Once a Family

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  She wasn’t sure she’d have known her own name if someone had asked while he’d been moving inside her.

  Or that she’d even have noticed if someone else walked into the room. During those moments he’d obliterated everything else.

  “I want you on the case.”

  “Of course you do. You know I couldn’t help but look out for your interests as well as hers.”

  “And that’s bad? To have someone on our side as a family?”

  “It is if, ultimately, it’s best for Tatum to live somewhere else.”

  The words were harsh—a kind of sacrilege in that room where things had been perfect just minutes ago—and yet he showed no reaction to them at all.

  With his shoulders straight, he buttoned up his shirt slowly, without a fumble. She was afraid if she stood, her knees would give out on her.

  “I need you there for Tatum’s sake,” he said. “You see the possibility that she needs to be saved from herself. I know my sister, Sedona. I love her. If I thought, for one second, that she’d be better off someplace besides her home, I would be petitioning the courts myself to have her removed from my guardianship.”

  She believed him.

  “If I’ve proven nothing else in my lifetime, certainly my choices show that I put the well-being of my brother and sisters above my own happiness.”

  She had to give him that.

  He stepped closer, but still kept enough distance between them that he wasn’t invading her space. “Any pressure I put on them to do as I would have them do is with their own good in mind, not my own. If I wanted to keep Tatum home, why would I be pushing so hard for her to go to college? It’s because I want her to be independent, free, equipped to provide for herself and make her own choices, and to not ever be beholden to anyone else to provide a roof over her head. Not even me.”

  “Like your mother was.”

  “Like Tammy was, yes.”

  And, she knew, like Talia had been, too. He wasn’t pacing. Or gesturing. He wasn’t opposing counsel delivering a closing argument. He sat on the end of the bed with her, keeping a couple of feet between them and his hands folded in his lap, and looked over at her.

  “If you abandon her, Tatum is at risk of someone else taking her at face value, believing the surface of her words and not hearing the truth that is hiding someplace inside of her.”

  “What is that truth?” She had to ask. What if she was prey to him?

  For the first time in her life, Sedona was doubting herself. Tanner made her vulnerable somehow.

  It frightened her.

  “I know what I believe it is,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  She was fairly certain what he was going to say. But she needed to hear it again. To mentally record every statement he made from now on, and play it back for her inner judge. To see if there was a nuance, a clue, to something she might have missed.

  “Harcourt is the one who is controlling her,” he said, his voice tinged with anger, but with sadness, as well. “Somehow he’s convinced her that her happiness rests with him and because she believes that, she’s either not seeing the truth about him, or she thinks she can do something about it. She clearly doesn’t see the anger issues, or if she does, she excuses them and must be convinced he can’t help it and will get over it. For her, of course.”

  Tanner Malone was speaking from experience. His words rang with conviction, not rehearsal.

  And she realized something else. Having had sex with Tanner might have the opposite effect on her ability to do her job. Rather than making her more prone to do as he wanted, she was doubting him. Not because of him, but because she no longer trusted herself to be able to tell the difference between his truth and anything she might want to believe to show him in the most advantageous light. And that made her look at everything more closely.

  To test each and every thing he said.

  “If you turn her over to someone else―who decides it’s time to do something with her one way or the other―chances are she’ll end up petitioning to have her guardianship changed, or we’re back to the possibility that she’d be put into the system. Which would most likely leave her open to see Harcourt anytime she pleases. I’m begging you not to take that chance. Tatum will be the one to pay,” he said. “I will have failed her by this....” He pointed between the two of them. And motioned with a thumb to the bed behind them.

  “As far as I’m concerned, tonight changes nothing. Tatum trusts you. And she comes first. If, in the end, you press forward with some kind of motion on her behalf, then you do.”

  “That’s just it.” She clasped her hands so tightly together her nails bit into her palms. And she welcomed the diversion from the other sensations that were overwhelming her. “It’s not you I’m worried about.”

  His head was even with hers as he looked her straight in the eye and let her see a glimpse of the emotion that had to be eating him up inside.

  “Don’t let my sister pay for my indiscretion.”

  The rawness in his voice ate at her.

  As did hearing him put into words the very thoughts she’d been having about their sex.

  It had been an indiscretion.

  Not lovemaking.

  “I have to talk to Tatum,” she said. “I have to tell her that you and I have developed a friendship....”

  “I’d prefer you not tell her we had sex. It’s not something she needs to be thinking about.”

  “I have no intention of telling anyone about tonight,” Sedona told him, her private parts still tingling from his invasion. “My sex life is no one’s business but mine.”

  She had no idea how she’d ever describe the incident, or be able to help anyone understand what had driven her to get naked with the older brother of a vulnerable client.

  Most particularly since she couldn’t understand it herself.

  She stood, walked toward the front of the house, aware of every single step Tanner took behind her. As they stood by her back door—the door he’d entered from and the one he’d leave from, too—she said, “As long as Tatum is okay with the fact that I care about what happens to you, and if she decides she still wants me to represent her, I will continue to do so. The choice has to be hers.”

