Take Me Home (24 page)

“Can we miss school too?” Kayleigh asked.

Claire laughed as she boosted the little girl into the backseat of the extended cab and buckled her seatbelt. “Probably not.”

She helped Brianna in next. “We aren’t really supposed to miss school, are we?” her older niece asked.

“Not really, but it’s okay if there’s a good reason for it.”

Claire closed the door and let out the breath she’d been holding.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing with my children?”

Claire spun around to find Frank rounding the back of the truck, his face scarlet with rage. “I’m taking them home, where they belong,” she said, keeping her voice low in the hope the children wouldn’t hear.

“They belong with me just as much as with my bitch wife.” He bore down on her, his hands balled into fists.

Claire squared her shoulders and stood her ground. “Not if Holly doesn’t know where they are. You can’t just take them out of school and not bring them back.”

“I can do whatever I damn well please. They’re
my
children. No piece of paper from a lawyer can change that.” An ugly sneer twisted his features. “Don’t they say possession is nine-tenths of the law?”

“Maybe with things, but when you take a person, it’s called kidnapping.”

He grabbed her arm and pulled her within inches of his face. “You tell my bitch wife that I don’t appreciate getting handed lawyer papers when I’m working. And you tell her I’ll take the children any time I want to until she gets a proper attitude about who’s in charge.”

Claire flinched as spittle landed on her cheeks.

“Get your hand off her, Frank.” Tim’s voice was low but pulsated with menace. “You don’t want your children to see me knock you flat on your back.”

Frank seemed to freeze, his grip so hard she could almost feel the bruise forming. Then he flung her away from him, her elbow banging against the truck. “Brought your tame grizzly with you again, I see.”

Tim stepped between them, blocking her view of Frank. If she thought his voice was menacing before, it now emanated cold
fury. “If you ever touch Claire or Holly again, I will cause you pain you can’t even imagine.”

“Are you threatening me? Because I’ve got witnesses.”

Claire peered around Tim to see Frank backing away as he glanced right and left. Judy McElhenny stood in the barn door, her gaze flicking between the two men.

“Witnesses to what?” Tim asked. “Kidnapping? Assault? You’re right. You’ve got witnesses. Go back to the house, Frank. You don’t want to make me any angrier, or I might forget I have an audience.”

Frank glanced at the truck, where two small faces peered out the back window. A vein pulsed in his forehead. “You’ll be hearing from me. Both of you.” He stalked away toward the back of the house.

Tim stood still until the slam of a door broke the silence. Then he nodded to Judy. “Nice to see you, Mrs. McElhenny.”

“You too, Doc,” the older woman said. Her look turned apologetic. “Frank is just upset about the divorce.”

“Guess so,” Tim said. He turned back to Claire, probing her arm with careful fingers. “Does this hurt? Or this?”

She fought the desire to burst into tears as the fear-induced adrenaline drained from her body. “No, no, nothing hurts. I’m fine.”

He enveloped her in his arms and lowered his head to rest it against her forehead. “I shouldn’t have let Mrs. McElhenny hold me up in the barn. I should have been here to keep Frank away from you. When I saw him touch you, I wanted to flatten the bastard, but I couldn’t in front of the girls. I’m sorry.”

“It’s my fault. I should have waited. I just wanted to get them home to Holly.” She rested against him, wrapping herself in the safety and comfort of his presence.

He pulled her in tighter before letting his arms drop. “Let’s get on the road.”

Swinging open the unlatched door, he helped her into the high cab. She could see the guilt in his eyes and in the tense set of his shoulders, but she didn’t know how to banish it.

“We didn’t say good-bye to Papa,” Brianna said, her voice small and tentative.

“I know, sweetheart,” Claire said, racking her brain for an explanation. “He...um...was waiting for an important phone call for business and heard the phone ringing in the house.”

“Oh, okay.” Claire was amazed that Brianna seemed to accept her improvised excuse without question.

“Aunt Claire, we got to miss part of school and ride on the tractor with Jake,” Kayleigh said, joining the conversation. “But we were supposed to get cookies too. Aunt Judy was letting us help make them.”

“We’ll buy you ice cream sundaes at Dairy Queen on the way home,” Claire said, throwing Tim a rueful glance as he turned the key in the ignition.

“Why don’t you send your sister a text message? See if she wants ice cream too,” he said.

“Good idea!” Claire said, pulling her cell phone out of her jeans pocket. Before she pressed the speed dial for Holly, she leaned over and said in a voice pitched for his ears only, “I couldn’t have found them without you.” She laid her hand on his forearm, feeling the reassuring flex and strength of his muscles under her palm. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

His expression lightened a fraction as he slid her a sideways smile. “I’ll write you a list.”

H
APPILY FILLED WITH
hot fudge and ice cream, Brianna and Kayleigh greeted their mother without any indication they were concerned by their unusual day. As Claire watched her sister hug the girls and calmly ask them about what they had done this afternoon, she started to shake. She walked casually out the back door, hoping no one would notice her crazy reaction.

As she braced her hands on the white plastic patio table, trying to control the tremors, Tim’s warm body pressed against her back, his arms encircling her.

“They’re fine,” he said. “You brought them home safely.”

“
We
brought them home safely.” She turned into him and buried her face in his shirt, giving in to all the fears that she’d held at bay while she needed to, letting silent sobs rack her. “I was so scared he’d taken them somewhere we wouldn’t be able to find them or that he was drunk and violent toward them. I never realized how heartbreaking it can be to love a child.”

Her eyes were closed, but she could feel the soft flannel of his shirt against her cheek and smell the comforting scent of warm male overlaid with a slight tang of antiseptic soap from the veterinary clinic. She burrowed into him, letting herself rest against his solidity. The sound of his heartbeat against her ear calmed her.

