Heart of Rockies 03 - More Than a Feeling

by Sara Richardson

  “You’re not?” Avery gasped again, this time through a wide smile.

  “Chief offered me a promotion.” Yeah. Like that was the reason. “Besides, Ruby is here. And I kind of like her.”

  “Now, that I knew. It was so obvious.” Avery slid onto a stool. “Don’t worry, we’re having a girls’ night tonight so we can discuss you and Ruby in great detail.”

  “Not sure how I feel about that.” But he grinned. Because Ruby fit here. With Avery and Aunt Elsie and Paige. With him…

  Lily opened her eyes and stared up at him. He held her up, blew raspberries against her tummy.

  “Look, she’s smiling!” Avery clapped. “What a sweet, smart girl you are, Lily,” she cooed.

  “She’s not smiling,” Bryce insisted. “She’s too little to smile.”

  “No. She’s definitely smiling,” Sawyer shot back. “Aren’t you?” he asked the baby. “You’re smiling at Uncle Sawyer.”

  The front door whooshed open and Aunt Elsie rushed in, followed by a hobbling Thomas, who’d apparently decided to ditch the wheelchair against doctor’s orders. “There you are!” His aunt charged across the room, huffing out breaths and fanning herself with her hand. “Ruby’s gone! She’s gone back to North Carolina!”

  His body went cold. “Gone?” He thought about how she’d almost packed up her stuff the other night to walk out of his life. “How could she be gone?” He’d just seen her last night…

  “I stopped by her house to see if she wanted to ride here together.” Aunt Elsie steadied both hands against the kitchen counter. “I never bothered to knock. The door was unlocked.”

  Suddenly Lily felt too heavy in his arms. He handed the baby back to Bryce.

  “She left notes.” Aunt Elsie handed him some papers. “One for us and one for you, Sawyer. There’s one for Brooklyn, too.”

  He stared down at the first page, at his name scrawled across the top.

  I love you. That was all it said. “Shit.” That made it sound like she wasn’t planning on coming back to tell him in person.

  “Read the one she wrote us,” Aunt Elsie said.

  He blinked so he could focus and flipped to the next page.

  Dear Elsie, Bryce, and Avery,

  I’m so sorry I had to leave without saying good-bye. There are some things I have to take care of. I’ve been lying to you all. My real name is Kate McPherson and I’ve been running from my ex-fiancé. He was abusive and I was afraid of him, so I chose a new name and drove until I ended up in Aspen. You have been so good to me, and I’ll always be grateful for how you took me in and gave me a place in the world when I didn’t have one. I hope to come back to Aspen as soon as I can, but first I need to confront my past. I understand if you can’t hold my job or the rental, but I will always be grateful for what you’ve done for me.

  Love always,

  Ruby

  P.S. If Sawyer finds a way for me to keep Nellie, please take care of her until I can come back.

  Sawyer staggered as he crushed the note in his fist. He couldn’t help it. She was gone…

  “What the hell is going on?” Avery snatched it out of his hand and smoothed the paper, then held it up and read it. “Kate?”

  Bryce scanned the note over her shoulder. “That’s not good. Her ex sounds pretty dangerous.”

  “You don’t even know the half of it,” Sawyer said, panic overshadowing the words. “He threatened to kill her and cover it up.”

  “Oh, dear god,” Elsie breathed.

  “I don’t understand.” Avery murmured. “Why didn’t she tell us? Why didn’t she ask for help?”

  “I told her she had to stop hiding from everything…” Dread seized his heart, squeezing the life out of it. It was his fault.

  But that wasn’t what he’d meant. Not at all. He hadn’t meant for her to run back there on some kind of suicide mission.

  Avery shook her head with confidence, attaching herself to Bryce’s side like she needed reassurance. “She’ll be all right. Surely he won’t touch her.”

  Sawyer couldn’t get enough air. The room was closing in on him. “He’s a cop. Her ex is a cop.” Which meant he had weapons at his house. He didn’t have to explain that to them. They’d seen his Glock lying around.

  Avery’s face froze into a horrified expression. “You have to stop her then! We have to find her before she gets there.”

