Emerald (Steele Investigations) (16 page)

“I’m glad I do that for you, baby, but I’m sorry you’ve had
to suffer with it for so long,” he says and then kisses my forehead sweetly.

“Have a good day, baby, I’ll pick you up at half five,”
Travis says as he walks me through the door of Amore De Vie Boutique.

“Hey Travis,” Rae shouts from behind the counter.

“Rae,” Travis greets her with a warm smile and chin lift.

“Five thirty, babe,” Travis gently squeezes my hip.

“Five thirty,” I repeat softly.

“Late, Travis,” Rae shouts again

“Later,” he replies with another chin lift.

“Later, baby,” he smiles as he leans in to place a soft, wet
kiss on my lips.

“Later,” I breathe.

“You got me today, Jem.  Tom is sick.” Rae informs me when I
reach the counter.

“Oh,” I frown, “he had a date last night.  I hope his
sickness is self-inflicted and not heart sickness,” I reply.

“I’m sure it is.  He texted me this morning saying he had an
upset stomach and a headache.  I should have known,” she laughs.  “Do you know
who his date was?”

“No, he said they met a few years ago at a movie premiere
and had a few dates, hit it off and then he had to go away.  He’s back in town
so they decided to catch up.  I hope things went well for him.”

“Yeah, me too.  He deserves happiness,” Rae says
thoughtfully.

“Totally,” I reply then set about doing my job, which today
consists of unpacking a large shipment of clothing, cataloguing the items,
pricing them and hanging them.

******

I’m bent over, ass in the air, head in a large box which is
sitting on the floor, grabbing a belt from the bottom which has come unattached
from the dress it belongs to when I feel two warm solid arms wrap around my
middle.  It frightens the shit out of me and I jump in the air at the same I
shriek and try to spin around.

“Hey, baby,” Travis says casually in my ear.

“God, Travis, you scared the shit out of me,” I say, hand on
my heart as it thuds rapidly underneath.

He gives a chuckle, then sobers.  “Ready?” he asks

“Is it that time already?” I’m shocked, the afternoon has
flown by.  Rae has been busy serving customers and I have been busy with the
stock.  We’ve barely said two words to each other since our initial
conversation when I arrived at work.

“Five thirty three, honey,”

“Wow.  The afternoon has flown.  I’ll grab my purse from the
back.”  He lets me go and I make my way out to the kitchenette to retrieve my
purse.  I start to get anxious on the way, thinking about what’s to come.  I’ve
never even stepped foot inside a police station.  I remember my class went one
day on a field trip when I was ten
.  I missed that day because of my father
. 
The thought makes my lip curl in disgust.  He had made me take the day off
school and go with him to “work”.  There were lots of men standing around and
he paraded me, introducing me as his ‘very special helper – my daughter,
Jemma’.  The men were creepy.  Not in terms of looks.  They looked like every
day middle aged men. It was the vibe in the room that initially frightened me. 
I felt like a lamb would feel when it was facing slaughter.  As my father
laughed and joked with the men I stood by his side and he absently stroked my
arm, sometimes dropping lower to run his hand across my bottom, or he’d drape
his arm around my shoulders and slide his finger across my unformed breasts.  A
few times some of the men even grabbed my breast when my father introduced me,
and one other kissed me on the mouth and ran his tongue across my lips. 
Suffice to say, by the end of the day, I was petrified.  I did everything in my
power to push that day out of my mind, and today is the first time I’ve thought
of that time in my life, in a long time.  Knowing what I know now, I realize
that I
was
like a lamb to slaughter.  Those men were pedophiles in my
father’s racket.  The thought makes my stomach churn – how many other little
girls have been through that at the hands of my father?  My throat starts to
close and my heart pounds in my chest.

Breathe in, two, three, four.

Hold it, two, three, four.

Let it out, two, three, four.

I repeat my breathing exercises until I get myself under
control and then a fierce fire starts burning through my blood.  I am going to
put that monster away.  He
will never
hurt another person again in his
miserable excuse for a life.

I grab my purse and make my way back out to Travis, who is
talking to Rae as she dusts the shelves near the front display window.

“Ready, mama,” he asks quietly when I reach them.

“Yes,” I say fiercely.

