The Reunion Mission: The Reunion MissionTall Dark Defender

by Beth Cornelison

  Annie watched Haley’s reaction to him closely. Jonah was the first new man she’d brought around the kids since the ordeal with Walt came to a head more than a year ago.

  He stepped forward and held his hand out for Haley to shake. “I’m Jonah Devereaux, a friend of your mom’s. Nice to meet you, Haley.”

  Jonah’s hand swallowed her daughter’s smaller one, and an uneasy tremor fluttered through Annie, a reminder of how vulnerable her children were.

  Rani had reached them with Ben in her arms, and she gave Annie a worried look. “Ms. Annie, is everything all right?”

  “Well, yes and no. The diner had to close today unexpectedly. I can watch the kids today.”

  Rani gave her a brief update on what the kids had eaten and when Ben had woken up that morning as she passed the toddler over to his mother.

  “I’ll call you when I know what’s going to happen tomorrow. My plans are kinda up in the air right now,” Annie said. She sighed as Rani told the kids goodbye and headed toward her apartment.

  If fearing for her life and her children’s weren’t enough, Annie hated the uncertainty this turn of events cast over her future. Would she have a job tomorrow? Would the diner close indefinitely? Would she have to leave Lagniappe to protect herself from the person who murdered Mr. Hardin?

  As she herded Ben and Haley back toward their apartment, Haley stopped to play with the neighbors’ cat. Eager to get the children inside, out of view of any eyes that could be watching her, stalking her, she opened her mouth to chastise Haley for dawdling.

  But Jonah crouched beside Haley and joined her in stroking the cat’s back. Annie paused, watching her daughter give the cat solid thumping pats.

  “Gently,” Jonah murmured. “See how he put his ears back? That means he’s unhappy. You don’t want to hurt him, right? Kitties like soft pats.”

  Haley gentled her touch and tipped her head. “Like this?”

  “Yeah, good.”

  The lesson in kindness to animals caught Annie off guard. His concern that Haley not hurt the cat contributed to her confused feelings toward Jonah. She tried to reconcile Jonah’s fighting skills with this protective and loving attitude toward animals.

  A shiver raced over her skin remembering how safe she’d felt in his arms when he’d gotten her out of the police cruiser. How could someone who sparred as a hobby, who didn’t hesitate to take on another man in a dark alley in hand-to-hand combat have such a gentle soul? The contradiction flew in the face of everything her personal experience taught her. She was risking a lot bringing Jonah home, exposing her children to him.

  She prayed she didn’t regret taking the chance later. But she needed answers from Jonah, and the diner wasn’t safe for this particular discussion.

  “Do you have a cat?” Haley asked. Her wide-eyed innocence twisted in Annie’s chest.

  Jonah blinked his surprise, then chuckled. “Well, no. Do you?”

  “No, sir. Me and Mommy want one, but she says we can’t. She says maybe we can someday.”

  Jonah arched an eyebrow and divided a smile between Haley and Annie. “And when is someday?”

  “Haley, take Ben and go on inside. I’ll fix you a snack when I get upstairs.” Annie waited until Haley had led her toddling brother up the steps and closed the door before turning back to Jonah. “I don’t know when someday will be. It can’t get here soon enough for me.” She gripped the railing to steady herself, recalling the darkest days of her life. “Someday is when I don’t have to worry that my husband will hurt an innocent animal to scare or control me. I couldn’t justify exposing a pet to Walt’s volatile temper and cruelty.”

  Jonah’s expression inexplicably tensed and softened at the same time, anger and empathy clearly battling for dominance.

  “Someday,” she continued, struggling to keep her voice steady, “is when I’m not on the run, living in hiding to escape the murderous intentions of my husband. I didn’t know from day to day where we’d sleep at night, if Walt would find us and make good on his threat to kill me. A cat would have been impractical.”

  Jonah nodded, his dark eyes boring into her. Rather than rattle her as his intense gaze usually did, his focused attention encouraged confidence and soothed her frayed nerves.

  She cleared the knot of emotion clogging her throat and added, “Someday is when I don’t have to stretch my paycheck so thin you can see light through it. I can barely keep a roof over our heads and food in my kids’ stomachs with what I earn.”

