“Remember when my old man took me that time? I was gone for a few days, and you were frantic when I got back. You wouldn’t let me out of your sight after that. Even slept between me and the door. For years.”
Of course he remembered. “Yeah.”
“He was using me to get Tammy to do what he wanted, Tanner. Kept me locked up in a closet for three days.” Thomas choked up and fell silent. And Tanner felt like puking.
“It’s okay, bro,” Tanner said now. Maybe Thomas would tell him the details someday. Maybe not. It didn’t change anything. “I’m here. I’ve always been here.”
“I felt helpless, like an animal, or something. Powerless. He let me go, and I came home, but the feeling stayed with me. Until I left California,” Thomas said, his voice back in control. “A strange thing happened when I got on the plane to go to college. That feeling slipped off my shoulders. The memory, that will always be there, but knowing that it happened doesn’t hold me back here. It’s like I’m a different person in a different life. I left the bad parts of the past behind because I had to. And I couldn’t leave the bad without leaving all of it, I guess.”
“When you talk to me, you get that feeling again.” He could understand. Completely.
“Yeah. But, more than just you, California reminds me of that time.”
“So...we’ll talk on the phone now and then...keep in touch.” And if the courts called, Thomas would come home. That was enough for Tanner. More than enough.
“Actually, I was thinking... I’ve...I’ve met a woman, Tanner. Courtney Matthews. She’s a schoolteacher and I did some work for her after she inherited a bit of money from her grandmother. I’m...thinking about asking her to marry me. And...I’d like you to meet her first. I was hoping...maybe you all could come out to New York for a vacation this summer. I thought it would be nice for Tatum to see the city. She’d love the museums and the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty....”
Tanner left the vineyard, heading toward the barn. So much was happening, so fast. Feeling overwhelmed, grateful and scared, too, he made it to an antique stool Tatum had set aside as a keeper, and dropped onto it.
“I think a trip to New York sounds wonderful,” he managed to put together from all of the thoughts and words rambling around in his brain. “And congratulations, bro,” he added. “I very much want to meet your Courtney.”
“Not half as much as she wants to meet you,” Thomas said with an easier chuckle. “The woman’s been after me for six months to arrange something.”
Six months. Thomas had been seriously involved that long and hadn’t said anything.
“Does she know about—”
“She knows everything,” Thomas interrupted.
So she was the one. She’d freed his little brother from hell.
With his lips firmly pressed together, Tanner laid his head back against the wall of the barn and waited for emotion to pass.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
TATUM ANSWERED THE door looking like any of a million other California blonde teenaged girls, in short shorts, a spaghetti-strap tank top that rested far enough above her waistband for her belly button ring to show and sandals. With her long silky hair, she could have walked off the set of any one of the major Hollywood networks.
“Can I come in?” Sedona asked.
I’m guessing that’s not an outfit your brother’s seen you in. She bit off the first words that came to her mouth. Tanner would have seen the clothes. She’d seen Tatum take them from her drawer. But she’d bet that when Tatum’s brother was around, that tank was an undershirt.
“Sure.” Tatum stepped back and Sedona followed the girl to a spotlessly clean and quiet living room.
“I was in my room, studying,” the girl said, sitting on the edge of the sofa. “I’ve got finals this coming week.”
Tatum was still carrying a 4.0. Tanner had been keeping her up to date on that end.
Sitting down next to Tatum, Sedona jumped right in. “Tell me about the panties.”
Picking at her fingernails, short now with no polish, Tatum faced the floor, her expression pained.
“I can’t help you if you aren’t up front with me,” she reminded in her sternest voice. Her heart ached for the girl, but they were running out of time.
When Tatum glanced up, Sedona knew it was bad. “I had sex with Del,” she said, looking more afraid than anything else. “I made him use protection and I took the morning-after pill,” she added in a rush. “I had a friend of mine bring me one. I was responsible.”
She’d been afraid Del Harcourt had been involved. And her heart sank.
“There was blood in your panties.”
“I know. It... Del told me that happens to girls on their first time.”
Oh, God. Please help us.
“Lila said it was a lot of blood. That you told her it was spaghetti sauce.”
Nodding, Tatum sat still, meeting Sedona’s gaze head-on.
And that’s when Sedona knew things were really bad.
“Did it hurt?” she asked, scrambling for the right way to handle this. The best way. She’d had some training in family counseling, but...
Tatum nodded again. And this time her gray-blue eyes filled with tears. “A lot more than I was expecting.”
She covered Tatum’s hand with her own and the girl turned her hand over, weaving her fingers through Sedona’s.
“Has there been any blood since?” How bad was the situation?
“No.”
Thank you, God. “I’m going to take you to see Lynn Duncan,” she said next, leaving no room for argument. “A girl’s first time does cause a little bleeding sometimes, but only a little. There might be something else going on with you and we’re going to have to let Lynn take a look. Or I can call your doctor.”
