Ever Hopeful

by Lori Ryan

  Shane stood at the bottom of a ladder in one of their dad’s old barns in one of the unused pastures behind the house. He called up to Cade a second time but got no answer. Tinny music blared through the speakers of the radio Cade had had since they were teenagers. How that thing still worked, Shane didn’t know. He could also hear the sound of Cade’s fists hitting one of the heavy bags that hung from the ceiling.

  When they were teenagers, their daddy had turned the loft of his tinker barn into a gym of sorts for Cade and Shane. There were weights and two heavy bags and a couple of striking bags suspended from the ceiling. It was a place for his boys to blow off steam when they needed to, and both Shane and Cade still used it from time to time. From the sound of it, Cade needed it today.

  Shane gave up calling to Cade and climbed the stairs.

  Cade’s face was blank as he threw punch after punch. Shane shut the music off but Cade didn’t stop for a few minutes. When he finally did, his shirt was drenched through with sweat. He walked over to one wall and slumped down, resting his arms on raised knees and letting his head fall back to the wall.

  Shane grabbed a bottle of water and put it by Cade’s side and then sat against the wall, legs kicked out in front of him…and waited. There wasn’t anything to do but wait. Cade may have been the more even-keeled of the brothers, but when he did blow, he blew hard, and he’d learned you just had to wait for him to come down before you talked to him. When Cade was ready, he’d tell Shane what happened.

  Cade pulled the gloves from his hands and unpeeled the tape from around his knuckles before he finally spoke. “Mom got Laura to talk. They didn’t know I was in the house. They don’t know I heard the whole thing.”

  Shane didn’t say anything. He and Cade had both known whatever story Laura had to tell would be a bad one. He didn’t know if he really wanted to hear what Cade had overheard. He was pretty sure he didn’t. Cade had seen and heard a lot of things because of the work he did with animals. For something to hit him this hard, it had to be bad.

  “After her dad spent a lifetime treating her like crap, she meets this guy she thinks is Mr. Wonderful. He’s all respectful and careful with her, and she thinks he’s the one who’s gonna save her from her father. She thinks he’ll take her away and treat her right; that he’ll cherish her. He didn’t even try to get in her pants before the wedding. So even though her dad says he’ll disown her if she marries Patrick, she does.”

  Cade swallowed down the rest of the water in two large gulps. “You want to know why he never tried to touch her before they got married?”

  Shane didn’t answer. He didn’t want to know. But he couldn’t get the word “no” out. The pain etched on Cade’s face had Shane frozen in place.

  “You know why? Because the fucker couldn’t get it up if he wasn’t hitting her. She didn’t say it quite like that. I’m just paraphrasing, but that’s what it came down to. She was a virgin, and her husband raped her because that was the only way he could perform. So, she thought something was wrong with her. Can you imagine? She thought it was her fault. She said she didn’t, but I could tell she did.” Cade buried his head in his arms again and Shane wanted to do the same thing.

  Laura was so tiny, so fragile looking. He couldn’t imagine what it would do to her to have a grown man beating on her. Just picturing it made Shane feel as sick as Cade looked.

  “You wanna know the first time he beat her so badly she couldn’t leave the house for a week?” Cade asked.

  “No,” Shane managed to say this time, but Cade wasn’t listening to him. He was staring at the wall like he was seeing the story he was telling, and he was too trapped by the power of it to see what was around him or hear Shane’s voice.

  “When her brother died. She wanted to go home to the funeral, but her husband had a business dinner she needed to attend. She had the nerve to ask him to postpone it so she could fly home for her brother’s funeral. The irony was, she couldn’t go to the dinner with him anyway. After the beating he gave her, she couldn’t be seen in public for over a week, so she missed the flipping dinner anyway.”

  The brothers sat together without speaking for a long time. There was nothing to say. Shane couldn’t imagine the fear Laura must have been living with every single day. The threat of having the person you thought you loved and could trust turn on you like that.

