“And they don’t judge you,” he finished. He’d left the conversation open for Flynn to talk if he wanted to.
“Kinda sounds like Ellie, don’t it?” the boy observed.
He’d been speaking in generalities and trying to offer friendship, but now that Flynn mentioned it, yes, it did sound like Ellie. He smiled. “It does.”
In the fading light, Flynn appeared as young and innocent as all boys his age should be.
“We’d better put some salve on that nose before you go to bed.” And he needed to check Benjamin’s feet. He stood and they entered the back door. Caleb located his black bag, and dotted the unguent on the boy’s nose.
“Can I sit on the steps for a while longer?” he asked. “I seen a cat slinkin’ out there by the woodpile, and maybe it’ll come back.”
“All right. But don’t try to get too close to an animal you’re not familiar with.”
“Oh, I won’t. I just wanna see it.”
Caleb climbed the stairs and tapped on the boys’ closed door.
“What.”
He opened it and stepped in. “I came to check your feet before you go to sleep.”
“I sleep real light.”
“Do you now?” Caleb pulled his spectacles from his pocket and slipped them on the bridge of his nose. He spread a sheet beneath Benjamin’s feet and unwrapped the bandages.
“If you hurt her, I’ll kill you.”
The vehemence in the lad’s young voice and the glower on his narrow face startled Caleb. He stared. “Why on earth would I hurt your sister?”
“Because you’re a man and that’s what men do.”
Caleb rolled that one over in his mind. Had it taken only one angry man to give this boy such a damning opinion? Did he think all men beat women and children because of his experience over the past year or so? He could understand him hating the one man for his deeds. What he couldn’t comprehend was his assumption that all men were like that one.
His and Flynn’s reactions were so different, and Caleb thanked God that Flynn didn’t have this same hatred roiling inside him.
“Some men do. I can’t deny that. But not all. And certainly not me. I will never hurt your sister. Or you or Flynn. You have my word. You’re my family now. Ellie’s my wife and soon you’ll be my sons. Legally.”
Benjamin’s bitter expression showed that those words didn’t mean much to him. He snorted. “You think people don’t beat their own kids?”
“Did your father hit you?”
Ben clamped his mouth shut and looked at the wall.
“You’re almost a man. Do you hit women?”
“Ellie’s my sister!” he shouted, glaring at Caleb.
“You just said it makes no difference. Other women then—you gonna hit your wife?”
“Ain’t gonna have one.”
“Lucy, then. You plan to sock her sometime soon?”
“You just shut your yap,” Benjamin said bitterly. “You think you’re so goddamn smart ’cause you’re rich and you can boss people around with your money. Well, you can’t tell me what to do, and you can’t boss Ellie around neither. And if you hurt her, you’ll be the only one I ever sock. I’ll get a gun and I’ll blow your puffed-up brains to kingdom come!”
At that moment Caleb could believe he would do it, too. The boy had so much hatred festering inside that it frightened him.
But then Ben’s scrawny throat bobbed and his nostrils flared and he looked away, and Caleb knew those volatile feelings frightened Ben, too.
Caleb knew how to treat and heal Ben’s feet. He knew now after seeing the improvement that just this one day had made that he could save his toes. The diagnosis was plain; the treatment within his capability.
But he didn’t know how to treat and heal the boy’s spirit. The diagnosis was a mere guess. Abuse. Abandonment. The symptoms of his misery had infected his young mind and heart and Caleb had read no book or received any knowledge on how to treat a malady of the mind or soul—emotional wounds.
He’d had similar thoughts about Ellie when he’d first met her. How was it that all three of them could be so wounded? What had happened that had traumatized this entire family?
“Your toes look a lot better tonight,” he said after several minutes had passed, and Ben once again turned his face to the wall. “You’re a fast healer.”
“Have to be.”
Caleb’s hands paused only briefly before he competently wrapped Ben’s feet back up, gathered his supplies and stood.
“Good night, Benjamin. I’ll send Flynn up now.”
