Defender: A Stepbrother Romance Read online

  “Did he say what the number was?”

  “He implied that it was quite a bit over the legal limit.”

  “But he never showed it to you?”

  He shook his head again. “And they didn’t arrest her.”

  I turned back toward the house, an image of Eden in handcuffs floating through my mind. There might have been a time when that would have been a pleasant image in my mind–still might be to a certain degree–but I could see the toll all of it was taking on my stepdad. Despite the fact that she was a grown woman who should be supporting herself, living an independent life, she was still that little, motherless princess to him. He needed to save her.

  Unfortunately, I knew it was just the beginning of a huge, ugly mess.

  I touched Dad’s arm lightly. “I have to warn you,” I said quietly, “that it’s still possible they will arrest her. I’m not sure why they didn’t arrest her the night of the accident or within the first few days after. It’s possible something went wrong with the blood test at the hospital, or there was some sort of paperwork snafu. I don’t know.” I glanced toward the house again. “But, from a lawyer’s point of view–if I were representing the commissioner’s son, I would be pushing the police to arrest her within the next few weeks. If I were him, I would want that arrest on the record before we go to court in order to bring it before the judge.”

  Alistair nodded. “That crossed my mind.”

  “Have you talked to Eden about it?”

  “No. I didn’t want to upset her.”

  “I think the time for worrying about her frame of mind has long passed. We need to discuss all of this with her. But first I need to hear what happened that night from her.”

  And there I was, pulled into the case despite my determination to just make an appearance, appease my mother, and then convince them all that a local lawyer would be a better option after reviewing all the details. But that wasn’t the best chance Eden had. And, no matter what had happened between Eden and me, I cared enough about my stepdad to want to make it right for him.

  Ten

  Eden

  How was I supposed to be honest and forthright with my attorney when it was Crawford staring at me from across the dining room table?

  The amazingly tender pot roast we’d just finished for dinner had turned into a lump in my stomach, threatening to leave me with a terrible stomach ache for the rest of the night. I wanted to get up and go upstairs, to disappear into what was my childhood bedroom, still furnished with my old canopy bed and band posters that had hung there all through high school. I hadn’t spent more than a few months in that room since I graduated and went off to college, but it was still something of a sanctuary, and I still longed for it before anything else.

  “What time did you leave your apartment that night?” Crawford asked.

  I shrugged. “I was supposed to meet my date at six, so I left a little after five to give myself a few minutes to find parking around the restaurant.”

  “And this was Zirki’s in Lubbock?”

  “Yeah.”

  Crawford typed something on the tablet he held in front of him, his eyes darting impatiently at me over the top. “And then?”

  It irritated me when he assumed I knew what he wanted me to do or say. If I’d kept talking, assuming he wanted to know more, he would have told me to shut up so he could make notes.

  “I pulled into the driveway in front of the restaurant and handed my keys to the valet, then went inside. The hostess took me to the table where my date was waiting.”

  “Had you gone out with this guy before?”

  Did I hear a little trickle of…probably not. “No. It was a blind date Jeannie set me up on.”

  Crawford glanced at me, but then he went back to typing on his tablet, waving an impatient hand at me to continue.

  “We ordered, ate our dinner, then I left.”

  My stepbrother shook his head. “If I’m going to help you, I need as much detail as possible.”

  “Then you have to help me out here. What kind of detail do you want? Do you want to know what I ate? It was some sort of chicken marsala mess. Do you want to know what we talked about? He’s an accountant. We talked about his work most of the night, which is why I left.”

  “How long were you there? How much did you drink? What did you drink?”

  I groaned. My Dad took my hand and squeezed it gently. I saw Crawford look pointedly at our touching hands then met my eye, the expression in his eyes like a page from a novel.

  Look what you’re doing to your Dad, he seemed to say. Look what your actions are doing to this family.

  Like I hadn’t heard that from him before. Sometimes I heard his voice in the middle of the night, my heart replaying that summer years ago.

  “You’re a fuck up, Eden,” he’d said. “You do all these things without thinking about how it might impact the people who love you the most. You’re like a hurricane, ripping through our hearts and leaving all this destruction in your wake like it doesn’t matter. But it does matter and I, for one, am done. Next time you get yourself into a bind, don’t bother to call me, because I won’t answer.”

  Yet, he was there. And that made me wonder if maybe his opinion of me had softened a little over the years.

  “I was there maybe two hours, if that. And, yes, we drank. He ordered a bottle of merlot, and I drank maybe two glasses from the first bottle.”

  Crawford’s sharp gaze fell on my face. “How many bottles were there?”

  “Two. I drank two glasses from the first, two, maybe three, from the second.”

  “How close together?”

  “The last two were pretty close together. I downed them because he was irritating me, and I thought a good buzz would make him easier to swallow. But I didn’t even feel it.”

  Crawford shook his head, clearly not impressed with my behavior. Nothing new about that. “So, you downed two glasses of wine, maybe three, and then walked out of the restaurant?”

