Harlequin Superromance September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: This Good ManPromises Under the Peach TreeHusband by Choice

by Janice Kay Johnson

  He shook his head.

  “What?”

  “Funny, I’ve managed to finally convince you that Steve was behind her going, that she’d never just have left of her own accord, that she didn’t want out of our marriage, that her paranoia was mostly a product of her imagination and that, first and foremost, she trusted me and would come to me before she’d ever do anything, most particularly before she’d leave me....”

  She’d promised. She knew his aversion to opening up to the once-in-a-lifetime kind of love a second time. Even after he’d been lucky enough to find such a love twice in one lifetime. She’d known he’d rather die than go through losing a second wife.

  “You live your love, Max. I don’t think I’ve ever met a man as true to your marriage and commitments, as true to your heart, as you are. You give yourself to a woman and you are all hers.”

  Again he shook his head. “I’d convinced myself we’d had some divine connection,” he said slowly, helping himself to the rest of her bottle of beer and barely noticing when she got up to get two more. The last two.

  “But I’m beginning to think that it was only that—me convincing myself—and not some larger-than-life love holding us together. I needed to believe it was there so that I could believe it would hold us together no matter what, even after death. That way I’d never lose her. After Jill...I couldn’t love another woman if I was going to lose her.

  “My conviction was fear-based,” he said now, his bare foot accidentally brushing up against Chantel’s laced hiking boot under the table. Even in the summer Chantel wore jeans and hiking boots.

  He’d never asked why.

  “You’re saying you didn’t love Meredith?” she asked.

  “Hell, no! Of course I loved her. Love her,” he corrected himself.

  “So you’re doubting that she loved you.”

  “No, I’m realizing that love isn’t always strong enough to overcome all the challenges life hands us. Meredith left me of her own accord, Chantel. You were right. She came here today for a reason. She left me...something. And now I know.”

  “What do you know?”

  “That our love wasn’t strong enough to overcome her fears. Or, I guess, mine either. I let mine bury my head in the sand rather than helping her deal with hers.”

  “So you don’t think Steve is behind her leaving? Because I have to tell you, that’s one bad dude, and I don’t think any of us are going to stop hunting him at this point, whether Meredith wants to be with him, or is running from him or even has anything to do with him at all. The man is a danger and has to be taken off the streets.”

  “Of course Steve is behind it,” Max said, needing to be completely clear on that one. He didn’t want one ounce of energy taken from the hunt and was very clear on that point. He added, “Steve Smith was very clearly the impetus for Meri’s deciding that it would be best for Caleb that she leave us. I’m just not certain that he’s a current physical threat to her. Our marriage failed—I wasn’t up to the task of being married to a woman who’d spent years being hunted like an animal.”

  The soft feminine fingers that covered his weren’t a comfort. “Hey,” Chantel said. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  “I didn’t push her enough about all of the details of her past,” he said. “I told myself it was because it upset her to talk about it and she’d been through counseling and knew what was best for her. I told myself I was respecting her. But the truth is I didn’t push because I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to have to worry. Or be afraid of losing her.”

  “You had every reason to believe that her past was in the past,” Chantel said, sounding like a cop now. A professional. Not someone saying what she had to say to comfort a friend. “Victims of abuse leave their situations every single day, Max, and many, many of them move on to new relationships. Healthy and happy relationships. With and without formal counseling. And, as you said, it had been quite some time since Smith had shown up. It was entirely possible that he’d moved on. Or that the restraining order had finally convinced him, a lawman, that he’d best leave her alone. They’re all valid thoughts, Max. And we still have no proof that Smith is back in the picture. We only know he’s a man who has committed atrocious crimes and needs to be off the streets.”

  All true. But....

  “It takes two to allow a marriage to crumble,” she added. And he nodded.

  Meri had made mistakes, too. He got that. Maybe she hadn’t tried hard enough to help him understand the magnitude of the horrors she had gone through. Certainly she hadn’t trusted him. Or given them the chance to work through this latest crisis together before she’d just taken off.

  But ultimately, the failure of his marriage rested with him. He’d refused to see the ugliness that his wife had lived with every single day. He’d wanted to pretend and he’d encouraged her to pretend, too.

  “Let me ask you something.” Chantel’s soft voice could have been a caress. He hadn’t moved his hand from beneath hers and she didn’t move it either.

  He raised a brow to encourage her to continue if she really wanted to. He wasn’t going to ask what she wanted. Wasn’t going to encourage her that completely.

  “Did you marry Meredith first and foremost because you were in love with her and didn’t want to live without her, or because she was safe?”

  “Safe how? I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

  “Safe in that she didn’t take risks. Her main priority was to keep your family and your home safe. Because safety, according to you, and from what I’ve seen here, is everything to Meredith.”

  He was head over heels in love with Meri. More even than he’d been with Jill, not that he’d tell that to Jill’s best friend.

  But was that why he’d asked her to marry him?