Harcourt could have caused some tearing.
Tatum surprised her when she said, “No, Lynn would be fine.”
Something else occurred to her. “Does it still hurt?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Then let’s go.”
Tatum stood, still holding on to Sedona’s hand. “Aren’t you going to ask how I had sex while I’m living here?”
Sedona had already figured that out. And at the moment it was the least of her worries. “I’m assuming it happened one of those times you missed class because you were sick.”
“Twice, actually. I thought the second time would hurt less, but it didn’t. Del, he... Anyway, that second time, he was in a hurry and so he got kind of...rough...and it hurt more. A lot more,” Tatum said, still not moving toward the door. “I don’t want you to think I’m a liar or anything, Sedona,” she said. “I really was sick all the other times. But Del’s been sending me messages through our friends and we saw each other when he drove over to the school. And he’s been at my locker after school, too. We really miss each other. He understands about me being here and he’s so sweet about it. He wants me to figure out what to do so we can be together. He really loves me, Sedona.”
Sedona believed that Tatum believed it. But she didn’t. Not anymore.
“A boy doesn’t usually hurt a girl so much.” Not enough to cause a substantial amount of blood.
“It was his first time, too. He told me that after the second time because I was crying. I couldn’t help it. It was awful. And he swore to me he’d never done it before, either, and that he’d get better at it. He said I could do things to help it go better, too. I was really surprised about him not doing it before because he’s a couple of years older than me and he’s got every girl in the county after him. But he picked me. He really loves me,” she said again.
If it was Del’s first time, Sedona would sell her house.
Tanner was going to be heartbroken.
“Usually wh
en a guy loves a girl, he makes sure her first time is special.”
“I know. And he wanted to. But with me being here...he said he could wait for me to make up my mind about where I was going to live as long as he knew we were going to be together forever. He said that was the way we could both know. If we did that together and with no one else. So we met in his car during English class and―”
“In the school parking lot?”
“On the road behind it. He found a private spot. And made sure both times that I got back inside without being caught before class was over.”
Sedona needed to speak with Sara.
“He thanked me for giving him my virginity. He knew how important it was.”
The kid pulled out all the stops....
“So this just happened?”
“Thursday was the second time. It was our last day of regular class. Friday we had an end-of-the-year assembly and shorter classes, and I can’t miss out on finals next week. Then who knows when we’ll get to see each other again. He had a blanket on the seat and brought me a rose and a card, too.”
Sedona focused on one thing. For a girl who was so in love, Tatum didn’t seem all that upset about not seeing Harcourt for a while.
But she wouldn’t go home because she couldn’t see him?
Nothing was making sense.
And in a frightening way, everything was.
Maybe Del Harcourt was a creep, just like Tanner said. Maybe he was controlling and manipulative and was taking advantage of a sweet girl’s innocence. Bringing her roses, cards. Saying all the right things.
Maybe Tatum was prey to him, vulnerable to his manipulation, and maybe she was being hit by him, too. If the sexual violence—or at least his complete disregard for her feelings, her physical comfort—was anything to judge by...
The idea was horrifying.
And made a sickening kind of sense, as well.
* * *
AFTER A SUNDAY lunch meeting with a couple of board members from the local vintners’ association—who were pressuring him to run, uncontested, for a board position—Tanner headed to the nursery just outside of Santa Raquel. He’d bought his first grape plants from the place.
That day he wasn’t thinking about grapes.
He wanted sod. Not grass seed, as the salesperson was trying to convince him. Yes, he understood it would be much more cost effective, but this job wasn’t about money.
It was about creating a home Tatum would be proud to come home to. And creating it now.
Within the next couple of days.
Before Sedona turned his little sister over to one of her peers and they ended up in court.
If he could just get Tatum home, he felt confident that he and Thomas and Talia would be able to help her—and keep her there. Just until she was old enough and equipped with the appropriate life tools to fend for herself.
Then she’d be free to fly as far away as she needed to go.
Who knew there were so many different types of grass for front yards? He chose the softest. Tatum liked to go barefoot.
Ordering enough to cover the ground all the way out to the road and arranging for it to be laid the middle of that week, he then picked out everything he was going to need to get the in-ground irrigation system in. That he could do himself, over the next few days, and be ready for the grass when it arrived.
On his way out the door, he saw a couple of big clay pots with butterflies painted in dramatic colors. He bought those, too. And enough geraniums to fill them. They could sit on either side of the cracked porch steps for now. Until he could arrange to get new steps poured.
Talia was coming home. And, maybe, after they all visited Thomas in New York and met Courtney, the two of them would be able to make it out to California for a visit. Maybe even for Christmas.
Or he and Tatum and Talia could fly to New York and spend Christmas in the Big Apple. Experience their first white Christmas ever.
