Chapter 21

Kasey remembered Elizabeth Black. When she was sitting up there on the witness stand Kasey remembered everything about her. She’d been called plaintive number four on the list of women. Beth had been working there for six months when she’d simply quit. Kasey hadn’t known why until this whole thing had started. She wondered about a lot of the others too and had been able to give Curtis all the names of the other women when he’d asked her. White had cornered Beth twice before she’d come to Kasey. “He’s making advances that make me feel creepy.” Kasey had never been sure why the girl had come to her, but did try to help. “And he keeps touching me inappropriately.” Kasey pointed to the gun on the other girl’s hip. “You could always use that on him. I don’t mean shoot him,” she hastily pointed out when the girl looked ready to explode. “I just mean hit him with it. That should tell him you’re not interested quicker than just saying it.” “But I really need this job. There’re not a lot of places that will hire a female guard, especially one that carries a gun. They think we’re going to go all PMS on them. Not that it’s not tempting sometimes, but I’d never do that.” Kasey had to hide a smile at the PMS comment and moved on quickly. “You could just go to HR. Human Resources have those posters up all over the break room telling you how to contact them and how no one would know about it.” Beth nodded then shook her head. “He’d find out, I just know it. And then it will be all over for me.” Kasey was pretty sure she was right. It was the reason she’d never gone to HR about White. They’d talked for a little while longer and then it seemed to be the end of it. Until a few weeks later when Beth simply wasn’t at work anymore. At the time, she thought the girl had had enough and was happy for her. But listening to her tell her tale made Kasey feel like she’d let the girl down somehow. Kasey brushed at some tears just as Royce took her hand. “You don’t have to be here, honey. They would understand if you didn’t come here until it was your turn. This can’t be good for you or the baby.” He nipped at her earlobe as he continued. “I could go home with you and we could take another nap. That seemed to relax you a lot last night.” She flushed all over thinking how he’d relaxed her through several climaxes and right into a coma. She looked at him and he growled low, and she nearly told him to get moving. Christ, nine months pregnant and she was like a nymphomaniac where this man was concerned. She’d been tense all day. The trial was moving along at a good pace, but she knew her turn was going to come up soon. She’d told everyone at dinner that she was tired and needed to lay down. She was coming out of the bathroom in their room when she saw Royce come through the door. “I thought I’d give you a back rub or massage your feet for you. Maybe you will sleep better that way.” She still marveled at the fact that he was her husband and that he liked touching her. “Besides, the baby might like to hear about his daddy’s day.”

They’d been told the week before that sex was no longer an option. She had lost her mucus plug earlier in the week and the doctor had told them she was getting closer. The Braxton Hick contractions were getting stronger and it was just a matter of time now. She’d lain down on the bed with him and he started rubbing her shoulders then her spine and finally, he was at her butt. He was rolling her to her side more when he brushed against her full breast. “Roll to your back. I want to touch you.” She did that without much thought and moaned when he tweaked her nipple. “Your breasts are so large right now. Full and so responsive.” Before she could say anything to him, he leaned down, took her nipple into his mouth, and suckled it through her gown. She arched her back, wanting him to take more, and felt her panties soak. She moved her legs to try and alleviate some of the pressure building there when he moved them open for him. “Royce, we can’t,” she started. “The doctor said that we—” “He said no sex. I’m going to give you pleasure. Just lay back, sweetheart, and let me have some fun. I promise you that you’ll feel much better when I’m through.” While he took her nipple again, he settled between her legs. She closed her eyes, feeling overwhelmed and needy when she felt him slide his fingers under her panties. “Christ, you’re wet. And fucking hot. I don’t want you to hold back, baby. When you want to come, let go.” Royce moved his fingers into her and pressed her clit hard. “Come, Kasey, come for me.” The climax was soft and moved over her slowly. She had had a few like that in the last few months. While they did satisfy her some, they didn’t last long. She started to roll to her side to sleep when she felt his mouth over her mound. “Royce,” she cried out when he sucked hard on her clit. His fingers moved in and out of her quickly now and his mouth didn’t stop nipping. Before she could stop herself she had one hand wrapped tightly in his hair the other cupped her tender breast. “That’s it, baby. Make them ache.” He moved his mouth along her inner thigh then nipped there. “Come again for me, Kasey. Come hard so that I can taste your sweetness.” She came twice more. Once when he’d commanded her to and the next time when he got up on his knees and undid his pants. His cock was hard and dark with need. She wanted to touch him, to take him into her mouth, but he fisted himself and came hard all over her, saying her name over and over as he did. She’d slipped away after that and hadn’t awakened until this morning. She squirmed on her seat again. It was as if the seats in this place were made to make a person feel like every bone in their body was crunching together. She glanced over at White and wondered how he could be so calm and relaxed-looking. She started to ask Royce when another person was called to the stand. A Gertrude Best, a name she’d not heard in years. Gurt had been there at the beginning. She and Kasey had been hired in around the same time, Kasey about a week before the girl started. Kasey was amazed at how much the woman had changed and it wasn’t until she took the stand that Kasey figured out just how much.