  He wanted it to be. Wanted to be sure that he’d asked her to be his wife only because he’d loved her and not because he’d also loved her determination to always put safety first.

  He just wasn’t sure.

  And did it matter at this point? He’d lost her.

  He just couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe his marriage was over.

  But then it had taken him a couple of years to believe that Jill was gone, too, and he’d seen her pool of blood in the street.

  “I don’t know,” he finally told Chantel, pulling his hand from beneath hers to pick up his beer bottle and take a long swig.

  She drank, too, watching him, and as she put her bottle down, her expression changed. Like something had come over her.

  “I’m going to say something,” she told him, looking him straight in the eye with a voice that was strong and sure.

  He waited.

  “After Jill died, I thought about calling you, about coming around, but I thought I needed to give you a chance to grieve for her. To heal and be ready to move on. I waited too long and you found Meredith and I thought I’d lost my chance. So I just want it known, right now, that when the dust settles and you get this figured out...if you end up single again, I want to be the first in line.”

  He didn’t want to hear it. Not even a little bit.

  “I don’t expect you to say anything now,” she continued, not faltering at his silence. “I know that this is really tacky and you couldn’t possibly know, at this point, how you’ll feel after you get through this, no matter who was offering. But a woman doesn’t often get two chances at a dream come true and I’m not going to blow it this time.”

  “I have no idea what to say.” She’d taken away the “absolutely no chance” option with her belief that he couldn’t possibly know at this point how he would feel later on down the road.

  “I’m not expecting you to say anything.” With her arms folded on the table, she leaned in closer. “Except, maybe, yeah, I guess I am. I’d like you to promise me that if
things don’t work out for you and Meri, you’ll at least give me a chance.”

  How did he make such a promise? He didn’t think of Chantel in those terms.

  Because she’d been his wife’s best friend? And he was a married man?

  “Would you have gone out with me if I’d been around after Jill died?”

  She was giving him complete honesty. Laying her heart out on the table. So different from Meri’s secret inner life. Her inner hell.

  “I don’t know,” he said. And then, “Probably.” Because it was also the truth.

  “So, just this promise, Max. If you do become single again, we’ll go out. At least once.”

  One date. It wasn’t much to ask.

  “How can I make that promise?” he asked. “You’re helping me keep my wife safe and I’m praying with every ounce of my being that when Smith is out of the picture she’ll come back to me.”

  “But you said tonight that you think the marriage is over.”

  “It might be.” He didn’t know. What if they did get Smith? Then Meri wouldn’t have to fear for Caleb’s well-being anymore.

  He just knew he couldn’t promise himself to another woman when he was still so in love with Meri.

  “And until you know for sure, you can’t think about making a promise to another woman,” she said, with a small smile. A kind smile. And a knowing one. A familiar one.

  “That’s right.”

  “And that’s exactly what makes you so special, Maxwell Bennet. So I just want you to know, my offer, it stays open. Indefinitely.”

  She said that now. But who knew what the future would bring.

  Chantel was a bright, beautiful, giving woman. When the right guy came along and swept her off her feet, she’d forget she ever had a thing for a pediatrician who was besotted with the wife who’d left him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  JENNA CALLED YVONNE Thursday morning, just as she always did, to confirm the address for the day’s session with Olivia. The little girl was making great progress and would probably be swallowing completely on her own very soon.

  Yvonne’s phone rang. And rang again.

  Jenna had just finished a session with the little boy who stuttered. He knew his exercises well and, unlike a vast majority of the children she worked with, did the exercises on his own. Often. As self-directed and determined as he was, he was at a point where he could work fully on his own, or transfer to another speech pathologist without losing any ground.

  Her work was coming to an end.

  Yvonne’s phone rang until it switched to voice mail. Jenna didn’t leave a message.

  She waited five minutes and called back. Waited twenty-five, in case Yvonne was on the road and not picking up, and then called a third time.

  At which point she paced the secure parking lot at the Stand and called Yvonne’s case worker at The Lighthouse—the shelter where she’d first met Yvonne.

  Her bus stop was just through the door at one edge of the parking lot that led into the thrift shop and out onto the street. She’d heard the bus come and go twice. “I can’t get Yvonne on the phone,” she said as soon as the woman picked up.

  “Meredith? I didn’t recognize your number.”

  “I’m on a secure line,” she said quickly. Explanations about her didn’t matter at the moment. “I’ve been working with Olivia every day and she’s making great progress and there’s no way Yvonne would just not show up. I’ve called three times in half an hour.”

  “She’s in the hospital.” June’s tone was personal, compassionate, as she delivered the news. “She took Olivia to see her paternal grandparents yesterday and Olivia’s father was there. His parents said that he’d been through a program, that they’d had a long talk with him and they all wanted to turn over a new leaf. They asked her to give their son a second chance. They promised they’d do their part, check in all the time, and he said he’d do his. You know the drill. He cried....”

  Jenna didn’t want to hear anymore. Sick to her stomach, she asked, “What hospital did he put her in?”

  June named the one across town from Max’s clinic—the one he seldom visited.

