Husband by Choice

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  He wasn’t acting out of logic. He was acting out of emotion.

  Which not only made him less likely to succeed and more likely to make a mistake, but made him more vulnerable, too.

  There was something he cared about more than life. More than Jenna.

  Something that controlled him.

  His own threatened sense of self-worth.

  That was her secret weapon.

  Her mind raced as she tried to figure out how to use it against him.

  * * *

  MAX ARRANGED FOR the older neighbor lady who’d babysat Caleb a couple of times in the past, to come to the house and stay with him on Saturday while he made hospital rounds just around the corner from the clinic.

  He saw patients all morning. Life had to go on. People needed him.

  Caleb needed some semblance of normal.

  But how in the hell did a guy do normal when his world was exploding around him and there was seemingly nothing he could do about it?

  He talked to Chantel each day, too. Lived for her calls, and at the same time was glad the other woman was on shift three hours away. The comfort she offered was too tempting to a man ruled by grief and fear.

  Until Sunday’s call.

  Saturday she’d told him that Diane had talked to someone who knew that Steve had undergone voluntary anger management counseling not once, but twice. She’d also added that he’d attended one of those times with his entire squad who’d been ordered to go as part of a continuing education LVMPD initiative that the human resources department had implemented.

  On Sunday, she didn’t even bother with hello. Or to get home from work, for that matter.

  He’d just hung up from lying to his parents—telling them that Meri was in the shower and would call later in the week—and was still treading around his bedroom barefoot, getting ready for bed, when she called.

  “Max. I just listened to a voice mail from Diane. She tracked down one of the anonymous witnesses from that dancer girl’s death. As it turns out the guy across the hall still lives in the building—on the top floor. He owns the place now. And still remembers that night. He says there’s no doubt in his mind that the girl was running from Steve when she left the apartment. She wasn’t the partying type. And took cabs if she’d ever had more than one drink. He says there’s no way she would have gotten in that car if she hadn’t thought her life was in immediate danger if she didn’t do so.”

  Suddenly wide-awake, with nerves on the edge of needing a run, Max said, “Because why would you trust a call for help, a call to the cops, when you had a cop in your apartment.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So what happens next?”

  “She’s going to try to build a case. I can’t promise that anything will come of it. Chances aren’t good that a grand jury would indict an ex-cop with an exemplary record on circumstantial evidence, but if she can build enough of a case, she might be able to get an order to have the woman’s body brought up.”

  This was not normal bedtime conversation.

  “You really think they might do that?”

  “Do you remember that case in Chicago a few years ago? The cop who was charged with killing his second or third wife, but they couldn’t find her body, so they brought up the body of his first wife who’d either committed suicide, or been ruled accidental, I can’t remember which right now, but they brought her body up. Did an autopsy. Her death was ruled murder and he was later convicted.”

  He didn’t think he’d ever heard of the case. But was glad that Chantel had.

  “Okay,” he said now, pacing his room, frustrated as hell that he didn’t have Meri with him to discuss this newest development. “Keep me posted and let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  If only he’d known these things years ago—if only Meri had...

  “She just needs us both to keep quiet about this for now,” Chantel told him. “That means you can’t tell anyone, Max. Not anyone. If Smith gets wind of what she’s doing before she has a chance to build a big enough case, he could make it go away just like he did before. And if not, then he’d definitely be out to get her. He’s already got the death of one woman on his slate, what’s one more if it’ll keep him looking clean?”

  He hadn’t thought of that.

  “Of course I’ll keep quiet. Who would I tell, anyway?”

  “Well, it’s just...she’s put things in motion and if, by chance, you were to talk to Meredith, or she came home, she can’t know about this, Max. We don’t know what hold Smith has on her, or what she might tell him if, for instance, he threatened you or Caleb....”

  Beads of sweat popped out on his lip. “You really think Caleb could be in danger?”

  “Not now, I don’t, or you can bet I’d be doing something about it. But if Meredith were there with you, the stakes could escalate a bit.”

  The words quelled his fear, slightly. But they also hit home. “What you’re inadvertently saying is that she might have left to protect us from him,” he said. He’d had the thought earlier, but had never quite been able to follow the reasoning through, knowing as he did that they’d have full police protection and knowing that Meri had been fully aware of that fact, too.

  But it didn’t sound as if she’d have trusted police protection....

  Problem was, he didn’t know at this point what she thought or whom she trusted.

  And then something else occurred to him. By calling in Chantel, who was working on this privately as a personal favor, he’d put her in danger, too.

  “I want you off this case,” he said, louder than he’d intended, the words filled with absolute intent. “I will not have you hurt because of me.”

  “I’m not on the case, Max,” Chantel said with a soft chuckle that sounded as satisfied as it did amused. “Wayne is handling things in Santa Raquel. And Diane has it in Vegas. I’m just the conduit that sends news your way.”

  She was more than that. But she was right, too.