He expected no reply and he received none. He left the room, closing the door behind him. He hated the feeling of helplessness that engulfed him. All he knew to do was earn the boy’s trust. And that would take time.
He called Flynn inside, locked up the house and climbed the stairs. Ellie was just coming from his room.
“Nate’s been asleep for nearly an hour.” She paused in the hallway and glanced toward Caleb’s room, which held Nate’s cradle.
“Night, Caleb,” Flynn said.
“Good night, son,” he replied.
“You gonna tuck me in, Ellie?”
“I wouldn’t miss it,” she replied. Caleb gave her a kind smile and she followed her brother into his room.
She’d already told Ben good-night, and now he lay beneath the sheet, his eyes closed.
Flynn stripped down to his union suit, and Ellie folded his clothes and placed them on one of the shelves in the small wardrobe.
“Caleb’s gonna let me ride one of his horses. And he said we could go fishin’ sometimes. He knows a real good spot.”
Ellie perched on the side of the bed and brushed the near-black hair back from his forehead. “Won’t that be something?”
He nodded and yawned.
She’d protected him her whole life until he’d been torn from her and sent to the Heaths’. She’d let him down. But the experience hadn’t soured him on people, and for that she was thankful. He trusted Caleb and he liked Caleb’s family. He was still dear and innocent and she had years to make it up to him.
Ellie placed her head gently on his chest and treasured having him close while he drifted to sleep. Benjamin, on the other hand, had seen and experienced more—so much more than Flynn. His heart had been hardened and he wore belligerence like armor. But his spirit wasn’t broken, not if the fire in his eyes was any indication.
He was a fighter. He had survived the only way he knew how.
Flynn breathed slowly and evenly now. She kissed his cheek, blew out the lamp and left, pulling the door closed behind her.
Caleb stood waiting in the hall.
Apprehension crept through her limbs. They had an arrangement.
“Thank you, Caleb. For everything.”
He nodded. “It’s going to take some time, you know.”
She looked up at him in question.
“For them to adjust to this new life. For them to trust.”
“I know.”
“We’ll just be patient.”
He was talking about Benjamin, and they both knew it. Standing there before they went to their separate rooms on their wedding night was more than a little awkward. “Thank you for not getting angry with him.”
“I think he’s seen enough anger for a while. At least I had the opportunity to see Heath firsthand so that I could understand a little better.”
“Yes.” Caleb was an understanding man, no doubt about that. But that only went so far. He’d never be able to accept the rest of it.
“Well, rest well.” He moved away, toward his room, and she hated the relief she experienced.
Exhausted, Ellie slipped into her nightgown and prepared for bed. She hoped that after all she’d been through that day and all that weighed on her mind, she’d be able to sleep.
In the heat and humidity, her arm itched horribly beneath the cast. She tried to ignore it and lay on the bed without pulling the sheet over her. Sleep came quickly.
&n
bsp; Sounds woke her. A foot scraping. Muttered conversation. The clink of a bottle. Familiar sounds. Ellie prayed her brothers wouldn’t waken.
Ellie buried her head beneath her arm and adjusted her bony hip against the inadequate padding between her and the cold floorboards.
A hand clutched her shoulder, and she jerked into alertness, turning to squint into the dimness. A light shone from behind the threadbare blanket that served as a divider between this sleeping area and her mother’s. It was always a toss-up whether to use the blanket for warmth or as a pathetic veil of privacy.
Against the thin backdrop, she could see that the figure leaning over her was not her mother, but a man she knew as one of Della Foster’s many disgusting nighttime callers.
“What do you want?” she whispered, shrugging his hand from her shoulder.
“Come here. Your mother has taken a fall and I need your help to get her back inside.”
Ellie pulled the moth-eaten sweater she wore over her underwear around her and followed him around the blanket, tiptoeing over Ben and Flynn. She paused to see that her mother truly wasn’t in the cabin, and stumbled out the door into the night in her stocking feet. “Where is she?”
“Here. Over here.”
“I don’t see her.”