  “Okay.” He didn’t look completely happy with the decision.

  “And I’m going to ask you to hold off phoning her, about the hypnotism or anything else, until I have a chance to speak with her.”

  “I’ll agree, of course,” he told her, his back to the door. “You’ve got me over a barrel here. But I’d like to know why.”

  “Because I need to be sure that you don’t get to her first and convince her to keep me on.”

  She’d as much as admitted that she didn’t trust him.

  The news didn’t seem to faze Tanner a bit.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  SEDONA WAITED UNTIL midmorning on Sunday before pulling into The Stand. She didn’t know if Tatum attended the nondenominational church service offered in the multipurpose hall, but she knew Lila did and she didn’t want to conduct business with a minor in Lila’s care without the other woman available for consultation.

  If Tatum got upset and chose to dismiss Sedona from her case, Lila would have to be notified immediately. The other woman would then have to decide whether to call in another attorney, or call child protective services and turn the situation over to them.

  Of course, she could just let Tatum remain at The Stand on her own behalf for as long as Tanner would agree to the arrangement. She already had his permission to that effect. But it was based on Sedona’s involvement.

  Sedona had dressed in work clothes—a pair of navy pants and pumps with a white tailored silk blouse. She’d tied back her thick hair with a blue scarf.

  Her appearan
ce was impeccable as she moved forward to face her own personal jury. An emotionally fragile fifteen-year-old who’d only known her for a month.

  It seemed like a lifetime.

  She was on her way across campus, taking the most direct route from the main building through the grass, rehearsing in her mind what she was going to say.

  And changing her mind as she went.

  Just as she’d been doing all morning.

  Was she trying to present herself in such a way that Tatum would agree to keep her on? Because she agreed with Tanner that Tatum was best served by Sedona? Or because she’d allowed Tanner to convince her that his sister needed her?

  Or was she trying to convince Tatum that she could no longer trust her?

  “Sedona!”

  Recognizing Lila’s voice behind her, Sedona turned guiltily. And remembered that Lila had no idea what Sedona had done.

  And wouldn’t know if Tatum decided it wasn’t an issue.

  “I was just getting ready to call you,” the older woman said as she caught up with Sedona. Lila was dressed, as usual, in grays and browns. Her hair was in its usual bun on the back of her head.

  “What’s up?” Sedona asked, wondering if Lila had another new client that needed help.

  “It’s Tatum Malone,” the woman said, frowning. They walked farther into the grass, away from hearing distance of anyone passing by on the sidewalk.

  Sedona missed a step.

  “Tatum?” The Stand’s grounds were busier on Sunday than any other day of the week as many of the women who worked, and all those who were in school, were free for the day.

  “Maddie called Lynn early this morning,” the managing director said, naming Tatum’s roommate and The Stand’s on-site medical professional. “She found a pair of Tatum’s panties in the laundry room. They had blood on them. Maddie knew it wasn’t time for Tatum’s period because...Maddie pays attention to things like that. She got concerned because the blood was something she didn’t understand, so she called Lynn.”

  Lynn, who’d taken Maddie under her wing from the moment the two women met a couple of years before.

  “Apparently when Lynn stopped by the bungalow, Tatum wouldn’t let her see the panties. She said Maddie was mistaken. That she must have seen a tomato stain on the blouse that was in the laundry with the panties.”

  Starting to feel sick, Sedona looked toward the middle of the walk in the distance, knowing that Maddie’s bungalow was off to the right of there. She didn’t like where this was going.

  “When Lynn pushed Tatum, Tatum said she’d only talk to you.”

  Tanner had said his sister trusted her. So maybe he’d been right that Tatum needed her.

  At the moment, her own conscience didn’t matter a whit.

  “Where is she?” she asked Lila, picking up her pace as they headed back toward the more populated part of campus.

  “In her bungalow.”

  “Is Maddie there?”

  “No, she’s with Lynn and Kara.” Lynn’s three-year-old daughter. “They’re working on wedding stuff today.” Sedona had her invitation to the wedding hanging on her refrigerator at home. She wouldn’t miss it for anything.

  “I’ll go talk to her,” she told Lila, speaking of Tatum. And fearing what she was going to find out.

  If she’d been asked last night, she’d have said things couldn’t get any worse.

  She feared now that she’d have been wrong.

  * * *

  LATE SUNDAY MORNING, because he couldn’t stand to be with his own thoughts any longer, Tanner speed-dialed a number he rarely called.

  He was out in the vineyard, checking pH balances and irrigation systems, when he stopped to make the call.

  “Hey, bro, what’s up?” Thomas’s voice answered—a minor miracle in itself—his tone friendly and familiar, as though the two were as close now as they’d been growing up.

  “You got a couple of minutes?”

  “Yeah, not much going on in the financial district on Sunday morning.”

  That hadn’t stopped Thomas from ignoring other Sunday calls over the years.

