Carolina Man

by Virginia Kantra

  Ernie Simpson listened to the judge’s ruling with a blank face, as if he didn’t yet understand. But Jolene did. Taylor’s grandmother collapsed like punched dough, her face falling in toward the dark hole of her mouth, her protruding eyes swimming with tears.

  Kate felt a twinge of reluctant sympathy. Jolene had already lost her daughter. Now it appeared likely she would lose her granddaughter as well.

  Of course, Kate would have felt even sorrier for her if the Simpsons hadn’t reported Luke to social services. But their complaint had totally backfired.

  Judge Dixon, in fact, appeared to be scolding their lawyer for risking his clients’ future relationship with their granddaughter by making unfounded allegations against Luke.

  “. . . would certainly be within his rights to deny them further contact with Taylor,” Judge Dixon intoned. “For this reason, I am not including visitation as part of the custody order. However . . .”

  Kate sat up, alerted by his change in tone.

  “It is Christmas. In deference to the season, I would strongly urge both parties to arrive at some kind of agreement that would allow this little girl to enjoy the comfort and support of her family over the holidays. All her family,” the judge said, with a stern look over the top of his glasses. “That means I expect you all to set up a visit before you leave here today.”

  Kate leaned forward, straining to hear, frustrated by her inability to listen in on the conference at the front of the courtroom. To participate. She could see the tension in the line of Luke’s back as Vernon spoke in his ear. Matt half stood and then sat down again.

  She clenched her hands together in her lap, trying to hold on to her emotional objectivity and failing miserably. She wished Luke would turn around, but he was nodding his head, listening to Vernon. She wanted to be up there with them. With him. Which wasn’t possible, she wasn’t Luke’s lawyer, she wasn’t his anything, really.

  You have a relationship with Taylor that doesn’t have anything to do with me, Luke had said.

  But her relationship, such as it was, did not win her entrance into that magic circle.

  She was on the outside, looking in. Precisely where she’d told Luke she wanted to be. Where she was safe and alone.

  The next case was called. With a quick shake of her head, Kate went into the lobby to wait.

  I want to see you, he’d said.

  But he didn’t need her anymore. She would offer Vernon her congratulations on a job well done. She and Luke would go out some time to celebrate. And then he would go home to his family where he belonged.

  Circumstances had catapulted them together in a kind of false intimacy. She knew details of his personal life that his fellow Marines did not. She understood pieces of Taylor’s past in a way that his family could not.

  But their relationship had progressed far too quickly to be real. It was a fantasy, fueled by the emotional circumstances of his return and her own loneliness. Now that Taylor’s custody was settled, what did Kate have to offer him? What did they even have to talk about?

  Luke left the courtroom, flanked by Vernon and his brother. They made an impressive exhibit: the old silver fox in his bow tie and pinstriped suit; the tall fishing boat captain in a navy blazer, his hair streaked brown and gold like oiled oak; and Luke, stone-faced and ramrod straight in his ironed uniform, every muscle and sinew rigid with coiled energy like a garage door spring.

  She crossed the lobby, intercepting them. “Great work, Vernon.” She looked at Luke. “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks.”

  Vernon was talking, saying something, but she couldn’t look away from Luke. Despite the positive outcome, he was clearly holding tightly to control.

  “Luke?” His gaze, fierce and burning blue, met hers. Her heart stuttered at the warrior intensity blazing in his eyes. “At ease, Marine,” she said softly.

  His impassive mask cracked. Ignoring their surroundings, he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off her feet, burying his face in her hair.

  She clung to his broad shoulders, trying to absorb his tension into her own body. She could give him this, she thought. The safety of her embrace, the reassurance of her body. For now, it was enough.

  At last, he set her on her feet. His straight blond lashes veiled his burning eyes, giving him a sleepy, dangerous look. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Vernon’s eyebrows lifted.

  Kate flushed, abruptly recalled to their surroundings. “I, um . . .” His brother was watching them, eyes narrowed in speculation, a smile tugging the corner of his mouth. “Don’t you have to get home to Taylor?”

  “She’s still in school. I’ve got hours.”

