“No, he’s not, which makes it even more of a miracle that you turned out as wonderful as you did. It seems that what we’ve overcome is what ultimately molded us into the people that we are instead of where we’ve come from.” He gave me a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes and cocked his head to the side. “So, what do you want to do to kill time while we wait for your old man to leave the house?” He wiggled his eyebrows at me. “I have some suggestions.”
I felt a twinge between my thighs, but while my body might be on board with his type of distraction, my mind was a million miles away and not interested in being vulnerable and bare even to him. “I think we’ll put a pin in that for later when I don’t feel like I might throw up and pass out at any minute.”
He nodded and rose to his feet. “Well, we’re in Texas, so how about you take me for some barbecue.”
I put a hand over my roiling stomach. “I don’t think I can eat right now.”
He reached out his hands and waited patiently until I placed my palms over his. He pulled me to my feet with a gentle tug. “That’s fine; you can watch me eat and laugh at me when I get barbecue sauce all over my face. I’m not going to let you sit in the room and wind yourself up so tight that you snap.”
I followed him out of the room and let him load me into the car. On autopilot, I tonelessly gave him direction to the place that used to be my favorite barbecue joint when I lived in town. I hadn’t eaten there in years and years. Oliver thought it was too messy, so he forbade me having it in our home. The one time I snuck away and grabbed some with a friend from church, I of course got it on the outfit I was wearing. When he found the garment buried deep in the laundry, he wrapped the fabric around my throat and pulled on it until I blacked out. When I came to, I was covered in bruises and missing all of my clothes. I should have left long before it got to that point, but today, I was simply glad I was around to know better and to tell others that they deserved more than that. Life shouldn’t be about merely surviving and enduring; it’s about living and savoring every single day we had.
The hostess took us to a secluded table near the back of the restaurant. I realized as she was walking away that she had purposefully picked a place to seat us that was all the way across the room so that she could eye-fuck Wheeler for as long as possible. He seemed oblivious but I quickly learned he wasn’t the only one fighting the urge to throat-punch someone when they wouldn’t keep their eyes to themselves. I would never actually hurt anyone in any way, not when I knew what kind of lasting damage flying fists could do, but that didn’t stop me from envisioning the girl with her hair on fire when she coquettishly looked over her shoulder at him on her way back to the hostess stand.
Luckily, our server was a guy who didn’t seem to care about either one of us very much. Wheeler ordered a platter of meat that was big enough to feed a small army and a beer. I stuck to water and told him I would pick at the corn bread that came with his meal. We made small talk, mostly about the baby and how anxious he was to find out if he was having a boy or a girl when we got back. I didn’t bother to remind him that the baby still might not cooperate, they could be flying blind about knowing the sex right up until the little bundle made an appearance. I kind of hoped the baby would keep being difficult. It was fun to watch Wheeler try and wrap his head around being responsible for a little girl. In his mind, a boy would be easier and I didn’t have the heart to tell him how wrong he was. All girls were daddy’s girls at heart. I asked if he and Kallie had started talking about names for either eventuality and he made a pained face. Apparently, Kallie was all for names that he considered boring and basic. He wanted something strong and memorable. He tossed out a couple that sounded like all the guys at his shop had voted on and deemed badass but I could see why Kallie wasn’t a fan. He was asking if I had any suggestions when a shadow suddenly fell over the table. Thinking it was the server with Wheeler’s food, I didn’t look up until a throat was cleared.
Standing at my elbow was a man dressed in a sheriff’s uniform. I didn’t recognize him right away but when he spoke his voice was familiar. Case Lawton. He’d been a deputy when I lived in Loveless with Oliver. He was at the sheriff’s office the night my husband had broken my arm and cracked several of my ribs. He was there when his father, the acting sheriff at the time, asked me if I really wanted to press charges. It was a small town and people would talk. My father had done a lot for the community and he would hate to drag my entire family into a domestic situation. He told Case to take me to the doctor, ordered him to get me checked out, and then mentioned he should go talk to Oliver about the proper way to keep his wife in line. I’d bolted before any of those things could happen. When the people that were supposed to help you were just as bad as the people that hurt you, all you could do was take care of yourself until you found someone that really cared.
