Chapter Nineteen
Allegations
On the way back to Maddox, Dane’s mood seemed to lighten. Good news will do that. But she still didn’t broach the subject of what had happened to sour him in the first place. If Tweed had given him bad news last night, Brooke would let him tell her in his own time.
He was always forthcoming. He was always there for her.
“So, I have a request. I know, I know. How many requests can one girl have, right? That’s what you’re thinking?”
Dane’s dimple sank a fraction of its depth, so she pressed on.
“Can I …” she paused a moment before spilling it all out in a single breath, “dash into my apartment and get a few things? Especially different shoes. These heels are going to be the death of me. I’ll be faster than lightning, I promise. Two days in the same clothes, and my skin’s starting to itch.” When he didn’t respond, she blundered on. “I totally get the need for secrecy, at least until the trial is over, so I can wear dark glasses and a hat if you think that’d be better.”
Dane’s dimple sank another fraction of the way. “If you’ve got an itch, I’ll be glad to scratch it.”
“Dane—” Did he know how tempting his half-lidded eyes were, how they tugged her into them? If he knew how they put her into complete submission, he wouldn’t have asked. He should be careful with absolute power like that. Especially if he didn’t mean forever with his offer.
“I know, I know.” No, he probably didn’t. “Keeping my distance.” He drove his Dodge straight toward the alley behind Left Field. When they pulled up, Quirt was sitting on the back stoop of the museum, looking like he was ready to blow a gasket.
“You’d better just clear off, Rockwell.” He was on his feet, and his temples and jaw were pulsating with clenching muscles.
“Hey. What’s the big deal?” Dane didn’t clear off. “We have good news about the hearing, and—”
“And I’ll get all from my sister.” Wow. If looks could kill, Quirt would be laser-slicing Dane’s head off right now.
“Fine.” Dane huffed. “Brooke, I’ll see you at the boat.” He reached for her hand, and she reached for him to squeeze it, but Quirt roared to life.
“No. You won’t. And that’s final.”
At that, Dane left. Brooke watched him drive off, a piece of her going with him. For everything he’d done for her this past day, he deserved some kind of thanks, not bellowed threats from Quirt.
“What’s your problem?” Brooke whirled on him.
“My problem? What are you thinking, moving in with that guy? Do you even know what he’s like? He’s a predator. Women aren’t safe around him. Especially not you.”
Predator! “What do you mean, especially not me?”
“Oh, I’ve seen the way you look at him, like your tongue might come lolling out of your head, like you want to eat him for breakfast.” He scowled. “Or maybe you already did, considering you moved into his boat with him last night.”
All she could do for a moment was stand there, blinking. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Aunt Ruth told me.” Quirt paced up and down the cracked old concrete of the stoop. “When I saw the news about the bomb this morning, naturally I went ballistic.”
“Like a bomb.”
“I’ll bomb you.” He huffed again. “I went to the police, and they didn’t know where you’d gone. This place was empty and cordoned off. I had no idea where else you’d be, and then when I found Ruth downtown at the Piggly Wiggly with a shopping cart full of pre-packaged frozen dinners, she said you’ve moved in with Dane Rockwell. On a yacht.” He lowered his voice. “I thought you had standards. I thought we both promised Mom and Dad that we’d— you know— save ourselves for marriage.”
Flummoxed, Brooke could hardly answer. “Is that what you think? Do you think I’ve broken that promise?”
“What else am I supposed to think, Brooke? It’s the only conclusion.”
“Well, what about the conclusion where I’m not sleeping with your best friend? What about that conclusion?”
“But you obviously want to. I saw the two of you. I’ve seen the two of you ever since he started slavering after you when you turned sixteen, ever since I had to start threatening him not to touch you when you were in high school.”
Sixteen? “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her and Dane’s relationship back then was a total one-way street.
“Oh, don’t I? I know guys. And Rockwell is more guy than most.” A growl escaped him. “Truthfully, he’s far more of a threat than that bomb last night.”
“To my eternal soul, you mean.” Acid laced her response.
“Exactly.” Satisfied, Quirt stopped pacing. “So you’ll move out? You’re not …compromised?”
Fury at his suggestion tempted her to deny him the information. “Quirt. You can be such a jerk.”
“You’re my sister. It’s my job to be a jerk to guys who don’t have your best interests in mind.”
“And Dane Rockwell doesn’t?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Definitely no. I saw how he looked at you just now. Like you’re meat.”
Meat. Like she was meat. It took a moment to gather herself before she said, “Remember, after Mom and Dad died? I was in a wheelchair for three months when my femurs were broken in the same accident.”