“In here.”
A horse and carriage sat a hundred yards from the ramshackle shack that served as her home. In there? Where would her mother have gone with him? She rarely left with anyone. And certainly never with anyone who dressed as well as this man did. She wasn’t the sort he’d want to be seen with.
She peered into the dark interior of the carriage, a wary feeling prickling along her spine. Was her mother dead this time? Or was this some sort of trick? She’d have stayed in the cabin if she hadn’t been afraid he’d wake her brothers if she refused to follow him. They’d seen and heard enough.
“I don’t see anything.”
A hand closed over her neck and squeezed. “Get inside.”
“No! No, I—”
“It wasn’t a question.” He shoved her in forcefully.
She scrambled to get her balance, but he overpowered her, knocking her flat on her stomach. The air whooshed from her lungs and her knee cracked against the wood. One hand held her fast, the other cupping her buttocks through her baggy drawers. Panic engulfed her senses.
She cried out, but he clamped that hand over her mouth until she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t know which was worse. Maybe this was better. Maybe she’d die.
He jerked her over and she clawed at him, blindly reaching for his eyes, his throat. She screamed.
A fist met with her jaw and she saw stars, momentarily stunned, silenced. He tore her underwear, fabric ripping, cutting her skin.
“Stop fighting. I paid good money to be the first and I’m going to get my money’s worth.”
His hands brought more physical pain than she’d ever known. She fought them, fought him, tasting blood, tasting fear. She wasn’t strong enough to win against his strength. She wasn’t strong enough to stop him.
There was no one to help her. And no one who cared.
Ellie thought she managed a scream, but it was a mere cry of anguish that caught in her constricted throat.
So much pain. So much searing, ripping pain.
A scream finally tore from her throat and the numbing blackness receded. She still had some fight left and she wasn’t going to let him do this to her.
She pummeled his bare chest with her fists.
“For God’s sake, Ellie, stop fighting me. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Her mind snapped instantly awake, thrusting her from the nightmare into reality, and she stared at Caleb, panic still thumping in her chest.
He’d apparently carried a lantern in and placed it on the bureau, and the glow illuminated his bare chest and arms.
She pulled her fists to her own breast, realizing with horror that she’d struck him.
As though he’d been prepared to stop her continued attack, he held her upper arms firmly, but without hurting her.
“Oh, Caleb, I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice hoarse and barely discernible to her own roaring ears. The nightmare was dreadfully familiar and particularly vivid, and she’d thought she’d abandoned it years ago. Obviously seeing the man responsible had resurrected the night terror.
“What could have been so frightening?” he asked, the speculative question in his dark searching eyes. “Whatever happened to you, Ellie?”
“Uh-h-ah!” The fierce snarl came from the doorway, and Ellie caught only a glimpse of Benjamin in his union suit as he flew through the air toward Caleb, a gleaming object in his hand.
Caleb threw up his arm to deflect the blow, and the brass towel holder struck his forearm. Caleb grunted and lunged toward the boy.
“Benjamin, stop it!” Ellie shouted over the grunts and growls as the two fought and Caleb got hold of the towel rack.
“I told you not to hurt her!” Benjamin’s face was red with impotent rage. “I warned you!” He limped in a circle, holding fast to Caleb’s bare torso and pounding wherever and whenever he got an opening.
Caleb threw the brass weapon down. “I didn’t hurt her. Listen to me for a minute.”
“Ben, he didn’t hurt me.” Ellie got to her knees on the bed as they fell back upon it. She clamped her good arm around her brother’s forehead and tried to pull him backward.
“I told you I’d kill you, you son of a bitch!” Ben gasped, his rage making him blind and deaf to their attempts to explain.
Ellie cried in earnest.
Another howl was added to the fray. Flynn stood in the doorway, holding a screaming Nate, and when he saw what was happening, Flynn, too, burst into tears.
Benjamin pulled loose from Ellie’s hold and his fists smacked Caleb’s bare skin. The two rolled and tumbled off the edge of the bed with an oof and a curse.
