by Gail Sattler
But Matthew and Ashley would never think that way. They didn’t like Ray, but they trusted him because he was their uncle. They were still too innocent to imagine the horrible things Ray could do to them. They wouldn’t see harm coming, and they wouldn’t know how to escape before it was too late.
For herself, it was one thing to report Ray to the police if he hurt or injured her. But it was different for her children. She couldn’t allow him to hurt them in any way, but there was no way to protect them 24/7. She couldn’t count on the police, because there was nothing they could do until after it happened. Then all they could do was arrest him, which didn’t protect them from harm; that only meant that Ray would be punished after he’d done it.
She couldn’t file for a restraining order, because Ray didn’t have a criminal record, and Evelyn would never tell the truth about what happened in the privacy of their home.
He released her with a shove. “I’ll be back tomorrow. And I don’t want that guy who was here last week involved. This is between you and me.”
Ray turned and strode to his pickup with Evelyn behind him, trying to keep up in her too-high spike heels.
As soon as the truck doors closed, all the adrenaline seeped out of Shanna. First her teeth started chattering; then her hands started shaking. It quickly rippled into a cascading effect until she was trembling all over.
She had to sit down before she fell down.
On shaky legs, she hurried around the side of the house and through the gate. When the gate banged shut behind her, the hammering stopped. That meant Brendan, Matthew, and Ashley were watching her and wondering why she was coming from the front, but she couldn’t stop to talk. She had to think—to figure out what to do. Roger had made her life into a nightmare. She couldn’t allow Ray to do the same thing.
“Mommy?” Ashley called out. “Where are you going?”
“I accidentally locked myself out,” she replied over her shoulder, then ran the rest of the way to the entrance to her office. Once inside, she dropped into her chair. Resting her elbows on her knees, she lowered her face into her palms just because she couldn’t keep herself straight anymore. Silent tears flowed down her cheeks, and she couldn’t stop them.
The banging and hammering didn’t resume. Instead, she heard Brendan’s voice, muted through the wall. “You guys stay here and keep working. I want you to put all those boards in piles for me, eighteen boards to a pile. I’ll be right back.”
The door creaked open, and Brendan stepped inside. “Shanna? I was wondering if—what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
Her arm throbbed, but that was the least of her worries. She shook her head, not removing her hands from her face.
The metal wheels of her visitor’s chair glided across the room; then the chair creaked as Brendan’s weight sank onto the seat. Shanna peeked from between her fingers to see Brendan sitting directly in front of her, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees.
When he spoke again, his voice was low and firm. “Please tell me what happened.”
Not caring about her blotchy face or her red eyes, she raised her head, looked straight at Brendan, and let out a ragged sigh. “It’s Ray” was all she could say.
Seven
Brendan’s heart sank to the soles of his rubber boots.
He’d been telling himself since he started this job that he didn’t want to get involved with Shanna and her little family, but with each passing day, he was grounding himself deeper and deeper into their lives. Now, even his mother was involved. And with Ray back in the picture, there was real trouble. He couldn’t step back.
Brendan didn’t trust Ray from the first moment he saw the man, and his gut feelings were right. He didn’t know what was wrong, but he wanted to protect Shanna and her children from whatever troubles her brother-in-law wrought.
“What’s the problem?”
Shanna drew in a shaky breath. His heart clenched into a little knot. “It’s complicated. I’m not sure I even understand it myself.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?” The words were out before he thought about what he was offering, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t sincere about his offer.
She looked up at him, her eyes wide and glassy.
“There’s nothing you can do. Ray says that Roger owed him money that I didn’t know about. He’s come up with a crazy notion that between the money and work he did on Roger’s car, that I owe him the car.”
“Do you think it’s true?”
“No. Even if Ray did give Roger money, it was before we were married, and it only would have been a few hundred dollars. Nothing near the value of the car I have now. I don’t believe him, anyway, and he can’t prove it. I know Ray and Roger did a lot of work on the car, but there wasn’t anything really wrong with it. They just liked to polish off a case of beer while they tinkered with it. Most of what they did wasn’t really fixing anything.”
“Then it shouldn’t be an issue.”
She shook her head. “Ray is a lot like Roger. He thinks everyone owes him something, including me. He figures that if he can scare me enough, I’ll give him what he wants, but I can’t. I only have Roger’s car, and I can’t afford to make payments on another one. The night Roger died, I think he knew he shouldn’t have been driving. He took my car when he drank, just in case he had an accident; so it was my car he would have damaged, not his own. He just didn’t expect to die in it. Insurance didn’t cover it because he was well over the legal blood-alcohol limit, so now the only car I have is Roger’s car. I wish I could sell it and buy something else, but it does run well, and I’d never get something this good with the money I could get for it.”
“I still don’t understand why he would do this.”
“I heard from my mother-in-law that Ray had another accident with Evelyn’s car. Just like Roger, it was while he was drinking, so their insurance won’t cover the repairs. So Evelyn needs another car.” She drew in another shaky breath. “I told Ray he couldn’t threaten me anymore, so he threatened to hurt Matthew and Ashley.”
