Carolina Man

by Virginia Kantra

  “He didn’t touch me.”

  Kate sucked in her breath, torn between relief and dread. “Okay.” Don’t push. Don’t pressure her. She withdrew her touch from Snowball, folding her hands together very tightly in her lap to hide their trembling.

  “He used to come into my room,” Taylor said. “At Grandma Jolene’s. And . . . and touch himself. His thing. The first time, I was asleep, so I didn’t really know what he was doing. I’d wake up and he’d be . . . there. Doing it. And then he said he would tell everybody that I let him do it. That I let him . . .” Her voice broke. “But I didn’t.”

  Luke swore quietly, viciously. “Son of a bitch.”

  Kate shot him a look.

  Taylor turned to her father. “Do you believe me?”

  “Of course I believe you.” He pushed away from the doorway and sat on the bed, taking her carefully in his arms, holding her safe.

  Kate blinked back tears.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Jesus, baby, I’m so sorry.”

  Taylor sighed and laid her head against his chest. “It stopped. After you came. After you took me away.”

  “I should have protected you.”

  Taylor raised her head. “I didn’t stop him.”

  “You’re not to blame. You’re ten. What were you going to do? That’s not on you. It’s him.”

  “If I slept on the couch, then he wouldn’t come. Because Grandma or Grandpa might see.”

  “That was really smart,” Kate said.

  Taylor threw her a grateful look.

  “Why didn’t you tell somebody?” Luke asked. “Why didn’t you tell them?”

  Taylor’s lips trembled. “He said they wouldn’t believe me. And he said if they did, it would kill Grandma Jo. Because she’s old and her heart is sick. And Grandpa Ernie is too old to take care of me by himself. So then it would just be him and me.”

  Kate felt sick.

  Luke looked ready to commit murder, his body braced, tension rolling off him in waves. But his voice was gentle. “You could have told us. Grandma or Uncle Matt.”

  “I didn’t know them,” Taylor said. “I didn’t want everybody to know. Or to think I was a liar. And anyway, it stopped.”

  “You could have told me.”

  Taylor looked at him. “You weren’t here,” she said, so simply it broke Kate’s heart.

  Luke went white.

  Kate wanted to put her arms around them both, to hold them, hug them, protect them. But this wasn’t about her. She patted Taylor’s knee. “You were really brave to tell us now.”

  “I wasn’t brave,” Taylor said truculently, using anger to mask her shame. Kate knew how that went. “I peed my pants.”

  “Marines do it all the time,” Luke said.

  Taylor frowned. “What?”

  “Pee their pants.”

  Kate’s throat filled. If she hadn’t loved him before, she would have fallen in love with him now for his kindness, for his restraint. His matter-of-fact tone was exactly what Taylor needed.

  “When you’re in danger, you pee your pants,” Luke explained. “Hell, I’ve been in tanks under fire that smelled like latrines.”

  “Gross,” Taylor said. But she sounded more amused than revolted.

  Luke shrugged. “It’s normal. You saw the enemy, you had a stress reaction. What matters is that you didn’t let it stop you from doing what you had to do.” Somehow he managed to smile down at her, giving her exactly the right reassurance. “You looked out for yourself when there wasn’t anybody else to do it. You protected JD. And you told us, which was really brave. You did the right thing. I’m proud of you, Taylor. And I love you.”

  She laid her head against his chest. Her voice was muffled. “I love you, too, Daddy.”

  Kate swallowed tears. Maybe things would work out after all.

  • • •

  “I’LL KILL HIM,” Luke said after Taylor had finally fallen asleep.

  His rage was like a fireball inside him, incandescent, all consuming, sucking all the oxygen from his lungs.

  Kate turned from wiping the counters. Five hours and a lifetime ago, he’d expected to take her to dinner at The Fish House. Instead, she’d fixed scrambled eggs and toast. No one had had much of an appetite. “You can’t.”

