Home to Me

by Bybee, Catherine

“No. I’ll take something when I get home.”

  “You sure? We have better stuff here.”

  Erin shook her head. “I’m sure.”

  Her thumb was doing the rubbing thing again when they were alone. Matt was starting to think he was the reason she was jumpy. “Do I make you nervous?”

  She glanced at her hands and then put them under her legs. “It’s the smell. Antiseptic and latex, mixed with whatever might be happening out there.”

  “And memories,” he said.

  “Those, too.”

  He took the liberty of placing his hand on her knee. “I’m a good listener. If you ever want to talk about it.”

  Those beautiful eyes of hers softened and her shoulders relaxed. “If you were a tiny bit of a jerk, it would be so easy to push you away.”

  Matt batted his eyelashes as if he were a lost puppy looking for scraps at the dinner table. “My mom says I’m a good catch.”

  Her core shook as she started to laugh.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Matt talked her out of her hospital jitters with stories of entertaining medical runs he and his crew ended up responding to. Like the man who managed to climb onto the roof of the mall with a guitar, stripped naked, and started to perform.

  Erin pictured the scene that Matt laid in front of her and found herself laughing.

  “There were three engines and a dozen black-and-whites on scene. We didn’t know if he was mentally ill or suicidal, or just trying to make his fifteen minutes of fame happen. The thing that kept us guessing was the fact he could carry a tune.”

  “He was good?”

  Matt was grinning. “America’s Got Talent good. But every time someone would try and talk to him or threaten to take him down, he would step closer to the edge. We thought we had a jumper.”

  “What happened?”

  “It was a standoff for two hours. That part of the mall was temporarily closed until the man finally sat down and waited for someone to get him.”

  Erin found herself feeling sorry for the stranger. “That’s so sad. All that talent and not stable.”

  Matt shook his head. “Oh, no . . . don’t feel sorry for the dude. He was the decoy. Not a crazy bone in his naked body. While he was distracting the police and half the fire stations in town, his cohorts were making off with everything they could grab from a jewelry store inside the mall.”

  “What?”

  “It was a big story around here for a long time.”

  Dr. Brown walked into the room with a laptop. “Your CT report is back.”

  Erin couldn’t read the man’s expression, but he wasn’t overly jovial or instantly putting her at ease. “And?”

  He placed the computer on a rolling table and opened it up to show her. “Do you want Matt to leave the room?” he asked.

  Unlike when she was talking about the accident, she didn’t feel the need for him to leave. “No, it’s okay if he stays.”

  Dr. Brown flashed a partial smile and clicked into the images.

  Matt moved closer and reached for her left hand.

  “It doesn’t look like you took on any damage from today. Outside of the cut and what I’m sure will be a decent headache for a couple days. Soft tissue injury to your wrist that will feel better with an ace wrap and an anti-inflammatory.”

  Erin felt a but coming. “So, I’m fine, then.”

  Dr. Brown scanned through several pictures until he had one of the bone structures of her face. He started pointing. “When I asked about this car accident, you didn’t tell me about your other facial fractures. Left orbital and your nose. I’m guessing these happened at a different time, yes?”

  Matt leaned forward as if trying to see what the doctor was seeing.

  Erin didn’t need to look. Maybe she should have had Matt leave the room. “Yes. I didn’t mention it because those had happened long before the car accident.” She felt Matt squeeze her hand.

  “Old arm fracture?” He pointed to the picture on the screen where bone had grown in a bump.

  Dr. Brown looked at her in silence when she didn’t add more.

  “I’ve been accident-prone.”

  “The two most likely ‘accidents’ that cause facial fractures are vehicles and fists. Was there a second car accident?”

  He closed the laptop and took a deep breath. She’d seen the look on several doctors’ faces in the past. Unlike any other time, when Dr. Brown shifted his eyes to Matt, Erin immediately understood the conclusion he was jumping toward.

  “They’re old fractures, Dr. Brown. I got rid of my problem car long before I moved to this city and met anyone here.”

  Matt closed her hand in both of his. She could feel him physically shaking.

  “Glad to hear that. You need to follow up with your primary doctor in five to seven days to take the sutures out.” He turned to Matt. “If she has any neuro symptoms, vomiting, dizzy and lethargic . . . anything, I want you to get her back here,” he told Matt.

  “You got it.”

  “You know your way around an engine of a car, don’t you, Matt?”

  Matt let her go long enough to stand. “You bet I do.”

  “Good.” Dr. Brown looked at her, his eyes filled with compassion. “You said you’re new here. Do you have a doctor in town?”

  “No.”

  “We will give you a couple referrals.”

  She smiled, accepted his hand when he reached out to shake hers. “Thank you.”

  “Lisa will come in with your discharge papers. Matt, can I talk to you outside?”

  Erin released a long breath while Matt and the doctor left the room.

  She hung her head and closed her eyes. Matt heard too much, learned too much.

  The nurse walked in and went through the motions of closing the glass door that shut off the sounds from outside the room. “You okay?” she asked.

  Erin faked a well-practiced smile. “I’m fine.”