  The neighbors’ cat wound through her legs, rubbing, and Annie bent to pick it up. Cuddling the feline close to her chest, Annie buried her face in the cat’s soft fur. “I would love to let my baby have a pet, but cat food and vet bills aren’t in the budget.”

  Jonah reached for her, but instead of patting the cat, he stroked Annie’s cheek with his wide palm. “Someday may be closer than you think.”

  She scoffed and set the cat back on the ground when it squirmed. “How can you say that after this morning? Even if the diner reopens and I still have a job, Hardin was murdered because of that stolen money. How do I know I won’t be next?”

  Conviction and determination blazed in Jonah’s eyes. “Because I won’t let that happen. Hardin’s isn’t the first life lost because of these bastards, and if it is the last thing I do, I’m going to find the people responsible and see that they pay.”

  * * *

  As Annie fixed her kids an early lunch, the bone-deep chill returned when Jonah’s remark replayed in her head. Who else had been killed? How had Jonah become involved in investigating the gambling and money laundering?

  Her children’s restless squabbling drifted in from the living room where she’d left them watching TV with Jonah. She hurriedly finished draining the boiling water from the macaroni, eager to get back to the children and quiet their bickering. Jonah had to be uncomfortable around her fussy kids. Even the most stalwart soul could grow edgy around cranky children. Lord knew, the kids crying had been enough to set Walt off.

  She shuddered remembering how often she’d had to run interference, bend over backward to keep the kids quiet when Walt was in one of his moods. And the backlash when her efforts hadn’t been enough.

  With those dark memories haunting her, Annie set the macaroni aside and rushed to the living room to break up her children’s latest squabble.

  “That’s the way! Punch it again. Harder,” Jonah said as she stepped around the corner from the hall. He held a sofa pillow in front of him, egging Ben to jab the cushion with his tiny fists.

  Outraged, Annie snatched the pillow away, her temper spiking. “Stop it!”

  Both Ben and Jonah lifted startled looks.

  “Annie?”

  “How dare you teach my son to fight! I risked my life getting away from my husband so that my kids wouldn’t learn his abusive ways. I will not allow you or anyone to teach my son it is okay to hit!” Anger and hurt raised the level and pitch of her voice. Her body shook, and tears bloomed in her eyes as she glared at Jonah.

  He raised a placating hand and rose from the floor to face her. “Your son already knows how to hit. I was trying to teach him to punch something other than his sister. I told him hitting a girl was never okay. I wanted him to redirect his frustration on an inanimate object.”

  Annie stared at Jonah, dragging in air and needing a moment for his explanation to pierce the skin of her anger. With her heart thundering, she recalled seeing Ben punch Haley in a fit of anger more than once. She’d asked Rani to do all she could to squelch the behavior when she saw it.

  Her gaze darted to Haley, who blinked at her, wide-eyed and pale. Compunction plucked at Annie. She’d assessed the situation at face value and unfairly jumped to a biased conclusion. Now she choked down the bitter fear and resentment that strangled her and worked to calm her runaway pulse before addressing her daughter. “Ben was punching you?”

  Her daughter bobbed her head.

  “Why?”

  Haley poked out her bot
tom lip and looked away. “I took his truck.”

  Annie inhaled a slow, deep breath. Counted to ten. “Go to the time-out chair. You know not to grab your brother’s toys from him.”

  Her expression contrite, Haley sidled over to the chair in the corner of the room. Feeling Jonah’s gaze on her, Annie steeled her nerves and schooled her face before facing him. Rather than accusation, his expression was patient, forgiving. Her awkward guilt grew. “I’m sorry. When I saw you—”

  “I understand.”

  She tipped her head, studying him. “Do you? Do you have any idea how much it scares me to think of my son following his father’s example? He was a baby when I left Walt, but not a day passes that I don’t worry that Walt’s abusiveness could be genetic.”

  A muscle in Jonah’s cheek twitched. “Behavior is learned, not inherited.”

