by Sarina Wilde
“Wyatt?” he began cautiously and swallowed. “What happened to your butt?”
Chas didn’t really need to ask, but he was trying to buy some time. There was absolutely no mistaking the hand and finger imprints starkly outlined in the bruising there. His eyes drifted up, and again saw bruising around the little boy’s upper arms as though someone had grabbed him and spanked him—hard enough to leave marks.
* * * * *
Liam and Greer stood near the sculpture accepting congratulations both on his work and on their engagement. One person was noticeably absent—Julie. Liam’s phone vibrated in his pants pocket. He turned away and slipped it out so he could check caller ID. Their house phone.
“Chas is calling,” he whispered to Greer and slipped around the corner.
“What’s up?” he asked once the crowd noise had diminished somewhat.
“Liam, I need you two to come home right now. I was getting ready to give Wyatt a bath. Man, when he took off his clothes, his butt and his upper arms are covered in bruises. I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but I have to report what I’ve seen.”
Liam’s heart skipped a beat for a moment, then fury started pumping through his veins like acid. “Don’t wait for us to get there. I want you to call Greer’s dad. Get him over there right away to witness you talking to Wyatt and document the bruising.” He stopped, tears leaking from his eyes at the thought of what his son had been through. “Jesus. That bitch. She was here. I gotta go, man.”
“Liam!”
He hung up on Chas, sucking in several deep breaths, but they did little good. He needed to find Julie, find out just what the hell was going on. So help him God, he’d kill her. He felt a light touch on his arm and looked down. Greer stared at him, tears in her eyes along with a steady resolve that helped him calm.
“Chas called as soon as you disconnected. I’ve already told the museum curator we have an emergency and need to go.”
“Julie…”
“Is already gone.” She pressed her hands against his chest. “We need to go home. Wyatt needs us. The police will handle Julie, and you have to let them.”
His chest was tight and his throat even tighter. Liam closed his eyes and scrubbed the heels of his hands across them. He’d sat back, not pushing for fairer custody, and they’d hurt his son. He grabbed Greer’s arm.
“Let’s go.”
When they exited the museum, the curator had already ordered the BMW brought around. The valet started to hand him the keys, but Greer grabbed them.
“I’ll drive.”
* * * * *
“Chas?” Wyatt whispered, “You’re not going to spank me too, are you?”
He wheeled around, having just hung up the phone from talking to Greer’s father, who was even now on his way over along with his wife. Chas squatted and pulled Wyatt into his arms. He’d forgone the bath and simply put the boy in his pajamas.
“No, little man. I won’t spank you. You know you’re safe here, don’t you?”
Wyatt nodded. “I don’t need my bear here ‘cause you and Greer and Daddy are here.”
“Why don’t we go back downstairs to the den. We’re going to have some company—Greer’s mommy and daddy—and Greer and Daddy are coming home too.”
“Is it about my butt?”
Chas picked him up, cuddling him close. “Yes. It is. You know I’m a doctor, right?”
“Yeah, but you don’t give shots. Daddy says you fix people.”
“Well, when I see bruises like you have, I have to tell people.”
“Did you tell Greer’s daddy and mommy?”
“Yes.” Wyatt started to cry. “What’s wrong, buddy?”
The little boy was sobbing. “Why’d you tell on Greer? She didn’t do nothin’.”
Chas was horrified. “No, no, Wyatt. I didn’t tell like that. Greer’s daddy is a man who helps people too. He’s helping me, and he’s going to help you as well.”
“He is? How?”
“Well, he’s going to listen while we talk about what happened, and he might want to take some pictures.”
“Of my butt?”
Chas nodded. “Your arms too. Will that be okay?”
“I guess.”
“All right. Let’s just settle down on the couch. You wanna sit on my lap?”
“Yeah.” Wyatt clung to him, his thumb stuck in his mouth. Chas held him, stroking the little boy’s dark curls while he tamped the fury burning nearly as bright in him as he was sure it did in Liam. They would be here soon. Greer’s parents should be here even sooner since they were just a few minutes down the road.
