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Chapter Thirty-Five

J etta struggled to keep Bingley quiet and her own emotions in check as the baby wailed her displeasure and Yasmine cursed Jetta’s obstinance in not revealing where Dad had hidden his evidence about the embezzlement. Jetta had no idea what the woman was talking about, but the youngest Topher sibling’s presence in her house had revealed the answer to the who in the original embezzlement case. Yasmine had taken all that money and blamed Dad for it. Jetta would bet Yasmine was still redirecting company funds into her own account. Why didn’t concern her—that could be sorted out later. If she did have a later. The compact pistol in the other woman’s hand gave Jetta grave doubts she would live to see another day. Yasmine hadn’t gotten away with embezzlement for more than fifteen years without having an exit plan.

Had Seth seen her text? She wouldn’t blame him if he decided to ignore her or had blocked her number. Please, God. Let Seth have seen my text and called for help. Please keep my baby safe. She couldn’t ask for safety for herself, not when she’d made such a mess of things after the baby’s birth.

Yasmine turned her back to the door, directing her tirade at Jetta, who cowered on the floor with Bingley across the room from the baby’s bassinet. Something moved in the doorway behind Yasmine, then Seth sprang at Yasmine, pinning her arms to her sides from behind in a bear hug. Bingley broke Jetta’s hold on his collar and lunged for the woman, biting the hand that held the gun.

Yasmine screamed and dropped the weapon. Seth kept her arms immobile as she thrashed about while Jetta scrambled on all fours for the gun. She kicked it under the dresser, then dashed for the crib and her sobbing baby. Picking the infant up, she held her daughter close to her chest as sirens split the air. Her daughter’s cries simmered to a whimper as Jetta rocked her in her arms.

Yasmine continued to struggle and curse, but Seth didn’t loosen his hold. His gaze sought Jetta’s, concern and some deeper emotion flaring in their brown depths. “You okay?”

Jetta nodded, her legs shaky, but she didn’t want to sit down until Yasmine had been secured by the police. “You came.”

“Of course I did.” His quiet words soothed her jagged nerves, as if his coming was never in doubt.

Yasmine wailed louder, her words jumbling together into incoherence. Jetta’s head ached from the constant noise, first from her baby, now Yasmine.

Seth shook Yasmine with enough force to snap the woman’s head back and forth once. “Shut up. You’ve caused enough trouble.”

Bingley gave one sharp bark as if to echo Seth’s admonition, and the combination must have made an impression on Yasmine because she firmed her lips and didn’t utter another sound.

In the silence, a pounding on the front door alerted them to the arrival of police. Jetta hurried down the stairs with her baby and let them in, explaining Seth was holding the intruder upstairs. The next hours were a blur of feeding the baby, giving her statement to a detective, and trying to stay out of the way as crime scene techs gathered evidence of Yasmine’s break in. The woman herself had been led away in handcuffs after an EMT had treated the minor injury Bingley had inflicted on her hand.

“How did she get in?” Jetta asked the detective when he stopped by to check on her as she waiting on the living room couch for the all-clear so she could return the sleeping baby to her bassinet.

“We found a pair of picks on Ms. Topher’s person, and the front door exhibited scratches around the lock, so she must have picked it to gain entry,” Detective Morell said. “It shouldn’t be much longer, as the crime scene techs are nearly finished in the baby’s room.”

Through the living room archway, Jetta caught a glimpse of Seth as he stood in the foyer talking to another officer, Bingley leaning against his leg. Seth absently rubbed the dog’s head as he spoke. Her hero, the man who had come without question despite her awful treatment of him. The detective rose. “Let me check with the techs, and I think we can get out of your hair for tonight, or what’s left of the night.”

“Thank you.” Jetta returned her gaze to Seth, who glanced her way. He spoke to the officer, then headed into the living room.

“Hey.” He stopped a few feet from the couch, Bingley sitting beside him. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m tired but glad it’s over.” A yawn split her face as she shifted the sleeping baby to her other arm.

“Want me to hold her for a while?”

“No.” She caught the flash of hurt in his expressive eyes before a blank expression returned. “I’d like you to sit beside us for a while.”

