Carolina Man

by Virginia Kantra

  Kate glanced sharply at Taylor.

  Luke had his Marine face on. “They couldn’t make it. Car trouble.”

  Taylor stared down at her plate. Oh, baby, Kate thought.

  “Anyone ready for dessert?” Tess asked.

  Tess had just served the rum cake, when Jack’s cell phone buzzed.

  “Excuse me,” he said and went into the hall to take the call.

  “Want to play Just Dance after dinner?” Taylor asked.

  Meg groaned. “Not if it involves moving. I ate too much.”

  “Not unless it involves blowing stuff up,” Josh said.

  “Maybe after I digest dinner,” Allison said.

  “I’ll play,” Kate offered. She glanced at Tess. “Or I can help with the dishes.”

  “I’ve got ’em,” Tom said. “You girls go play.”

  Exactly, Kate thought, amused, as if she were Taylor’s age.

  “I’ll play if Matt plays,” Luke said.

  “You’re on.”

  Josh snickered. “Old white guys dancing? Let me stick a fork in my eye.”

  “Wiseass,” his father returned without heat.

  “Let me take on your old man in dance,” Luke said, “and then I’ll beat your ass in Call of Duty.”

  Josh grinned. “Bring it.”

  Jack returned to the dining room. “I have to go. Tess, Tom, thank you for a wonderful dinner.”

  “Anytime.”

  “Nothing serious, I hope,” Tess said.

  He shook his head. “Noise incident with possible pyrotechnics.”

  Sam raised his brows. “Which means . . . ?”

  Jack smiled. “Somebody setting off fireworks on the beach. Merry Christmas, everyone. Good night.”

  “Merry Christmas.”

  It really was, Kate thought as they trooped into the family room to dance or jeer.

  Best. Christmas. Ever.

  Eighteen

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Taylor sat on the cottage steps, throwing a ball for JD while Josh practiced free throws in the driveway. The steady thunk, thunk, swish kept her company.

  It was warm in the sunshine. JD was so goofy, galloping over the grass after the ball, his puppy ears flopping. Out of habit, Taylor checked for the knot in her stomach that had been there since Mom died.

  It was still there, but it was looser. A lot looser.

  Later today, when Dad finished cleaning the gutters for Grandma, Miss Kate was coming over and they were going out to dinner. Like a family. The thought made Taylor feel kind of funny, because they weren’t a family, she and Mom were a family.

  All we need is each other, Mom used to say. We don’t need anybody else.

  Taylor swallowed. Except Mom was wrong.

  The thought felt weird, disloyal almost, but Taylor was only ten. She needed people to take care of her.

  And that was okay.

  Last night, she’d started reading that book from Miss Kate, about Anne of Green Gables. Anne was an orphan until she went to live with Marilla and Matthew. Like Taylor coming to live with Grandma and Grandpa, only not really, because Taylor wasn’t really an orphan, she had her dad and Uncle Matt and Aunt Meg and Josh. All her family. And Snowball and Fezzik and JD, running toward her in the sun with the ball in his mouth.

  Taylor clapped her hands. “Good boy, JD. Now come. Come here, JD.”

  She reached for the ball and the puppy danced away, his whole body wagging in delight.

  “No, no.” She giggled. “You have to give me the ball or I can’t throw it again.”

  She heard the noise of a car out front.

  Josh grabbed a rebound and watched them. “Dopey dog.”

  “He’s good at catch.” Taylor defended her puppy. “It’s just his fetch needs a little work.”

  Josh set down the basketball and dropped to a crouch. JD jumped him, and Josh snatched at the ball in the puppy’s mouth. A car door slammed. Taylor thought she heard the rattle of Dad’s ladder and voices coming from the front, but her attention was on Josh, wrestling with the puppy.

  “Drop it. Drop it,” Josh said.

  JD play-growled, delighted with this new game.

  Josh grinned at Taylor. “He’s not so good at letting go, either.”

  Something moved in the corner of her vision. A man, walking along the side of the house. He stopped when he reached the back yard, and Taylor turned her head to look at him, a tall man in a black jacket with a scraggly blond beard and a tattoo on his neck.