  “And went to the valet. He took my ticket and went to retrieve my car. I remember tipping him as I got into the car, then I pulled forward. After that…things are pretty jumbled.”

  “She had a concussion,” Dad told Crawford. Mom nodded, agreeing with everything that had been stated so far.

  Crawford hid his face behind his tablet, clearly not interested in looking at me in that moment. That was fine with me. I stood up and stretched, feeling a little too much like I was in some police interrogation or something.

  “They didn’t give me a ticket.”

  “Excuse me?”

  I turned and looked at Crawford. “The police. I didn’t get a ticket for the accident. How could this guy sue me if even the police didn’t think I did anything wrong?”

  Crawford sighed heavily as he set his tablet face down on the table. He looked first at Dad then at Mom, his mouth pulled so tightly into a frown that it totally altered the lines of his face. He was still handsome, just an unhappy sort of handsome.

  “My assistant called the police station this afternoon and spoke with the detective in charge. According to him, the accident is still under investigation. No tickets or warrants will be issued until the investigation is concluded.”

  “How long does it take to investigate a traffic accident?” I asked. “It’s been six weeks.”

  “I’ve seen it take three or four months,” Crawford said.

  I groaned, annoyed by his know-it-all attitude. I’d forgotten that unfortunate aspect of his personality. Crawford always knew everything and would always make you feel like a loser because you didn’t know everything he knew.

  Such a loving brother.

  “There’s still a possibility you will be arrested, Eden.”

  I laughed. I actually laughed because it just seemed so absurd, the idea that I could be arrested for anything, let alone an accident in which I lost my car and my favorite dress. I was the one with over five thousand dollars’ worth of medical bills waiting to be paid (the insuran
ce through my job pretty much sucks). I was the one who was taken to the hospital by ambulance. This guy…he had a few bruises. He didn’t even bother to go to the doctor until two or three days later. “This whole thing is ridiculous,” I scoffed. “He had to have hit me. Have you seen my car?”

  Crawford inclined his head slightly. “My assistant is tracking some photos down as we speak.”

  I shook my head again and began to pace, walking the length of the small dining room behind the line of chairs where Mom and my Dad sat side by side. They were always next to each other. I was so used to Vera being at my Dad’s side that I hardly thought about it anymore. I don’t even have memories–not really strong memories–of a time before my stepmom.

  Or Crawford.

  But Crawford was more of an enigma to me. He was always busy with sports and his own thing, always off doing something with his friends. Maybe that was why I shadowed him so much during his free time. Because he had so little of it that it was the only time I could hang out with him.

  And then he went to college. I hardly saw him at all during that time. Just a few weeks during the summer when he had time off from whatever he was involved in at school. One year he had a football training camp he had to attend. Another year, he went off with a group of classmates to hike part of the Appalachian Trail. Another year he had a job he wanted to keep.

  And then that summer before law school. He was only home a week, but it was an incredibly awkward week, in part because of what had happened between us when he invited me to stay in his dorm with him. Then there was the favor I asked of him…

  “You should expect to be arrested at some point in the next week or two, Eden.”

  I turned on my heel and stared at Crawford. “Me? Why me?”

  “Because you’re not the police commissioner’s child, but the guy you hit is.”

  My head started to spin then. I took a step forward and nearly fell flat on my ass. If Crawford hadn’t jumped up and got his arm around my waist, I would have been on the floor.

  “Take her to the couch,” Dad said, worry dripping from his voice like water from a soaked paper towel.

  Crawford swung me up into his arms, and I found myself nestled around his chest, my head fitting perfectly on the width of his shoulder. He smelled like something expensive–patchouli and sage–a strong, masculine scent that would have made my knees weak if they hadn’t already given out on me. Tough, I had to admit, I kind of missed the Drakkar he favored in high school.

  I was almost disappointed when we got to the couch and he lay me down, settling my body carefully against the soft cushions, his hand dragging against my arm before he stepped back, almost as though he wanted to touch me, almost as though he cared about me.

  But that couldn’t be possible, could it?

  “Here,” Dad said, pushing Crawford aside as she bent to press a cool cloth against my forehead. “This will make you feel better.”

  And then the doorbell rang at the same moment Crawford’s phone rang.

  Eleven

  Crawford

  “Don’t answer it. Not yet,” I said as Dad started for the door.

  I was pretty sure I knew what was happening, thanks to the colored lights flashing through the windows and bouncing off the walls. They’d come for her.

  Having my assistant ask questions must have set them off. They must have decided it was better to do it then than to wait and have me throw a wrench into their plans.

  My assistant was calling, likely with the news that a warrant had been issued for Eden’s arrest. I ignored the phone in favor of answering the door myself.

  The cop standing there was someone I knew. I wasn’t prepared for that.

  “Crawford,” he said, just as surprised as I was.

  “Hey, Brent.” I smiled, taking his proffered hand. “I didn’t know you’d become a cop.”

  “Yeah. It was better than joining my Dad out in the cotton fields, you know?”

  I nodded, remembering long weekends helping Brent’s dad cultivate the fields on their farm. It was hard work, even with the machinery that was supposed to make farming so much easier.