  “I wish he wasn’t dead,” Cade said. Shane didn’t have to ask why. He was thinking the same thing. If her husband wasn’t dead, they could hunt him down and have the satisfaction of teaching him what it was like to be hit by someone so much stronger than yourself—to live in constant fear.

  “Do you think his family knew? She said they lived right near them and saw his family every weekend. Do you think they knew?” Shane asked.

  Cade nodded. “I don’t see how they couldn’t know.”

  They sat quietly brooding for a minute before Cade went on. “No wonder she ran. Even though he’s dead, they can’t get this baby. We can’t let that family get this baby, Shane.”

  “I know. I’ve already started looking into the legalities of it. In a fair fight in court, they’d have very little chance of getting the baby, but it’s likely she’ll have to allow them visitation. Of course, with the Kensington family, who knows if the fight will be fair. I think when they put out the news that she was mentally unstable, they were already gearing up for a custody hearing. I think they’ll try to show she’s an unfit mother,” Shane said.

  “Then we need to help her make sure she’s on her feet and providing for the baby when they find her. We need to make sure she has a shot at this,” Cade said, pulling himself up and going to the fridge. He pulled out a beer and tossed it to Shane before pulling out one for himself and an icepack for his knuckles.

  “Are you gonna tell her how you feel about her?” Shane asked, causing Cade to freeze, bottle halfway to his lips already.

  Cade eyed him and took the sip he’d postponed. “Heck no. Another man is the last thing she needs in her life right now.”

  “You’re nothing like her father or her husband.”

  Cade just shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. That’s not what she wants or needs now. And, it’s not what I need. I don’t need another woman who—”

  “Who what, might have to lean on you from time to time? Who might not always be strong on her own?”

  Cade glared but didn’t answer.

  “Don’t let Lacey do that to you. What she put on you isn’t fair and you know it. It isn’t your fault Lacey tried to kill herself. She would have done that whether you broke up with her or not. She was sick and she needed help and you know it. Letting her put that on you is just you being a damn martyr,” Shane said. He was tired of watching Cade’s ex-girlfriend drag him down over and over again.

  “I know what Lacey did wasn’t my fault, but that doesn’t mean I need to go out looking for it to happen again. I’m just saying, Laura isn’t what I need right now, and I’m not what she needs right now.”

  Shane let it drop.

  “Do you know what her brother’s name was?” he asked instead.

  Cade frowned. “James. I think her maiden name was Lawless. James Lawless. Why?”

  Now it was Shane’s turn to shrug. “I just thought we could see where he’s buried. She might like to visit his grave or at least send flowers or something. If she didn't get to go to the funeral, maybe she’s never been able to say good-bye to him. It’s something we could do for her, that’s all.”

  Cade threw Shane a hard look, but Shane put up his hands in defense. “Hey, I only have friendly feelings toward Laura; I swear. I’m not planning on stepping into your territory.”

  Cade growled. “She’s not my territory. She’s nobody’s territory.”

  “Touchy, touchy,” Shane said and headed down the stairs. Someone would have to run interference for Cade. If Mama took one look at Cade, she’d know something was up and Shane knew Cade wasn’t going to want to talk about this.

  “I’ll
tell Mama you’re having dinner at your place tonight so you can watch the game. She’ll buy that,” Shane said over his shoulder. Cade lived above the horse barn but he ate most of his meals up at the house with Mama. “Get yourself together by tomorrow morning, though, or you’ll have to come up with a real cover story yourself.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “So, Laura,” Cade said as he packed hay into slow feeders that leaned against one wall of the center aisle of the barn. Once filled, the feeders were hung in each stall to fend off boredom. The horses had to manipulate the feeder to work the hay out a bit at a time. “If you could grow things for a living, had start-up money and any resources you’d need, what would you grow?”

  Laura didn’t answer. She kept measuring grain into buckets and focused her eyes on the scoop of grain, not on Cade.

  “Come on, tell me.”

  Laura stopped measuring and looked at Cade. “You really want to know?”

