Make Time For Me

“Oh my God. Oh, that’s such wonderful news. I’m so happy! I’m going to be an aunt! I’m going to be the bestest, funnest aunt ever, and I am going to love your baby so much, and do everything I can to keep it safe. Everything. Forever, Cara.”

“I know,” whispered her friend, and she hugged Olivia again, tight.

“And I think Caleb is going to propose to me in front of everybody, which he knows I’ll hate, so I guess we’re just meant for each other, don’t you?”

Olivia chuckled a little weepy.

“Of course you are. You are meant for each other. You love each other so much, it just shines. And now I see why you glow, and why you haven’t had a sip of wine all day. You’re going to be the best parents. You will be such a wonderful mother. Everything will be fine.”

“I know. I trust that. Vee, you really love Jason, don’t you? When you look at him, you look how I feel when I look at Caleb.”

Olivia sighed a little.

“I don’t think I want to think about that right now. It’s still new and it’s… Well, we haven’t said the words, and I don’t know how he feels, so we’re just taking things slow right now.”

Cara looked around pointedly, at Jason who was laughing with her brother, her sisters, and her father.

“Sure, that’s what this is. Taking things slow.”

Olivia grinned.

“In our own special way. I can’t wait for the announcement. I will cry buckets. And buckets.”

“I’m sure you will, and so will Abby, and Hazel, and Hattie will pretend not to be crying, and John will look strong but still cry, and Caleb will try to comfort everybody and cry, and Jason will probably run as far away as he can,” teased Cara.

“Hey, this is one way to find out if he’s actually a keeper.”

“I guess that’s one way to look at it. Now – well, looks like Caleb has fortified himself and is ready for the announcement.”

It unfolded just as predicted, except that Jason joined in the tears, too.

“Why are you crying?” demanded Olivia.

“Because it’s all so much and it’s beautiful!” declared Jason, and Olivia hugged him, and kissed him, knowing that she would never love another man this much. He was the love of her life.

And there couldn’t have been a better moment to realize it than when she was surrounded by people who loved her, people she loved.

The only thing wrong with the day was that it flew by.

It took Jason a while to make excuses and get away. He could see now how Olivia was as lovely as she was. Her family was wonderful. They had seen that she had accepted him, so he had been accepted, with the only condition being that he never make her unhappy. There hadn’t even been any demands that she make him happy. The only condition had been that he could not make her unhappy.

When he’d said that he needed to meet a friend, they had all tried to get him to stay and invite his friend over, even offering an extra ticket to the concert for the friend, but he’d had to leave, just for an hour.

Now he waited at the rather seedy bar outside town, waiting for him.

“Well, Jason, you rich bas*ard. You look the same. Like you wouldn’t last two minutes in an alley.”

“Thanks, Lewis. I feel the same. How’s Lydia?”

“Great, pregnant with our third. You should settle down, Jason. Find the right woman, start a family, have a couple of kids. Stop breaking laws.”

“Am I breaking any? I didn’t notice. Now, come on, this little side business of yours will keep your kids in football and ballet shoes for years, won’t it? Do you have what I asked for?”

“Some. Paul Martinez, half-black, half-Latino, all gay. Has a couple of dings, but mostly for getting picked up during protests for gay rights. Nothing, let’s say, violent or aggressive. Volunteered his time and skills at a couple of shelters for LGBT youth. Nothing to suggest that he’s dangerous to anybody except to social injustice.”

Jason grinned. Lewis was a cop who didn’t mind doing background runs for the right price, and had his own code of honor. He might bend the rules, but he wouldn’t break the spirit of the law. He would not take jobs like this from people he didn’t trust. But for people he did trust, like Jason, because they went back a long way, he would do this – for a prize.

“Sounds like he’d be low on the list.”

“I’d say so. Ellie Macintosh, southern belle. She left home and family and decided to be a biker chick who was also a doctor. She has a record, a drunk and disorderly, but that was at a family function. Her own family pressed charges against her.”

Lewis looked like he could spit. He didn’t approve of family who didn’t have each other’s backs.

“Anything else interesting?”

“No, nothing. Clean as far as I could find. Not a person of interest in anything, open or closed. Angela Cullen, now there’s something else.”

“What?”

“Well, she was in the system for a while, got knocked around a bit. Brilliant student, got scholarships and got out of dodge, but there’s a pattern of trouble following her. She has a juvie record, but that one is sealed, nothing I can do about that. You can try and hack into that, but I don’t think it’ll get you much more than what I’m telling you.”

Jason made a noncommittal sound. He would decide that.

“What is this pattern of trouble?”

“Something would happen. Something would get stolen, somebody would get blamed, and somebody would get arrested for it. In every school, every foster home and every college or dorm she was at, that happened. Now, this girl is smart enough not to get caught, usually, but the only time she did get caught seems to be when she lost her head for some guy. He changed his mind and didn’t press charges, so it wasn’t a permanent mark on her record. But apparently she almost drove his girlfriend crazy.”

“How?”

“Used her like a behavioral psychology experiment, from what I understood. This isn’t in her file, I found out because I know somebody who knows somebody else, and something stuck out. By the time she was caught, and that was an accident, she had nearly driven the poor girl mad.”

“Are you sure we’re talking about the same Angela Cullen? Small, blonde, looks like a doll?”

“Apparently the blonde is a dye job. Her hair used to be red. But here, is this her?”

Jason took the phone Lewis offered, took a good look at the photo on it, and he nodded.

“That’s her.”

“Then that’s the scoop.”

Jason nodded, and they chatted for a while, but by the time he got back to Olivia, he was sure. He didn’t know why Angela was doing what she was doing. But he finally knew who they had to watch out for, and that was a relief.