“Miss Best, could you tell us in your own words what happened the day you had a private meeting with Mr. White?” Curtis said to her gently. “There’s no rush.” “He raped me.” The words came out slowly as a wand was put at her throat. The sound was tinny and monotone. “He hit me with a bat and then he raped me.” Curtis nodded and handed her a box of tissues. “Is that how you came to have your throat injured? From the bat when he’d hit you?” “No. Later. When I told him I would go to police.” The girl wiped at the tears with her tissue. “He came to my house. He came with a gun.” Kasey felt the baby stir. Not like he’d done before, but a tightening around her middle that hurt almost. She rubbed her hand over him and tried to soothe him as Gurt continued to speak. “He said I was to be still. Quiet. Told me to stop talking to others. I said no. I didn’t see the gun until too late.” “What happened next, Miss Best? Tell us what he did next.” Curtis’ voice was soft, lulling almost. She looked over at him as she felt another pain, this one harder. “Said he’d shut me up. Then he pulled out the gun. It was at my head and I fought him. I thought he was going to kill me. He…noise was loud and he laughed. Said how he had shut me up for good.” White jumped up from his seat screaming at them. Kasey didn’t know what was being said because she was hurting badly now. She reached for Royce’s hand and he turned to look at her as another pain grabbed her. She looked at his mouth moving, but couldn’t hear anything coming out. Suddenly, Willow, her new friend, was standing next to her. Then nothing. ~~~ Royce watched them prep her. He’d been told that he needed to leave several times now, but he wasn’t budging. He held her hand the entire time they talked gently to his wife. He tried not to think about her slipping from her chair in the court room. That alone had aged him fifty years or so. But the blood had made him feel faint until one of his brothers, he thought it was Jesse, had shoved him away so that someone could have a look at her. “She’s in labor. Hard labor if I don’t miss my guess. Your Mrs. here is going to have a baby soon. Here if we don’t get her going.” The man had introduced himself twice to Royce, but all he could wrap his mind around was that Kasey was in labor. The ride to the hospital was made slowly, very slowly if he was asked about it. And as soon as the ambulance came to a sudden stop the doors flew open, and she was being jerked out with a cry. “The attendant isn’t suing you,” Jesse had told him earlier. “Not because you offered to pay him not to, but because he said he should have known that you’d be scared when she was being brought in. He said to tell you that you have a hell of a left hook.” Royce flushed when his mother snorted at them. “I should have beaten you more as a child is what I’m thinking. What will you do when your own son hits someone without provocation?”

“He made her cry. Was I supposed to just stand by and let them make her cry?” She snorted again, a sound he was beginning to hate more and more daily. “And I didn’t really mean to hit him. She cried out and I hit. It was a reflex.” His mom didn’t say anything more, but he could tell she wasn’t all that thrilled with him still. When Kasey said something to the nurse and she laughed Royce took her hand again. “You do know that you’re making their job harder, don’t you? Or do you even care?” He didn’t say anything to her question because frankly, he didn’t. “Why don’t you go and tell your family what’s happening? The doctor said I had about an hour yet. But that everything was going just fine.” “I’m not leaving you. The way you seem to be running though this, I’ll step out the door and my son will be in first grade before I get back. I’m staying.” He glared at the nurse when she huffed at him. “I want to be here for you. I can’t be here if everyone keeps sending me—” The grip on his hand nearly had him cry out himself. Royce heard the beeping on the monitor go berserk as her fingers began to dig deep into his hand. He stepped into her view and told her to breathe with him. She glared but seemed to relax as the monitor slowed again. He vaguely heard a door open then close behind him before he heard the booming voice of the doctor behind him. “Well, young lady, I see you waited for me to show up. Let’s get you examined and see how much longer—” The monitor started screaming again and it was all Royce could do not to ask Kasey to let up. “Well, well, I guess we’re a little more progressed than when you came in. Let’s have a look, shall we? Royce, you want to—” He glared at the doctor who simply laughed. “I just wanted to see that look. You have my nurses thinking you might commit some sort of fiery dance on them if they cross you. Might want to practice that one for later if you have a daughter. Might keep her safe from boys like you when she gets to dating.” Royce just wanted to get through this one, thanks. He held Kasey’s hand while the doctor had her put her feet up in the stirrups. She mumbled about it hurting and that she wanted to push when the doctor asked her. Push? Royce tried to remember when that happened in the books he’d been studying up on and realized that was the end. He started to protest about things suddenly going really too fast when the monitor went off again. “I think we should think about this. Things are—” “All right, young man, get yourself ready. We’re about to have us a baby. Kasey, love, when you feel the urge to push, you go right on ahead. And remember what the people in those classes told you, go at it like you have to take a large crap.” Royce had no more time. He was about to have a baby and he realized suddenly he wasn’t sure he was ready. They laid little Royce Lee York Hunter on his mother’s chest eighteen minutes and forty-one seconds later. Royce knew because he’d had the misfortune of hearing the nurse tell everyone that time frame seventeen times as they worked on his wife. Lee, as they were going to call their son, started rooting around as he felt his mother’s skin next to his mouth.

