Cease Fire. Janie Crouch

to go as well as they’d been going.

      Fresh Starts continued to thrive also. Not just the salon part, although Keira could admit she was damn good at styling hair, but its fuller purpose: providing women who had nowhere else to go a shelter. Apartments where they could stay as long as they needed. And then training in cosmetology, so the women had a way of supporting themselves.

      Keira had sunk all the money she’d had left of her inheritance—money she’d desperately needed when she was younger, but that her parents had thought they were being so wise in putting into a trust fund untouchable until she was twenty-five—into the shop, the equipment and the building. She owned it all, free and clear. No debt, which allowed all the earnings from the salon to funnel back into the shelter.

      And she would use it all to help as many women as possible. Help them get out of abusive or trafficking situations. Help them learn they had other choices, other options, than what they’d grown accustomed to. She had three women living there now.

      She still hadn’t told Roman about the safeguarding aspect of the salon. It was too soon. That wasn’t something you told someone you’d been dating for only a week.

      Dating. She grinned at the word.

      “What are you smiling about over there?” He reached out and grabbed her hand with one of his, keeping the other firmly on the steering wheel.

      “Just at what a difference a week makes. If you had asked me a little over a week ago what I would be doing this Sunday, I would’ve put a million dollars on anything but this.”

      He gave her a crooked grin. “Yeah, this week was pretty unexpected for me also.”

      “I’m not trying to rush things.”

      “Me, either. Let’s just have this lunch with my parents to get my mom off my case, and then we can take things at our own pace.”

      “Sounds perfect.”

      He looked her up and down and wagged an eyebrow. “As long as our own pace means I can take you back to my place tonight.”

      She ran her hand through his thick brown hair as he drove. “I think that can be arranged. So are we going to your parents’ house? Do your brother and sister both come over every week?”

      The thought of a mom cooking for her family even though the kids were all out of the house was pretty heartwarming.

      “We don’t get together every week. Usually it’s more like once a month. Daniel is off at college. Angela comes if she can be bothered and sometimes brings her fiancé, Brock.”

      “I think it’s great.” For someone with no siblings and dead parents it all sounded sort of lovely.

      But a few minutes later, when Roman made a turn into the entrance of the Colorado Springs Country Club, Keira’s good feelings started to ebb.

      “The country club?” She tried to give a light laugh, but it came out sounding as brittle as she felt.

      “Yeah.” Roman smiled at her, unaware of her tension. “I guess I should’ve mentioned that my mother doesn’t really cook. All our family dinners or lunches are here.”

      Keira tried to squash the panic bubbling up through her system.

      Just because they were at a country club did not mean that Roman’s family was anything like Jonathan’s family. A country club membership did not necessarily mean power and privilege. Lots of people were involved in a country club. Regular, happy, kind people who also happened to have money. Or liked to play golf.

      The words didn’t settle the panic in her system.

      Keira remained silent as they drove up to the covered portico of the clubhouse. What could she say without sounding completely ridiculous? That country clubs threw her into a panic because of what had happened to her in her past?

      She and Roman hadn’t gotten into any of that. It wasn’t anything she wanted to talk about. Wasn’t anything she’d thought she’d needed to talk about.

      The valet opened the car door for her and she automatically stepped out, thankful she’d worn a nice knit dress coupled with heeled boots for this casual meal she’d thought she’d be attending. What if she had worn jeans? Would they have let her in?

      Even Roman coming around the car and putting a hand on the small of her back in a protective gesture couldn’t stop her sense of foreboding.

      “The most important thing to remember is just not to take my family too seriously.” He smiled at her again and still didn’t seem to realize how panicked she was, thank goodness. “I surely don’t.”

      Keira didn’t answer as she studied the people around her. This country club was no different than the ones she’d gone to in Denver when she’d been married to Jonathan. Everyone was still chatting, shaking hands, slapping backs, congratulating themselves on being masters of their universe. It was a typical Sunday afternoon at a place like this.

      Keira knew she was being unreasonable, that it was unfair to judge everyone on the actions of the few, but she couldn’t help it. She felt like she was going to throw up. She had to get a grip.

      “There you are!” A woman in her midsixties, with perfectly styled brown hair in a bob, rushed over to them. “I thought you said you’d be here at one o’clock.”

      “I didn’t think I needed to bring Keira for mimosas, Mother.” Roman leaned down and kissed the woman on her cheek as she offered it up to him. “Family lunch is quite enough.”

      Roman’s hand rubbed circles at the small of Keira’s back. “Mother, I’d like for you to meet Keira Spencer. Keira, this is my mother, Maureen Weber Donovan.”

      Maureen turned to Keira and for just a moment disdain burned in her eyes, before she quickly masked it.

      “So glad you could join us so we could get to talk to you today,” Maureen said. “Roman doesn’t bring many of his girls around to meet us.”

      The snub that Keira was just one of many, and therefore unimportant, was slight and said so gently it was almost unrecognizable.

      Definitely recognizable was that this family obviously had money. It surrounded everything about Maureen, from how she dressed, to her walk, to her scent. It was all expensive and expertly finished.

      They walked over to the table where the rest of Roman’s family sat, and introductions were made. Maureen introduced her husband, Maxwell Donovan, who was not Roman’s father but the man Maureen had married after Roman’s father had died fifteen years ago.

      Maxwell Donovan was much more interested in the drink in his hand and the football game he had on his smart phone than he was in anything happening at the table.

      Roman’s sister and her fiancé had also joined them. They seemed nice enough and by the time everyone had ordered lunch, Keira felt like maybe she had imagined the entire thing with Maureen when they’d first met.

      The meal was fine, tasty. Everyone made light, mostly meaningless conversation. Even Maxwell joined in at times, although no one seemed offended when he would jump out of a conversation and back into his game when he felt it necessary. Roman’s smile had Keira relaxing and thinking that she’d allowed her paranoia to cloud her judgment earlier.

      Which was why she was so unprepared for the attack when it occurred.

      Keira couldn’t fault Maureen in her timing: she waited for dessert. If she had done it any earlier in the meal it would’ve just made everything awkward. Instead, she went for the kill in between bites of crème brûlée.

      “So you two met at the wedding last week?” Maureen’s smile didn’t falter at the question.

      Roman smiled over at Keira before answering. “Yes, although we had seen each other before the wedding and knew each other through mutual friends. But last week was the first time we truly connected.”

      Keira