For Joy's Sake

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Since the family van was still parked in their driveway.

  “With luck, they might find some evidence of her having been at least partially dragged, now that they know she was.”

  “I know they’re looking for a ponytail holder,” Julie said. “Apparently she always wore her hair in a ponytail. Maybe, if he was pulling her by that, it came loose.”

  Julie didn’t know if Edward had heard the news in the same way she had—she’d gotten it from Lila just before she left—but her understanding was that the police were more worried than ever that Cara Amos was in immediate danger.

  And that she could already be dead.

  “Mary Amos took a turn for the worse this afternoon, too,” Julie continued. Edward would be telling him this when they spoke. Better that Hunter be prepared to lighten the other man’s load.

  “I thought they were going to start bringing her out of the medically induced coma?”

  “They were. They did. It didn’t go well and they had to put her back in the coma.”

  She didn’t know the particulars. Neither did Edward. They weren’t Mary’s relatives.

  “How are you doing?” Her feet hit the ground at his question. A personal question. Out of the blue like that.

  “I’m fine.” She gave her rote answer. One she did so well, had been giving for so many years, she could probably do it on her deathbed. “How about you?”

  It was polite to ask. And it took the pressure off her. Also a rote response.

  “I’m... Have a drink with me.”

  Not that again.

  “Hunter...”

  “Just a glass of wine. You and Edward and Lila, you all had a chance to debrief. And you all have way more experience with this kind of thing than I do. Edward’s not directly involved with domestic violence situations, but as a doctor I’m sure he’s seen his share.”

  Was he working her? She thought so. But there was truth in what he said, too.

  Of course that was what made manipulation so successful. The grains of truth that were embedded in what was invented, the put-on. Or truth that was twisted until the meaning changed and it was only truth in disguise. She’d been worked by masters—not only Smyth Jr., but his father and his father’s rich and powerful cronies, who all insisted that the sex had been consensual. They’d shut her and Colin down fast.

  “I don’t drink and drive.” She finally said the one thing that came to mind while she tried to sort through the myriad thoughts and feelings arguing inside her.

  Another upsetting occurrence. Generally Julie was at peace with herself. She knew who she was. She knew what she wanted to do with her life. And she knew her limitations.

  “I didn’t ask to be involved in all this,” Hunter went on, as though he hadn’t heard her. “I’m not complaining. I want to do anything I can to help. But like I said before, I’m in way over my head. All I’m asking for is a little time.”

  She recognized truth in his words. She didn’t think it was disguised. But there was no way to be sure. “I don’t drink and drive,” she repeated.

  “I can pick you up.”

  She wasn’t going to ride alone in a car with him at night. She was rational enough to understand that she had nothing to fear from him. And yet...she was also injured enough to know she’d be quivering inside if she got in a car with him. “I...” Before she could form whatever refusal she’d been about to come up with, he interrupted her.

  “I called Edward first. I’d have taken him for a beer. He’s not available.”

  He wasn’t hitting on her, she decided. He really just wanted a drink. A chance to debrief and to unwind from the day’s events.

  Hunter didn’t have a studio to escape to. Or an Amy.

  He didn’t have years’ worth of experience in dealing with emotional trauma.

  He was helping them save the little girl from the demons inside her. Helping her to help them find her mother.

  If Joy could climb trees and talk about her terror, surely Julie could get in an Escalade and ride a mile to the closest beach bar...

  “How far away are you?”

  “I’m actually parked outside, on the street, in front of your drive.”

  He was outside? Hand to her throat, she thought about him sitting there in his car. So close. Her heart was pounding, but, strangely, not with alarm. Not yet.

  If she wasn’t mistaken, she might even be feeling some anticipation. She couldn’t remember a time she’d been excited about something. Really, truly excited.

  Well, she could. But not in the past ten years.

  Not that excited was the right word. How could it be when what he needed was to discuss the day’s trauma. But the anticipation, the first step to unbridled excitement—it had been so long since she’d felt it.

  She didn’t want to get in his car and lose that feeling.

  And yet, she owed it to Hunter to see him. Or owed it to Joy.

  Okay, she wanted to see him.

  But she didn’t want to be completely alone with him.

  Colin and Chantel were downstairs. In the TV room with the door closed for the best surround-sound effects. But still there.

  “How about if we just have a drink here?” she asked him before she could change her mind. “I can open a bottle of wine, and we can sit out by the pool.” It was a little breezy. “We have a gas fireplace out there.”

  She crossed over to the door that led to the bathroom in her suite. Frowned at her hair. Her lack of makeup. What she’d applied that morning had, of course, worn off.

  The T-shirt and jeans she’d worn all day.

  She wanted to look better for him. There wasn’t time.

  “You’re on,” he said. Through her upstairs window she saw his lights turn into their drive.

  She wasn’t going to make more of his visit than there was. Hunter was not a relationship type of guy. She had nothing to fear.