For a moment, she thought he might turn down her olive branch and leave, but then he moved to the couch, settling to her right, his thigh brushing against hers. Bingley resettled on the floor at their feet, his head on his paws. She drew in a breath, wanting to thank him but unable to find the words with her brain so exhausted.

Instead of speaking, she sighed and nudged his left arm with her elbow until he lifted it along the back of the couch. Then she slid into him, snuggling her head on his chest. He hesitated for an instant before placing his arm around her shoulders and tucking her closer against him.

With another sigh of contentment, she closed her eyes, her body relaxing fully for the first time in hours. Days, really. Her mind stopped racing, her breath evened out, and she slept, implicitly trusting this man would keep her and her little one safe.

* * *

Seth tossed the ball to Bingley, who raced after it with a happy bark. He repeated the exercise several more times before placing the ball in the basket inside the back door. Five days had passed since Yasmine’s arrest, and while Jetta wasn’t shutting him out any longer, she wasn’t exactly inviting him into her life with open arms. Instead, he existed in a kind of limbo where she welcomed his help with Bingley but didn’t initiate anything more intimate than exchanging updates on the case.

He refilled Bingley’s water dish in the kitchen, then turned to leave.

“Seth?” Jetta stepped into view, her hair damp and her feet bare. “You got a minute?”

“Sure.” He dropped onto one of the bar stools to avoid dragging her into his arms and kissing her senseless. Despite the hot-cold treatment, he couldn’t take his eyes off of her whenever she was in the same room as him. Motherhood agreed with her, giving her a glow that enhanced her natural beauty. He hoped she’d decided to keep the baby and longed to hold the as-yet unnamed infant.

“It’s been a crazy few days, hasn’t it?”

“Yep.” He and Brogan had co-written a series of articles detailing Gene and Yasmine’s behind-the-scenes machinations to sell Topher Robotics to Maxwell Technology, as well as Yasmine’s embezzlement of millions of dollars. Turned out she had a secret room in her house even her husband hadn’t known about filled with black market antiques, including a missing painting by Vincent van Gogh. Once in custody, she had kept quiet until a search of her home revealed the hidden room and its stash of priceless art. Then she’d bragged about how she’d stolen the money from right under the noses of her “idiot brothers.”

In return for testifying against his sister in the corporate espionage charges, Gene confessed to his role in kidnapping Emily Ainsley. Gene also pointed the finger at his sister for the snatching of Jetta and Seth, a charge she tried to deny until the bank records of a secret account showed money paid to the two men arrested for their role in taking Jetta and Seth. According to Brogan, Yasmine couldn’t spill facts quick enough, showing off how smart she was and how stupid everyone else was. Providing additional information about Yasmine’s guilt was Ryan’s executive assistant, Mae Stanhope. Mae had revealed she had inadvertently given Yasmine the idea to embezzle funds, since Mae had done so to pay for her father’s hospice care.

What became crystal clear was Jay Ainsley had had nothing to do with the embezzlement. The charges against him had finally been dropped, his good name restored. The police could find no evidence Jay’s heart attack had been caused by anything other than abnormal stress from worrying about the company’s finances. Peter Topher was recovering from his heart attack, which doctors attributed to his skipping his high blood pressure medicine a couple of times because he’d forgotten to refill the medication. Dolores Green also had her happy ending, with Mae confessing she had simply picked Dolores out of the SafeSense company directory as the patsy for the altered invoices.

Leslie’s update two days ago had floored him with FinCEN’s findings that Maxwell Technologies had engaged in corporate espionage related to its takeover bid. Apparently, the fake FBI agent had been part of their attempt to find out how close they had come to uncovering the embezzler at Topher Robotics.

“What’s next?” Jetta leaned against the counter, her gaze fastened on his face.

“You tell me.” He longed to move around the counter and take her in his arms, but he needed her to make the first move.

“We could…” She swallowed, then tried again. “We could date.”

Date. Not exactly what he was looking for, but he’d take it if she truly meant it. But she needed to know he wasn’t interested in merely dating her. He wanted to court her, old-fashioned as that might be. “I’m not interested in dating you, Jetta.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re not? But I thought…”

“I want more.” He let his words hang in the air between them, willing her to accept his offer. He would give her the space she needed to fully heal from what he suspected had been rape by her ex. Seth didn’t need to know the details, just that she trusted him to put her and her baby first.

