Husband by Choice

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Precautions, she’d called them.

  They had to be prepared, she’d said.

  “They were in the closed cup holder. Just like she said they’d be in the note.”

  Who left a note in a car telling whoever looked that the keys were in the cup holder?

  He sank down a little farther against the tub. She’d very clearly told him she’d leave them under the driver’s seat.

  “She left you, Max. I’m so sorry....”

  Another rumble. Another splash. And Dr. Max Bennet started to panic.

  CHAPTER THREE

  JENNA MCDONALD SAT at the white faux antique desk, a diary opened in front of her, and picked up a pen.

  DAY ONE.

  Pausing, pen suspended over the page, she read what she’d written.

  Not her usual handwriting. There was some familiarity to it, but it was too shaky. It would improve. With time.

  Everything did.

  Until a time came that it didn’t? Did one have warning when that time had come? Did one know?

  The wall in front of her was off-white. Her gaze following the color upward, she studied the soft gold-painted wood trim at the top. To remind her that a pot of gold awaited her, she’d been told. Different rooms had different messages. She’d chosen the pot-of-gold room. Jenna liked gold.

  Something good to know. To hang on to.

  Turning, she took in the generously sized room. Off-white metal furniture, including a queen-size bed, nightstand, and two dressers, fit with room to spare. The floor was carpeted, a light plush beige.

  Nice. Peaceful.

  The adjoining bathroom had a granite vanity, extra deep tub and walk-in shower. All donations, she’d been told. And lovely.

  The closet was small. But too big for the couple of outfits hanging there—chosen from the impressive collection on-site—more donations. They’d told her to take as many as she’d like or thought she could use.

  Taking things one day at a time suited her best. Until she figured out what was to come.

  It had been said that clothing choice spoke of personality. Jenna’s personality wasn’t clear to her yet.

  Somewhere in the folder of paperwork she’d amassed over the previous couple of hours, there was a coupon for a makeover, too, if she wanted one. Though her lack of need for one had been stressed ten-fold, lest she think she wasn’t good enough just as she was.

  Lovely surroundings. And the price of admittance was higher than money could ever pay.

  With a sigh, Jenna turned back to the diary she’d found still wrapped in its package, along with a new pen in the drawer of the desk at which she sat.

  DAY ONE. She read again.

  She might do the makeover. Just for the fun of it. Having someone fuss over her might be nice. As long as she didn’t get used to it.

  Jenna McDonald was going to live an independent life.

  At least she wasn’t financially dependent. She’d grabbed the few hundred dollars she’d had hidden behind the glove box closure. And always kept a few hundred hidden in her purse, too. She had her checkbook for the personal account Max had insisted she have, just so she’d feel safe. There was enough money in there for her to be fine for a while—not that she wanted to use it. The checking account could be traced....

  She glanced at the diary. It was something she had to deal with. The woman who appeared on that page.

  DAY ONE. Jenna touched the pen to the page.

  I’m bereft. So much so it hurts to draw breath. The pen faltered as her fingers grew weak. She paused. Read the written words. And resumed writing.

  The future looms before me. Frightening. I feel today that my life will be short. I won’t grow to be an old woman. I won’t live another year.

  I want to live. I want to be the wife and mother I tried to be. More than anything.

  Pen clutched in her sweaty grasp, Jenna gritted her teeth, closed her eyes. And breathed. She was fine. She’d been here before. Oh, not the room, here. Or even the building here. But she’d been at this point.

  And being here again...this she could do.

  Opening her eyes, she picked up the pen again. She couldn’t turn her back on the woman on the page.

  How does a woman leave the man who is her whole world? Who cherishes her and loves her as much as she loves him? How does she leave a good man?

  And how does she leave her baby?

  Jenna’s pen flew across the page so quickly now her hand cramped up.

  How did her heart continue to beat? Her blood to flow and her stomach to feel hunger pangs?

  How could it be that she’d woken that morning as one woman and would go to bed that night a totally different person? Not just a woman with a different name, but a woman who was irrevocably, permanently changed?

  But I did the right thing. The only thing. I am putting action to the greatest gift life has to offer. The gift of love. I, of all people, know the value of unconditional love. I was given a chance to know it in its truest sense. And now I must honor that love by loving selflessly back.

  I can live the rest of my life, however long or short, knowing that I loved my men enough to put their well-being before my own. I can leave this world in peace knowing that.

  Peace. I need it. For them, first. And for me, too.

  The pen paused and eyes closed, Jenna tried to clear the mind that raged inside of her. The mind of a woman who’d been so many people. In so many places.

  I am absolutely certain that I am not going to run again. I don’t know yet how I’m going to do what I’m going to do, but I am in a place where I will be safe while I figure out exactly how I am going to stand up to the man who’s determined to keep me down, to hold me locked in an embrace that stifles everything that is good inside of me.