  “So, I assume you have an arrest warrant?”

  Brent nodded, pulling the piece of paper out of a back pocket. I took it, taking my time in unfolding it and reading through the charges.

  Driving while intoxicated. I’d expected that. What I hadn’t really expected–but should have–was that the listed blood alcohol level was 0.13, which was significantly over the legal limit.

  Reckless driving. That was pretty standard in those type of cases.

  Attempted vehicular manslaughter. Now that was just pushing the issue just a little. They were padding the charges to make the boy’s case stronger. Nothing in the story I’d been told warranted charges like that. But that was something I would have to deal with at the preliminary hearing.

  “How long will it take you to process her?”

  Brent stepped back slightly. “About an hour, I’d guess. You can have her father follow us down, and by the time the paperwork is done, she should be ready to go.”

  “Okay.” I folded the warrant back up and shoved it into my own back pocket. “Just give us a minute.”

  Brent glanced back at his radio car. It wasn’t until then that I noticed he hadn’t come alone. There was another man in the car wearing street clothes. A detective, I would guess. That was quite unusual. But I supposed, given the circumstances, the commissioner might have wanted everything done by the book.

  “I should probably come inside. I was told not to let her out of my sight.”

  I bit my tongue to keep from saying something that I–or more likely Eden–would regret later. I stepped aside and gestured for Brent to come into the house.

  Eden was sitting up on the couch now, her face pale and her eyes wide, alert. She knew what was happening and wasn’t terribly thrilled with it. But none of my clients ever were. I usually had more notice that a warrant was coming, but again it was pretty obvious the commissioner was playing games with the case in order to get the best outcome for his spoiled, college-aged son, treating him with kid gloves, as if that would ever teach him to grow up and fight his own battles.

  My phone rang again. I touched the power button to silence it as I crossed the room, reaching Eden just a step or two ahead of Brent.

  “You have to go with him,” I said, pulling her to her feet with a rough hand under her arm. I moved close so that the next thing I said only she could hear. “Keep your fucking mouth shut. If they question you, you answer only yes or no questions. Otherwise, you tell them you want a lawyer and they should call me. Got it?”

  She nodded quickly, a soft mewling sound slipping from her throat as she did.

  “Keep your head up, pay attention to everything they say in front of you. But don’t speak unless they ask you for a water, okay?”

  “Yes.” She was shaking. I could feel it as she pressed her side to mine for a brief second. And then Brent was behind her, pulling her arms behind her back and reciting the Miranda Rights from memory.

  “You realize you’re supposed to read those from a card, right?” I asked.

  “Are we really going to do that, counselor?” Brent asked, suddenly all business.

  “Yes. We are.”

  So he paused, letting go of Eden long enough to pull out the little plastic card he carried in his wallet. The pause was long enough that Dad was able to give Eden a quick, but reassuring hug, saying something that put back a little of the color her face had lost. And then Brent grabbed her arms and pushed her toward the front door, reading from the card as he did. A part of me kind of hoped he would trip over the carpet on his way there, but he managed to stay on his feet to the door, through it, and out onto the front porch.

  “We’ll be right behind you, Eden,” I said in as reassuring a tone as I could manage.

  She didn’t look back.

  Twelve

  Eden

  “So, I heard Crawford�
��s a big shot lawyer in New York now,” Brent said as he pushed me toward the waiting car. “I guess it’s convenient that he’s here.”

  I didn’t answer. Not because Crawford told me not to talk, but because I was afraid if I opened my mouth, the tears that were choking me, so stuck in my throat as they were, would break free and start rushing down my cheeks.

  “I don’t suppose that will do you much good, though. A lawyer has to be a member of the bar in Texas to practice here.”

  And that was like the last nail in the coffin. I felt my knees begin to go weak again. Thank God we were already to the car. Brent set his big, sweaty hand on the top of my head and shoved me down inside the vehicle, guiding me around the door jamb like I was a child. It reminded me of those episodes of Cops I used to sneak downstairs to watch in the middle of the night when I was in middle school. Most kids snuck around to watch pornography. I was more interested in watching cops arrest prostitutes and wife beaters.

  When I was secure in the car and Brent shut the door, I glanced out the window. I shouldn’t have. I saw my family standing there, my father holding Mom in his arms. Both were so pale. You’d think they were watching me be carted away in a hearse rather than a police car. It made my stomach turn over, my eyes swim with tears. I just wanted to disappear. The idea that I was the reason they were so hurt and heartbroken…it was so wrong.

  And then my eyes landed on Crawford. He made a gesture, one he used to make when we were kids and I’d be performing in some school play or class program, a subtle touch of one finger against the underside of his chin. I think it was supposed to mean, ‘keep your chin up’, but I always took it as something more than that, as him telling me he believed in me and that I could do anything. And, invariably, it always worked. It seemed like an odd situation for the moment, but it was reassuring just the same. He was telling me I could survive the situation. I wasn’t as sure, but the fact that he believed I could made me want to.