He looks at me a beat, his eyes doing that searching thing
over my face.

“Right,” he nods once.

“Later, Rae,”

“Later, Jem. Later, Travis,”

Travis gives her a chin lift and says, “Later,” as he slides
and arm around my waist and we walk out the door to his Camaro.

I slide in the passenger seat and watch him as he rounds the
hood and folds himself into the driver side.

“Would you let me drive this car?” I ask as she purrs to
life.

He raises his eyebrow and simply says, “Babe.”

“Not now.  I mean when I get a car again and get back into
practice.” 

“Again?”

Huh.

“What do you mean, again?”

“When you get a car, again?  What happened to the car you
had?”

Crap.

“Nothing,” I lie stupidly.

“So it’s at your place?” He asks, knowing damn well the
answer.

“No,” I answer.  I really don’t want to get into this now.

“Then what happened to the car you had?” He persists.

“I sold it,” I say, hoping that will satisfy him.  It
doesn’t.  I should have known better.

“Why’d you sell it?”

“Because,”  I say shrugging my shoulders.

“Babe.  Babe, eyes to me.  Why did you sell it?”

“I had to,” I say quietly.

“Why,” his voice has gone hard.

“I was short on my payment for the month and I needed the
money to make up the difference.  You saw what he done when I was a few weeks
late with a full payment.  Can you imagine what he would of done if I had been
short
.” 
I explain.

I hear him take in a sharp, deep breath as the car fills
with an angry vibe.

“Gettin’ you a new car, babe,” he states.

“Uh, no.  Travis.  That’s fine.  I don’t need a car.  I take
the bus.  I like it.  It’s fine.  I’ll get a car later down the track,” I say
quickly.  He
is not
getting me a car!

“Not sayin’ I’m gettin’ it tomorrow, babe.  What I am sayin’
is, you’re gettin’ a new car.  Don’t argue.  You won’t win.”

“Trav-,”

“Don’t argue.”

“I like the-,”

“Babe.  It’s a safety thing.  Goin’ home on the bus at
night, to a place where you live by yourself, is not safe.  Days that I’m not
here to pick you up, means you’re travellin’ home, all alone, on a bus, to an
empty house.  How difficult do you think it would be for a man to follow you
onto that bus, get off at your stop, follow you home and attack you at your
front door?”  He doesn’t wait for my answer.  “Gettin’ a new car.”

“Okay,” I whisper.

“Right.  Now you’re lucky ‘cause more times than not I’m
gonna be here to pick you up.  Day’s that I’m not you’ll have your own car to
drive.”

“Okay.”

“Station,” he says as he pulls out and drives us to the
Station.

******

“You want soup, babe,”

“Yeah, just a little,” I answer.

We’ve just returned from giving my statement to Detective
Dave Kormier.  He’s a couple of inches shorter than Travis and he has blonde
hair and friendly light blue eyes.  He works with another guy, Detective Brian
Fallow, who is middle aged and balding.  We sat in Detective Kormier’s office
and he took my statement, asked questions which I answered to the best of my
ability and he took notes while I tried to give him as much detailed
information as possible while I also tried to ignore the way the air in the
room turned so thick it felt like a brick wall was closing in on my face, when
I relived my history of sexual abuse at the hands of my father, the day I was
introduced to his ‘friends’ and the night I was raped.  To be fair to Travis, I
should have told him the whole story before he had to hear it in a room with
two other men, those two men being detectives and that room being inside the
local police station.  However, Detective Kormier told him to “Get a handle on
it, Steele. Lock it down.”  He said this in a firm, unquestioning tone and I
heard Travis suck in a deep breathe, hold it, and then release it before
Detective Kormier’s eyes slid back to me and he asked me in a gentle voice to
continue.   I continued, and when I finished both detectives reassured me in a
tone that made me believe them, that they would bring my father and his
operation down.  They also gave me their cards and told me to call anytime, if
I remembered anything else or if I just wanted to talk.  I shook their hands and
at Travis’s urging, went to get a hot chocolate from the fancy machine they
kept in the station kitchen.  I did this without complaint firstly, because he
clearly needed to speak with the detectives alone, secondly, because I was too
worn out to care, having just relived the most painful and humiliating aspects
of my childhood, and adulthood because I also told them about my monthly
payments to my father, and thirdly because I wanted a hot chocolate.  The
machine was the same one in coffee houses except on a smaller scale.  I made a
hot chocolate and added a marshmallow from the container on the bench then I
went and sat down to wait for Travis. 