“We’ll do everything we can to keep Frank away from them,” Tim said, his voice seeming to resonate all the way through her. “That’s one thing about a small town. It’s hard to hide.”

Claire’s trembling slowly eased, and she lifted her face away from his now soggy shirt. “Sorry, I got you all wet.”

“I’ve had worse at work.”

She tilted her head back to look into his strong face and reached up to brush at the lock of hair that fell onto his forehead. “You dropped everything and came to help, no questions asked,” she said. “You’re my hero.”

She felt his muscles clench as though he had been struck by a physical blow, but his voice maintained its slow, even drawl. “You’re the one who went toe-to-toe with Frank. That scared the hell out of me.”

“I wasn’t worried because I knew you were there.” She scanned his face, seeing the shadows in his eyes. “Why did it bother you when I said you were my hero?”

He bent to kiss her forehead, so she could no longer see his expression. “Someone said that to me a long time ago, and things didn’t work out well afterward.”

It must have involved his wife, so Claire let it go. She took a step away, out of his embrace. “Thanks for the chest to cry on. I couldn’t reach your shoulder.” Her weak joke banished a few of the shadows from his eyes. “You must have left a lot of patients sitting in your waiting room. You should get back.”

He didn’t respond instantly, locking his gaze on her face. Whatever he saw there must have satisfied him, because he nodded and said, “Call me when you’re ready to leave, and I’ll swing by here to pick you up.”

“I don’t need a ride. My car is here.”

“I’m taking you to my house. Frank knows where you live.”

Claire’s spirits lifted at the thought of spending the night with Tim before another thought sank them again. “I think I should stay with Holly, in case Frank shows up here.”

“I’m going to take care of that possibility with Chief McClung. There will be a cop here all night, I promise you.”

“Which is better protection than I would be.”

“I don’t know about that. Frank looked pretty worried.”

His teasing warmed her. She cupped her hand against his cheek. “I’m looking forward to seeing the house you’re building.”

He turned his head and kissed her palm, then took her hand and folded her fingers inward. “Hold on to that,” he said, “until I can add to it.”

He pivoted and strode around the corner of the house before she could force any words past the lump in her throat. She stood there until she heard an engine rumble to life and knew he was gone.

Just as she turned to go back in the house, the back door opened.

“Claire? Is everything okay?” Holly came out onto the cement patio. “Tim left?”

“He had to go back to work.” Claire hoped her face didn’t look as swollen and tear streaked as it felt. She kept talking to distract her sister. “You were great when the girls came home. So calm and normal, like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. I nearly blew it when I first saw them.”

“It took all my willpower,” Holly said. She crossed her arms and looked straight at Claire. “You were as scared as I was that Frank was going to hide them somewhere far away.”

“Okay, yes, I admit it.”

“Let’s go sit in the gazebo for a minute,” Holly said, waving toward the little six-sided wooden structure at the back of the yard. Surrounded by azaleas and mountain laurel, it offered a cool spot to sit and supervise when the girls were playing outdoors.

Puzzled, Claire walked across the neatly mown grass beside her sister, passing the children’s pink swing set and yellow plastic playhouse. For some reason, the empty toys made her teary again, so she swiped the back of her hand across her eyes as they settled into the cushion-padded wicker chairs.

“I was scared of something else too,” Holly said without preamble. She made eye contact with Claire and then dropped her gaze to her lap, where her hands lay twisted together. “I was afraid Frank might hurt the girls.”

Claire sucked in a sharp breath.

“He’s never touched them before,” Holly hurried to say, “but after the other night, I wasn’t sure what he’d do.” She lifted her eyes to Claire’s. “You were right. He’s hit me before this.”

Although she’d suspected this, hearing her fears confirmed made Claire feel like Frank had just punched
her
. “Oh dear God!”

Holly turned her face toward the peaceful yard, but Claire got the sense she wasn’t seeing anything in it. “The first time, we’d been to the Black Bear, and Frank had too much to drink. When we got home, he accused me of flirting with one of his friends and called me some ugly names. When I denied it, he backhanded me across the face.”

Claire flinched at the image.

“I was wearing those tight-fitting black jeans that night. That’s why I never wore them again,” Holly continued. She looked at Claire with an almost pleading expression in her eyes. “He cried the next day and begged me to forgive him. So I did.”

“I understand,” Claire said soothingly, even though she didn’t. How could her sister have lost her sense of identity to the point that she stayed with a man who treated her with such emotional and physical violence?

“No, you don’t understand,” Holly said. “I could put up with Frank as long as he was good to the girls and good to me in front of the girls. I did it to keep our family together.” As Holly spoke,
her posture changed. She sat up, and a fierce light shone in her eyes.

Claire began to see that her sister had drawn on every ounce of her strength in trying to do what she thought was best for her two daughters. “I understand now, but you shouldn’t have endured it all alone.”

“Sometimes no one can help you,” Holly said. “If you put it into words, you won’t be able to handle it. You just get through one day at a time.”

“The bruises on your wrists?” Claire asked, her fingers curling into fists as she thought of her sister suffering without anyone to support her.

Holly lifted one hand to glance at the livid marks around its base. “When he told me he wanted the divorce, I lost it. After all he’d put me through, he dared to tell me it was my fault he wanted out. I started screaming at him. He squeezed my wrists to get me to stop.”

Claire dropped her face into her hands as the terrible situation seared itself into her brain.

“Now you know all of the whole ugly truth,” Holly continued. “I pushed you away to try and keep Frank from getting angry. I was stupid to think that anything I did would stop the violence.”

“You’re not stupid. You’re one of the bravest people I know,” Claire said, lifting her head and taking her sister’s hands. “We’re going to make damn sure Frank never has the chance to lay hands on you again.”