A Family for Christmas

by Tara Taylor Quinn

Heart pounding, Cara raised her head. How much longer was she going to be able to resist him? Resist leaning on him?

  It wasn’t right.

  Needing anyone wasn’t right. Not now. She’d lost her chance to get help. She’d lived too long. Gone too far.

  Oh, God.

  The closer Simon came, the more Cara felt herself weakening. Succumbing to panic. Not the screaming kind. The kind where she needed comfort so badly she’d give in to its offer.

  Shawn had been the only one she’d ever turned to before...

  “Cara.” Simon was almost upon her, compassion in his tone.

  She knew it was wrong...

  Having feelings for a man when she couldn’t even believe in the one thing that mattered most to him. When she was just like all the rest of the people who’d let him down.

  Could she hate herself any more?

  She’d been given a chance to build some good Karma. Maybe even earn herself a place with Mom. Maybe there she’d get to be with Joy again...

  And she was going to blow it because...

  Shawn had always told her she was weak. He’d proven it to her again and again and again. Every time he hit her and she stayed. Every time she kissed him.

  Every time she’d cried on his shoulder.

  In the end, he’d been more right than probably even he knew. She’d done the unthinkable.

  And then, when he’d stood by her, as he’d always promised he would, she’d even lied to him—just so she didn’t have to feel any more of his pain.

  The log gave slightly as Simon sat down a foot away from her. She saw his tennis shoes, his jeans-clad legs. Wondered if he’d put on his denim jacket over the flannel shirt he’d had on all day.

  She’d come outside without her hoodie.

  “Here.”

  He handed her his jacket.

  Staring at the garment, Cara was more frightened than ever. Was Karma telling her she could trust this man? That she was allowed to need him?

  Had he read her mind? Because their paths were somehow connected?

  Was she reading far more into his gesture than was there? Like she’d thought her father was having an affair because a seminar ran overtime?

  Because she was shivering, she took the jacket. Waited for Simon to start grilling her again.

  And waited some more.

  He just sat there, not even moving.

  Minutes passed. And more minutes.

  Cara glanced over at him. Had he fallen asleep? Sitting up?

  He was looking out toward the yard. Just sitting there, as though he had all night with nothing else to do.

  Partially true, of course. But reading or watching a movie would be preferable to just sitting out there in the dark.

  She thought about going in, pretty sure that he’d follow her. Considered what movie they might watch. What book she might read when she excused herself for the night.

  The walls of the cabin seemed to close in on her at those thoughts.

  Everything was closing in on her.

  Thoughts, like an avalanche, getting louder. Blasting over the night’s quiet hum.

  When she could stand it no more, Cara opened her mouth.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “WHEN I WAS fifteen my mom was diagnosed with kidney disease.”

  Simon didn’t move as Cara’s words filled the night air.

  He’d taken a gamble, coming out to sit with her. For such a strong woman, she was fragile when it came to accepting help.

  She named the disease, pronouncing the medical term perfectly. He wasn’t all that familiar with it, but knew that it had to do with a body’s rejection of its own kidneys. Killing healthy kidneys. And eventually taking its toll on other organs.

  There was no cure, no known cause. It wasn’t genetic, was a slow killer. And, from what he knew, had the potential to be incredibly painful.

  “We knew she was going to die.”

  Cara’s voice had changed. Almost like she was a girl of fifteen again.

  “You were close?”

  He’d told himself before he’d come out that he’d ask absolutely no questions. He’d be there if she needed him, but he wasn’t to engage otherwise.

  “Yes.”

  He was pretty sure she’d nodded. He wasn’t looking.

  “I was an only child,” she said then. “Mom and I... We did everything together. She’d do laundry on Mondays and Fridays, and when I came home from school, I’d put it all away. Thursday was grocery shopping. She’d be waiting for me when I got home and off we’d go...”

  The lightness in her tone made it hard for him to swallow.

  “She wanted me to join Girl Scouts, to dance, or do gymnastics, to join a club at school, but I didn’t want to. I really just wanted to be with her. She played games with me. She’d been reading to me since I was born and I loved to sit while she was sewing, or doing Dad’s books on the computer, and just read...”

  Dad’s books. Confirmation that there’d been a father in the picture.

  Cara’s voice drifted off, leaving him there with her, as a little girl, sitting in her mother’s study as she read.

  “She taught me to cook.” A full minute had passed. He wondered where she’d been. “But she didn’t just have me watch her, she showed me how and let me try. By the time I was ten I had dinner jobs—salad and dessert. I got to pick the dessert.”

  It sounded like she was smiling. Simon was thankful for the night air cooling his hot skin. For the hard branch beneath his thighs, keeping him from sliding closer.

  “I now know why I always wanted to be home with her...”

  He almost asked...

  “It was Karma’s way of giving me every minute I could get.”

  The pain in those few words had him squeezing the log with his fingers. He could feel how badly she hurt. Couldn’t imagine how she’d survived such a loss at a time in her life when a young woman needed her mother most.

