“I know.” The girl’s mouth said one thing, but the almost adoring look in her eyes said another. And Jenna figured a talk between them was in order.
She wasn’t a hero. She just wasn’t going to have anyone else dying because of her.
“What is it?” Latoya asked as she bit into a brownie. “You just went white.”
“I... Nothing,” Jenna told her, feeling like a deer caught in headlights. Anyone else dying because of her?
Where had that thought come from?
Had the conversation she’d had with Renee planted it there?
“I...uh...I forgot I have a meeting up at the main building,” she said.
“At nine-thirty?”
“It was the only time that worked. I just wanted to bring my laundry back.” She was backing away from the table. Toward the door. “I’ll see you guys when I get back. If you’re still up.”
“It’s dark out,” Carly said. “I can walk with you if you’d like.”
“No, I’m fine. The walk is well lit and I have my phone.”
“Well, at least make sure you call security for a ride back,” Latoya reminded her. It was a newly instated rule that anyone out and about on the premises after ten o’clock had to be accompanied by security.
“I will.” Jenna was at the door. She reached behind her for the knob and hurried out.
She wasn’t sure where she was going. But she needed to think. To figure out what was going on with her. To be certain that she could trust her own mind.
It had been a long time—since leaving the first shelter several years before—since she’d doubted her own instincts.
And that fact, far more than a man at the window in the night, scared her to death.
* * *
WHEN MAX CAME out from putting Caleb to bed, Chantel was in the kitchen, doing his dinner dishes.
“I was going to get to those,” he said. There were two days’ worth in the sink.
“I’m not good at just standing around,” Chantel reminded him. She’d been known to dust their living room, or mow the lawn when she visited. Anything to keep busy.
He’d asked Jill once why Chantel couldn’t ever just chill out. She’d shrugged and said that she was borderline ADD or something. He couldn’t remember exactly.
And wished he’d paid more attention.
Coming up behind her, he put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed. “Really,” he said. “You don’t need to do my dishes for me. Sit. Have you had dinner?”
“I grabbed something in the car on the way up.”
“Then how about a beer?”
“You didn’t have any last time I was here.”
Neither he nor Meri were big drinkers.
“I picked up a six pack.”
He pulled out a bottle. Opened it and handed it to her before pulling out a second. While she sat sideways on a chair at the kitchen table, hands on the back as she watched him, he finished loading the dishwasher in exactly the way Meri liked. Moving some of the dishes that Chantel had already placed to make that happen.
He washed the pans and plastic container by hand.
And then, also to please his wife, he wiped down every single counter, although he hadn’t used them all during his food prep. They’d eaten soup and sandwiches that night.
When he was done, he took his first sip of beer, then joined Chantel at the table.
“What did you find out?” He’d put off knowing for half an hour. Avoiding what he knew he wasn’t going to like.
“Steve Smith told someone in the LVMPD, a guy he ran into in a casino about six months ago, that he’d purchased a little place on the beach.”
“Here? In California?” This was bad.
Really bad.
“We don’t know. But it bothered Diane enough that she thought I should check it out. I talked to Wayne about it and he agreed that it’s suspicious enough that it’s worth checking into, so tomorrow he and I are going to canvas areas around here. Tonight, our job—yours and mine—is to search public records of home and condo sales in the area since Meredith has lived here, and see if we get lucky and Steve’s name pops up. Though I suspect that he’d have paid cash using an assumed name. Or put the property in somebody else’s name.”
Max’s blood ran cold. His skin felt clammy.
Had Meri’s ex been watching her, watching them, all this time? “I’m not at all sure this’ll turn into anything, Max,” Chantel said, arms on the table as she leaned closer to him. And for once he wished she’d reach out and touch him. Because it would be inappropriate for him to touch her, and he could sure use a bit of human contact at the moment.
“According to Diane’s source, Smith had been drinking at the casino and the guy wasn’t sure whether Steve had been talking big, or if he was being serious. And there are a million beaches in the world....”
But not a million in a town where an ex-wife—whom he’d already stalked through three states—lived.
“Wayne’s using official means and time to do this?”
“And working on his own.”
“Why? Surely he’s paid off his debt to you by now.”
“You’re a citizen of Santa Raquel—one he’s sworn to protect. As is Meri. You’ve expressed suspicions. With your wife’s sudden choice to leave you, and your inability to accept that she really just wants out of the marriage, he feels it’s his duty to check things out.”
She was playing this down. But he didn’t need or want to be coddled.
“Diane’s convinced Meri could be in trouble, isn’t she?”
“Diane has a dead woman on her mind.”
“And witnesses that make that woman’s death look like a murder that was covered up.”
God, Meri, what are we into here? Why didn’t you tell me everything?
Did I ever give you cause not to trust me?
They were questions he couldn’t answer.
