LOVING HER SOUL MATE (43 page)

Shay leaned into John.
 
“Should I be worried?”

John snorted.
 
“If he even thinks about offending you, he
should be worried.”

Shay smiled and allowed John to
lead her into the lion’s den.

The drive back to Shay’s house was
a quiet one.
 
Shay was looking out of the
side window, and John was seated behind the wheel staring straight ahead.
 
And although they were holding hands, they
both were mired in their own deep thought.
 
But both of them were thinking about the same
thing.

What John had said to Mayor
Fletchette.

They had been in his library for
only a few minutes.
 
The mayor was going
on and on about how he won reelection by the slimmest of margins and needed to
be above reproach. He didn’t want the townspeople dredging up any of that “old
stuff,” he declared, and Shay Turner was a part of that “old stuff.”

“Is there anything else?” John
asked his boss.

“You don’t seem to understand the
position you two are putting me in, John,” the mayor insisted.
 
“I barely survived that last election!
 
I don’t want them rehashing that old
drama.
 
And every time they see you with
that woman they’ll be rehashing it!”

Then John blurted out a response
even he didn’t see coming.
 
“Well they had
better get used to it,” he yelled, “because this woman is going to be my wife!”

Shay was stunned.
 
The mayor was stunned.
 
And John was darn near flabbergasted. Did he
just say that?
 
Did he really?
 
And he didn’t take it back.

Now they were heading back, to
Shay’s place, and neither one of them could find the words to say.
 
They had never so much as mentioned the idea
of marriage.
 
Yes, they’d known each
other a long time now.
 
Yes, they’d been
in a deeply committed relationship ever since her return to Brady.
 
But marriage?
 
That was a different ball of wax.
 
No matter what anybody said to her, she knew
being the wife of a man and being his girlfriend were two entirely different
things.
 
Were they truly ready for
that?
 

For Shay it was a question of priorities.
 
She was just getting her career jumpstarted
yet again.
 
The idea of throwing a
husband in the mix would be unsettling on every level.
 
And
especially a husband
like
John.
 
He was no meek and
mild, passive man who would let her
do
whatever she wanted
to do.
 
That would have been great, but
that wasn’t John.
 
Not that he would try
to run her life, he wouldn’t, but he would certainly have a major say in her
life.
 
And he would seek to correct her
and protect her if he thought she was headed down the wrong road.
 
He would wear the pants, without a doubt.

She would still have her freedom,
she believed, but she also knew she would have to answer to John.
 
That was just the way it would be, and she
knew it.
 
And sometimes she loved the
idea of having somebody who was looking out for her.
 
But other times she wasn’t sure if she could
get used to giving somebody else a say-so in her life.
 
John, she knew, if she went down that road
with him, would have the deciding vote.

John ran his hand through his hair
as he drove and stared into the night.
 
He still couldn’t believe he had blurted out those words to the
mayor.
 
And he said it with such
conviction, as if it was no news to him.
 
Or to Shay.
 
And Shay, poor thing, he thought as he glanced over at her.
 
She was mortified when he blurted it
out.
 
She couldn’t believe it,
either.
 
Now, hold on there, buster
, he had expected her to say.
 
Who
said anything about marriage
?

He looked down, at the way her
hands were folded in her lap; at the way she was staring out the side window as
if she was staring at a future with him.
 
And it was scaring the life out of her.

John’s heart squeezed in agony as
he looked back out of the window in front of him.
  
He felt like a man trapped in his own skin, and
the only way he could break free was to turn himself inside out.
 
Because that was what it would take to be a
husband to a woman like Shay.
 
He
couldn’t go to her with bullshit.
 
He
couldn’t go to her half-stepping.
 
He had
to go to her bearing his soul.
 

His car stopped on her driveway
and he got out and opened the door for her.
 
They were still silent as they slowly walked up to her porch and then
her front door.
 
The boys next door were
no longer outside, and the once raucous neighborhood was now eerily quiet.
 
Shay pulled out her door key.
 
John took the key from her and unlocked the
door.
 
He’d done it many times before.
 
He, in fact, always took the key from her and
unlocked the door.
 
But this time, for
Shay, it seemed to portend what she could expect in a John and Shay union: John
would lead the way.

“Coming in?” she asked him as she
moved to enter her home.
 
He always came
in.

But this time he balked.
 
“No,” he said, “I’d better get home and try
to get some sleep.”

She nodded.
 
And although she understood, she also felt a
stab of pain.

“Goodnight, Shay,” John said to
her, and leaned into her.
 
They both
closed their eyes as he kissed her on the lip.
 
And when they parted, Shay could see the anguish in his eyes.
 
He seemed more spooked by his blurt-out to
the mayor than even she was.
 

“Go inside and lock the door
before I leave,” he said.
 
And although
he said the same thing every time he bought her home at night, it sounded like
an order this night.
 

