When the Bough Breaks: Rose Gardner Investigations #6 Read online

  When the Bough Breaks

  Rose Gardner Investigations #6

  Denise Grover Swank

  Copyright © 2020 by Denise Grover Swank

  Cover design by Bookfly cover design

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Also by Denise Grover Swank

  Also by Denise Grover Swank writing as D.G. Swank

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  “False alarm,” the nurse said with a disapproving look. “Again.”

  I cringed with embarrassment. This was the second time in a week that I’d come to the hospital in false labor.

  The first time I’d called Joe at two in the morning, dragging him out of a deep sleep, and he’d rushed out to the farm and brought me to Fenton County Hospital. The nurses had admitted me, hooked me up to a monitor, and checked to see if my cervix was dilated.

  “Nope,” the friendly labor and delivery nurse had said. “You’re locked up tighter than a drum down there.” Then she shot an ornery grin at Joe, who was standing close to my head. “You know, they say sex can get things going.”

  My face flushed beet red, but Joe took it in stride, grinning as he winked and said, “We’ll keep that in mind.”

  It was easier to let it go rather than to tell her that while we were together, we weren’t together. Not that it was anyone’s business.

  My contractions faded to nothing mere minutes after she told me to get dressed, and I apologized profusely to Joe. He’d just pulled me into a hug and told me it was okay, his manner as reassuring as always.

  By mutual agreement, Joe had moved into Neely Kate’s old room after that, which had been our plan for after the baby was born. Although he’d lived in the farmhouse last fall, he’d moved out months ago, after my first meetings with the criminals in the county. I’d become their mediator, for lack of a better word, and Jed had quite rightly said it would be safer for Joe to (temporarily) move out given his role as chief deputy sheriff. But the meetings had stopped months ago, and the matter was mostly moot. The fact was, I needed Joe. And I wanted him around too.

  This morning, four days after the first false alarm, the contractions had started again while I was getting ready for work. Joe, of course, had already left. These contractions were irregular, but stronger than the Braxton Hicks contractions I’d been having for the last month. I’d tried to ignore them at first, not wanting to make a fool of myself again, but part of me had wondered if this was the real thing. I was still two weeks from my due date of May 3, but at my last visit, Dr. Newton had said, “The baby’s headfirst but not dropped yet. Nevertheless, I hope you have your bag packed, because you could deliver at any time now.”

  My bag was packed, perpetually in the car, and I’d arranged for Maeve to dog-sit Muffy while I was in the hospital. So I’d brought her to work with me this morning, just in case.

  The contractions had continued all morning, sporadic at first but then ten minutes apart. They’d stopped briefly at lunchtime, making me glad I’d held off telling anyone, but they were back an hour later, this time only five minutes apart. So I’d taken a walk around the block to see if they’d stop. They hadn’t, so an hour later I’d called Joe and pulled him out of an important meeting, only to end up hearing those fateful words.

  False alarm.

  I cried as soon as the not-so-nice nurse walked out of the room, and Joe sat down next to me on the bed.

  “I’m so sorry, Joe,” I said through my tears. “They were coming all day and then they changed to five minutes apart.” I looked up at him. “I’m sorry.”

  “Hey,” he said with a warm smile, his eyes shining with what looked like happiness. “You’ve never been in labor before. How are you supposed to know what it feels like?”

  “But you were meetin’ with the sheriff and someone from the state police.”

  His smile stretched wider. “And that meetin’ was borin’ as shit. You did me a favor.”

  I knew his statement was a partial lie. While I’d accept that it might have been boring, I knew it was important. He’d told me so the night before, but he’d insisted that I call him anyway if I went into labor.

  “How can you look so happy?” I asked through my tears. I’d been extra weepy lately—which was saying something. “I’m a mess.”

  “Rose, you’re havin’ a baby. Our baby. How can I not be excited?”

  “But I’m not havin’ it now. I’m just a fat whale, waddling around like a penguin.”

  He laughed. “You’re not a fat whale. You’re pregnant. You were a beautiful woman before, but now you’re glowing.”

  If I was glowing, it was only because I was perspiring. I was hot all the time.

  He wrapped an arm around my back and gave me a sweet smile. “Let’s get you dressed and take you home so you can rest.”

  “I don’t want to go home,” I said in a grumpy tone. “I hate bein’ alone out there. Yesterday I dropped a wooden spoon, and try as I might I couldn’t reach it. I had to have Muffy pick it up and jump up on the sofa so I could get it from her.”

  “Just imagine how handy she’ll be with fetchin’ diapers,” he said as he helped me slide off the bed. “How about you get dressed and we’ll do something together?”

  “I’m supposed to see Ashley and Mikey tonight, remember?”

