by Natalie Dean
But that became harder to do as the days passed by. At the end of five days there, Sophia had worked out a daily schedule. She would draw with her electronic tablet, no doubt working on those commissions she talked about, from breakfast until lunch. Then Missy and one of the other girls would usually join her for a mini picnic out on the front lawn, followed by lounging and then Missy’s lesson for the day.
After that, it was more drawing until dinner. Then she and Ma would sit on the porch and rock on the swinging-bench while talking and listening to music or just sipping tea while looking up at the stars.
The more days that passed, the more Bradley got the feeling that Ma was on board to take Sophia completely under her wing. Wouldn’t be the first time a Miller had taken in a stranger as their own, and it definitely wasn’t going to be the last. But every time Ma even alluded to it, Sophia would insist that she had to move along before her ex and his family could figure out where she went. She would always say that the last thing she wanted to do was cause the Miller family any trouble after they had been so kind to her.
But that was just the thing. They hadn’t been so kind to her. In Bradley’s opinion, they’d done the bare minimum. If he had his way, he’d hand her a thick wad of cash and a vehicle stuffed to the brim with anything she might need, along with a map of all sorts of off-the-grid areas or protected places. The only issue was that Sophia would never take it. After one full week of living on the ranch together, he’d come to understand that she wouldn’t accept anything she deemed “charity” or people pitying her.
She certainly was stubborn. It was frustrating that she wouldn’t let him help, but he had to respect her boundaries.
“Huh, did we start to keep our record books in the yard, or are you staring at the pretty young lady again?”
Bradley jolted to see Pa leaning against the doorframe of his office. It had once been the attic, stuffed full of sports equipment and mementos, but once he’d taken over a good chunk of their financing, Bradley had it fully furnished and converted into his own space. Often, he’d spend entire days up in his office, living off food in his mini-fridge and passing out on his couch when the numbers stopped making sense. Eventually, Ma would come up with a full plate for him and bully him down to a real bed in his actual room, but she understood that researching and figuring things out for his family was his passion.
“Huh? I’m not staring.” Bradley swiveled his chair back around to his desk, trying to look like he was busy, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember what he had been doing.
“Son,” Pa continued, walking in further to sit in one of the plush chairs in front of his desk. “I’ve seen you go at these books and spreadsheets and numbers for a week straight with hardly a blink. Could’a boarded up all the windows and you’da been none the wiser. But now, well, I see you staring outta them. Since we ain’t got any miraculous weather out there, I reckon the only real change is that frightened dove you brought in.”
“I don’t think dove is an accurate description for Sophia,” Bradley said, trying to shift the focus.
But Pa just stared him down with that intense gaze of his. It was no secret that Pa wasn’t a man of many words. He had a thick accent, and a stroke he’d had in his forties made the entire act of speaking often more energy than it was worth. He and Ma were opposite in that way, so the fact that his father thought that this was something worth talking about was… disconcerting, to say the least.
“Fair ’nuff. More of a raven, maybe. Did you know they’re the smartest birds out there? And if you wrong ’em, they remember your face and tell all the other ravens about you? They know that there’s safety in numbers and will mob whole predators or threats outta their territory. Only problem, Miss Sophia there ain’t got her own murder.”
“What?” Bradley said, startled.
“A murder. It’s a group of crows or ravens. Thought you’d know that, seeing as you musta read every single book in the school library when you were there.”
“Not every single book.”
“Hah! Nah, you never were much of one for autobiographies, I remember that. Look, I’m pleased as punch to see ya looking at the world like you’re actually living in it, but I gotta—” Pa’s eyes narrowed, and he stood, walking over to the window.
Bradley turned as well, and that familiar stomach twisting started up again.
“Son, you wanna tell me why there’s three city police cars coming up our drive.”
“I don’t know,” Bradley answered, ice shooting down his spine. “But I aim to find out.”
He turned quickly on his heel and rushed out of the office, sure that Pa could find his own way down at a more leisurely pace. Taking the steps two at a time, he burst out on the front porch just as the police cars pulled up.
Of course, his gaze couldn’t help but flick over to Sophia, who was pressed up against the porch wall with her tablet and a broken glass at her feet. She looked utterly terrified, frozen on the spot and wide-eyed.
“Goodness, did I hear a glass break out—”
He didn’t have to turn to know that was Ma coming out of the door right behind him. She took one look at the situation and crossed over to Sophia, picking up her tablet and setting it to the side.
“Come on, dear, why don’t I get you inside? Bradley will handle whatever these people want.”
But Sophia shook her head, her recently healed lips pressing themselves into a thin line. “I told you they’d come. I told you. I told you.”
“Yes, you did dear. But don’t worry. We’ll take care of this, and you won’t be going anywhere.”
Ma picked up the throw blanket she had knitted off the back of the swing and draped it over Sophia’s shoulders. “Come on now, dear. How about I get you a fresh cup of lemonade inside? Or maybe some soothing tea? I did just get a new willow bark flavor in.”
They only took maybe two steps before the officers were filing out of their cars and a voice called out to them.
“Hold it right there, ma’am. We have business with Miss Hernandez there.”