  Energized, she hurried downstairs before he could ring the bell. The last thing she needed was her big brother making a big deal out of a little glass of wine.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  HUNTER HAD JUST turned off the Escalade’s engine in the driveway round in front of a set of massive front doors when his phone vibrated, signaling a text.

  Hey, hot guy, you standing me up?

  Mandy.

  He’d forgotten to text her. Had forgotten that he’d planned to tell her yes, he’d be her date. As soon as he’d said his goodbyes to the last guest off the yacht, he’d phoned Edward. Who hadn’t answered...

  Shooting off a quick Sorry, sexy, tied up with business tonight. Rain check OK? he put his phone away, telling himself he’d call her as soon as he was done with his glass of wine. If it wasn’t too late, maybe he could still catch up with her.

  One glance at Julie, looking almost fragile as she stood framed by the huge doors of the family mansion, and he knew a glass of wine wasn’t going to be enough.

  He wasn’t sure what would be. He just knew he needed to find it.

  Fast.

  He would’ve liked to see more of her home, thinking maybe he’d get some kind of clue to the mystery that seemed to surround her—whatever it was that wouldn’t let go of him—but she whisked him through a foyer and outside before he’d done more than notice that she hadn’t changed her clothes from that morning.

  Even in jeans and a T-shirt, she looked like she belonged in her elegant surroundings. She also looked like they were swallowing her up.

  Which made no sense at all.

  He must be more tired than he’d thought.

  “Red or white?” She’d shown him to a table out by an impressive, even by Santa Raquel standards, swimming pool. Right beside the table was the fireplace she’d mentioned.

  She’d failed to
say it was a piece of art sculpted out of a combination of marble and river rock.

  She was currently standing under an awning that housed an outdoor kitchen more lavish than his indoor one, looking into a refrigerator.

  He wasn’t really a big wine drinker. “White,” he said, because that was what she’d ordered at his function the previous night. He could tolerate either.

  She uncorked the bottle like a pro, but he thought her hand was shaking as she poured, which was why he watched her hands when she set his glass in front of him.

  Definitely a tremor there.

  So she was feeling something, too.

  Thinking that maybe together they could figure it out and get rid of whatever it was, he raised his eyes to hers.

  She met his look. Unflinching.

  Her silent communication was about as personal as a tax collector’s.

  Until he held up his glass for a toast. She blinked then. And there might have been a hint of more than he was supposed to see in those blue eyes. The dim lighting—track lighting around the pool and patio area—made it a little hard to tell.

  “To us,” he said, more out of habit than anything else.

  At work, he toasted to success. Out with friends it was always “To us.” Simple. Nonthreatening. No need to get inventive.

  “To finding Cara quickly, alive and well,” she said. “And to Joy. She has no idea how much rests on her shoulders right now, and I hope she doesn’t find out anytime soon.”

  He preferred “To us.” But toasted anyway. He needed a sip of the wine.

  “So, what did Sara say about Joy? Is she discouraged that Joy quit talking?” He’d said he was there to unwind. Might as well do it.

  If it would keep Julie sitting there next to him, alone with him and the fire and the pool and the wine...

  “Not at all.” Julie’s words surprised him. Pleased him quite a bit, too.

  He didn’t have any personal investment with the little girl, but a guy would have to be a real ass not to care.

  “She compared the situation to a clogged ketchup bottle. Said that once you’ve let in some air and punctured the clog, a little bit of ketchup starts to come through, and with that air hole, it’s only a matter of time before more ketchup pushes through and opens the hole even wider.”

  “Unless too much comes out at once and clogs it back up again.” He might not know emotional trauma, but he knew his ketchup.

  And remembered a few things from his psychology courses, too.

  “Exactly. That’s why, even with Cara’s life possibly at stake, we can’t pressure her. The hope is that sometime within the next twenty-four hours, she’ll have a complete breakthrough.”

  “I’m guessing that might come in the form of a breakdown,” he told her.

  “Which is why Sara’s sleeping at the Stand tonight.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t stay.”

  Her shrug wasn’t nonchalant, but he had a sense that she’d wanted it to be.

  “Lila told me to go home,” she said. “They want me back there first thing in the morning, but I’m not Joy’s caregiver. We can’t have her relying only on me.” She took a sip of wine. And then another. “If, as a therapeutic artist, a friend, I can help her open up, then that’s what I need to do, but there have to be boundaries.” Her voice didn’t quaver.

  “You’re okay with that.”

  Her shocked look told him a lot—and unsettled him, too. “Of course.”

  “But it’s obvious how much you care for her. Not just as a professional. You’re giving your heart to that little girl.”

  “I’m not a professional.”

  That wasn’t his point.

  “So how do you give your heart and not have a problem with being turned away during what could be one of the most critical nights of Joy’s life?”

