Harlequin Superromance September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: This Good Man\Promises Under the Peach Tree\Husband by Choice (59 page)

“Any news on Steve Smith? Surely the man didn't just disappear into thin air.”

Chantel's hair bounced around her shoulders as she shook her head. “He's not coming up in any databases,” she said, leaving Max with the feeling that their attempts to find the man had been cursory—a matter of professional courtesy only.

“Can I come in?”

He was facing another sleepless night. Alone with a panic he'd promised not to feel. He had to get her to understand that Meri was in danger.

“Sure,” he said.

And tried to pretend he didn't notice when her hand brushed his arm as she passed.

CHAPTER FIVE

O
NE
OF
THE
things Meredith Bennet never failed to marvel at in her life with Max was being able to crawl into bed beside him every night. Like magic, she could cuddle up to the warmth of his body, rest her hand atop the springy dark hair on his chest, and sleep without fear.

Without nightmare.

Meredith's alter ego, Jenna, who'd awoken alone no fewer than four times with cold sweats the night before, was just as happy to be sitting on the antique chintz sofa in Lila's sitting room, even if it meant giving more of herself than she wanted to give.

If this plan—to put an end to Steve's presence in her life—was going to work, she had to be flexible. To go with the flow. At least until she'd had enough time to get ready....

And the plan was going to work. One way or another....

She was out of choices. Out of the will to run, to invent yet another life. She'd found the life she was meant to live—the only life she wanted.

She'd found a love that was real and true and as deep as it got and the only way to honor that love, to keep it in its purest form, was to love unconditionally. Selflessly.

There was no way Max would let her confront Steve on her own, and no other way to make the man go away. Max trusted his cop friends. Jenna was dealing with a man who could think like the cops and stay ahead of them at every step.

A man who didn't respect the jurisdiction of any law but his own.

She knew. She'd seen him in action.

If Max knew that Steve was after her, he'd call the cops and end up getting hurt. Cornered, Steve was the devil himself. He very well might snatch Caleb, hurt an innocent little boy, just to get her to do what he wanted.

Which was why she had to let him know she'd left her family, rather than chance going home again. She'd left her cell phone so he'd find the van, the note she'd left. He'd read that note and think she left Max just like she'd left him. She hoped she was buying time by making him look for her again.

To keep him in the game of finding her.

“Did you go to college?” Lila, sitting in a wing-backed armchair opposite Jenna, asked her. She held her cup of tea with both hands, and looked as though she was settled in for a long chat.

“Yes,” Jenna said. She'd tried the tea. Didn't like it all that much. The milk made it too heavy. But she'd sip it. Slowly. Because she could tolerate pretty much anything as long as she didn't focus on it going down.

For now, her cup sat in its delicate china saucer on the walnut claw-footed table beside her.

“What did you study?”

“Various things. How about you, do you have a degree?”

“Yes.”

She'd been at the Stand a little over twenty-four hours and it hadn't taken her that long to realize that no one knew much about the managing director. After Lila's visit to her room the night before, she'd done a bit of quiet asking around.

“What did you do before coming to The Lemonade Stand?”

Lila's gaze was pointed as Jenna's question lay between them. Jenna expected a prevarication. Just as she wasn't being completely honest with her. Such a contrast to the day she'd had, sharing lunch with women who told their stories openly. Dams bursting and releasing the hell of terror they'd experienced in one form or another.

“I was a school teacher,” Lila said conversationally.

From school teaching to managing a shelter for battered women?

“Do you miss it?”

“No.”

Because Lila was satisfied with the life she was leading? Fulfilled by it?

Meredith Bennet knew about living a fulfilling life. And so Jenna knew. But that wasn't for her to dwell on. Not on that or anything else that would take away focus and strength from the task at hand.

She'd been called to Lila's suite for a chat. So she chatted. “You didn't like teaching?”

“Yes. I liked it very much. But it was time for a change.”

Lila's gaze wasn't piercing anymore. It was...assessing. And warm. In a motherly sort of way.

Jenna took a sip of tea. Admired the rose silk flower arrangement on a side table.