  His idea of a karma that would let her get so close to her mother only to strip her away was not nearly as kind as Cara’s.

  And to go from that to a man who beat her...

  Yet...she’d done as her mother had done. Married and kept her husband’s books. Was it that that had kept her with Shawn so long?

  Had her mother also stayed and endured a husband’s violent bouts of anger?

  “And then a doctor... He just wouldn’t give up. It was like he thought he was God or something. He talked her into a transplant. Of course the disease ate that kidney, just like it ate her own two healthy ones. She was back on dialysis for a while, and we knew it was only a matter of time until one or another of her other organs shut down on her, too. Her access got infected. Every time she went in for another procedure she came home weaker. She was in so much pain, but wouldn’t take meds because she didn’t want to lose any of the time we had left together...”

  With a sick feeling in his gut, he was getting it. Knew why she didn’t like doctors. Terminal care was never an easy thing. Not ever. Did you try everything that was medically possible? Live in and out of hospitals in the hope that you could beat the disease? Or, at the very least, prolong the patient’s life? Or did you accept fate and ensure as much good-quality living as you could? These types of questions were the part of Simon’s job that he didn’t miss. The part that he hated, in fact.

  Cara had fallen silent, and he wasn’t sorry. The glimpse she’d given him—the things that had led up to her decision to marry Shawn, perhaps even driven her to marry him—filled him with the same kind of pain he’d known during his time with Opus.

  Sometimes, even though you did all you humanly could, it wasn’t enough. He’d yet to figure out how to live with that. So could hardly help her do so.

  “Th
en there was a second transplant.” Cara’s voice had taken on a note of bitterness. “The doctor had referred her to someone else, though, of course, he was right in the thick of all of it. He convinced Mom that this new guy had a procedure, something about tissue and organ transplants...by that time, I knew it was all just more pain for Mom. There was no cure. But Mom...she just kept agreeing. She’d go off to the hospital, and when she got home, always weaker than before, in more pain, I would take care of her.”

  “What about your father?” The fact that he was breaking his promise to himself to not ask questions didn’t stop him from doing so.

  “Working, of course. It’s all he ever did. Some days he’d be gone before I got up in the morning and wouldn’t be home until after I’d gone to bed at night.”

  He needed her to stop. For her sake. He couldn’t take this pain away. “So...your mom...she never got to see him, either.” He was looking for a bright spot. If the man had hit his wife, then at least her last months hadn’t been spent dealing with that, right?

  And even though her mother’s care had fallen solely on Cara, at least she also hadn’t had to deal with bouts of violence—predictable though it may have been.

  “Yeah, Mom saw him. He changed his hours and traded shifts so he could be home with her while I was at school.”

  Simon tried to fit that piece of information with the rest of the scenario he was building. Figured that every bad guy had some good qualities. But wasn’t sure that the explanation worked with where he was going with everything.

  But then, from what he understood, abusers often truly loved their victims, too. Which was one reason victims went back...

  “The second transplant failed more quickly than the first one. We didn’t even get to have a hope celebration. You know, where we celebrated because we got a good report...”

  A hope celebration. He’d never heard it put quite that way. A hope celebration. Only a close family would bother with such a thing...

  “Then it was dialysis again, but by then, with two rejections, and the disease eating away at her, her other organs just started to collapse.”

  He knew that score. Too well. Professionally and personally.

  “But the doctor... Do you think he just let her be as comfortable as possible for her remaining days? Let us have some movie and craft days...or just movie days?”

  Simon was guessing not. And knew enough, from a medical perspective, to realize that her mom and dad had to have been involved in the choices for her mom’s care. A doctor gave choices, he didn’t make them.

  The doctor had been giving them hope.

  Simon got that. Had given it so many times. Had needed it for himself recently.

  Unless... Could the guy have been putting this family through so much in an attempt to make more money?

  His skin crawled. There were those in his profession who...

  “Of course he didn’t,” Cara said a few seconds later. “He just kept talking about new procedures, new machines, new medications...right up until the day she died. She’d just been telling me, the night that she died, that if the new medication worked, she’d be able to last until some new dialysis thing was approved...”

  The things people suffered, the lessons life taught them, framed their perceptions. Cara didn’t believe in giving false hope in medical situations. Adamantly didn’t believe. To her core.

  Having her around him...not believing he’d see again...shedding doubts on him even if she didn’t voice them...

  And yet...this moment wasn’t about him at all.

  “She was in so much pain, had lost quality of life due to that pain and...”

  She broke off again. He needed to hold her. There were times a doctor could put his arm around a patient or a member of the patient’s family. To offer comfort.

  When it came to human suffering, sometimes boundaries had to be a little fluid.

  “This doctor...” He had to know this part. Had to know if the man had profited unduly, at a family’s expense. If he’d been prosecuted. “Who was he?”