  Lisa sat down beside her with a handful of paperwork. She repeated what the doctor had told her about following up and precautions. In addition to names of clinical physicians, the nurse handed her a list of local therapists and abuse centers. “Dr. Brown thought you might want these.”

  She wanted to cry.

  How many times had someone handed her a packet of information, or slipped her a phone number of someone who could help? How many times? Each time they’d pulled Desmond away and each time he smiled for the doctor, expressed concern for her misfortune, and then walked her out of the doctor’s office, clinic, or hospital only to take the paperwork away from her and burn it while she was forced to watch.

  She blinked away tears that threatened.

  Erin handed the hotline information back and kept the list of therapists. “I no longer need this,” she told the nurse. “But it might help that I talk to someone.”

  It was as if the nurse was holding her breath. “Good, cuz I really don’t want to hate on your boyfriend.”

  “Oh, no . . . Matt’s not . . . he didn’t.” This wasn’t good. “Please don’t think that for a second—”

  Lisa lifted her hand in the air. “It’s okay. He seems like he cares, but you can’t always tell.”

  For the next five minutes Erin did everything in her power to repeal any judgment on Matt. Ten minutes later they were back in his truck with the air conditioner blasting. It was only May, but the Santa Clarita Valley was pushing triple digits, and even if it wasn’t hot outside, the temperature in the truck was unbearable.

  Matt sat behind the wheel; both his hands gripped the thing as if he were choking the air out of an enemy.

  She owed him an explanation. “Did you have plans today?” she asked.

  He tried to smile, but it was strangled at best. “I was going to surprise this girl I’m trying to date and see if she might like to take a hike with me. But that plan changed.”

  So that was what he was doing at her house long before lunch.

  “How about a walk on the beach? It will be cool
er there and the doctor said to avoid anything strenuous.”

  He reached across the seat and grasped her hand. Somehow hand-holding was becoming a norm with him. And Erin had to admit she liked it.

  Matt looked over his shoulder and put the car in reverse. A few miles from the hospital they jumped on the freeway.

  Erin took a deep breath. “I owe you an explanation.”

  He pushed his lips together. “Much as I don’t want to stop the flow of what I hope is information, I’m going to ask that you wait until we see the coast. Because if you’re going to say what I think you’re going to say, I don’t want to be driving when I hear it. I won’t live with myself if we’re in an accident when I’m behind the wheel.”

  There was no way to stop the tears behind her eyes. “Okay.”

  He switched lanes and turned onto the highway that would take them to Ventura. Only then did he place his hand over hers, pick it up, and kiss the back of it.

  There were plenty of places along the shore in Ventura where a couple could walk on the beach, swim in the ocean, or sit on a stone wall under the shade of a palm tree. That was where Matt took them. With the Pacific in front of them, and the temperature a good twenty degrees lower than it was at home, he occupied the space beside Erin and waited for her to talk.

  After ten minutes of staring at the ocean, Matt was starting to believe that Erin wasn’t going to tell him anything.

  “Would it make it easier if I told you what I’ve already figured out?” he asked.

  Like a guppy, she opened and closed her mouth several times. Finally she placed both of her hands alongside her and locked her elbows straight. “The problem is I’m not supposed to tell anyone anything ever.”

  “Is that what he told you?”

  She blinked. “Yes. But that’s not why I’m silent. Not anymore.”

  “Someone hurt you,” he started for her.

  Slowly, she nodded. “You can’t tell anyone. Not your brother, your parents. No one, Matt. And if there’s a detail I can’t deliver, you just have to let it be. Okay?”

  She fidgeted and then settled herself. “We met when I was an intern. My senior year of college.”

  “Where?”

  She shook her head. “Where doesn’t matter. He was older, charismatic. I was young and naive. He had clout and prestige, well respected in his . . . with his circle of friends and business associates.” Erin closed her eyes. “I mistook his assertiveness as confidence and considered it an attraction. The first time he hit me we were on a trip.”

  Matt felt his palms tighten and his forearms flex.

  “He accused me of flirting with the bartender. Convinced me that I was. I was shocked, confused. Before we flew home he convinced me it wouldn’t happen again. But kept telling me that I had provoked it and needed to make sure I didn’t attract other men. I had the bruise on my cheek and I felt guilty.” Her chest rose and fell with a harsh, bitter laugh.

  Matt wanted to reach out for her, but her posture was closed off. Like she needed to say this without any contact at all.

  “He hit you more than once.”

  “I lost count. The second time he gave me an I’m sorry gift. The third he whisked us away to an island. I realize now it was to hide me. Sunglasses only did so good of a job.”

  The blood inside Matt’s veins was surging like an overflowing waterfall hitting against the rocks. “Why didn’t you leave?” He never really understood why people stuck with their abusers.

  “It wasn’t that simple. He isolated me. His slow manipulation of my every move was so cunning I had no idea what had happened to my life until I looked in the mirror one day and didn’t recognize myself. None of the people I had been friends with before were around. When he broke my nose he flew us to Europe and told everyone I wanted a nose job. He took my passport to keep me from leaving. And when I did threaten to leave, he threatened to hurt my si—” Erin stumbled on her words.

  Matt was fairly certain she was going to say sister.

