“Go on.”
She shivered. So that was how a voice like ice sounded. She looked away from Sean, unable to meet his gaze. The anger, the horror, the pity she knew she would find there when he heard. The pity would be the hardest. It would be her undoing, and she couldn’t come undone. That was why she hadn’t told the story since that awful, awful night when she’d given her statement to the police and then called Luc for help, desperate to protect Julianne’s kids. Why she was terrified to retell it now.
But she had no choice, not if Sean thought what he did, and so she dredged up the words she needed—and the memories that came with them.
“Julianne left her husband in July. She and the kids moved in with me, and she started divorce proceedings. He’d been having anger issues at work, and things had been escalating to the point where he’d been suspended. Based on his history, the court awarded her temporary custody. It was enough to tip him over the edge.” Grace’s voice cracked, and she paused to swallow. Breathe. Wrap her arms once again across her middle.
Sean remained silent, waiting. After a moment, she continued.
“Barry started turning up at the house in the middle of the night and calling at all hours. Julianne finally took out a restraining order against him. The decision was hell on her. She wasn’t eating, she wasn’t sleeping—and the kids were just as much of a mess. One day, just before school started, I took the day off work to give Julianne a break. She needed some time alone, so she stayed home, and I took the kids to a museum. We were out for the whole day and didn’t get home until dinnertime. When we pulled into the driveway, the front door was hanging off its hinges.”
“Christ,” said Sean softly. “Did the kids see?”
Her fingers dug into her ribs, distracting her from the memories. The all-too vivid images. The blood. The bruises. So many bruises, black and purple and livid against her sister’s unnatural pallor. She looked past Sean’s shoulder to the trees beyond the window. She shook her head.
“No. I made them stay in the car while I went in and called 911, and then a neighbor took them for me overnight while I went to the hospital with Julianne.”
“Grace.”
She met Sean’s gaze again—no, his scowl—and knew that he knew.
He would have heard the story at work. It would have been impossible for him not to hear. A cop who’d beaten his wife into a coma and then fled; a cop who was being hunted by his colleagues.
Of course he knew. But he asked all the same.
“Barry who?” he asked. “What’s his last name?”
“Walsh,” she replied. “Barry Walsh. And yes, he’s a cop.”
CHAPTER 26
………………
RATHER THAN LEAVING AFTER DINNER as he had the three previous evenings, Sean stayed late that night. He didn’t ask if he could, but Grace didn’t say he couldn’t. It was simply how things unfolded.
He had planned on offering to help ready the kids for bed, but there’d been no need. Together, the three eldest functioned like a well-oiled machine. A single request from Grace, and they all departed down the hallway without question to don pajamas, brush teeth, and read quietly in their beds for a while, leaving Grace with only Annabelle to look after and Sean frowning in their wake.
“Will you be okay on your own for a few minutes?” Grace asked, tugging his attention back to her and away from his rumination over what the kids had to have been through with their father.
Sean’s mouth compressed further as he saw her gaze focused somewhere just beyond him. She hadn’t looked directly at him since Annabelle had woken from her nap, just after she’d dropped the bombshell of her brother-in-law’s identity on him. Or rather, confirmed it, because the pieces had already begun clicking into place for Sean as she told her story. Her paranoia. Lilly’s reaction to finding out he was a cop. Josh’s observation that some cops liked to beat up on people. It had all made so much sense when it came together. Heartbreaking, sickening sense.
And it made him want to kick the living shit out of the man responsible.
“Sean?” Grace prompted. Her chocolate-brown gaze touched his, then slid away again. Annabelle waved an enthusiastic goodbye at him from her arms. He roused himself to a smile.
“Of course,” he answered her question. “Take your time. I’ll make tea.”
“You don’t have to stay.”
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
Grace hesitated as if she might argue, then she nodded. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Sean remained seated on the couch after she left, listening to the murmur of Grace’s voice and Annabelle’s cheerful chatter on the other side of the wall behind his head. From down the hall came the click of a door closing. A faucet turned on in the bathroom.
All normal sounds. All bizarrely out of place in such a deeply fractured family.
His brain still reeled from Grace’s revelations. From putting two and two together as all the pieces fell into place. He’d known immediately who Barry Walsh was, of course. The man’s temper was legendary—as was his reputation for skirting dangerously near the use of excessive force in his job. Sean had already been laid up by the shooting when Barry had gone off the deep end and beaten his wife to a pulp, but he’d still heard the stories from his colleagues. Still shared their utter contempt for the man, and their desire to see him hunted down.
And he still felt sick at the thought that Grace and the kids were in Walsh’s crosshairs.
Daniels, he thought suddenly. Grace Daniels. Someone had mentioned an aunt to him, but he’d forgotten that detail until just now. Poor Grace. If his brain hadn’t been so fogged up, he would have remembered sooner, and he wouldn’t have put her through the trauma of this afternoon. Or at least he would have been gentler about it, because he would have still needed details if he was going to help.
Annabelle had woken just as Grace had finished her story, preempting further discussion and leaving him with so much more he wanted to know. Needed to know, if he was going to help.
