Unhurt

by Thomas, K. S.

  Diane made a note. “Great. Before we put you up on the stand, is there anything in your present or past that the other side might feel they could use to their advantage? Anything that could make you an unfavorable character witness? Or worse, an unfit or unsafe adult in Wyatt’s life?”

  I laughed. “Derek? Unfit or unsafe? He’s the only reason Travis hasn’t been able to hurt us this time around.”

  Diane’s expression went from concentrated to concerned. “He’s been threatening you again?”

  “Worse. He broke into the house during the wedding. We found him with Wyatt. It was scary, Diane. If Derek hadn’t been there, I don’t know what I would have done.”

  She put down her pen. “Did you at least call the police this time?”

  “Couldn’t. You know how he is. He had a story all worked out already. It would have been his word against ours and after how things went down last time I tried to get the police involved, I didn’t think it was worth the risk.” That had been a fucking disaster. The police had wound up siding with him, making me look like a total nut job, and to top it off, it had ended up pissing Travis off, making him scarier than he’d been before. I definitely wasn’t looking to repeat the experience. Especially not when he already seemed to be well on his way to graduating from your run of the mill sociopath to a full-on psycho.

  “Damn.” Lawyer lingo, I’m sure. “If we could just get something on record it would make this whole thing a slam dunk.” She exhaled loudly, showing her frustration and I could totally relate. It baffled me how easily Travis could play people and how clearly I saw who he really was. At least the amount of people on my side was steadily increasing.

  “But we’ve still got a good case, right? I mean, Derek and I have to look at least as good on paper as Travis and his wife do. Not to mention, I’ve been raising Wyatt this whole time, I’m the only mother he’s ever known.”

  Diane retrieved her pen again. “I’m glad you brought that up. How do you think Wyatt will handle questioning? He’s four now, correct?”

  “Yes. He’s four. I think he’ll be fine overall. He loves people and doesn’t have a shy bone in his body. But he won’t understand any of it. He doesn’t have a clue who Travis is to him and I really wasn’t planning on rectifying that matter anytime soon. He’s so young. I just want him to be carefree for a little while longer before he learns the truth about his biological parents.”

  Actually, I wanted him to be carefree for a lot while longer. Really, at what age was one old enough to experience the heartbreak of learning one’s mother had died in a car crash while one’s father was a violent man who had at one point nearly killed you. No one was ever old enough for news like that.

  “Is there any way we can avoid involving him?” It was the first time Derek had said anything since we’d started.

  “Afraid not. He won’t be expected to take the stand like everyone else, but the judge will likely talk to him privately. Which is good and bad. We won’t get to ask any of our questions to show how well loved and cared for he is in your home, however, the other side won’t get to ask anything in hopes of proving the opposite. I’m sure you can’t begin to imagine how your own son could make you look bad, but you’d be surprised how easy it is to lead a witness when they’re not expecting it, and Wyatt most certainly would not be.”

  I shifted back and forth, this part of the conversation was making me antsy and depleting the excess confidence I had originally walked in with. “What do you think the judge will tell him? I mean, how much do I have to prepare Wyatt? I don’t want him to get confused or scared.”

  Diane gave me a reassuring smile. “Not to worry. We’ll instruct the judge ahead of time that Wyatt hasn’t been told about the custody battle or his biological father. I can’t see any reason why he would override your wishes to shelter him from these proceedings as much as possible until such a time comes in which it’s necessary for him to know more. Should such a time even come.”

  I felt Derek lightly squeeze my leg, and when I turned up toward him, his eyes were flooded with such a sense of certainty I felt instantly comforted.

  “Alright then. What’s next?”

  From there we proceeded to outline and discuss the types of questions she would be asking both of us, as well as the ones she suspected Travis’s attorney would bombard us with in hopes of making us look bad. The whole thing went on for hours and by the time we finally walked out of her office building, the sun was high in the sky and scorching hot. It had to be at least lunchtime. Normally my stomach kept track of things like time of day for me, but these days my appetite had been obliterated by the constant worrying and wondering.