  “That he would hurt people I cared about. He proved every time that he could break me and no one else would know about it.”

  “Except the doctors. Surely one of the doctors said something.”

  For a brief second, she glanced at him, her eyes soft. “Yes.” Erin reached for her face. “I could have lost my left eye. It was awful for so long. I was in the hospital for several days. The doctors knew. The nurses knew. They asked me point-blank, almost like Dr. Brown did today. I was so embarrassed. So humiliated that I’d let this happen.”

  Matt couldn’t take it anymore. He reached out and clasped her hand. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “I let him do it. I never fought back, not once.” There were unshed tears in her eyes. “By then he was just ugly, all the time. He didn’t even need alcohol to swing a fist. Have you ever been hit in the face, Matt?”

  “Not as an adult.” He and Colin had their share of childhood roughhousing that might be considered fighting, but those shots were never meant to do any damage.

  “It hurts. The shock that it happened is almost as bad as the physical pain.”

  “How did you finally get out?”

  A breeze drifted from off the ocean and blew her hair back. All Matt wanted to do was pull her into his arms and assure her she was safe.

  “He wanted a son.”

  The thought brought bile to Matt’s throat.

  “I told him I wasn’t ready. My needs didn’t play into what he wanted our life to be, so he flushed my birth control pills down the toilet and forced . . .”

  Matt grunted. How any man could do what Erin was describing . . . But the last thing she needed was Matt showing signs of violence. Yet he knew, if the man was there right now, Matt wouldn’t hold back.

  “I was petrified that I’d get pregnant. Now suddenly it wasn’t just about me.”

  “Did you?”

  “No. I found a doctor in a different town and had her put in an IUD. Only I didn’t take into account that De—” Erin flinched. “That he would monitor my periods. The thing about the IUD is it often stops them. So when he told me I was late he thought I was pregnant.”

  “He found out.”

  She nodded. “I told him I couldn’t have a child if he was going to abuse them the way he hit me. He was outraged. How dare I call him an abuser when I was the one causing the issues. I made the mistake of telling him I wanted to leave.”

  Matt realized he was squeezing her hand too tightly and loosened up. Hearing her past was like watching a train wreck but not being able to tear your eyes away. You knew it was going to end badly, but you kept watching anyway. “What happened, sweetheart?”

  She pointed to the back of her head. “We were driving. He was enraged. He told me if I didn’t have his children, then I was better off dead.” Erin was staring at the ocean now, her words a short staccato as she listed facts. “There was a red light. No one was in front of us. He was screaming. I huddled next to the door. He didn’t slow down. That’s when he reached over, unbuckled my seatbelt, and crossed the intersection.”

  Every cell in Matt’s body turned stone cold. “Fuck.”

  Erin was blinking away tears. “When I woke up in the hospital he was at my bedside and I didn’t remember a thing. Within a week my memory came back, and when it did he was right there to tell me that he’d proved he could kill me if he wanted to.”

  Matt released her hand, placed his arm over her shoulder, and pulled her into his side. She softly cried in his arms as he let her story sink in.

  “You got away, Erin.”

  “I did. But at a cost.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s still out there. Holding on. Maintaining his innocence.”

  “I don’t understand. How is he holding on? You’re not with him anymore.”

  She moaned. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Matt moved away long enough to look in her eyes. “Erin, you don’t have to be careful with your words around me. Thi
s conversation is locked in a vault. Unless you point him out to me. In that case . . .”

  She offered a pathetic smile.

  “When I left I hired an attorney, filed a restraining order against him . . .” Erin looked at her hands in her lap. “. . . and filed for divorce.”

  Of course. That’s why it wasn’t as simple as walking away. She’d been married to him. “Wait . . . are you still married?”

  Tears started to flow again. “He won’t sign the papers. This morning when I did this”—she pointed to the back of her head—“I learned that the restraining order was lifted.”

  “Oh, damn.”

  “He doesn’t know where I am. At least I don’t think he knows where I am.”

  “To stay that way you keep all of this a secret.”

  She nodded. “The less people that know anything the better. Parker knows my ex hit me. She doesn’t know the details.”

  A lot of things were starting to line up. “That’s why you work from home.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And why you don’t socialize a lot.”

  “It has to be that way,” she said. “My own family doesn’t know where I am. If they did, he would find a way to hurt them to get to me.” She started to tremble.

  “Hey.” He placed both hands on her arms and made her look at him. “I’m honored you trusted me with this.”

  “I think you figured most of it out after today.”

  He agreed. “The first time you flinched when I lifted my arm, I knew. Colin and I talked about it. If it makes you feel better, every time I ask if Parker has said anything, he’s told me no. Said he didn’t know a woman that was better at keeping a secret.”

  That left a smile. “I was told that even with the best of intentions, sometimes things are said, and that’s when the abuser learns things. My attorney doesn’t know where I am.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No.”

  “Are you even from Washington?”

  When she didn’t answer, he retracted the question. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. You’re here. You’re safe. You have an alarmed house and a landlord that will shoot first and ask questions later.” He paused and pushed her hair behind her ear. “It all makes so much sense now.”