Читать книгу Military Heroes Bundle: A Soldier's Homecoming / A Soldier's Redemption / Danger in the Desert / Strangers When We Meet / Grayson's Surrender / Taking Cover - Catherine Mann, Merline Lovelace - Страница 25

Chapter 15

Julia arrived home just before noon. She took one look at Connie and demanded to know what was wrong.

“Sophie asked about her father.”

“Well, you knew that was coming.” Julia wheeled over to the stove and poured herself a cup of coffee. Ethan rose and started to leave the kitchen, but Julia waved him back. “Stay, Ethan,” she said. “You’re practically part of this family now, and I suppose you were here when Sophie asked.”

He nodded and resumed his chair. Julia’s knowing eyes moved between them, as if she sensed the change in their relationship. But she said nothing.

“So how did she take it?”

“I don’t know,” Connie answered frankly. “She seemed to accept what I said, but then she went straight upstairs to bed. She was up all night, but—”

“Shh,” Julia said, interrupting her. “Don’t make this bigger than it needs to be. The child was probably just exhausted.”

“I’m still worried,” Connie told her. “How can I not be worried? And another thing, I’m wondering why this came up now. She said it was because she and the other girls played games last night with Jody’s mom and dad, but that’s nothing new.”

Julia put her mug on the table and rearranged her chair so she was sitting comfortably facing them. “Maybe it has to do with this stranger.”

Connie, thinking of last night’s phone call, a call she didn’t want to mention to her mother, felt a sickening jolt. “What do you mean?”

“Maybe,” Julia said, “she’s feeling a need for protection.”

“She won’t get it from that quarter,” Connie said bitterly.

“She probably realizes that now,” Julia agreed. “Assuming you told her something about why you had to leave him.”

“I made it as sketchy as I could, but yes.”

“Poor thing.” Julia sighed. “For everything this mess has put us through this week, in her own way she’s been through just as much. Maybe we haven’t given enough thought to how scared she’s been. Oh, I know she’s acting as if it’s all okay, but maybe she’s trying to be strong for you, Connie. I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“Great.” Connie closed her eyes briefly. “Here I’ve been assuming that she was okay, that as long as we surrounded her with protection and she knew it was there, she’d feel safe. God, I feel like a dunce.”

“Well, she’s not exactly acting as if she’s scared of her own shadow. If she doesn’t want you to know, how are you supposed to?”

“Because I’m supposed to be her mother and read between the lines. She’s only seven.”

“And a lot of seven-year-olds would have put that stranger behind them by now. They don’t dwell on things unnecessarily, the way we adults do.”

“Usually.” Connie rose. “I’m going to look in on her.”

She climbed the stairs with leaden feet, full of old fears and now new ones. She had honestly believed that Sophie was getting back to normal after her scare. Apparently not.

Why else all the questions about her father?

She opened the door quietly and looked in. Sophie lay in a tangle of blankets, wrapped around her favorite stuffed dog. Maybe, when this was over, she should let her mother get Sophie that dog. On the other hand, dogs, as wonderful as they were, meant more bills, bills that might strain an already tight budget.

She started to back out, but stopped when she heard Sophie’s sleepy voice. “Mom?”

“Yes, honey?” At once she went to sit on the edge of Sophie’s bed and laid a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s going to be okay, right?”

“Of course it is. Are you still scared of that man?”

“Not really.” Sophie rolled onto her back and looked at her. “I heard Grandma come home.”

“Yes, she’s in the kitchen with Ethan, having coffee.”

“I like Ethan.”

“So do I.”

“I wish I had a dad like him, instead of the other kind.”

Connie didn’t need to ask what kind her daughter meant. “I’m sorry. I made a big mistake when I married your father.”

Sophie surprised her with an impish smile. “But if you didn’t marry him, you wouldn’t have me.”

Connie managed a little laugh. “I don’t know about that. I think God always meant for me to have you. The angels saved you specially.”

Sophie laughed. “I’m not that good.”

“Oh, yes, you are.”

Sophie’s smile faded. “The man’s still there.”

A fist punched Connie in the chest. “Have you seen him?”

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

“After school yesterday. That’s why I went a different way home.”

Connie didn’t know what to say. For several long seconds she hung in the balance between terror and anguish. Calm, when it came, had a price. But for Sophie’s sake, she had to remain calm. Finally she cleared her throat. “You would have been safer staying with your friends.”

Sophie shrugged. “I was safe. I’m here.”

