Husband by Choice

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  So she’d gone willingly. To avoid physical harm? To herself or to him and Caleb?

  Meri would give her life to protect Max or their son. But they hadn’t been threatened.

  Would an abductor have waited for her to write a goodbye letter and leave her keys in the cup holder?

  He would if her abductor was a determined ex-husband who would want to make certain that Max knew that she was leaving him of her own accord. Steve could have made her write the note.

  But why put the keys in the cup holder instead of under the seat? If Steve didn’t know she’d hidden them, or even if he did, what could it have mattered to him whether they were in a cup holder or under a seat?

  No one but he and Meri knew about the hiding place.

  Which was why they’d had the predetermined keys-under-the-seat agreement. An overkill safety measure agreement, in his opinion, but one Meri had insisted on having so that they’d have a way to signal each other if the other was being taken against their will.

  Leave the keys under the driver’s seat if you needed help.

  She’d left her keys in the cup holder. She hadn’t taken them with her, or disposed of them, so he could imagine that she’d been unable to leave them. They’d been in the cup holder. Where she’d deliberately left them. Not under the seat.

  Her message to him was clear.

  She didn’t need his help.

  The Meri he knew would never have left such a message.

  It had to be Steve. He’d found her and she’d reverted back to the terrified woman who did as he demanded so he didn’t beat her senseless. The woman who believed that the former detective, with all of his underground contacts, was more powerful than the laws that were there to protect her. Who believed, deep down, that she’d never be free of him.

  She hadn’t wanted to talk about Steve. Seeing how much it upset her—and honestly believing, after years of no sign of the ex-cop, that he posed them no danger—he hadn’t pushed her for more information.

  Lying there in the dark, Max feared that in not doing so, he might have made one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

  * * *

  DAY TWO.

  Sometimes the part of me that takes on different names scares me. She’s so capable, but like an automaton. She goes through the day, doing what is expected of her, even watching for and trying to help others when opportunity or necessity presents itself.

  She adapts to the situation in spite of her own needs.

  And she doesn’t cry. Ever. It’s as if she can’t and that worries me. She is me and if I’m reaching the point where I can turn off so completely, I fear that my heart is really and truly dying.

  Pen suspended over the page, Jenna read what she’d written. And shook her head. Sitting at the antique desk in her room just after dinner that Thursday night, she bent over her diary once again.

  I just need to trust, like Max tells me so often. Jenna is impressive. She’s the part of me that holds all of my strength. And dispenses it as I need it. Today, she agreed to a group counseling session that I’ll be attending once a day for at least the next week, when all I really wanted to do, when the invitation had been offered, was shake my head and run.

  I don’t need any more counseling. But I do need this time here, to mentally prepare myself to get into the psyche of a man with no moral boundaries, and to figure out when and how to meet him to somehow end his reign of terror. And if I must do counseling to keep up appearances, to maintain my cover of an abused woman seeking help, to satisfy those around me that I am getting the help I need, then so be it. After a full day here I am completely committed to my course of action and know from within the deepest chambers of my heart that I am doing what I have to do. Steve’s torment has to stop. And if I can’t find a way to make that happen—legally and for good—then I am willing to die trying.

  Because if I don’t, if I live, and don’t live with Steve, Max and Caleb are at risk. Steve knows how much I love them. He knows I’d do anything for them. And he wouldn’t hesitate to use that knowledge as power against me.

  Only if Steve is gone, or I am, will Max and Caleb be safe. Unless I go back to Steve. The third possibility isn’t even an option.

  I choose death over life with Steve. Better to watch my boys from above (after all, what better place to watch over and protect them?) than to bring Steve’s rage into their physical space. Because I know my Max. He thinks he has all the protection we need in that small police force of his. If I’m with Steve, Max would come charging in to rescue me. And get himself killed...

  Jenna’s hand came to a halt as a tear splashed onto the page. Meredith was hurting. Understandably so. And Jenna had to keep a firm hand on those emotions right now. She would be steady on her course. Reach her goal. For Max. And Caleb.

  If there was an opportunity to deal with her heart and soul later, then she could cry buckets.

  With her emotions once again firmly in check, Jenna glanced at her watch. She’d told Lila that she’d meet with her later that evening. Over a cup of hot tea with milk in the woman’s private on-site suite.

  She’d never had hot tea with milk. And she had a sense that Lila didn’t generally invite residents into her private quarters after hours, either.

  The upcoming event would consume part of the long evening ahead. But she wasn’t due in the older woman’s suite for another half an hour.

  Caleb will have finished his supper by now. I picture him in his booster seat at the table with tomato soup smeared over his chin and the corners of his lips.

  I can smell the soup. And see his sweet little face, those precious big brown eyes crinkled almost shut, as he lifts his mouth up to be wiped.

  I can’t think about him missing me.

  I also can’t picture his father’s identical eyes at the moment.

  Maybe in time.

  As another tear dripped onto the page, Jenna set down the pen and shut the book.

