Guardian (5 page)

A
lex spent two weeks waiting
. He couldn’t imagine what it was like for Ty, not knowing when the other shoe would drop, but for Alex every day which passed without news was another day he couldn’t see or even speak to Ty. The ache this absence brought was unprecedented, and he immersed himself in work to take his mind off it.

When Ty finally called the office to say he’d received a letter from Montgomery’s attorney, Alex felt a glimmer of excitement that wasn’t entirely tied to the progression of the case. He had to shelve it, tuck it away in that box where he stored everything else to do with Ty which wasn’t strictly professional.

The knock on his door startled him from his thoughts. Val gave a little bark and rolled onto her feet.

“Come in.”

“Mr. Edwards is here to see you,” Caroline announced as she opened his door.

“Great!” His stomach did a tiny little flip, but he quashed it and rose to his feet.

Caroline smiled and gestured for Ty to enter, and the man’s bulk filled Alex’s doorway for a moment, before Caroline backed out and closed the door.

Edwards wore sunglasses which masked his eyes, but his cheeks were flush and his lips slightly parted.

Alex held his breath. He half expected Ty to say something, but words didn’t come out, and the silence grew awkward.

“Hey. Come in, take a seat.” Alex punctured the stifling pause and jabbed a finger toward the chair which faced his desk.

“Yeah.” Edwards moved at last, like he’d been given an order. He tugged his glasses off and hung them from the neck of his shirt, and as he sat the red of his cheeks began to fade. “Sorry. Got, uh. Got a letter. Thought I better bring it to you.”

“That’s what I’m here for.” Alex puzzled over Edwards’ behavior, but he wouldn’t be able to get to the bottom of it until he saw the letter. Something in it must have shaken the ex-soldier’s otherwise ironclad demeanor, because if it wasn’t that, the only other thing Alex could think of was that maybe Ty had responded to Alex’s presence.

“Right.” Ty dug into the pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out an envelope. It was slightly crumpled. “Here.” He offered it to Alex after weighing it in his hand for a second.

Alex reached for it, but Edwards’ hand was still moving. It came closer than Alex had anticipated, and when his fingers closed around the paper, he caught one of Ty’s fingers in his hold by mistake.

The unexpected touch was like a jolt of electricity. Something sparked between their hands, and Alex’s pulse raced. His breath caught in his throat.

Take the envelope! Let go of his hand. For God’s sake MOVE!

Why wasn’t
Ty
moving? Would it hurt him to put Alex out of his misery?

Alex swallowed, but his mouth remained dry, so he sat down. The movement broke their physical connection, but he still felt the warmth of Ty’s skin against his own, a phantom touch that lingered long after the real thing was gone.

“Let me look this over,” he rasped. He picked at the flap and tore the letter free, then busied himself with reading it and tried to ignore Ty’s shadow in his periphery as the big man began to examine the toys lined up on a shelf.

“Take your time,” Ty rumbled.

Alex took a breath and held it, then released it slowly to center himself. He held up the letter and read it through.

“Are these yours, or for kids?”

Alex paused and nudged his glasses up as he looked across to Ty.

The mechanic stood by Alex’s array of space shuttles. He didn’t touch any of them, but his gaze was on the collection of die-cast spacecraft.

“They’re mine,” Alex admitted. “The children’s toys are in the box over there.” He gestured to a corner by the window.

“Right.” Ty nodded to himself. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It’s fine.” Alex offered a gentle smile. “Why don’t you take a seat?”

“Am I looming? Sorry.” Ty’s lips twitched in apology and he came back to the desk. He sat at last, and once he settled he was still as a statue.

Alex chuckled, but it was brief, and his attention switched to the letter again. He read it twice just to be certain, then pursed his lips.

“He wants to take her away, doesn’t he?” Ty’s tone was flat.

“He does.” Alex set the letter down with care on his desk. “Full custody, removal from New York State, and no visitation rights for you.” He regarded Ty.

