Harlequin Superromance September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: This Good ManPromises Under the Peach TreeHusband by Choice

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “He paid cash, with the agreement that there’d be no paperwork other than the mandatory release form, which only requires an odometer reading. Fortunately for us, the other green car sales over the past months were legitimate, so...”

  “Address?” He pushed the word out as he sat up.

  “It’s bogus, unfortunately, but he bragged to that old buddy of his that he had a place on the beach, right? We’ve had someone watching months of tape of cams on the public beaches....”

  Up. “You know where he is?”

  “We have the vicinity. He’s been caught on camera several times at The Santa Raquel public beach. But there are hundreds of homes in the area....”

  “Then you need hundreds of people knocking on doors. I’m in.”

  Jumping up, he pulled on the jeans he’d exchanged for old sweat shorts sometime during the day. If she thought he was going to stay home when Meri needed him and there was something he could actually do....

  “I know you are, hon,” Chantel said, her tone laced with friendly affection. “I’m just around the corner from you. Bailey’s going to stay at your place and you’re coming with me.”

  “Okay. Good. I’m ready.”

  He said the words. He was tying up his purple high-tops—because purple was Meri’s favorite color—as they spoke.

  But he wasn’t sure if he was ready.

  Ready for what?

  To find Meri? Bring her home?

  Or to find another pool of blood?

  Either way, he had to go.

  * * *

  MAX’S HAND SMOOTHED its way up her side, over a scar, lingering there to kiss the silken line.

  “No,” she murmured sleepily, wanting so much more than a simple touch from him. “It represents pain,” she told him her secret. “It reminds me.”

  “Which scar is it, Meri?” His whisper covered the scar and it vanished.

  “You are so hot,” he said. “And I can’t get enough....”

  She knew the feeling. Oh, God she knew the feeling. Arching her back, Meredith met him, body to body, strength to strength, partner to partner, as his naked body entered hers.

  She took him into her.

  “And the two become one,” he said.

  The words were beautiful. But it was the catch in his voice that stole her heart....

  Oh...God...her heart....

  She hurt so much and didn’t want to hurt anymore. The elephant was back. He was big and mad. He’d been on the table but now he was on the floor.

  And so was she.

  He was going to trample her.

  * * *

  FOUR DIFFERENT, LARGE neighborhoods were located directly across Highway One from the Santa Raquel beach. The two-lane highway that ran up and down the entire coast of California was the access point to some of the nicest homes in that part of the state.

  Max was out of Chantel’s car and off up the street before she’d pulled to a stop at the entrance of the first neighborhood. Going door to door with others who were searching and asking neighbors to help with the search. He ran into her again when she hunted him down at the end of the next street.

  “Max!” She was on foot, running toward him at full speed, like a linebacker, grabbing at him as she reached him.

  “What?” He pulled his arm out of her grasp. She wasn’t slowing him down.

  “Max.” She touched his arm again, getting his attention. And when he looked at her, she said, “They’ve got him, Max. Wayne just called. They’ve got him.” She was panting as she spoke. Out of breath. “He walked over to a cop guarding the entrance to the neighborhood and turned himself in.”

  He understood every glorious word. He just couldn’t believe it.

  “So Meri’s okay?” She’d said they had him. She hadn’t said anything about Meri.

  “We don’t know.” She was catching her breath. “Now listen,” she said when he was about to head off up the road, continuing knocking on doors, searching yards....

  “They were together,” she said. “We know that much. He had some crazy story about Meredith trying to kill him, but he was crying and just kept saying he was sorry. Over and over. He had blood on his hands, Max.”

  The word that spewed out of his mouth wasn’t one he’d ever heard growing up.

  “Max...hold on. We have to stay calm,” Chantel said, giving his arm another squeeze. “We have to find her, Max.”

  “Doesn’t he know where she is?”

  “He isn’t saying, Max. Says that if he can’t have her then he sure as hell isn’t serving her up to you. He said that his life is over, and it’s fitting that hers is, too. He said she wanted to die, and now she’ll get her wish. She needs us, Max. But it’s pretty clear we don’t have much time. We’ve got extra patrols out. And the volunteer group that is already forming. We’re going to find her.”

  He heard the words. All of them. But his head was roaring. Like he was at the ocean. With Meri. Just the two of them.

  “We have to assume she’s hurt pretty bad.” Chantel didn’t spare him. “There’s an ambulance on the way.” Whatever else Chantel had been about to say was lost as Max ran up to the next house. And the next.

  He already knew the plan. Had his orders.

  Knock on doors. Ask the appropriate questions and apologize for the intrusion.

  Somewhere along the way, he forgot about the apology.

  His wife needed a doctor. And he was one.

  He just had to get to her.

  * * *

  “NO! NO! NO! NO!”

  “Get up Meri! Get up! You are not going to die. Not going to die. Not going to die....”

  “Not going to die. Not going to die....”

  Meredith choked as her dry, clogged throat worked its way around the words. “Not going to die.”