  * * *

  MAX HAD JUST deposited his cranky son in his crib Thursday night, turned on the monitor, the night-light, and shut the door when the doorbell rang.

  Meri. Heart racing, he descended the stairs two at a time, his black canvas high-tops hardly touching the ground at all, before he realized that if his wife had returned she’d use her key, not ring the bell.

  And before the thought slowed his feet, he countered it with the realization that Meri had left her keys in the cup holder of her car. He was supposed to have picked them up at the police station that afternoon but he’d had a late walk-in, a little boy with swollen adenoids and a panicky first-time mother, and the day care had been calling about Caleb’s distress and....

  He was pulling open the door before it occurred to him that Meri wouldn’t have left her house key in her car for anyone to find. If someone stole her old van, oh well...but she wouldn’t take a chance on a stranger happening along and getting access to their home.

  A woman stood on his front step. Her uniform, the blond hair, caught at his heart and he took a step back before he realized that she wasn’t Jill.

  “Chantel,” he said, sounding as surprised as he felt. He wasn’t at his best. Had none of the infamous Bennet bedside manner.

  “You look like you were on the losing end of a water fight,” she said, standing on his front porch as though it hadn’t been years since they’d seen each other.

  The last time had been....

  Jill’s funeral. She’d stood next to him. Squeezed his arm once. And too choked up to speak, had walked off into the sunset.

  “Caleb wasn’t happy to take a bath tonight. Kept insisting that Mama do it.”

  Her expression didn’t change much, but he was used to reading a female cop’s eyes. The way they’d glisten almost imperceptibly, focus a bit more, when the woman was moved.

 
“You decided to go with superhero today,” she said, remarking on his black, white and red superhero imprinted scrubs, that were wetter than not at the moment. The shoes matched because Meri liked it when he bothered to find the right color, which he did about half the time.

  “You’re a long way from home,” he replied.

  “Three hours.” She shrugged. “And I’m here on business.” Holding up her left hand, he recognized Meri’s key ring dangling there.

  He snatched the ring. Not wanting anyone to wipe away what was left of Meri on those keys. Resisting the urge to raise them to his lips, he studied them for the couple of seconds it took him to get himself under control. He’d have to go get her van.

  He’d gone to work that day because he hadn’t known what else to do. Chantel, people she’d called, were making some follow-up queries, but as far as they were concerned, Meri had left of her own free will.

  She’d left a note. There’d been no sign of a struggle.

  Didn’t matter that he knew better. Husbands always thought that.

  Still, he’d referred most of his patients to another doctor at the clinic that day—a pediatrician in private practice like himself who traded duties with him whenever one or the other of them was sick or going to be gone.

  He’d seen a couple of minor cases. And tried to get caught up on his reading. And on a paper he was writing for the pediatric journal, whose editors had sought him out.

  “Her house key is missing.”

  “It looked like it to the officers here, we just needed your confirmation that a house key had been on there in the first place. I’m guessing she kept it.” Chantel’s tone was soft, filled with a nurturing that he knew she didn’t often express. “It’s further proof that she left of her own accord, Max. An abductor isn’t going to wait for her to take a key off her ring. Just like he wouldn’t wait for her to write a note.”

  “Any news on Steve Smith? Surely the man didn’t just disappear into thin air.”

  Chantel’s hair bounced around her shoulders as she shook her head. “He’s not coming up in any databases,” she said, leaving Max with the feeling that their attempts to find the man had been cursory—a matter of professional courtesy only.

  “Can I come in?”

  He was facing another sleepless night. Alone with a panic he’d promised not to feel. He had to get her to understand that Meri was in danger.

  “Sure,” he said.

  And tried to pretend he didn’t notice when her hand brushed his arm as she passed.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ONE OF THE things Meredith Bennet never failed to marvel at in her life with Max was being able to crawl into bed beside him every night. Like magic, she could cuddle up to the warmth of his body, rest her hand atop the springy dark hair on his chest, and sleep without fear.

  Without nightmare.

  Meredith’s alter ego, Jenna, who’d awoken alone no fewer than four times with cold sweats the night before, was just as happy to be sitting on the antique chintz sofa in Lila’s sitting room, even if it meant giving more of herself than she wanted to give.

  If this plan—to put an end to Steve’s presence in her life—was going to work, she had to be flexible. To go with the flow. At least until she’d had enough time to get ready....

  And the plan was going to work. One way or another....

  She was out of choices. Out of the will to run, to invent yet another life. She’d found the life she was meant to live—the only life she wanted.

  She’d found a love that was real and true and as deep as it got and the only way to honor that love, to keep it in its purest form, was to love unconditionally. Selflessly.

  There was no way Max would let her confront Steve on her own, and no other way to make the man go away. Max trusted his cop friends. Jenna was dealing with a man who could think like the cops and stay ahead of them at every step.

  A man who didn’t respect the jurisdiction of any law but his own.

