Breaking Hearts (22 page)

“How do you know all of that?” She stared at me openmouthed. “Never mind. We should run down to the beauty parlor and spill the dirt.”

“Beans.”

“What?”

“It’s spill the beans, Mom, and don’t get all
Harper Valley PTA
on me, okay? There has to be a better way to deal with my friends.” Damn. I’d grown more than a little tired of turning the other cheek.

She glared at nothing in particular and everything all at the same time.

“Some friends I have.” For a minute, I envied the relationships Simon enjoyed with Keaton, Gatlin, and their whole crew.

“I’m going to take Kieran to the toy store over in Midland. I think he needs a new toy.” She tapped her finger against her chin. “Collection.”

I smiled at her.

Finally, with a tilt of her perfectly coiffed head, she nodded. “When Simon gets here, I trust you can entertain him.” At my raised brows, she rolled her eyes. “Tell him I’ll call to reschedule his appointment.”

“Sure.” I swallowed a lump in my throat, waiting until they were out of the driveway before I broke down. Collapsing onto the sofa, I hugged a pillow to my chest. This had been my childhood home, where I grew up happy and popular. Not that I could blame those women completely. My presumed guilt drew attention from an editor’s column, a front page photo spread featuring my high school glory-day photos and daily social media stories. The town divided. Some waved and smiled, others turned to walk the other way when they crossed my path.

Simon arrived ten minutes later. Without question, he wrapped me in an embrace that comforted every part of my aching soul. “Wanna talk about it?”

I shook my head and buried my face in his shirt. His aftershave tingled my nose with the sweet and spicy smell of heaven, and I breathed deeply.

“Okay. Wanna make out then?”

I glanced up and smiled through my tears. “If I said I wasn’t really in the mood, would you understand?”

He chuckled. “Of course.”

“Well”--I grinned and tinkered with the buttons of his shirt--“I’m not saying it, at all.” I pulled his head down for a soft kiss.

After some intense groping on the couch, he pulled away and ran his hand through his long hair. “You tempt me, woman.” He took a deep breath, then released it slowly in a loud whistle of air through his lips. “I didn’t come here for this, you know. I have an appointment with your mother.”

Flustered from the kissing, I couldn’t follow his whole train of thought. “I’m sorry.” I tried for contrite, but ended up sounding smug and arrogant.

“I’ll bet.”

“And you don’t have an appointment with my mother.” I spilled the entire story in a rush of run-on sentences. “So, she took him to the toy store to make up for an entire town blaming him for his bad luck in the maternal gene pool.”

“Wow. Those bitches.” He licked his bottom lip. With him this close and still holding me, my troubles didn’t seem so big. “They were so jealous of you in high school. That’s what this is about.” He spoke with force.

This time they had a way better reason than jealousy to hate me. “No, Simon, this is because they think I killed my husband so I could be with you.”

“Hey, the only real memories I have are of high school. I remember them standing in front of my locker junior year telling Joss how you didn’t deserve Keaton. They were so jealous of you--especially Jocelyn, and these were her friends too.” He tucked me into his chest.

It turned out evilness hid behind popularity. “This sucks, Simon. There should be a limit to the amount of hurt I can inflict on this kid because I married Sean. I deserve what I deserve, but he’s innocent.”

With a curled finger under my chin, he lifted my face to meet his gaze. “Those girls aren’t worth your time. Even if you killed Sean, even if you did it in coldblooded anger, I will love you every minute until I die.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t kill Sean.”

“Yeah. That was my point.” But his face lit up, eyes sparkling, cheeks dimpled.

So many questions zoomed through my mind as I watched Simon and Kieran swim together and play with Kieran’s trucks on the patio.

My mother, the eternal hostess, served lemonade and homemade chocolate croissants before whisking Kieran off to a nap he fought like a trooper. Finally, he settled on letting Simon tuck him in, and was sound asleep before Simon made the third step.

When he returned, he sat across from me, his hand outstretched, palm up. I slipped mine over top, and with his other hand he traced the veins leading from my fingers to my wrist. It took a while before he spoke. “I saw the scar on his back.”