A wave of cold dread passed through Brendan. After his first encounter with Ray, Brendan didn’t doubt for a minute that Ray would hurt Shanna. From what the children had said about their father, Shanna had been in an abusive marriage. He knew that such things often cycled in families, and he suspected that the two brothers were very similar, including how they treated their wives. But as bad as that was, he couldn’t imagine an adult who would deliberately harm innocent children. Yet at the same time, he read the newspapers, and he knew that happened, too.
“That’s pretty serious. I think you should call the police.”
“It won’t make any difference. I’ve been through this before. Until something happens, there’s nothing they can do, because Ray doesn’t have a criminal record and no complaints have been filed against him. That’s what makes this so frightening. I’d almost think of giving him the car and doing without if it would make him go away, but then it would just fuel him. He’d demand more, and there’d be no end to it. We’ll never be safe.”
Now Brendan really wanted to do something, but he didn’t know what.
As if the thought struck them at the same time, they both looked into the yard to watch Matthew and Ashley. They had abandoned their task of counting the fence boards and were happily climbing the playscape.
Today they were safe. But how long would it last?
He turned to Shanna. “There has to be something that can be done to protect you. This is beyond just bullying. He can’t threaten you and the kids like this and get away with it.”
“He can. This kind of thing happens all the time.”
“What would stop him?”
“Nothing stopped Roger except a fight he knew he couldn’t win. Ray would be the same. He’s bigger and stronger than me, and he knows I couldn’t defend myself against him. Getting the police involved the next day doesn’t scare him, because he’s always been able to talk his way out of it. Roger always did, and
like a fool, I went along with him, thinking it would hold the family together.”
A fight he couldn’t win.
The words echoed through Brendan’s head.
God, between You and me, help me show Ray that he can’t win this, that there is Someone greater than him out there and that You’re in charge of the bigger picture.
Shanna’s eyes glazed over. “He’ll be back tomorrow, probably about the same time.”
“Why do you say that?”
She stared out the window, her eyes unfocused. “Ray works afternoon shift at the mill, so he doesn’t get out of bed until noon. He has to be back at work by 4:00, so he’s limited to those hours. He never comes on the weekend, because more people are out and about, and he doesn’t want any witnesses.”
Brendan’s stomach tightened at the thought of why Ray didn’t like witnesses around when he visited Shanna.
She turned to Brendan, making direct eye contact. Her voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. But I’m so scared.”
He wanted to tell her not to be scared, but she had good reasons to be.
Brendan reached out to hold her hand, but she backed up, not allowing him to touch her.
It broke his heart to see her so nervous. “Please try not to worry. I have an idea, but I have to think about it some more.”
A silence hung between them, the air thick with tension.
“Before I forget, the reason I came in here in the first place was to tell you that I’ve got some leftover shingles from the playscape, so I was thinking of building a doghouse.”
“What do shingles have to do with a doghouse?”
Brendan stroked his beard, then crossed his arms over his chest. “It would match the house and the playscape. Don’t you think the three coordinated structures would look spectacular?”
“I don’t think Boffo would care.”
“No, but I would.” He didn’t know why; he wondered if he was going soft. He had never been much of an animal lover, but now that he was spending so much time around Boffo, he was growing fond of the goofy dog. When his job with Shanna was over, he’d even miss the crazy animal. “Maybe he needs someplace to go when he knows he’s in the doghouse.”
She didn’t smile, telling him that his pathetic attempt at humor had fallen flat. Considering what she was dealing with, he couldn’t blame her.
He stood. “I need to get back to work. Call me if you need me. Let me give you my cell number.” He watched as she punched his number into her auto dial. As he walked into her yard, Brendan made a mental note to set up a special ring tone on his own phone for calls from Shanna’s number.
The children frolicked happily on their new playscape for the rest of the afternoon, which was both a blessing and a relief. It allowed him to put together a plan, but it was a plan for which he couldn’t predict an ending. Ray didn’t listen to reason or play fair.
Not that this was a game. He’d never encountered a situation more serious.
Before Brendan returned to his task, he closed his eyes and prayed for wisdom, strength, and the discernment to do what was right in God’s sight.
❧
Shanna heard Ray’s truck before she actually saw it.
Without looking down the street to make sure, she hit the auto dial on her cell to get Brendan. He told her that he was already on the way and to stall for time.
Easier said than done.
She should have had the courage to face Ray herself, but she didn’t.
She prayed that God would somehow protect her and her children, because she knew she couldn’t protect herself. She’d wanted Brendan to be there to protect her, but he wasn’t. She wanted to trust him, but deep inside, she still wasn’t sure she could.
On the outside, Brendan seemed to be a nice man. He attended church, and according to Pastor Harry, Brendan was committed to serving his Savior. But like any man, Brendan wasn’t perfect, as much as she wanted him to be.