Quirt’s hackles went up. “We don’t have to do this, Brooke.”
“Yes, we do.”
“It won’t do any good, Brooke. They’re gone. You got hurt. I couldn’t stop any of it.”
“You weren’t even in the car. You were the lucky one.”
“Lucky!”
“Yes, Quirt. You were lucky. Blessed. God protected you. He kept you on this earth for a purpose— so you could marry Olivia, become a father someday, like our dad was to us. So you could teach geometry to high school students, so you could help me get better after the accident.”
“You had Aunt Ruth.”
“She was busy providing shelter and food, dealing with the aftermath of Mom and Dad’s insurance paperwork, that mountain of responsibility.” Brooke frowned. “I needed emotional support. I needed you. I lost my parents that day, but it felt like I’d lost you, too. I had no one.” She lowered her voice. “Except Dane.”
“Rockwell?” Quirt’s eyes darted open. “What did that funnel cake-stealing loser do?”
“Quit calling him a loser. I know you’re mad at him right now, but keep in mind he found a secluded location for Aunt Ruth and me to be kept safe after my life was threatened on account of that baseball. And he’s been the one walking me through every step of this whole ordeal. He’s the one who went with me to the reading, who’s helping me in the aftermath of the inheritance, who protected me from physical danger.”
“You know I had state standardized testing the day of the will reading. I couldn’t leave school.”
Brooke didn’t let his protests distract her. “I don’t know how your mind works, Quirt. It’s like you’re overprotective of me every step of my life, stifling me. But then, when there comes a time that I really need you, you’re nowhere to be found.”
Quirt stood stock still, his gaze fixed on the wall of the garage across the yard. He didn’t speak.
“After the accident, Mom and Dad were gone. I missed them so desperately. Prayer helped, but I needed someone here. On earth. Aunt Ruth helped with all my hospital stuff, which was great, but I wanted you. You disappeared, Quirt. You left me.” Her voice caught, but she muscled down the emotion. “Dane showed up.”
“Oh, and sweet-talked you, I’m sure. Like he does all the girls.”
This was ridiculous, and her rage surged. “No. In fact, he didn’t talk at all.”
“The mighty listener, I guess.” Quirt rolled his eyes. “Every woman’s dream.”
“You’re a jerk.” She shouldn’t even elaborate. Quirt didn’t deserve it. But he was her brother, and Dane deserved to be exonerated— appreciated, too, for what he’d given her. “He didn’t talk. And I didn’t talk. He threw me a baseball, and I caught it, over and over. We just played catch.”
“Catch.”
“For two months. While I went through physical therapy. He was home between college and law school and came here every day, Quirt. To this back yard and to the beach. To help a broken, injured girl.” He’d healed her, she wanted to add, but Quirt wouldn’t want to hear that.
He was quiet for a while, but after a bit, he turned to face her.
“I was supposed to ride with you. The trip was for my awards ceremony.” Survivor’s guilt twisted his face. Brooke didn’t know why she hadn’t seen it before. Her nursing training should have made it plain as daylight to her.
“It’s all right. Ultimately, we both got by. Mom and Dad are in a good place. I feel it.”
“But you’re right. I didn’t help you. I went to my master’s program. I took too many credits. I ignored the world. I didn’t come up for air until after I’d been teaching for a couple of years and met Olivia. She was the first time I could breathe.”
Olivia had been his healing. That all sounded true. And the harsh reality was Brooke hadn’t been there for Quirt, either. She took him by both shoulders and looked into his face. “You might not have been in the car with us, but the accident happened to you, too.”
He grimaced for a split second. “Rock. He played catch with you?” When she nodded, he said, “And you’re living with him, but not in sin.”
Her eyes instinctively rolled skyward. He did not deserve an explanation, if he was going to throw out allegations like that, allegations he knew were false.
“You know I’m not that girl.” Her promise to her parents hadn’t dissolved just because she found Dane so irresistible— although he’d been the one to put the brakes on their kissing session in the car the other night. He’d sacrificed for her a thousand times over now. For her physical and spiritual and emotional safety. She had to do something for him. Repay him— adequately.
“He’s putting everything on the line for me.”
“Oh, yeah?” Skepticism still tinged the question, but Quirt seemed to be calming down.
She gave Quirt a thumbnail description of Dane’s ethics troubles.
“Really?” No scoffing, no accusations of he’s probably guilty, no harsh judgment. “He’s been helping you even though he’s supposed to steer clear of all high profile court cases— and all female clients.”
Brooke felt laden down with the weight of what Dane was giving up for her. “I owe him. Frankly, we both do. You’re the one who insisted he come help me with this legal issue.”