“Got yourself a hungry little man there, Mr. Hunter. He wants his dinner right now, not even five minutes old.” The nurse helped Kasey pull her gown down and bare her breast. “Go ahead and try to nurse him, Mrs. Hunter. It will do you both a world of good.” Lee latched onto her nipple like he’d been doing it forever. Royce smiled. He supposed he had been. Watching his son nurse was perhaps the best thing he’d ever seen in his life. “He’s doing it. He’s really doing it. Oh, Royce, I want hundreds more just like him.” The doctor laughed and they both ignored him. Royce reached down and ran his finger over the baby’s tiny little head. He was beautiful. Perfectly formed and pink. The nurse told him that his first reading was perfect and she expected no less of him when they did the second one. When they asked to take him to be cleaned up, Kasey watched with tears in her eyes as they took him away. Royce followed them to the little basinet in the corner. “He weights seven pounds and ten ounces and is eighteen and three quarters inches long.” Royce pulled out his phone, snapped a picture of his baby, and put in the information as the nurse gave it to him. He wasn’t sure why anyone but he and Kasey would care what size his head or chest was, but he typed it in all the same. When she told him that he was perfect, as he’d already guessed he was, he put that in there as well and sent it to his family, including his newly acquired one with Jay and Suzy. He put his phone away and walked back to Kasey. “I love you. Thank you for my son. He’s perfect.” He kissed her again and reached into his pocket and pulled out the blue box he’d been carrying around for three weeks. “I know that you don’t care for jewelry that much, but I thought you’d like this.” He’d had it custom made for her. And when she opened it and she cried, he was sure he’d made the right choice. It had taken a lot of figuring and a great deal of help from her uncle Jay. The bracelet was filled with small charms and pictures. There was a blue bootie that he’d had made with the baby’s initials on it and the year. A pair of rings like the ones they wore with their initials and the year they’d gotten married. The pictures were in small frames and that was what had taken the most time to get together. Several of them were of them together. There was one each of them as a baby. Jay had found a whole box of pictures when he’d gone to clean out his sister’s apartment. He’d wanted to put all of them on there for her, but there were hundreds of them and he was sure she’d not be able to lift her arm with them there. But the ones that he’d taken the most care with were the ones of her mom. Two of them were of Leah alone, one of her while pregnant with Kasey. The other when she’d been on vacation somewhere before she’d been ill, Jay had told him. Then there were the ones of mother and daughter together. Leah had been a beautiful pregnant woman. Her face glowed with happiness, much like Kasey’s had. The other one was of Leah holding her daughter when Kasey had been around seventeen and had just graduated from high school. Jay had said that Kasey should have graduated the year before, but she’d thought herself in love with this boy and wanted to wait for him. Turned out he had only wanted her mind and not her heart.

“It’s beautiful. Oh, Royce, it’s so beautiful.” She ran her fingers over the blue bootie and then looked up at him when the frame was blank. “For Lee, I guess?” “Yes. I did have them put this one there.” He showed her the one of the sonogram before he’d been born that showed he was a male. “But I wanted to get one of him, the one that I just took, put on there too.” She pulled him down for a kiss and everything was right in the world for him. They gave them Lee back while they waited in recovery. The nurse asked and was granted permission to go and get the families. The room filled quickly with women cooing over the baby and the men slapping him on the back. Yes, Royce thought, life was perfect.