Unguilty: a fast-paced crime suspense-thriller (A Plea of the Innocent Book 1) by JC Ryan

Author:JC Ryan [Ryan, JC]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Thrills
Published: 2023-06-19T16:00:00+00:00

THIRTY

THE HONORABLE JUDGE JOHN ST. CLAIR

Jake waited in the hall. He hadn’t heard any screaming from Regan’s room, but the few gasps and moans of pain had put his teeth on edge. She shouldn’t have pushed herself so hard.

Jamie came out, closing the door behind her and standing between him and it. She was, at least, six inches shorter than he was and looked like she might have weighed 100 pounds less. She was too thin through the face. Her hair had been straightened and pulled back into a bun. If she’d been military, she would have been Army — no nonsense, just pure determination.

“How is she?” he asked, stepping out of her way.

“Vicodin is a wonderful thing,” Jamie said. She didn’t move. Great. There was some kind of test he would have to pass in order to get past the woman.

“I have to talk to her.”

“I just bet you do.”

Jake took a deep breath and released it. “What is it, Jamie? Be straight with me.”

“You better find a way to let go of some of this macho stuff — at least when you’re around her. She wants to be able to rely on you. Instead, you’re acting like this is World War III and nobody needs to crack a smile ever again.”

“So what if I am?” he said defensively.

“Your attitude isn’t going to make her follow your directions or trust your judgment. It’s just going to make her go behind your back if there’s ever a difference of opinion.”

Jamie was making him sound like an authoritative father — and Regan, a rebellious teenager. “You’re saying this because of how Andy treated you.”

She grinned at him. “Nope, I’m saying it because of how I treated Andy. He’s no angel, and he’ll admit it if you ever ask him. He was always in trouble when he was a kid. He needed someone to take him under his wing when he was a young man, if you know what I mean.”

Jake did. He’d been lucky to have several men in his life who’d fit that bill, the Honorable Judge John St. Clair being one of them. He nodded.

“When I got pregnant with Tyrone, I got hard on him. All I could think was that I had to shape him up and make him a better man, or Tyrone would get stuck in the same position as Andy — no father, nobody to keep him out of trouble. I thought the only way I could make him shape up was to put a stern face on everything I did.

“I’m not saying that it’s my fault that Andy got into trouble. I didn’t drive him to it; he drove himself. But then it started to look like it was never going to matter anymore. So I stopped being such a hard-ass and let him see what was going on with me. I needed someone to talk to. I told him about all the worry and the times we came up short, the way the

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