  Mike had agreed that I could take them out to dinner, which was nothing short of a miracle. After my sister, Violet, had died last October, my former brother-in-law had kept me from seeing my niece and nephew. But then I’d run into them at Walmart the week before. Ashley, my six-year-old niece, had cycled through shock, excitement, then anger to see that I was so pregnant, given she hadn’t known I was expecting. I’d tried my best not to shame Mike in front of them, and when Ashley said he’d been telling them for months that I was too busy to see them, I just shot him a dirty look and suggested I get them for a few hours this week.

  “I’m totally free,” I’d said with a bright smile. “Any day.”

  With no graceful way out, he’d settled on tonight. When I’d offered to pick them up from daycare, his body had stiffened. “I’d have to add your name to the list of approved people,” he said in a short tone. “So just pick them up from my house.”

  I used to be on the list of approved people, so I had to wonder why he’d gone to such lengths to push me away. What was he really up to? Then again, I’d been wondering that very thing for months.

  I was fairly certain he had some criminal ties that circled back to James “Skeeter” Malcolm, t
he crime lord of Fenton County, Arkansas, though I had yet to figure out any details. I was even more sure Violet had known. Other than a few personal items, she hadn’t left anything to the kids, instead leaving her one-third share of the nursery to my best friend, Neely Kate, and everything else, including our childhood home, to me. Her attorney had said she’d given him an envelope for me to open after her death, some sort of directive that would help me understand the terms of her will—including her wish to grant me custody of her children (something she couldn’t do without just cause)—but his office had been broken into after the funeral. The only thing missing was that envelope.

  I’d given the theft a lot of thought over the last few months as I tried to figure out how to handle the Mike situation, and I’d come to the realization that it had been intended as a message.

  I’m powerful. Don’t mess with me.

  And the only person in the county powerful enough to stand up to the Lady in Black, my alter ego in the criminal world, was my ex-lover and the biological father of my baby.

  The aforementioned James Malcolm.

  But it was hard to get information out of someone who refused to see you. James had made it clear he wanted nothing to do with the baby, so back in February, I’d sent him a letter asking him to meet with me to sign the forms that would relinquish his paternal rights. I’d also hoped to ask him about Mike’s illegal activities. He’d very grudgingly agreed to a meeting at our mutual attorney’s office, but ultimately, he’d been a no-show. Or rather, he had shown, and then slipped out before Carter sent me back to meet him. He’d left behind the paternity relinquishment papers with a sticky note that said, I’m not signing.

  So not only was I none the wiser about Mike’s criminal involvement, but now I was waiting for Skeeter Malcolm to try using my baby as a pawn.

  Because the criminals in the county couldn’t find out James was my baby’s biological father—they needed to continue thinking he or she was Joe’s in all ways, rather than just by choice, and James knew it.

  When Joe had first suggested that we raise the baby together, I’d balked, worried I was taking advantage of him, but he’d convinced me that he wanted to be a parent. He aspired to be the kind of father he’d never had, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would be. Because Joe Simmons had done a lot of growing up over the last two years, and I had no doubt he would put our baby before everything else. That he’d be there with me through the good and the bad. That he would never, ever take off just because things were hard.

  James hadn’t offered me any of that. And wouldn’t.

  Most of the people in town thought Joe and I had been together and split up but agreed to raise our baby amicably. We’d come up with the plan for him to build an apartment in the barn—a plan that had been put on hold after I’d agreed to shelter rescue horses—but lately, I’d been thinking of asking him to stay with us more permanently. I wasn’t sure how I felt about him romantically. Frankly, my emotions were too all over the place for me to know for certain, but I did know that he’d helped make what could have been months of despair into a much more hopeful and joyful time. And I knew that I loved him. I just wasn’t sure what that love meant. My love for James had been too blinding for me to see anything else.

  But the shine had long since tarnished, even more so since James had refused to sign those papers. I might have understood if he’d come to me and said he wanted to be part of the baby’s life. Or if he’d reached out to explain himself. But he’d remained eerily quiet. When I’d attempted to quiz Carter about his client’s intentions, he’d confessed he was in the dark. In fact, he had suggested it might be a good idea for me to find another attorney. An impartial one who was very good at family law.

  I’d hesitated to do that—partially because it seemed like a bad idea to bring the whole thing to court, but also because I couldn’t bring myself to believe the man who’d professed to love me would use our child to hurt me. Still, I knew James had changed. Everyone around me said so, even his ex-best friend, Jed. James saw my decision to keep the baby as a betrayal, and he was someone who retaliated for that kind of thing. So I had gone to a lawyer in the end, only for her to tell me it would be best to wait James out. If I brought him to court, everyone would learn the truth about the baby’s parentage.

  But Joe was looking at me now, obviously waiting for an answer, and I hadn’t the first idea what he’d said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “What did you say?”