  Hands locked with tension, he dug out his phone and tried to call her, but it went straight to voice mail.

  “Ruby. Don’t go back. Please,” he choked out. “Call me. I’ll help you figure this out.” Hadn’t he told her that already? That she didn’t have to do anything alone? Hadn’t he made it clear to her that he’d be there for her? Sure, he’d been upset that she’d lied to him, but he understood why she’d done it.

  “What can we do?” Thomas asked, holding tightly to Aunt Elsie’s hand.

  Sawyer looked at them, at Aunt Elsie, and Thomas, then Avery, and Bryce. “We have to find her.”

  Before she got hurt again.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Ruby glanced out the plane’s porthole of a window, seeing the snow-capped mountains far in the distance. She’d been lucky to get a redeye flight from Aspen to Denver, and was now waiting to take off on the next leg of her journey. To North Carolina. The place where all her bad memories lived. And the only place where she could face every one of them so she could finally move on with her life.

  On that mountainous horizon, the early-morning sunlight spotlighted the highest peaks, making them look postcard perfect.

  Yearning swelled. She should’ve tried to explain herself in the note she’d left for Sawyer, but she hadn’t known what to say to him. She still didn’t. He’d offered her so much and she’d kept things from him. Things that had obviously hurt him…

  “Please direct your attention to the flight attendant at the front of the plane.” A flight attendant took her place a few rows ahead of Ruby’s seat and held up the safety information card, smiling in that polite, plastic way. Ruby blankly studied the safety card still in the seat pocket in front of her.

  Her phone chimed with an incoming call, which reminded her…she had to turn it off.

  Yawning, she dug it out of her purse and checked the screen. Sawyer’s number glowed back at her. Ducking her head so the flight attendant wouldn’t see, she clicked answer and held the phone up to her ear. “Sawyer,” she whispered, earning a glare for the woman across the aisle.

  “Ruby? Where are you?” Even just the deep hum of his voice plagued her with goose bumps.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” he said before she could answer. “Please. Come back and we’ll figure this out together.”

  She swallowed against the mounting tears. “I’m on a plane.” They’d sealed the doors. She couldn’t get off now. And the truth was, he couldn’t help her figure this out. He didn’t need her dragging him into this.

  “I love you, Ruby.”

  She knew that, she felt it in the warm rush that calmed her heart.

  “God, please come back.” The line scratched and made him sound so far away.

  “Ma’am…” The flight attendant leaned down. “You’ll need to turn off all electronic devices now.”

  “Wait!” Sawyer yelled. He must’ve heard. “I’m coming,” he told her. “I’m coming to find you. Don’t do anything until I get there. Okay? Ruby? Tell me you won’t do anything until I get there.”

  But that was the one thing she’d feared the most all along…Sawyer getting hurt because he was helping her. “I’m not afraid.” She was startled to realize the truth. “Sawyer, I’m not scared anymore. I’m ready.” She was ready to look into Derek’s eyes and tell him what he’d done to her was wrong. She was ready to make sure he didn’t do it to anyone else.

  “I have to do this.” This was her fight. “Everything’ll be fine,” she said, signaling one more minute to the irritated flight attendant, because she had one more thing to say to this man who’d changed her
life.

  “I love you.” Smiling, she said it again, loving the way it sounded. “I love you.” In all the lies, the secrets, the things she’d hidden away, that was real.

  Love had finally set her free.

  * * *

  “You sure this is a good idea?” Sawyer glared down at Nell. The dog stopped to sniff every ankle and shoe that passed by, and seeing as how they were at Denver International Airport, that was a hell of a lot of ankles and shoes.

  “We have to bring Nell,” Aunt Elsie insisted, tugging her hot pink zebra print carry-on behind her.

  As if he wasn’t already embarrassed enough by the ankle-biter attached to the leash. Not that the dog was ugly, but Nell wasn’t exactly a manly choice. He’d take a boxer or a hound dog over a show dog any day.

  “Think of that moment when Ruby sees Nell. Imagine how happy she’ll be!” Aunt Elsie exclaimed, as though Nell was the key to Ruby’s happy ending.