  “I wish I could be sure,” she murmured, shifting her gaze to Ben, who’d toddled over to cling to her leg. He whined and raised his arms to be picked up. Annie lifted Ben to her chest and bear-hugged him. “Oh, Ben, what am I going to do with you?”

  Slanting her a lopsided smile, Jonah stepped closer and stroked a hand down Ben’s wavy baby hair. “You’re gonna be all right. Aren’t you, little man?”

  The loving gesture stole Annie’s breath. Walt had claimed to love their kids, but she’d never seen him show his affection with a tender touch, a softly spoken encouragement or a warm smile.

  Ben lifted his head from her shoulder and, grinning impishly, wagged a finger at Jonah. “No hit.”

  Chuckling, Jonah caught Ben’s finger in his hand and gently squeezed. “That’s right, pal. No hitting Haley.”

  Annie’s throat tightened, and she struggled to assimilate her new impressions of Jonah in the wake of the horror and gore she’d witnessed this morning at the diner. How did this caring, conscientious man fit in the landscape of violence and illegal activity she’d become embroiled in at Pop’s? How did she reconcile this gentle side of Jonah with the violent skill she’d seen him employ firsthand?

  Her mind spinning, Annie nodded toward Haley. “Once she’s been in the chair two more minutes, will you bring her into the kitchen to eat?”

  He tweaked Ben’s chin. “Sure.”

  She backed out of the living room, knowing something fundamental had shifted in her relationship with Jonah, but too overwhelmed by the events of the morning to examine the change closely.

  Their relationship? The word clanged in her head and made her stomach whirl. She didn’t have a relationship with Jonah. He was a customer at the diner, nothing more.

  But you don’t kiss a man who is nothing more than a customer.

  No, he kissed her. Annie’s lips tingled from the mere memory of that brief kiss. Warm, sweet, breath-stealing.

  And totally off-limits. She had enough upheaval in her life at the moment without complicating matters with a new relationship. When she was ready to become involved with a man again, assuming she ever was, she’d want someone stable, safe, considerate.

  Not a man who’d elbowed his way into her life, for whom hand-to-hand combat was a sport, and who turned her emotions topsy-turvy with his soul-piercing eyes.

  After settling Ben in his high chair, Annie finished mixing the cheese sauce into the pasta. She was just about to check on Haley when Jonah carried her into the kitchen on his hip.

  Her daughter gazed at him with such implicit trust and admiration, Annie’s heart hammered. She’d expected Haley to be much more circumspect around men following Walt’s frightening behavior both before and after Annie had left the marriage.

  Not that Haley hadn’t been exposed to positive male role models, too. Riley Sinclair, her counselor Ginny’s husband, for one.

  Jonah situated Haley at the table and took a bowl from the counter. “Can I help serve?”

  “I—” Before she could answer, Jonah had scooped a spoonful of mac and cheese in the dish and carried it over to Haley.

  “It’s too hot,” her daughter complained without tasting her lunch.

  “Can’t have that.” Jonah stepped up behind Haley and bent low over the table. “Help me blow out the fire.”

  Together they both blew on the bowl with their cheeks puffed, and Ben giggled.

  “Me, too!” Ben’s attempt to cool his food resembled a raspberry more than a puff of breath. Now both children giggled, and Annie’s heart swelled. Her children’s mirth sang through her blood, a lyrical, magical melody that she treasured more than gold.

  When Jonah peeked up and winked at her, Annie’s joy over her children’s laughter and Jonah’s rapport with the kids morphed into a knee-weakening skip in her pulse. Her children had trusted and bonded with Jonah quickly and easily. Did they sense something about him that she’d overlooked, or was he preying on their innocence and naïveté to get to her?

  Before he left today, she intended to find out.

  Chapter 10

  Jonah was examining Haley’s baby picture on a side table in the living room when Annie finished settling the kids in for their naps. Her heart ached, knowing she’d not had a professional picture made of Ben as an infant. The early months of his life had been the tumultuous prelude to her leaving Walt, and the months since her divorce had been too financially tight, too busy with her hours at the diner to have her son’s picture made.

  But she needed to capture her son’s early years on film soon, someday….

