Once a Family

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “He can still be there for his children, even if they aren’t married.”

  “You think he should leave her.” Interesting. She was a divorce lawyer, after all.

  But she believed in once and forever.

  “I think Grady so badly wanted what Mom and Dad have that he jumped too soon, trying to capture something that has to settle upon you. And now, with this...”

  “Maybe his wife won’t stay with him and it will be a moot point.”

  “She’s staying.” Her derision was clear.

  “Because of the money?”

  “That’s what I think. Grady says that she’s horribly sorry, has asked for his forgiveness and desperately wants a second chance. He says that he’s been neglecting her, spending all of his time with his sick patients instead of being at home with her and Cameron. I guess he’s been working about eighty hours a week.”

  “So maybe she does love him.” But it was probably the money.

  “She claims the baby is his. Like she thinks Grady won’t test to find out as soon as the baby comes.”

  “You think he’ll leave her if it isn’t?”

  “No.”

  “But you think he should.”

  “She was unfaithful to him. She could be carrying another man’s child. That’s broken marriage vows in my book.”

  His, too. “But what if they really do love each other? What if it really was like Brooke said? Maybe you’d make the same choice,” he told her, slouching back in his chair.

  “I’m not going to settle, if that’s what you mean.”

  “And you think Grady’s settling.”

  “I think...” She sipped. He waited. They stared at each other. Tanner wasn’t sure what was happening, but he knew something was. Knew that he could put an end to it—and wasn’t going to.

  Not that night.

  “I don’t know what I think.” Her words, when they finally came, sounded strangled.

  And the unusual depression that had been threatening to bury him earlier that evening faded back into obscurity as he leaned over to kiss her.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  SEDONA DIDN’T WAIT for Sara or Lila to speak with Tatum. Saturday morning, she was up before dawn, watched the sunrise on the beach with Ellie and pulled into the back entrance, and her private parking spot of The Lemonade Stand, just as the teenager was exiting the cafeteria with Maddie.

  “Let’s go,” she said, walking up to take the girl’s elbow.

  Tatum didn’t resist. Or hold back at all. “Where are we going?”

  Tatum wasn’t allowed to leave The Stand without Tanner’s permission.

  “Just for a drive.” She’d hung around with Tanner for another hour and a half after dinner. Wine-free. He’d poured a third glass, but hadn’t finished it. She hadn’t finished hers, either, though they’d stayed at the table. Talking. With an occasional stolen kiss that neither of them mentioned.

  And before she’d left, while standing at the door pretending as if they hadn’t just spent the evening flirting with sex, she’d made a promise.

  Tatum stopped. “We’re leaving The Stand?”

  “Yes.” Sedona’s focus was on the girl’s best interests. This morning, alone and sober, she still believed keeping this promise to Tanner was in Tatum’s best interest.

  “Does Tanner know?”

  “Yes.”

  Tatum nodded then and resumed her step, but with silence and a little less enthusiasm in her gait.

  Sedona stepped carefully, as well, knowing that she was close to falling off her tightrope.

  “Where are we going?” Tatum finally asked as she buckled herself into the front passenger seat of Sedona’s old Thunderbird.

  Sedona had debated this part. What did she say? How best to perform the experiment? If she said too much, Tatum’s reaction would be skewed. If she didn’t tell her that they were driving by the home she shared with her brother, the girl might feel as though Sedona was teaming up with Tanner to make her go home.

  “What’s up?” Tatum was frowning now. She turned in her seat and the belt grabbed at her top, raising the bottom hem above Tatum’s low-rise waistband, exposing her belly button.

  It was pierced. With a gold ball loop.

  “When did that happen?” Sedona hadn’t meant her tone to be so sharp. But Tanner was starting to trust her. And she’d given him her word that Tatum would be completely monitored at all times while she resided at The Stand.

  “A couple of months ago,” she said. Before she’d come to the shelter. Starting the car, Sedona headed out of the parking lot, still not sure if she was going to tell Tatum where they were going, or let the girl figure it out on her own.

  “Del likes belly button rings,” Tatum offered, her voice softening as she tucked a strand of naturally blond hair behind her ear. “He thinks they’re sexy.”

  But Tatum wasn’t sure she wanted to have sex....

  “Does Tanner know you pierced your belly button?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t need his signature?”

  She shrugged. “Del did it. He talked to some people and we watched some videos on YouTube and it hardly hurt at all.” Tatum’s words tumbled over themselves. “My friend’s mom let her have it done and she went to a shop and it got all infected and gross. Mine has never had a problem.”

  “So why not tell your brother about it?”

  She was trying to keep an open mind. Had to keep an open mind. Tatum’s friend’s mother let her have a belly button ring. And Tanner approved of all of Tatum’s friends...

  “Duh, Tanner?” Tatum sounded about twelve. “You really think he’d go for that? And besides, if I’d asked, and he said no, he’d have been checking to make certain I didn’t do it, anyway. This way he has no idea. And doesn’t have to worry about it.”

  “Did you talk to him about belly button piercings?”