“Poppy Cruz. I thought that was you. I followed your story on the news a while back.” He ran a hand over the lower half of his face and took off the wide-brimmed hat that was covering his dark hair. He looked older than I remembered, tired and jaded, but still very handsome in a rough and rugged kind of way. “I told my old man that your husband was a loose cannon. I knew something terrible was going to happen if we didn’t lock him up for assault. That bastard never listened to me.”
I looked at the sheriff’s star on his chest and over to Wheeler, who was watching the other man through narrowed eyes. “He should have listened. Oliver would be in jail, instead of dead, and I might not have spent the last year of my life jumping at shadows and waking up in the middle of the night screaming. He put a bullet in his head right in front of me. I had bits of his skull and his brain stuck in my hair.” I sucked in a breath through my teeth and lowered my lashes as my hands curled into fists on the top of the table in front of me. “All of that came after two days of rape and torture. I’m lucky to be alive, but more than that, I’m lucky to still have my sanity and belief that not all men are made like my father and my deceased husband.”
The cop rocked back on his heels and looked like he might be sick. His face went pale and his mouth pulled into a furious frown. He put his hat back on his head and dipped his chin. “We’re supposed to protect and serve, ma’am, but not all cops are created equal either. My father was cut from the same fabric as yours, which is why he no longer has the big office. This town is small and word gets around when the people that are supposed to be paying attention are purposely looking the other way. I’m glad you made it out, and if you need help with whatever brought you back, know that I will answer the call personally. I knew I let you down that night, failed to protect you, and it’s been a sore spot I’ve carried with me for years.”
I gave a stiff nod. “I’ll keep that in mind, Officer.”
His lips quirked in a lopsided grin as he motioned toward Wheeler. “Your boyfriend is pretty hard to forget, so try not to do anything in the view of witnesses. They’ll be able to pick him out of a lineup with no problem.”
Wheeler let out a grunt in response as the cop moved out of the way so the server could put his tray down next to our table. The sheriff muttered a subdued good-bye, and before he started shoving food in his face, Wheeler asked me if I was okay.
I shrugged and reached out to snag a piece of bread off his plate. “A lot of people in this town let me down before I left the first time. I should have known better than to come back but I did, and I was let down even worse the second time. That’s how I know no one is going to help my mom. If they don’t see it or speak of it, it’s not really happening in their mind. But it is happening to way too many people, women and children, and even men.”
“So, we’ll do what we can to help because we know it’s happening and we refuse to look the other way.”
I gave him a sad smile and told him, “I really fucking love you, Hudson.”
He replied by shoving a big bite of brisket in his mouth and chomping away happily. We killed the rest of the afternoon driving around town so I could show him m
y old haunts. Through now wide-open eyes, I could see that there wasn’t anything particularly special about my home town, which made being back slightly less scary. After I talked to my mom, saw for myself that she was alive and well, I knew I would never be back. There was nothing here for me and I wasn’t leaving anything that mattered behind.
We parked around the corner from my childhood home and had to wait for an hour until my father’s sleek, black Mercedes SUV pulled out of the driveway. Men of the cloth were supposed to be humble and modest … my dad was neither of those things. He liked to flaunt his power and position in everything that he did.
“He looks like a dick.” Wheeler’s softly muttered words made me giggle when all I wanted to do was cry.
“He is.” I turned my face to his and leaned in for a kiss when my dad drove around the corner so that there wasn’t even the slightest chance he would see my face. Wheeler kissed me back, slipping in some tongue and leaving my bottom lip wet. When he pulled back we were both breathing hard and it wasn’t from fear. He slipped out of the car and I followed with the key to the house that had never really been a home, clutched in my shaking fingers.
