Queen of Hearts: (Family Stone #6 Shelley) (Family Stone Romantic Suspense) (8 page)

“It’s possible.” Jack tapped his finger on his lips. “John is investigating a lead on the missing girls. Ava’s friends.”

“I thought the asshole was awaiting trial.”

“He is, but we found a connection to a strip club here in Las Vegas.”

“So this could just be to distract you?” Ric thought out loud.

“Except, I’m staying away from John’s investigation so they don’t connect it to my family.” Jack mused. “At least not right away.”

“Then maybe the focus on Shelley is a back end way to get to Stone Consulting.”

“It isn’t like I haven’t made some enemies lately.” Jack propped his hand on his hips.

Ric snorted. “Lately?”

Seven

There was a knock on the suite door despite the ‘Do Not Disturb’ placard on the handle.

Shelley sighed and headed for the door.

“Uh, mom. You don’t answer the door until this is over.” Jess’s hand on her arm stopped her. “Let me.”

Shelley moped, and shuffled to the sofa. She dropped onto the L-shaped sectional. The sweats which before seemed soft and comfortable now chafed. She wanted her own clothes. She wanted her own life. It hadn’t been hers for all of an hour and she was already going stir crazy.

She was used to being busy.

Jess flipped the lock and opened the door. “Come on in.”

Shelley shoved into the corner of the large sectional sofa. Her knees were pressed up to her chest and she rested her chin on them as she waited to see who was here now. It felt as if the whole world was going to know that she’d had sex with Ric Santana.

“Hey, Shel.” Connor her youngest son and the hardest of all her children to figure out walked in to the living area of the suite. She loved Con. Perhaps more than the other kids. He’d been broken when she’d gone to live in the Stone mansion. Jack Stone Sr. could be a complete bastard. For some reason, he’d been most venomous toward his youngest son.

After Shelley had arrived, she’d tried to act as a buffer. To protect Con from his father’s cruel mean streak. She’d never understood why Jack Sr. had such an intensely rancorous response to Connor. He was the sweetest and so intelligent that Shelley had known that he’d surpass her smarts by the time he was a teenager.

“Con.” She pushed to her feet and headed for him.

There it was. That slight hesitation, as if he braced himself for her touch, then he wrapped his strong arms around her and she rested her head on his shoulder for just a moment. Sweet, sweet boy. Even if he did still hold himself away from Shelley’s affection.

The only person he didn’t hold back with was Ava. His girlfriend.

“Jack asked me to meet you guys here but I’m not sure—”

The hotel room swung open. Jack and Ric strode into the room and over to where Shelley, Jess, and Con stood.

Shelley noted Ric’s glare at her until he shifted his gaze to Con and it lightened. What did she do now? She’d tried to get out of his hair. He’d been the one who insisted that she stay in his room.

“Con, there’s some leftover breakfast if you want it.” She reverted to mom mode, trying to take care of everyone, feed everyone.

“Why are you eating breakfast in Jack’s former CO’s suite?” Con frowned.

Shelley flushed.

Jess whispered something in Con’s ear and his eyebrows rose.

Wonderful. Maybe Ric would like to strip naked so Con could see him in the buff.

Shelley turned her glare on Ric.

He raised his dark eyebrows and held up his palms in surrender. His face was perfectly impassive but she could tell that inside he was laughing. She wasn’t sure how but she could tell.

“Quit laughing,” she hissed at him.

Ric blinked as if surprised. It was clear that she had shocked him by recognizing what was going on behind his blank face.

“Nice to see you again Connor,” Ric said blandly.

“I’m going to head downstairs and pick up some new clothes for you.” Jess hugged her tight.

Thank Goodness. “Yes, please.”

Shelley flushed again when Con said, “You don’t have anything to wear?”

Jack diverted Connor’s attention. “Shel, we’ve got some pictures to show you.”

They all sat on the sectional sofa. Jack on one side and Con on the other. Isolation surrounded her, separating her from her family and whoever was stalking her. Then Ric sank down on the glass topped coffee table directly across from her. His thighs bracketed her legs, heat rose from his body. His worn jeans and the body hugging gray Polo shirt were casual, without any attempt to make a statement. The kind of clothing a man supremely comfortable in his own skin wore.