  Derek’s fingers were interlocked with mine as we stepped out into the parking lot and I caught myself repeatedly stealing glances at our hands, strangely fascinated by how they fit together so perfectly. How did that work anyway? Was that the key to finding your other half in this life? When your fingers intertwined like two pieces of a puzzle? Because I couldn’t remember my hand ever feeling so right in anyone else’s. It was almost like touching him broke some sort of barrier differentiating where I ended and he began. The whole thing still scared the shit out of me, but if all I had to do was continue to show up, even I could manage possibly falling in love with a man.

  In the midst of my moment of joy, Derek’s phone buzzed. Even before he’d finished reading the text message, he’d started to frown. “We need to get home. Now.” The speed of his steps increased while he said it, dragging me for a second until I could grasp what was happening.

  “What’s wrong? What happened?” My heart was pounding out of my chest.

  “Don’t know yet. Wyatt’s fine, but there was an incident at the farmer’s market.” He yanked the car door open for me to jump in. Thinking back, it was so like him to be all gentlemanly even in the middle of a crisis.

  Derek sped the entire way back to the house and we made it back in record time.

  He’d barely shifted into park when I threw open my door and made a run for the house. Because he’s Derek and travels at humanly impossible speeds, he reached the door same time I did. His arms wound around the front of me, bringing me to an abrupt stop before I could go crashing in, searching for my son.

  “What are you doing?” It was the first and only time I’d ever wanted to punch him.

  “Slowing you down,” he whispered calmly into my ear from behind. “Whatever happened, Wyatt is going to look to you to set the tone of this experience. If he sees that you’re scared, he’ll be scared. So, take a deep breath, put on a smile and then let’s walk in together.”

  I closed my eyes and did as I was told. “Okay. I’m ready. Let’s go.”

  I didn’t wait for his approval. I just pulled the door open and surged onward whether he was still holding on or not. He was, although no longer to stop me.

  “Mommy!” Wyatt came running down the hall toward me, practically throwing himself into my arms. He’d been crying. It took everything I had, not to start bawling as well. I wanted to scream. From pain. From anger. Fury rushed through every vein in my body. I wanted to kill Travis.

  “Hey, monkey man. What happened? Why are you upset?” I wanted to ask Aunt Deb. Wanted an adult to rattle off the chain of events and how they had led to my son in tears, but comforting Wyatt had to come first.

  “The man cameded back. He tolded me that you haded an accident and were gone. He tolded me he was my daddy.” Wyatt hiccupped and buried his face in my hair, his little arms tight around my neck.

  My heart sank to the pit of my stomach. Everything I’d wanted to shield him from, Travis had shot straight at his little heart to shatter it.

  “Shh, baby. It’s okay. Everything is fine. I’m right here. I wasn’t in any accident, and that man is not your daddy.” I knew I was walking a fine line, but I didn’t care. Travis could be the sperm donor, the biological father, half the source of his gene pool, but he would never be Wyatt’s daddy.

  Wyatt didn’t say
anything else, but I could feel him twisting my hair between his fingers while he rested his head on my shoulder. Gently, I swayed back and forth holding him to me; a source of comfort I’d discovered when he was only a baby, the only source I really had to offer at this point. It seemed like an eternity before I looked up from Wyatt in my arms to see that there were several people standing in my living room. Among them, a frail looking Aunt Deb.

  Once Wyatt had overcome the worst of his anxiety, we got him settled in my bedroom on the bed with Hattie, where we set him up with a lunch picnic and his favorite movie. Then, at last, I was able to get the whole story.

  Aunt Deb and I came out from the bedroom to find Derek talking to the two men I’d seen with Debbie earlier. As soon as they spotted us, they stopped talking.

  “How’s Wyatt?” Derek walked out from behind the bar to come and put both arms around me. He held me tight for a long while.

  “He’s better, although I expect I’ll be hearing about it again. I would imagine it will take more than just one conversation to work through what happened today.”

  He nodded. Then he turned his attention to the two strangers. “Joss, these are my buddies, Darius Pendelton and Abe Miles.”

  I reached out to shake their hands. “You were here last night.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Abe Miles was unusually polite. It was both charming and freaky.

