Once a Family

by Tara Taylor Quinn

“Which were?”

  He glanced at the door. Tatum should be there soon. And he wanted a few more minutes alone with Sedona Campbell, too. Sitting with her felt...good.

  “I was supposed to go with my brother to his friend’s house. Mark’s parents were close friends of my parents and our two families spent a lot of time together.”

  “You have a brother.”

  “Yes.”

  Good to know. “Older or younger?”

  “Older.”

  Even better.

  “In touch with him much?”

  “We’re close.”

  Getting better by the second. She’d know what Tatum had to gain in having him around.

  “So you stayed the weekend with your friend...”

  “Yes.” Sedona stopped, watched him, and he kept his expression bland as always. He didn’t know what she was looking for and didn’t want her to find something she wasn’t wanting to see. “Or rather, no. Her mother invited me. I went. But that first night, her mother and stepfather went out to some party. There’d been some old family friends there. The stepfather was certain the mother had been flirting. He’d also had a lot to drink. My friend and I were in sleeping bags on the living-room floor because we’d been trying to stay up all night watching old movies and we heard them in the kitchen, fighting. At first it was just accusation.”

  Sedona swallowed. And Tanner wanted to reach out to her. But not like he would reach out to Talia. Or Tatum.

  And not like he’d have touched any of the women he’d quietly dated over the years, either.

  More like a combination of the two. It didn’t sit well, and so he pushed the idea—the whole uncomfortable sensation—away.

  “Then what happened?” he asked quietly.

  “He said, ‘You wanted him to touch you, didn’t you, honey? On your breast. Like this.’” She swallowed again. But other than the darkness in her eyes, there was no other indication of the emotion she was obviously struggling with.

  “I heard her mother whimper and opened my eyes. Without lifting my head from my pillow I looked at my friend. She was watching me and, barely moving her head, shook it enough to tell me not to do anything.”

  The door to the coffee shop opened and both of them turned their heads, but the couple who entered was definitely not Tatum and Lila.

  “So that was it,” Tanner said, with a peculiar inability to let this go. He’d heard stories of abuse before. Could actually recite them. You didn’t sit through years of state-funded group counseling without taking in some of the material. “You had to lie there and listen to him beat his wife?”

  “Not quite.” She glanced at the door one more time, but if she was looking for Lila and Tatum to rescue her, she was out of luck. “My friend’s brother was downstairs and he came up. He offered to take me to my brother’s friend’s house. I didn’t want to leave my friend and when I asked her brother if she could come with me, too, the stepdad came in, grabbed her by her hair and pulled her down to the floor.”

  “So you had to leave her there.”

  “I did leave her there. I made a mistake.”

  “You were a kid. And a girl. Powerless to go up against an abusive grown man.”

  “I called the police.”

  “So they saved her.”

  “No. Her mother denied my allegations. My friend did, too. And on Monday, at school, she pretended like she didn’t know who I was. She never spoke to me again.”

  “Because she couldn’t handle what you knew?”

  Her gaze steadied, infused with warmth as she leaned toward him.

  “How do you know that?” she asked him, and it felt as if it was only the two of them in the large room.

  He’d exposed a part of himself he didn’t share.

  “Do you have any idea what happened to your friend?” he asked, deliberately ignoring her question.

  “She got pregnant six months later and quit school to get married. I ran into a mutual acquaintance a couple of years ago and she told me that my friend is now divorced and has three or four kids by two different men. She works at a motel on Highway 1, cleaning rooms. And is a good mom as long as she goes to her meetings.”

  Headlights showed a car turning into the parking lot. The shelter manager with Tatum, he hoped.

  “So you help other women to make up for leaving that night without your friend.”

  “When I had to volunteer I chose the battered women’s advocacy group over the other volunteer choices,” Sedona said, a slight edge to her voice.

  Which made him ask, “You don’t tell that story much, do you?”

  “Other than my family, I’ve never told anyone.”

  Which begged the question, why had she told him? But he didn’t ask. He didn’t want to think about why he’d asked such a personal question in the first place.

  A fiftyish-looking, gray-haired woman had just walked in the door with his baby sister right behind her.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “WHAT DO YOU THINK?”

  It was late, nearly eleven, and Sedona had to be in court at nine in the morning, had to meet her client at her office at eight to go over her testimony in a cantankerous divorce trial involving child custody issues, but she sat in Lila’s office as though she had all the time in the world.

  Ellie had probably gone to bed without her.

  Lila, who lived in her own house around the corner from The Lemonade Stand, but often spent the night in the little suite off her office, joined Sedona on the couch.

  “If the brother didn’t do it, and we put her in the system, we likely expose her to whoever she’s protecting and greatly increase the probability that it will happen again.”

  They were talking about Tatum Malone, of course. Discussing the course they were going to take.

  “She’s said she’ll say she was lying about Tanner if we force her to talk to the police,” Sedona said. “We’ve seen no physical evidence of abuse. By law, there’s nothing to report.”

  “We know that a recanted accusation could just mean that she’s afraid of retribution if she goes through with pressing charges.”

