A Family for Christmas

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “They left his school in Florida. Just up and left.”

  “To get away from you, it sounds like. So, why now?”

  “Because they could see how badly Mary was hurt and they were frightened. Didn’t know if Cara would be sent to jail.”

  “Why leave Joy?”

  “They’d be harder to trace without a child.”

  “So why, after Shawn left with her, would Cara suddenly leave him?”

  “She wouldn’t.”

  “So, where is she?”

  He didn’t answer. And didn’t look like he felt any better, either.

  Lila could only give him what she had. “Do you believe she did this, Edward?”

  “No. But...”

  Lila shook her head. “No buts right now. If you believe Joy over Shawn, then you need to focus on that. Focus on helping Joy. On finding Cara. And keeping Shawn behind bars.”

  Because that was what Edward needed. Focus. He nodded. Took a sip of wine. And, eventually, gave her a long slow smile that scared her to death.

  Prospector, Nevada

  CARA WOKE UP Saturday morning with a sense of purpose. Feeling a thousand times better than she could remember, more rested and alert than she’d felt in a while, with energy pulsing through her veins. She’d...

  Nothing. Lying inert, on the verge of wakefulness, she hadn’t known any better. All it took was a move of her sore wrist, a touch to her face, and she was fully awake.

  There was no longer a purpose to her life. She was in a life she had no right to continue living.

  Because of what she’d done.

  So maybe she was physically better. That strength, while wasted, gave her the ability to look beyond the immediate pain. To think clearly.

  To face the horrible truth.

  With a pre-dawn grayness shining in from the window across from her bed, she couldn’t keep her mind at bay any longer. She’d committed murder. If Shawn found her, she either had to go on living with him, putting up with the more and more frequent blasts of violent anger, tiptoeing around so she didn’t inadvertently set off an attack...

  Or he’d turn her in.

  It all came pouring back to her. He’d given her the option in the van that last afternoon they were together. However long ago that had been now. She wasn’t sure anymore. Had lost track of time and days sometime during her weeks of captivity with Shawn. He’d told her that as long as she stayed with him, she’d be safe. He’d keep her safe. And if she tried to leave, he’d turn her in...

  Except Shawn hadn’t kept her safe. Not for years and years.

  Maybe not ever.

  No one had kept Cara safe. Not since Mom got sick. And then Mom hadn’t been kept safe, either...

  Which was why she’d promised herself she’d always keep Joy safe.

  And then Shawn had started hitting Cara harder.

  Another memory flashed. When she’d first awoken in that van, her entire body hurting, she’d been looking for Joy, inconsolable in her panic. That was when Shawn had told her that they’d lost Joy forever because of her, because of what she’d done. She’d wanted to die right then and there, but he wouldn’t let her. He’d kept telling her how much he needed her. He’d held her as she’d sobbed...

  “Cara? You awake?”

  Still reeling, Cara turned her head toward the door. If she pretended to be asleep would he go away? Or come in and wake her?

  “Yes.”

  “It’s time for your antibiotic.” For a while there he’d been waking her to take her pills. The day before, she’d been up to use the restroom before the pill was due. And now he stood outside the door and called to her?

  What had changed?

  “I’ll be out in a minute,” she told him, throwing off the covers and grabbing...nothing. She’d left her clothes outside the door to be washed the night before. Was wearing the makeshift gown he’d crafted for her.

  “I left your clothes just outside the door for you,” he said, almost as though he could read her mind. Who knew what she might have told him when she’d been out of her head with pain?

  She didn’t think she’d said anything. She hadn’t been out of her head. She’d been beaten to a pulp and exhausted. “Thank you,” she called back and, giving him a second to retreat, went to reach her arm around the door for her clothes.

  The underwear was there, the bra and jeans, and three shirts. Hers and two others. T-shirts, both of them. A purple and a blue. From different years for the same Heart-Run. They’d be too big for her.

  But better than the bloodstained T-shirt of Shawn’s she’d had on under her sweater jacket.

  She chose the purple one. Because, in the color world, purple was known for bringing spiritual peace. For assisting in honest, deep, true thought. She’d lost any hope of good Karma having her back. She was well and truly on her own now.

  She had to be able to count on her own mind.

  As she pulled the shirt down over her torso, she suffered a stab of guilt. Purple was a healing color. Violet vibrated at the highest frequency and, as such, healers believed it to be a potent tool. Cara might have an aversion to doctors, but she’d done a lot of reading. Studying. Learning.

  For Joy’s sake and for her own, too.

  Joy.

  Her heart caught, her throat tightened. Tears sprang to her eyes. And her mind closed in.

  No. She’d lost any right she’d had to think of...

  She had no business healing. So the purple shirt was the wrong one.

  Taking it off, she replaced it with her own. Bloodstains were her style now. She couldn’t pretend otherwise.

  With a last look around the room that had offered solace to a criminal, she went out to face the doctor. To convince him that she was just fine and could be on her way that morning.