With thoughts of sugar plums dancing in his head, Tanner turned into his driveway and saw Sedona’s Thunderbird sitting in front of his house.
He hadn’t known if she’d call or show up. But he’d been waiting to hear from her. To know how her talk went with Tatum.
To kiss her again. Just one kiss.
She got out when he did, meeting him at his truck as he reached in the bed for the first clay pot.
The store clerk had insisted that he should plant the geraniums immediately so they wouldn’t go into shock and lose their blossoms. If he wanted them to be in full bloom on Wednesday, the day he’d told them his yard had to be done.
He had to know. “Did you talk to her?” he asked as he placed the pot on the ground to the left of the steps and went back for the second one.
“Yes.” Bending, she positioned the pot a little in front of the stoop, in line with the corner. Far enough away not to intrude on the space people would need to climb the steps, but close enough that the eye focused on the pot rather than the cracked cement.
At least that was how Tanner saw it when he went back with the second pot in hand.
“What did she say?” he asked, leaving the pot on the ground in close proximity to where it would probably end up.
“She still wants me to represent her.”
Holy hell. He let out a huge breath as he lifted a forty-pound bag of potting soil. Maybe they were on some god’s radar.
Dropping the bag by the pots, he said, “You told her about us?” and headed back to the tailgate for the tray of geraniums.
“I told her that we’ve become friends over the past several weeks. She knew of your condition to let her stay there, of course.”
Tatum had had to sign their agreement, as well. While, as a minor, her signature hadn’t been legally binding, as Sedona had pointed out, Tanner had insisted that his sister take on ownership of their plan.
“What did she say?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” He stood there, holding the tray of flowers, staring at her.
“Nothing.”
“She didn’t ask any questions?”
“I told her I care about both of you and that she had to understand that my perceptions where her case were concerned might be skewed by that fact. She said she understood.”
“And that she still wants you to represent her.”
He hadn’t expected it to be so easy. Setting the tray down, Tanner ripped into the bag of potting soil, filling each pot three-quarters of the way with the dirt, just like the woman at the store had instructed.
“She said she trusts me to do what’s right by her.”
So why wasn’t Sedona smiling? Why were there clouds in her eyes? Peering up at her, Tanner decided that maybe the sun was just in his eyes.
He wanted to kiss her.
More than once.
Placing the flowers in the pot, he waited for the moment of intense desire to pass.
“Here, let me help you with that.”
“You’re dressed too nice. You’ll get dirty.”
He still wanted her.
Not that she seemed to notice. Or seemed to be having any trouble keeping her hands off him.
“My clothes are washable,” she said. “And unless you plan to smear dirt all over them, all that’s likely to get dirty are my hands.” By the time she’d finished talking, she had flowers in both hands and was placing them in what appeared to him to be haphazard fashion.
Reaching behind her, he straightened a couple of them.
And she put them back where she’d placed them.
“You don’t plant flowers in neat, even rows in a pot,” she said calmly. “They grow out more than up and will fill whole areas. The idea here is to make certain that when they do, you’ve filled up the entire pot with blooms.
”
Conceding that she knew more about planting flowers than he did, Tanner took half a step back, loosening each dirt pod from the tray and handing it to her when she was ready.
When they were done, he lifted the bag of soil and poured as she directed.
Then he stood back with her and they surveyed the results.
The pots looked good. Nice. Great.
She wasn’t smiling yet.
Bending down, Tanner kissed her. Just mouth to mouth, not body to body. When her lips responded to his, he lingered, careful to keep his dirty hands off her clean clothes.
She kept her hands to herself, too, until she reached up to Tanner’s shoulders and pushed him away.
She shook her head.
And he wasn’t smiling anymore, either.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
SEDONA LONGED FOR ELLIE. For a ship on the ocean, with waves surrounding her, cosseting her, buffering her and taking her away.
She longed for a moment of childhood so she could creep up on her mother’s lap and feel those loving arms around her as Millie kissed her boo-boo better.
There was no kiss, no Band-Aid or any salve that was going to make this go away.
“What’s wrong?” Tanner’s frown put a cramp in her stomach.
“I took Tatum to see Lynn Duncan this morning.”
“The nurse? Why, is her throat bad again? I thought they did a culture. Have they checked for tonsillitis?”
With a heart that cried for him, she searched for a way to soften the blow.
“She’s got some vaginal tearing.” She stuck with the facts. “It’s nothing to be concerned about long-term. It’s relatively minor and she’s already healing. There’s no internal or other damage.”
His face went white. And as still as stone.
“Tell me how one gets vaginal tearing in a women’s shelter.” The softness of his words didn’t fool her. Tanner was angry. Bone-deep angry.
She’d known he would be. The loss his precious sister had suffered at the hands of a boy who was, at the very least, unduly selfish in his eagerness had to be devastating for him.
Once a Family Page 24