  She heard a voice. Didn’t recognize it as her own. But knew that it was. Repeating what the white figure in her dream had been telling her. “No. No. No. Get up. You are not going to die.” Trying to move, to figure out where she was, all she knew was that she had to get up. Something was telling her to get up.

  She opened her eyes, and cringed as the light brought flashing pain to the top of her head. She was in a small room. Alone.

  The pain was familiar. One she knew.

  She had to get up.

  And it all came flooding back to her. Steve. Her ultimatum. The beating.

  She had to get up.

  She was supposed to be free or dead.

  Instead she was on the bathroom floor of the home Steve had bought for them. The home he’d been coming to for four years, spying on her and her family. Stalking her.

  She had to get up.

  He’d locked her in. He always locked her in. There was a window. Up high. Could she get to it?

  She had to get up.

  Meredith tried to move her tongue. Touched the tip of it to her lips. Her neck hurt. She tasted blood. And salt.

  But didn’t think she’d cried.

  She had to get up.

  There was moisture on her face. And her neck. Beneath her, everywhere. A pool of her own blood.

  She had to get up.

  And so she did.

  All at once. Moving her arms and legs at the same time, she almost vomited again as the agonizing pain took over her entire body.

  She wasn’t going to last long. She knew that. Wasn’t going to get far.

  But she could not die in a pool of her own blood.

  Didn’t want to die in a bathroom.

  On her hands and knees she almost crumbled. Sweat poured from her body. She was so hot. Dying.

  No.

  She wasn’t supposed to die. Had her father told her that?

  With one ha
nd she grasped for the edge of the sink. Pulled herself up and lunged for the doorknob to hold herself up on the other side while she tried to climb on the garden tub and get to the window. She could break it by putting her fist through it.

  One more cut wasn’t going to matter.

  Her sticky, wet—was that blood—hand got to the knob. But it didn’t hold her steady as she’d thought it would.

  As it should have.

  As she’d expected.

  It moved. Turned as her weight fell against it. And the door.

  They moved in unison, she and that hard wooden door.

  He hadn’t locked it.

  * * *

  MAX HAD NO idea how many people cased those four neighborhoods. Dozens. Maybe more.

  He didn’t slow down enough to make eye contact or exchange words with anyone. He was going to find Meri.

  House after house received his thundering footsteps, his brusque knock, his hurried questions and piercing gaze, and then he was gone. Off to the next.

  For every house where someone didn’t answer the door, he called over an officer to investigate. And then he moved on.

  I will find you, Meri. The mantra was all he knew. He remembered making the promise to her once before, in person, when she’d been having a particularly hard day.

  She’d been pregnant, as he remembered it. And scared to death that Steve was close by. That he was going to come steal her away from Max.

  He’d held her in his arms. Loving her for all he was worth. So certain that all they were dealing with was post-traumatic stress. A medical issue, really. Right up his alley.

  He’d whispered a lot of words to her that afternoon.

  She’d ask what-if and he’d have an answer.

  I will find you, Meri.

  He finished one street and moved to the next. And the next.

  I will find you.

  What he found, as he turned a corner, was a mass of people rushing down the street.

  Panic consumed him. He’d seen this scene before. A street. People rushing to the scene. A pool of blood. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

  And then he could. He was a doctor. If anyone was in trouble he could help. Because life was about everyone helping everyone else.

  He’d heard the words from his cradle, from a mother who was older than all the other mothers, and so much wiser.

  A mother who’d imparted her wisdom to her baby before he’d been old enough to form the words that would let her know that he was taking it all in. Every single word.

  Into his mind and his heart. Into his soul.

  With more strength than any one man could possibly have, Max tore up the street and pushed through the moving crowd to the front of the pack. He had to assess the situation to know how to help.

  Breaking through the front edge of rushing people, he was only a couple of yards away from their target when he saw her.

  A stumbling, bruised and bleeding woman. Arms outstretched.

  Calling his name.

  * * *

  THE SKY WAS black as night as Max paced outside the private exam room where they’d taken Meri as soon as they’d reached the hospital.

  He’d done what he could for her on the ride over in the ambulance, started an IV, ordered blood, patched up the worst of her wounds, splinted fingers that were obviously broken. But he’d had no way of knowing what other bones were broken, or what internal damage had been done.

  And she couldn’t tell him.

  The second she’d run into his arms out on the street two hours before, she’d passed out and hadn’t regained consciousness.

  “Her pulse was good.”

  Coming up behind him, Chantel offered the cup of coffee she’d gone to collect.

  “That’s right.”

  “She’s young and she’s got good reason to live.”

  He’d told her that, too. And he nodded.

  “She’s not going to die, Max, you know that,” Chantel said now, giving him a sideways look as she joined him as he paced the hallway. To and fro. To and fro. “She got herself to you, though after seeing the scene, God knows how. But she did. She came to find you. You were calling to her. She has plenty to live for.”