  As soon as she got back out on the mountain, she’d figure out what that way would be.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE FIRST THING Simon noticed when Cara came out of the bedroom was that she’d foregone his clean shirts for her washed but bloodstained one.

  She wasn’t settling in.

  He took her message in stride.

  Other than the one cheek, her face looked better. So much so that he could begin to make out natural features. Her expression remained bland, giving the same nothing away he’d been getting since he brought her inside, but he figured the pain of facial movement alone would explain some of that.

  In his usual jeans and flannel shirt, Simon handed her two pills—an antibiotic and a pain reducer. She took the antibiotic.

  “In exchange for putting drops in your eye,” she told him, waiting, apparently, for his acquiescence.

  “I’ve already done them this morning.” Six tries. Not good, but not bad, either.

  Her nod didn’t give away anything of what she was really thinking. Now that she was up and about, her reticence bothered him.

  Made him curious.

  Probably because he’d made his life so damned small she was consuming it. That would explain why he’d lain awake the night before trying to figure out how to keep her from leaving and either returning to the bastard who’d hurt her and left her for dead or being found by him.

  “I made oatmeal and toast,” he said, taking two bowls from the counter and bringing them to the table, then going back to retrieve the plate of buttered toast.

  She’d used neither milk—probably because it was reconstituted from powder and pretty crappy—nor brown sugar the last time he’d served the dish, so he didn’t bother with either.

  Mouth open, as though she was going to argue, Cara looked away, pulled out the seat by the kitchen and sat. Ahead of her now, he’d set the opposite side for himself. Because everything about the morning was planned.

  “
I know you’re anxious to be on your way,” he started, more nervous than the conversation warranted. He was a grown man with a mission—one that he’d been neglecting for the five days she’d been there—not a schoolboy lacking confidence.

  Her nod was directed more toward her bowl than him.

  “I’d advise against you doing anything as strenuous as hiking out of here,” he told her. “With that facial fracture, slight though it is, something as little as a branch to your face could cause serious, permanent and possibly life-threatening damage.”

  He wasn’t her jailer. She was a free adult.

  And so was he. An adult with a troubled conscience with which it was already hard to live.

  “I’ll be careful.” She ate as slowly, as deliberately, as always. She had to be in pain, but didn’t wince. Didn’t pause. Because for her, living through pain was habit. Taken in stride. It wasn’t the first time he’d had that impression. But it strengthened his conviction as his appetite dissipated.

  “I, of course, can’t keep you here,” he said, putting down his spoon. “But neither can I let you just walk out into the desert...possibly back into the hands of the man who hurt you. I’m sorry, Cara, I can’t do it.”

  Her gaze shot to his then. Wide-eyed. Filled with fear.

  “I’m not going to hold you hostage,” he quickly assured her. “You’re free to go. But if you do leave, I have to call the authorities. To alert them to the fact that I am aware of a domestic violence situation. As a doctor, I’m under legal obligation to do so.”

  Not technically. He wasn’t licensed to practice medicine in Nevada—his helping her was legal only under the Good Samaritan law. And because initially it had been an emergency situation, and she’d refused outside medical care.

  Her gaze didn’t waver. The panic was there, almost blindingly so, reminding him of a deer in headlights.

  “I mean you no harm,” he told her. “To the contrary. Nor am I particularly welcoming of the company. I’m here alone by choice. My reasons for that choice have not changed.”

  TMI. Not in his plan. But neither had that stark fear been.

  She blinked.

  “But I can’t let you just walk out of here.”

  Putting down her spoon, she wiped her mouth with her napkin.

  “I’m happy to take you anywhere you need to go.” Hell, at the moment, he’d be happy to drive her to another state. Hopefully one in which she’d feel comfortable getting help.

  “There are shelters,” he continued, “places a woman can go to be safe from situations like yours.”

  She didn’t seem to be the least bit comforted by the news. Obviously, she knew about domestic violence shelters. She was an educated woman.

  “No matter how powerful you might think your husband is, the law is stronger...”

  He hoped to God it was. Believed it was.

  “I’ll testify to the state in which I found you. To the things you said when you were half-comatose with pain and exposure...”

  “No.”

  No to him testifying? To going to another state?

  He supposed he could forcibly pick her up, put her in the car and drive her to the police station. Trying to picture how that would work without him somehow restraining her—which he absolutely was not going to do—he rethought that option.

  “I said that I wish to be alone to reassure you that I’m not taking this stance out of any selfish reason, and that’s true, but I didn’t mean to imply that you are not welcome to remain for whatever length of time it takes for you to be ready to face your future.”

  “Until you’ve determined that I’ve healed enough to leave, you mean.”

  He shook his head. “I know that’s what I originally said, partially because I was so eager to have my solitude uninterrupted. But...I realize now...I can’t just send you back out there. Not without alerting someone. Your husband is still out there. He knows where he left you. There’s every chance that he could find you again.”

