Yeah, but treats weren’t going to fix their problems. Well, except for maybe Little Leo. He didn’t seem to be too affected by this.
“This is bringing back the old stuff, isn’t it?” Buck said after Rosy had left.
“Some.” Judd settled for the one-word reply because he knew he wouldn’t be able to pull off a flat-out denial.
Buck made a weary sound of agreement. “The past has a way of keeping right on your heels.”
It did. It was nipping right at him now.
Suddenly, his mind was no longer clear, but was instead filled with too many memories of other bruises. And worse. So much worse. It had started with Judd’s own junkie of a mother. Neglect more than actual beatings. That’d been followed by a string of foster homes. Some okay, some that had left him with flashbacks and nightmares.
The worst nightmare, though, was that the abuse hadn’t been just limited to him. Callen had been severely injured, and Nico had nearly been killed. Nearly been beaten to death by a man named Avis Odell, and because Judd and Kace had been in a different home at that time, they hadn’t been around to protect them.
“Avis Odell,” he muttered under his breath.
The man would always be a sore spot. No. Worse than that. A jab to the heart. Avis was an unrepentant sonofabitch who was on his way back to jail. This time not for the beatings he’d given Callen and Nico when they’d been kids, but because he’d recently tried to extort money from Callen. And because Judd had goaded Avis into a fight and then had him charged with assaulting a police officer.
Avis deserved to be in jail. Hell, he deserved worse, but Judd hated that those old memories and all that pain could still twist away at him like this.
It was his brothers’ nearly being killed that had brought them to Buck’s. The system had finally moved Callen and Nico, and shortly afterward, Buck had petitioned to get Kace and Judd, too. Buck had saved them, but as good as he’d been, Buck hadn’t managed to cool down this fireball of bad memories that Judd figured would stay with him for a lifetime.
The door opened, pulling Judd out of his thoughts, but it wasn’t the door to the examining room. Cleo came rushing in from the waiting area.
“Are the boys okay?” she blurted out before he could say anything.
It took Judd a moment to get his jaw unclenched. “They’re in with the doctor now.” He tipped his head to the door. “They’re bruised up some.”
The color drained from Cleo’s face, and she would have bolted into the exam room if Judd hadn’t stepped in front of her. “Just give them a few more minutes. I want pictures and a report of the abuse.”
“Abuse,” she repeated. Cleo made a strangled, distressed sound, followed by tears, and she went right into Buck’s arms when he reached for her. “God, I’m sorry,” Cleo murmured. “So sorry.”
“This wasn’t your fault.” Buck, being Buck, stroked the back of her head as if she was still one of his kids who’d come in with a scraped knee.
It was true—this wasn’t her fault—but Judd wasn’t going to let her off the hook just yet. “I tried to call you. Four times,” Judd said with emphasis.
She nodded and dabbed at tears as she lifted her head off Buck’s shoulder. “Isaac called to tell me that Lavinia had hit Little Leo and that they were running away. I drove there as fast as I could, but they were already gone. Lavinia wouldn’t tell me where they were, and...we got into a tussle, I guess you could call it. I dropped my phone, and it broke.”
Well, as explanations went, it wasn’t a bad one, and Judd immediately found himself checking Cleo for bruises. And he soon found some on her left wrist.
“Did you put any marks on Lavinia?” he asked, already dreading the report he was going to have to write about this. A report that damn sure better not lead to Cleo’s arrest.
Cleo followed his gaze to her wrist and shook her head. “Once I realized the boys weren’t there, I left.” She paused. “I wanted to slap her. God, did I want to do that, but I knew it wouldn’t do the kids any good.”
No. It wouldn’t have. “I want your wrist photographed, too,” he said. “You’ll need all the ammunition you can get to make sure Lavinia never sees those boys again.”
Cleo’s gaze met his, she nodded, then muttered, “Thank you.” She added, “You found them,” as if relieved and talking to herself.
“And they’re safe for now,” Judd pointed out. “But we need to talk about what happens next.”