* * * * *
Greer drove as if demons pursued them. Liam wasn’t the only one dealing with anger. If she’d realized when she talked to Julie earlier that Wyatt had actually been hurt, Greer wasn’t sure she could have stopped herself from belting her right in the face. Bitch. Still, as much as she hated the woman, she seriously doubted she would have left Wyatt with them knowing he had marks on him.
She was way too smart for that. In fact, the more Greer thought about Julie’s remarks about Greer’s scars, the more she started putting things together and coming up with conclusions that seemed so farfetched at the moment, she didn’t want to think about them.
Greer turned off the highway and hit the remote to open the gates on the driveway. She was relieved to see her father’s car already parked out front.
“Dad and Mom are here.”
Liam’s hands gripped his thighs. He’d barely spoken on the way home and she knew he wrestled trying to get his emotions under control. As she pulled up in front of the house and set the brake, she reached over and touched his hand. “Whatever you need to do, you know Chas and I will be with you all the way.”
He leaned over and kissed her. “Thank you. Greer, what do I say to him? I feel like this is all my fault.”
“No, Liam, no. We’ve never seen any indication of this before, nothing that would have stood out as being a major problem, so you can’t blame yourself. It’s important you don’t blame yourself. Wyatt needs all our support.”
Her mother opened the door to them. After a quick glance at Greer, she took Liam in her arms and hugged him. “Chas and George are in Chas’ study. George called a detective he knows as soon as he finished taking pictures.”
Greer gave Liam a push. “Go. Mom and I will wait for the police.”
Liam hurried toward the study, his hands dug deep in his pants pockets. Greer had no doubt it was to hide how much he was still shaking from a mixture of fury and worry. As soon as he’d disappeared around the corner, Greer hugged her mother.
“Thank you for coming. Chas was so upset over the phone…and Liam. Oh, Momma, he cried. He’s already said a couple of times it’s his fault, but we had no reason to suspect anything like this. I mean, it was obvious Julie wasn’t paying as much attention to him as she should…”
“So you don’t think she’s the one responsible?”
Greer shook her head. “No. Had she done this, she would never have dumped Wyatt on us at the last minute today.” Greer frowned. “There’s something else just not right about this whole situation, and once we get everything squared away with Wyatt, I want to talk to Chas.”
“What’s going on?”
“This is going to sound really stupid, but I think his situation at the hospital is connected to Julie Carle.”
Chapter Seventeen
Liam knocked on the door, his heart pounding in a matching rhythm. At the muffled command to come in, he opened the door to see Chas sitting in the big leather swivel chair behind his desk, Wyatt curled up against him, and George Davidson sitting on the other side, a tape recorder next to him. Liam inhaled and forced a smile to his face.
“Hey, Wyatt.”
“Daddy!” His son scrambled from Chas’ lap and threw his arms around Liam’s thigh. He bent and plucked him up for a long hug. Once again, his throat tightened and he had to clear it before he spoke.
�
��Are you okay?”
“Uh-huh. Do you know Grandpa George?”
“I sure do.” He glanced at George who gave him an imperceptible nod. Looking back to his son, he said, “I know you’ve probably already talked to Chas, but can you tell me how you got the bruises on your butt?”
“I was bad. Louisa told me. She said to take a nap, but I wasn’t tired.”
“So what happened?”
“She spanked me. I told her it hurt, but she kept doin’ it.”
“Then what happened?”
“She locked me in my room.”
“Did you tell Mommy?” Liam had to ask. Wyatt shook his head. “Why not, baby?”
“She gets mad. She said she’d take Teddy.”
God damn her. Liam hugged his son again, then set him down. “Greer’s outside. Why don’t you see if she’ll get you a snack while Grandpa George, Chas and I talk?”
“Okay.”