But she went inside, and locked
the door.

John went back to his Porsche,
cranked back up the loud, revved engine, and made his way down the quiet street
that would lead him home, on the other side of town.
 
Marriage, he kept thinking.
 
Where did that come from?
 
Marriage?
 
Seriously?
 

Then he got onto Belcher Road and
stopped at a red light.
 
And he
remembered tonight and how he felt when other men were checking out his
woman.
 
At first he was flattered.
 
He knew what they meant.
 
But then, if he’d ever admit it, he became a
little fearful.
 
What if she found one of
those men more suitable than he was?
 
What if one of those men didn’t carry the baggage he carried and wasn’t
so gruff and tough the way he was?
 
What
if she fell in love and married one of them?
 

His heart sank.
 

And although the light turned
green, giving him permission to go forward, he turned around, giving himself
permission to go back.

Shay, in her bathrobe, had just
taken off her clothes and was pouring herself a bath when she heard the banging
on her front door.
 
She froze at first,
because she knew.
 
Somehow she knew it
would be him.
 
But then she got in a
hurry, because she wanted it to be him.
 
Desperately.

After looking out of the peephole,
she slung open the door.
 
John, as was
his way, barged inside.

“It won’t work, Shay,” he said to
her.
 
And her heart plummeted.

“What won’t work?” she nervously
asked him.
 
“If we got
married?”

“If we don’t get married it won’t
work.
 
No matter how much I pretend, it
won’t work.
 
I can’t live without you.”

As soon as he said those words
Shay flew into his arms.
 

“I can’t live without you,
darling,” John said, tears in both their eyes.
 
He lifted her up as he held her.
 
And then he sat her back down, and leaned slightly back from her.
  

“Is marrying me, Shay, too much to
ask of you?”

Shay smiled.
 
And touched the side of his
handsome face.
 
“No, John.
 
It’s a wonderful thing to ask.”

John stared at her.
 
His heart preparing to
soar.
 
“Will you marry me?” he
asked her.

Shay’s heart pounded.
 
“Yes,” she said.
 
“I will marry you.”

And John smiled, and grinned, and
lifted her in the air again.
 
Only this
time he felt lifted too.

SEVENTEEN

Paige and Shay drove to Hurley,
Mississippi early that next morning, and met with the police chief.
 
The chief, a big, burly black man, had his jail
records ready for their perusal and his story was the same one he had told to
Shay.
 
He didn’t connect the dots.
 
The name Willie Glazer didn’t ring a bell
with him at all.
 
Except
when that anchor on the Channel 9 broadcast mentioned Glazer’s middle name.
 
Cletis
.
 
The chief’s first name.
 
It was only then did he remember that he had a prisoner there, some
years ago, who had that same name.
 
He
checked, and was amazed when he saw the name William Cletis Glazer, and that
Glazer was actually strung out on drugs and in his jail cell when three of
those thirteen women were killed.

Shay and Paige had already
confirmed that Glazer’s middle name was indeed Cletis.
 
With this evidence, and the chief’s
willingness to go on record, they felt they had their story.
 
They drove back to Brady, a five-hour drive,
and prepared their blockbuster of a front page story while they drove.
 
It would premiere in tomorrow morning’s
paper.
 
And although Paige told her not
to give John a beforehand notice, Shay wasn’t about to let a story this big
blindside him completely.
 

She tried to reach him as soon as
she left the Brady Beast office building, but he was still in meetings and
couldn’t be disturbed.
 
Instead of going
home, she drove to his home.
 
Let
herself
in with the key he had given to her, and ended up
lying across his bed.

When she woke up, around two that
morning, she was naked, between the sheets, and his dick was between her
legs.
 
He was kissing her ear.

“I knew you would wake up,” he
said with a smile.

Shay smiled too.
 
“What if I didn’t wake up?”

“I think I could have managed
without you,” John said to laughter from her.
 
Then he turned serious.
 
“You’ll
never know how pleased I was to see you in my bed.
 
It was such a long, draining day.
 
Thank-you for being here for
me.”

Shay knew there was an additional
reason why she was there, but he didn’t give her a chance to express it.
 
Or at least she didn’t want to express it
just yet.
 
Not while he was kissing the
back of her neck, and fondling the front of her breasts, and rubbing her clit
with his massive tool.
 
Not while she
squirmed when he poked his finger into her pussy and began to slide it in and
out, over and over, and then added another finger.
 

She leaned back against him, as
his rock hard front jutted against her soft back.
 
He was naked
too,
the gold chain around his neck was pouncing, as he grabbed his dick, slipped it
into her folds, and began to thrash her.
 
She cried out from his pounding, because it felt so good.
 
And he grunted out from the intense way she
always made him feel.
 
Only this time he
wasn’t fucking his girlfriend.
 
He was
fucking the woman who was going to be his wife.
 
And it was an exhilarating feeling.