Ben was crying now, too, and Ellie wanted to stop him and hold him. She crouched on the edge of the bed, her knuckles against her teeth, watching in horror. Since they’d landed, Caleb had rapidly gained the upper hand and swiftly moved so he straddled Benjamin’s narrow hips. He caught Ben’s fists and held them fast on either side of his head.
Ben tried to buck him off a few times, the veins in his neck straining, his face scarlet.
Ellie fell to her knees above him and cupped his sweaty face in her palms. “Oh, Ben, my sweet, you are so very brave. I love you, you know that, don’t you?”
“Pardon me, but this sweet boy just tried to knock my brains loose.” Caleb panted, still holding his assailant fast, his hair fallen over one eye.
“Caleb wasn’t trying to hurt me,” she said, ignoring him and gazing into Ben’s blue eyes. “I had the nightmare and I must have screamed. You’ve heard me do that, so you know how alarming it can be. He came to make sure I was all right.”
Benjamin panted, but his struggles to escape had ceased. His bony chest rose and fell. Tears dried on his temples.
Sobs still came from Flynn and Nate in the doorway.
“He didn’t hurt me,” she said again.
Warily, Ben’s eyes moved to Caleb.
Caleb worked to calm his breathing and met the boy’s gaze steadily. His arm throbbed from the blow with the towel rack and his knee had cracked against the floor when they’d landed. He’d had better nights.
“Let me go,” Benjamin said finally.
“Please,” Ellie whispered, beseeching Caleb with her eyes.
He didn’t want to go another round with the wiry little wildcat, but neither did he want to humiliate him or disappoint his sister. He released Benjamin’s wrists and sat up.
Ellie threw herself on her brother’s chest and cried softly against his cotton underwear. His arms came up and one hand smoothed her tangled hair, the other rested on her shoulder.
Confident the worst was over, Caleb lifted away and sat on the floor. He glanced at Flynn and gestured for him to bring the wailing baby.
Flynn nearly ran to hand Nate over, then stood staring from Caleb to his sister and brother, confusion and fear warring on his youthful features.
“Thanks for getting him,” Caleb said, holding Nate to his chest and calming him.
“I heard all the yellin’ and I heard him cryin’. I didn’t know what to do.”
“You did the right thing. Why don’t you go back to your bed now. Ellie will come and tuck you in.”
Flynn nodded and padded out of the room with several backward glances.
I had the nightmare and I must have screamed, she’d said. You’ve heard me do that, so you know how alarming it can be. Caleb pieced all the fragments of information together trying to form an image he could understand. He’d known it was more than Heath’s mistreatment that had turned Benjamin sour on people.
And Ellie’s jumpiness at being touched had puzzled him several times. She’d been hurt so badly that she had a recurring nightmare about it. Someone had beaten them.
Their mother? Father? At this point he wasn’t even sure that he wanted to know. Perhaps it was better that he didn’t.
Nate was hot and clammy against his chest, but he’d quieted and his eyes closed. Caleb got to his feet, wincing when his knee popped, and carried the baby back to his cradle.
Nate’s eyes opened. Caleb spoke softly, reassuring him, and the infant drifted back to sleep.
Caleb rinsed his face in the tepid water in the bowl on his washstand, blotted his face dry and returned to Ellie’s room.
She wasn’t there. The sheet lay spilled off the side of the bed, and the brass towel stand still lay on the floor. When he turned to leave, he noticed the broken chair and the door he’d broken in his panic to get to her. The implication slapped him full force. She’d had the chair back wedged beneath the doorknob. Why had she felt that was necessary?
He padded across the hall to the boys’ room. The door stood ajar and he peered around it.
In the moonlight that streamed through the open window he made out Flynn’s sleeping figure on his bed. On the other bed, Ellie lay behind Benjamin, her fingers threading through his hair. Her whispered words were so soft he couldn’t make them out. He backed away, feeling like an outsider in his own home, and made his way down the stairs.
The Doctor's Wife Page 13