So he thanked Chantel, once again, for having his back. And sipped his beer.
And just before he drifted off into a restless sleep later that night, he sent a message into the air, hoping that by some miracle it would find its way to his wife.
Please stay safe, my love.
* * *
JENNA DIDN’T HAVE a conscious plan to end up at the door to Lila’s private suite after leaving her bungalow Monday night. The managing director might not be there, since she had her own place a few miles from the Stand. But Jenna had seen her heading to her on-campus apartment late in the evening, off in the distance, when she’d been coming back from the laundry room.
She knocked softly on Lila’s door, intending to leave as soon as her knock went unanswered. But the door opened before she could think about turning around.
“Jenna!” Lila, dressed in black fleece pajama pants and a T-shirt that said, “Best Mom Ever”, pulled the door opened wide. “Come on in.”
“I’m sorry,” Jenna said, backing away instead. “You’re ready for bed. I should have called.”
She was still in the jeans she’d worn to pick weeds that afternoon.
Seemed like a lifetime ago.
“It’ll be hours before I attempt sleep,” Lila said. “I was just curled up with a book,” she said, smiling and looking gracious and capable and welcoming. “It’s a guilty pleasure when I’m here overnight. At home there’s so much to do, so many responsibilities. Laundry, cleaning, bills to pay...but here—” she shrugged, smiling again “—I don’t have to do any of those things. Please, come in.”
She’d disturbed the woman. She couldn’t also disappoint her.
“I’m not in trouble or anything,” she said, almost stammering. Wasn’t that rich, for a speech pathologist to stumble over her own tongue?
Lila had told her to find
her if she was in trouble. Not to bother her because she didn’t want to go back to her own room and face the voices in her own mind.
“I’m fairly certain you wouldn’t tell me if you were,” the older woman said, leading Jenna into her small sitting area.
“Can I get you some tea?”
“Can I have some without milk?”
She moved slowly around the room as Lila disappeared into the kitchen. There were pictures on the walls, but none had people in them.
“Are these places you’ve visited?” she called out, recognizing Monte Carlo and the Mediterranean Sea.
“No. Just places I’ve always thought I’d like to go,” Lila said, coming back into the room.
“You hang pictures on your walls, but don’t take a vacation and go?”
“I know.” The woman smiled again, looking around the room. “I’ve got too much else to do right now. But maybe someday.” She left the room again and Jenna heard china rattling. A refrigerator opening and closing.
She wondered about Lila’s private life. Her family.
Wondered why she was so dedicated to this place.
And when Lila came back with her tea, curling up in one of the armchairs, Jenna took her same place at the end of the couch.
“How are you doing?” Lila asked, folding her legs beneath her as she sipped her tea, looking as if she’d be happy to sit and chat all night long.
“I’m fine.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear it.”
Jenna nodded. And stood up. Carrying her tea with her, she wandered the small room. Studying pictures, landscapes, she’d already studied.
“I...have a question,” she said to a photograph of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, when it seemed as though Lila would let her wander the room for the next week.
“I’ll answer it if I can.”
Jenna turned and looked Lila in the eye. “How do you know when to trust your instincts and when your mind is just playing with you?”
She’d had this down once. And she’d obviously lost some key piece of the puzzle.
“I’m not sure you ever do know for sure,” Lila said. “At least not that I’ve found.”
“But...they teach...we’re supposed to listen to our hearts, to trust ourselves, not our abusers.”
“That’s true,” Lila said, her expression dead serious as her gaze followed Jenna around the room. “Trusting yourself is a vital component to recovery and survival on the other side of abuse.”
Jenna frowned. “But....”
Lila shrugged. “The mind plays tricks on us,” Lila said. “All of us. At one time or another.”
It wasn’t the answer she’d been seeking. Nothing she’d ever heard in DV counseling in the past.
“So how do we know that we aren’t the ones to blame?” The question tore out of Jenna with such force her throat burned.
“Because no matter what you do, you are not responsible for the actions of others,” Lila returned with cold conviction. “It is illegal for someone to enact violence on another. No matter the provocation.”
Jenna agreed. But....
“There are means for handling situations where others are acting out or acting inappropriately. Even being unfaithful. There is never an excuse for violence.”
“I know.”
“But we aren’t talking about an abuser, are we?”
“I don’t know what we’re talking about,” Jenna admitted, completely deflated as she sank into the couch. She put her tea on the table and sat back, staring at the ceiling.
This self-doubt wasn’t something she was used to. Not anymore. She’d come through all of that. Was in touch with her inner self. Knew her flaws, her issues, and took responsibility for them.
“I’m sure of something, you know?” she said to the room at large. “I know it.” Steve was after her.
“But something happened today, and I reacted, certain that I knew what was going on, but I was wrong.”
She’d heard a noise in the garden and she’d been certain it was Steve.