  As soon as I have figured out how to beat Steve Smith at his own game, as I know now that that is the only way to beat him, I will present myself for battle. To his death or my own. I must either be free to live with my husband and son, or die fighting for that freedom. There is no other life for me. I am not the same powerless woman he once knew. Love gives me the strength to fight the demon....

  Jenna jumped as a knock sounded on her door and quickly closed the diary, sliding it inside the desk drawer without making a sound. She moved just as quietly to the bed, lying down with her back to the door.

  “Come in.”

  “Jenna?” She recognized the voice. Lila McDaniels had introduced herself earlier that evening as the managing director of The Lemonade Stand—Jenna’s current abode.

  “Yes?” Hoping that the older woman would respect her need for solitude and go away, Jenna didn’t turn over.

  “We missed you at dinner.”

  She’d smiled when they’d rattled off the cafeteria hours. And smiled a second time when Lila and Sara had invited her to join them.

  “I had some fruit in my bag,” she said. And still did. Left over from another place and time. It had been meant for another. A little boy. She’d get rid of it before it rotted. Just not that night.

  The bed depressed and knowing that she wasn’t going to get her way, which was to be left alone, Jenna rolled over. And welcomed the calm that descended over her as she met the other woman’s gaze.

  “You’re sure there’s no one we can contact on your behalf?” Lila asked.

  “No, ma’am, but thank you.”

  She was an adult. Free to travel from place to place as she chose.

  “No one who will be worried about you?”

  “No.”

  “Someone knows you’re here then?”

  “Someone knows I’m gone. No one knows I’m here.” The point was critical.

  Lila nodded, a sad smile on her face, looking as if she wanted to say more.

&nb
sp; “That’s fine, then,” she said. “Your secrets are safe here.”

  “I appreciate that so much.”

  “When you’re ready, I hope you’ll talk with one of us, Sara or myself or any of the other counselors. We’re here to help. And anything that’s said within these walls stays here.”

  “Thank you.” She’d met Sara. Had liked her. But Jenna could probably facilitate any counseling session these good women had to give. There was nothing they could tell her, in terms of battered-wife recovery, that she didn’t already know.

  And sometimes all the knowing in the world, all the protection in the world, wasn’t enough.

  Sometimes a woman had to be enough all on her own. No matter the consequences.

  “You’re sure you don’t want us to notify the police?”

  “No!” She almost sat up at that. And calmed herself. “Please, no,” she said. This point was not negotiable. “It does you no good to do so behind my back, right?” she felt compelled to point out. To reassure herself. “There’s nothing to report if I don’t speak up.”

  “That’s correct. But we wouldn’t go behind your back in any case, Jenna. Not unless you were a minor or had a minor with you. In that case, we have no choice but to involve the police.”

  She nodded. Understanding. And concentrated on relaxing her muscles. One at a time.

  The diary in the desk was bothering her. Burning at the edges of her concentration. She was going to have to hide it. Or have it on her person at all times.

  “Do you have my cell phone?” she asked now. Lila had mentioned a prepaid device that she could have if she wanted it.

  “I do.” Reaching into the pocket of her suit jacket, she pulled out an old-fashioned looking flip phone.

  It would do nicely.

  “You can’t text or get email, but you can make calls....”

  “That’s fine,” she said, sitting up to take the phone and liking the way she could clutch the thing securely in one hand. “I don’t have anything to text or email to anyone.”

  And she wouldn’t send either if she did have something to say. Data could be traced.

  She had a phone. An untraceable phone. The air in the room lifted. Being without a phone had not been good for her. Making a mental note to have an extra prepaid cell phone on hand at all times, she waited for Lila to stand and go.

  “I know that there’s nothing I can say that will help you trust me, Jenna,” the woman said instead. And frowned. “Very few of our residents trust any of us at first. I understand that. Trust has to be earned....”

  And sometimes trust came too late to do any good.

  “But you...you’re different.”

  Yes, she was. Oh, she’d been a battered wife like everyone else staying in the bungalows at The Lemonade Stand. But the physical beatings she’d taken had been the easiest part. “I get the feeling that you’ve been here,” Lila said, unsettling Jenna with the uncanny resemblance to her own thoughts just minutes before. “I’ve been at The Lemonade Stand since day one and I know I’ve never seen you before.” Lila shook her head. “And yet, I feel as though you know this place. Or one like it.”

  Four like it. The shelters had been the only places Steve had never been able to breach. Most often, the general public knew of them, but didn’t know the exact location of the buildings where the women stayed. At The Lemonade Stand they were sprawled across several acres hidden behind a two-block strip of shops also owned and run by the Stand.

  Others had had a known home office, with housing buildings situated in various and changing locations around the city in which they were located.

  In each shelter, in different cities, she’d become reacquainted with the self she’d been before he’d found her again. She’d found a way to believe once more. To venture out...