A muscle flexed in Edwards’ jaw. His features were as good as carved in stone, but his eyes blazed with fury. “Thought that’s what it said,” he growled.

Alex rested his palms on his desk and watched Edwards. He waited, but that rage didn’t simmer down in the slightest. For all Ty’s stillness, the anger at Montgomery’s action was almost palpable. “Let’s examine the facts,” he said simply. Edwards was a smart man who didn’t seem to have time in his life for bullshit, so Alex suspected that if he tried to mollify the man on feelings Ty would view it as a waste of time. Instead, logic was the way to proceed. “You currently are Phoebe’s legal guardian. Montgomery’s rights were voided in a court of law. He will be fighting on two fronts. First, to have that decision overturned, and second, for custody of Phoebe. Phoebe currently resides with you, which is a powerful factor. If this does go to court, the court will appoint an attorney to represent her interests, and her interests are very clearly in remaining with you. The
only
factor which poses a potential hitch is that Montgomery is her biological father. In that case we can only hope that we go before a sympathetic judge, and most judges in family law courts in this state are sympathetic to the needs of the child above all else. We’ve got a lot of no-nonsense post-war grandmothers sitting up there who don’t have time for the posturing and time-wasting of young men.”

The anger in Ty’s eyes slowly subsided as Alex spoke. His gaze flickered between Alex’s own eyes and his lips, and by the time Alex sat back, Ty’s posture began to relax a little.

Ty brushed a finger along his lower lip in thought. “You think if it goes to court, we’ll win.”

“I think if it goes to court,” Alex said, “we should win.”

“Does Val go to court too?”

Alex allowed himself a small smile. “No. She’s not trained as a courthouse dog. But if Phoebe does want a dog by her side during the proceedings that might be possible.”

“I don’t want to put her through this.” Ty’s hand dropped to his lap. His shoulders slumped, and his head turned away.

It took Alex a moment to realize that Ty was looking at the space shuttle line-up again. He couldn’t tell whether the toys held some relevance for the man or were appealing to him for their lack of connection to the matter at hand.

“On the other hand,” Alex murmured, “we are not going to concede, right?”

Ty’s jaw rocked, and he faced Alex. “No.”

“Tell me why not.”

Edwards gave a slow blink.

“I’m serious. I want you to put into words why you are not going to do everything this letter demands. I need to know what our argument is going to be. I want to know the sort of argument you will present in court so that our stance from start to end remains consistent. I don’t want there to be a single stumbling block in the path we take.” Alex nudged the letter aside and drew his laptop closer. “Tell me why you do not intend to give Montgomery what he wants.”

“The guy’s a weasel.” Ty sucked on his teeth briefly. “He gets a girl pregnant then bails on her. Refuses to ever pay child support. Leaves the state, doesn’t leave a forwarding address. He went off-radar to avoid the child he’d fathered, and when the court tried to find him after Mel’s death they couldn’t. When he turned up at Phoebe’s TKD class he was acting shifty. His body language was all off, like he had something to hide.” Ty stopped and glanced up a moment, eyes flitting to the left. Then he nodded to himself. “How’d he find her, Wilson?” He dropped his attention back to Alex. “How’d he know where to find her at the weekend? Does he know what school she goes to or what after-school clubs she’s part of? He’s got intel on her, which shows this isn’t a spur of the moment thing. It also shows he wanted to do this on the cheap. He didn’t want it to get legal. He wanted to swoop in and steal her, and likely take her straight out of State or even out of the country. His intel couldn’t be too good otherwise he’d know I waited for her during her class. I don’t drop her off then collect her after like some folks do with their kids.”

Alex’s fingers paused on their dance across his keyboard. “Does Phoebe have a cellphone?”

Ty nodded. “Sure, for emergencies.”

“Social media accounts? Facebook, Instagram, Vine, anything like that?”

Ty bit his lip, then sighed. “Can’t rule it out. Her calls are limited, but all it takes is a free Wi-Fi hotspot.”

