by Nora Roberts
“Let the water out, Murphy.” She bent down to Liam. “Open up.”
She sniffed when he did, caught the distinctive scent of their bubble-gum-flavored toothpaste. “You pass. Into bed. Harry.”
He rolled his eyes at her, but opened up for the sniff test. “And you’re clear. Bed.”
Grabbing a towel, she homed in on Murphy.
“The ball’s clean now.”
“I bet. And your pj’s are wet.” She set her brush aside to tug off the damp top, then dried his hands, his arms, his sweet little chest. “Open up.”
“I brushed real good.” He opened, and huffed out a big breath to prove it.
“Very nice. Go get another pajama top.”
“I have to change the bottoms, too, or they won’t match.”
“Murphy—” She bit back the impatience. Two minutes, and they’d be tucked in. “Of course you do. Make it fast.”
She used the same towel to wipe up the water on the counter, the floor, draped it over the shower bar to dry out before it went in the hamper.
When she went into the boys’ bedroom she spotted Murphy in a dog’s bed with Yoda, and Ben wiggling under the covers in Harry’s bed. Liam sprawled in his own with the glazed, droopy eyes of the nearly passed out.
“Murphy, you’re not sleeping in the dog’s bed.”
“But he gets lonely.”
“He won’t. Ben can sleep with him.”
“But Mom!” Harry clutched at the dog as she wondered how many times she’d heard those two words today.
“He can’t sleep on a top bunk, Harry. He could fall out, or try to jump out, and get hurt. You don’t want him to hurt himself. Come on now. It’s late.”
She managed to get the dog down, set him in his proper bed while Murphy—executing impressive fake snoring—continued to curl up with Yoda.
“No chance.” Clare hauled Murphy up, dumped him in his lower bunk. “Stay,” she ordered the dogs, and kissed Murphy, then Liam, then Harry. “And that goes for boys as well as dogs. Good night.”
She’d made it halfway to her bedroom when she heard the distinctive sound of puppy toenails crossing the floor, and Murphy’s muffled giggle as, she imagined, the dogs joined him in bed.
Discipline started, in earnest, tomorrow, she promised herself. Remembering her brush, she backtracked to the bathroom. She brushed her hair out as she walked back. Once she got the makeup cleaned off, she’d go make that tea. Check the boys one more time, then settle down.
She really should write the copy for the store’s upcoming newsletter, but she was too damn tired. She’d get an early start on it tomorrow.
She caught the movement as she crossed the bedroom toward her little bath, and whirled toward it. The hairbrush dropped with a clatter as Sam stepped out behind the bedroom door, closed it.
“You’re going to want to be quiet.” He spoke casually, with a smile on his face. “You wouldn’t want to disturb your sons. They could get hurt.”
At Vesta, Beckett took another pull on his beer. It felt good to kick back, hang with Avery, talk about nothing important or in particular.
“Are you heading over to Chuck and Lisa’s party?” she asked him.
Only a couple blocks over, he thought, and plenty of his friends, and both of his brothers would be there. “I’m going to pass.”
“Aw, no partying without your girlfriend?”
“Smartass. What’s your excuse?”
“I was going to, but my feet betrayed me. What’s wrong with us, Beck? We’ve always been up for a party.”
“You’re right. Tell you what. You can be my date. We’ll go for an hour. Buffy and Carpenter X need to preserve their reps.”
“Can I have a piggyback ride there and back?” she asked as Hope came in.
“I was hoping you were still here.”
“Problem?” Beckett asked her.
“I can’t get into the inn. My key won’t unlock the damn door, and there are lights flashing upstairs. I was going to check, see if it’s some electrical glitch, but I can’t get the stupid door to open.”
He got up as she spoke, looked out the front glass door of the restaurant. The glass in the doors leading from E&D to the porch flashed on and off like lightning strikes.
“She’s been in a mood the last few days.” At Hope’s arched brow, Beckett shrugged. “I’m just saying. I’ll go check it out.”
“I’m coming with you. This key thing is infuriating. It worked fine a few hours ago.”