  “Not specifically. I wanted a triple piercing in my ear and he said that I had enough body piercings with the two in my ears. He thinks nose and eye and belly-button piercings make a girl look wild and loose and I have my mother’s genes, you know.” Tatum stared out the window as they drove, seemingly unaware of the turns Sedona had made, taking them out of the small town toward her brother’s winery. Of course, there were other locations in the same direction.

  Like Santa Barbara.

  A mall.

  “Did Tanner say that? That you have your mother’s genes?”

  “He didn’t have to. But Del says that Tanner thinks that if he doesn’t control every single thought in my brain I’m suddenly going to become a whore and a druggie. I never saw it that way, but once I thought about it, I knew he was right.”

  Sedona’s instincts screamed so loudly she squirmed in her seat. Harcourt again. Just like Tanner kept insisting. But Tatum had only known the kid a couple of months and Sara said they were dealing with issues dating back a lifetime.

  “Sometimes he makes me feel like maybe I do have a whore gene or something.”

  “Who does? Tanner or Del?”

  The girl’s gaze shot toward her. “Tanner, of course.” But Tatum didn’t sound as sure.

  “The choice to live like your mother did is just that. A choice. Spurred on by environment, maybe, but not heredity.”

  “Talia’s a stripper. And I’m not stupid. I know she probably does guys for money, too.”

  “She grew up in your mother’s environment. You didn’t.” Tanner had made sure of that. And Sedona could see why.

  “Your school called,” she said next, being purposefully vague. No reason to deliberately antagonize Tatum’s negative feelings against her brother by setting him up as a tattletale.

  Tatum’s head turned sharply toward her, a look of fear there an
d gone. “What for?” she asked more calmly than she looked.

  “They’re concerned because you’ve been feeling ill so much lately. I guess you’ve had to leave classes nine different times in the past month.”

  “Just sick to my stomach,” Tatum said quickly. Too quickly? “I get bad stomach cramps when I get upset. Ask Tanner, he’ll tell you. I threw up the first three days of junior high.”

  She’d ask.

  “This past month has been a lot more stressful than junior high,” Tatum continued.

  “You’re sure that’s all it is?”

  “Positive. As soon as I feel better I get right back to class.” Tatum didn’t hesitate in her response and Sedona wanted to believe her.

  She took another turn. A more certain one. Leading to the road Tanner and Tatum lived on.

  “Where are we going?” Tatum’s voice was filled with mistrust.

  She might have played this one wrong. The last shreds of the rope she was walking could be unraveling and she had no other plan. No safety net.

  For any of them.

  “We’re driving by the farm,” she told Tatum straight out. The girl had obviously guessed, anyway. “Tanner is out in the vineyard this morning.”

  “You’re taking me home?” The horrified look Tatum was giving her caught at Sedona. Taking her breath.

  The experiment was to assess Tatum’s reaction.

  “Just so that you can get some things,” she said quickly. “Your brother agreed that you had the right to choose your own outfits and pick up anything else from your room that you wanted.”

  If, in return, Sedona watched Tatum while she was home, to see that Tatum loved things about her home, that she missed being home.

  “And you swear he’s not there?”

  “He promised he’d vacate.”

  “And he’s just going to let me take whatever I want?”

  “He agreed that you had the right to do that.” After Sedona had explained that Tatum was a young adult who, without making accusations of abuse, could go to court and petition to have his guardianship removed. That the court would give her request credence simply because of her age. Not that they’d grant it, but that they’d at least entertain the motion.

  Curiously, Tatum didn’t say another word after that. Sedona wished she’d just gone right on talking. She needed to know what thoughts were racing through Tatum’s brain. Needed to find the missing pieces in Tatum’s story before it was too late.

  * * *

  SEDONA CAMPBELL WAS a witch. There was no other explanation for the way the woman could sway him from his course. From what he knew to be smart and safe. After a lifetime of having to watch every move, every second, he knew better than to blindly turn his home over to an attorney who had admitted she would represent his sister in Tatum’s attempt to get away from him.

  Sure, Tatum would be there, as well. But his sister couldn’t be expected to know how sly people could be. She didn’t know that people were, basically, untrustworthy.

  She didn’t know because Tanner had made it his life’s quest to raise Tatum in a home where love and safety were the defining factors. He’d given his life so that she could grow up with a heart filled with all the good things he and Thomas and Talia had been denied—faith, hope.

  And trust.

  Unfortunately, he hadn’t counted on the Harcourts of the world preying on Tatum’s innocent, naive, loving nature.

  Sitting on the cement floor of the antique barn, where he’d gone when he’d heard Sedona’s car pull in, knowing that his baby sister and her attorney were in the house, Tanner leaned against the wall, closed his eyes and breathed.

  Sedona was going to see that Tatum loved her home.

  She was going to notice a bit of longing in Tatum’s eyes. Some hint of missing all that had been dear to her.

  Maybe, if he willed it hard enough, Tatum would break down and agree to come back home.

  A trickle slipped down his face in spite of the eyes he’d closed.