Connie didn’t know how to argue with that. She didn’t want to scare the child more. Yet Sophie needed to be cautious. “Honey...”

“I know. Don’t trust strangers and stay with my friends.” Sophie rolled over on her side again and took her mother’s hand. “I’ll be okay, Mommy. Don’t worry.”

“Just stay close, honey. Just stay close.” Leaning over, Connie wrapped her daughter in a tight hug and felt those warm little arms wrap around her in return. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too, Mommy.”

“Now sleep a little longer. You were up all night, Enid said.”

Sophie smiled brilliantly. “It was fun.”

“I bet it was. Later we’ll play some games or something, okay? But get a little more sleep first.”

Sophie’s eyelids, still puffy with sleepiness, were already sagging to half-mast. “I really like Ethan,” she said again. Then she fell sound asleep.

Connie envied her daughter’s ability to drop off so quickly. These days, finding sleep herself could be a struggle. And after Sophie’s little bomb, she wondered if she would ever sleep again. As if in response to an emotional overload, a kind of numbness settled over her.

She sat with Sophie for a while longer, until the little girl’s breathing deepened; then, after dropping a kiss on her daughter’s forehead, Connie tiptoed from the room.

Downstairs, still wearing her numbness like a cloak, she found Julia and Ethan shuffling cards. “What’s going on?”

Julia grinned. “Ethan’s going to teach me how to play Texas hold ’em. Don’t we have chips somewhere?”

“Maybe. I seem to remember getting them for some project.”

“Well, go find them, girl,” Julia said. “This man wants a chance to clean me out.”

Ethan’s chuckle followed Connie as she went to look in the living-room credenza.

The box was still there, after all this time. She carried the chips back to the kitchen, but her mind wasn’t on poker. While Ethan started divvying up the plastic chips, she said, “Sophie saw him again.”

Ethan’s hands froze. Julia’s smile faded.

“After school yesterday. She said that’s why she took a different way home.”

Ethan swore softly.

Julia’s face sagged. “Why didn’t she tell us this yesterday?”

“I don’t know.” Connie, who had maintained a calm facade until this moment, couldn’t hold it together any longer. Her voice stretched thin, became thready, and the panic that had been clawing at her all week grabbed her fully in its jaws.

“He’s still here,” she repeated. “He’s still here, and Sophie saw him. How can we make her safe if he can get to her without our knowing it? How can we protect her?”

Her voice had grown shrill, and she bit back further words, knowing that she was only feeding her own panic and sense of helplessness.

But, dear God, how could she remain calm in the face of this? A stranger, maybe Leo, maybe not, was stalking her little girl. She pushed back from the table, ignoring it when the chair fell over. Like a terrified horse, she wanted to race from one end of her corral to the other and beat down the bars that held her in.

Before she could dash from the room, Ethan caught her. His strong arms surrounded her, restrained her, held her close. Surrounded her with security.

“Shh,” he whispered, and stroked her hair. “Shh. She’s safe upstairs right now. I swear to you, Connie, I’ll be right beside her every time she leaves this house. I’ll walk with her everywhere. I’ll watch her when she plays. Nobody’s going to hurt that child as long as I have breath in me.”

Connie wanted to believe him. She desperately needed to believe him.

“It’s gone past trying to keep a loose watch on her,” Ethan said. “With a second encounter, we have to tighten up. Sophie may not like it, but that’s the way it has to be until we catch this guy.”

Connie leaned back and looked up at him. “What if it isn’t Leo?” she whispered. Much as she feared Leo’s violence and that it might spill over onto Sophie, there were other things to be feared more. Like real strangers. Horrible, terrible sick men who would do the unthinkable.

Not even when she had faced an armed burglar had she felt this much gut-wrenching, sickening fear. Fear for Sophie. Fear of all the monsters that could walk into her innocent daughter’s life.

A shudder ripped through her, then another. Flying apart seemed like a valid option right now. Shattering into a million pieces.

But for these few moments, Ethan’s arms held her together. His strength seemed to infuse her with something she desperately needed. Little by little, her shudders eased, until finally she sagged against him. He continued to hold her, seeming to understand that the strength needed to return to her muscles.

Something else began to shift within her. All of a sudden she remembered the dreams she’d had before Leo, dreams of a man who would support her and protect her and care for her, not one who would use her. Abuse her.

All those dreams had died at the end of Leo’s fist, at the toe of his boot. Or so she had thought. Maybe they had only gone into hibernation.