“What about you?” Lila asked. “Do you have a career?”

“I'm a speech pathologist.”

Lila's brows rose and she asked, “What's your specialty?”

“Pediatrics.”

“Are you willing to donate some time while you're here?”

A slippery slope if ever there was one. They wouldn't find a license for Jenna McDonald. But, if she could have even a small piece of her real life back, just enough to remind her how great it had been, to keep her strong while she prepared to face down the evil spirit in her life....

If she could help others while she was protecting Max and Caleb....

Lila's stare was intense. It was as if the woman could read her mind. And her mind was the one thing no one got close to unless she invited them in. Max and Caleb were her only guests. Ever.

She'd fought too hard, for too long, regaining control of her mind from Steve, to give it up again.

“I'm willing to help out anyplace I can.” Innocuous words. She'd see where they took her.

“I'm assuming you have certification? A state license to practice?”

“Yes.” Under her married name. The only legal name she'd had since she left Steve Smith seven years before.

“Can I have a copy of it?”

A vision of Devon Wright's effusive smile as he'd said goodbye to her the day before flashed across her mind. A picture of little Olivia, the three-year-old who was having surgery in another couple of weeks and would need help learning to swallow again. She'd spent six weeks with the little girl already, earning her trust, preparing her....

Jenna had a job to do. Meredith had a life to live.

But she couldn't live it until Jenna did her job. And only if Jenna was successful....

She'd been at this crossroads before. Three other times. And each and every time she'd given up not only the life, but the goals. The joy. She'd allowed Steve to take away more than just her freedom. He'd taken away vital parts of her....

“Your secrets are safe here.” Lila's soft tone was like a buzzer in the cacophony rumbling through her mind.

“It's not my secrets I'm concerned about.”

“You are safe here.”

She wasn't concerned about herself, either. But knew better than to say so out loud. At least in this atmosphere.

She wasn't here to recover from domestic violence. She had a mate who treated her with decency and respect. Who was fully a partner and companion.

She'd sought the life she wanted and obtained it, just as she had every right to do. She'd stood up, pressed forward. She'd dared to reach for her dreams.

She'd succeeded.

Steve hadn't gotten the message.

She'd looked fear in the eye and her ex-husband was looking right back at her.

So she was going to stare him down. And the first one who looked away would lose.

This was it. Her stare down.

She wasn't turning her back again until Steve was out of her life for good.

Because there was no way in hell Steve's evil was going to touch Max or Caleb. At least not on a daily basis. Not as a way of life....

“You don't have to take this journey alone.”

Jenna's gaze focused outwardly again. Lila was watching her, and judging by her compassionate, almost knowing expression, she'd been doing so for quite some time.

The older woman had asked for her certification. For Meredith Bennet's certification. And unlike the other personas she'd left behind each time Steve had resurfaced in her life, Meredith was not going to fade away.

Meredith had a husband. And a son. Both of whom she loved more than she loved herself. She couldn't turn her back on them. Even if she never saw them again.

And that was something else she couldn't think about. Because in order for them to be safe, Max had to believe that she'd left him. He had to move on. She had to let him.

And if she succeeded? If she lived to see herself free of Steve? Was it right or fair for her to hope that somehow Max would be available to take up where they left off?

“I can show you my certification.” She had a scanned copy on the tablet she kept in her purse. “But if I do so, I put someone I love at risk.”

“How so?”

Something told her Lila was different. More than a counselor. Or a paid helper. More than a crusader for the cause.

And maybe Meredith had grown soft. Maybe Jenna's skin wasn't as hard as it needed to be.

“Jenna McDonald is not my real name, but it is the only name anyone here can know me by.”

“And if someone here knows you by your legal name, who would be hurt?”

Jenna couldn't think of a thing to say.

Lila sipped tea. Jenna wanted out. It was past Caleb's bedtime.

Not a Lemonade Stand thought.

“Okay.” The older woman's voice broke the silence again. Broke through the emptiness inside of Jenna. “Block the name out. Show me the certification and I can put you to work immediately. We have a seven-year-old boy whose speech has become practically paralyzed with stutters....”