“Right.” Alex switched over to his browser. “Does she use Edwards as her surname?”

Ty nodded. “Yes.”

It didn’t take Alex long to find an Instagram account in Phoebe’s name. A few pages of scrolling through it showed her to have a wide variety of interests and a pretty solid group of friends who seemed to laugh a lot. She was proud of her Tae Kwon Do achievements, as well as her uncle, her athletics club, and her friends. She was pretty keen on tagging people correctly, too. He couldn’t help but admire how smart she was.

Still, that was the thing with children. They
were
smart. Incredibly so. Adults had a tendency to assume small and young meant kids couldn’t understand complex problems or situations, but the fact was that children were wired for learning. They were sponges, and they soaked up every single bit of information they were exposed to. When Alex was a kid the joke was that he knew how to operate the VCR. Now kids were growing up with the Internet as a basic environmental factor.

“Okay.” He nodded and turned the laptop to show it to Ty. “Not too hard to find her if he has her name. This is good for us. It means all he needed was Internet access.”

Ty looked to the screen and scowled. “As opposed to?”

“As opposed to actual intel. He didn’t have to hire someone to find her.”

Ty hissed faintly and bit his lip to cut the sound short. “Right. I’ll talk to her about online privacy, since it obviously didn’t sink in the first time.”

“Now might not be the best time.” Alex turned his laptop back around. “She might feel that you’re blaming her for Montgomery’s appearance, and if this does go to court and she finds it traumatic, that connection might tar her relationship with you. She’s a smart little girl. She hasn’t been checking in on FourSquare or anything like that. Montgomery’s obviously worked out what TKD class she attends from the fact that they emblazon it all over the back of their uniforms. I’ve got no Facebook hits from her. She’s good, Mr. Edwards.”

Ty sucked on his lip a while then released it with a curt nod. “You’re right.” His eyes lingered on Alex’s mouth a while, then he added, “What’s our next step?”

Alex couldn’t help but lick his own lips briefly. Either Ty was giving off some extra-weird signals today, or he found something about Alex’s mouth fascinating, and Alex wasn’t sure whether he had managed to sit through an entire meeting with a breakfast crumb front and center or something.

Ty shifted in his seat, and his knees spread apart. The man wasn’t a fidgeter, not in Alex’s observations, so the motion had a root cause. To relax, maybe, or alleviate discomfort.

Alex felt his cheeks warm through, and he coughed. “We write Montgomery’s attorney,” he answered as he reached for the letter. “We explain that we are not conceding to any of the requests made in his communication. The ball will be back in their court as to how they want to proceed, but they’ll likely file for proceedings and issue a subpoena. I’ll look into this—” he peered at the letterhead “—Detwiller and find out what kind of attorney he is. I’ll do a little digging into Montgomery, too, see what I can find on him.”

Ty’s eyebrows climbed. “Is that… a thing?”

“Yes.” Alex raised his chin. “You don’t suddenly decide to become a parent eight years after your child is born. Something about his previous situation has changed, made him re-think things and reach this decision. I’ll bounce this nonsense back and that’ll give me time to dig deeper.”

Ty cracked a slight smile for the first time since his arrival. “In the meantime I sit tight?”

“You got it.” Alex rose from his seat and stepped around the desk to offer Ty his hand. “We’re going to fight, Mr. Edwards. I can’t promise we’re going to win, but I’ll be damned if I let anyone take Phoebe away from you.”

Ty’s hand dwarfed Alex’s slender fingers as he stood, and then the man himself was at his full height. Seated, Alex had almost felt equal. Standing, and so close, and with the heat between their palms, the earlier spark seemed to reignite, sending a shiver along Alex’s arm. He stared up at Ty, speechless.

Ty released him and slipped his sunglasses on. “I’ll hold you to that,” he rumbled once they were in place. “You’ll send me a copy of the letter?”

Alex nodded numbly.

“Good. I’ll call if I hear anything more. Thank you for your time, Mr. Wilson.”