I wasn’t feeling what I thought I would feel.  I thought I
would heavy, weighed down, nervous, hanging out on a limb, petrified; scared
beyond belief and anxious.  But what I felt was like a weight had been lifted
off my shoulders.  I felt lighter than I ever had in my life.  I felt like I
was doing
right
for once.  I was still scared.  I was still nervous. 
But I felt okay.  I can’t change what happened to me, but I could stop it from
happening to anyone else.  I also felt safe.  I knew deep down that Travis
wouldn’t let anything happen to me.  I felt secure.

Not long after I had emptied my cup, Travis found me and
asked if I was ready.  I rinsed my cup and we left, stopping on the way back to
his house to get some Chinese takeout from Wing Lin.

“Here, baby,” he says handing me a bowl of sweet corn and
chicken soup.

“Thanks,” I smile. 

“You good?” He asks as he sits down beside me with his pork
in Peking sauce and fried rice.

“I am,” I tell him truthfully.

His eyes do the searching thing on my face again and then
settle on mine.  Then he gives my thigh a squeeze and agrees, “You are.”

“I spoke with Kormier when you went to get a drink, and we
discussed the advantages of you carrying a panic button.  Here it is,” he says
handing me a small device. “Keep it in your purse and if you ever get into a
situation and you press that button, it automatically alerts myself and
Kormier.  Okay, baby?” His voice has turned softer.  “It’s for your safety and
I can’t always be there to watch over you in person, so this is my way of
watching over you, even if I can’t physically be there.”

Well that makes sense. 

The button doesn’t scare me at all.  I doubt I’ll ever need
to use it but I agree to keep it in my purse – what harm can it do anyways?

******

“Babe, hurry up.  We’ll be late,” Travis shouts out to me.

“I’m coming, I’m coming.  Just a sec,” I shout back.

I’m in the bathroom, face about an inch away from the
mirror, mouth gaping open, steady hand deftly applying my mascara.  I swipe the
wand over my eyelashes, twice each for the top, once for the bottom.  Quickly
place the wand back inside the tube and race out into my living room.  Travis
is standing there, centre of the room, wearing faded blue jeans that fit him
perfectly.  On top he has a cream button down shirt and over that, a chocolate
brown sweater.  Dark brown George Strait cowboy boots are on his feet and dark
brown leather belt is wrapped around his waist.  He looks
edible.
  I’m
wearing a pair of dark denim boot cut jeans that have rhinestone decorations
along the pockets on my ass (borrowed from Kami), a pair of black Ariat cowgirl
boots that have embroidered suede detailing up the leg and silver toe coverings
(borrowed from Rae) and on top I have a pretty checkered blouse with cap
sleeves (my own) and over that I have a black leather jacket (again, Kami’s). 
The girls (and Tom) came over earlier with a mountain of clothes and shoes and
they helped pick my outfit.  They left me to my makeup about half an hour ago,
all three of them had dates with their respective partners, or in Tom’s case,
the guy he’s rekindling his relationship with.

“Come here,” Travis rumbles when I stop about ten feet away
from him.

“We should-,”

“Come here,” he repeats, still rumbling.

“We’re going to be-,”

“Fine.  I’ll come to you,” he says as he strides
purposefully towards me.

“Trav-,” I don’t finish what I’m saying this time because he
interrupts me with his mouth.  Hot, wet, deep and totally yum.  He kisses me
until I’m breathless and fully submerged in a Travis Trance.

“Look beautiful, baby,” he whispers against my lips.

“So do you,” I whisper back.

He shakes his head and grins, amused.

“Is something funny?” I snap, coming right out of my Travis
Trance.

“Yeah, babe. You.” Travis chuckles.

“Why am I amusing?” I snap again.

“Babe,
You
are beautiful.
I
am
not
. 
You can say I look hot, sexy, what the fuck ever, but I don’t look beautiful
and I don’t look
pretty.
  That’s what’s amusing.”