“Wait for me!” Avery hurried after them. “Vampire Slayer, remember?”
“I don’t think you’ll find any vampires at the inn,” Beckett commented as they crossed the street.
“You never know. Plus temperamental ghosts are cake for the Slayer.”
Beckett pulled out his keys, jingling them in his hand while they walked down the sidewalk to the back of the building.
“Could you try mine?” Hope passed it to him.
Beckett slid it into the lock, turned it. And glanced at Hope when the lock clicked, and the door opened smoothly.
“I’m telling you it wouldn’t work five minutes ago. If it’s your ghost playing games, I don’t know why she’s mad at me.”
“Like I said.” Beckett flipped on the light in Reception. “She’s been in a mood.”
At that moment, the light he’d just turned on began to flash. Upstairs doors slammed sharp as gunshots.
“Some mood,” Avery murmured.
“I’ll go see what’s going on. Stay here.”
“Like hell.” But Avery grabbed Hope’s hand as they followed Beckett. “Maybe it’s a Halloween thing. Her way of marking the date.”
“Doesn’t sound celebratory,” Hope stated.
“I think she’s been kind of sad the last couple days,” Beckett began. As he approached, the porch doors in E&D flew open. Inside the lights flicked like a strobe.
“Maybe pissed.”
“Maybe we need Ghostbusters,” Avery whispered.
“Okay, Lizzy, cut it out!” Beckett raised his voice, put irritation in it. As he strode in, steam billowed in rolling clouds out of the bath. “Well, what the fuck? You don’t like the tile pattern, the goddamn tub? Change rooms.”
“Beckett.” Hope laid a hand on his arm, squeezed hard as her voice trembled. “Look at the bathroom mirror.”
Through the clouds he watched letters appear, as if someone wrote with a finger on the steamy glass.
“Help,” he read. “Lizzy, if you’re in trouble—” He broke off as the writing continued.
“Oh God.” Even as Avery turned to run, Beckett bulleted by her. “Call the cops. Call my brothers. Now. Tell them to get to Clare’s.”
“I’ve got the cops.” Hope punched numbers into her phone as she ran.
“I’ve got Owen. And we’re coming with you.”
Don’t scream, Clare ordered herself. The boys would hear, would come. She wouldn’t risk it. “You broke into my house.”
“What choice did you give me? It’s time you and I had a private talk, time for you to understand how things are going to be. Why don’t you sit down.”
“I don’t want to sit down.”
“I said sit down! One of the things you’re going to understand is doing what you’re told when I tell you.”
She sat, braced, on the bottom edge of the bed. “You made a mistake, Sam, breaking into my house. If you leave now we’ll let it go at that. Just a mistake.”
“No, you made the mistake when you set the cops on me.” He held up his hands. “Well, I can let that go, but you’re going to learn to show me respect. You’re going to remember who I am.”
“I know who you are.”
“And I know you lack self-confidence. I know that lack caused you to play hard-to-get, make me work for it. Didn’t I give you time, when you came back? I couldn’t have been more considerate, more patient, given the situation you’d gotten yourself into. Running off with Clint Brewster that way.”
; “Clint was my husband.”
“And he’s dead, isn’t he? Left you with two brats and another in your belly so you had to come crawling back here to this hole-in-the-wall town.”
Temper wanted to war with fear, but she beat it back. If she pushed him, he might hurt her. God knew what he might do to her boys if she couldn’t stop him.
“I came home. My parents are here. I—”
“You should never have left in the first place. But that’s spilled milk. You led me on, Clare.”
“How did I lead you on?”
“You think I didn’t know what you were doing every time you smiled at me? Every time you’d tell me you couldn’t go out to dinner, or just for a drive? I saw the way you looked at me. Wasn’t I patient? Wasn’t I?”
His voice rose to nearly a shout, so she nodded. “Please, let’s not wake the children.”
“Then start paying attention. I want this game to end now. I can only be pushed so far, Clare. You used Montgomery to make me jealous, and that’s beneath you. I don’t want you to so much as speak to him again. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now—”
“I’ll call him right away, break it off.” She rose, started toward the door.
