Carolina Man (19 page)

Luke left the courtroom, flanked by Vernon and his brother. They made an impressive exhibit: the old silver fox in his bow tie and pinstriped suit; the tall fishing boat captain in a navy blazer, his hair streaked brown and gold like oiled oak; and Luke, stone-faced and ramrod straight in his ironed uniform, every muscle and sinew rigid with coiled energy like a garage door spring.

She crossed the lobby, intercepting them. “Great work, Vernon.” She looked at Luke. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

Vernon was talking, saying something, but she couldn’t look away from Luke. Despite the positive outcome, he was clearly holding tightly to control.

“Luke?” His gaze, fierce and burning blue, met hers. Her heart stuttered at the warrior intensity blazing in his eyes. “At ease, Marine,” she said softly.

His impassive mask cracked. Ignoring their surroundings, he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off her feet, burying his face in her hair.

She clung to his broad shoulders, trying to absorb his tension into her own body. She could give him this, she thought. The safety of her embrace, the reassurance of her body. For now, it was enough.

At last, he set her on her feet. His straight blond lashes veiled his burning eyes, giving him a sleepy, dangerous look. “Let’s get out of here.”

Vernon’s eyebrows lifted.

Kate flushed, abruptly recalled to their surroundings. “I, um . . .” His brother was watching them, eyes narrowed in speculation, a smile tugging the corner of his mouth. “Don’t you have to get home to Taylor?”

“She’s still in school. I’ve got hours.”

Hours.
Only you
, his eyes promised.
Only me
. Her flush turned into all-body heat. “But your brother . . .” she protested weakly.

“Drove separately,” Matt said, looking amused.

“Let’s go,” Luke said.

“Right.” She swallowed, flustered. “I have to get my car out of the county lot.”

“You didn’t walk?”

“No, I had files. For, um, court. But I’m done for the day,” she added. “I’ll meet you.”

“Where?”

She glanced at Vernon, back at Luke. “My office?”
My place. My bedroom.

He nodded. “Good.”

“We still have a little paperwork to get through,” Vernon said.

“You do that,” Kate said a little breathlessly. “I’ll, uh, I’ll see you.”

“Soon,” Luke said.

“I didn’t realize you two were dating,” Vernon said.

“Oh, I wouldn’t . . . We’re not exactly . . .”

“We’re together,” Luke said.

Her face flamed. She said good-bye to Matt. She said something, she wasn’t sure what, to Vernon, complimenting him on his handling of the case.

They were all looking at her, Vernon, with his shrewd eyes and bland face, and Matt with a little smile, and Luke.

She realized abruptly she had no idea what they were talking about. Or what she’d just said.

“Certainly helped with your friend Alisha,” Vernon said.
For the second time?

She smiled brightly. “I’m so glad.”

Somehow she excused herself and escaped the courthouse without stumbling.

“You have a nice day, Miz Dolan,” said the sheriff’s deputy at the door. Deputy Bobby Ward, round as a well and nearing retirement.

Courthouse security usually fell to the old and out of shape and the newly hired. The deputy next to him looked barely out of high school.

“Thanks, Deputy Ward,” Kate said. “You, too.”

The cool December air kissed her hot face. The sky was bright and blue, with happy clouds splotched around like a child’s painting.

She walked to the lot. All her life, she had been disappointed. By her father, her mother, herself. She
expected
to be disappointed. She
counted
on it.

We’re together
, Luke had said.

What did that mean?

She slid her bag from her shoulder to dig for her keys.

A man stepped out from the line of parked cars. A big man wearing a hoodie and a baseball cap. She recoiled even before she recognized his face, registered the threat before she recalled his name.

Will Brown
. “I been waiting for you.”

Kate’s heart kicked into overtime. “Mr. Brown,” she said, keeping her voice calm and pleasant. Professional.

“I come to say I was sorry,” he said unexpectedly.

Kate swallowed the knot in her throat. “Did you?”

He ducked his head in apparent assent. “You know, Libby and me, we’ve had our problems.”

Problems, yes. Black eyes and a broken nose, cracked ribs, a split lip. Kate had documented them over the eight months since Libby had found the courage to call her. And even so, Libby might have stayed with her husband because she had no money, because she had no job skills, because she had no confidence. Because he begged her. Threatened her. Because she’d loved him, once upon a time.