  “Please, just call me Joss. I mean, Derek says you’re like his family.”

  Darius smiled at me warmly. “Which makes us like your family now. We’re truly sorry about what you’ve been going through. I swear to you, we did everything we could to handle the situation today as efficiently as possible. The last thing we wanted was to scare your boy any worse.”

  “Thank you. But what actually happened?” I turned to Aunt Deb who still looked pale as a ghost.

  “We just made a quick run up to the farmer’s market. I figured it would be fine. We know almost all of the vendors, all of our neighbors shop there...it was broad daylight. I felt safe. I was wrong, Joss. We were there for a little while when suddenly he ambushed us. I have no idea where he’d been hiding, but next thing I knew, he was standing right next to us. Talking to Wyatt.”

  I gripped Derek’s arm to keep myself from lashing out and throwing things. “What was he saying?”

  “I don’t know what he was saying at first. I was too preoccupied with getting Wyatt out of there. But when I went to walk away, Travis grabbed Wyatt’s arm. I tried calmly telling him to let go, and he refused. Instead he placed his other hand on Wyatt’s arm as well and made a comment about snapping twigs in two. There was no way of getting Wyatt away from him without risking him getting hurt, so I stood there, stuck, listening to him as he was telling Wyatt how his mother had died in a car accident and was never coming back and that he was his daddy so he would be coming to get Wyatt soon to bring him to live at his real home, with his real family.” My aunt was in tears now. “It was horrible, Joss. Wyatt was terrified and crying, but Travis just kept on with it. He was so engulfed in his own story he never even noticed when these two came up on him. When he wasn’t expecting it, Darius was able to walk up behind him. I have no idea how he did it, because I didn’t really see anything, but next thing I knew, Travis was crumpled on the ground and Abe was rushing Wyatt and me back out to our car.”

  I didn’t even have to ask. Darius just shrugged and mumbled, “Pressure points.”

  “I don’t suppose you actually killed him at the farmer’s market?” I wasn’t even sure if I wanted the answer to be yes or no at that point.

  “No, ma’am. Sorry, Joss. He likely came to a minute or so later. We just needed enough time to get out of there without him causing any more trouble.”

  Abe seemed to concur with his partner, “Yeah, the last thing we wanted was to cause a confrontation that might add more trauma to what your son already had to experience. I’m just sorry we weren’t able to stop him sooner. We were there. He never should have had a chance to get so close to Wyatt.”

  “You stopped him,” I said. “You brought my kid home, bones still intact. I’ll be forever grateful for that.”

  ***

  Darius and Abe ended up staying for the rest of the afternoon, which I think helped Wyatt. Seeing them outside of the scary scene involving Travis, hearing them joke and laugh, learning their names and watching how they interacted with me, was good for him.

  I knew I hadn’t been in Wyatt’s life long, but I’d never once taken the responsibility of marrying his mother lightly. For the length of our marriage, whatever it would be, I was there to act as a father figure to him, as well as a husband to her. Fake or otherwise. Because of this, I’d tried my best to build the relationship between us based on his level of interest. Never once though had I expected a bond quite like the one we now had to form.

  Aunt Deb looked like death warmed over all afternoon, guilt and fear eating her alive. She was being way too hard on herself. Joss thought so too, and saw to it that Deb took some time to lie down while Joss attempted to make dinner. Twenty minutes later the pizza guy was at the front door.

  By the time Joss was putting Wyatt to bed, the worst of the day seemed to be forgotten. We shared our banana, as usual slipping most of it to Hattie when Joss wasn’t looking, and then even performed our little rap for Darius and Abe. After a loud round of applause, Joss scooped Wyatt up into her arms and strolled out of the room down the hall that led to his bed.

  While Joss was busy with the little monkey man, I walked Darius and Abe outside.

  “How much longer you think this will go on?” Darius asked when we reached the Suburban.

  “At least until the judge makes a decision regarding custody. After that, who knows? If Joss wins again, I’m not sure he’ll ever stop.”

  Abe scratched his jaw thoughtfully. “What’s the plan?”