  He smiled patiently. “I said how about I don’t go back to work, and I’ll go with you to Mike’s to pick up the kids. I’m as excited to see them as you are.”

  It was true. He’d loved the kids, and vice versa, but I also suspected he was worried Mike would give me grief, and while Joe was beyond excited at becoming a father, the closer I’d gotten to delivery, the more protective he’d become with regard to my safety.

  Understandable given two of his ex-girlfriends had been killed, both while pregnant.

  “Okay,” I said. “They’ll be excited to see you.”

  “It’s nearly five. How about we get you checked out, pick up Muffy from the office, then head over to Mike’s a little early?”

  “Sounds good.” I doubted Mike would give Joe, the Fenton County chief deputy sheriff, trouble for showing up a half hour early.

  I grabbed my clothes from a chair, and he hesitated at the door. “I’ll wait in the hall.”

  “No,” I said, keeping my back to him. “You’re gonna get an eyeful and more when the baby’s born. Stay.”

  He hesitated a moment. “Okay.”

  I turned my back to him and reached behind me, fumbling to untie the strings of the faded hospital gown, but then Joe walked up behind me and tugged on the top string. The neckline fell to my chest, and I placed my hand on it to hold it.

  His fingers lightly brushed the skin of my back as he slowly untied the next string with a tenderness that caught me by surprise. A shiver ran down my back, and my nerves tingled in anticipation. I sucked in a breath, telling myself it was a reflex, nothing more, but there was no denying I felt an unexpected yearning. It was sexual to be sure, but it was more than that. It was a soul-deep ache.

  Joe’s hand was gone, and he sounded strangled when he said, “I’ll go check on that discharge paperwork.”

  He bolted out the door, leaving me to wonder if he’d run because he was horrified by my reaction or because he dared to hope it meant something.

  Our relationship had changed since he’d offered to be the baby’s father. We’d spent a lot of time alone together, especially over the last few months as we prepared for the baby’s arrival, and I’d noticed subtle signs that his feelings were shifting. A soft smile. The way he tenderly cradled my arm—or wrapped his around my back—when he worried about where I was walking. The way he brought me things—decaffeinated coffee drinks or a bouquet of flowers to brighten my day. Then for Easter, he’d built multiple raised gardening beds so I could plant the vegetable garden I had mentioned in casual conversation. The effort he’d gone to had made me choke up with tears—they were decorative in addition to functional, and he’d even thought to wrap chicken wire around the sides to keep out wild animals. He was still working on the chicken coop he’d designed to look like the farmhouse.

  Joe hadn’t told me that he’d fallen in love with me again, but I knew. I could read it on his face as easily as if it had been printed across his forehead. While part of me thought I should have nipped it in the bud weeks ago, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to nip it in the bud. I could see parts of the Joe I’d fallen in love with nearly two years ago—the fun-loving, carefree man—and parts of the man he’d always wanted to be—strong, loyal, and in charge of his own destiny.

  That man was sexy and desirable and exactly the type of partner I’d always wanted, because despite my reckless fling with a wild and lawless man, I wanted stability for my children. I wanted a man who would be there when I needed him, not when he felt like showing up.


  Joe deserved to be with a woman who truly loved him for everything he was worth. He deserved more than someone who was settling.

  Only the more I thought about Joe, the more I wondered if having him permanently in my life would be settling after all.

  Chapter 2

  When I walked into the hallway, Joe greeted me with an easy smile, as though nothing had happened, but I was having a harder time pretending. How had I forgotten how handsome he was? He was tall, with dark hair and brown eyes, and had the look of a man who wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. But then I realized I hadn’t forgotten—I’d just been too lost in myself over the past six months to notice.

  “Why don’t we get you a snack? How about some cheesy fries from the Burger Shack?” he asked.

  I narrowed my eyes. “You must really be pityin’ me if you’re willin’ to go to the Burger Shack. You hate that place.”

  “I know you’ve been cravin’ ’em,” he said, wrapping an arm around my back and steering me toward the exit. “That and peanut butter toast. Since I can’t get you the latter, I’m willin’ to make the sacrifice.”

  “I’m not cravin’ cheesy fries anymore. I’ve moved on to Chuck and Cluck’s coleslaw.”

  He laughed. “Random, but who am I to argue? Chuck and Cluck it is.”

  We headed to Chuck and Cluck, and Joe ordered my slaw through the drive-thru. I ate it in his car as he drove to the landscaping office. By the time he pulled into the parking space next to my truck, my contractions had completely stopped, making me feel like an even bigger fool. When I confessed what I was feeling, he said, “Just think of the stories we’ll have to tell the baby years from now. Every kid loves to hear about when they were born.”