But then Will hit their oldest child, Cole, when the boy got between them, trying to protect her, and that had been the last straw for Libby.

“Yes, I know.” Kate glanced at the courthouse entrance, thirty yards away. No need to panic. Yet.

“But we always worked them out before,” Will said. “She would’ve stayed if you hadn’t been putting all those ideas in her head.”

Deputy Ward was chatting with his trainee partner, oblivious to the drama in the parking lot.

“I’m sorry,” Kate said.
Not sorry. Not sorry at all
. “I have to go.”

“I’m not done talking,” Will said. “I need to talk to her. I need to see her. She’s my wife.”

Kate’s hands trembled. She tightened her grip on her keys. “I can’t help you. You’re not supposed to have any contact with Libby.”

“But you could fix that.” He looked at her, his dark eyes shining with tears. “I just want to go home.”

“I’m sorry,” Kate said, more sincerely this time. “I can’t interfere with a restraining order.”

“But you could talk to her. You could tell her how sorry I am.”

“I really can’t. You need to talk to your lawyer.”

He slammed his fist onto the roof of her car. Kate cringed, nerves jumping in her stomach. “Don’t you tell me what to do,” he said, mean and low.

“Mr. Brown . . . Will—”
Keep him talking. Keep him calm
. The moment the confrontation turned physical, she lost.

“You quit talking. It’s my turn to talk. Now
I’m
telling
you
what to do.”

Kate backed against her car. She hated being vulnerable. Hated feeling afraid. Hated loud voices and the threat of violence. When she was little, she’d thought she could control it. That if she were good enough, smart enough, quiet enough, she could forestall it, stop it somehow.

She’d never figured out what would set her father off. But she got very good at recognizing the signs, the bright, narrow eyes, the alcoholic flush, the rage that took over his body like an alien thing.

She recognized the signs now, in Will.

Her knees shook. She hated being powerless most of all.

“B
EFORE
C
HRISTMAS, YEAH,
whatever. After Christmas, I don’t care.” Luke dragged his mind from Kate and the things he’d like to be doing with her, to her, right now, and tried to focus instead on Vernon Long’s talk of visitation. “But not Christmas,” he added, surprising himself.

It wasn’t like he and Taylor had years of family holiday rituals that had to be honored. No special stockings to hang up, no Christmas Eve bedtime story, none of the stuff he remembered from his own childhood.

Maybe that was the point.

“It’s my first Christmas home in two years,” he tried to explain to Long. “Taylor’s first Christmas with us ever.”
Her first Christmas without Dawn.
“Things will be tough enough without . . .”

Jolene crying. Ernie drinking. Creepy Kevin and his Nazi tattoos.

Yeah, not on Luke’s watch.

“Distractions,” Vernon Long said.

“Yeah.” Luke thrust a hand through his hair. Trust a lawyer to come up with a three-syllable word that covered everything and said nothing.

He thought of Kate, talking on the phone in her office, using hundred-dollar words and her don’t-mess-with-me voice, laying down the law with confidence and skill.

This was her world. He needed her. He wished she’d been beside him in the courtroom today. Even the judge’s comments at the end—
Congratulations, Staff Sergeant. If you’re half as good a father as you are a Marine, Taylor’s a lucky girl
—had left him feeling unprepared for his job. For fatherhood.

He’d left the courtroom, hopped on adrenaline, trying not to sweat. Instinctively, he’d looked for Kate, seeking . . . What? He wasn’t sure.

He only knew that when he saw her, solid as a lighthouse in her two-inch heels, her bright hair lighting the lobby, he’d felt like a sailor catching sight of his home harbor.

At ease, Marine
, she’d said, teasing, reassuring, and everything inside him relaxed.

He wanted her. But more, he wanted simply to be with her, to be.
Only you. Only me
.

Long was still talking. Out in the parking lot across the street, somebody’s car alarm went off.

Luke twitched. Home two weeks, and sudden noises still had the power to make him jump. He glanced through the glass-and-steel doors at the lights flashing on a red Mini Cooper.

Kate’s Mini Cooper. His blood ran cold.

Kate was stumbling back, scrambling around the side of her car while some goon in a hoodie grabbed at her over the hood. She screamed, tripped, and went down behind the bushes that edged the lot.