  “Talia called you, didn’t she?”

  “She might have left a voice mail, sure.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “That I should get my ass in gear and give you a call.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday, actually. It was on my agenda for today. I just hadn’t worked myself up to it yet.”

  Tanner’s spirits sank, in spite of the sweet smell of grapes enveloping him. His crop he got right. Even he couldn’t deny that.

  “So what’s up? You’re not sick, are you?”

  “Of course not. I’d have called if I was.” Because, in that case, he’d expect Thomas to step into his shoes, at least until Tatum turned eighteen. Wall Street be damned.

  And he knew his brother would, too, if it came down to it.

  “Thank God,” Thomas said. Shading his eyes from the sun, Tanner looked up to the perfectly blue sky above him, forcing his emotions under control. “Whew.” His brother chuckled. “I was dreading the call for nothing. So what’s going on? Why’s Talia calling?”

  “She’s moving home.” Tanner said the first thing that came to mind. The easy thing.

  Because he wanted Thomas to know that his family, strange as it was, was still intact.

  Because he needed his brother’s support.

  “No kidding!” Thomas said. “How’s that going to work? She’s still dancing, isn’t she?”

  Tanner hadn’t said what kind of dancing Talia did when he’d called his brother after having located Talia. But he’d told Thomas where she was, and figured his brother had figured it out for himself.

  “She’s been putting herself through college,” Tanner said now, a grin rising to the surface. “She’s got enough money put aside that she can get a part-time salesclerk position and go to school full-time if she doesn’t have to worry about rent and utilities. She’s going to be starting at UC in the summer.”

  The idea still unnerved him. In a good way. Talia was turning her life around. After all of his years of hoping and praying.

  He’d just had to hold on.

  It had been the same with getting his mother to grant him custody of the kids. He’d just had to wait. To hang on. Hang around. It had all worked out in the end.

  He listened as Thomas expressed sincere relief at Talia’s most recent life choices.

  And then, switching his phone from one ear to the other, he took a deep breath and filled his younger brother in on Tatum’s situation.

  “What in the hell...?” Thomas let fly with a series of questions and Tanner answered them as best as he could. He told his brother about Harcourt. His suspicions of abuse and control and manipulation.

  “Because she was vulnerable to them,” Thomas said, clearly struggling to find some way to understand. “If she’s still as sweet and naive as I remember, she’d fall for the lines.”

  If Thomas had come home, even periodically over the past ten years, he’d know Tatum. And yet, oddly enough, he’d pinned her accurately.

  “One of her options is to petition the courts to have me removed as her guardian,” Tanner said. If that happened, Thomas might be called to testify. Talia, too. He’d raised all of them.

  And in their own ways, they were all dysfunctional.

  “You are the one solid in that girl’s life, and there is no place on this earth she could go to get more selfless loving or responsible care,” Thomas said. All excitability had left Thomas’s voice. His tone was calm, assured.

  Tanner was walking among his grapes. Up and down the carefully laid rows. He’d been using the grapes as a diversion, to keep himself from worrying about the situation with Tatum, but
suddenly they were a distraction. Because Thomas didn’t bullshit him.

  Which was why he’d chosen then to call. He’d needed to know what the courts would hear if Thomas was called. Because he didn’t intend to wait much longer to bring his sister home. With Sedona ready to fly the coop, he couldn’t wait for someone else to take over Tatum’s case. Couldn’t risk the chance that child services would be called in.

  They might still be, if Tatum continued to balk at the idea of moving home—if she chose to pursue other actions once he brought her back there. He’d just have to hope that once she was home, sleeping in her own bed, with her big sister in residence and her phone and internet access restored, she’d settle down and want to stay.

  He wasn’t backing down from his ban on Tatum’s seeing Del Harcourt, though. The punk wasn’t getting anywhere near his little sister again. Ever.

  Tatum was fifteen. She’d meet another boy soon enough.

  “The courts would probably want to know why you left here the second you could and have never been back, not even for a visit. I know Tatum’s attorney has already asked her about her relationship with you.” They couldn’t play nice here. They had to face the facts. Because if the court got involved that’s how it would be. Thomas knew that as well as he did.

  “And if it comes to keeping Tatum at home with you, I’ll tell them why,” Thomas said. “If I never do another thing worth a damn in my life, I’ll do this,” the twenty-eight-year-old Wall Street genius continued. “Without you, I would never have made it to adulthood, Tanner. If it wasn’t for you, I’d likely have ended up in prison or something. Everything good in my life I owe to you. Everything.”

  Tanner felt he should say something. Interject. But his brother wouldn’t let him get a word in. His tone was impassioned, adamant.

  “My work ethic, the fact that I even have an education at all and, most importantly, my ability to love, all start with you.”

  Tanner had to ask. “Then why, if that’s true, haven’t I seen you in ten long years?”

  Silence hung on the line. Tanner walked up a row and down the next. He couldn’t take the question back. It was out there, hanging between them.