  Hours. Only you, his eyes promised. Only me. Her flush turned into all-body heat. “But your brother . . .” she protested weakly.

  “Drove separately,” Matt said, looking amused.

  “Let’s go,” Luke said.

  “Right.” She swallowed, flustered. “I have to get my car out of the county lot.”

  “You didn’t walk?”

  “No, I had files. For, um, court. But I’m done for the day,” she added. “I’ll meet you.”

  “Where?”

  She glanced at Vernon, back at Luke. “My office?” My place. My bedroom.

  He nodded. “Good.”

  “We still have a little paperwork to get through,” Vernon said.

  “You do that,” Kate said a little breathlessly. “I’ll, uh, I’ll see you.”

  “Soon,” Luke said.

  “I didn’t realize you two were dating,” Vernon said.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t . . . We’re not exactly . . .”

  “We’re together,” Luke said.

  Her face flamed. She said good-bye to Matt. She said something, she wasn’t sure what, to Vernon, complimenting him on his handling of the case.

  They were all looking at her, Vernon, with his shrewd eyes and bland face, and Matt with a little smile, and Luke.

  She realized abruptly she had no idea what they were talking about. Or what she’d just said.

  “Certainly helped with your friend Alisha,” Vernon said. For the second time?

  She smiled brightly. “I’m so glad.”

  Somehow she excused herself and escaped the courthouse without stumbling.

  “You have a nice day, Miz Dolan,” said the sheriff’s deputy at the door. Deputy Bobby Ward, round as a well and nearing retirement.

  Courthouse security usually fell to the old and out of shape and the newly hired. The deputy next to him looked barely out of high school.

  “Thanks, Deputy Ward,” Kate said. “You, too.”

  The cool December air kissed her hot face. The sky was bright and blue, with happy clouds splotched around like a child’s painting.

  She walked to the lot. All her life, she had been disappointed. By her father, her mother, herself. She expected to be disappointed. She counted on it.

  We’re together, Luke had said.

  What did that mean?

  She slid her bag from her shoulder to dig for her keys.

  A man stepped out from the line of parked cars. A big man wearing a hoodie and a baseball cap. She recoiled even before she recognized his face, registered the threat before she recalled his name.

  Will Brown. “I been waiting for you.”

  Kate’s heart kicked into overtime. “Mr. Brown,” she said, keeping her voice calm and pleasant. Professional.

  “I come to say I was sorry,” he said unexpectedly.

  Kate swallowed the knot in her throat. “Did you?”

  He ducked his head in apparent assent. “You know, Libby and me, we’ve had our problems.”

  Problems, yes. Black eyes and a broken nose, cracked ribs, a split lip. Kate had documented them over the eight months since Libby had found the courage to call her. And even so, Libby might have stayed with her husband because she had no money, because she had no job skills, because she had no confidence. Because he begged her. Threatened her. Becau
se she’d loved him, once upon a time.

  But then Will hit their oldest child, Cole, when the boy got between them, trying to protect her, and that had been the last straw for Libby.

  “Yes, I know.” Kate glanced at the courthouse entrance, thirty yards away. No need to panic. Yet.

  “But we always worked them out before,” Will said. “She would’ve stayed if you hadn’t been putting all those ideas in her head.”

  Deputy Ward was chatting with his trainee partner, oblivious to the drama in the parking lot.

  “I’m sorry,” Kate said. Not sorry. Not sorry at all. “I have to go.”

  “I’m not done talking,” Will said. “I need to talk to her. I need to see her. She’s my wife.”

  Kate’s hands trembled. She tightened her grip on her keys. “I can’t help you. You’re not supposed to have any contact with Libby.”

  “But you could fix that.” He looked at her, his dark eyes shining with tears. “I just want to go home.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kate said, more sincerely this time. “I can’t interfere with a restraining order.”

  “But you could talk to her. You could tell her how sorry I am.”

  “I really can’t. You need to talk to your lawyer.”

  He slammed his fist onto the roof of her car. Kate cringed, nerves jumping in her stomach. “Don’t you tell me what to do,” he said, mean and low.