The uniforms at the entrance froze like raw recruits under fire. The younger one fumbled for his weapon. Wrong move. Never draw unless you plan to shoot. And not when innocent civilians are in the line of fire. Luke shoved past him, bolting out the door and down the courthouse steps. Kate screamed again as he sprinted across the street.

“Stop!” yelled the uniform.

At him? At the other guy? Luke didn’t look back, all his attention focused on the threat to Kate. At the shout, the guy’s head jerked up. His mouth opened, his eyes widened before he braced, crouching for attack.

End it
, Luke thought, and launched over the bushes, landing on his feet.

“Fuck off, soldier boy,” the guy said. He was around Luke’s height, maybe sixty pounds heavier, with a weight lifter’s muscles and a beer drinker’s belly. “This is none of your business.”

Luke took a controlled step forward, not taking his eyes off the enemy, not daring to look at Kate. “Step away,” he ordered.

“Fuck you.”

The guy lunged, counting on his bulk to carry the day. Luke grabbed his wrist and used his weight against him, turning in, his back to the guy’s chest, flipping him over his shoulder. The guy hit hard, with a grunt of pain, and lay stunned. Luke kicked him over and dropped down, securing his arms behind him.

The courthouse guards pounded across the street.

“Oh, God,” Kate said from under the bushes. “Are you all right?”

Was
he
all right? She was the one who had been attacked.

He looked up, prepared to yell like his mom when one of them ran into the street. Saw Kate’s white face, her glassy eyes. He took a breath to steady himself. What if he hadn’t been here?

“Fine,” he bit out. “You?”

She was already scrambling to her feet, like she could take on the world. She nodded.

“Good,” Luke said and dug his knee deeper in the guy’s back until the uniforms showed up with handcuffs.

 • • • 

T
HEY FINALLY ARRIVED
at Kate’s house nearly two hours later, after giving their separate statements to the sheriff’s deputies. Kate felt numb, vulnerable, all the defenses she’d carefully constructed over the years suddenly knocked down. Stripped away. On autopilot, she made tea, her mother’s coping mechanism in the aftermath of her father’s rages.

Your daddy’s just tired, stressed, under a lot of pressure
, her mother would say.
If you’d only be quiet, come home on time, not argue with him, he wouldn’t have to get so angry, raise his voice, lose his temper. Don’t overreact. Don’t make a fuss.

Have some tea.

Kate wrapped her hands around her mug, craving its warmth.

Luke paced the confines of her apartment, his mug untouched. Violence pumped off him like heat.

She shivered, and he stopped in front of her chair. “Can I do anything? Get you anything?”

She shook her head.

“Do you want me to drive you to the hospital?”

She sighed. “No.”

The sheriff’s deputies had already catalogued her injuries, a sore hip, abraded palms, bruises on her arm where Brown had grabbed her. But it could have been so much worse.

Her mother used to say that.
It could be worse, Katie. At least you have food to eat and a place to sleep. Why do you always make everything into a big deal?

Kate pushed the memory away. Will Brown was in a holding cell now on the top floor of the county courthouse, charged with Class 1A misdemeanor assault and battery. A conviction would likely only put him away for a month or two. But the jail time would buy a measure of peace for Libby and her children and increase his punishment if he ever threatened them again.

Kate cradled her mug, trying to keep the contents from sloshing. She couldn’t seem to stop shaking. She wanted to curl into herself, the way she’d curled in bed as a little girl, burying her head in her pillow to block out the sounds of her father shouting and her mother’s sobs. She roused herself to say, “You need to go. Taylor will be home from school soon.”

He should go home and celebrate with his daughter. Taylor, who was safe now and protected and loved.

“I’m not leaving you.”

“I’m fine. I don’t need you to fuss over me.”
I don’t need you. I can’t need you
.

Luke stiffened. “Too bad. You’re stuck with me.”

If she didn’t know better, she’d say he looked almost hurt. As if she had the power to hurt him. Which was ridiculous.

On the other hand, she had been rude. He’d been nothing but kind to her. He deserved better.

Her hands fluttered on her mug. “I’m sorry.” She forced the words out, each one sticking in her throat like a secret or a bone. “And I’m grateful. You were a real hero today. Thank you.”

“No problem.”

“You saved me.”

Luke looked uncomfortable. “He wasn’t armed.”

“He still would have hurt me. It bothers me,” she confessed, “that I was so . . . so helpless.”