  She knew. She’d seen him in action.

  If Max knew that Steve was after her, he’d call the cops and end up getting hurt. Cornered, Steve was the devil himself. He very well might snatch Caleb, hurt an innocent little boy, just to get her to do what he wanted.

  Which was why she had to let him know she’d left her family, rather than chance going home again. She’d left her cell phone so he’d find the van, the note she’d left. He’d read that note and think she left Max just like she’d left him. She hoped she was buying time by making him look for her again.

  To keep him in the game of finding her.

  “Did you go to college?” Lila, sitting in a wing-backed armchair opposite Jenna, asked her. She held her cup of tea with both hands, and looked as though she was settled in for a long chat.

  “Yes,” Jenna said. She’d tried the tea. Didn’t like it all that much. The milk made it too heavy. But she’d sip it. Slowly. Because she could tolerate pretty much anything as long as she didn’t focus on it going down.

  For now, her cup sat in its delicate china saucer on the walnut claw-footed table beside her.

  “What did you study?”

  “Various things. How about you, do you have a degree?”

  “Yes.”

  She’d been at the Stand a little over twenty-four hours and it hadn’t taken her that long to realize that no one knew much about the managing director. After Lila’s visit to her room the night before, she’d done a bit of quiet asking around.

  “What did you do before coming to The Lemonade Stand?”

  Lila’s gaze was pointed as Jenna’s question lay between them. Jenna expected a prevarication. Just as she wasn’t being completely honest with her. Such a contrast to the day she’d had, sharing lunch with women who told their stories openly. Dams bursting and releasing the hell of terror they’d experienced in one form or another.

  “I was a school teacher,” Lila said conversationally.

  From school teaching to managing a shelter for battered women?

  “Do you miss it?”

  “No.”

  Because Lila was satisfied with the life she was leading? Fulfilled by it?

  Meredith Bennet knew about living a fulfilling life. And so Jenna knew. But that wasn’t for her to dwell on. Not on that or anything else that would take away focus and strength from the task at hand.

  She’d been called to Lila’s suite for a chat. So she chatted. “You didn’t like teaching?”

  “Yes. I liked it very much. But it was time for a change.”

  Lila’s gaze wasn’t piercing anymore. It was...assessing. And warm. In a motherly sort of way.

  Jenna took a sip of tea. Admired the rose silk flower arrangement on a side table.

  “What about you?” Lila asked. “Do you have a career?”

  “I’m a speech pathologist.”

  Lila’s brows rose and she asked, “What’s your specialty?”

  “Pediatrics.”

  “Are you willing to donate some time while you’re here?”

  A slippery slope if ever there was one. They wouldn’t find a license for Jenna McDonald. But, if she could have even a small piece of her real life back, just enough to remind her how great it had been, to keep her strong while she prepared to face down the evil spirit in her life....

  If she could help others while she was protecting Max and Caleb....

  Lila’s stare was intense. It was as if the woman could read her mind. And her mind was the one thing no one got close to unless she invited them in. Max and Caleb were her only guests. Ever.

  She’d fought too hard, for too long, regaining control of her mind from Steve, to give it up again.

  “I’m willing to help out anyplace I can.” Innocuous words. She’d see where they took her.

  �
��I’m assuming you have certification? A state license to practice?”

  “Yes.” Under her married name. The only legal name she’d had since she left Steve Smith seven years before.

  “Can I have a copy of it?”

  A vision of Devon Wright’s effusive smile as he’d said goodbye to her the day before flashed across her mind. A picture of little Olivia, the three-year-old who was having surgery in another couple of weeks and would need help learning to swallow again. She’d spent six weeks with the little girl already, earning her trust, preparing her....

  Jenna had a job to do. Meredith had a life to live.

  But she couldn’t live it until Jenna did her job. And only if Jenna was successful....

  She’d been at this crossroads before. Three other times. And each and every time she’d given up not only the life, but the goals. The joy. She’d allowed Steve to take away more than just her freedom. He’d taken away vital parts of her....

  “Your secrets are safe here.” Lila’s soft tone was like a buzzer in the cacophony rumbling through her mind.

  “It’s not my secrets I’m concerned about.”

  “You are safe here.”

  She wasn’t concerned about herself, either. But knew better than to say so out loud. At least in this atmosphere.

  She wasn’t here to recover from domestic violence. She had a mate who treated her with decency and respect. Who was fully a partner and companion.

  She’d sought the life she wanted and obtained it, just as she had every right to do. She’d stood up, pressed forward. She’d dared to reach for her dreams.

  She’d succeeded.

  Steve hadn’t gotten the message.

  She’d looked fear in the eye and her ex-husband was looking right back at her.

  So she was going to stare him down. And the first one who looked away would lose.

  This was it. Her stare down.

  She wasn’t turning her back again until Steve was out of her life for good.

  Because there was no way in hell Steve’s evil was going to touch Max or Caleb. At least not on a daily basis. Not as a way of life....