  “Mr. Brown . . . Will—” Keep him talking. Keep him calm. The moment the confrontation turned physical, she lost.

  “You quit talking. It’s my turn to talk. Now I’m telling you what to do.”

  Kate backed against her car. She hated being vulnerable. Hated feeling afraid. Hated loud voices and the threat of violence. When she was little, she’d thought she could control it. That if she were good enough, smart enough, quiet enough, she could forestall it, stop it somehow.

  She’d never figured out what would set her father off. But she got very good at recognizing the signs, the bright, narrow eyes, the alcoholic flush, the rage that took over his body like an alien thing.

  She recognized the signs now, in Will.

  Her knees shook. She hated being powerless most of all.

  Fifteen

  “BEFORE CHRISTMAS, YEAH, whatever. After Christmas, I don’t care.” Luke dragged his mind from Kate and the things he’d like to be doing with her, to her, right now, and tried to focus instead on Vernon Long’s talk of visitation. “But not Christmas,” he added, surprising himself.

  It wasn’t like he and Taylor had years of family holiday rituals that had to be honored. No special stockings to hang up, no Christmas Eve bedtime story, none of the stuff he remembered from his own childhood.

  Maybe that was the point.

  “It’s my first Christmas home in two years,” he tried to explain to Long. “Taylor’s first Christmas with us ever.” Her first Christmas without Dawn. “Things will be tough enough without . . .”

  Jolene crying. Ernie drinking. Creepy Kevin and his Nazi tattoos.

  Yeah, not on Luke’s watch.

  “Distractions,” Vernon Long said.

  “Yeah.” Luke thrust a hand through his hair. Trust a lawyer to come up with a three-syllable word that covered everything and said nothing.

  He thought of Kate, talking on the phone in her office, using hundred-dollar words and her don’t-mess-with-me voice, laying down the law with confidence and skill.

  This was her world. He needed her. He wished she’d been beside him in the courtroom today. Even the judge’s comments at the end—Congratulations, Staff Sergeant. If you’re half as good a father as you are a Marine, Taylor’s a lucky girl—had left him feeling unprepared for his job. For fatherhood.

  He’d left the courtroom, hopped on adrenaline, trying not to sweat. Instinctively, he’d looked for Kate, seeking . . . What? He wasn’t sure.

  He only knew that when he saw her, solid as a lighthouse in her two-inch heels, her bright hair lighting the lobby, he’d felt like a sailor catching sight of his home harbor.

  At ease, Marine, she’d said, teasing, reassuring, and everything inside him relaxed.

  He wanted her. But more, he wanted simply to be with her, to be. Only you. Only me.

  Long was still talking. Out in the parking lot across the street, somebody’s car alarm went off.

  Luke twitched. Home two weeks, and sudden noises still had the power to make him jump. He glanced through the glass-and-steel doors at the lights flashing on a red Mini Cooper.

  Kate’s Mini Cooper. His blood ran cold.

  Kate was stumbling back, scrambling around the side of her car while some goon in a hoodie grabbed at her over the hood. She screamed, tripped, and went down behind the bushes that edged the lot.

  The uniforms at the entrance froze like raw recruits under fire. The younger one fumbled for his weapon. Wrong move. Never draw unless you plan to shoot. And not when innocent civilians are in the line of fire. Luke shoved past him, bolting out the door and down the courthouse steps. Kate screamed again as he sprinted across the street.

  “Stop!” yelled the uniform.

  At him? At the other guy? Luke didn’t look back, all his attention focused on the threat to Kate. At the shout, the guy’s head jerked up. His mouth opened, his eyes widened before he braced, crouching for attack.

  End it, Luke thought, and launched over the bushes, landing on his feet.

  “Fuck off, soldier boy,” the guy said. He was around Luke’s height, maybe sixty pounds heavier, with a weight lifter’s muscles and a beer drinker’s belly. “This is none of your business.”

  Luke took a controlled step forward, not taking his eyes off the enemy, not daring to look at Kate. “Step away,” he ordered.

  “Fuck you.”