His subtle air of command wrapped around her, making her feel as if nothing could penetrate his shield of protection.

Her tension wound tighter than Ric’s abs as he handed her a picture.

The quality was decent, but the man had tilted his head at such an angle that she couldn’t see more than his jaw line. The baseball cap brim, a generic denim material, covered most of his face. The angle of the camera made it impossible to figure out how tall he was.

But she recognized the entrance to her suite.

“That’s the guy?” Her heart thumped.

“Yeah,” Jack said gruffly. “You recognize him?”

Shelley tried to study the man objectively, searching for some clue to his identity but too much was hidden by the way he avoided the cameras. “No.”

This man had gone into her room, cut up her clothes, dumped out her cosmetics, and violated her stuff.

It was just stuff.

But what if she’d been in that room?

Sweat bloomed on her chest as the destruction of her room came back to her. He’d sliced her clothes. If she’d been there would he have sliced her? Her heart picked up the pace as horrible possibilities flashed through her mind. Her breath shortened and her finger trembled as she traced it over the man’s face.

“I don’t even know him,” Shelley whispered. “Why would he hate me so much he’d destroy my things?”

Ric’s knees touched hers. “Hey. You weren’t there.” He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned in to smooth his palm over her forearm and linked his fingers with hers. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

His touch soothed her immediately.

Shelley lifted her gaze from the picture. His dark, brooding eyes were sincere and she fell into the bottomless promise of safety. She wanted to respond to his pledge. The solemn words felt like more.

Not just here and now. But weighty as if she could depend on him forever.

Instead of making her run, fast and far, she leaned closer until they were only inches apart. “Okay.” The air was heavy with expectation.

Con tapped the picture, breaking the connection that thickened the air around them. Shelley and Ric leaned away from each other at his interruption.

“We’re pretty sure that this was only meant to scare you.” Jack’s voice was gentle.

“They did a good job of scaring everyone.” Shelley’s sense of humor rose again.

“How so?” Con asked.

“There are three of you in Ric’s suite, and you’re all hovering.” Her lips quirked, and she tried to find the humor in the situation. It was either that or curl into a fetal ball and retreat from the world.

“Good point.” Jack’s lips quirked. “But the fact is that if you look at the mess he made it’s too neat, too methodical. Initially we thought rage, but after looking at the larger pictures, we think this was supposed to be intimidation.”

“So what do you think they want?”

“They want you to leave,” Ric said. The message had been sprayed over the walls.
Leave or else.

Shelley’s ire rose. “No. Not happening. I am not missing your wedding,” she vowed to Jack fiercely.

“Okay.” Con popped open his laptop. “We need to go over the other threats you’ve gotten.”

“It’s just a few random emails.” Shelley dismissed the weird letters and proposals she’d been receiving. Really, there wasn’t anything in those fishing communications that was truly threatening.

“That’s my specialty.” Con smiled, the action softened the skin around his eyes. He was so much more relaxed and happy with Ava in his life. “I trace things.”

“You know, sometimes I think we should thank Fernandez,” Shelley said softly to him.

Con lifted his inquisitive gaze from the screen to her. “What?”

“He brought you and Ava together.”

Prior to his relationship with Ava he’d still had traces of that defensive teen. Con had needed someone just for him. And he’d found her in Ava. He deserved the bone deep happiness that bled from his pores and bathed him in a soft content light. Shelley brushed her fingers over the lock blond of hair that always seemed to tumble into his tawny eyes.

“True.” Con hesitated, then curled his fingers around hers and held her hand for a moment. The unconsciously affectionate gesture rolled over her like a wave of joy for his happiness, and his ability to finally settle in his own skin. “Was there a reason you brought up Fernandez? You think he has something to do with your current problem?”

“Don’t knock intuition.” Jack stared at the computer screen.

“Fernandez.” Ric frowned. Oddly, his gaze was on Con’s hand on hers. “Shelley didn’t have anything to do with taking him down.”

“Not really.”