  * * *

  SEDONA WATCHED THE girl closely. Was there any particular place where Tatum’s features froze up? Where they softened? In the living room, did she exhibit any sense of fear? Or in her bedroom?

  Tanner expected her to see some longing in Tatum’s reaction to her unexpected homecoming.

  She was looking for signs of a return to a crime scene.

  She didn’t really see either. Tatum entered the house calmly. Looked around casually, but didn’t show any overt reactions of any kind. Until she stopped in the middle of the living room, looked up and waved at the smoke alarm before heading for the stairs and her room. The girl could have been in the house the day before for all the reaction she showed.

  Because she’d promised Tanner, Sedona followed Tatum up the stairs, to continue to watch for reaction.

  “What was that about down there?” she asked as Tatum went straight to her drawers and started pulling out pajamas and underwear—leaving more in the drawers than she was taking. As if she wasn’t going to be gone too long.

  Interesting. If Sedona had been running away from an abuser, and had a chance to get her things, she figured she’d take everything she could get her hands on—as quickly as she could get her hands on them.

  “What?” Tatum asked, reaching into the closet and coming out with a medium-size roller suitcase that she calmly opened and started to fill. Neatly. Methodically.

  “Greeting the smoke alarm.”

  “It’s part of our security system.” She shrugged, looking embarrassed. “I... It’s a stupid kid thing. It scared me when Tanner had the system installed because I thought it meant people could see me, but he didn’t want me in the house alone without it and told me it was my friend. I guess greeting it is just habit.”

  “He has cameras in the house? He watches you all the time?”

  “No, mostly it’s just motion sensors, but there are like these nanny camera things that he turns on whenever we leave,” Tatum said, putting in a tablet, a couple of ink pens and passing over everything else on her desk to move to the hanging clothes in the closet. “He’s always been really paranoid and was afraid Tammy was going to come back. They were up in our old house, too. The one we lived in with Tammy. So if she did illegal stuff we could prove it. And not be blamed for it.”

  “That smoke alarm is a camera.”

  “Uh-huh.” Tatum pulled out a few shirts, finishing with a couple of pairs of shoes that she zipped into an outer compartment on the case. “There’s a motion sensor in it, too.”

  “Does he watch the security tapes every time he comes home?”

  “Usually I did. Tanner gets a lot more upset about Tammy than I do. He lived with her a lot longer than I did and knew her a lot better, too.”

  “Have you ever thought about finding her?”

  A blouse in hand, the girl turned and looked at her. “What for?” Her frown looked completely perplexed.

  “I’ll take that as a no.”

  “After what she did to my brothers and sister...there’s no way I’d have anything to do with her. It would hurt Tanner too much.”

  She felt like an interloper standing there in the middle of an intimate family moment. And couldn’t help noticing, again, how homey the room was. From the paint on the walls, the professionally framed artwork, the bulletin board filled with personal mementos and photos, to the thick down coverlet and matching shams and throw pillows. It was nice. Felt similar to the room she’d grown up in. “Did you ever notice anything on the tapes?”

  “No, but Tanner did once.”

  “Tammy was here?”

  “No, he saw Talia taking cash out of his desk.” Tatum left her bag, pulled some things out of a drawer in the bathroom across the hall, put them into a side pocket, grabbed one of the three stuff
ed butterflies from her bed, tossed it on top of her clothes and zipped up the suitcase.

  She turned to Sedona. “That last time Talia ran away, when she was eighteen, she took Tanner’s emergency cash with her. But she knew the camera was on. There’s a little light by the television that tells us. She knew Tanner would know she took the cash.”

  “Do you know how much it was?”

  “Five hundred dollars. It’s always been that. Until Talia took it, it was the original bills he earned from his first summer job baling hay. When she took those, he put five one-hundred-dollar bills right where he’d left the other five.”

  “And it’s still there?”

  Tatum shrugged. “I haven’t looked, but I’m sure it is. He told all of us that if we ever needed money in a hurry for any kind of emergency, that’s where it would be.”

  “He thinks of everything.” She murmured the words, mostly to herself. And wasn’t sure if she was impressed. Or worried. Was he really as selfless and thoughtful as he seemed? Or was he obsessive and manipulative and she just didn’t want to see that?

  What she did know was that the more she learned about Tanner Malone, the more danger she was in of falling, like Alice, into the rabbit’s hole.

  If she wasn’t careful, he was going to take up permanent residence in her heart.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  TATUM DIDN’T SEEM to be the least bit uncomfortable in her home. She didn’t seem to fear, at all, that her brother might show up at any minute and confront them.

  She also didn’t seem inclined to linger.

  She gathered her things and, without any long or last looks around, headed out the door and down the stairs.

  Until she passed by a large antique wood desk set by itself in a corner of the living room. Tatum turned her head away from the desk. Sedona was on her other side, watching her, or she’d have missed the way the girl’s eyes closed and lips tightened for a brief second before she squared her shoulders and moved on by.

  Sedona followed her out.

  Tanner had given them an hour. They’d taken less than fifteen minutes.