When Ty turned away, Alex felt freed from the bonds of his presence, and he stepped after him. “And I’ll call you the moment I hear anything,” he forced himself to say.

“Yes, sir.” Ty ducked out of the office without so much as a look over his shoulder.

Alex closed the door quickly. He couldn’t get caught staring at Titus’s back as the other man walked away. The admin pool were fueled by gossip.

“God,” he breathed after the latch clicked.

Were there some signals in there? Was he wrong? Ty had spent half the meeting watching Alex’s lips or touching his own. And what had that flushed look when he first arrived been about?

They sparked every time they touched. Alex wasn’t mistaken there. That wasn’t an illusion, it wasn’t a dream, and it wasn’t wishful thinking.

Hell no. It was chemistry.

T
y waited
. He waited for three weeks. It was hellish. It wasn’t the worst time of his life, but it was close. God damn it was close. And what had come of all the waiting?

Today. That’s what had come of it.

Montgomery hadn’t even tried to negotiate. He’d gone from initial letter to filing a petition with the family court clerk’s office, and the summons had gone straight to Ty.

Alex hadn’t been best pleased by that. He said it was tantamount to Detwiller and Montgomery trying to intimidate Ty by circumventing his attorney.

It took more than a subpoena to intimidate him, but now that he was sitting on the respondent’s side of the room in the Queens County Family Court he had to admit to himself that he was… concerned, at the very least.

“It’s only the initial appearance,” Wilson whispered from the seat to his right. “Nothing more than that.”

Ty glanced toward him out of the corner of his eye and wondered whether the blond was a mind-reader.

Wilson’s only response was to nudge his glasses up his nose then return to the sheaf of papers on the desk in front of him. “Don’t interrupt Detwiller,” he breathed. “Don’t say anything without checking with me first.”

“Yessir.” Ty knew Alex’s intentions. The attorney had drilled him on courtroom behavior, on how to present himself in a way a judge would appreciate, and letting random words out of his mouth could undo everything. He wasn’t the kind of guy who leaped into the fray, but he appreciated Wilson’s mindfulness nonetheless.

He heard doors behind him, and two pairs of footsteps approach. He refused to turn, to look. Nobody would be in here who security didn’t think belonged, and that meant it was Montgomery and Detwiller. Ty had no intention of acknowledging the presence of either man, so instead he regarded the empty judge’s chair a few feet ahead of his own desk and avoided making eye contact with the big-ass bailiff who stood patiently to one side of the room.

Alex checked his watch, then neatened his papers and straightened his back.

The door behind the judge’s chair opened, and the bailiff cleared his throat. “All rise.”

Ty stood and folded his hands together in front as he watched the judge enter.

She was a small woman. Alex’s comment about no-nonsense post-war grandmothers floated into Ty’s thoughts, and it seemed to fit the little old lady perfectly. Everything about her was prim and neat, from her hair to her gown to her short fingernails. As the bailiff introduced her as Judge Maria Stolze, her sharp eyes scanned the faces before her.

Ty met her look without flinching, and it passed over him like a searchlight.

“All right,” she murmured as she sat and opened a folder on her desk. “Are all parties present?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” answered the bailiff.

“Gentlemen, take a seat.” She nodded, and Alex gestured to the chair.

Ty sank into it and kept his mouth shut.

“Now. According to the petition—” Stolze tapped her paperwork “—Mr. Montgomery is the biological parent seeking custody of Phoebe Edwards. And Mr. Edwards, her current legal guardian, is her maternal uncle. Is that correct?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” It was Detwiller who spoke.

“Good. I see you both already have attorneys.” She cast a slim smile toward Ty. “Though I already suspect I know the answer, I need to ask anyway.” She looked toward the petitioner’s desk. “Do you wish to resolve this dispute via mediation, collaboration, or some other dispute resolution procedure?”

“No, Ma’am,” Detwiller stood.