  Chantel was a beautiful woman. And a good friend. “You do, too, Chantel. What you did for me. You’re... I... We owe you.”

  “Is that an invitation to Thanksgiving dinner?” she asked him with a smile that wasn’t at all sad.

  “I think it was.”

  “Then I accept. I’m looking forward to getting to know this woman who inspired such faith in you.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that.

  “It amazes me, you know? How much you believed in her. You just knew....”

  Shrugging, he said the only thing that came to his mind. “I guess that’s what love does to you.”

  “Yeah, well, watching you...I think that I never knew what love was before. I’ve never felt like that...so sure....”

  “Your time will come. If you let it....”

  She started to say something, but didn’t get a chance.

  “Max?”

  Turning on his heel, Max spun around. “Yeah, Ben....”

  The doctor was pulling off his surgical gloves. “She’s going to be fine,” he said. “I wanted you to know immediately.”

  “She is?” There were a million medical questions he should be asking, but he couldn’t think of anything but Meri’s sweet smile.

  “She’s a very lucky woman.”

  He’d said those same words himself, about a child who’d been in an accident and survived in spite of the odds, one who’d come through a surgery better than expected....

  “She’ll be sore for a while, of course. She’s got a broken rib, which I’ve taped, but I could see from the X-rays that it wasn’t the first one or even the first time for that one. Someone said the man who did this to her is in custody.”

  Ben asked to be called to testify. He rattled off specific medical diagnoses for each of Meri’s seventeen specific injuries. And then he said, “But there was no internal damage. I don’t see how....”

  He paused. And the grin on the other doctor’s face seemed to be mixed with a bit of emotion, too, when he said, “We were able to save the baby, Max. She’ll need extra bed rest for the rest of the first trimester. And maybe throughout the pregnancy. The placenta was damaged. But not alarmingly so....”

  “B-b...” Max shook his head, foggy headed, a bit unsteady—all things he recognized as symptoms of shock. “Did you say baby?”

  “You didn’t know she was pregnant?”

  “As far as I’m aware, Meri didn’t even know. We’ve been trying for a second child for a while, but it was taking longer than it did with Caleb....”

  He was blubbering. Just like any other husband or father. And he grinned. “Is she awake? Can I see her?”

  “She’s asking for you.”

  “Did you tell her about the baby?”

  “I thought she knew. I wanted to assure her that all was well.”

  “What did she say?”

  “I just told you, she asked for you.”

  “Go to her, Max. I’ll see you at home later,” Chantel said. Bailey was picking her up and Chantel was leaving her car for Max.

  Chantel’s and Ben’s grins followed him into the rest of life.

  * * *

  MEREDITH DIDN’T REMEMBER much about the day she’d faced her demon and won. Not even the part before she’d been beaten.

  It was all a hazy nightmare that ended when Max was there with open arms, catching her as she fell.

  And she knew, over the next few days in the hospital, and then at home, with Caleb so careful and sweet as he climbed up next to her
in the recliner, with Max never more than a foot away from her, that she’d finally, for the first time since she’d been a twelve-year-old kid standing on the side of the highway, completely and fully woken up from her nightmare.

  “You guys ready?” she asked, standing up slowly as she slid from the van and supervised as Max unbuckled Caleb from his car seat and helped him down.

  They were both dressed in black suits—Caleb an exact replica of his father—with light purple shirts, dark purple ties, and deep purple high-top tennis shoes.

  “You promised you’d tell me the second you start to feel tired,” Max said, one hand holding on to their son’s and the other arm around her waist as they started slowly moving forward.

  “The doctor said I’m fine, Max,” she reminded him. “I’ve even been cleared to go back to work.”

  “Part time. And only as long as I drive you.”

  “Only for another week. Six weeks he said. And it’s been five.”

  “Are you forgetting that I’m a doctor, too?”

  “No.” That was all she said. Because she trusted that it was all she’d have to say.

  “I’m doing it again, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll get better, Meri, I swear. I will not smother you with my overprotectiveness. It’s just...when I thought I’d lost you....”

  “Sshhh.” Stopping in the private parking lot, she put a finger to his lips. “Don’t ever, ever apologize for loving me, Max. Or for taking care of me. Because I can promise you, I’m going to spend the rest of my life protecting, loving and caring for you and Caleb, and whoever our new little one turns out to be.”

  “Ma...sit....” Caleb pulled at Meredith’s hand.

  “Mama doesn’t have to sit, Caleb,” she said, wishing she could bend down to him like she used to be able to. And would be able to do again. She’d pick him up and hold him on her hip. She’d carry him.

  For now, she was content to change his diaper one-handed. For another week, until the cast on her hand came off.

  They had to go in. Lila was expecting them. And she hoped, Renee, too. She’d asked Lila to see if Renee was free that Sunday evening to meet Max and Caleb.

  They’d just come from having a family photo done because while she’d been away for those weeks it had dawned on her that they’d never had a professional family photo taken and she’d been afraid that had been a sign that Max and Caleb weren’t meant to be her family.