When the door had shut and Liam was sure his son was out of earshot, he let loose with a string of curses and smacked his palm against the thick wood of the door frame. “That bitch!” He turned toward George. “I want to see the pictures. I need to see them before I actually see the bruises on Wyatt. I need to be able to control my reaction.”
Chas stood, put his hand on Liam’s shoulder, and hugged him. Liam sat in Chas’ chair while George turned his laptop around.
“The bruising is confined to his upper arms and his bottom,” George said as he clicked the first image. Liam swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. “What he tells us and what we see are entirely consistent.”
Liam swiveled his gaze to George. “Is it enough to get custody?”
George smiled. “Oh yes.”
Lizzy stuck her head in the door. “The police are here. Shall I show them in?”
“Where’re Greer and Wyatt?”
“She’s getting him a snack in the kitchen, but they’ll be right back. I already let her know.”
“Why don’t we go to the kitchen? It will be too crowded in here.”
The next couple of hours passed in a blur of statements and more pictures. Liam glanced over at Greer and Wyatt. Both of them were wilting. He looked at the detective and the woman from Child Protective Services.
“I understand Wyatt’s placement will have to be made official through the courts, but since his mother voluntarily dropped him off to stay here for the weekend, would it be all right if Greer takes him upstairs? In fact, if you have what you need from her, I’m sure Greer would like to stay with him until she’s sure he’s sleeping all right.”
The woman nodded. “That would be fine.”
Greer smiled at them and left with Wyatt cradled in her arms. Her mother followed. Liam was grateful. He expelled his breath on a heavy sigh and rubbed the back of his neck. “Julie is supposed to pick him up tomorrow afternoon. I think it goes without saying I don’t want that to happen.”
“We have a judge on call who can hear this. I don’t anticipate a problem in getting an emergency child protective order issued.”
George spoke. “And can we get some assurance that order will include the recommendation that the child stay with Mr. Carle? Because of Wyatt’s age at the time of their divorce, the court granted primary custody to Mrs. Carle with unsupervised visitation a minimum of one weekend a month. However, according to my clients, Julie Carle has used that to her advantage and not in the best interests of the child.”
“I see no reason why Wyatt should be removed from Mr. Carle’s custody. It’s obvious he feels happy and secure here. Mr. Carle works from the home and employs a live-in housekeeper and nanny, so the child is well supervised.” She glanced at Chas. “Dr. Lynch also resides here and shares in Wyatt’s care.” She paused and smiled. “A biological parent, a nanny and a doctor all on site? It should be a no-brainer.”
Liam cleared his throat. “I want everything to be above board because I know—at least I anticipate—what my ex-wife’s reaction will be.”
“Liam,” George said, “there’s no need to add anything else.”
“Thanks, but I will anyway. Greer is my fiancée, so technically she’s quite a bit more than simply our employee. But the other thing you should know is Dr. Lynch is our domestic partner as well.”
The woman’s eyes widened slightly. “My job isn’t to make any kind of moral judgments as long as you’re providing a safe, secure home for the child. That’s what I see, so that will be my recommendation.”
Chas and Liam both smiled. They wrapped things up fairly quickly, the police leaving with copies of the photographs, and the medical examination signed off on by Chas, though he had recommended taking Wyatt in to his own doctor to have him give a second opinion. Once the detective and the social worker left, Liam raised his face to Chas and George.
“Thank you. If it hadn’t been for the two of you and Greer, I’m afraid I might have hunted Julie down and really gotten myself in trouble. It doesn’t matter one bit to me that she’s probably not who actually hit him—her neglect of him resulted in this.”
Chas put his hand on his arm. “Chill, Liam. This will be done legally and locked tight.”
George tapped his finger on his tape recorder. “It would be difficult to make an abuse charge stick against her since she didn’t actually inflict the injuries, but I see no way she can avoid a charge of neglect. Either way, we’ll go back to court with the evidence we have and revisit the whole custody issue. I am extremely confident we can get you sole custody. If Julie’s granted any visitation at all, it should be supervised and only take place here. We’ll ask for sole custody and no visitation and hope we can settle on supervised.”