  “Someday may be closer than you think.”

  Though she said nothing, Jonah turned as if he sensed her standing behind him. “Your children are precious. You’ve a right to be proud of them.”

  “Thank you.” She managed a small smile of appreciation, then grew serious. Time for answers. “Tell me about your childhood.”

  Jonah raised his head, stood straighter, arched an eyebrow in surprise.

  “You said you were abused. How bad was it? What did your mother do? How did it change who you were?”

  Jonah inhaled deeply and dragged a hand along his jaw. His callused palm rasped against the shadow of beard on his chin as he released his breath slowly through pursed lips. “Wow. You know how to cut to the chase.”

  He jerked his head toward the sofa she’d gotten from the secondhand store. “Sit?” He settled on one end of the couch and patted the cushion next to him.

  Instead, she took the rocking chair across the room from him and squeezed the knobby armrests. “I’m listening.”

  Jonah leaned forward, propping his forearms on his thighs and bridging his fingers. “I grew up in a white-collar neighborhood, went to a good school, had a circle of friends I hung out with. Most of the normal stuff.”

  He shrugged. “But every once in a while my dad would lose his temper and take out his frustrations on Mom. If I tried to defend her, I’d catch as bad as she got. He generally left my older sister alone, but even she took a backhand across the mouth for a sassy remark or an ear-ringing slap if she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. As I got older, when I sensed he was in one of his moods, I’d provoke him so that he’d come after me to start with instead of Mom.

  “I lied to my teachers or whoever would ask about where my bruises came from. By the time I was thirteen, I’d started picking fights with kids in the neighborhood. Part of that was me venting my internal rage, and part of it was to cover the constant parade of injuries my dad gave me. I got the reputation of being a bully on purpose, so no one questioned the black eyes and split lips as much.”

  A bully. Annie shuddered.

  “And your mother? How could she let this happen to you? I left Walt when I realized he could turn his violence against our kids next.”

  “She tried to protect me and got hurt for it. But she also lived in denial. Dad would apologize and beg her forgiveness, promise to change, tell her he’d get counseling and she’d stay. She loved the bastard for some reason, and I couldn’t convince her to leave him. She died of cancer when I was fifteen. My sister was away at college by then, and I had no des
ire to live alone with my dad, so I left home.”

  Annie frowned. “And went where?”

  “The streets for a while. Then I went to this gym one day, looking for work.”

  “As in a boxing gym like the one where we met the other day?” She couldn’t hide the disdain in her tone.

  He nodded. “Yeah, but in my hometown in Arkansas. For a while I did odd jobs, real menial stuff, in exchange for a cot in the locker room. Then I found out you could earn money working as a sparring partner with the guys who were training for competitions. I asked for that job and got it.”

  When she sent him a dubious look, he shrugged and flashed her a self-deprecating grin. “I had plenty of experience getting beat up, so why not get paid for taking a few hits?”

  Annie stared down at her lap, her hands fidgeting restlessly. While her heart ached for the teenager Jonah had been, relying on the violence that was his father’s legacy to survive, her new insights about his past only confirmed what she’d feared. Violence was a part of who he was. His casual attitude about hopping into a boxing ring to pound another man chafed against her memories of being Walt’s punching bag.

  “So you turned the abuse your father taught you into a profession?” She surged from her chair and paced across the living room, uneasy with the truths she was learning. How could she be attracted to another man with a tendency toward violence? What was wrong with her?

  “A profession?” He snorted. “Hardly. I just made a few bucks exchanging jabs with guys in the evening. And sparring was nothing like the abuse I took from my old man. For one thing, I wore pads and headgear.”

  She spun to face him with a sigh. “My point is, when you got away from your father, rather than leave the abuse in the past, you continued fighting. It was a lifestyle for you. You chose to fight.”

  He met her gaze evenly. “I chose to heal. I chose to turn my life around and use what I knew to help other people in the same situation.”

  She blinked, gave him a humorless laugh. “Excuse me? How does sparring help other people?”

  A muscle in his jaw twitched, and he took a slow, measured breath. “It doesn’t necessarily. But being a policeman does, if you do your job right.”