  Terror blinded Taylor. She felt a flood of shame and then . . . She could smell her own pee, feel her jeans damp and warm between her thighs. She’d wet herself like a baby. Helpless baby. She wanted to throw up. Or cry.

  Josh stood slowly. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Taylor’s uncle. Why don’t you leave us alone to say ‘hi,’ boy?” He smiled, revealing ragged brown teeth. His breath, Taylor knew, would smell like a dirty drain. “Don’t you have a hug for your Uncle Kevin, sweetheart?”

  • • •

  LUKE WAS ANNOYED.

  Bad enough that Ernie and Jolene had blown off their scheduled visit with Taylor before Christmas. They couldn’t be bothered to drop off her presents on time? Fine.

  But to show up, unannounced, the day after Christmas, when his mother was out of town, and his brother and Dad were out on the boat, and Luke himself was up to his elbows in gutters . . . Yeah, that pissed him off. Plus, Kate was supposed to be here in less than an hour, and he’d had his mind on a lot better things than the Simpsons.

  He shot a quick glance at the car. When they first pulled up, he thought he’d seen three people. But by the time he climbed down the ladder, there was only Ernie and Jolene puffing up the porch steps.

  He sighed and wiped his hands on his jeans.

  The judge had said Taylor deserved to enjoy the comfort and support of her family over the holidays. So Luke would make nice. The Simpsons were her grandparents. For Taylor, he could do the right thing.

  “Come on back to the kitchen, and I’ll put up a pot of coffee,” he said. “I’ll let Taylor know you’re here.”

  Jolene clasped her hands together over the brightly wrapped package in her arms. “Where is she? Where is our grandbaby?”

  “Out back, playing with the dog. This way.”

  He led them through the front hall and into the kitchen. Sure enough, through the window he could see Taylor sitting on the cottage steps. The back of his neck crawled. Something wasn’t right. There was the puppy, pressed close to Taylor’s legs. There was Josh, with a basketball at his feet. And . . .

  Luke frowned. “What’s he doing here?”

  “Kevin?” Jolene lowered her bulk into a chair. “Oh, he drove us in his car. I told you we had car trouble.”

  Outside, Kevin said something Luke couldn’t hear. Josh’s hands half curled into fists at his sides, as if the boy wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. JD, who had the aggressive instincts of a ball of wax, chose this moment to show his puppy teeth, his hackles rising.

  Taylor grabbed for the puppy’s collar, her face white.

  Go time.

  Luke went straight to Taylor, one eye on the target, and crouched down, putting an arm protectively around her shoulders.

  JD growled deep in his throat, squirming to get away. Kevin’s foot twitched.

  “Kick the dog, and I’ll break your leg,” Luke said quietly. He looked at Josh. “What’s going on?”

  Josh opened his mouth. Shut it. Gave a quick hitch of his shoulders. I don’t know.

  Under Luke’s arm, Taylor was shaking. He smelled urine. Jesus. She’d wet herself.

  His brain started to put it all together. The nightmares. The baggy clothes. The way she woke up screaming and swinging.

  She misses her mother, they’d all said, convinced it couldn’t be anything else, confident that they were doing their best.

  But she’d wet herself.

  “Taylor?” he asked gently, his mind dark with possibilities, his b
ody pumping with unused adrenaline.

  She shook her head, her mouth tight, her eyes glassy with unshed tears.

  “Take Taylor inside,” Luke told Josh, keeping his voice calm. “She doesn’t feel good. JD, too.”

  Josh swallowed and nodded. He collected Taylor and the puppy and got them in the cottage.

  Luke stood and took a step toward Kevin. Not close enough to lose the advantage of distance, but enough to communicate a threat. He lowered his voice. “I haven’t liked you since I saw you. I don’t want to see you again. Get the fuck out.”

  Kevin apparently didn’t know enough to be afraid. He sneered, exposing his jack-o’-lantern teeth. “I’m little Taylor’s uncle. I have a right to see her.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Judge said—”

  “Your parents can stay.” Maybe they could tell him what the hell was going on. “I’ll bring them home. You get the fuck out of here.”

