by Dawn Atkins
He looked at her again, his dark eyes anguished. “I escaped in my shop. I told myself I was giving her space, but I was running from her pain.” He motioned for Cara to lift her other foot. He cupped his hand around it.
“You were grieving, too.”
“I was her husband. For better or worse, remember? When life was easy, I managed to fake it. But when it got bad, I failed her.”
“I’m so sorry.” Cara wanted to ease his guilt, but he’d built a wall against her words.
“Eventually, Suzanne found the comfort she needed.” He gave a brief, bitter smile. “The problem was she got it from my best friend and business partner.”
“How awful.” Talk about a betrayal.
“It started out innocent. Suzanne did our books and answered phones, so they were around each other. Jared’s like Evan—good with people, easy with small talk.” His voice was so rough it seemed the words hurt his throat.
“I was relieved to see her happy, so I didn’t question it. Until the morning they met me in the office to tell me they were in love.”
“What did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything. What I did was punch Jared in the face.”
Cara sucked in a breath, picturing Jonah raising a fist. It was a terrible image, reminding her of Barrett so much she felt ill.
“The worst was Suzanne. She cowered like she expected me to hit her next. The look on her face will stay with me until the day I die.”
She’d experienced what Suzanne had. She’d faced a violent man. She knew that helpless terror. Jonah’s not Barrett. Cara tried to say something reassuring, but the words wouldn’t come.
“The minute my arm cocked back I felt it—my father’s rage. I was acting the way he would have. It scared the hell out of me. I knew I was like him, but I’d never hit anyone before.”
It scared her, too. That’s how she’d felt when Jonah yelled at her at the bowling alley. She pushed back that thought. “You didn’t hit her.”
“I didn’t have to. The damage was done. And being sorry didn’t fix it.”
Barrett had been sorry, too, when he lost his temper, grabbed her, threatened her. I would never hurt you. You’re my life. I’ll do better.
And Cara had believed him too many times. He’d almost killed her.
This is different. Jonah’s not Barrett. He’s a good man.
“I’m sorry to frighten you,” Jonah said, “but you should know who I am and what my limits are.” He put down her foot and took her hands, pressing them between his own. “I need the reminder. When I’m with you, I forget.” He paused. “Especially lately. I’m in love with you, Cara.”
Her heart leaped in her chest. They were in love. That didn’t happen every day. Couldn’t they find a way to be together? Didn’t love conquer all?
In movies and books. Not here, not in her life. The part of her that had kept her and Beth Ann safe so far told her that. “I love you, too. I do.” She took a deep breath. “That only makes this harder. I have to leave.”
“I know.” He looked sad, but resigned.
She gripped the chair arms. “But I’ll always have the bear you carved and this chair to remind me of you, of how happy I was. Will you help me strap it to the roof of the car?”
“I can do better than that. I’ve got a small trailer you can take.”
“That’d be great. Maybe we can take the bike Rosie gave Beth Ann. Something for her to remember, too.”
“Happy birthday, Cara,” he said, pulling her up and into his arms.
She did feel happy. But sadness had leaked in through the cracks and when they made love, Cara memorized every touch and feeling, as if it were the last time they’d be together. They had two more months, but they were already saying goodbye.
* * *
“TELL CJ to slap on some lipstick and fluff up her hair,” Evan said to Jonah on the phone. He’d called in the middle of breakfast service.
“What are you talking about?”
“A TV crew from Tucson’s doing a story on the good-luck buns. They’re coming here first to talk to me, then out there. Noon or so.”
“How’d this happen?” He looked out at Cara who was darting booth to booth with a plate of apple crumb cake she was trying out.
“From the E! segment. You saw it, right?”
“Not yet. Rosie recorded it. We haven’t sat down to watch yet.”
“Jesus, Jonah, keep up. Devil’s Anvil Reborn told the E! host that the buns gave them the luck that got their record deal.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. I’ve been pitching the story ever since. TV 6 is the first nibble. It’s local, but it’s a start. The publicity should be great for the café.”
“I’ll tell CJ. She’ll be thrilled.”
But when Jonah told her, she nearly dropped her tray. “Are you crazy? I can’t be on TV. I have to stay invisible.”
“It’s a local station, what’s the big deal? It’ll bring in more customers.”
“What if it gets picked up by other affiliates?”
“That seems like a long shot to me.”
“I can’t risk it. Rosie has to do the interview. Darlene can cover my tables.”
“I think you’re overreacting,” he said.
“You have no idea what my husband is capable of.” She was pale and trembling. She looked like a hunted animal. Cara ran off to tell Rosie, leaving Jonah holding her tray.
What the hell had her ex done to her? He wanted to erase that look forever. He wanted to make her feel safe, to protect her. He wanted her to stay and be with him. That was the truth of it.
So you can fail her, too? Hurt her?