  “I don’t think so. But I also believe that someone has hit that teenager. More than once.”

  “I think your plan is the only viable choice at the moment,” Lila said after a long pause, her brow creased with a concern she didn’t often show.

  Lila looked tired out. Something else Sedona didn’t see much.

  “It just makes you our watchdog,” the older woman continued. “And I don’t like that at all. If something happens to that child, you’ll hold yourself responsible and that’s neither right nor fair.”

  “If we turn her over, we risk them sending her home to him, and then we have no watch at all. What we know is that someone hurt her while she was living under Tanner’s roof. And if they take her from him because he might have done it, and he didn’t do it, then we risk whoever did do it getting her again. Especially if it’s the boyfriend, like Tanner believes. Bottom line here is that if Tatum Malone gets hurt again after coming to us for help, I’d blame myself if I didn’t do all that I could.”

  Lila’s nod put a knot in Sedona’s stomach. And eased her heart a bit, too. Her world, while volatile, was also pretty predictable. The law was the law. The court generally ruled as she’d expect. And when it didn’t, she could find plausible cause, even if she didn’t like it or agree with it.

  But this...taking on this man who’d already proven himself more than capable of holding his own with her...

  A man who spoke to her without saying a word....

  What was she doing?

  She’d told him about Jolene Raymond. Her high school friend who now cleaned hotel rooms for a living. Jolene had been Tatum’s age that night Sedona had witness
ed her stepfather’s violence. If she’d stayed that night, if she’d been there when the police arrived, would it have made a difference? Would Jolene’s stepfather have hit her, and given Tatum evidence to testify against him?

  Would Jolene have remained her friend? Let her help?

  “Sara’s on board with us,” Lila said now. “She’s arranging to have half an hour with Tatum every afternoon she’s here.”

  “How long do you think we can keep her?”

  “As long as it takes.”

  And Sedona was back to her original question. The one she’d really been asking. “You met him, Lila. What do you think? Am I being a fool to give him the benefit of the doubt? Do you think he’s lying about not hitting her?”

  “I think Tanner Malone is a man who was raised in a horrid environment. No one comes through that without some kind of consequence. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.”

  Which told her nothing she didn’t already know.

  Lila shook her head. “I don’t know, Sedona,” she said. “Meeting him, I wouldn’t think for one second that he’d ever do anything to harm one hair on that girl’s head. Clearly he adores her. But I’ve seen some unbelievable things in this business and I just don’t know.”

  In the four years she’d been working with The Lemonade Stand she’d never heard a word about Lila’s life before she’d become managing director of one of the state’s most prominent shelters. Didn’t even know how Lila got the job.

  She’d never wondered more than she did in that moment. Never needed to know more.

  But they were business acquaintances. Not confidantes.

  There had to be boundaries. Clear ones.

  “For what it’s worth, not only do I think we’re making the only viable choice, I also think it’s the right one,” Lila said. “The best one for the child. She needs some space and we can give it to her. Hopefully, with you getting a glimpse into her home environment, and Sara having a go at her mind, we’ll be able to find the truth. And help her. Sometimes unconventional means are the only way to get our job done.”

  Sedona stood. “Good,” she said, feeling a smile coming on. “Then I’m going home to bed for a few hours. I’ll stop by tomorrow after work, and in the meantime, call me if anything changes.”

  It was all she could do for now. For the rest of the night she was off duty.

  Why the hell she took an image of Tanner Malone home to bed with her, she didn’t know.

  * * *

  “I’M SORRY...” TANNER uttered the words for the umpteenth time that day as his clipper cut a little deep, as more vine fell than he’d intended—and as he didn’t cut deeply enough, leaving too much grape to take up more nutrient than he wanted to expend per fruit. He was in a hurry. Had to be outside Santa Raquel High School five minutes before the last bell, which rang precisely at 3:22 every afternoon.

  But pruning had to be done. Everything rested on this summer’s crop. He’d managed to attract the attention of a group of highly respected vintners who were counting on him to produce fruit worthy of the high price they were paying him.

  He was running his grapes at one hundred percent, which meant one branch to a vine; all other nubs had to go.

  It meant less fruit. But better quality. For the best wines.

  Because in order to make enough money to put Tatum through graduate school, in enough time to do it, he’d invested a sizable sum on a somewhat rare Italian pinot scion he’d come across through an acquaintance on the internet. He’d grafted the scion with an American root stock—which meant that it had the stamina to withstand American infestation, which the Italian root stocks, raised in Italian soil, could not do.

  He couldn’t lose this crop.

  The only thing more important was his sister. Which was why he’d spent the better part of the day apologizing to his fruit and, at 3:22, was sitting in his truck, watching every kid that exited through the side door. Six words―Meet me at the side door―were the only ones she’d spoken that morning.

  She hadn’t said a word the night before, either. Just shrugged when he’d asked her if she was okay. And adamantly shook her head when he’d asked her to come home with him.

  The only time she’d looked him in the eye was when he asked her if she wanted to stay at the shelter. Even then, she’d just nodded.