  “They won’t let me leave without them.”

  “Then you all go.”

  For the first time, something flickered in Kevin’s face. “Whatcha going to tell them?”

  “I’ll tell them you upset Taylor so much she wet her pants. Now get out. I don’t want to see you here again.”

  • • •

  IT TOOK FIVE minutes, maybe ten, to get the Simpsons out of his parents’ house.

  Jolene kept crying. “But we just got here. I want to see Taylor. This is all your fault,” she accused Luke.

  Ernie’s face wrinkled like an old apple. “Where’s Taylor? What happened?”

  Luke couldn’t tell him. Because he didn’t fucking know. He was acting out of instinct, from the sick fear in Taylor’s eyes and the ball of ice in his gut.

  He wanted to smash things. A wall. Kevin’s face.

  But he had to get to Taylor. Talk to her. Reassure her. Anything else, everything else, had to wait on that.

  Finally he got rid of them and could return to the cottage.

  Josh was on the floor with JD, giving and receiving comfort. When Luke came in, he stood, his face somber. “What can I do?”

  Luke regarded him, nearly a man with his broad shoulders and outsized hands and the boyish worry in his eyes. “You’ve already done it. You did good. Where’s Taylor?”

  “In her room. I, uh, I put her jeans in the laundry basket.”

  Luke nodded. “When your dad gets home, tell him we have a problem. I might need him to watch Taylor for me tomorrow.” While I go to the cops. Or hunt down Kevin Simpson and kill him.

  “Is she okay?” Josh asked, with a child’s need for reassurance.

  Luke didn’t know. His ignorance terrified him. But he was the adult here. It was his job to make things right. “She will be.”

  Josh nodded, young enough to be satisfied with the promise.

  “Josh?”

  He turned at the door.

  “Thanks,” Luke said quietly.

  His cheeks turned pink. “No problem.”

  Luke was still cranked up. He remembered driving at night in Afghanistan over bumpy mountain roads. You couldn’t see anything, not the road lurching beneath you or the insurgents out there in the dark. No headlights, just eerie images through night vision goggles, the ghosts of the vehicles before you or behind. But you knew you were fucked, that bad things were coming.

  Only this time, he suspected, the worst had already happened. To Taylor.

  He took a deep breath, willing himself to calm, focusing the way he did before a mission, and went down the hall to his daughter’s room.

  Taylor sat with her back to the headboard and her knees drawn up, Snowball cradled against her chest. He spared a moment’s silent thanks to Kate, for bringing her the cat.

  “Taylor?”

  She closed her eyes and turned her head away.

  A wave of helpless love and fury shook him. He thought of all those kids, in Haiti, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, the ones with the dead eyes and the wounds that would never heal. He thought of Eric Cordero, struggling with the memories of war, and Aaron Short, who’d shot himself rather than live with his pain.

  He thought of Kate.

  He hadn’t saved them. What made him think he could save his daughter?

  “It’s okay, baby.” He tiptoed into her pretty, girly room with the picture of Dawn staring at him reproachfully from beside her bed. “Daddy’s here.”

  Too late.

  • • •

  KATE WAS SMILING as she climbed the steps to the cozy yellow cottage and knocked on the soft blue door. A late-blooming rose scaled the side of the house, its pink faces turned to the afternoon sun.

  She felt like those flowers. Happy. Hopeful.

  Yesterday had been perfect, the best Christmas ever. She’d been welcomed and accepted by a normal family at last. Her heart beat high with anticipation as she listened to Luke’s footsteps crossing to the door.

  “I’m sorry.” His face was set in full Marine mode. His expression almost drove her back a step. “I should have called.”

  Trouble. Her childhood had taught her the signs. Her body reacted with old, remembered tension. “What is it? Is everything all right?” Her stomach dropped. “Taylor?”

  A crack appeared in his warrior façade. He ran a hand over his cropped hair. “She won’t talk to me.”

  She tried to wall off her emotions, to retreat into her professional role, where she would be safe. Where she could be effective. But the misery in his eyes sliced her in two. “What happened?”

  His breath shuddered out. “I don’t know.”