He knew better. So did she since he’d told her he’d hit Jared and made Suzanne cower. The look on Cara’s face afterward…
It was the same one she’d just showed him. She’d been as afraid of him as she’d been of her ex. That truth crushed any hope of a future with her he dared have.
* * *
“THIS IS it. That’s the café!” Rosie stabbed a finger at the TV screen. Cara sat with Rosie and Jonah to watch the news story about the good-luck buns.
Please let it be okay, Cara prayed. Please, please. She felt Jonah’s eyes on her. He thought she was being paranoid, but he was wrong. She knew that for sure. All her instincts told her so.
They started with footage from E! where Devil’s Anvil Reborn declared the good-luck buns had won them their contract. Next, Evan told the reporter he’d had calls from bands all over the country wanting to play at the bowling alley and buy the lucky buns. That sounded like an exaggeration, but it made for good publicity for him.
Then they shifted to the café to interview Rosie, who stood stiffly in front of the counter wearing a ruffled dress and too much makeup.
“God, I look like a hooker. And in that dress…make that a fat hooker. Why didn’t you tell me, Jonah?”
“I was in the kitchen,” Jonah said. “You look fine.”
“Shh,” Cara said, leaning in.
The reporter said, “I’m here at the New Hope Café talking to—”
Rosie yanked the microphone from her hand. “You mean Comfort Café. New Hope’s the town.” The reporter seemed taken aback.
“She kept calling it that,” Rosie said now. “Where do they get these idiots? Airhead Academy?”
Rosie told the reporter the baker preferred to remain anonymous, as Cara had asked her, then
talked about how popular the buns were. Whew. Cara relaxed a little.
The scene changed to the patio. “Even kids love the special rolls,” the reporter said. She thrust the microphone in front of a girl. Amanda, one of Beth Ann’s camp friends.
“They’re awesome,” Amanda said. “Bunny’s mom invented them.” The shot widened to include Beth Ann, who smiled shyly.
“You let her be interviewed?” she demanded of Jonah.
“I didn’t know. I was at the grill.”
“So how do you feel about your mom’s baking?” the reporter asked.
“Good.” Beth Ann ducked her head.
Amanda pushed into the shot. “The rolls were good luck for Bunny ’cuz she got me as a new friend.”
The reporter finished with directions to the café and the phone number.
Cara froze. If Barrett saw this, he’d know where they were down to the highway marker and hours of operation.
The phone rang from the kitchen. “Here we go with the orders,” Rosie crowed, going to answer it. Beth Ann came from the hallway. “You missed it, young lady,” Rosie said to her. “You were on the news talking about your mom’s lucky buns.” Rosie turned the corner and picked up the phone.
“I was?” Beth Ann turned frightened eyes toward Cara.
“Why did you do that?” Cara said. “You know we have to be careful.” Her ears were ringing and her brain buzzed with static. She couldn’t think straight.
“Amanda made me.” Beth Ann sucked in a breath. “Will he find us now? Do we have to leave?”
“I don’t know. I have to—”
Jonah cut her off. “Of course not, Squirt. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Cara stared at him.
“It’s true,” he said. “It was ten seconds.”
Cara forced herself to speak calmly to her daughter. “Go back to your room for now. I’ll decide what we need to do and come talk to you.”
“I want to stay here,” she said.
“I know you do. But if we have to leave, we will.”
Beth Ann turned for the hall. Cara didn’t trust her not to eavesdrop and Rosie might return any minute. “Let’s talk downstairs,” she said, starting for the door. When they reached the café, she turned on him.
“You had no right to contradict me with my daughter.”
“You were scaring her. She’s only a kid.”
“She needs to be scared. We’re in danger. One slip and he’ll find us. She knows we have to be vigilant.”
“Trust me, she’s already plenty vigilant. She was terrified I would tell you she’s been using Instant Message.”
“She what?” Cara froze. “She’s been online?”
“She uses my computer to text her friends. She told me she’s safe about it.”
“Safe? Are you kidding me? It’s not possible to be safe online. My ex-husband has flagged our internet IDs for sure. What friends? Was one of them Serena?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t look.”
“Serena is from where we were living before. Barrett would have talked to her. The TV spot is nothing compared to this.” Cara could hardly breathe. Fear poured through her. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” she said, her mind spinning with the implications.
“You were getting along better with her and I didn’t want to mess that up.”
“So you put our lives in danger.”
“That’s extreme, Cara.”
“When she said I didn’t want her online, you should have known I had good reasons. You should have told me, Jonah.”
“Your ex isn’t a superspy. He can’t be everywhere.”
She glared at him. “My husband is a family-practice lawyer. He knows police, prosecutors, judges. He hires investigators to track deadbeat dads. He’s rich and ruthless.” She paused for air. “On top of that, my own mother is helping him.”
That hurt more than she’d let herself know.