“I don’t know if I can give you more.” The pleading expression on her face nearly made him give in and accept her lukewarm terms in order to spend more time with her.

But he wasn’t going to settle for less. That much he had learned about himself over the past week. “That’s okay.”

Her shoulders sagged. “Great.”

“No, you misunderstood me. It’s okay that you can’t give me more, but I can’t date you without wanting more.”

“You’ll leave me?” Her voice broke, tears leaking out of her eyes.

“I’ll be right next door, but I can’t see you. Not as more than a friend.” He spoke very gently as if trying to calm an injured animal.

“But I want to see you.”

How to make her understand this was breaking his heart? He loved her too much to not pursue a relationship with his whole being. He decided to go all in, lay it all out on the table.

“No, what you want is someone to go out with on a Friday or Saturday night in a causal relationship. You think I’m not strong enough to know what you need or my own mind. You think I don’t see you, but I do. I see you—all of you—the good, the bad, the broken, the whole. I love every bit, but you’re too scared to let me.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I don’t want to ruin your life as mine has been ruined.”

He forced himself to stay still, praying she would have the courage to tell him her deepest, darkest secret, to bring it into the bright light so it would lose some of its terrible power over her.

She shuddered, then whispered, “One night, a few weeks into the new year, I awoke to see Kyle in my bedroom. It had been more than two months since I’d broken up with him, but there he was. He told me I owed him for all the dinners and theater tickets and sporting events he'd taken me to, that he was there to collect. I screamed, but he slapped me. I tried to fight him, but he was too strong. When he finished, he told me no one would believe he forced me since he had a key to my apartment. He also reminded me he knew people in high places.” She cleared her throat. “I decided I would take my chances and went to the hospital for a rape kit, then I spoke with a police officer, who offered to call a locksmith to change the locks on my apartment that very night. He was right about his connections. He managed to cut a deal and got community service. But I got the judge to give me a restraining order with the threat of the plea bargain being revoked if he trespassed it.”

She met his gaze. “So you see, I’m damaged goods because of him.”

“Oh, Jetta. Your life isn’t ruined because of one man’s terrible actions.” He gave in to temptation and moved to stand in front of the weeping woman. He cupped her face in his hands, using his thumbs to wipe away her tears. “If that’s true, then my life is in pieces too because of one mistake I made when I was a kid. I won’t rush you. I know you need time to heal, to find your way forward. But, my darling, I want to be there beside you, holding your hand, cheering you on.”

Her eyes sought his, the hope flickering in their depths spurring him to continue. “I want to help you raise this little girl, to be there for you both through life’s ups and downs. I want to study God’s Word with you and help teach your daughter about God’s love.”

“You do?” The wonder infusing her voice fanned the hope in his heart.

He kissed her forehead. “I do, with my whole heart. That’s why I can’t date you. I want to court you and your baby. I’ll go to counseling with you, whatever you need. I’m here for the long haul. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Oh, Seth.” Her smile took his breath away. “Will you stop talking long enough to kiss me?”

He brought his lips closer to hers, hovering above them. “Jetta Ainsley, may I court you and your beautiful daughter?”

“Yes, please.” She pressed her mouth to his in a kiss that sealed the promise of a future between them.

All too soon, Jetta pulled back, placing her fingers across his mouth when he would have covered her lips again. “Wait, I wanted to tell you I’ve decided on a name for the baby.”

“You have?” The soft expression on her face made his knees weak. “What is it?”

“Sadie.”

The name took a moment to register, and even then he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. “Sadie? As in…”

“Your little sister’s name.”

A warmth rushed over him at this woman’s thoughtfulness in giving him a sense of closure from his childhood. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. Sadie suits her. Sadie Emma Ainsley.”

“That has a lovely ring to it.” He captured her lips with his for another toe-tingling kiss.

When he broke the kiss, both of them breathless, Jetta added, “So does Sadie Emma Ainsley Whitman.”

The End