  “He’s not going to try.”

  “You sound sure about that.”

  “I know Shawn. He left me for dead. He’s washed his hands of me.”

  “Then why are you afraid for me to go to the authorities? To take you to the hospital? To a shelter even?”

  “Because he’ll be watching, to make certain that I don’t show up someplace. He’ll stay in the area. Keep tabs. He knows my social security number. My driver’s license number. All of our accounts are joint accounts. He knows all of my passwords.”

  It was a lot for her to say all at once.

  And there was more she wasn’t saying. He was certain of that. He was also certain that, for his purposes, keeping her safe until she was healthier and rested and he could talk her into getting help, he didn’t need to know her secrets.

  The less he knew, the less involved with her he’d be. The better able to tolerate her presence for however long it took and then get on with his life.

  “But if we go to the police, they’ll arrest him and you’ll be safe.”

  “For how long? Until he posts bail?” She shook her head.

  “He left you for dead. They might not post bail.”

  “Then I go to court and it’s his word against mine. I have no proof that he did this to me.”

  “It’s obvious he’s done it before...”

  “Surfing accidents. He has witnesses. I suck at surfing,” she reminded him, as though that was only one of her many failures.

  He listened, and his conviction grew. In leaps and bounds. Beyond anything he’d imagined during the long night.

  “But you want to leave. You’ll have no resources, can’t access any bank accounts. What’s your plan? What would you do?”

  Her silent stare was more answer than he could translate...except to know that whatever she’d thought to do, she knew he wouldn’t approve.

  “So, it seems to me that your best option is to stay here long enough for him to figure you for dead.”

  “And then what?”

  “We take you to a shelter in another state.”

  She didn’t like the idea. Her frown told him so.

  “As soon as you’re ready, we go.”

  “How long do you plan to stay here?”

  He’d considered that there were things she’d want to know. Things he had no real reason not to tell her other than that he was adamant about getting away from the well-meaning disbelievers who were trying to get him to accept his right eye as blind for fear that they might make him lose faith and give up when he knew that all he had to do was keep working it, keep up the drops, keep believing...

  He had clouds, not blankness. His optic nerve was alive.

  And being around someone who couldn’t even tell...

  It helped.

  “I’m on indefinite leave.” He gave her the answer he’d come up with in the wee hours of the morning. Less was best.

  He’d give as little as she’d accept.

  Her frown deepened, but there was no fear in her eyes now. Odd how he was learning to read her in such a short time—this woman he really didn’t know at all.

  “You facing a malpractice suit?”

  “No.” Though he’d considered making one up. With her stated distaste for doctors, it was an excuse he figured she’d easily buy.

  He wasn’t out to sell her on anything, though. Or sell himself out, either.

  “My medical record is exemplary.”

  He couldn’t help but wonder what had turned her off doctors. Couldn’t help but wonder if she’d gone to a doctor for help in the earlier days of her husband’s beatings and had somehow ended up back in the abuser’s hands.

  Not necessarily through the fault of a doctor, but if the system had let her down...

  All t
he more reason he had to show her that there were good guys in the world. Maybe, if he could show this beaten-down woman that he could be counted on to do the right thing, his ex-wife’s damning accusations wouldn’t ring so loudly in his mind—wouldn’t leave so much weight hanging on his back.

  Sitting completely still, Cara was studying him.

  “You could be lying.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why are you on indefinite leave?”

  Her brown eyes—they seemed larger in her face now that the swelling was dissipating—seemed to pin him to his seat. And then, as he might have predicted, she glanced away. Escaping back into the world she guarded so carefully.

  “Personal reasons.”

  “If I am to stay here with you, I need more.” She swallowed. Licked her lips. Didn’t look at him. “I need to know what you’re running from.”

  “I’m not running,” he told her quite emphatically. “Like you, I’m healing.”

  All night long he’d tried to come up with something, and there it was...in the space of a two-second answer. Just waiting for him.

  She could ask what ailed him, but he knew she wouldn’t.

  She watched him, though, as he cleared their bowls and then the toast.

  “I expect to help.” She didn’t sound injured. Or weak. “I’m a good cook. I don’t mind cleaning. I can sew, too, if you have anything that needs to be mended.”

  So...was she...

  “I feel that we should take turns in the bed.”

  “No.” He had his limits. “I’d go nuts cooped up in the bedroom all night, fearing waking you if I needed to be up and about...”

  True. What was also true, and he didn’t share, was that with her getting well, he wanted her behind a closed bedroom door when she went to bed at night. The sight of her the night before, standing outside his bathroom, the touch of her gentle fingers on his flesh as she’d put drops in his eyes—she’d ceased being a patient in those moments.

  “I will do your eyedrops for you.”

  He’d been determined to get down to one try for each drop. But in the scheme of things it was little enough to give up to keep her safe until he could get her to go someplace safer.