  Laura was used to people not only assuming she wouldn’t amount to anything, but also telling her that. It occurred to her that since she’d arrived on the ranch, no one had treated her that way. Instead, May, Cade, and Shane all acted as though she could easily be a contributing member of the ranch. When she asked what she could help with, they’d taught her how to help with the horses and thanked her for pitching in.

  “I wouldn't have asked if I didn’t want to know,” Cade said.

  Laura tried to sound nonchalant.

  “I’d grow seeds.”

  “What? I thought you grew plants from seeds not the other way around. Well, I mean, I guess everyone knows that plants produce more seeds, but why would that be the focus instead of the plants themselves?” Cade asked.

  “Because there aren’t enough people breeding and growing organic seeds that are specifically bred to thrive in an organic environment. Most seeds are bred in conventional systems of gardening, and they perform best in those systems. When you take those seeds and plant them in an organic system, they don’t do as well. It’s sort of like taking a child who speaks one language and plopping her into a classroom where another language is taught. She may be able to do some of the things the class is doing just by following along, but she won’t thrive,” Laura said, then flushed as she realized he was watching her intently. She hadn’t intended to say that much.

  “How do you know that?” Cade asked.

  Laura answered with a shrug. Cade continued to work quietly, as if he didn’t care whether she answered or not.

  Laura relented. “I read a lot about organic gardening. I would have loved to grow all our own vegetables, but Patrick thought that was...beneath us. He didn’t mind my little flower hobby, but he drew the line at growing food.”

  “So, that’s what you’d do if you could do anything? Breed seeds?” Cade asked with a grin.

  Laura’s heart shouldn’t have skipped a beat when he grinned, but it did. She turned back to the grain buckets.

  “Yeah. There’s a science to it, but it’s also creative and I’d be able to work with plants. My greenhouse was the only place I could be alone, be at peace.”

  “What would you need to get started?”

  Laura busied herself with measuring grain. She didn’t want to dream and fantasize about what couldn’t be. She’d accepted a long time ago that there wasn’t room for dreams in her life. She would soon have a baby to take care of. She needed a steady job, not a fantasy.

  “Laura, come on, humor me. It’s fun to just dream sometimes,” Cade insisted.

  No, it’s not. Dreaming leads to hope and hope lets you down every time. In the end, hope hurts like hell.

  “Okay. A commercial-sized greenhouse. Just one at first, but eventually you’d need a lot more than one. And space for those greenhouses,” Laura said.

  “Texas has a lot of space. What else?” Cade asked. He crossed to the tack room and reached into the bin where he kept his bags of mints. He was back out in a second with a big grin on his face and carrots in his hand instead of mints.

  “What’s this, Laura?” he asked, a wide grin softening his face.

  Laura smiled back at him sheepishly. He laughed and she stomped her foot at him. “Don’t laugh. All those mints are bound to be bad for their teeth. I thought we could do carrots for a while.”

  Cade laughed again and shoved the fistful of carrots in his back pocket, leaving the green tops hanging out. “All right, but if we end up with a stampede on our hands tonight, or if all the horses rebel and refuse to come in for dinner, I’ll know who to blame.”

  Laura couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. “Will they really stampede?” she asked, her brow furrowed as she tried to read his face. Part of her was just relieved he hadn’t yelled at her for hiding his mints.

  Cade laughed some more and shook his head. “Don’t worry. The worst they’ll do is pout. But don’t expect me to cover for you. I’m putting this change square on your shoulders when the horses ask where the mints are. Now, really, what else would you need to breed seeds?” Cade asked, bringing the conversation back around to Laura’s future plans.

  Laura sighed and played along. “Pots and starter plants—organic starter plants or heirloom seeds—and soil and a few tools. Not much. A way to keep records of your crosses and backcrosses.”

  “A laptop,” Cade nodded as though he were making a list in his head.

  “It’s just a dream, Cade. I’m not actually going to do it. I need to find a real job, a job that can keep clothes on my baby and food in our stomachs.