Again, she nodded, but Judd wasn’t optimistic about the head shake that quickly followed. Maybe that meant she didn’t have a clue about the “next” part, but if so she didn’t get a chance to voice that because Audrey opened the door of the examining room. Cleo went rushing in before anyone could stop her.
The boys did some rushing, too. Little Leo and Isaac both hurried to Cleo, letting her gather them in her arms.
“Aunt Cleo,” Little Leo squealed. Not a distressed kind of greeting but one of a truly happy child.
The kitten was on the floor, but it also got in on the Cleo welcome. Popsicle went to her and started coiling around her legs. Beckham was the only one who stayed back, but Cleo soon put a stop to that. She took hold of him in sort of a gentle reverse choke hold and pulled him into the group hug.
Keeping an eye on them, Audrey came out and walked to Judd. “I’ll email you the photos,” she said, her voice low enough so the boys wouldn’t hear. “Both Leo and Beckham have other bruises beneath their shirts. They wouldn’t talk about how they got them, though.”
So, they weren’t ratting out their grandmother. Judd would see what he could do about that. “I’ll question them. I need to do a report, too.”
Audrey nodded. “Cover yourself on this because I’m guessing the courts will get involved.” Her gaze drifted back to Cleo. Judd was pretty sure that Audrey remembered Cleo and him hooking up when they were teenagers. Pretty sure that Audrey didn’t like that, either. “She’ll be taking them, I assume?”
Judd was still trying to figure out how to answer that when Buck spoke. “No. Cleo can’t take them, not legally.”
Buck didn’t exactly turn his concerned expression in Judd’s direction, but Judd figured Buck was waiting for him to speak up. But he couldn’t. Not the way Buck or Cleo wanted him to do, anyway.
“I’ll make some calls,” Judd finally said. “I’ll work out a temporary placement for them.”
Of course, that was the exact moment that Cleo and the boys came out of the examining room, and they had obviously heard him because they looked at him as if he’d broken some kind of big-assed rule and betrayed them.
“No,” Buck murmured on a heavy sigh. “These boys have been through enough. Both of you have, too.” He glanced at Cleo, then Judd. “As soon as you’ve had pictures taken of your bruises, we’re all going to my ranch.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“WHAT’S MY RANCH?” Little Leo asked. “Is it where Santa and his girlfriend live?”
While Cleo was considering how to answer that without putting a damper on the boy’s jovial expectations, Little Leo just kept on.
“Because if Santa lives there with his girlfriend, they might got reindeer and presents,” he said. “And elves.”
“There won’t be stupid presents.” Beckham’s voice was stern, more grumpy parent than brother. “No reindeer or elves, either. It’ll be just a stupid house.”
Harsh, but she hadn’t expected Beckham to be a little ray of sunshine. “It’s a big house,” Cleo said, “and there’ll be horses.”
“Will the horses be stupid?” Leo immediately asked.
“Some of them,” Judd muttered, his tone very similar to Beckham’s.
Yet another ray of sunshine.
Rarely did Cleo have to remind herself to smile, but she was having to do that now. And she played a mental round of her BS game. In the best scenario, the b
oys would love Buck, Rosy and the ranch. Lavinia would back off, and they’d all live happily-ever-after.
And that sounded more like actual bull crap than best scenario. She knew it. So did Isaac and Beckham. They were in the back seat of Judd’s cruiser, watching her like a hawk, looking for any signs that going to Buck’s might not be a good idea.
If they looked closely enough, they would see that it wasn’t.
Even though she’d planned on the kids staying at Buck’s, Cleo darn sure hadn’t wanted things to go down this way. With Buck recovering from cancer, he didn’t need this kind of stress, and he could end up being on the wrong side of the law for harboring the kids. Ironic since the boys would be safe here. Cleo had no idea, though, just how long that would last, but she kept smiling, anyway.
Maybe that made her the stupid one.
