Husband by Choice

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  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.

  And she was going to honor, with her life, her promise to love and care for and protect him.

  Yvonne was crying again. Harder this time. Grabbing a tissue, Jenna dabbed at her eyes and nose when necessary. She tried to make out what words she could and just be there for the other woman.

  “He egged e ot to ell.” He’d begged her not to tell?

  “Tell what?”

  “at he it e.”

  “That he hit you?”

  Yvonne’s head moved in the affirmative. Once.

  “And when you stood up to him and told him it was wrong and you weren’t going to keep it quiet, he did this to you,” she said, understanding.

  Another affirmative half nod.

  “I coun ell hi I o hi.” The last word ended on a nasal sound.

  “You couldn’t tell him you love him?”

  Yvonne blinked her good eye.

  Doing what she had to do to help her friend, Jenna remembered back, put herself right in that bed with Yvonne, and said, “Because your heart is too bruised. You couldn’t just open up and take him back wholeheartedly after what he’d done. Because you couldn’t give him that power over you,” she guessed.

  Yvonne’s nod was bigger this time.

  “And that’s why he hit you?”

  A smaller nod. Accompanied by a wince. The asshole had obviously hurt his wife’s neck, among other things.

  “I o he ees I o.” I know he needs—love? The nasally grunts preceded more tears. And Jenna knew how badly it was hurting Yvonne to speak. Recognized, also, that she needed to talk or she wouldn’t be putting herself through the agony. Other than the top of the one hand Jenna was touching, most of Yvonne’s visible skin was bandaged. It looked as if fingers on both her hands were broken. There was no other way for the woman to express thoughts that she clearly needed to get out.

  So she guessed what Yvonne was trying to say. Made a wrong guess and tried again. Yvonne turned her head just an inch to the side, indicating another wrong guess. And waited.

  “You know he needs your love?”

  Yvonne nodded.

  “Yvonne, you are not in any way to blame for this.” Jenna was standing now, not to tower over her friend, but to lean in closer than the chair beside the bed would allow. “Look at me,” she said and waited for Yvonne to do so.

  “This is me talking. I’ve been right where you are. Inside and out,” she reminded her. And knew that Yvonne knew that she had. Which was why Yvonne was talking to her.

  Counseling was good. Great. Necessary. And sometimes, it just wasn’t enough.

  Sometimes going where it hurt most was the only way to heal the hurt.

  “Steve was the younger brother of my last foster mother.” She told the woman something she’d never told anyone. Not any of the counselors. Not Max.

  Because telling hadn’t seemed necessary then.

  Yvonne’s good eye opened wider and her look focused.

  Jenna swallowed. Longed for a glass of water. And said, “I was sixteen when I was placed with her. I’d been through a couple of different homes, I was withdrawn and they kept changing my home thinking that would somehow help.”

  At the time she’d thought they were all forgetting that she’d lost her entire family and would never be happy again.

  With the clarity of passed time and some more years of life experience, she understood that no one knew what to do with her. There was absolutely no way anyone was going to be able to fix what ailed her. Or to somehow change her back into a normal girl.

  And doing something was better than doing nothing.

  “I met Steve at the party his sister threw for my high school graduation party. He was a beat cop then, but he’d already won a commendation for preventing a robbery and saving the old couple inside the store from being hurt. His sister had practically threatened him that if he didn’t come to my party she was going to disown him,” Jenna remembered aloud.

  “I think she was afraid there wasn’t going to be anyone there. I didn’t have any friends. And obviously, no family. She’d been widowed young and had a son in college. He and his girlfriend were coming and she’d sent out invitations to other people in town, but...”

  She stopped, realizing that she’d been going on about something that had nothing to do with what Yvonne needed to hear.

  “Go o,” Yvonne said. Her eyes told Jenna how intently she was listening.

  “Steve was one of the first ones there. His place was about an hour away and he practically lived for his job, volunteering to work holidays because he didn’t have a spouse or kids like most of the officers in his squad, which is why I hadn’t met him before.”

  She wasn’t getting the timing right on this, but was telling it as it came to her. It had been so long ago. So long since
she’d remembered....

  “He took one look at me and I was a goner. The weird thing was, he was, too. Even weirder, he needn’t have come at all. Turns out while I didn’t have any friends, there was a community full of people who knew of me and came to that party to show me that I wasn’t alone. To cheer me on in my success since my parents weren’t able to be there to congratulate me themselves.”

  She paused, waiting for the choked-up feeling to pass. And then said, “I didn’t know a lot of them, but the gesture meant the world to me.”

  A light came to Yvonne’s eye. Jenna smiled at her friend and in the midst of the pain, they shared a few seconds of joy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “IT TURNS OUT that my foster mother and Steve were half brother and sister.” Jenna was sitting now, with a cold glass of water, provided by the nurse who’d come to check on Yvonne and administer another round of meds in her IV drip. “They shared a mother, who died when Steve was little. My foster mother was already in college by then. He was brought up by his father who, as it turns out, wasn’t a kind man. He didn’t ever hit Steve, nothing overtly abusive, but he belittled him every chance he got. Steve wet the bed until he was ten and any time he had an accident, his dad would rub his nose in the sheet and make him wear a diaper to school. He’d take it off the second he got the chance, of course, but sometimes that wasn’t until he got to school. He used to die thinking about someone finding out.”

  The question in Yvonne’s eye had Jenna shaking her head. “No one did. But I guess as he got older, and bigger, his father would threaten to tell someone about the diapers if Steve acted out. That was his worst nightmare, the thought of other people finding out. He was so humiliated, and afraid of what people would think. Steve didn’t play sports. He didn’t even like to watch football. He wasn’t into fast cars. His father was hugely disappointed in him and never failed to point that out to him....”

  “...lane i...” Blame him. The nasal attached to the words gave Jenna their meaning.

  “He blamed Steve for his mother’s death,” Jenna said and watched for Yvonne’s affirmative, which came now in a blink of the eye. Her friend was growing sleepy. Probably due to the meds, but she also looked much more relaxed.