She hoped her discomfort didn’t show. Holly wasn’t ready to share her deepest feelings with this man yet. “Well, be glad you’re not in my shoes. Because it’s not a very nice place to be right now.” Even that amount of honesty surprised her. She was used to keeping her problems to herself. What was it about squabbling over expensive cookies in the grocery store with this man that brought out so many mixed feelings?
“Gee, do I sense a little hostility here?” Alex stepped back from the cart. “If so, hooray. You need to vent some of that once in a while, Holly.”
She pushed the half-loaded basket past him, narrowly missing his toes. He was a cool customer; he didn’t even flinch when the cart rolled by that close. “Since when have you added psychologist to your other degrees, Wilkins? It doesn’t become you.”
“Not really psychology, just common sense. There’s still plenty of that taught in the academy and at law school. Maybe even we don’t apply it as often as we should.”
“How’s that?” He sounded genuinely concerned, and Holly wanted to know what he meant.
“I’ve been telling the brass for years that we don’t give enough support to victims and their families. Which is why I probably got this assignment,” he finished with a rueful grin. “Maybe they figure if I see what that kind of support actually entails I won’t be so quick to volunteer it.”
“Suits me. Then maybe I can get back to life as I know it.” Holly pushed the cart past another aisle, anxious to get out of the store without too much more goody-buying from Alex.
He wasn’t about to let her get away easily. Alex walked in front and put both hands on the end of the cart, blocking her way. “Yeah, well, don’t be so quick to go back to life as you know it. You weren’t doing that great a job, Holly.”
His gaze on her made a shiver run up her spine. She couldn’t ignore the serious tone of what he said or the implications of the words, either. “What—what do you mean by that?” she stammered.
“I may have only been here a day or so, but I’ve looked around. In a perfectly normal situation you’d be doing an okay job. But this isn’t a perfectly normal situation. And from what I’ve seen, you’re stressed and short on patience and money. Raising kids alone can’t be fun or easy.”
“No, but it’s reality, so you might as well let me get back to it.” Holly felt like folding her arms and pouting. Of course, neither action would make Alex take her any more seriously.
“Sorry, I can’t do that. I think I’ve made it perfectly clear that I’m not leaving for a while. I want to make sure you’re plenty safe first. You and the boys.”
“We’ll be safe. We have been for the entire time we’ve lived in Safe Harbor. It’s well named,” Holly argued.
“Not good enough. You were safe then because Rico was behind bars. Now he’s not, and that changes things. Besides, remember what I said earlier? That I was able to take Conor with me in his own car seat because none of the car doors were locked? You can’t be that lax, even after I go back to Chicago. Rico has friends. And they have friends. This may not be over for years.”
“Great. Just what I wanted to hear.”
He still wasn’t letting the basket move. “Whether you want to hear what I have to say or not, you have to listen. And listening means doing what I’m asking, like locking the car doors. Can we agree on that?”
Her aggravation and anxiety levels were growing by the second. Wasn’t there anything she could say that would make him listen? This was her life they were talking about, and she wanted to stay in control. “But Alex, I’ll stick out like a sore thumb. Nobody in Safe Harbor is that concerned about security. It’s a very small town.”
Shaking his head, Alex finally let go of the cart. He wasn’t letting go of his ideas, though. “Yeah, it’s a small town, all right. With a very small police force, I’ll bet. And a large tourist population.”
“So?”
“So nobody would notice a stranger like Rico or the guys he hangs out with if they came around looking for you. The Safe Harbor force has gotten our bulletins, but they don’t know how you fit in. The force here will have to be educated on what to look for, and chances are nobody around here is ready. Maybe I can make some money while I’m here, giving security seminars. Reimburse the county for some of these expensive groceries.” He illustrated his point by putting two half gallons of ice cream into the cart. It wasn’t the store brand, either.
Holly gave up. Arguing with him only made him more determined. “All right. Fine. I’ll lock the car doors. And make sure the dead bolt is on at night in the apartment.”
“And screen your phone calls. You do have caller ID, don’t you?”
The man was relentless. “Sure. Whatever.” Whatever was going to get him out of her hair the fastest. And if that meant agreeing with him on all his much-too-cautious safety notions, so be it. They were coming up to the checkout counter now and she knew there wasn’t enough money in her purse to pay for this heaped cart of food. So arguing with Alex at this point would be counterproductive.
But then, Holly was beginning to get the idea that arguing with Alex at any point was going to be fairly useless. He was a man used to getting his way. She might have plenty of experience arguing with stubborn little boys, but Alex with his courtroom training was a whole different kind of adversary.
Didn’t the woman ever get tired of arguing? Alex picked up as many plastic sacks of groceries as he was sure he could take in one load and straightened up from the car trunk. If he took any less she’d only load herself down, sure that she needed to pull her weight in every endeavor. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever met anybody this stubborn. His aggravation probably made him close the trunk a little more forcefully than he should, but he had to get rid of some frustrations somewhere.
Independence was a wonderful thing, especially in a situation like the one Holly found herself in. When she didn’t have anybody around it was good that she was self-reliant. But Alex was pretty sure self-reliance could be carried too far. Why not take the help when it was available and offered? Holly seemed to push him away for no reason. If positions were reversed and he normally had a family to support on as little as he knew she was getting by on, he’d welcome a little help once in a while. Did she really expect a week or two of pork chops instead of hot dogs would spoil those kids for life?
What he remembered about Holly told Alex that she hadn’t always been this way. The way Kevin had talked about Holly, she’d seemed a little more willing to compromise, to give in, to share the burden with others.
Toiling up the apartment-house stairs, arms laden with groceries, Alex flashed back to his own childhood again. He remembered how routine his mother’s life and his own had been during those long periods when his dad was at sea. Not that routine was bad, especially for little kids. They seemed to thrive on it. He knew he had, but life alone with his mother had somehow often slipped from routine to much too quiet.
The celebrations that took place when his father came home along with the rest of his ship’s crew always made the old man seem like an even more special individual. And come to think of it, the celebrations also helped to mask, for years, how drab their lives were when he was away. What Jim Wilkins couldn’t see didn’t exist, and Alex knew his mother made sure that his father saw just what she wanted him to when he was on leave.
The door to Holly’s apartment was wide open when he reached her floor. He knew she was probably only seconds ahead of him, but still her carelessness aggravated him. Hadn’t they just talked about this? He went through the open door and pointedly kicked it closed behind him without saying a word, making enough noise to remind her to shut it next time.
“I heard that,” she called from the kitchen. “Real subtle.”
“It