  “I have no jurisdiction in either place and no personal knowledge of him. Hurting me would do him no good at all.”

  She made sense.

  “Okay, you’ve convinced me.”

  “Good, because I’m not going anywhere, whether you’re convinced or not.”

  He told her he was glad.

  And then figured he probably shouldn’t have done so.

  But dammit, he’d been a good friend to her for years, including her in his and Jill’s life, lending her money to buy the condo she’d wanted, helping her get a car when she’d totaled hers....

  And now he needed a friend.

  More than that, Meri needed her. Max was a pediatrician, not a cop. When it came to finding Meri, without Chantel, Max was powerless.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  JENNA WAS THE talk of the Stand over the weekend, and hated every second of the notoriety. By Monday, she was actually eager to leave the place to meet with Yvonne and Olivia, and when she returned, kept her speech therapy appointments and then sought solace in the Garden of Renewal.

  Plans were underway for the pool party. It was going to be for adults only. Shelter employee Maddie Bishop, who was six months pregnant, was going to be the unknowing guest of honor. Her husband, Darin, along with his brother, Lynn’s husband, Grant, had volunteered to watch the seventeen underage residents. A group of women were planning snacks and games for the kids to keep them busy and happy.

  Jenna meandered through the Garden and smiled at the few women there, but didn’t stop to speak. The Garden was meant to be a peaceful retreat, not an area for socializing.

  She’d never spent any time there and on that afternoon she tried to open up and allow the privacy, the towering trees and the beds of glorious, sweet-smelling flowers, to heal even a tiny part of her. But it app
eared she was immune to the salve.

  And so she started to pull weeds. Because there were a few, scattered about, and she’d met Grant Bishop and his mentally handicapped brother, Darin, over the weekend and knew that the men had their hands full keeping up with Grant’s landscape design business and yard maintenance at the Stand, as well. She knew only because Darin had told her.

  He’d also told her it wasn’t anything his brother, Grant would ever tell anyone.

  You had to look hard to find anything on the grounds of The Lemonade Stand that wasn’t immaculate. But when she saw some weeds growing at the base of some of the trees in the thick woods that set the Garden off from the rest of the grounds, she dropped down to pick them.

  She left them in piles as she worked, with the plan to come back and gather them in her blouse to carry them up to the trash. She worked quickly. Quietly. Undaunted by the fact that there were easily three or four acres of woods surrounding the Garden.

  The earth felt good beneath her hands. Dirt under her trimmed nails. Kept short in deference to the baby she’d tended, the diapers she’d changed.

  And for every weed that wanted to play tough, that gave her a hard time, she held a mental victory celebration as she hung tougher and succeeded in pulling it out by its roots.

  This was what she was going to do with the memories of Steve. Pull them up by their roots and throw them in the trash.

  When she’d rid her life of him.

  Didn’t matter if there were acres of memories. Or tough ones to excavate. Didn’t matter if she got it all done in one day, or had to repeat the effort over and over again for the rest of her life.

  She could pull them out and throw them away.

  And if they regenerated, she could pull them up again. Throw them away again.

  Her life could be as beautiful as this Garden. She just had to....

  A sound behind her had her freezing on the spot.

  Carly’s ex-boyfriend had managed to break through the security at the Stand. And while security was tighter than ever before, with added guards on duty, more cameras, and more outside patrol as well, Steve was far more skilled at knowing how to break and enter than Trent would ever be.

  Another twig snapped. Several feet behind her and off to her left. She didn’t turn around. Didn’t want him to know she was on to him.

  She had to get to her phone. Push the TLS emergency speed dial.

  Another movement. A little farther to her left.

  No one knew where she was.

  She didn’t even know how far she was from the actual Garden. She’d been pulling weeds. Mentally expostulating about life. Not paying attention to her surroundings.

  Reaching into her bra, she opened her phone and felt for the number three on her dial pad. Pushed.

  Security would be there soon.

  Jenna pulled a weed. Carefully added it to the small pile she’d begun to form between two closely planted trees.

  She’d broken her number one rule. Be aware of your surroundings. At all times.

  How could she have been so foolish?

  Or felt so safe?

  This place had gotten to her. Given her a false sense of security. It was a lesson to her that even she could be wooed into letting her guard down.

  A lesson that could cost her.

  When she heard another twig snap, Jenna slowly stood. It would be far better that Steve get her now rather than giving him a chance to hurt anyone else. She’d leave quietly with him.

  And figure out the rest from there. Security should be there in seconds to protect everyone else.

  She just didn’t want anyone to get hurt. With very little fear, she turned.

  And saw a body bending over by the base of a tree. And farther off in the distance, another body. And on the other side of her, even farther away, a third.

  Residents. Her sisters. Helping her pull weeds.

  And she’d thought no one knew where she was.