“You can look up my license number and know who I am.”

“I didn't say give me a copy, I said show it to me.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“You want it now?” Jenna reached for her purse.

“Yes.”

She pulled out her tablet. Turned it on.

The certification was legible, but small. Holding the tablet with her thumb over her identifying information, she carried it over to show Lila.

The woman lifted her glasses. Read.

“Thank you.”

Jenna returned the tablet to her purse.

“When you're ready, you bring me the rest of that and whatever I see there will remain between you and me. You have my word on it.”

“It's not you, Lila, I just...”

Holding up her hand, Lila stood. “When you're ready,” she said. “Just remember that I am here. That's all I ask. When you need me, you do whatever you have to do to find me.” The woman repeated what she'd said the night before.

Jenna nodded, more because it was expected of her than because she could foresee any circumstance where she might do as the woman asked.

“And when you have something to say, there is space, right here, between you and me, to put the truth, no questions asked.”

Emotion rose inside of her, tightening her throat. Jenna picked up her tie-dyed cloth bag and slipped away.

CHAPTER SIX

“D
ID
YOU
WORK
TODAY
?” Max returned to the living room after exchanging wet scrubs for a pair of red basketball shorts and a gray T-shirt with a faded FBI emblem. It was left over from a trip he and Jill had taken to Washington, D.C., a decade before. As he walked in, he found Chantel standing at the mantel over the fireplace, looking at pictures.

Mostly they were of Caleb, taken in the different stages of growing from newborn to two. The center photo was of him and Meri, taken on their wedding day.

In one corner was an old photograph of a much younger Meri with her parents and little brother.

And in the other, Max's favorite photo of Jill—in a sundress, not a uniform, taken on the day he'd passed his residency. There'd been a party. And she'd been wholly his wife that day. For the entire day.

It had been nice.

“Yeah, I worked and then headed up here as soon as I was off shift,” Chantel said, her back to the photos now as she watched him.

“Shouldn't you be getting back?”

She'd asked to come in.

“I'm off tomorrow.” She was watching him. Chantel ran her finger along the edge of the frame that held Jill's photo. “You remember that night?” Chantel asked. She'd been at the party, too. Everyone who'd played a part in their lives had been there.

“Of course I remember.”

“I got drunk and told you I thought you were great.”

Actually what she had said was that no other guy added up to him and if Jill hadn't snatched him first, she'd have done so. He'd just completed his residency. Had already had an invitation to share a well-established pediatric practice. Everyone was telling him how great he was that night.

“I've been embarrassed about that ever since,” Chantel said now, while Max felt the computer in the other room drawing him.

Meri was “out there” somewhere. Facing a second night without him. As he faced a second night without her. Their first two nights apart since they got married. Even the night she'd had Caleb, they'd been together. She'd spent the night in the hospital and he'd stayed with her.

“I didn't want you to think that I was coming on to you while you were married to my best friend,” Chantel said, turning back to face him, her hands on her hips.

She was a pretty woman. Slender. Blonde. Brown eyes. A little tall for his tastes. A little hard around the edges. But still, damned attractive. Especially when she smiled. And let her hair down out of its ponytail as it was now.

She wasn't smiling though. “I loved Jill,” she said. “I would never have done anything to hurt her.”

“I know that.”

“She was such a fool, you know?”

No, he didn't know. Jill had been larger than life. A true warrior. Everyone thought she was amazing.

And the way her life had ended, saving the life of a fellow officer, she'd died as she'd lived—a heroine.

“She didn't get what she had in you,” Chantel said now. “If I'd been lucky enough to find a guy as great as you, I'd damn sure have thought twice about strapping on the gun and going out to fight crime.”

“It's what she was born to do. Why should she be less than herself just because she was married?”

Okay, so maybe he'd have liked it a hell of a lot better if Jill could have been happy with a desk job. Making detective and tracking criminals with a little bit of distance. Or teaching at the academy.

But it hadn't been what she'd wanted. Wouldn't have made her happy....