  He’d agreed to a week. But it wasn’t in writing.

  The crowd of kids blasting from school hallways to freedom in the California afternoon sunshine thinned. Still no Tatum.

  Tanner, wearing the stained long-sleeved button-down shirt he’d pulled on with his jeans that morning, and the sandals he’d slipped into when he’d pulled off the waterproof boots he wore in the vineyard, sat up straighter.

  Was that Harcourt?

  He’d been told the kid went to a private school. He’d never have allowed this if he’d thought the punk would have access to his sister at school.

  No way. He’d homeschool her if he had to.

  Okay, not that. He’d never meet state requirements, but he could hire someone...

  The kid who’d come through the door never turned around. From behind, it could be anyone. He’d only had a brief glimpse of the face. And...

  Tatum pushed through the door, backpack slung over one shoulder, chin to her chest. She was alone.

  And unsmiling.

  God, had it only been three months since her last post-braces orthodontic checkup when he’d picked her up and she’d come through those same doors in the middle of a group of five or six giggling teenage girls? He’d teased her about their drama. She’d stuck her tongue out at him.

  They were a team, him and Tatum. Always had been. Through all of the middle of the night feedings his mother either didn’t wake for, or wasn’t home to know about, the teething pains and diaper rashes...the first grin. And last bottle.

  What had happened to them?

  “Hey,” he said as she climbed in beside him, acting as though she had the truck all to herself.

  His “How was school?” didn’t even elicit a grunt.

  Pulling out of the lot, Tanner glanced at Tatum as often as he safely could, hoping for a glimpse into what his little sister was thinking.

  He knew he hadn’t hit her. But something clearly was going on between the two of them. More than just her anger over a boy she’d only met two months before.

  He couldn’t save her if he didn’t find out what to save her from.

  “I talked to Talia.”

  That earned him a brief glance.

  “She said you two talked.”

  He’d had a call from their sister the night before. Late. She’d tried Tatum several times and finally got hold of her around one in the morning.

  What adult called a kid at one in the morning on a school night? He’d kept the thought to himself.

  And heard that Tatum hadn’t had a lot to say to Talia, either.

  “I was wrong, Tatum. To think you shouldn’t talk to her.” In the end, the silence had been Talia’s choice. But he’d thought it was probably for the best, and he’d influenced that choice. Just as Harcourt was influencing Tatum now?

  If he hadn’t let Talia sever the family connection, Tatum would’ve had a woman to confide in. A woman who might’ve had a chance to steer her right...

  Turning her shoulders, giving him as much of her back as her seat belt would allow, Tatum stared out the side window.

  As soon as he dropped her off at the shelter he was calling Ken Harcourt. If his kid had transferred to public school, Tanner was pulling Tatum out.

  They couldn’t stop him. He was her guardian. It would be all nice and legal.

  Making the last turn before they’d arrive at The Lemonade Stand and he’d have to watch Tatum walk away, Tanner clutched the steering wheel with both hands. Why h
ad Tatum lied to Sedona Campbell? Why had she said he’d hit her? Did this have to do with their mother?

  He knew he’d have to try to find Tammy. He’d never thought the day would come when he’d seek out the woman who’d given birth to him.

  But for Tatum, he’d do anything.

  Tammy’s youngest was lying.

  Tanner had to find out why.

  Feeling like an unskilled heavyweight on a tightrope, Tanner drove the rest of the way in silence. He might only have seconds left and couldn’t seem to find the words to save his family.

  Her seat belt was unbuckled before he’d parked in the small public lot in front of The Lemonade Stand. Tatum jerked toward him as he stopped the truck. The unspoken question in her gaze was perfectly clear.

  What the hell do you think you’re doing?

  Tanner glanced around, taking in the nondescript lot, the unremarkable patches of dirt between the lot and the brick half wall separating them from the street, the gray front of a small-looking slab building with a plain glass door entrance.

  Tatum wanted to stay here?

  She preferred this place to the lush green acres and old but statuesque homestead that he’d provided for her?

  “I’m supposed to meet with Ms. Campbell,” he said in answer to her silent question. He’d left them all at the café the night before. But before he’d gone home alone, he’d driven by the block where The Lemonade Stand was located, behind a series of storefronts. Only a small portion of the acreage was visible from the road. Or visible from the outside at all. Which was the point. But so far, he was underimpressed.

  “You can’t go in there.”

  Words. He almost grinned.

  “Apparently there’s a small public area just inside that door.” He pointed to the glass entrance a few feet away. “Ms. Campbell told me I should meet her there.”

  “Sedona’s my attorney.”

  “She’s an adult professional. You should call her Ms. Campbell.”

  “She told me to call her Sedona. And you aren’t the boss of me here.”

  Ultimately, yes, he was. But he didn’t figure the point was worth belaboring. Doing so wouldn’t win him any points with his baby sister. And Lord knew he needed some. Things were a hell of a lot easier when throw-up meant an upset stomach, whining meant hunger and all-out wails meant anger. Or when, in childish gibberish that only he and Talia could understand, she’d tell them absolutely every thought on her mind.