  Not this time. Her stay at The Lemonade Stand was for one specific purpose only. To have a safe place to formulate her plan. She needed a little time to research the psychology of abuse, to get so deeply inside Steve’s head that she could figure out how best to manipulate him. Undercover work at its best. Ironic that she’d take what she’d learned while living with an abusive detective to finally be free of him. She’d do the necessary research at the on-site library, or from a computer there. Figure out where and how to meet up with him. Practice until she could act in her sleep.

  And then, as quietly as she’d arrived, she’d leave this place.

  “You can trust me, Jenna.” Lila’s expression was genuine, the compassion Jenna read there wrenching at emotions she couldn’t afford. Or allow. “I...I...just, please, know that no matter what, you can come to me. Any time of the day or night. All rules and regulations aside. Don’t let anyone stop you. Not staff, not security. Not anyone. If you need me, you get to me.”

  The speech wasn’t normal. Didn’t resemble any of the other first night welcome talks, or any other talk she’d ever had at any of the other shelters where she’d sought solace.

  And Jenna instinctively knew, as she sat there on the bed with the gray-haired woman, that Lila had never said those words before.

  Not to anyone.

  “Yes, ma’am.” She swallowed. Knew that she needed to rest. Sleep would ease the need to cry.

  Lila sat with her for several more minutes. A silent companion. And then without any fuss she stood and left.

  Waiting until she heard the door click shut, Jenna slid off the bed, retrieved the diary from the desk, and tucked it into the waistband of the pair of dress slacks she was no longer going to need. Then, without turning off the light or visiting her adjoining private bathroom, she lay back down on the bed, cell phone still held securely in her palm, and went to sleep.

  In the morning, things would look different.

  In the morning, she’d know the next step to take.

  In the morning....

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MAX PUT HIS son to bed right on time. Routine was important. Keeping Caleb’s boundaries the same would give him a sense of security.

  Max needed the toddler asleep so he’d quit asking for his mother.

  The boy complied with relative ease. Almost convincing Max that he was overreacting— panicking too soon.

  She’d left the keys in the car. Not under the seat, which she’d stipulated would be her sign if she was running from Steve, but in the cup holder. That had to mean something.

  He wandered through the rooms of their home. Hearing her laughter at the bottom of the stairs. In the living room it was her assertion that one maroon wall would give the place more life—she’d been right.

  Because he’d insisted that Meri would have talked to him if she’d truly wanted out of their marriage, or maybe because she’d felt sorry for him, Chantel had agreed to use her off-duty time to continue looking for Meri, following up on all leads, making calls, attempting to locate Steve Smith who’d left detective work and had fallen off the grid....

  The kitchen reverberated with the echo of excitement in his wife’s voice as she rattled off the money she’d saved with her shoppers card and coupons—money that they both provided in excess of their needs.

  Eventually he wound up in their bedroom. And turned right around and headed back out again. Caleb was still sleeping in a crib. He wouldn’t be up wandering in the night, looking for his parents to be in their bed. No risk of him finding it empty and being frightened.

  The guest bedroom wasn’t finished yet. A bedframe, mattress and bedding. An empty nightstand that Meri had seen at a sale and had to have because it reminded her of her childhood, back before the car accident that had taken her family from her—both parents and her younger brother.

  Without turning on the lamp, he sank down onto the edge of the bed. And because it was the most sensible thing to do, he slowly lowered his head to the pillow.

 
He hadn’t brushed his teeth. Was still wearing scrubs minus the lab coat and purple tennis shoes. But sleep was wise.

  Hands behind his head, he closed his eyes. Opened them again. And found himself staring at the ceiling, looking for a pattern in the circle of plaster he could see illuminated from the small night-light in the hall.

  Ah, Meri, you didn’t have to do this.

  The thought was followed by another that had him sitting straight up in bed. Maybe she’d thought she did have to do it.

  Meri was always paranoid, but she knew that and took her overreactions into account before acting on anything.

  She’d meant what she said in her note. Clearly he’d believed her, the way he’d been slogging around all evening feeling sorry for himself.

  And Caleb.

  Feeling lonely as hell and wondering how he was going to live through the loss of another wife.

  What a jerk he’d been, thinking about himself, his own heartache, instead of putting Meri’s first.

  She’d meant the note, but she wouldn’t have left just because she was feeling paranoid. She’d at least have talked to him first. Looked for other options. She loved them too much to just walk away out of fear that her paranoia would hurt their son in the future. They still had three years before Caleb started school. And there were other options to help her deal with her fears.

  Anything could happen between now and then. Which was why she took one step at a time.

  A motto she lived by. Had taught him to live by.

  And all of that meant there was something else going on.

  Swinging his feet to the floor, Max sat on the side of the bed in the dark. Why would she just up and leave? Their mail hadn’t arrived until four—long after she’d left the house. It had still been in the box when he got home.

  No unusual calls showed up on her cell phone records—he’d checked their usage online himself.

  She hadn’t logged into her email account—all of the messages had still been on the server, unread.

  And that left physical confrontation.

  There’d been no sign of a struggle.