I nodded. “The doctor said it would fade with time.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

I pulled away and folded my fingers in front of my mouth. “Not really.” But didn’t he have a right to know? If we were going to really be together, shouldn’t he know it all? “Before that day, he never hit Kieran. He yelled at him, but he didn’t hit him.” I wished I could erase the pictures of that day from my mind, but I couldn’t. They haunted me even now with Sean dead and buried. I shuddered at the thought of all Kieran had been through. “It was so hard there. I never knew what would set him off or how he would punish me, but he never touched Kieran; I promise that.”

Simon nodded and scooted his chair closer.

“I wanted to leave so many times. I saw what the tension and the bruises on me were doing to Kieran, but I just stayed there like…” Like a fool? “I just stayed. Kieran was so quiet. He never talked anymore…barely said five words in a day if Sean was home, sometimes even if he wasn’t.” I’d thought I’d hardened my heart to the words, but my eyes burned and my throat closed as I wrestled with how to continue. “The day… The day it happened, I had a meeting with a department store. They’d offered me this huge contract a little earlier, but they lost a page or something. I didn’t want to bring my kid along to re-sign, you know, but I couldn’t leave him with Sean because he’d already run off with him once. I didn’t trust him. I took Kieran to a girl who lived down the hill from us.” I concentrated on the mundane details to avoid the ones I couldn’t stand to relive.

“She hurt him?”

“I would have killed her.” There was no doubt. If she would have touched Kieran, I would probably have ended up in jail way sooner. “Since things got so bad between me and Sean, Kieran saw things he shouldn’t have seen, heard stuff I can never erase from his memory. Because of it, he started wetting his pants. A lot. And I was in such a big hurry to leave that morning, I forgot his bag, but I thought since he was with her, he would be more comfortable. I didn’t think he would have an accident. I was wrong. She didn’t know Sean was home, and she took Kieran to the house for more clothes. When she got there, Sean knew I lied. He knew I didn’t take Kieran with me, so he kept Kieran.”

This was the part… My heart lurched and my stomach rolled in agony. A trail of tears washed down my cheek.

“Baby, you don’t have to do this.”

I sniffed and nodded. “But I do.” I flicked a tear away and stared through the sunset as though all I saw was darkness. “I haven’t told anyone what happened. Not even Grace.” I cleared my throat. “I have a lot to tell you.”

“Okay.”

After a few deep breaths, my eyes dried, my stomach settled, and my voice came in its solid form. “When I got back, I went to pick him up, and he wasn’t with her anymore. She told me Sean had him. I ran up the hill into the house. It was quiet, too quiet. I called them both, and when no one answered, I started screaming for Kieran. Sean’s car was there. His wallet was on the table. I knew he didn’t go far.” My mind retraced my footsteps as I raced through the house that day. “I found Sean passed out in the bedroom. When I shook him, he started screaming at me to shut up and leave him alone, but I needed to know Kieran was okay, so I just kept badgering him. He had locked him in the closet in the dark after he beat him with the belt.”

Simon stared at me, his face blank.

“The scar on his back came from the belt, the one on his face came from the buckle, I think. When I found him, he was all bloody and scared. Sean came storming in there. He told me to put him back in the closet because Kieran was being punished.” In my mind, my fury blinded me to Sean’s. “I fought back once and he didn’t take that very well, but this time, I went after him. My boy, my baby, was standing behind me bleeding, scared to death. I had to do something. He made me promise not to tell the cops what happened when I took Kieran to the hospital.”

“But you told.”

“Yeah. First thing I did. This really nice cop came to talk to me, and he helped me get out of there. He stayed with me while they sewed up Kieran, and he helped me plan how to get out. He even let me use his phone to call for help.” I’d only known one California number by heart. My fingers had shaken as I dialed, hoping the vibe I’d always gotten hadn’t been wrong. “While it was clearly the worst night of my life, it was the best, too, because I got away, made Kieran safe again.”

“I’m glad that son of bitch is dead.”

I couldn’t lie. Although, I hadn’t wished it out loud, I’d felt it almost since our wedding day. “Me too.”

“I’ll never hurt you.”

“I’ve always known that, Simon.”

“I love you.”

And for that night, it was enough.