  I turned my head out toward the surrounding darkness. Night had come quickly. Or maybe it just seemed that way because daylight was so much more preferable these days. “Not sure yet. But I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

  Darius gave me a pat on the shoulder before he got in the truck. “You know we’re in, whatever you need. Just call.”

  “I appreciate that. Thank you for everything. Especially today.”

  “No thanks required, brother.” Abe grinned over at me from the passenger seat. Then, they took off.

  Back inside, the house was silent. Aunt Deb had gone straight back to bed after pizza and from the looks and sounds of things, Joss had called it a night as well.

  When I stopped by Wyatt’s room on the way to ours, I found her curled up in his bed next to him.

  I went in and gently tapped her shoulder. “Hey,” I whispered. “You staying in here tonight?”

  She turned her head up at me. “I want to, but considering I’m hogging his bed and blanket, he’d probably be more comfortable if I didn’t.” She smiled crookedly and held out her hand for me to take.

  I tugged her up off of the low toddler bed and together we watched him sleeping peacefully a few moments longer before we finally forced ourselves away from his bed and out of his room.

  Only his peaceful sleep didn’t last long. Joss and I were barely settled in bed ourselves when we heard him cry out.

  Joss practically leapt from the mattress and I wasn’t far behind her. She rushed into his room and gathered him up into her embrace, close to her heart.

  I stayed in the doorway, out of Wyatt’s sight, not wanting to intrude on the comfort only his mother could offer him. I listened as she quietly sang him one lullaby after next, all the while rocking him in her arms the way I imagined she’d probably done since he was just a baby. It wasn’t long and his frightened whimpers faded and he fell back to sleep while in the safety of his mother’s arms. My heart swelled at the sight of them both.

  “I’m pretty sure I’m falling in love with you here.” The words were so quiet for a moment I had hope that I’d actually just thought them, mu
ch like I had intended to. Judging by her expression though, that had not been the case.

  Joss never interrupted her gentle swaying or humming, but shot me a look that made it pretty clear she thought I was full of shit. Typical. She needed convincing.

  “I’ve loved women before you, Joss. But this, this insanely intense feeling spreading through my heart and threatening to burst it, this I’ve never felt before.” I slowly stepped into the room, toward her. Stroking Wyatt’s soft hair I whispered, “I don’t know. Maybe it’s so strong because there’s two of you this time.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  I couldn’t even answer him. Couldn’t tell him he was insane. Or that I loved him, too. And I did. God, I was so in love with that man I didn’t even know where to put the feelings anymore. Of course, because he was Derek, he didn’t need me to say anything. He simply kissed the top of Wyatt’s head, placed another peck on my cheek and then placed his hand on that sweet spot of my back and began to lead us all from the room.

  Our big moment wasn’t followed by a passionate kiss or sensual love making. It didn’t include a verbal gush fest of reasons we adored one another. There were no demands. No promises. No expectations or claims for each other’s souls. It was simple and beautiful. Real.

  Once in our own room, Derek took Wyatt from my arms, careful not to wake him, and placed him tenderly down in the middle of our bed. Then, with the covers still pulled back, he stood there, waiting for me to climb in beside my son. It wasn’t until Wyatt and I were both settled, that Derek walked around to his side of the mattress and laid down as well.

  Both of our arms reached across my son, and we held each other tight, silently smiling at one another over the top of Wyatt’s little head. Perfectly content with each other enveloping our most precious commodity even if it resulted in us not enveloping each other in a hot entangled sexy mess. Because Derek had understood from the very beginning that loving me meant loving what I loved most, most.

  Come morning, I felt like I was waking up to an entirely new reality. An exciting new world where love wasn’t something I feared, it was something I felt, both on the giving and receiving end. In truth, our days were beginning and ending the exact same way they had been for weeks, the only difference was that I was no longer fighting with myself, was no longer hiding or denying. I was in love. Someone was in love with me. Aside from falling in love with my son, I’d never encountered something so empowering and all-consuming in my entire life. After all the years I’d sworn it didn’t exist, I was grateful to have been proven wrong.