  Luke set Taylor’s milk glass carefully in the top rack of the dishwasher. Because if he didn’t do it gently, he was going to hurl it across the room. Crush it in his hand. Can’t? He inhaled carefully, feeding the fire. He knew lots of ways to kill people. Never with more justification. Or a greater desire.

  “Taylor needs you here,” Kate continued. “She’s lost one parent already. You’re no good to her in jail.”

  He knew that, damn it. His frustration wrung his gut in knots. “I’m supposed to protect her. What the hell do you think I should do?”

  “Go to the police,” Kate answered promptly. “Defendants in criminal cases are usually under court order to have no contact with the victim while the case is pending. And Taylor needs counseling.”

  He nodded heavily. Counseling, fine. And her pervert uncle put away in prison as some other guy’s bitch.

  Kate bit her lip. “You asked me before if I had any recommendations. For counselors. I . . . Well, I made a list of names. Back in my office.”

  She looked anxious, like he could possibly get mad at her for remembering and caring. Like he might resent her interference. He wasn’t resentful. He was grateful. He didn’t know how they would have gotten through this without her. But he couldn’t find words through the fog of anger to tell her so.

  “Thanks.”

  “And she might need a medical exam,” Kate said in her precise, painstaking way.

  Luke twitched like she’d applied electrodes to his privates. “She said he didn’t touch her.”

  “Taylor may not have told us everything.” Kate’s gaze was steady on his. “It would be a reasonable precaution to check her for STDs.”

  Shit. His gut cramped. A couple days ago, he’d been worried about his ten-year-old being exposed to drugs. But this . . .

  “I told her I believed her,” Luke said. “Let’s get her to the shrink. If the shrink says she needs to see a doctor, then okay.”

  He watched her weigh, nod, consider. She would never compromise her judgment to please someone, he realized. Not even now. Not even him. God, she was great.

  “All right,” she said.

  “Kate.” He struggled to say something. She deserved more from him than scrambled eggs and lukewarm appreciation and filtered rage. “Thank you. This isn’t how I pictured us spending our first night together.”

  She smiled wanly. “I probably should go.”

  “Stay.” He gave her own words back to her. “Taylor needs you here.” I need you here.

  Her gaze met his, her beautiful hazel eyes soft with compassion. Her tender mouth curved. “Then I’ll stay.”

  “Kate.” He stopped, at a loss.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered, putting her arms around him.

  He bowed his head to her shoulder, clinging to her like a sailor lost in a dark, turbulent sea.

  Nineteen

  “SORRY, FOLKS, BUT you don’t have any kind of case here.” Police Lieutenant Wade Franklin hitched his paunch comfortably, regarding Kate and Luke over the almost-clean surface of his walnut veneer desk.

  The Twisted Creek Police Department was an annex of the town hall, a one-story brick building with a red tin roof, grimy blue industrial carpet, and stained acoustic tile. If it weren’t for the wanted posters and the bulletproof glass, Kate thought, they could have been visiting the street maintenance department down the hall or the building inspector’s office.

  She didn’t mind the run-down décor. But Franklin’s weary pragmatism made her want to torch the building.

  “The alleged abuse happened over three months ago,” he continued. “You’ve got one child witness, the alleged victim, who doesn’t say boo about shit until yesterday. By her own acc
ount, her uncle never actually laid a finger on her. Miz Dolan, you’ve seen these cases. You know how hard they are to prove. Sometimes kids living in a house with grown-ups see things they’re not supposed to see.”

  “He jacked off in her bedroom,” Luke said, his voice tight with anger.

  Franklin sighed. “Were you a witness? No. You weren’t there. Will her grandparents corroborate her story? No. They won’t. But here’s what I’ll do. You get your little girl a medical exam or a psychological assessment, something that can establish that abuse has occurred, and I’ll take that to the DA. Then we’ll see if we can go forward with a case.”

  “What about her safety?” Kate demanded.

  “That’s not a concern. According to what you told me, she doesn’t live in the same house with the alleged abuser anymore. They don’t even live in the same town anymore.”

  “That won’t stop a child predator.”