“You could have had any number of great guys,” he said now, remembering the flock of admirers that always seemed to be trailing behind the attractive cop.

“I guess.”

“You seeing anyone?” he asked. Because he wanted to ask her to take him seriously and help him find Meri's ex-husband. He was growing more and more certain that Steve was somehow behind this.

“I was seeing someone. A captain of another squad. It didn't work out.”

“I'm sorry.”

“I'm not. And I didn't come here to talk about my love life,” she said, moving away from the mantel. “I came to see what I could do to help you,” she said. “I heard the concern in your voice last night, Max. And while, officially, I'm pretty convinced that Meri left of her own accord and is fine, I'm also your friend. I've got the next couple of days off, and I wanted to make a personal appearance at the station here, which I did tonight, to talk to the guys and see what I could find out about where Meredith might be. You know...in case you want to talk to her, to maybe patch things up....”

It was a wonderful, selfless thing to do. A friend thing to do.

“I just...you called and asked for help and...it's what Jill would want me to do, to help you. It's...she made me promise, the night before you two married, that if anything ever happened to her, and you needed help, I'd be there. I just wanted to, you know, clear the air, first, in case you—” she tipped her head from side to side “—got the wrong idea about that...night.” With her thumb she gestured to the photos behind them.

He might have wondered a time or two about Chantel's interest in him...but everyone knew that he and Jill had a good marriage. And Chantel was Jill's very best friend. From grade school. It was understood that he and Chantel would grow to have a genuine fondness for each other. Hell, they'd spent every holiday of his marriage to Jill together.

And hadn't spoken more than half a dozen times since his first wife's death.

“You're fine,” he said now, crossing his arms as he stood there in his bare feet eager to get to the business at hand. “No wrong ideas about that night. So what did you find out?”

“Nothing,” she said. “They aren't looking for her. They hadn't yet opened a missing person's case when her van was spotted and they didn't need to do so once they found her note. There was nothing suspicious, nothing that warranted expenditure of already limited manpower. Let's face it, Max, an abductor isn't going to stand around and wait while she writes a note.”

“He would if he was her ex-husband forcing her to write it.”

“I know. You mentioned that concern last night and in light of the fact that he's an ex-cop, and that he was abusive to Meredith, I got someone to pull the parking lot surveillance tape where she ditched her van. Meredith was alone, Max. She pulled in. Parked. Sat in the car and wrote the note and then got out. There was no one there, forcing her to do anything.”

“Just because you didn't see anyone doesn't mean he wasn't there.”

“What are you saying?”

“I know my wife. If she was going to leave me, she'd tell me to my face.” Kindly, no less. Meri was not only hot as hell, incredibly sexy, the mother of his child and the love of his life, she was also the nicest person he'd ever known.

“She did leave you.” There was no pity on Chantel's face. But her concerned expression held more than just a cop's distanced compassion. “That's what I'm telling you.”

And he knew differently. Appearances could be deceiving.

“Meredith's ex-husband was a fiend,” he said softly, as though Caleb might hear and understand what Max was saying. “He brutalized her, not only physically, but mentally, too. And got away with it because of the power his position gave him. I wish I knew more about him, but I gather he had a pretty impressive record with the Las Vegas police. I know he was older than she. Her family, both parents and a brother, were killed in a car accident when Meri was a kid. She was alone in the world. She grew up in a foster home. Met Steve through her foster parents. She married him at eighteen, and the first time he hit her was less than a year later. She stayed with him nine years.”

He'd have felt disloyal, telling Meri's secrets, if Chantel had been just a friend. But she was a cop. And would help him find Meri.

Chantel and Max had spent four Christmases together. He trusted her. And had told Meri all about her.

“It took Steve less than three months to find her the first time she left. He was still a Las Vegas detective at that time. She got away almost immediately and managed to elude him almost a year that second time.”

Chantel's eyes narrowed. “And you think this is the third time?”

He shook his head. “The third time was in Arizona. Five years ago.”

“This guy's determined.” She sounded serious. All cop. And Max took his first easy breath in more than twenty-four hours.

Hold on, Meri.

Help is on the way.