Jonah looked chastened. “You should have told me.”
“The less anyone knows about us, the safer we are. You should have trusted me.”
He thought about that for a moment. “You have to be careful, sure, but it’s far-fetched to think that a few text messages and a ten-second TV shot will bring the guy here. Beth Ann’s been online for weeks. If your ex was that diabolical, wouldn’t he be here by now?”
She hated the sneer in his voice, the condescension. That was how Barrett talked to her. A chill made her spine tingle. “Don’t you dare mock me. I’m not a child afraid of the bogeyman.”
“I’m asking you to be reasonable. You can’t jump at every shadow. That’s no way to live.”
Cara was so angry she saw red. “Listen to me. I know what I’m talking about. When I tried to leave him, he nearly killed me. He slammed me into a washing machine and left me for dead.”
Jonah paled. “My God.”
“If my next-door neighbor hadn’t checked on me, I would have been. As it was, I was in a coma for five days.” The words seemed to tear at her throat as she said them, making it burn.
Jonah stared at her, horrified.
“He’s obsessed with us. He wants us back. He wrote letter after letter from prison saying that without us he can’t go on living.”
Cara swallowed hard. “Am I getting through to you? Can you see the tabloid headline in the making? Abusive husband fulfills prison vow—shoots wife and daughter, turns gun on self. It happens every day to women like me.”
The words made the danger real. They echoed in the air. They made her shake. “I do not intend to be a statistic, Jonah. If that makes me paranoid, then so be it.”
She felt so betrayed, so alone. She knew what she had to do. She had to leave. She’d known that from the beginning, but she’d been seduced into a sense of false security, lulled by the comforts of the café, the people, the joy of being needed…loved.
“What can I do to make you feel safe?” Jonah said.
“Make me feel safe? You think that’s all I need? There, there, little lady, don’t you worry. I’ll scare away that nasty monster you think is under the bed?”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
“Then what did you mean? You’ll guard us? Stand outside our door at night with a rifle? And even if you wanted to, you leave for New York Thursday, remember?”
“So come with me.” His eyes raced back and forth. He was thinking out loud. “We’ll rent a place. That was my plan anyway. You’ll be safe in New York. I’ll come back to get Rosie through her treatments and make sure the café’s staffed properly, then join you for good. You and Beth Ann.”
She stared at him, totally blown away. “You would do that?”
Jonah would throw his life into chaos to save her from what he saw was unnecessary panic. Her fury melted instantly, replaced by relief and gratitude.
New York was huge, totally anonymous. The headquarters of the domestic violence network was there. Surely she’d be safe. She’d be far away from Barrett. She’d be with the man she loved.
“I love you,” he said. “I need to take care of you.”
Need to. The words pulled her up short. So did the determined set of his jaw. This was his duty as her guardian, the way he saw it. He no doubt wanted to make up for how he thought he’d failed Suzanne, too.
“Jonah…” She felt so sad she almost couldn’t say what she had to say. “No. You don’t.” Then she realized something more important than Jonah seeing her as a responsibi
lity.
“You can’t rescue me,” she said, ashamed that she’d even for a moment considered that. “That’s my job. Handing over my life to a man is what got me in trouble in the first place. I got myself into this. I have to get myself out of it.”
Cara had let herself lean on Jonah just as she had with Barrett. Jonah wasn’t Barrett, but there were too many echoes, too many similarities—Jonah’s strength, his temper, his protective nature, his urge to ease burdens that were rightly hers to carry.
If she went with him to New York, every time he raised his voice, she would be reminded of Barrett. Every time they argued or she felt belittled or patronized, she would become the timid girl she’d been in her marriage.
Maybe all men would become Barrett for her. Maybe she’d wanted so much to be normal that she’d fooled them both into thinking she was.
“I want to do whatever you need me to do,” he said stubbornly.
“I need you to step back,” she said levelly. “You can’t make up for what happened with Suzanne. You think you failed her. I don’t believe that. You haven’t failed me or anyone else here—Evan or Rosie or Beth Ann.”
Her words hit home. She could see it in his face. He was trying to make up for his past and her refusal had hurt him, but it couldn’t be helped.
“You don’t have to do this alone.”
“Yes, I do. And staying here with you makes it worse. It’s time for us to leave.” She knew it with everything in her. It was the TV segment, Beth Ann’s texts to her friends, possibly Serena, and it was Jonah. Being with him had healed her in some ways, but it had also set her back, made her weaker, more dependent.
He stared at her. “You don’t mean today.”
“As soon as I can arrange things at the café. Rusty’s working on my car, but I’ll have to tell him to make it fast and good instead of cheap and good.” Her mind raced with the details. “Darlene can take over for me. Charlie can take the extra shifts she had. She said they’re low on cash. I’ll try to get a part-time baker to help Ernesto.”