  “My father.”

  Santa Raquel, California

  LILA WAS STILL with Edward—out of bed, but just barely, when her cell phone rang. Hating herself for spending the night with him, even while reliving the most incredible experience she’d ever known, she was trying to get into her suit before he came out of the bathroom.

  She’d only ever had one lover before him. Her high school sweetheart. Had no idea of the protocol for the morning after a one-night stand—most particularly one that had been so...satisfying.

  Her cheeks burned when she thought of the things she’d let Edward do to her. The things he’d shown her how to do for him.

  Legs in her pants, she shimmied over to grab up her phone.

  Chantel.

  Lila’s heart was pumping hard for an entirely different reason as she answered, holding the phone between her shoulder and her ear so she could finish getting dressed.

  The detective wouldn’t be calling her at seven on a Saturday morning unless there was an emergency.

  “Lila? I’m sorry to bother you so early, but I was gone yesterday and...”

  “What is it?” Who is it? Her mind ran over their most recent resident releases—women who were still so vulnerable.

  “Shawn Amos. His attorney argued him out of jail yesterday afternoon.”

  “He’s free.” She could feel her face whitening, thoughts of Joy foremost in her mind.

  “Since yesterday afternoon. The prosecutor just didn’t have enough to keep him locked up. He’s not dropping the charges, but we’re going to have to find more evidence before this goes to court...”

  Edward came out of the bathroom, wearing a robe. She was in his room. His things were all around her. He was everywhere. She hurt for him so much she lost track of her thoughts for a vital couple of seconds.

  Joy.

  “I’ve already got a car on its way to the Stand,” Chantel was saying. “I called security there first, made certain that Joy’s in her cabin and the shelter has had no breaches.”

  Thank God.

  That this would happen while she’d been...

  She couldn’t think about what she’d been doing.

  She’d known it was wrong.

  What? Who is it? Edward mouthed the words to her, holding his hand up to his ear as though holding a phone. As he raised his arm, his robe opened a notch.

  She turned her back on him.

  She couldn’t care about him—other than as a family member of a very young resident. Absolutely could not give her heart to him.

  For his sake—not her own.

  Even now. Her youngest resident was at risk and she’d been off in a hotel room seeking her own physical pleasure rather than at the Stand, keeping her safe...

  Telling Chantel that she’d be there soon, she rang off, her mind racing. She had to figure out what to say to Edward, Joy’s grandfather. He’d need advice. A plan.

  It was her job to have one for him.

  And there she stood, practically with her pants down, completely unprepared...

  She shouldn’t be here.

  “Shawn’s out on bail.” Not the least bit professional. Most particularly the part where she was upset by the news. Shaken by it.

  His movements deliberate, he discarded his robe, reaching for a drawer. “I’m going with you.”

  Lila looked away, walked to the window, staring out at the ocean as he dressed.

  “There’s not enough evidence that Shawn killed Mary. With only Joy’s testimony...and Cara still missing...”

  “He’ll know Joy can testify against him. If things happened as she says they did.” He was much more calm than she was. Lila’s thoughts settled.

  “We can’t let her off
the grounds at the Stand,” she said, finding herself somewhere in the muck she’d created. “I’ll appoint round-the-clock security to her. Chantel has a car in the area, keeping a watch out.”

  She stiffened as his hands settled on her shoulders. She hadn’t heard his approach. Turning, she saw that he’d already donned a suit and tie. She looked him straight in the eye.

  “This was a mistake, Edward. It can’t happen again.”

  He nodded. “We can talk later, if you’d like. Right now, I’m in your hands. Tell me what to do. How I can help. I’ve got money. Do we need to hire another private investigator?”

  She hadn’t known he’d hired one.

  It stung, the ease with which he shifted the topic away from the two of them. But he was absolutely right to do so.

  “Let’s get to my office,” she said, all business now. “Chantel’s meeting us there. I’ll call Sara on the way in and have her be there, too.”

  “I’ll call Hunter.”

  She expected him to let her go ahead of him, to grab his keys and leave himself. Edward surprised her with a tender kiss on the lips first.

  Then he let her go.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Prospector, Nevada

  ALMOST TWO WEEKS had passed since Cara told him about her parents. The first couple of days after that she’d hardly talked at all. And since then...their conversation had been easy, comfortable. Personal even—movies, books, general opinions.

  They stayed completely away from anything emotional or relating to beliefs.

  He had no idea how long it had been since she was in touch with her father. If the man knew about Shawn. He could even be looking for Cara. The couple of times he’d tried to bring up the topic of her father, she’d shut down on him—except to say that he wouldn’t be looking for her.

  But he knew now that her favorite color was purple. She didn’t like peas. Her lucky number was eight. She loved dogs—had cried when Shawn made her get rid of the one a client had given her—but had understood that, with all of the hours they were gone, it wasn’t fair for her to keep the pet. The dog would have spent more than half his life in a cage.