  She took his arm. His muscles were rigid under her fingers. “Let’s go inside,” she said gently, “and you can tell me.”

  They sat together at the kitchen counter while he told her, tersely, about the Simpsons’ visit and Taylor’s reaction. Kate had to draw on every ounce of her training and experience simply to listen, to ask the right questions, not to react with shock or anger or fear or disgust.

  Emotion would not help Luke or Taylor.

  But her heart broke and bled for them both.

  “The son of a bitch did something,” Luke said, his eyes dark with guilt. His voice rasped with frustration. “Hurt her. Scared her. And I didn’t know. She won’t talk to me.”

  “You don’t,” Kate said.

  He looked at her dumbly.

  She moistened her lips. “Dawn never talked about her childhood. I never talked about mine. She grew up in that house. She left Taylor in your care. She must have had reasons. But she never shared them with me. We had this bond we never knew about, never spoke of. Because you don’t. Because you think you’re different. Because you believe you’re alone. Because you wonder if what happens is somehow your fault.”

  His eyes flamed. “I’ll fucking kill him.”

  Kate wrapped her fingers around his hand, clenched on the counter. “You have to stay calm. If you get angry, if you get upset, it will be that much harder for Taylor to talk to you.”

  He bowed his head, gazing down at their clasped hands. His jaw worked. He looked up, his gaze locking with hers. “Will you talk to her?”

  Her heart jolted.

  It was the ultimate trust. The most intimate of invitations. She was agonizingly aware of what he was asking and her own limitations. The more she involved herself in Taylor’s life, the greater the risk of letting the child down, of not being there, of not being what she needed.

  Kate was terrified of failure.

  “Her mother’s not here,” Luke continued quietly. “My mother’s not here. I don’t know what to say. You’ll know what to say. Will you talk to her?”

  Once she committed to this, she was committed forever. There was no going back.

  “Let’s talk to her together.”

  Taylor was curled in a defensive posture on her bed, her face buried in Snowball’s fur. Kate looked at the tension in those thin shoulders and was filled with murderous rage at anyone who dared hurt this child. She couldn’t approach this case with pr
ofessional detachment. She wanted to growl and rage like a mother bear defending her cub.

  But Taylor didn’t need her anger. She needed love and acceptance and support.

  Kate tapped lightly on the open door. “Hey. Can I come in?”

  Taylor hitched a shoulder. Whatever.

  Kate sat gingerly on the side of the bed. She judged it was too soon to touch Taylor, so she stroked the cat instead. Snowball stretched out her chin, purring. Kate scratched it. “I hear you had a tough day.”

  Taylor raised her head, doing a good imitation of her father’s stone face.

  Kate cleared her throat. “It’s okay if you want to talk about it. Remember when we talked about feelings before? Feelings are never wrong, they’re just feelings. As long as you’re honest . . .” Everything else will work out.

  But Kate couldn’t bring herself to say the words this time. Taylor had been through so much in the past four months. Some of it Kate knew about. Some things she could only guess at. How could Kate promise that everything would be all right ever again?

  Taylor gave her a too-adult look out of her child’s face. “Is this because I wet my pants?”

  Kate kept her expression neutral. It was vitally important not to make accusations, not to interrogate. The only purpose of this discussion was to gather enough information to help Taylor.

  And to make an informed report to the police.

  “It’s because you were upset,” Kate said. She waited a beat. Taylor didn’t respond. Kate touched the back of her hand, gently. “What upset you, sweetie?”

  Taylor hid her face again in Snowball’s fur. “Uncle Kevin,” she muttered.

  By the door, Luke made a movement, abruptly stilled.

  Kate swallowed. “What did he do to upset you?”

  No response.

  Kate tried again. “Are you upset about something he did today?”

  Taylor shook her head, her face still hidden. “I thought it would stop,” she whispered. “It did stop when I came here.”

  Oh, God.

  Kate glanced at the doorway. Luke was in agony. You could see it in his face. But he didn’t say a word.

  “What would stop, honey?” Silence. “Taylor. Did somebody touch you in a way you didn’t like? Or make you do anything you didn’t want to do?”