  Cade just smiled at her as he began hoisting the feeders up onto the hooks in each of the stalls. “Never hurts to have a dream, Laura,” he said, but Laura knew better than that.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Laura was feeling settled on the ranch and actually wondered if she had overreacted. Maybe Patrick’s family wasn’t coming after her, after all. She was still a little too frightened to get a job, and go through things like filling out tax forms that would identify her to anyone who might have the tools to seek her out that way. She was contributing to the ranch by helping Cade with the animals and helping May with meals and cleaning as much as she could.

  Each day, Laura thought, just one more day. I’ll stay one more day. But days turned into weeks.

  Laura loved the mouthwatering meals May was teaching her to make. She’d eaten in some of the finest restaurants in New York, Paris, Rome, and any number of other places she and Patrick had traveled to with his family or when they traveled with his business associates. She’d also cooked all her life for her father and brother, and later for Patrick.

  Despite all that, never had she had such satisfying meals as those she cooked with May. They weren’t necessarily gourmet. There just seemed to be something about them that made her feel at home. Maybe this was what people meant when they said something was “comfort food.” Everything May served seemed to fit that description.

  Putting her fork down on an empty plate, Laura enjoyed the last bite of her second helping of pot roast. It was so tender, knives hadn’t been needed for anything more than to slather butter on thick slices of honey-wheat bread.

  Shane and Cade were still packing away their third portions—extremely large portions, at that—but Laura really couldn’t blame them. The meal really was incredible.

  When Shane put his fork and knife down, he cleared his throat and glanced a little uneasily at Cade then at her, making Laura immediately tense. She had a feeling she wasn’t going to like what was about to come out of Shane’s mouth, and she could see May was getting ready to jump in and defend her if she needed it.

  “Um, Laura, I uh...I’ve started researching what we’ll need to do if the Kensingtons do find you. I figure you’ll need to see a doctor sooner rather than later for the baby. Any doctor’s visit should be confidential, but you just never know. They may have someone who can hack into records and track you.” Shane glanced at Cade and then cut his gaze to May before hurrying on. “I think we need a plan in case they come a
fter you.... Legally, I mean. They may try to sue for custody, Laura.”

  “Shane—” May began but Laura cut her off.

  “No, he’s right, May. Shane’s right,” she said as she placed her hand over May’s. “I can’t hide out forever. Someday, I’ll have to face them, and if they do try for custody, I’m going to need all the help I can get. Honestly, Shane, I’m touched you’ve started looking into this for me. I can’t pay you right now, but I will. I’ll pay you back on a monthly plan if I need to.”

  Shane shook his head. “You don’t need to do that, Laura, but I will need some information from you….” He looked over at his mother again, before meeting Laura’s gaze. “And I need to ask you some questions that may be a little tough for you to answer.”

  Laura sat up straighter and raised her chin. “Ask away. What do you need?” She’d be damned if she would shrink away from what had to be done to keep her baby.

  “Maybe we should go in the other room and talk?” Shane suggested, but she shook her head.

  “You can ask me anything. I don’t mind May and Cade hearing,” Laura said. She’d already told May a lot of what her marriage had been like. In fact, she wasn’t quite sure how May had gotten the stories to come out, but once they had, Laura felt like some kind of veil of shame, a veil of secrecy, had been lifted. It was okay to tell people what Patrick had done because it wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t been the one to do wrong. He had.

  “It would help your case immensely if we can prove the abuse, but also if we can prove that the rest of Patrick’s family was aware of the abuse and didn’t stop it or report it. Was the abuse ever documented or did you report it to anyone?” Shane asked.

  Now Laura smiled. She’d been ready for this day. “Do you have a computer?” she asked.

  Shane stood and crossed to the front door, picking up the bag that sat by his shoes. He withdrew a laptop and returned to the table, turning it on before placing it in front of Laura.

  “About a year ago, I knew I needed to leave him someday. I didn’t know how I would do it, but it was clear I needed to or he’d eventually kill me. I wanted leverage if I ever left. He’d come after me. He wouldn’t just let me walk away. But, I thought if I had proof of the abuse, I could get his mother to control him. She’d seen the bruises, but never helped. Never stepped in.”