Judd definitely wasn’t in a smiling mind-set as he drove the kids and her toward Buck’s, where she hoped Leo wouldn’t be disappointed when he saw no trace of Santa. Ahead of them on the country road, Buck and Rosy were in their truck, but Rosy continued to glance back at them. There was caution, too, on the woman’s normally cheery face.
“Will she come here after us?” Beckham asked after he tapped Cleo on the shoulder to get her attention. Now his tone had some caution in it as well, but it was coated thick with anger.
Cleo didn’t have to ask who the “she” was in Beckham’s question. Lavinia. And even though Isaac didn’t say anything, he was looking at her, clearly waiting for the answer. Little Leo was playing with his kitten.
“Maybe,” Cleo admitted. She turned to face him so he could see the determination in her eyes. “But if she does, I won’t let her take you.”
Judd didn’t voice or grunt any kind of agreement, but the fact that he was driving them to Buck’s hopefully meant that he would back her up on this. Temporarily, anyway. Judd certainly wasn’t jumping to say that he would be the boys’ foster father, even in name only.
Since it wouldn’t take them long to get to Buck’s, Cleo got started on something she did know how to fix. The work schedule at the bar. She texted Daisy to tell her what was going on and asked her to call in some part-time help to cover the night shift. It was only a Band-Aid fix since Cleo couldn’t afford to hire anyone to fill in for her full-time, but it would take care of the here and now.
Because kitten poop was also part of that here and now—or soon would be—Cleo located the number of the local grocery store, connected with the store owner, Will Myers, and asked him to have someone deliver litter supplies and cat food to the ranch. She’d need him to send boys’ clothes, too, if Rosy and Buck didn’t have some on hand. From what she could tell, the boys hadn’t carried much with them when they’d run away from Lavinia’s, and Cleo wasn’t about to contact the woman and ask her to hand over their things.
Just as Cleo finished her own call, Judd’s phone rang, and while he glanced at the screen, he let the call go to voice mail. “Darrell,” he relayed to her.
That was the San Antonio cop who’d helped look for the boys. He could be calling to demand the boys’ return or to drop some other bad news that Cleo was certain she wouldn’t want to hear.
Somehow, she kept smiling.
The smile became genuine, though, when they turned into the driveway to Buck’s ranch. Time hadn’t exactly stood still here, but it was close. The large two-story house that’d once been white was now yellow, and there was another barn. A red one. Other than that and the spruced-up porch on the log cabin where Judd lived, everything was as it had been when she had lived here as one of Buck’s kids.
Her attention lingered on the cabin a moment. On the memories there. Smile-worthy ones because that’s where Judd and she had sneaked off to on the night of her de-virgining. Judging from the way Judd scowled at it, it didn’t hold the same fond memories for him as it did for her.
By the time Judd had parked the cruiser, Rosy and Buck were already out of his truck, and Rosy came their way. Her cautious expression was still there but so was her usual welcome.
“Come on in,” Rosy told them, helping Little Leo out and sliding her hand around him. “You’re in luck because there’s nobody else staying here. That means you’ll each get your own rooms.”
“We want to stay together,” Beckham mumbled.
“Oh.” Rosy blinked but quickly recovered. “Okay. One of the rooms has four bunk beds and its own bath so you can use that one.”
Rosy looked at Cleo to get her approval, and Cleo nodded. But Cleo would tell the woman later that there was an asterisk on her nod. Beckham might want them all in the same room just to keep an eye on his younger brothers, but it would also make it easier for him to run off with them again. Cleo wasn’t sure how to convince Beckham not to do that, but she needed to try.
Judd stayed on the porch to make a call. Maybe to Darrell. Cleo would be making her own call—to Kace, to ask for his help. But for now she followed Buck, Rosy and the boys inside.
Cleo immediately got another rush of the past when she glanced around the living room. Again, only a few changes here, including the stuffed armadillo on the entry table that immediately caught Little Leo’s eye. He grinned just as Popsicle hissed at it. Cleo went with the kitten’s opinion on this because the armadillo wasn’t just stuffed. It was one of Rosy’s taxidermic critters.
“That’s Billy,” Rosy proudly announced, running her hand over the armadillo’s head. “Isn’t he handsome?”