Tuesday morning, court started with a full-out battle in chambers between Grace and Cal. The judge and I each stared at them as they volleyed back and forth, their arguments enraged. Cal wanted Lizette’s testimony to proceed uncensored or clarified by a direction from the judge. Grace argued the testimony would do nothing but make me look bad. While certainly Cal’s intent, Grace argued my rights took precedence.

“She’s going to testify to hearsay evidence.” Grace stood, bent at the waist, her face inches from Cal’s. “She has no proof of anything he said or if it’s true.”

“Your Honor, the jury deserves to hear all the evidence. They deserve to hear Sean Hunter believed the child belonged to someone else, and he’d just found out. He was only in town to verify the truth of it.” Cal spoke the words without ever tearing his gaze from my attorney’s. “He’s being painted as a vicious stalker when he had every right to use whatever means necessary to learn the truth.”

“He painted the word ‘whore’ across the front of her house. He stalked her, terrorized her and, if you ask me, the kid is lucky he doesn’t belong to that psychopath.”

“Oh, speaking ill of the dead, Miss Wade, the person your client killed. That’s gonna earn you a few extra minutes in hell.”

Grace rolled her eyes and probably would have thumped him in the head had the judge not intervened.

“Let’s try to keep our comments confined to the legal issues before us.” The judge spoke quietly from behind a massive desk with a picture of former president Clinton behind it. “Miss Wade.”

Grace remained standing nose to nose with Cal. When the judge repeated her words, Grace straightened her skirt, fluffed her hair, and took her seat.

“Mr. Cooper, she cannot testify to the truth of his words. She may only testify the conversation happened. You may not imply, infer, suggest, or in any way lead the jury to believe the words he spoke to Miss Lightener are the truth.”

Fire flew from Grace’s eyes. “Just because he told her whatever he told her does not make it fact.”

With a wave of her hands, we were dismissed to return to the courtroom. After the initial commotion of the jury being led in and the gallery dwellers bustling for seats, Cal called Lizette Lightener to the stand.

“Don’t look down, and don’t look away from her”
had been Grace’s pearls of wisdom. “
Let her see your face or she won’t show mercy
.”

I kept my eyes pointed at her, wiped the hostility away with the thought of my boy being left alone with my parents. Lizette, in her ivory linen pant suit straight off the rack at Sears, strolled up to the witness box, raised her right hand, and swore to tell the truth while I bit the inside of my cheek to keep my face impassive. She took her seat and my gaze never managed to break free of hers.

From the grin on his face, Cal had started springing mental cartwheels in anticipation. I remained staring at Lightener. Her glare spoke volumes and I smiled, testing the waters. She squinted hard.

“Good morning, Ms. Lightener.”

Grace clenched her pencil as Cal spoke.

“Good morning.”

“On June fourth of last year, where did you work?”

“In the bakery I owned with Jocelyn Shaw.”

The ridiculous cartoon voice and her oversized man body were at complete odds with one another, and I hid an inappropriate giggle behind my hand.

I prayed Cal stayed with the boring, mundane questions rather than jumping to the gasp-inspiring scandal version she probably couldn’t wait to deliver.

“At the time, I owned half of the business and I worked the counter, made donuts, and handled business transactions.”

“On June fourth, did you speak with Sean Turner?”

She nodded. Her coal black hair, cut short around her face, caught the light of the overhead fluorescents, making it seem almost Elvis Blue. “He came in looking for Jocelyn. She was gone so I asked if I could help him. He asked if I knew Danielle.”

“And did you?”

“I’d only met her once before, but I’d heard a lot about her.” Her frown dug deep into the lines around her lips.

“Did Mr. Turner share with you the reason he wanted to speak with Jocelyn?”

“About her brother, Simon, and his new relationship with
her
.”

Wow.

She pointed a finger in my direction.

“And what about their relationship?” His smirk, as he turned to face me, said Cal loved this a little too much.

I hated him for it.

“He said she had some big secret. He said he would see her in hell before he let her have his son.” Yeah. She flipped me a mental bird with that one.

Cal nodded. “Did Mr. Turner give you anything to give to Mrs. Shaw?”

Lizette nodded and licked her lips. I clenched my fist but remained seated as I waited for the answer. She paused and looked around Cal at me. “Yes, he did.”