It was an older man who spoke. Not quite Pa’s age, but with salt and pepper in his hair. It was clear from his broad body and stance that he’d lived a fit life and only recently had age starting to chip at him. But something about his face was familiar. Bradley couldn’t tell if it was the set of his nose or the slope of his chin, but something about the man’s visage rang a bell in his memory, which only grew louder as the man walked closer.
Finally, when he was almost to the porch, it clicked. The man looked like an older and slightly smaller version of the monster Bradley had faced off with in the hotel. This was part of the “family” that Sophia would so often warn them of.
Which meant that this man, whether he was a brother, father, uncle or whatever, was complicit in everything that happened to Sophia.
Anger bubbled up in Bradley and he took a step down from the porch, squaring his shoulders. “The way I reckon it, you don’t have any business on this private property.”
The man seemed surprised by the verbal pushback and held up his hands. “Whoa, no need to be aggressive here. Nobody’s in trouble. I actually came to help. You see, I rode here all the way from St. Louis because Miss Hernandez there has a warrant out for her arrest. Pesky little thing, but it can be a real hassle down the road.”
“What? No, that’s not true!” Sophia said, finally seeming to lurch to life.
“’Fraid it is! Apparently you, lil’ missy, failed to show up to jury duty. Lucky for you, it’s a real easy fix. We just have to go down to the precinct and clear up this matter.”
“Do you have the warrant?” Ma asked from behind Bradley.
“Well, not on me, Ma’am, but—”
“Then you come back when you have a warrant,” Bradley cut in, closing the distance between him and the interloper.
A dark expression crossed the man’s face, and he sighed. “Well, goodness, I came here out of the goodness of my heart. I didn’t expec
t y’all to make things difficult for me. I know that Sophia likes to tell all sorts of wild stories that make her the victim, but believe me, she ain’t as helpless as she seems.”
The man started to pace, the other police officers gathering behind him. “She got a bit of a drinking problem, that one, and my family has been helping her ever since we adopted her into our home. She goes out and blows any money you give her, and if she runs out before she’s done, she gets into fights. Real knuckle-dusters. She may be a little thing, but I’ve seen her take down full-grown men.”
“That’s not true!” Sophia snapped. “I don’t drink, and you know it!”
He looked to Bradley, his gaze clearly trying to emote “see what I mean,” but Bradley wasn’t buying what he was selling at all. Even if he hadn’t walked in on that… that… monster hurting Sophia, he knew a predator when he saw one. And there was no doubt in his mind that this man was a predator through and through. Even if he never laid a hand on Sophia himself, he enabled her abuser to get away with things.
“See? She’s feisty when her temper gets going. So please, I know y’all are just good folks trying to do what’s best, but let me help her. Let me take her to St. Louis, clear up her warrant, then get her into the rehab she needs.”
The anger inside of Bradley was burning so intensely, so hotly, that suddenly it snapped. But instead of exploding outward, he felt himself go ice cold.
“That’s a real good story,” he heard himself say, low and perfectly calm. “Did you think of it during your drive here, or is it something that you’ve had a lot of practice saying?”
“Son, I don’t—”
“I’m not your son. No, in fact, I’m pretty sure I caught your son in the middle of him raising a hand to Miss Hernandez over there. I’m pretty sure I had to physically fight him to make him stop attacking her. I’m also pretty sure that I went with Miss Hernandez to the hospital, where she was kept for hours because her injuries were so concerning.
“So you can take your faux concern and drive all the way back to St. Louis before I call my town’s police and have you all arrested for trespassing, understand?”
The man drew himself up to his full height and the rest of the officers tensed behind him, but Bradley didn’t care. He stood his ground, arms crossed and gaze hard.
“Now son, Miss Hernandez there isn’t healthy enough to take care of herself on her own. As one of her legal guardians, it’s my job to make sure she gets the help she nee—”
Then the ice broke and that fire was back, ten times hotter than before. “It’s your job to protect her! To make sure she comes to no harm. I saw firsthand just the kind of care your son gives her, and I’ll be dead before I let any of your hands on her again!”
Suddenly the man’s appeasing demeanor disappeared, and his face grew dark. He closed the final distance between them so they would have been chest to chest if Bradley wasn’t one step above the ground.
“You do not want to test me, boy. I have connections running even deeper than all the money you’ve got here. If you want me to make your life hell, oh, I can make it hell.”
“You—”
“Stop!”
The wrecked cry from Sophia halted whatever words had been on Bradley’s tongue. He craned his neck to look at her only to see that she had pulled herself out of Ma’s grip and was staring them down. There were tears in her eyes, and she was shaking slightly, but the look on her face was one of a warrior.
“I’ll go with you.”
“What?”
Bradley wasn’t sure if that was him or Ma or both of them, but it was certainly a shocked sound.
“I told you. I won’t make trouble for you all after you’ve been so kind. You’ve given me a place to stay, but now it’s time that I go.”
She started to walk forward, and it was as if the entire world cracked under Bradley. Dozens of thoughts ricocheted around his mind, clamoring that he couldn’t let her. That he needed to protect her. That all of this had to stop.
