Page 20 of Bastain

“I don’t doubt it. You’re forever flustering me to the point that I don’t know what questions I wanted to ask.” He asked her if she had any now. “Yes. It’s about my aunt. Have you gotten the paperwork back that says she can stand trial? She scares me that she might get out.”

“I got it this morning and was going to talk to you about it. Yes, she’s fit to stand trial. She still doesn’t understand why you got your mom’s checks, but she’s working on understanding that.” She asked if there was any way that she’d get out. “Not unless she has a good reason for beating you up and trying to take the checks from you. I don’t know how that’s going to happen either, since she’s made it perfectly clear that she’s still going to get them when she gets out of prison. Where she thinks she shouldn’t be in the first place.”

“I think that she’s off her rocker. And mom said the same thing.” He said that the courts say differently. “She’s going to get out and get me. I just know it.”

“No, she won’t. I promise you on my heart that she won’t get to you again. Not so long as I can help it.” Trin told him that she’d just get him, too. “I’m bigger and meaner. I can take her on and have her arrested for hurting me. But with you, she fights dirty, and I’ll be there to make sure that she doesn’t get to you.”

She didn’t know what to think about his declaration about keeping her safe. Instead of arguing with him more, she changed the subject to something that she thought she could handle. It was about the house that she was living in with him.

“My mom, of course, knows that you’re here. She’s going to be making sure you get your appointments on time, as well as physical therapy.” She asked why she was doing that. “Because when I told her last night that I’d fallen in love with you, she didn’t seem the least bit surprised. She also said that she loved your mother and thought that she’d be happy that she was taking care of her little girl.”

Trin snorted and thought that she’d be trying to stop that habit. It made Bastian laugh too much, and she had noticed that CarolAnn was doing it as well. Just as she was going to tell him that she didn’t know what she felt for him, he stood up and covered her up with the blankets.

“You’re much too tempting to be all uncovered like you are.” The blankets came up to her chin, and he tucked her in on both sides. “I think if you were wearing a potato sack, you’d still look too good for me.”

“I don’t know why you say these things to me. You know how they make me feel.” He smiled, more like a leer. She watched as he crossed the room and went to the door. “Are you coming back here? I have about ten thousand questions to ask you.”

“I have time later tonight. Right now I’m helping my brother with a case.” She asked if it was the Morehouse case. “Yes. He’s having some trouble with the information that you gave him. Not that it’s not true, but he doesn’t know how to work it into a subject without having the judge shut him down.”

“I’m not a lawyer. I would just tell him what I found.” He said that as a lawyer, they had to be slicker about things. “I’m glad that I’m not. I would be upset all the time if I had to think of ways to say that someone is guilty. I just show them the form they filled out with the policy, and that’s the end of my helping them.”

“What would that do?” She told them what the policy said and how the person died, and that would be the end of their getting insurance. “They just fell apart after seeing what the policy did?”

“Most of the time. You see, people don’t understand that you have to make payments on a policy to make it good. They think that if they were to just buy one in the person’s name, that’s all they need. But it’s a lot more than that. My mom bought her policy eighteen years before I was able to cash it. Then there was the policy she took out for me. Someday someone is going to be able to collect from my death, and I hope they enjoy it. It’s what insurance is for.”

“I don’t want to think about you dying. I’ve only just figured out that I love you, and thinking about you dying breaks my heart.” She thanked him for that. “I love you, Trinity. I can’t wait until you believe me. Or that you love me.” He stood there for several seconds before he went out, closing the door behind him.

She didn’t move other than to untuck herself from the blankets. The walk around the room had tired her some and she wanted to take a little nap. The doctors had told her that she should nap when she wanted. That her body had gone through a great deal of trauma, and it would need to rest more than not. She curled up around the pillows and closed her eyes.

Her mind wasn’t allowing her to sleep, however. All she could think about was that Bastain had said that he loved her. She couldn’t get over the fact that the man, a good-looking man at that, professed that he loved her without even knowing her that well. She didn’t know him all that well, either, but was getting used to him. In addition to his driving her crazy, she thought perhaps she was falling in love with him, too.

“Damn it.” He’d been such a monster to her before that she found she didn’t want to fall in love with him. But her mind and her heart couldn’t agree on what they wanted from him, and that bothered her as well. She either loved him or hated him from minute to minute. She realized what she was thinking and sat up in the big bed.