* * *

D
AY
T
HREE
.

It is night again. Friday night. Carly went to bed two hours ago. I heard Latoya turn off the television in the living room an hour later and then her door shut, too. It's just the three of us in this bungalow. The three of us and the darkness.

It occurred to me last night that since my folks were killed when I was twelve, I've never had a room to myself. Ever. There were foster homes shared with other foster kids. And then there was Steve. And later, the other shelters, they were dorm room–style. As was the one dorm I was in between shelter one and shelter two. Between two and three was a one-room apartment shared with a shelter sister, and between three and four, a two-bedroom apartment shared with four sisters. After four, it was the YWCA. I'd wised up by then. I knew not to room with shelter sisters. Steve always knew how to find me. He might not find the exact shelter house I was in, or if he had, hadn't been stupid enough to breach them. Much easier to be patient and wait for me to be out on my own. But he'd find the home office instead. And watch it. I'd leave the shelter when I was ready, get an apartment and by then, he'd already know of and be following women who came and went from the home office. By my continued association, he'd eventually find me. Took a lot of time. A lot of tedious waiting and watching.

Apparently I was worth the effort to him.

I actually thought changing my habit, going back to my legal name—something he'd never suspect—moving into a YWCA instead of an apartment—had finally won me my freedom. Or rather, I wanted so badly to believe....

I feel kind of silly writing this down. I know all of this stuff. But if I don't make it through this attempt to stand up to him rather than run, to face him head on and somehow threaten or trick him into leaving me alone, I'd like to think that my journey might be of some benefit to someone else who is a victim of domestic violence.

Today's group counseling session got me thinking about that. I guess because there were so many of us who are new here—including my two bungalow mates. Carly—she's twenty-seven and was abused and then stalked by her boyfriend—has been here for a couple of weeks. Latoya just arrived yesterday. She's in her forties, escaping her husband of twenty-four years, and I'm pretty sure this is the first time she's ever sought help. Her youngest just left for college.

Carly's external bruises have healed. The left side of Latoya's face is still too swollen for us to know what she really looks like.

In counseling today Sara told us that it's not just the few of us in shelters who feel so isolated—so cast apart. It's one in four of those hundreds of women dropping their kids off at school every day, getting their nails done or walking the aisles in the grocery store.

I know this stuff.

And yet, today, I could feel the shock of the facts reverberate all the way through me. It was as though I'd heard them for the first time.

Or rather, I
felt
them for the first time. And I
knew
I had to do what I could to help. I will make my life matter. Even if I am at the end of my life.

I will share this, my attempt to fight back, with my sisters. In this diary. And maybe...someday...if Caleb wants to know more about his mama, someone will make these writings available to him.

What a comfort that thought is to me. I am writing to help Caleb understand me someday. To understand the challenge I faced and the choice I made. I am not deserting you, Caleb. I am not walking out on you.

You are not being abandoned! You are so loved, my little man. More than you will probably ever know. I need you to know that if I don't make it through this, I am okay with that. I will die at peace because I died for you and your daddy. I died protecting you from a fiend I should never have brought into your lives.

I undertake this job with the assurance that if I leave this earthly life, I will be watching over both of you from above. I will always be around, loving you, protecting you. I need you to know that....

Tears dropped onto the pages and Jenna knew she had to stop. But although it was late, she still had many hours of darkness to endure. Her housemates were both in their rooms for the night. And if allowing Meredith to pour out her deepest heart, and some tears along with it, would help her—Jenna—to make it through the days, then so be it.

She was only human.

And so, with eyes blurring the script, she wrote long into the night. Completely sober, yet scribbling drunken-seeming avowals of the undying love she might never be able to express again. She wrote because she couldn't sleep. She wrote to keep her sanity.

She wrote because she missed her men so much she wasn't sure that she could stay on top of the pain.

* * *

W
HEN
M
AX
GOT
home from work Friday night, Chantel was there. She'd spent the night in his home more times than he could count during his marriage to Jill. His and Jill's spare room had been dubbed Chantel's room. She'd kept a toothbrush and change of clothes there.