For now, he said he wanted to protect her.
Roger had also been protective, but it wasn’t long before he’d turned from merely protective to possessive. He wanted to know where she was and who she was with every minute, whether he was home or not. Toward the end, he flew into a rage if she talked to any man. When she started attending church, he didn’t even trust her talking to the men there, even though most were married and with their wives.
She couldn’t be sure that Brendan wouldn’t also become overly possessive and distrusting like Roger. It could be a sign of worse to come, and she couldn’t go through that again. And the fact that Brendan made Ray nervous told her a lot. Ray dealt mostly with unsavory characters, so when Brendan was able to put a little fear into Ray, that made her nervous.
Shanna peeked through the blinds and watched Ray park his truck. Her blood turned to ice in her veins to see that today Ray was alone.
Where was Brendan?
Part of her said not to answer the door right away, to stall for time. Yet the longer she made Ray wait, the angrier he would become, and the situation would turn more dangerous than it already was.
She told Matthew and Ashley to go into the backyard to play in the fort, which suited them fine. They didn’t want to see Ray any more than she did.
Shanna ran into the bathroom and listened. When the doorbell rang, she flushed the toilet, then yelled, “Just a minute!” to give herself some more time and to make Ray think it was understandable. She waited a few seconds and washed her hands to dispel the urge to phone Brendan. She expected that he was one of the few diligent drivers who would pull off the road and stop before answering his cell phone, so a phone call asking him to hurry would cause him to take even longer to arrive.
She walked down the stairs at a normal pace, knowing Ray would be watching through the window beside the door.
Just as she’d done the last time, she opened the door and stepped quickly outside, meaning to close the door behind her so they would stay in full view of the neighborhood.
Before she could grab the doorknob, Ray raised one hand and pushed so hard and fast on her left shoulder that the force caused her to stagger backward. Before she could regain her balance, Ray strode in and closed the door behind him.
In addition to the throbbing in her shoulder, hearing the click of the lock nearly caused her to throw up.
“Have you made up your mind?” he barked. “Of course you know there’s only one answer.”
“N–no,” she muttered.
Ray’s voice rose, and he stepped closer, backing Shanna against the wall. “I didn’t hear the right answer!”
“You can’t have the car. I don’t believe that you gave Roger any money. And most of the time you guys weren’t really working on the car; you were just tinkering. I don’t owe you anything, especially not the car.”
Ray stepped so close that their bodies almost touched, even though she flattened her back against the wall. He lifted one hand and pressed his palm on the wall beside her ear. “I must not have heard you properly. Would you like to repeat that?”
She forced herself to breathe. His hand was only inches from her throat. She had no chance of escape. She told herself to be rational—he wouldn’t strangle her to death, because then she wouldn’t be able to sign over the car. He was only trying to frighten her, and it was working. She couldn’t remember ever being so scared, not even in the seconds before Roger pushed her down the stairs.
Shanna gulped for air. “I—I said no.”
Ray’s fingers brushed her neck. “Then maybe—”
A male voice sounded from the entrance to the utility room, cutting off Ray’s words. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
A man stepped into view. A big man.
Shanna pressed herself even more into the wall. Her heart pounded. She didn’t know how or why this stranger had come into her house. If he were a burglar, he didn’t have her television under his arm, even though he looked big and strong enough to carry it easi
ly.
Echoes of Matthew and Ashley laughing in the backyard sounded through the house. At least they were safe from this criminal who had somehow snuck inside.
She stared at him, struggling not to scream and show her fear.
This man could have been a pro wrestler. His worn, black T-shirt molded huge, well-defined pecs, a washboard stomach, and a trim waist. The sleeves were ripped off the shirt, probably because they couldn’t stand the strain of surrounding his upper arms—which were huge and bulging with well-shaped muscles. Tight jeans showed off the most muscular pair of male legs she’d ever seen. On his feet were scuffed cowboy boots—very large cowboy boots, but then a man so tall had to have feet to support his height.
She looked up. Way up.
He wasn’t movie-star handsome, but he was still quite good-looking. His dark blond hair was cut short on the sides and spiked up on top for a rough, trendy look, not the style of a business executive. He had full lips, which she’d never thought of as being attractive on a man, but on him they looked good. She couldn’t make out the exact color of his eyes from across the foyer, but they were light, so they weren’t brown. He narrowed those mesmerizing eyes and gritted his teeth, which accented the lines of his very masculine square jaw and high cheekbones. With the tightening in his expression, his nostrils flared slightly, drawing her attention to a nose that was a little too big for his face but added to his appeal.
The nose. . .long and accented with a rounded hump in the middle.
She’d seen that nose before.
Her heart pounded. “Brendan?” She gulped.
His tight expression relaxed, and he smiled. His eyes sparkled. “Hey, babe.” His voice came out low and husky. Flirty. And possessive. “You okay?”
A flock of butterflies went wild inside her stomach. Her voice wouldn’t work. She didn’t know whether to shake her head or nod.