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No one was around, except the Barratts’ security guard stationed on the steps. Someone guarded all the doors to this place twenty-four/seven. Jarrod finally breathed a sigh of relief, having Haldyn back where he knew she was safe.
"I wonder where Powell is?"
Of course, that would be her first concern. Those two were almost glued together whenever they were both in the castle. "Somewhere with Gunnar, making out hot and heavy, maybe?"
She shot him a chiding look. "That's never going to happen."
"In his ultimate fantasies, it probably already has." He'd watched the other guy with that woman. Gunnar had it bad.
Haldyn gave that little sniff guaranteed to get under Jarrod’s skin. "Powell is ninety-nine percent certain he's just trying to mess with her now."
"Messing with her is exactly what he wants to do. I just think he intends to mess with her forever. If she'll let him." Gunnar had said before he was too damned old to be playing around. He wanted more than that. Gunnar was two or three years older than Jarrod, he thought.
Jarrod imagined it for just a moment. Having one woman who mattered forever. To come home to. To hold whenever he wanted. To…love.
Hell, if he wasn’t with Haldyn right now, he’d be back in the apartment he’d lived in for ten years, debating microwave pizza or frying up a frozen hamburger patty and baked french fries.
Just to watch whatever game was on the TV. Or work. He had files at home, after all. It had been different when Gabby had lived a few floors down. He’d hang out with her and Brynna and Mel after work. Or go to their dad’s place. Kevin Beck had been his first partner on the job. The older man was still the closest thing to a father Jarrod had ever had.
Now, he mostly just sat at home. Worked. Unless he was with the guys of Major Crimes working out or playing basketball or working on their little projects.
He really did need to get an actual life soon. He was starting to come to that realization lately.
He had since he’d realized one more thing last night in his damned suite—he liked it at Melody and Houghton’s now. There were people there. No one could be lonely there. When Gabby had lived in the same building he had, he’d see that woman almost more than he didn’t. Brynna and Melody would usually be with her.
He’d had people. Almost like he had a family or something. He’d missed that in the last three years. It had taken him a while to catch on to that.
He couldn't get the look on Sean Callum’s face out of his head. Sean's wife could have been killed today. His world taken away. Like Gunnar's had been when he'd lost his wife years ago.
The sheer depth of the love on Sean's face had haunted him all damned day.
Jarrod had never loved a woman like that.
He wondered if he ever would. Or if he’d ever have a woman love him back that way either. Hell, did he want to spend the rest of his life alone like this? With no one to come home to? Every time he saw Houghton wrapped around Melody, he felt envy now. And not because it was Melody, but that Houghton had someone to love him like that.
"If he's serious, he's going to have to convince her,” Haldyn said almost too softly for him to hear as the guard opened the front door to the Barratts’ Castle of Ostentatiousness. Jarrod stayed practically on her heels. He wasn’t ready for her to disappear upstairs again tonight. He just wasn’t.
"How is he supposed to do that? He's been practically shouting it since the damned choir shooting. She's just not hearing the message. Maybe he should just give up? What would it take to get through to a woman like her?" Hell, it wasn't the realtor Jarrod was thinking about. It was the woman in front of him. What would an ordinary guy like him have to do to get a woman like Haldyn?
He wanted to hold her. He'd wanted to hold her since the moment they'd realized something was wrong in that damned vault. He'd wanted to hold her, protect her, and just make everything okay.
It was time he admitted that to himself.
“Trust. All she wants is…to be able to trust him. Depend on him when it matters most. Isn’t that what everyone wants, though? I’m going upstairs. I’ll be back down for dinner.” She stepped inside, headed right for the stairs that dominated the entryway, and hurried upstairs.
Leaving him behind. Alone.
The last thing he wanted.
31
Heather parked her SUV next to the garage and waited. Sure enough, a dark SUV passed by. She was almost certain someone had been following her, but she just couldn’t prove it. Yet.
It seemed that particular make and model was common in Hughes Heights. Definitely not anything she could afford—but her neighbors could.
They’d had a new neighbor move in just next door over the last few weeks.
She suspected he was going to prove problematic. Especially for Cara. Cara had already had a problem with him to begin with, something about an argument at the law firm she interned at. Cara was twenty-three, almost innocent about men, and life in general, with level one autism. She wouldn’t stand a chance pitted against a wealthy Barratt, of the law firm Barratt, Barratt, & Barratt.
