One Man's Family

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“Okay.” He exhaled shakily. “Good.”

“How about you, Joe?” she asked gently. “Are you okay?”

“Sure,” he responded, though not very convincingly.

“I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t,” he said. “Worrying about me in here isn’t going to change anything.”

“I know,” she admitted. “But I can’t help it. And I can’t help feeling guilty for living my life while yours has been put on hold.”

“Joey and Lia are my life, Ali. And because of you, they’re able to move on with their lives. I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you’re there for them.”

“It would mean more to them to have their father with them.”

He winced as the barb struck home. “Dammit, Ali. You know this wasn’t my choice.”

“Then why didn’t you testify, Joe? Why didn’t you take the stand to tell your side of the story?”

“Haven’t we been through this already?”

“Not really, because you always refused to answer the question.”

“Telling my side of the story wouldn’t have changed anything,” he told her. “Not without proof that someone else took those plans.”

“Then that’s what we’re going to find.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked warily.

“I’ve hired a private investigator.”

“Why?”

She was stunned. “Because you shouldn’t be locked up for a crime you didn’t commit.”

“The jury convicted me,” he reminded her.

“Because the jury didn’t have all of the evidence.”

“Let it go, Ali.”

She frowned. “I thought you’d be pleased by this.”

“I’ll be pleased when my sentence is over and I can be home with my family again.”

“Well, hopefully Scott Logan will make that happen sooner rather than later.”

“Who?”

“The investigator I hired on the recommendation of your lawyer,” she told him.

“Jordan gave you his name?”

She nodded. “Because he believes, as I do, that you were wrongly convicted.”

“I can’t afford a private investigator,” Joe said softly.

“Have I asked you for any money?”

“You can’t afford it, either,” he reminded her. “You’ve got your courses to pay for.”

As if she could go to medical school while she was working full-time and caring for her brother’s children. Maybe becoming a doctor was her lifelong dream, but she could hardly pursue her own self-interests while her family was in such turmoil.

“He wants to meet with you,” she said, ignoring his comment.

Joe didn’t say anything.

“Which means that you need to put him on your visitor list.”

“I don’t see what good it will do. I can’t tell him anything that I haven’t already told you.”

“Will you do it anyway?” she asked softly. “Please.”

He sighed. “I’ll do it, but not because I think he’ll actually find anything. Only because you do so much and ask for so little in return.”

She managed a smile. “Thank you.”

She didn’t care about his reasons so long as she got the results she wanted, and she was trusting Scott Logan to get them for her.

Joe felt his cheeks burn with shame as he walked away from the table where Alicia remained sitting. Prison rules required that visitors stay seated while the inmate was returned to his cell. He hated her seeing him like this, locked in a cage, unable to move without a security guard shadowing his every step.

He didn’t need to look back to know that she was watching. She had always watched his back, always stood firm in his corner. She wasn’t just his sister; she was his unwavering champion, and his closest friend.

And every day since this nightmare had started, he’d thanked God that she was on his side. She was the first person he’d called when he was arrested, the one person he’d always been able to count on, the only person he trusted with the children who owned his heart.

That thought brought a pang, sharp and deep, as did every thought of Joey and Lia.

He’d made his own choices, and he couldn’t pretend otherwise. But he’d never imagined that he’d be torn away from them like this, or that every minute away from them would tear him up inside. But even if he’d known then what he knew now, he wouldn’t have changed anything. He couldn’t.

He’d done what he’d needed to do to protect them. Yet he wasn’t naive enough to believe the decisions he’d made would leave them unscathed. They were just children, after all. Children who had lived the last five years without their mother and who now, for all intents and purposes, had lost their father, too.

He worried about Joey, his angry and strong-willed son who was balanced on that shaky precipice between childhood and adulthood, a boy in so many ways, a man in too many others. And Lia, his beautiful little princess and the light of his life, who always led with her heart despite the bruises it suffered too frequently and easily.

He swallowed around the tightness in his throat and stared straight ahead in defiance of the tears that burned his eyes, taking comfort, scant though it was, in the knowledge that his children had Alicia and each other.

Joey and Lia might bicker and fight as siblings tended to do, but they would stand together when it mattered. As he and Alicia had always stood together.

Only now they were standing on opposite sides of a prison wall.

As he waited for the door of his cell to open, he forced that thought from his mind.

Because he knew that Alicia couldn’t love Joey and Lia any more if they were her own children and would protect them as if they were her own, he felt some measure of comfort.

He also felt guilt. Because although he’d trusted her with his children, he hadn’t trusted her with the one thing she’d been asking for since his arrest.

The truth.

Chapter Four

Scott wasn’t the type of man to be preoccupied by thoughts of a woman. But as he made his way toward CRDC through Friday afternoon traffic to visit Joe Juarez, he found himself thinking about Alicia instead of the job she’d hired him to do.

His mind circled back to the one thought that had plagued him throughout the day: he shouldn’t have stayed for dinner.

There was a part of him that doubted the wisdom of accepting her as a client, but he knew the real problem was his inability to remember she was a client.

When he’d left the police force and been offered a position at his friend’s investigation firm, he’d chosen to specialize in surveillance because it was a job that didn’t require much interaction with others and afforded even less opportunity for small talk. In his work, a client was a name on a contract and a corresponding number on a file. A client was not—or at least never had been before—a stunningly attractive woman with fathom-less dark eyes, temptingly full lips, shapely mouthwatering curves and the soft and lyrical voice of an angel.

Yeah, dinner had definitely been a mistake.

And then he’d compounded the error by staying to help with dishes and drink coffee. The next thing he knew it was after ten o’clock, Alicia was trying to stifle a yawn, and he was thinking that he needed to go so she could get to bed. Except that thinking about Alicia in bed was another mistake, because he could all too easily picture himself right there with her.

Maybe it wasn’t so surprising that he was attracted to her. After all, he was a man and she was…a goddess, he decided, for lack of a better description.

And if he’d met her at a different time and under different circumstances, he might have been tempted to test the attraction he felt, see if it was reciprocated, maybe indulge in the kind of steamy affair Darlene had recommended. But circumstances weren’t different, and right now Alicia Juarez probably wasn’t looking to further complicate her already complicated life.

Which was a damn shame.

In any event, she’d hired him to do a job and he needed to focus his efforts on doing that job.

But what would happen if he uncovered evidence that incriminated rather than exculpated her brother?

He frowned as he steered into the parking lot of Columbia River Detention Center, certain that such a result would ensure he never saw the inside ofAlicia’s bedroom.

Although he was inclined to believe that Joe Juarez was somehow involved in the crime of which he’d been convicted, he was keeping an open mind until he had solid evidence that pointed in one direction or the other. In the meantime, he was very interested in hearing what the man himself had to say about the events that had put him behind bars.

He was surprised when the first thing Joe said, after the introductions had been made, was, “You must be well-connected.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I barely finished filling out the paperwork to add your name to my visitor list, and here you are.”

Scott shrugged. “I called the superintendent to inquire if the documentation had been filed and he expedited the process.”

“The superintendent?” Joe whistled in mock incredulity.

“Well, I see your son comes by his attitude honestly enough.”

The other man’s eyes narrowed. “You know Joey?”

“We met last night.”

“Ali didn’t mention that.”

“No?”

Joe just watched him for a long moment before asking, “How do you know Jordan Hall?”

“His sister is married to my cousin.”

Joe snorted. “Is that supposed to be a recommendation?”

“Take it any way you want.”

“I want to know if you’re any good or if my sister wasted her money hiring you.”

“Which possibility bothers you more?” Scott asked.