He grabbed her arm, shoved her back. “I said you’re not to speak to him. Sit down until I tell you different.”
“I’m sorry.” She bent down, picked up her hairbrush, took it with her back to the foot of the bed. As a weapon, she thought, staring down at her hands, it was pitiful.
“That’s better.” He let out a breath, smiled again. “Much better. Now, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to pack a bag—you won’t need much. I’ll be replacing all your things right away. But you’ll need your essentials for tonight. We’re going on a trip, just you and me. We’re going to take a few days. I’ve already made reservations for one of the private villas in this resort I like. They know me there, so be prepared to be treated royally.”
It appalled her to see that familiar wide smile and wink.
“You’re going to see how much I can give you, Clare. All you have to do is what I tell you, learn your lessons, give me what we’ve both wanted for so long.”
“It sounds lovely. I have to arrange for someone to come take care of the children. I can call my mother. She’ll—”
“The children, the children.” Red rage stained his face. “I’m sick of hearing about the children. They’re asleep, aren’t they? Safe in bed with their drooling dogs. I’ll call my own mother when we get to the resort. She’ll arrange for someone to deal with them. There’s an excellent boarding school in upstate New York. We’ll enroll them as soon as possible. You’ll learn no one comes before me. I can be generous and pay for the education of another man’s children, but I won’t have them put ahead of me or my needs. Do you understand me?”
“Perfectly. Should I pack now?”
“Yes. I’ll show you what’s appropriate.” His tone changed, became sticky with indulgence. “Don’t be ashamed of what you’ve got to choose from now. I’ll take you shopping. You’re going to have lots of time to enjoy yourself, to be with me, to live the life I give you without those kids and that bookstore hobby of yours in the way.”
She got slowly to her feet. The fear had ebbed, and in the void fury filled her. She could only pray it didn’t show. Leave her children alone? She’d see him in hell first.
“I want to thank you.” She kept her gaze downcast, hoped it appeared subservient, as she took a tentative step toward him. “I’ve been so confused, so conflicted. But now it’s all so clear.”
She looked up then, into his eyes. Cocking back, she swung the brush with all her strength, all her fury into his smiling face. As blood erupted from his mouth, she leaped toward the door. Her only thought was to get to her boys, keep them safe.
Her hand closed around the doorknob as he wrenched her back. Fear sprang up again, bright as the blood on his face as he dragged her to the floor. She kicked, tried to claw at his eyes but he slapped her hard enough to have stars erupting.
“Bitch!” He used the back of his hand, shooting pain into her cheekbone. “Look what you did. Look what you did to me. I’m giving you everything, and you don’t learn. You’ll learn now.”
When he tore at her shirt, she raked her nails down his face. He reared up, shock and pain mixed with the blood.
Rolling, she struggled to pull herself free, and suddenly his weight lifted. She crawled for the door, breath sobbing as she tried to pull to her feet, run to her boys.
Arms came around her.
“Clare, Clare, Clare.” Avery held tight until Clare stopped fighting her. “You’re okay now.”
“My babies.”
“Shh. Hope went to see. Shh.”
“I have to—” The sounds finally broke through her shocked senses. Slumped against Avery, she turned her head.
At the foot of her bed, Sam sprawled on the floor with Beckett straddling him. With Beckett’s fist slamming, again and again, into the already bloodied face.
“Oh God. God.” Dizzy, she pushed to her feet, and Hope was there helping Avery steady her.
Seconds later, Owen and Ryder burst in, and Ryder grabbed Owen’s arm when his brother started forward.
“We’ve got to pull him off.”
Ryder shrugged. “Let’s give him another minute.”
“Jesus Christ, Ry.”
Even as Hope sent Ryder one fierce and approving look, Owen shook him off. “Come on, Beck. Stop. Stop, goddamn it. He’s done. Give me a fucking hand, Ryder, before he kills this son of a bitch.”
It took both of them to drag him off. It only took one look at Clare to change his focus. “He hurt you.” He moved to her slowly, touched his fingers gently to the bruises on her face. “He hurt you.”