  “What room number?”

  “391.” The case worker gave a number that would not be given out at the hospital.

  “Where’s Olivia?”

  “With her paternal grandparents.” There were no maternal grandparents.

  “And her father?”

  “In jail. The parents pressed charges on Olivia’s behalf. They weren’t going to give their son the chance that Yvonne might change her mind again.”

  “I’ll go see her.”

  “I’m sure she’ll like that. She was worried about you but didn’t have a way to contact you.”

  “She’s conscious, then?”

  “In and out. He got her pretty bad this time. Broke her shoulder. Busted her lip and one of her eyes is swollen shut.”

  She nodded, finished up the call, walked through the door of the shop and took the next bus out.

  * * *

  “MAX, IT’S CHANTEL....”

  Standing outside the door of exam room three on Thursday, Max listened to the voice mail that had come in while he’d been checking on a young patient with swollen tonsils.

  “We’ve had two positive IDs for Steve Smith at establishments not far from the beach house. And a hit on a green car. It’s from a few months ago. The attendant at a cash-for-your-car lot recognized a photo. He found a Notice of Transfer and Release of Liability form that’s required by law for every sale, but it only required the purchaser to list a name and address. They were both bogus. He remembers a green car, but couldn’t remember which one, so there’s no way to trace it. Still, Wayne thinks he might still be in the area. I just wanted you to know.”

  Stepping into an empty exam room, he dialed her back with one push of a button.

  “What about Meri?” he asked as soon as she picked up. “Has he alerted her?”

  “He made a phone call. She’ll be told.”

  “So she’s safe?”

  “Last reported sighting of Smith was a couple of days ago,” she said. “Meredith was where she’s staying this morning.”

  “So we can assume that, for now, she’s safe.”

  “Correct.”

  He stared at his bright green tennis shoes. He was in Gumby print today. “She knew he was in town,” he surmised aloud. “That’s why she left.”

  “You thought that all along.”

  Yeah, but he’d also thought she’d been forced to leave. That Steve had taken her against her will. Or threatened her into going.

  But she’d been back to the house. Taken their anniversary money. Very clearly of her own accord. No one else could have known about it.

  “Either way, she’ll know now,” he said, feeling completely powerless. Meri was in danger. Probably had been through their whole marriage.

  He couldn’t pretend otherwise anymore.

  And didn’t know what to do to help her.

  “Wayne alerted his captain to the situation, Max, and they’re putting an extra watch out. She’ll be protected as long as she stays where she is.”

  Okay. His muscles relaxed enough for him to draw a deep breath. “If she knows he’s out there, she’ll stay put,” he said. That was one thing he could be sure of: Meredith always put safety first.

  “I talked to my captain and got personal leave for the weekend,” she said. “I told her about the case and asked for permission to come down to Santa Raquel and help Wayne for the weekend, since he’s on shift and has regular duties requiring his attention. She called and made the arrangements.”

  A whole lot of people were taking Meri’s plight seriously. The knowledge scared the hell out him.

 
; And he was thankful, too.

  “You’re staying at my place,” he said. It was the least he could do.

  “I planned on it.”

  So. Good. For the next few days everyone had a job to do. Meri was keeping herself safe. Wayne, Diane and Chantel were going to get Steve. And Max....

  His job was to remain calm.

  * * *

  “YOU DIN HA uh ca.” You didn’t have to come.

  Tears filled Jenna’s eyes as she sat at Yvonne’s bedside and watched her friend’s distorted lips try to form words.

  “Of course I had to come,” she said. Lifting a hand to cover Yvonne’s. Careful not to touch any other part of the woman’s bruised and battered body, she said, “Now, don’t talk anymore. There’ll be time for that later. I just want you to know I’m here.”

  Because she’d been where Yvonne was, too. Not in a hospital, but in an all-too-familiar physical state. More than once.

  When a tear dripped from the side of Yvonne’s one open eye, she brushed it away.

  “Stop that,” she said, with a tender smile softening the command. “You’ll get your sheet wet.”

  There were no words to take away the pain. Sometimes all battered women had was each other. Being with others who understood all of it as much as anyone understood any of it.

  Yvonne’s good eye closed and Jenna sat quietly, still touching her hand, not caring as the minutes passed, that her hand ached, or that her arm had fallen asleep. She’d cut off her arm if it would help ease the suffering of her battered sisters.

  “He uhs ee.” He loves me. Yvonne’s eye didn’t open, but if the injured woman had been asleep over the past half an hour, she’d reawoken.

  “That doesn’t give him the right to do this to you.”

  “I o.” I know.

  But knowing didn’t always change things.

  “You love him, too.” Jenna tried to speak for Yvonne so she didn’t have to. She’d been there. She’d loved Steve, too, in the beginning. Or thought she had. What she remembered feeling for him, even early on, didn’t begin to compare with how bowled over she’d been by Max, on their very first date. Nothing would ever compare to the way she felt about him. Her connection with Max was soul deep.