“You weren’t helpless. You hit the panic button.”

“And then you had to rescue me.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“Because you’re a man.” The unfairness of it broke through the cold shell encasing her.

“Because I’m a Marine. Hell, babe, we practice hand-to- hand to pass the time. You’re not trained to fight.”

“I shouldn’t have to be.” The spurt of anger was warm and welcome. “I’m a smart, strong, capable woman. I’ve spent my entire adult life using the law to protect women and children from violence. And then some abusive thug in the parking lot decides I’m responsible for breaking up his family, and I’m dependent on some man to save me.”

Luke shrugged. “Pretty much.”

“It’s not
right
,” she burst out, frustrated.

“No, it’s not,” he agreed unexpectedly. “But it’s not on you that this guy is an asshole. Any man who hits a woman is no kind of man.”

“I should have been able to handle it.”

“You did. You kept your head, you called for backup.” He dropped to a crouch in front of her chair. She felt the heat of his body through his uniform shirt, his breath warm against her face, his muscled thighs caging her knees. A little flame licked through her. “Nothing wrong with somebody having your six.”

He raised his hand—to touch her hair? To cup her cheek?—and she flinched from the contact like a startled rabbit.

His eyes fired like gas burners, blue and hot. “You said Brown didn’t hit you.”

Mute, she shook her head.

Gently, his fingers feathered through her hair. Softly, his thumb brushed her scar. She could see him assembling the evidence, weighing, judging. “Then . . . who did?”

Shame clogged her throat.

Whatever horrors he’d witnessed as a Marine, Luke was his parents’ son. His family’s patterns of behavior were part of his psyche, imprinted in his DNA. He was a product of his upbringing, decent, normal, upright.

And she, God help her, was a product of hers.

She swallowed without saying anything.

Those brilliant eyes narrowed. “Your father?”

Don’t exaggerate, Katie
. It was one of her mother’s favorite sayings. Along with,
He doesn’t really mean it
. And,
It’s only when he’s been drinking. It’s just his way.

She lifted her chin. “He hardly ever . . . He only hit me a handful of times. Well, six. Less than two handfuls,” she said, forcing a smile. Luke didn’t smile back. “But that once—the first time—he was wearing his Naval Academy ring.”

Fourteen stitches and a trip to the ER.

After that, he could reduce her to terror simply by taking off his ring and laying it on the table.

Sometimes she thought she’d imagined it. Mistaken things somehow. Walked into a door, the way her mother always claimed she was doing, or bumped into a cabinet or tripped on a rug or the stairs.

She was his
daughter
.

She could still taste the surprise blooming in her mouth, sharp and metallic as blood.

Luke still hadn’t said anything. Kate closed her eyes, unwilling to accept the vision of herself she would see reflected in his eyes. Weak. Diminished.

This was the cost of breaking the silence, the danger of letting someone in. If he rejected her now, he would be rejecting her true self, the real Kate.

“You said he died,” Luke said.

She nodded.

“Two years ago.”

“Yes.”

“So I can’t dig him up and beat the crap out of him for you.”

Her eyes snapped open. “The solution to violence is not more violence.”

“Sometimes it is. Not in this case, though.”

“Because he’s
dead
?” Outrage wrestled with humor.

“Yeah. Plus, he was your father. I’m not saying that would stop me, but—”

“
I
would stop you,” she said. “I grew up and got away a long time ago. Sure, my childhood sucked, but it’s over. I won’t let myself be defined as a victim.”

“I don’t see you as a victim.”

“No?”

He shook his head. “You’re a warrior. A survivor.” He held her gaze. “Like me.”

He took her breath away. Nothing he could have said could be better calculated to restore her to herself.

A muscle tightened in his jaw. “It just eats me that you were hurt and I can’t do jack shit about it.”

She understood his frustration. Isn’t that what she hated, too? To be helpless. Powerless. But he was wrong. “There is one thing you could do,” she said.

“Sure.”

His response was direct and generous. Like the man himself. Her lips curved. “Something that would make me feel a lot better.”

“Name it.”

Confidence unfurled inside her, like a line of pink along the bud of a rose. He knew, and he had not rejected her. He knew, and he still wanted her.

“Well . . .” She rested her arms on his shoulders, laced her fingers together behind his neck. “You could kiss me.”