  “WE ALL HEARD Darin the other day,” Renee, the weed picker who’d been closest to her, walked with Jenna as she left the Garden almost an hour later. Security had been and gone. “Julie saw what you were doing and called up to the main building to let anyone who was free know that you could use some help.”

  She didn’t know Julie well. But had recognized her as the woman sitting alone on the bench in the Garden when she’d taken her walk earlier.

  “I didn’t even know you guys were there.”

  Renee shrugged. “Everyone knows the Garden’s a place for quiet contemplation. Some people contemplate while pulling weeds. As busy as you are, I figured you had something pretty important to work on to be out there pulling at dirt.”

  It was as direct a question as Renee would probably ask.

  Feeling the weight of responsibility for the example she set, just by existing among needy women who looked to each other for help and support, Jenna shrugged.

  “I’m not used to the attention I’ve been getting here lately. I needed a...break.” She picked the words that she could speak.

  And left the rest.

  “You do a lot of weeding in your past life?”

  “Nope.” Not until she’d moved in with Max. And even then, she did more spraying and hiring of landscapers than actual weeding.

  “I grew up pulling weeds in my mama’s garden,” Renee continued, walking easily beside her.

  And strangely, as they talked, Jenna didn’t mind the other woman’s presence. In spite of the fact that she’d gone to the Garden looking for escape.

  * * *

  “WHEN MY BRIAN was little he lisped....” Renee was holding one end of a sheet and Jenna the other. They were alone in the laundry room Monday night. Renee had signed up to do TLS laundry once a week, which included anything used in any common areas, including physical therapy and the cafeteria. Towels mostly.

  Jenna had offered to help. It gave her a chance to get her own few things washed. And to keep busy.

  She’d been so tempted to go back by Max’s house that morning after she’d seen Olivia. The bus stop was only one past hers. She’d thought about it the whole way. And then watched out the window as the familiar area sped past.

  Movement cured all ails. Or it had to this point in her life.

  Was there a cure for seeing the man you loved with another woman?

  “The kids at school teased him and my instinct was to coddle him, to fight his battles for him. Gary insisted that we make him tough it out and go to school and stand up to the bullies....”

  They came together and Jenna took the sheet, finishing up the last fold and placing it on the large table that currently held over a hundred towels all washed and neatly folded, while Renee picked up another sheet, found the ends and handed two to her.

  “I wish I’d stood up to Gary then,” Renee continued. “Brian was such a sensitive creature. We should never have forced him to go against his nature....”

  Renee needed to understand her abuser. And she was the mother bear, protecting her young at the same time.

  An untenable position.

  Far worse than having an abusive husband.

  Far, far worse than knowing that your husband would have someone to help him bear the pain you’d caused.

  “My little brother lisped,” Jenna said, jumping at the first thought that came to her brain that wasn’t about Steve, or Max and Chantel. The sound of the machines running, tubs filling, the cottony spring scent of softening sheets, even the warmth generated from the dryers were nice. Steady.

  Familiar.

  Renee glanced at her as though she was waiting for more. There wasn’t any more. Chad had had a lisp.

  “That’s partially why I became a speech pathologist,” she said. Everyone at the Stand knew she was one. Nothing to hi
de there.

  “Did he have troubles at school?” Renee asked.

  “Yeah. I remember him coming home from kindergarten with a fat lip. He wasn’t crying at all. But when Mom made him tell her why he’d gotten into a fight, and he’d had to admit the kids said he talked like a baby, he started to bawl. And I remember the woman who came to our house a lot after that, doing mouth and tongue exercises with him. By second grade the lisp was gone. I kind of missed it. It was cute.”

  “The last thing boys in school want to be is cute.”

  Caleb was cute. And in one of his last pictures, looked just like a picture she had of Chad, too.

  Would he also have his uncle’s lisp when he fully started talking?

  “I didn’t know you have a brother. You’ve never mentioned family.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Chad.” And now it was time to get the next batch of towels from the dryer. These were smaller, from the kitchen, rather than the larger ones used in physical therapy and the gym.

  “Is he local?” Renee’s tone had changed, becoming more like Lila’s every second. Jenna tensed.

  “No.”

  “You don’t want to talk about him.”

  “No.” She gave her refusal gently.

  “Of course you know that they say when you don’t want to talk is when you should.”

  She couldn’t tell Renee about her plans, couldn’t tell any of the women that the programs that worked for them, that they were supposed to believe worked for them, didn’t work for her.

  “I don’t talk about them because my family was killed,” she said, taking the folded sheet from Renee and putting it with the last one they’d done.

  And while Renee stood there, hands empty, she rolled the cart over to the dryer and pulled out the next load of towels.

  Her few things were done. Underthings neatly folded. Clothes hung and ready for her to take back to the bungalow where she could have done her laundry. If she hadn’t been helping Renee.

  “Killed how?” Renee didn’t fold. She just watched her.

  Picking up a towel, Jenna made short work of the task at hand. “In a car accident. It was a long time ago.”