Quirt looked at the sky a minute. Then he looked back at Brooke. “There wasn’t anyone else.”
“I know.” Boy, did she know. She’d tried. “If there were any other way, I wouldn’t be putting him in this situation.”
“Couldn’t you find someone else? A different lawyer out of town?”
She shook her head. “No. Too expensive, since my legal budget is zero dollars. And especially not this late.”
Quirt stabbed the toe of his shoe in the dirt. “What with the startup costs for the museum, you’re right. We can’t afford to hire a different attorney, anyway.” He dug it around to make a little hole in the St. Augustine grass. “And besides, I don’t trust anyone else.”
“I thought you didn’t trust Dane Rockwell.”
“I don’t. I mean, I do— just not when you’re living with him.”
Oh, fine. Since he couldn’t see sense, she’d have to come clean in explicit terms. Stupid brothers.
“Geez, Quirt. Don’t you realize he wasn’t even there last night? He probably slept in his truck, or somewhere even less comfortable. Aunt Ruth shared the cabin with me on that boat. And besides, this isn’t some permanent situation.” Exasperation tinged her words. “Let’s say I did fall for Dane Rockwell. What would be the harm in that? He’s been part of our lives forever. Dad and Mom liked him.”
“They loved him. Sometimes more than they loved me.”
“Oh, come on.” Brooke knew Quirt wasn’t being serious.
“Fine. They knew he was a good kid and worth yanking out of his family’s clutches.”
“Exactly. Just repeat that to yourself. He’s a good kid. But fast forward it. Look at him today. He’s a good man who would do anything for you or for me or for Dad or even Grandpa. What do you say we give him the bare minimum— the benefit of the doubt.”
“That’s not the same as your sister’s hand in marriage.”
Marriage? Who said anything about marriage? Brooke’s throat closed and she had to force it back open for breath. “He’s not that into me.”
“Then why’d he buy a ring at Appleton Jewelers last spring, the very afternoon he almost kissed you at First Pitch?”
“He did not.” There was no way. She’d never seen any signs…oh. Except that passionate kiss in church the next day.
“Did too. Old Appleton told me himself when I went in to get the ring for Olivia. Even said Dane bought it for ‘the Chadwick girl.’”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Yuh-huh. Want me to prove it?” Quirt was punching something into his phone. A few seconds later he said, “Got it,” and then dialed a number before she could protest. “I’ll put it on speaker.” Staticky ringing crackled.
“Hello. Appleton Jewelry,” came a voice through the phone.
“Hi, Mr. Appleton? Glad I caught you. This is Quirt Chadwick.”
“Quirt, my boy. How’s that girl of yours liking the F-2 brilliant cut with the sapphire baguettes you chose for her?”
Wow. Appleton had an exceptional memory. He and Quirt shot the breeze for a minute before Quirt asked the salient question.
“So, by chance do you recall a day last year when my friend Dane came in?” Quirt called him a friend. The thaw made one of those loud crack! sounds like warm water over ice in a glass.
It was going to be okay.
“Dane Rockwell? Sure. He bought the princess cut display diamond in the front window I’d had out there forever. Asked me to reset it for your sister, Brooke, he said. But from what I could tell, that didn’t play out as well as he’d hoped.”
“Thanks, Mr. Appleton. You refreshed my memory.”
“Bye, my friend. Come back and see me when you and your Olivia have an anniversary.”
Appleton signed off.
Brooke’s mind raced. “You never told me. That’s the kind of thing a brother tells a sister. Geez, Quirt. How could you— ?”
“Well, he’s a darn sight better than that last idiot you fell for.”
She’d fallen for Dane? Uh, probably so. “Ames Crosby, you mean.”
“The doctor is in,” Quirt said in a highbrow British accent. “Until he’s not.”
“He’s back, you know. Back in town.”
“I’ll kill him.”
“I think Dane called dibs.” The vitriol had been dripping off him at the coffee shop. “But don’t kill him just yet.” His evidence might have weight, which their case needed as counterbalance against the lies LaBarge was most likely cooking up about Brooke.
Tuesday. Time churned ever closer to Tuesday, and she still didn’t have a character witness against LaBarge, at least not one willing to go on record.
Tuesday held her greatest hope and her greatest dread. After Tuesday she could finally, finally tell— and show— Dane how she was feeling, how she’d been feeling for years. But also Tuesday the entire world might believe LaBarge’s slander against her, and Brooke’s whole family’s reputation might go flushing down the drain, along with all their hopes of opening Left Field.
She had to somehow find someone willing to tell the court the truth about LaBarge.