I stopped being able to breathe when I touched the doorknob. It turned easily under my hand and swung open with a barely noticeable creak. The interior of the house was dark and silent. There were no lights on, no TV going, no sounds of voices or life anywhere. It was like walking into a tastefully decorated tomb.
I looked over my shoulder as Wheeler pressed into my back, shutting the door behind him. “Their room is at the back of the house. The floor creaks, so tread lightly.”
He jerked his chin in understanding as we started to creep through the dreary hallways that had no pictures or art on the walls. Everything was so sterile, made to look like a picture in a magazine. I clearly remembered my mother scrubbing and cleaning every surface until her fingers bled to keep my father happy. Without fail, he would come home after a service or a fund-raiser and find some microscopic piece of lint or dust she missed. His barely controlled fury would follow and that inevitably led to not just my mother bursting into tears.
I trailed my fingers along the wall like I used to do when I was little, walking back in time as memories assaulted me from all sides. I remembered the heavy weight of repression and judgment that seemed to hang in the air in this house. I remembered the absence of warmth, how everything felt cold even though it was never below seventy degrees outside. I remembered sleepless nights worried about my sister and hating how perfect I had to be to make up for her perceived failings in my father’s eyes. I remembered the suffocating feeling as every ounce of joy and light was sucked out of me.
I liked the memories I was making now much better.
We hit the closed door to my parents’ bedroom. I put a palm on the wood and took a second to brace myself for whatever might lie beyond. I was expecting the worst since my dad wouldn’t let anyone speak to her, but I had to hope for the best. I felt Wheeler put a hand between my shoulder blades, letting me know that he was there regardless of what we were about to face.
I turned the knob and pushed the door open, my eyes immediately meeting my mother’s. She was sitting in a chair by the window of the room, in the darkness, doing nothing but staring. She looked older than she did the last time I saw her. There was more silver in her dark hair and her bronze complexion had deep lines carved into it around her eyes and next to her mouth. She had also lost a ton of weight. Her arms looked like twigs where they stuck out of the bulky sweater she was wearing even though the house was warm enough to make me sweat.
“Mom?” The word escaped as a question because she looked like a stranger. She looked like a woman that had been beaten down and forgotten.
Her eyes, the same unusual light and golden brown as mine, blinked at me sluggishly. “Poppy?” She lifted a hand to her throat and started to rock back and forth in her seat. “Am I dreaming? I have to be dreaming.”
Wheeler stepped around me into the room and hit the lights. We all blinked in reaction, and the full extent of how badly my mom was wasting away hit me. Her cheeks were sunken in. Her collarbone was sharp, prominent points and her hands looked like they belonged on a skeleton. She looked like a corpse that hadn’t been put in the ground yet.
“You’re not dreaming, Mom. I’m here to help you. I want you to come with me to Denver. I want you to leave Dad and let me help you. I’ve been worried.”
Her eyes blinked again and it took them an unnaturally long time to open back up. “You’re here, but you can’t be here. It’s going to make your father angry.”
“He’s always angry because something is fundamentally wrong with him. When was the last time you ate something?” I walked over to her and crouched down in front of her, putting my hands on her knees.
“Your father told me I was letting myself go. He thinks I’m getting old and fat. I’ve been dieting.”
She was starving herself for the jackass. “You don’t look well, Mom. Let me help you. I’ll take you somewhere safe where they can make you better.”
Her head fell back in the chair and I noticed her hair was thinning to the point I could see parts of her scalp through the wispy strands. She lifted a hand like it weighed a thousand pounds and let it flutter uselessly between us. “I’m a good wife. I do what I’m told. God will reward me. Women of faith do not walk away from a marriage when it becomes difficult.”
That was my father’s poisoned rhetoric coming from her mouth. “This isn’t a difficult marriage, Mom, it’s a deadly one. You’re going to die if you stay with him.”