His eyes darted this way and that as she made her way down the steps, as if the layout of the porch would have some kind of clue. But it wasn’t until Pa opened the door, a grave look of concern on his face, that a crazy idea popped into his head.
A crazy, reckless, stupid idea.
Reaching out, he grabbed Sophia’s wrist as she walked by. It was the first time that they had touched since that night when he had saved her, and it was like electricity shot through his body.
Sophia stared at him, her eyes so wide even her blown-out pupil seemed smaller. She was frozen in place, staring at him as if he were bigfoot himself.
“She’s not going anywhere.”
“Need I remind you, boy, that I am a legal guard—”
“Were a legal guardian,” Bradley interrupted, his mind churning up words faster than he even thought he could think.
“Pardon?”
He cleared his throat. “I said maybe you were a legal guardian, but you aren’t anymore.”
The man took a step back, looking like a potent mix of confused, annoyed, and amused. “Uh-huh, and just how did that happen?”
Sophia was staring at him, her eyes boring through him. He didn’t let go of her wrist, however, keeping it gently in his grasp. If she wanted to pull away, she could easily, but she didn’t.
He didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.
“It happened right about when I proposed to this wonderful woman.” Straightening his shoulders and picking up steam, he nodded. “We’re engaged to be married, and my fiancé isn’t going states away without one of my family with her.”
7
Sophia
What.
What?
WHAT!
Engaged to be married?
Sophia stared at Bradley for several moments along with everyone else. It was like someone hit pause on life with all of them reeling at the sudden revelation.
But with the speed that eventually came to all long-term trauma survivors, Sophia realized what the man was doing.
He was buying her time.
She didn’t understand why. She didn’t even understand when he’d had time to concoct such a plan, but she felt gratitude flood through her. Sure, maybe she didn’t trust the handsome man entirely, but she certainly put more faith in him than her ex’s father.
“That’s right,” she said, stepping closer and pressing into Bradley’s side.
It was a casual sort of touch, something an engaged couple should be comfortable with, but it made her feel a rush of heat all along her skin, accompanied by a wave of nausea. Was she ever going to be normal again?
She continued, “I met Bradley here a couple months ago, and we fell in love.”
Her ex’s father looked like he was about to have an apoplexy right then and there. “You’re… engaged?”
“Yes,” Bradley’s arm wrapped around her waist gently, and she did her best not to flinch. She couldn’t ruin the ruse just when it started.
“Oh, my good Lord on high!” Ma cried, rushing forward and hugging Sophia fiercely. If her ribs hadn’t healed so much in the past month, it almost would have been painful. “I thought perhaps something was going on! Now why did you go and try to keep it a secret from your own mother?”
“We, uh, wanted our privacy. You probably figured out that Sophia likes her privacy,” Bradley said so smoothly that she was actually impressed. For looking like he had just been about to deck her almost-father-in-law, he certainly was collected again.
“That so?”
“That’s so.”
The man looked from Sophia to Bradley and back, his face becoming increasingly red. The officers behind him looked like they didn’t know what to do. Sophia felt immense satisfaction seeing them flustered for once.
Bradley had been the only person to ever witness her fiancé in the act of hurting her. Before, people were only there for the aftermath, for the faded bruises and the scabbed-over cuts. She’d found excuses at first, but then
when her family started to get suspicious, her ex had manipulated her until she ended up alienating all of them. It was easy to see now how he had isolated her, but she certainly didn’t have that kind of foresight when she was younger. But the good thing was she had a witness now, first-hand, and that took away a lot of the power her ex and his family had over her.
“Well, I don’t think I believe y’all.”
Bradley stared the man down. “That’s too bad. Now, like I said earlier, get off my property. If you want to handle this legally, feel free to talk to our lawyers. We’ve got quite a few of them, being a generational ranch and nationwide brand and all. And if you want to call the local cops, you know, the ones that have jurisdiction here, I can tell you right now that not a single one of them is gonna take a man’s fiancé across state lines to go be with her abusive ex.”
“My son ain’t abusive! He ain’t done nothing that she didn’t deserve.”
Bradley was about to punch the man, but the distinct sound of a shotgun cocking broke the entire scene.
Sophia whipped around only to see that Dani had joined the drama, holding a shotgun like it was no big deal. She wasn’t aiming it at anybody in particular, but she wasn’t not aiming it.
“Boy, I sure am excited for hunting season,” she said loudly, giving Ma Miller a bright smile.
“Oh me too! But I do wish more of you would use those bows. Shotguns can really do a number on a deer. Makes me feel bad sometimes.”
“Ah, you don’t have to worry,” Dani said brightly. “Most of your sons use bows instead. If I recall right, it’s just me, Pa, Benji, Missy, and a few of the cousins who have shotguns. Oh, hah, and both of my brothers, of course. Man, that’d be some arsenal if someone ever decided to make trouble, wouldn’t it?”
“It certainly would. Thankfully people here around these parts are so lovely, it almost doesn’t matter that this state has the castle doctrine.”
The man’s eyes narrowed, and he spat at the ground at their feet. “Don’t think that this situation is over,” he said, his voice full of poison before he turned on his heel with all of his lackeys trailing after him and left.