She couldn’t love him, could she? They’d known one another for the last three months, and to her, that wasn’t nearly enough time to get to know someone enough to fall in love. Yet here she was thinking it. Sitting up more in the bed, she thought of the times they were fighting and how mean he’d been. But he wasn’t anymore, and that was what was making her feel something for the big guy.

“I’ve brought you a snack.” She looked at CarolAnn and decided that since she was there, she was going to get as much information as she could about Bastain. He was an enigma to her, and she didn’t know what to do about it. “Are you all right? You look like you’ve been thinking hard on something and haven’t figured out the answer yet.”

“You have to help me. Bastain said that he loves me.” She said that he’d told her last night that he’d fallen in love with her. “How is that possible? He didn’t even like the idea of being around me for fear that I was like his ex-wife. I’m not, he’s realized, but to say that he loves me is something that I never dreamed of.”

“I don’t believe that he ever loved Debra. She was just someone that he had sex with on occasion, and when she wanted to marry, he didn’t see any reason for him not to. I tried to tell him that she wasn’t right for him, but he had his head set on marrying, and that was the end of it.” She asked how long they’d been married. “Five years. A little less than that. I think from the day she said ‘I do,’ she decided that he was going to pay to be with her. She wanted him to go to parties all the time, and she had to have a designer outfit for each event. It got to the point on some nights they’d argue so much that he’d come to the house and spend the night there. She was a bitch, too, when he wouldn’t do as she wanted. And her hurtful words would stick hard to him because, and you can believe this or not, he wears his heart on his sleeve. I’ve never seen him so hurt as when they’d argue.”

“Why did they get divorced? For some reason, I think it took something powerful for him to have told her he had had enough.” She said that she’d have affairs right under his nose. “You think she wanted to get caught?”

“Yes. She also thought that she could get out of the prenup, too. But there were no loopholes in her favor.” Trin thought about how hurt she’d be if that were to have happened to her. “Then one afternoon, he finds her in bed with one of his friends, and that was the end of it. He served her right then and had her kicked out of the house. He had owned it, too, so there was no reason to split the property. She left with only the clothing on her back that she came into the marriage with. He took every one of her designer things and sold them to the lowest bidder just to piss her off more.”

“He doesn’t strike me as a man who would want to be taken to the cleaners. I told him that I wasn’t signing a prenup. I don’t want his money. I have money of my own.” CarolAnn laughed. “What’s so funny?”

“He’s a billionaire, darling. And has been one since before he got out of college. He’s made it his life’s work to be wealthy, and I think he thought that it would make him happier. It didn’t. It only made him a little bitter when that’s all people wanted from him. His money. He’s since gotten over that part now, but for a while, all he was all the time was like a snapping turtle about people wanting to take advantage of him. I think that’s what made him fall in love with you. You have no desire for his money nor for him. And that makes me laugh more than you can know. If you do marry him, I think…No, I believe that it will be a marriage made of strength and love that no one can break.”

After CarolAnn left, she had a lot to think about. First and foremost, did she love him? She didn’t know, but she was thinking that he was growing on her, like an old fungus. Laughing to herself, she laid back down on the bed and closed her eyes. Her naptime was better now that she’d had something to talk to CarolAnn about, and she was relaxed enough to sleep for a while, too.

Chapter 8

Tilly couldn’t believe that she couldn’t get anything done while in prison. She’d been trying to get someone to kill Trin since she’d gotten in, but no one would do it. She was beginning to think that the stories that she’d watched on television weren’t true. Also, she didn’t believe that women were as catty as she’d seen too. They all seemed to be getting along really well, not with her, but with each other. She wanted nothing to do with prisoners. She was just visiting here and not an inmate. That’s what she kept telling herself all the time.

The money that she wasn’t getting was making her insane. Why did Trin think that turning the money into the Social Security office was justified? It was their mistake, and someone should pay for that. She wanted the money, and if she didn’t get it, then no one would. Tilly thought about her shop then. Doris was her sister after all.

It wasn’t making any money. Nothing. Even when someone would come by to look around, they’d just say how high her prices were and that they couldn’t afford it. She’d put the prices high so that only the elite would come in and buy her things.