“He loves me. He needs me.” Her voice was thready and weak but I could hear that she believed this, really, honestly believed it.
“Mom … the only person that man loves is himself. When you love someone, you take care of them, you treasure them, and you put their happiness before your own. The only person Dad has ever taken care of is himself. If he loved you, he would be here right now forcing you to eat something. You look like a skeleton. He knows you’re wasting away and he isn’t doing a damn thing to stop it. Just like he knew what Oliver was doing to me and never stepped in to protect me.”
Her droopy gaze shifted to Wheeler and widened slightly. “You can’t be here. My husband would not approve of you being in our home. Marking your skin is a sin. You do not alter the vessel you were given by the Lord.”
“Is she for real?” He sounded flabbergasted and slightly disgusted.
I sighed. “Unfortunately, she is very real. Mom, if you come with me and work on getting better, you can be a grandma. Salem will let you see the baby and we can have the right kind of family.” I seriously doubted Salem would let this woman anywhere near her child, ever, but I was getting desperate and time was running out. “You deserve better than this. I want more for you for the rest of your life than for you to be Dad’s doormat and emotional punching bag.”
“I’m a good woman, a godly woman. The Lord will provide for me.”
I shook my head and rose to my feet. “The only thing he’s going to provide is a place in hell, next to Dad, which is where he’s going to end up for letting you kill yourself over him.”
One of Wheeler’s hands fell heavily on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “You’re talking in circles and she’s not listening. We’ve got to cut our losses here and go, honey.”
I vehemently shook my head in the negative and leaned down to put my hands on my mother’s frail and bony shoulders. “I can’t leave you here. I can’t leave you with him.”
Her eyes drifted closed again and she turned her face back toward the window. “This is where I belong.”
Wheeler pulled me back and wrapped an arm around my heaving chest. “She has options and she knows that now. She can call you if she changes her mind and wants out. We can drop by and visit with that sheriff and let him know what’s going on here. He seemed like he realized he royally fucked up with you and might be willing to stick his neck out to make it right.” His lips touc
hed my ear and I shuddered as tears started to slide down my cheeks. “You can’t save someone that doesn’t want to be saved, Poppy. There are some things that can’t be salvaged because there’s been too much time and decay. You let her know she’s not alone and that’s all you can do.”
Unable to see out of the sheen of moisture that was now obscuring my gaze, I whispered a broken, “Bye, mom,” and let him pull me out of the grim and gloomy room.
We were in the hallway when I heard her softly call out, “I would love a picture of my grandbaby when it gets here. You’re a good girl, Poppy, you always were.”
I was a good girl but that wasn’t enough to get her to go with me. Sadly, I realized nothing would make her leave, but that didn’t stop me from offering one last time. “If you need me, Mom, find a way to let me know.”
Just because she was ready to give up and accept this as her horrible reality didn’t mean that I had to.
Wheeler
I was stretched out on my back underneath a seriously leaky Ford pickup truck. The guy that brought it in told me that black goo had suddenly started dripping from the rear axle. What he failed to mention was that he’d obviously been trying to tow something the wrong way and had bent and torqued the damn thing into something that looked like a modern art sculpture. I would never understand why a customer thought minimizing their part in what they fucked up would also minimize the cost of what it would take to fix. This was going to require a whole new back end and it wasn’t going to be cheap.
Swearing under my breath, I rolled out from under the truck. It was going to have to go up on a lift so I could assess the full damage and it was well into February, so the cement floor of the garage never quite warmed up and lying across it even for just a few minutes made all the bones in my back hurt. I was giving instructions to a couple of my guys to move the truck when I caught sight of a familiar head of salt-and-pepper hair. I hadn’t heard from Zak since I confirmed with him I had the Hudson in my possession and was getting ready to start work on it. I assumed he’d gone back to California and our paths wouldn’t cross again, so needless to say, I was a little surprised to see him standing in my garage looking at the now painted Hudson like it was a rare and priceless piece of art.