“I hurt him more. Then you—Beckett.” Shaking now, she clung to him. “Oh God, Beckett.”
“The cops.” Hope glanced toward the windows and sounds of sirens. “I’ll go down, let them know, see if they can keep it quiet and not wake the kids. Oh, and that we need an ambulance.”
She glanced at the unconscious and battered Sam. “But there’s no hurry on that.”
She caught Ryder’s hard grin before she backed out of the room.
“I’m going to take you downstairs, away from him.” Beckett lifted Clare into his arms. “You can tell us what happened downstairs.”
She nodded, let her head drop to his shoulder, hoping the room would stop spinning if it rested there. “Avery.”
“I’ll check on them again. Don’t worry.”
“He said we were leaving tonight,” Clare told Beckett as he carried her down. “Going on a trip, just leaving the kids alone—until he put them in boarding school because they’d be in his way.”
“He won’t touch you or those boys. Ever again.”
“When he told me that, told me to pack a few things? That’s when I hit him with the hairbrush. Hard as I could. I think I knocked one of his teeth out.”
“Upstairs first,” he said to Charlie Reeder as they passed at the bottom on the steps. “You hit him with a hairbrush.”
“It was all I had.”
“No.” He held her tight, sat, held her tight on his lap. “You’ve got a hell of a lot more.”
Beckett sat beside her while she gave her statement, didn’t spare a glance when they took Sam away, cuffed to a gurney. Hope brought her tea while one of the paramedics doctored his torn knuckles.
Once the cops located the jimmied window, documented it, Ryder went out for tools to repair it.
When the police left, Avery came out of the kitchen. “I made soup. When I’m upset I cook, so everybody’s eating soup.”
While she ladled it up in the kitchen, Ryder dropped down to a chair at the table. “Now that the law’s gone, let’s have it straight, what you danced around telling them. How did you know Clare was in trouble?”
“Lizzy.” Beckett laid a hand over Clare’s, and
told the story.
“Pretty smart for a dead woman,” Ryder commented with a glance at Hope. “The innkeeper’s going to have her hands full.”
“The innkeeper has a name,” she informed him.
“I’ve heard that.”
“Hope and I are staying tonight.” Avery set soup in front of Owen. “I wouldn’t sleep if I went home. We’re staying.”
“I’d like you to.” Clare let out a long breath. “Elizabeth told you I needed help. And you came.” She turned her hand under Beckett’s, laced fingers. “You all came. I guess that’s a lot more than a hairbrush.”
Beckett didn’t leave until she slept. He tossed Harry’s Spider-Man sleeping bag in his truck before driving to the inn.
He spread it out on the floor of E&D.
“She’s fine. She’s okay, thanks to you. He hurt her a little—but he’d have done worse if you hadn’t let us know.”
He sat, pulled off his work boots. “He’s in the hospital, under guard. He’ll be in a cell as soon as the doctors clear him. One of us broke his jaw—either Clare and her trusty hairbrush or me. Lost his caps, and two teeth. Busted up his nose. I figure he got off easy.”
Exhausted, wired, he stretched out. “Anyway, I thought I’d bunk here tonight, if it’s okay with you. I figured you might like some company, and I’m just not in the mood to go home. I guess I’m the first guest—alive anyway—of Inn BoonsBoro.”
He lay staring at the ceiling. He thought he felt something cool across his throbbing knuckles, then the light he’d neglected to shut off in the bathroom went dark.
“Thanks. ’Night.” He closed his eyes, and he slept.
Sunday morning, at his insistence, kids and dogs loaded in the van.
“We’re supposed to go to the arcade,” Harry reminded him. “You said.”
“Yeah, this afternoon. There’s just something I want to show you first. It’s not far.”
“It certainly is a secret.”
He looked over at Clare. She’d softened the bruises with makeup, but he knew the boys had seen them. Just as he knew she’d told them the truth, if not in every detail.
He drove out of town, listening to Liam and Harry bicker and Murphy sing to the dogs, who’d already learned how to howl in harmony.