Con launched into a quick rundown of the situation with Jose Fernandez, the politician from Monterey who had used a horrific kidnapping of four young Hispanic girls to advance his career. “We exposed him for the fraud he was. But you’re right, Shelley wasn’t really involved, with the exception of giving Ava a place to hide until we were ready to confront him.”

“True.” Shelley smiled reminiscently.

“He could be attempting to get to you and Jack through Shelley,” Ric mused. “Does he know how close you all are?”

“Everyone knows how close we are, ever since that article about the farm—”

“What article?” Ric clipped out.

“It should have been nothing.” She hated the attention on her. “The article was supposed to be about the program we, I, implemented. A new kind of way to support the Food for Life food bank. Supporters sponsor an acre of land. The cooperative farm grows the food. Then the harvest goes straight to the food bank so that the recipients have access to fresh produce.”

“Instead, the reporter profiled Mom,” Jack said.

“I knew having my picture taken in front of the house was a mistake.” Shelley shook her head. She’d tried to finger comb the tangled mess of her hair but it was still untidy around her face, distracting her from their serious discussion. She couldn’t control the shiver as she remembered how it became so messy. Ric’s hand fisted in her hair, holding her head tightly. Like he’d never let her go. Her body reacted to the visceral erotic memory, zooming her right back to that moment in bed.

“The end result was still an increase in people willing to adopt an acre of land and a big boost for Happy Tummy Farm and the food bank, but it also brought attention to me personally. I’ve gotten several proposals and, um, offers.”

“Proposals?” Ric said slowly.

“Um, yes, marriage proposals.” Shelley shuddered. “From strangers.”

It had been so weird to be the focus of that much attention. She tended to stay in the shadows. She supported plenty of causes but quietly behind the scenes. She’d learned long ago that having money meant many people wanted you to part with it. She’d finally had to pick a few philanthropic efforts, get involved in the process, and choose those projects that spoke to her.

Ric’s lips quirked.

“Laugh all you want but having a stranger show up on your front lawn with a marquee and marching band to ask for your hand in marriage is a little disconcerting.”

The attention made her uncomfortable.

Even the regard of the three other people in this room made her squirm. She was much better at lavishing attention on the kids, or her charities, than taking it for herself.

“Okay.” Ric was suddenly all business as if he sensed her need to fade into the background.

Con pulled up her email account.

Her email. “How’d you do that?”

He just looked steadily at her. “This is what I do, Shel.”

“Invade privacy?” Indignation rose in her. First her hotel room, now Con was invading her personal email. “How’d you get my password?”

“We need to have a talk about your password,” Con said.

Shelley’s face burned. She knew it was dumb but that date changed her life. The day she’d gone to the live at the Stone mansion. And it was too personal to share with Ric Santana even if they had shared bodily fluids. “Not now.”

Ric got them back on track. “Show me the emails.”

She pulled them up. She wasn’t sure she should tell him. “I deleted the ones that were um, more personal.”

“Personal how?” Ric was back in her space, his chest puffed and his body somehow bigger. He’d morphed into Mr. Protection.

“More proposals offering to…satisfy me.”

“How many exactly?” Ric pressed.

“I didn’t count. I just deleted.”

“Con?” Jack prompted.

“On it.” Connor’s fingers flew over the keys and within about a minute he had an answer. “Around one hundred.”

“A hundred? Seriously.” Ric’s eyebrows raised in surprise.

“It’s that surprising?” She hopped up and strode to the windows, focusing on the skyline instead of her currently complicated life. She curled her toes into the plush carpet and tried to ground herself. She was spiraling out of control and she couldn’t seem to stop it from happening. “I’m not dog meat.”

“Shel,” Ric’s voice softened. He approached her, his reflection in the glass was concerned. He cupped his palms over her shoulders. “Of course not. Tactically, I’m trying to figure out how many people we have to investigate.”

The heat from his hands burned through the thin t-shirt. She was out of sorts and out of control and she hated it. “This is so crazy.”

“One step at a time.” Ric tugged her so that her back pressed against his front and his arms wrapped around her tightly. “We’ll figure it out.”

Accepting his help felt strange. She looked out for herself. She had since she was eighteen and pregnant, her mother kicked her out of the house, and Jackson Stone shoved money at her for an abortion.