  The guy lunged, counting on his bulk to carry the day. Luke grabbed his wrist and used his weight against him, turning in, his back to the guy’s chest, flipping him over his shoulder. The guy hit hard, with a grunt of pain, and lay stunned. Luke kicked him over and dropped down, securing his arms behind him.

  The courthouse guards pounded across the street.

  “Oh, God,” Kate said from under the bushes. “Are you all right?”

  Was he all right? She was the one who had been attacked.

  He looked up, prepared to yell like his mom when one of them ran into the street. Saw Kate’s white face, her glassy eyes. He took a breath to steady himself. What if he hadn’t been here?

  “Fine,” he bit out. “You?”

  She was already scrambling to her feet, like she could take on the world. She nodded.

  “Good,” Luke said and dug his knee deeper in the guy’s back until the uniforms showed up with handcuffs.

  • • •

  THEY FINALLY ARRIVED at Kate’s house nearly two hours later, after giving their separate statements to the sheriff’s deputies. Kate felt numb, vulnerable, all the defenses she’d carefully constructed over the years suddenly knocked down. Stripped away. On autopilot, she made tea, her mother’s coping mechanism in the aftermath of her father’s rages.

  Your daddy’s just tired, stressed, under a lot of pressure, her mother would say. If you’d only be quiet, come home on time, not argue with him, he wouldn’t have to get so angry, raise his voice, lose his temper. Don’t overreact. Don’t make a fuss.

  Have some tea.

  Kate wrapped her hands around her mug, craving its warmth.

  Luke paced the confines of her apartment, his mug untouched. Violence pumped off him like heat.

  She shivered, and he stopped in front of her chair. “Can I do anything? Get you anything?”

  She shook her head.

  “Do you want me to drive you to the hospital?”

  She sighed. “No.”

  The sheriff’s deputies had already catalogued her injuries, a sore hip, abraded palms, bruises on her arm where Brown had grabbed her. But it could have been so much worse.

  Her mother used to say that. It could be worse, Katie. At lea
st you have food to eat and a place to sleep. Why do you always make everything into a big deal?

  Kate pushed the memory away. Will Brown was in a holding cell now on the top floor of the county courthouse, charged with Class 1A misdemeanor assault and battery. A conviction would likely only put him away for a month or two. But the jail time would buy a measure of peace for Libby and her children and increase his punishment if he ever threatened them again.

  Kate cradled her mug, trying to keep the contents from sloshing. She couldn’t seem to stop shaking. She wanted to curl into herself, the way she’d curled in bed as a little girl, burying her head in her pillow to block out the sounds of her father shouting and her mother’s sobs. She roused herself to say, “You need to go. Taylor will be home from school soon.”

  He should go home and celebrate with his daughter. Taylor, who was safe now and protected and loved.

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “I’m fine. I don’t need you to fuss over me.” I don’t need you. I can’t need you.

  Luke stiffened. “Too bad. You’re stuck with me.”

  If she didn’t know better, she’d say he looked almost hurt. As if she had the power to hurt him. Which was ridiculous.

  On the other hand, she had been rude. He’d been nothing but kind to her. He deserved better.

  Her hands fluttered on her mug. “I’m sorry.” She forced the words out, each one sticking in her throat like a secret or a bone. “And I’m grateful. You were a real hero today. Thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  “You saved me.”

  Luke looked uncomfortable. “He wasn’t armed.”

  “He still would have hurt me. It bothers me,” she confessed, “that I was so . . . so helpless.”

  “You weren’t helpless. You hit the panic button.”

  “And then you had to rescue me.”

  “Nothing wrong with that.”

  “Because you’re a man.” The unfairness of it broke through the cold shell encasing her.

  “Because I’m a Marine. Hell, babe, we practice hand-to- hand to pass the time. You’re not trained to fight.”

  “I shouldn’t have to be.” The spurt of anger was warm and welcome. “I’m a smart, strong, capable woman. I’ve spent my entire adult life using the law to protect women and children from violence. And then some abusive thug in the parking lot decides I’m responsible for breaking up his family, and I’m dependent on some man to save me.”