Ty cast a quick look to the other desk at last and took in Montgomery’s lawyer. He was easily into his early forties, with thinning hair which had turned to gray at the temples. He had a definite paunch, which his suit jacket strained to wrap around. Ty wasn’t in a position to cast any judgment on the man’s personality, though he seemed calm and personable enough, but his eye was drawn to the way his jacket pulled, and the slight discoloration between jacket and pants. In the street, Detwiller would have gone unnoticed. Standing so close to Wilson, though, the difference between them was like a neon light.

If Detwiller was used to success, he didn’t spend it on his suit.

Ty faced forward again and kept his expression neutral.

“Mind if I ask why not?” Stolze’s spine straightened.

Detwiller cleared his throat. “My client is intimidated by Mr. Edwards and is concerned that the respondent may use that fear as leverage in any negotiation.”

Ty didn’t bat an eyelid.

“I see.” Stolze turned to face Ty. “Well, he’s a big guy. I can see why your client might be unwilling to get into a room with him.”

Ty said nothing. He kept himself calm and steady. If the judge wanted to see any slip in his control he wouldn’t be the one to give it to her.

She smiled wryly and turned to Detwiller again. “Are there any emergency issues?”

“No, your honor.” He sat.

“Good. Anything to add, Mr. Wilson?”

Alex raised his chin as he stood. “We have an emergency issue, your Honor.”

Stolze sat forward. “Go on.”

“The petitioner attempted to take Miss Edwards with neither her nor her guardian’s permission. We therefore would like to file a petition for a temporary restraining order to keep Mr. Montgomery from doing so again until the court can reach its final decision on custody for Miss Edwards.” Ty watched as Alex’s nimble fingers plucked a form from his folder and offered it toward the bailiff.

Ty heard a sharp intake of breath from Montgomery’s side of the room, and a hushed word followed it.

The bailiff stepped forward and took the form from Alex’s outstretched hand, then conveyed it to Stolze, who looked it over.

Ty spared a look to Alex. The man stood straight, his shoulders squared, nothing but confidence in his posture and expression. Ty didn’t know any other lawyers to compare Alex against, but he knew officers.

Alex would’ve made a damn fine officer.

“Is this true, Mr. Montgomery?”

“No!” Montgomery spat.

Detwiller cleared his throat and stood. “Your honor, my client did not visit Miss Edwards with the intent of taking her from her current guardian. He merely wished to see her after all these years, and admits that the way he went about it was foolish and driven by his emotions and not by common sense.”

“If your client is given to foolish acts, Mr. Detwiller, I’m inclined to issue the restraining order as requested.” Stolze returned her attention to Alex. “To avoid distress to Miss Edwards I’ll grant your request, Mr. Wilson.”

“But—”

Detwiller managed to hush Montgomery before his outburst could continue.

“Thank you, your honor,” Alex murmured. “No further emergency issues.”

Stolze shuffled her papers together. “All right. Then let’s set a date for your attorneys to meet with the law clerk for a conference. We’ll appoint representation to Miss Edwards and work out whether this needs to proceed to trial or can be settled by agreement. Until then, Mr. Montgomery, you are not to set foot within a hundred feet of Miss Edwards.” She rapped the paper against her desk and stood.

“Parties, all rise,” the bailiff dutifully announced.

Ty stood and remained rock-solid as Stolze left the courtroom.

“How can she do that?” Montgomery demanded. “How can they even ask for that?”

“Mr. Montgomery, I suggest we take this conversation outside.” Detwiller’s voice was soft.

Ty didn’t look. He listened. He heard Montgomery’s muttered curses and Detwiller’s desperate attempt to keep his client quiet as he ushered Montgomery from the room.

Alex clicked his tongue softly and tucked his own paperwork away, then snapped the locks shut on his case so firmly that the sound dominated the small room for a moment. “Come with me,” he said.

“Yessir.” Ty nodded.

“If he’s waiting outside, ignore him.”

“Copy that.”

A
lex found
them some kind of side room in the courthouse and ushered Ty into it.

