep in his psyche where it haunted him.

Trent dropped his face to his hands. Sweat had sprung out on his forehead and ran down his temples. It was always like this. He’d heat up and then when the memory faded, he’d cool off. His mouth was dry.

It was always the same. Predictable. But the onset was like a rogue wave. He never knew when it was coming. Only that it would be back again and again. That was the hell of it.

Because no treatment worked. Cognitive processing therapy and prolonged exposure therapy didn’t help. He’d tried a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, but it hadn’t made a dent.

He drank deeply from his water bottle and looked at Cate’s bedroom window.

The light had gone out.

“Time for some shut-eye,” he mumbled as he stared at the house.

Trent sat up in his seat as he remembered Cate’s brown eyes.

That was it. There was something wrong with her eyes. Tonight, in the harsh overhead foyer light, she’d looked straight at him.

That’s when he’d noticed it. She wore colored contacts. The kind that muted the eye. Made it difficult, if not impossible, to read someone’s thoughts. Trent was usually spot-on with deciphering expressions, voice tones, nuances that disclosed valuable information.

He’d frightened her tonight. He’d blundered and hoped he’d smoothed it over. He needed her to trust him. It was a bonus that her son had taken a liking to him. He might need some support in the days to come. Cate was wary and suspicious, as well she should be. He couldn’t imagine what life had been like for her all this time—living this lie.

Looking at the situation from Cate’s side, he imagined that to her, he was just about the worst thing that could happen to her. His investigation would blow her story to pieces.

Cate was right not to trust him.

In order to throw the snare on Le Grande, he might hurt Cate.

CHAPTER FOUR (#u4555a22a-9ad6-58c6-9069-75acc86152f2)

CATE THREW BACK the last precious drops of the cappuccino that Maddie Barzonni had made especially for her. Maddie had drawn a little house with a “sold” sign over the door because Cate had a showing with a new buyer today. Maddie was a firm believer in manifesting one’s destiny. So was Cate. In fact, she’d been manifesting and creating her life so expertly and for so many years, she felt she should give fiction writing a shot.

“Maybe a screenplay,” she mumbled to herself as she drove up to 415 Park Street.

She looked at the computer printout she’d brought with her. The house had been on the market for nearly a year, and Cate could see why. The grass was ankle-high, all the landscaping was in need of watering and trimming. The windows were dirty, and there were flyers and free newspapers flung around the door.

“Definitely no curb appeal,” she grumbled as she unhooked her seat belt. She gathered her purse, briefcase and the code she’d need to unlock the key lock. Cate had seen this situation before. The house was part of an estate, and the remaining family lived thousands of miles from Indian Lake. There was no one to oversee the house, and the listing agent realized early on that the place was a hard sell and, quite obviously, didn’t bother to mow the yard or have any work done. Efforts like those were paid for by the agent in hopes of a large commission. Even Cate would have given up on this house.

As she approached, she could see that the house needed paint, repairs to the gutters and a new storm door. Cate tried to tuck the piece of screen that had come loose into the metal groove along the inside of the frame, but the screen was so old and rusty, she was afraid she’d need a tetanus shot.

She was just about to punch in the security code when she heard a thundering rumble as a massive black Toyota Tacoma truck pulled up. The tires were so huge, the vehicle looked more like a military tank than a flatbed truck.