And he was going to help, whether Grace liked it or not, because no way in hell would he leave her to fend for herself. That’s was why he was still here. Why he was going to make tea and sit with her and insist she tell him as much as she could remember. Then, once Gareth brought the cell phone charger out to him tomorrow, he’d make some calls and find out—
Sean let his head drop back against the couch. Find out what? Where Barry was? If his colleagues knew, the son of a bitch would already have been arrested. And even if Sean could find him, what would he do—trip him with his crutches? Hell.
He leveled a fierce glare at his encased leg. He’d never felt so helpless in all his life. Not even when he’d been on the floor of that house, lying in a pool of his own blood, waiting for the gunfire around him to cease and someone to notice he’d been hit. Jaw going tight, he pushed back the memories. He’d be damned if he’d leave Grace feeling that vulnerable.
He reached for the crutches and heaved himself to his feet. Tea might be a poor substitute for peace of mind, but at least it was something…and at least she wouldn’t have to feel alone.
By the time Grace returned twenty minutes later, he had a tray laid out in the kitchen with two mugs, a couple of lemon wedges, the honey he knew she preferred as a sweetener, and a pot of black Assam tea. He gave Grace a lopsided smile.
“I got as far as I could with it, but you’re stuck with the carrying.”
She grasped the tray without comment but paused before lifting it. She sniffed at the amber liquid he’d splashed into one of the mugs.
“Is that whiskey?” She raised an eyebrow.
“I found it in the cupboard over the fridge. I don’t think Luc will mind.”
“Should you be drinking? You might still need one of those painkillers when you get home.”
“I’m not drinking. You are.”
She opened her mouth, then snapped it shut again on whatever objection she might have been about to make. W
ithout comment, she carried the tray into the living room and set it on the coffee table. Sean followed.
They settled with the length of the couch between them, their silence heavy with waiting. He didn’t have to be psychic to know Grace was a heartbeat from folding under the pressure of the day. Nor did he need a degree to tell him this was a woman in serious need of unloading. By his calculations, she’d been out in this cottage with the kids for more than three weeks now. Waiting to see if her sister would live, hiding from her brother-in-law, jumping at every snap of a twig in the woods.
His jaw tight, Sean poured tea into Grace’s whiskey mug. He added a glob of honey and squeeze of lemon, stirred, and handed it to her. She accepted it with a mumble of thanks, then settled back against the arm of the couch to face him, her knees drawn up before her.
Nothing protective about that body language.
Sean squeezed the remaining wedge of lemon into his own tea. He twisted in his seat, too, but only far enough that he could still rest his casted leg on the coffee table beside the tray. He cleared his throat. Grace looked away.
“What’s her prognosis?” he asked. “Realistically.”
Grace’s eyes closed. Her lashes shadowed her cheeks. Weariness etched itself onto her brow. She took a deep, tremulous breath, and her fingers tightened to white on her mug.
“It’s not good,” she said. “Even if she lives—which is doubtful—she’ll never be the same. She’ll most likely never even wake up.”
Sean let the information sink in. He tamped down the slow burn of fury at his core. How any man could strike a woman at all, never mind beat her that severely, he would never understand. Ever.
He took a swallow of too-hot tea. Coughed against the sear of it in his throat. Returned his attention to Grace.
“So this—you and the kids—it’s going to be permanent.”
“Yes.”
“That’s a lot to take on.”
Grace’s resolute gaze met his at last. “Our parents died when Julianne was nine and I was six. Over the next ten years, we were shuffled from one relative to another—six months here, a year there—because no one wanted to take us both on at the same time. Julianne was the only stability in my life. She fought tooth and nail to make sure we stayed together. I owe her nothing less for her kids.”
Admiration warred with sadness in Sean as he studied the woman on the couch beside him. The circles underscoring her eyes, the fine lines of worry and fatigue etched into the corners. “You know it won’t be easy.”
She snorted. “I think I had that figured out, yes.”
His mouth curved. “I suppose you did. So what will you do? After this, I mean. After Barry is caught and you can go back to Ottawa.”
“Damned if I know. I haven’t been able to think that far ahead. I still haven’t got a handle on the whole idea of providing three meals a day and making sure there’s clean clothes for everyone.” She ran one hand through her hair and sighed. “I’m hoping that part gets easier with practice.”
“What about your job? I assume you have one?”
“I was—am—a business systems analyst. I’m on indefinite leave at the moment.”
“But the job is waiting for you. That’s good.”
“Yes and no…it’s waiting, but it requires a lot of travel. I don’t see being able to go back to it. I wouldn’t want to be away from the kids that much, even if I could afford the child care.”
“So you’ll have to find a new job?” he asked, only just holding back the on top of everything else that wanted to follow.
She gave him a lopsided smile, and a tiny spark of amusement lit her eyes. “You’re more concerned about this than I am, for heaven’s sake. It’s not as bad as it sounds. I’m very good at what I do. Finding another job will be the easiest part of all this.”
“It’ll still be tough financially. I don’t suppose there will be any income assistance…?”
In the blink of an eye, Grace’s face turned haggard again. “That depends.”