  Uh…wouldn’t that be him? He’d rather think of the moment she saw him. How happy would she be, then? Not nearly as happy as he’d be to have her safe in his arms.

  His aunt patted his hand, which was a feat considering it was waving all over the place trying to keep Nell’s leash reeled in. Unfortunately, every time he put the dog in the travel crate, she howled like a banshee.

  “Stop worrying about Ruby, dear. It will all work out,” Aunt Elsie said, out of breath.

  Stop worrying. She might as well have said stop breathing. “You heard what that asshole said to her.” He belonged in prison. Deserved what he’d be forced to endure there, too. Maybe Sawyer could call in a few favors with some of the inmates…

  “She’s a smart girl with a good head on her shoulders. She won’t do anything crazy.”

  “I know.” Ruby was smart. But she was also hell-bent on confronting her past. Alone. And there was nothing he could do about it. Even though he’d packed everything he’d need in less than ten minutes, they’d had to wait for a flight out of Aspen, and now he had to be a good four hours behind her. Which meant he couldn’t protect her.

  “Maybe I should call the station out there,” he said, tugging the dog to their gate. But the ankle-biter dug in its heels to stop and sniff another pair of leather shoes. Expensive taste, that dog.

  “And say what?” Aunt Elsie shook her head. “You don’t even know exactly where she’s going.”

  Oh yes he did. He might’ve known her well only for a short time, but he knew Ruby would go straight to Derek Alders’s house. She’d sounded different on the phone. Bold and fearless. I’m ready, she’d said. Which was why he’d had Vicki at the station track down the man’s home address. It was scrawled on the piece of paper in his pocket.

  He just had to get there.

  “Everything will turn out wonderfully, dear,” Aunt Elsie insisted. “I can feel it.”

  That’s why he’d let her come along. Because she had the kind of faith he didn’t, constant and unwavering. “I hope so.”

  He’d never hoped so hard in his life.

  * * *

  Ruby pulled the rental car over in front of the beautiful brick cape cod that had once been her prison. Built in the 1930s, it was old house, but it had been meticulously maintained. Derek had bought it as a fixer-upper and he obsessed over making it perfect. Not one brick was cracked. The siding around the top was a pure white, and red shutters accented every window.

  A blanket of thick, green grass carpeted the half-acre lot. He mowed in a crisscross formation, which had become the envy of all the neighborhood men. The two dogwood trees—one on either side of the stone walk—were still blooming with white blossoms. Along the front of the house, a garden of the rosebushes she’d planted herself were starting to bud. It was the kind of house you’d stop to admire if you were passing by. Quaint and lovely. So well cared for that you’d never know what was happening inside those walls.

  She’d gone to great lengths to hide it—the bruises, the fear, the shame. But those things couldn’t stay hidden forever. She wouldn’t hide them anymore. She would stand face-to-face with him and inform him that he could come after her if he wanted to, but then she would use every resource at her disposal to take him down. She would make his abuse so public that no one would be able to ignore it.

  It’s time. She’d spent a good part of the afternoon driving around, reliving the memories of her childhood, but she couldn’t put this off anymore.

  Surprisingly, she felt nothing as she climbed out of the car and made her way up the walk. Despite the sun and the clear blue sky and the sweet-scented humidity in the air, her body was encased in a dull, cold darkness. She stared only at the front door as she approached the house, not noticing even how her feet managed to navigate the steps.

  Instead of ringing the ornate doorbell, she opted to knock, rapping her knuckles against the freshly painted red wood.

  It opened and a woman stuck out her head. “Yeah?”

  Ruby stared. The woman’s long blond hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail. Her cheeks were sunken in and she had somber blue eyes. Even with the warm weather, she wore jeans and a long-sleeved blouse that draped over her thin frame. She was young, probably not a day over twenty.

  Derek was with someone else.

  It hit Ruby like another punch to the stomach. This girl was her two years ago. Except…the woman wore both an engagement ring and a wedding band.

  Dear lord. She struggled to stay upright, teetering on legs that felt numb.