“And what it was had never even occurred to me.”
She never would have imagined that someone might notice her picking weeds and come to help.
And then there’d been the incident outside Carly’s bedroom window. She’d been so certain it was Steve outside that window that she’d risked her life to prevent him from hurting anyone else.
And at the house...Steve hadn’t been outside the shed, hunting her down. Max and Chantel had been there. Hugging....
“You can’t expect to be aware of every possibility in the world,” Lila said in that reassuring tone of hers. “Anyone, all of us, can only make determinations based on our own perceptions and perspectives. Just because you were wrong about something doesn’t mean you can’t trust your instincts.”
Yes. Right.
“What if your instincts are wrong?”
There was no movement from Lila’s chair and Jenna lifted her head and glanced over. The woman was staring right at her.
“You don’t always know,” Lila said. “That’s part of the challenge of being human,” she said. “You have to remain fully alive, every minute of every day, always aware that what you see in front of you might not be there at all.”
“And what you don’t see could be sitting right in front of you.”
“Exactly.”
“So the key is to not get set in your ways.”
“Maybe. And maybe there is no key. Maybe each day is meant to be lived for what it is.”
“So how do you stay safe?”
“Ah, so that’s the real question, is it?”
She wasn’t sure. “What’s the answer?”
“I don’t have it.”
It wasn’t the response she’d been expecting.
“I was so sure that if I kept my mind on what I knew to be true, stayed in control, mentally, I’d be fine.
“But when you try to stay in control mentally, when you stay focused only on what you know, you close the door to knowing differently.”
“Yes, you do.”
It all felt so hopeless. She felt so helpless.
“I think I blame myself for the fact that my family was killed in a car accident and I wasn’t. I was thrown from the car and I lived.”
Hearing her own words, Jenna cringed. Obviously she’d lived. She was sitting right there.
“I really believe that I was saved because I have more to do here on earth. I certainly didn’t save myself. And I know there was no way I could have saved any of them. I was a kid. I wasn’t to blame for the accident. I was too young to drive and had nothing to do with any of it. But...I don’t know, could I still, deep inside, be blaming myself?”
“I think the fact that you’re asking the question says that you are, on some level, taking some sort of responsibility for what happened. Tell me about the accident.”
She was so messed up, so desperate for clarity, that for the second time that night she spoke of something that she normally kept buried in the deepest recesses of her psyche.
And as she talked, she remembered little things that she hadn’t known were buried there. Like the chocolate bars.
“Anytime we took a trip, my mother would buy us each our favorite candy bar,” she said, remembering her favorite. And those of her mom and dad and brother, too.
And there was the cheeseburger Chad had ordered when they stopped for lunch. He’d taken so long to finish it their folks had let him bring it in the car. She’d sat there watching him eat it, one little bite at a time, and wished that she had one, too.
“I remember my father looking in the rearview mirror, watching to make certain that we both buckled our seat belts when we got back in the car,” she said slowly, back in that car, seeing her fa
ther’s raised brow. “I pretended to put mine on. I made it click, but didn’t fasten it. I hated the way it dug into my hip bone.”
Feeling sick to her stomach, Jenna fell silent. She’d been the only one without a seat belt on.
That was why she’d been thrown from the car.
That was why she’d been separated from her family. And had to grow up alone.
“I’d say that a young girl who thought she’d lost her family because she’d disobeyed might be subconsciously driven to do whatever she was told from that point on,” Lila’s soft words, several silent minutes later, held possibility and no conviction, but hit her powerfully.
Was that why she’d stayed with Steve for so long?
And was still doing what he wanted? Leaving Max and Caleb because she knew Steve would never allow her to live her happily-ever-after with them?
Could it be that she’d thought she didn’t deserve a family because she’d disobeyed her father and lost the one she’d had?
Was she dreaming up this whole Steve thing then? Had the note on her car really been a mistake? Meant for another van, another person? Had there been no one following her after all? And no reason to leave her beloved husband and son?
CHAPTER TWENTY
“DR. BENNET? THERE’S a woman here to see you.”
The words came over Max’s intercom as he was finishing up some charting Tuesday afternoon.
“Did she say who she is or what she wants?” he asked the office assistant, Jennifer.
“She said it’s personal.”
It had to be about Meri.
Tripping over his bright red high-tops, he smoothed back blond hair that had grown a little shaggy and burst through the door into the waiting room.
Chantel stood there, her eyes filled with a nervous energy that reminded him of Jill.
Nodding to Jennifer, he ushered his friend back into his private office.
“I’m sorry to bother you here, Max, but you pick up Caleb on the way home and then we can’t talk until after his bedtime, and I couldn’t wait that long.”
Harlequin Superromance September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: This Good ManPromises Under the Peach TreeHusband by Choice Page 71