He gathered his notes and laptop together and put everything back in its case. “If you gentlemen don’t mind, I’d like to peek in on my future grandson, then Lizzy and I are going to head home. It’s late.”
Liam and Chas both stood. Liam put his hand out. George grinned at him, ignored the hand and pulled him into a backslapping hug. “I can’t tell you how proud I am to be able to call you both sons.”
It had been a long night. Chas was relieved to finally shut the door so it was just the three of them with Wyatt safely and soundly sleep upstairs in his room. As if they were all of the same accord, Liam began turning off the lights downstairs. Chas checked to make sure the doors were locked and the alarm system on. They had sometimes been casual about that in the past, but not anymore. He didn’t trust Julie any more than Liam did. Greer had gone upstairs to check in on Wyatt one more time.
Chas waited at the bottom of the steps for Liam. In the moonlight flooding the hall, he saw him walking toward him, still dressed in his tux, though his tie had long since been shoved in his coat pocket. They needed no words. Chas wrapped him in his arms and they simply leaned into each other. After just a second, he felt Liam’s shoulders shake.
“It’s okay, man,” Chas whispered. “Get it out. Now everyone’s gone, just let it out, Liam.” He tightened his hold, clasping one hand on the back of Liam’s head. “It’s just you and me.”
Chas knew what Liam was feeling. He’d felt it several times himself; today just topped off the times since Samantha Marlowe’s accusations.
“We’re gonna get through this and we’re gonna be okay.” He put his arm around Liam’s waist and guided him up the steps.
Showing she understood them both, Greer had turned down the bed, lighted candles in the bedroom and had soft music playing. When they stepped through the door, she stood in the bathroom doorway, still in her dress, though her shoes and stockings were gone.
“I’ve run a bath for us.” She reached behind her and lowered the zipper on her dress before slowly peeling it off each shoulder. The body-hugging material slithered down, revealing her breasts with their already puckered nipples. It pooled at her feet and she stood in front of them clad in just the barest scrap of black lace.
Chas stepped to the side, arms across his chest as he watched her saunter over to Liam, who seemed rooted
in place. Standing on tiptoe, she pressed a soft kiss to his lips and whispered in his ear.
“Above everything else,” she murmured, “remember, we love you.”
Chas watched her seduce Liam, the slow movements of her hands as she guided off his coat, unbuttoned his vest, and removed the studs from his shirt. After tugging his shirt tails from his pants, she pressed soft kisses down the strip of skin now visible to her until she knelt in front of him, her full lips just a breath away from the ridge of flesh still hiding behind the finely woven wool of his slacks.
She tilted her head back, her lips parting, and Liam wasn’t the only one to groan. Chas rubbed his hand over the front of his jeans, his cock begging for release. Her fingers released the snap and ticked the zipper open tooth by tooth. Parting the front of Liam’s pants, she nuzzled him, hands sliding around for an instant to cup his ass.
Unable to stand it any longer, Chas stepped behind Liam and drew the shirt and vest off his shoulders at the same time, bending his head to lick the back of his neck. From the corner of his eye, he watched Greer remove Liam’s shoes and socks then tug his slacks down. He stepped out of them automatically, his breathing accelerating.
“That’s it, Liam,” Chas whispered. “Let us show you, let us love you.”
He slid his hands around his waist, hooking them in his boxers before slowly inching them until Liam’s cock sprang free, the head already glistening with his juices. Greer ran her tongue along his thigh, tilted her head to suck his testicles one by one, then kissed along his twitching shaft.
“Do it,” Chas told her. “Swallow him and let him fuck your face while I undress.”
Christ it was hot watching her do him, watching the way Liam’s fingers curled in her hair, holding her in place while his buttocks tightened and released with the slow, controlled movements of his hips. Chas ripped his T-shirt over his head and kicked out of his jeans. With no underwear on, his cock thrust forward. He wrapped his hand around it, stroking as he watched Liam and Greer.