“Yeah,” Leo confirmed with what sounded to be a little awe.
“I have a shop, Much Ado About Stuffing,” Rosy went on, “and when Billy met his...end, I made sure he would stay handsome forever.”
Concerned about the topic of conversation, Cleo studied each of the boys to see how they were handling this. Isaac was back to staring at his phone screen, and Beckham was rolling his eyes. “Stupid,” Beckham groaned.
Well, she supposed that was better than a reaction from the boys saying it was morbid, or Cleo’s personal favorite—creepy.
Cleo shifted her attention, continuing her sweeping glance around the room, and her smile brightened when she saw a framed photo on the mantel of her with the Laramie brothers.
“Good times,” Buck said to her. Looking much too tired and pale, he sank down onto the sofa as Rosy led the boys upstairs. Cleo was about to go with them, but Buck motioned for her to sit next to him. “Rosy will show them the room and then bring them back down.” He paused only long enough for a labored breath before he added, “We need to talk.”
“I’m sorry,” Cleo blurted out as she sat. “I didn’t want to involve you like this.”
He shook his head, gave a weary sigh. “I don’t see as how you had a choice.” It was the right thing to say even if it didn’t fix things. “Besides, Judd’s the one who brought them here. That’s a good sign.”
If only. “Not really. He said no when I asked him to sign the foster papers. And judging from his expression, he’ll stand firm on that no.”
Buck made a “maybe” sound. “Part of me wants to give him an out by calling Shelby and Callen home from their honeymoon. They’d come and they’d agree to work with you on this plan for you to foster the boys.”
Yes, Shelby and Callen would, but Cleo didn’t want to go that route unless there was no other choice. “I want to talk to Kace. He might be willing to become their foster in name only.” A risk because of that whole “letter of the law” thing. “If that doesn’t work, then I can possibly have my business partner do it. Her place isn’t big enough, but maybe she could move here temporarily until we get something better worked out.”
Though Cleo had no idea how she would manage to move Daisy and her baby to Coldwater without completely busting her budget.
Buck touched the bruises on her wrist. “Work out something better than their grandmother.”
“Definitely. Of course, the bar isn’t
set very high there for finding something better. Plus, she doesn’t actually want them. She was going to put them in foster care, anyway, so as long as it’s not my name on the documents, I think Lavinia will back off.”
At best that might be wishful thinking, but there was enough gloom and doom hovering over her without adding the possibility of an abusive bat-shit crazy relative to the mix.
“Remember when you came here?” Buck asked.
There was so much whirling around in Cleo’s mind that it took her a moment to calm her thoughts. Which had likely been the reason Buck had asked. He’d always had a knack for nerve-settling. “Yes. You were very kind to me.”
He lifted his shoulder. “It’s easy to be kind to someone like you.”
She gave him a considering look. “Clearly, you and Lavinia have a different notion about that.”
Buck smiled, bobbed his head. Paused. “You weren’t broken. You were just in need of a place to thrive.”
Now she winced because there’d been nose-diving along with that thriving. “I’d been arrested for stealing a car just weeks before I came here.”
“Running,” he acknowledged. “Something that Beckham and you have in common.”
“I didn’t have it as bad as they did. They’re orphans, caught up in a bad situation. I had folks. Well, a dad, anyway.” Her mom had cut out around the time she’d started kindergarten. And her dad just hadn’t wanted her once she’d started acting out and getting into trouble. “It stung some when he signed over his parental rights and put me in the system, but in hindsight he did us all a favor.”
In that wise way of his, Buck just stayed quiet and let her continue. It was yet another layer in his nerve-settling skill set.
“I don’t hear from my father, but that’s okay,” she went on. “He rebuilt his life with a new wife. New kids, too.”
In the interest of staving off the gloom and its pity partner, the doom, she wouldn’t mention the last time she’d called him. It’d been about a decade ago, and he’d calmly asked her never to call him again. Of course, Buck likely knew that in a good dad–ESP kind of way.
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