Ethan had suddenly awakened them, but even as she realized that, she feared the cost of allowing them to reappear. Ethan wasn’t here for the long haul. He’d merely come to town to meet Micah, and once he’d established whatever kind of relationship he wanted there, he would move on. Besides, he had problems of his own, and she doubted she was the solution to any of them.

There was danger here, emotional danger, but she couldn’t bring herself to step away. Not yet. She needed these moments with near desperation.

Later, she thought. Later she could tear out the roots of what was trying to grow in her. Right now she needed any port in the storm. And she was sure he understood that.

When at last she regained her strength, she backed away. He let her go immediately, which she was sure was a message. No involvement, beyond protecting Sophie. Last night had been an aberration, a fulfillment of a need they both felt as solitary souls. But it had made no promises and offered no answers.

Their wounds couldn’t be so easily healed, she thought, as she returned to the table. They would always be there. Healing had to come from within, and it couldn’t happen if the scars kept reopening.

Julia was still sitting at the table, staring at the cards as if they could tell her the future, carefully not watching Connie and Ethan.

Then there was a knock on the side door. Connie jumped, turned and saw Micah through the glass panes. At once she leaped up to invite him in.

He was smiling, and he greeted her with a hug, Julia with a peck on the cheek and his son with a bear hug. “I thought I’d get a progress report,” he said. Connie got him a cup of coffee and waved him to a chair as she resumed her seat.

“Do you have ESP?” she asked.

His face darkened. For an instant, except for Ethan’s beard, father and son looked like clones of the same Cherokee ancestor.

“What happened?”

Ethan answered. “When Sophie wandered off yesterday after school? It was because she had seen the man again.”

“Well, hell. I guess we need to tighten the guard.”

“I’m going to be with her every minute she’s out of the house and not in school.”

Micah nodded. Then he looked at Connie. “How do you feel about that?”

“Better.” Because if it was Leo, she didn’t know how or even if she would be able to handle it.

Ethan must have noticed her glaring omission of the phone call in her recounting of events to her mother earlier, Connie thought, because he didn’t mention it to Micah.

“I can’t handle this,” Julia said. She couldn’t have been paler if every drop of blood had been sucked from her. “I’m going to my room. You’ll plan better without me here gnashing my teeth and second-guessing everything because I’m a scared old woman.”

Feeling a sharp pang, Connie started to rise. “Do you need help?”

“Just to get into my own bed? I think not.”

The three of them listened as Julia’s chair squeaked across the linoleum, then onto the wooden floor of the hall. A few moments later, her bedroom door closed.

“Okay,” Micah said, leaning forward to rest his arms on the table, “what did you leave out?”

Connie looked at Ethan, wondering if he had told Micah, or if Micah just had some kind of ESP. Shaman, she thought. They both were shaman, crazy idea or not. Then she realized she would have to tell this part herself, if for no other reason than that she had been the one who answered the phone.

“I got a call last night,” she said. “A man said, ‘You have a beautiful daughter, Connie,’ and then I hung up.”

“That must have freaked you out.”

“Pretty much.”

The two men’s faces had grown as dark and heavy as thunderclouds before a tornado.

“Your ex,” Micah said.

Ethan nodded. “That’s what we’re thinking.”

“But we can’t be sure,” Connie said.

“I agree it would help if we knew something certain,” Micah said slowly, “but we don’t. We should definitely be keeping an eye out for Leo. I’ll see about getting his picture out to the deputies. But at this point, I’m not sure it would be wise to put it out to the public.”

Ethan shook his head. “If it is Leo, we don’t want to push him too hard. If he flees, it won’t help us settle this matter. Besides, he’s already proved violent.”

“My thinking exactly.” Micah looked at Connie, silently requesting her input.

“I don’t think I’m a reliable judge of anything right now,” she answered. “This is way too close to home. Ethan can tell you, I’m barely holding it together.”

“Under the circumstances,” Ethan said, “you’re holding it together damn well. You won’t hear any criticism from me.”

“Me, neither,” Micah said.

Connie smiled wanly. “I think I’ll go lie down. You two can arrange everything with Gage. I’m worn out. In fact, I’m useless with worry.”

“Don’t stay up there if all you’re doing is worrying yourself sick,” Ethan said.

But that wasn’t it at all. She needed to check on Sophie. She needed to be closer to her daughter. She needed some space to find at least a piece of her center to rely on. The worst way to fail Sophie right now would be by falling apart even more than she already had.

Calm. She had to find calm. Real calm. The kind of calm that would allow her to think.

Before it was too late.