Sean cursed his insensitivity. Of course. Life insurance. If Julianne died, Grace and the kids would be financially cared for. If she lived and didn’t recover, however…
Hell.
He reached out to cover Grace’s clenched hand with his own. “Hey,” he said softly. “It’s going to be okay.”
Grace blinked rapidly, her jaw flexing. “I keep telling myself that. I’m just having a hard time believing it.”
Without giving himself time to reconsider the impulse, Sean took the mug of tea from her and set it on the coffee table, then tugged her over to join him at his end of the couch. She stiffened in surprise as he slid his arm around her. He rested his chin on top of her head.
“It will work out,” he said gruffly. “I promise.”
Grace remained rigid for another few heartbeats, then, as if the air had been let out of her, relaxed into his side with a shuddering sigh.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I think I needed to hear someone else say that.”
He squeezed again. “You’re doing an amazing thing for those kids, Grace Daniels. I’ll tell you that anytime you need to hear it.”
Silence crept between them, this time soft and comfortable, measured by the tick of a wall clock Sean hadn’t even noticed until now, the stir of branches against the cottage wall as the wind lifted them, the rhythm of Grace’s breathing.
For the life of him, he couldn’t have pinpointed when it changed. Became more. But change it did, and suddenly he found himself aware of more than just Grace’s warmth against him. He knew without looking exactly what part of her anatomy pressed against his ribcage. Felt the warmth of her breath through his t-shirt. Inhaled the headiness of her strawberry scent.
And knew by her stillness that something had shifted for her, too.
His throat went dry.
Damn.
This was so not supposed to happen. He’d already had this conversation with himself. Multiple times. He didn’t get involved with women like Grace. Didn’t do commitment. And sure as hell wasn’t about to take on fatherhood…in any guise.
“Grace…”
Her breathing stopped.
He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, trying to find the words to explain why he couldn’t do this. Hell, trying to remember why. He sucked in a steadying breath and pulled back to look down at her, at the liquid heat of dark-chocolate eyes, the flush of heightened color across her cheeks. A low, heavy ache spread through him. Grace’s lips parted. Reason crumbled.
“Aunt Grace? It’s after nine. Are you coming to tuck us in?”
Josh’s voice from down the hall slammed between them like a shock of ice water. Sean would have been hard pressed to say who moved away from the other faster, him or Grace. Or who was more shaken. Grace looked about as shattered as he felt. But for the same reasons? He sure hoped so, because bloody hell, that had been close. Too close.
“I’m coming, Josh,” Grace responded to her nephew. The quiver in her voice made Sean’s toenails curl. The way she avoided his gaze made him curse himself as all kinds of idiot.
That was twice he’d almost slipped up. He couldn’t afford to do so again. Friendship with this woman might be acceptable now that he knew her whole story and no longer needed to act in his capacity as a cop, but anything beyond was not. Never had been. Never would be. Not when he had this many hang-ups about kids and commitment.
He’d done her a grave disservice in letting her think otherwise.
“Grace,” he began.
She stood up from the couch. “I’ll be back in a minute,” she said. She still didn’t look at him. “And then you should leave.”
………………
“Thank you again for staying with Annabelle and Josh today.” Grace’s words were as stiff as her spine, and Sean’s fingers stilled for a second in their adjustment of the straps on his headlamp. She willed him not to comment, to just leave and let her recover from what had almost happened between them.
Again.
Twice now he’d come close to kissing her, and twice he’d backed off, the state of panic in his expression both comical and traumatizing. There wouldn’t be a third time. Not if she could help it.
“You’re welcome,” Sean replied. “It really was no trouble. And I’m glad we finally had a chance to talk.”
That made one of them. Grace put a hand to her chest and rubbed at the ache in the center.
“I’m glad I was wrong,” he added. “And I want to—”
“No.”
“You didn’t let me finish.”
“You were going to offer more help, but no. Thank you. You’ve done enough.”
“Actually, I wanted to suggest we go over safety precautions,” he said. “To make sure you stay as hidden as possible.”
“Luc had his private detective do that with me before we came. I’m good.” She reached past him to twist the doorknob. “It’s getting late. You must be tired.”
“Grace.” Strong fingers closed over hers, warm, gentle, paralyzing, threatening to undo her.
She closed her eyes. Shook her head. “Don’t.”
“We need to talk,” he said gruffly.
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“What happened tonight—what almost happened…”
She tugged free of his grasp. “Was a mistake. For both of us. It won’t happen again.”
A muscle flexed in his jaw. “You have kids,” he said. “Probably permanently. I’m just not—I’ve never been—”
“Sean. Let it go.” Grace lifted her chin. “The very fact you’d rather talk about what almost happened instead of acting on it tells me everything I need to know. And honestly, I think it’s for the best. I don’t have room for complications in my life right now, anyway. So can we please just forget about it?”
Sean’s hand lifted, as if he might reach for her. She stepped back. The hand settled to his side again. It formed a fist. He sighed.
“Of course,” he said. “You’re right.”
He pulled open the door, and he and his crutches stepped out onto the porch. Arms wrapped around herself, Grace watched him cross to the steps. He looked over his shoulder.
Forever Grace Page 16