  “Then neither will a court order. You’re a lawyer, Miz Dolan. You’ve seen enough broken restraining orders to know that.”

  He was right. And that only made her angrier. And more afraid. “Which is why Kevin Simpson needs to be prosecuted.”

  Franklin heaved another sigh. “Even if you’re right, even if this Simpson guy is scum, I can’t lock up people on your say-so. My best advice is take your kiddie to the doctor, get me something the DA can work with, and I’ll see what I can do.”

  Kate stalked out of the police department, vibrating with frustration.

  She knew the system didn’t always work. She couldn’t save everybody. But she wanted desperately for her efforts to make a difference this time. To do her job for Luke. For Taylor.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said to Luke as they got back in the Jeep.

  He slid her a look. “Why?”

  “Because I told you we should come here.” She shook her head. “I know the DA. Let me give him a call.”

  “That would be good. Thanks.”

  “Aren’t you angry?”

  He shrugged. “I’m disappointed. But I’m not surprised. I’m a Marine staff sergeant. I’m used to the brass screwing up.”

  “And?”

  “I’m a Marine staff sergeant,” he repeated. “I fix screw-ups. I don’t need some pissant, parking-meter cop to help me put the fear of God in some asshole.”

  She regarded him uncertainly. He looked capable of anything, including murder. A quiver tensed her stomach, worked up her spine, an atavistic reaction to the threat of violence. She had to trust him. She did trust him. Only . . .

  “Don’t do anything that could get you arrested.”

  “I won’t.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ll hide the body real well.”

  Kate smiled back uneasily, unsure if he was joking or not.

  • • •

  “APPRECIATE YOU KEEPING Taylor this morning,” Luke said to Matt when he and Kate got back to the Pirates’ Rest. They stood outside his brother’s work shed, where he kept his classic Harley.

  “Nice to have her around.” Matt smiled down at Taylor, wiping grease off her hands with a rag. She looked better this morning, Luke thought with relief. More relaxed. “We changed the plugs on the bike.”

  Matt had always tinkered when he had a problem to work out, Luke remembered. Obviously, he’d taught that technique to Taylor. Thank God for his brother.

  He owed Matt—and Tom and Josh, who had finished off the gutters this morning and were putting the ladder away in the shed—a debt he could never repay. Because of them, Taylor would not regard every man who came into her life with distrust and suspicion. He owed her healing to them. He could never take her away from them.

  But he didn’t want to live without her. What would they do when his leave was up and he had to head back to Lejeune?

  “What’s for lunch?” Josh asked, coming out of the shed.

  “You eat up all that roast beef from Christmas already?” Tom asked.

  Josh grinned. “Not all.”

  “Then go make sandwiches.”

  Luke and Kate exchanged glances. He wanted to talk with his father and brother without the kids listening in.

  And Kate, bless her, didn’t miss a trick. “Taylor and I can help. If that’s okay with you,” she added to Taylor.

  Taylor hitched one shoulder. “Sure.”

  The three men watched as they walked across the grass into the house.

  “That’s a good woman,” Tom said.

  “Yes.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  About Kate? Luke wondered. Or about this mess with Taylor? “Have you told Mom yet?” he asked, avoiding the question.

  Tom rubbed his jaw. “She and the girls get back from their wedding dress trip this afternoon. I figured that’s soon enough.”

  “Taylor doesn’t want to talk about it,” Luke said.

  “She doesn’t have to,” said Tom.

  “It wasn’t her fault,” Matt said.

  “I know that.” Luke turned his head from side to side, working out a kink in his neck. He’d picked a hell of a time to quit smoking. But he’d done it for Taylor. Everything he did now was for Taylor. “But if you could have heard this police guy, the things he said . . . I don’t want everybody on the island looking at and speculating about my daughter.”

  Matt scowled. “So you’re just going to let it go?”

  “No. Kate’s going to talk to the DA.”

  “And then what?” Tom asked. “You gonna put that little girl through a trial?”

  “Kate says it won’t come to that. They’ll probably work out some kind of plea bargain.”