Ty looked it over as he stepped into the cool, dim interior. There was no window, and the gray walls surrounded a simple wood-veneer table and eight chairs. The room was made for function, not comfort.

Alex set his briefcase on the table and pulled out a chair, so Ty sat and waited. The attorney had something to say, or why pull him aside?

“Pain in the ass,” Alex sighed.

Ty lifted an eyebrow. “I thought it went okay. What did I miss?”

“Stolze’s good. She’s child-focused, and that’s what we wanted. But Detwiller’s going to play off your size, your history. He’s already claiming that Montgomery is scared of you.”

Ty rocked his jaw and met Alex’s gaze.

Alex pursed his lips. “Does he have reason to be?”

Ty cracked his knuckles slowly. “Maybe. He refused to leave Phoebe alone so I suggested he go. I’ve got a hundred pounds on the guy. He may well feel scared.”

Alex laughed gently at that. “But you didn’t threaten him or otherwise attempt to intimidate him?”

“Eh. I certainly used my height to my advantage, but I didn’t crowd him or threaten him, either verbally or physically.”

“You loomed over him, huh?” Alex’s cheeks turned a delightful shade of pink. “I can see how that might have an effect.”

Ty let a smirk break free. “An effect, huh?”

“Shut up.” Alex laughed again.

It felt like flirting.

Ty blinked. Was Alex flirting with him?

Was
he
flirting with Alex?

“Okay,” Alex continued. “You and I are going to need to talk.”

“We’re talking now.”

“I need to get to know you better so I can present you in the best possible light if this goes to trial. I need to know everything. The school you went to. The kind of time you had in the military. Your friends. Your discharge. I have to know more than a PI can dig up, because Detwilller
will
put an investigator on you, and if there’s dirt to be found he’ll find it and I need to be prepared for that.”

The room felt small all of a sudden, like the walls had closed in. Ty remained still, but he couldn’t look at Alex, and his eyes took in the ceiling of their own accord.

An investigator digging through his past had to be bad news. If Detwiller was any good, he could put all kinds of spin on any number of incidents which sprang to mind. Ty was a soldier, for crying out loud. Things
happened
in Afghanistan. Awful things.

Things Ty didn’t want to talk about.

He blinked quickly as his eyes stung.

“Hey,” Alex said gently. “Ty. You’re a good guy.”

“How do you know?” Ty gave him the side-eye.

“The same way I know Montgomery is a nasty piece of work.”

Ty frowned at that and faced Alex fully. “You get that feeling too, huh?”

“Fifteen minutes in a room with the guy and I want a shower.” Alex adjusted his glasses and gazed intently at Ty. “This is my job, Ty. I’m good at it. I trust you, and you have got to trust me, because if Detwiller springs a surprise on us in a trial I can’t defend against that as well as I could if I knew it was coming. Think of it as gathering intel. We need to know everything the enemy knows.”

“Right.” Ty nodded slowly.

Everything Alex said made sense. It didn’t leave Ty any more eager to spill his guts to the attorney, but he did understand the need.

And he’d get to spend more time with the guy.

His pulse raced. His brain unhelpfully focused on Alex’s lips yet again, offering him up the fantasy Ty had been masturbating to for weeks on end now. Jesus, sooner or later Wilson’s ability to read people would pick up on this, wouldn’t it?

And then what?

And then nothing. Because whatever happened inside Ty’s head was going to stay there. Once this thing was over and Montgomery had pissed off back home, Ty wouldn’t see Alex again and he could get back to his regular life with his regular ideas and regular showertime fantasies.

But until then he could spend hours in Alex’s company, and it would all be absolutely necessary, so he didn’t have to feel guilty about it in the slightest.

“Good.” Alex’s smile made Ty’s heart soar. “I’ll check my calendar when I get back to the office, then we can find time to see each other.” His cheeks pinked, and he laughed faintly. “For work. On the case.”

“Yeah.” Ty stood and loosened his tie. “For work,” he echoed.

Just for work. Nothing more.

So why was he excited at the thought?