  All this time…Derek hadn’t been looking for her. He’d simply found someone else to abuse. “Sick son of a bitch,” shot out before she could stop it.

  The woman stepped out with one foot, most of her body still hidden in the door’s shadow. “Can I help you?”

  Inhaling, she found her bearings again, balancing herself. This was why she’d come. To stop him from hurting someone else. But she was too late. She blinked against the harsh sunlight. “Is Derek here?” she asked, keeping her tone polite.

  “No. He’s not.” The woman seemed to be holding on to the door. Her head tilted like she recognized Ruby but was having a hard time placing her. “Can I tell him who stopped by?”

  She swallowed past the emotion that jammed her throat and stepped onto the porch. “Does he hit you like you used to hit me?” Ruby asked quietly.

  The woman didn’t answer. She only stood there, shoulders as low and despondent as an old woman’s.

  “One time he came after me because I got home late from a shift.” That was before he’d made her quit her job. “When I walked into the house he grabbed me and held a knife to my throat. I tried to get away and he kicked me in the stomach.”

  The woman’s eyes closed. Tears ran down her cheeks, but she tried to close the door.

  Ruby stuck out her arm and stopped her. “Listen to me. It’s not your fault.” Those words. She’d needed to hear those words so badly once. “He’s sick. He’s the one with the problem. Not you.”

  The woman’s hand fell away from the doorknob. Her arms went limp at her sides.

  “It’ll never stop,” Ruby told her. She remembered hoping. Surely he would get tired of it, eventually. Surely he wouldn’t hit her forever. But he would’ve. “It’s not just a phase. It’s who he is and he needs to be held accountable.”

  “I didn’t know what he was like before,” she whispered. “He never touched me.”

  No. He wouldn’t have made the same mistake twice. This time he’d made sure he married the woman before he hit her.

  Her eyes burned, but she fisted her hands. “I should’ve made sure he could never hurt anyone again. But I didn’t. I ran.” She’d never regretted that more than she did right now, staring into this woman’s wide, empty eyes. “We can stop him. We can make sure he never has the chance to hurt someone else.” She dug her phone out of her purse. “I’ll call nine-one-one. We can both charge him with assault.”

  The woman’s head shook. “No. He’ll kill me.”

  “He’s already ki
lling you.” That’s how he’d made her feel for those two years. Dead inside. Like there was no light. What she would’ve given for someone to show up at her door and rescue her.

  Ruby went to touch the woman’s hand, but she flinched and pulled it back like she was afraid it would hurt.

  Holding her breath, she looked closer at the woman’s wrist. The skin at the edge of her shirtsleeve was smudged purple and blue.

  “Have you had your arm looked at?” she asked, barely able to whisper. It was so familiar, that ugly damage. The evidence of a secret humiliation.

  The woman shook her head. “No. Please. Just go.”

  She couldn’t. She couldn’t walk away and pretend she didn’t know. Too many people had done that to her and she’d lost years of her life. She stepped closer to the woman. “He did that to me, too. At the hospital I told them I’d fallen and he’d tried to catch me. But he’d really yanked my arm so hard he broke the bone.” She clasped her hand over her wrist, remember thing way pain had splintered through it. “That’s all the proof you need.” The bruises. “He won’t be able to hurt you anymore.”

  The woman cradled her arm with her other hand, crying softly. “He’ll be back any time.”

  “Good,” Ruby said, dialing. “By the time he gets here, we’ll have all the help we need.”

  And Derek wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone again.

  * * *

  “Are you sure this is the right way?” Sawyer ducked his head and glanced out the driver’s-side window. They were driving through a posh neighborhood with older brick homes and manicured lawns and young moms out pushing their babies and toddlers in strollers. “This doesn’t seem right.”

  It wasn’t exactly what he pictured when Ruby told him about her engagement. It was too pretty, too clean.

  “This is what the map says,” Aunt Elsie murmured, shaking out the map she’d purchased at the gas station and shoving her bifocals back up.

  Nell looked up from Elsie’s lap, but she was obviously exhausted from the traumatizing plane ride.