Page 36 of Finally Mine
“Hey, Gloria,” Sophie called from the kitchen over the shrill of toddler. “I made some lemonade. Want a glass?”
Cold lemonade on a throat scorched from bitter emotion. “That would be great, thanks,” Gloria called back.
The source of the giggles rocketed out of the kitchen and threw himself at his father’s knees.
“Daaaaaaaad!” Josh Adler was five hundred pounds of energy packed into the wiry build of a three-year-old. He favored his father with dirty blond hair and a dimpled chin. But it was all his mother’s mischief that danced in his bright eyes.
Ty hefted his son high, expertly missing the turning ceiling fan by inches. Sophie breezed into the living room, pretty in leggings and an off-the-shoulder top. She handed Gloria a tall glass of lemonade garnished with a wedge of lemon and sprig of lavender and pressed a borderline indecent kiss to her husband’s mouth.
The irony of wild child Sophie Garrison settling down with ultimate good-guy-with-a-badge Ty was amusing enough to bring a smile to Gloria’s face. Love could heal, Gloria decided, watching the three of them glow together as a unit.
The pang of longing hit her hard, square in the heart. Would she ever have an ounce of that happiness? That belonging? Would she ever have a family? A man who looked at her the way Ty looked at Sophie?
Embarrassed, Gloria looked away. One of the throw pillows on the couch moved, then barked. And she realized it was a tiny dog…with couch stuffing hanging out of her mouth.
“Damn it, Bitsy,” Sophie yelled.
“Damn it, Bitsy,” Josh repeated.
“Nice goin’, Soph,” Ty said, juggling Josh into his mother’s arms. “Why don’t you take our future felon here and make yourselves scarce?”
“Come on, Mr. Parrot,” Sophie sighed, toting Josh up the tidy little staircase. Bitsy followed on Sophie’s bare heels.
“Step into my office,” Ty said, opening his arm toward the couch. “I assume this has something to do with Glenn Diller?”
Gloria nodded and sat on the cushion that hadn’t yet been eaten by the dog. She pulled the letter from her purse and held it for a moment. She was so used to hanging on to her shame, her secrets. It was hard to turn that off. Hard to break open and share that shame.
“I got this in the mail last night.” She handed the envelope, the shame, over to him.
Ty read it, his eyes going cop cold.
“There’s nothing you can do about it, is there?” Gloria sighed. She’d known. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t pissed.
“There’s no specific threat,” Ty said diplomatically.
“He tried to kill me. He spent the last decade beating the life out of me.” Gloria couldn’t quell the red rush of fury that swept through her body.
“The law’s the law,” Ty said, bravely stepping into her anger. “I’m not saying it’s right. And I’m definitely not saying that he has the right to keep on torturing you. You need a personal protection order. We can turn letters like this into a crime.”
“And the law will do what the next time he threatens my life?” Gloria demanded.Nothing. They would do nothing.
“Not much,” Ty admitted. “But every brick you add to this case, every piece of evidence keeps him away from you.”
“Why is it my job to prove that he’s a monster?” She collapsed back against the cushion. “Why does it fall on me to fight to be safe?”
“I’m fighting with you, Gloria.” Ty’s eyes were serious. “I’m not going to let him anywhere near you ever again. But I have to operate within the law. So, why don’t you come on down to the station tomorrow, and we’ll start the paperwork. I’ll do what I can, I promise you that.”
Gloria nodded numbly. It wasn’t enough. She wondered, if anything would ever be enough as long as Glenn Diller was still alive. Would she ever feel confident in her safety?
“Mind if I hang on to this?” Ty asked, tapping the letter against his palm.
“Knock yourself out.”
19
“Move that ass, private,” Aldo bellowed as a freckled white guy from Omaha, Nebraska, chased fruitlessly after Corporal Talia Williams, a woman with seven inches of leg and two deployments on him. “Move! Move! Move!”
He cracked a grin from his vantage point—a cobbled together lifeguard chair made by a bored maintenance crew—as the private took a nose dive into a muddy trench that Williams vaulted like a gazelle.