  Her second shrug didn’t do any better than the first. She shook her head. “Life isn’t always easy, Hunter. You do what you have to do. You’re right, I’m not Joy’s caregiver. It would be cruel to let her depend on me alone, to have only me saving her from her demons, and then have me desert her. The boundaries are for her sake. Not mine. She needs them. How could I possibly care for her and not do whatever I can?” Sinking a bit lower in his chair, he raised a hand to his chin, watching her. She was a complete dichotomy. Living in a protective bubble—and yet strong as steel. Refusing him so much as a pity date, and willing to sacrifice her own feelings, to expose her heart to pain, in order to do what was best for a little girl.

  Fascinating.

  Intriguing.

  He dropped his hand and took another sip of wine.

  * * *

  “YOU DID GREAT TODAY.” Julie’s voice had changed. It was warm, filled with compassion, as she looked over at him. Their glasses were more than half-empty. But he was nowhere near ready to leave.

  “I didn’t do anything,” he told her. He most certainly didn’t need to waste time talking about himself. “I walked and whistled and played with my food. You...you knew just what to say to reach her.”

  He wasn’t a counselor. Nor did he consider himself any good at the emotional stuff; a lifetime of heading in the other direction when emotions got tough was proof of his abilities on that score. But he’d studied psychology. He could discern when someone was good at it.

  “You read her, Hunter. Like you were in her heart. You seemed to know every single time her emotions were reaching a critical level, and you defused it. Every time. Without that, nothing I said would’ve done any good.”

  She was making too much of his contribution. Clearly. But it felt so good to have her praising him that he didn’t argue.

  Damn pathetic party-thrower. That was how he saw himself. How he was comfortable seeing himself. It left little room for expectations that couldn’t be met. Let him off the hook.

  Not feeling all that fond of himself he tried a different direction. “You said you attended UCLA. You have a degree?”

  There. A nice, first-date question. Or a going-out-to-dinner-to-figure-you-out kind of question.

  “Yes.” She sipped wine. Looked into her glass.

  Almost...shyly?

  “In what?” His easy tone came naturally. Putting people at ease was what he was good at, after all.

  “Art and finance, with a minor in child development.”

  “A double major and a minor?” He wasn’t surprised. Impressed. But not surprised.

  “Art was a given. With only my brother and me left, it was imperative that I understand finance.”

  “And child development?”

  A shadow passed over her face. Not literally. He saw it all the same.

  “I like kids.”

  He didn’t doubt the truth of her answer, but knew there was more. It was always like that with her. She gave you what you asked for, but withheld so much.

  Somehow he had to figure out what that “more” was, so he could ask for it and be done.

  “What about you?” She turned the table on him. Again. Julie might be a mystery in many ways, but in this, her social skills, she was a member of the trained elite.

  “I went to Southern Cal.”

  “Did you graduate?”

  The question insulted him. Which made no sense at all. Even friends from high school asked it. People who knew him. He wasn’t the college grad type.

  “Yes.”

  “What was your major?”

  He grabbed the bottle of wine without asking. Topped off a glass that should be emptied and done. For both of them. She could have stopped him; she didn’t.

  “Psychology.”

  “You have a degree in psychology.”

  “I know, right?” He didn’t even try to pretend offense at that one. “How someone can study en
ough of the subject to get a degree in it and still treat life like one big party must be hard to fathom. Believe me, I’ve had this conversation more than once.” Usually while drinking.

  Alone. The only time he really ever let himself look too deeply into his own psyche.

  Not that he was going to share that point. With anyone.

  “No, Hunter.” She put down her glass. “It makes total sense.”

  He scoffed. He might not have illusions about himself, but neither did he need or want her pity. A pity date, maybe. But...

  “It does not make sense,” he asserted with more firmness than he normally used. “If a moment gets even a hint of emotional drama, I stick my finger up my nose.” Okay, that was an exaggeration. But not much of one. If breakfast had gone on much longer that morning, he might have resorted to the tactic. “And to be clear, it’s only a BS degree—take that for the acronym if you choose—which makes it particularly useless. You can’t do anything in psychology with only a bachelor’s degree.”

  “You have a gift, Hunter. I think I’ve already mentioned that. You sense emotional trauma and ease it enough for the person experiencing it to gain control.”

  He wasn’t open to this discussion. But Hunter wasn’t ready to leave, either. He had almost a full glass of wine to finish. So he let her think what she wanted to think.

  As long as it kept her sitting there.

  Letting him sit there with her.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  HUNTER RAFFERTY OBVIOUSLY didn’t think highly of himself. Sitting outside in her backyard, in an atmosphere meant for entertaining—and one in which she hadn’t entertained since high school—Julie sipped wine.

  And took it all in. Without discomfort.

  In fact, she was enjoying herself.

  Not because her companion didn’t see his worth, or even that she did, but because he was...genuine. Charming, yes. But genuine. At least, at this moment.

  Unless...

  She waited for the doubts. They didn’t come.