  “As long as they put the son of a bitch away,” Matt said.

  “He’ll serve a couple of years, at least,” Luke said. “But he hasn’t even been charged yet. Which means there’s no court order to protect Taylor.”

  Tom raised his eyebrows. “You satisfied with that?”

  “No.”

  Their eyes met.

  “Talk to Rossi,” Tom said.

  Luke shook his head. “No point. Simpson’s not in his jurisdiction.”

  “Unless Simpson sets foot on the island,” Matt said.

  “Fine. I’ll talk to the chief. But that won’t stop me from paying Kevin a visit.”

  “Didn’t expect it to,” Tom said.

  “You want backup?” Matt asked.

  “No backup. I’m not going to hurt him.” Much. “I just want to put the fear of God into him.”

  “You can leave Taylor here,” Matt said. “I’ll watch her.”

  “Thanks, bro. But Kate already offered.”

  And that was a first, Luke reflected, as they all trooped into the inn for lunch. To turn to someone outside his family. To know she had his six.

  A good ally, Luke had thought the first time he’d seen her.

  But she was more than that. Somehow she had become more. She was necessary to him now, to his happiness, to Taylor’s.

  Now all he had to do was convince Kate that they were necessary to hers.

  • • •

  TAYLOR WATCHED HER dad pocket his keys and his phone, and felt her throat get tight.

  She thought that after she told about . . . that after she told, things would get better, and in some ways they were, a little, but in some ways they were worse. Because everybody knew now, they looked at her and felt sorry for her and knew. Josh knew.

  Taylor’s face got hot just thinking about it.

  It wasn’t so bad when she was working on the bike with Uncle Matt. And over lunch, Josh had taught her how to burp the alphabet, which made Taylor laugh, even though swallowing all that air kind of upset her stomach. She’d hoped maybe things were getting back to normal.

  But now her dad was leaving—again—leaving her with Miss Kate, who was nice, but she wasn’t Dad.

  “I thought we were going to watch the movie,” Taylor said, not even caring if she sounded whiny.

  “I need to go out for a little while,” Dad said.

/>   “Why?”

  He bent and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll be back before dinner. I just want to talk to Chief Rossi.”

  Roast beef lurched in Taylor’s stomach. She could only think of one reason for her dad to talk to the police chief. “Is he going to arrest Uncle Kevin?”

  “He can’t do that. But he can help keep you safe, and that’s the most important thing.”

  “What about Grandma Jo?” Taylor asked.

  “He won’t arrest her, either,” Dad said, kind of joking, but sort of mad, too.

  You can’t ever tell, Uncle Kevin whispered in Taylor’s head. Your grandma has a weak heart. You don’t want to kill her, do you?

  Taylor swallowed. She hated Uncle Kevin.

  “Nothing’s going to happen to your grandparents, honey,” Kate said soothingly. “They’ll be fine.”

  Taylor wanted to believe her. But how did she know? “Then why do you have to go?” she appealed to Dad. “Can’t everybody just forget it? I’m fine now.”

  “That’s not the way it works,” Dad said.

  “Why not?” Her throat hurt. “You said I was safe. You said it was over.”

  “You are safe. But it’s not over. People who do bad things have to face the consequences.”

  “I don’t care,” Taylor said. “I just want to forget about it.”

  “Taylor, you don’t have to be ashamed of what happened,” Kate said. “You’re not responsible for the bad things your uncle did. It wasn’t your fault.”

  Taylor’s eyes burned. Her face burned. “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to think about it. I want it to be like it never happened.”

  “Yeah, I get that,” Dad said.

  “No, you don’t.” Taylor could hear her voice getting louder and louder, but she couldn’t seem to stop. “You don’t understand. Nobody understands.”

  There was a kind of awful silence.

  “I do,” Miss Kate said.

  “Kate.” Her father sounded shaken. “You don’t have to—”

  “Yes,” Miss Kate said firmly. “I do. Taylor needs to know that she’s not alone. What happened to her does not define her.”

  Taylor wasn’t sure what they were talking about.