Lawfully Unwed

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  Chapter Ten

  Meredith insisted they celebrate the decision with more brownies and coffee.

  The coffee was welcome. Particularly when the sticky brownies dried out and turned hard just as soon as they were fully cooled and needed something to help wash them down.

  It was close to midnight when Archer finally managed to get them out the door and on the road back to Weaver.

  “Sorry about that,” he said once they were actually driving away from the house.

  Nell hugged her to-go cup that Meredith had sent with them. The hot coffee it contained was sweet and light, exactly as Nell liked. “About what? Getting saddled with me for your workshop at the women’s expo?”

  “If you didn’t want to do it, you could have said so.”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t want to do it. I said you—” She broke off, shaking her head and looking out the window. “Never mind.”

  “Nobody saddled me with you. Not even Meredith. She had a good idea and I agreed with her. So are we partners or not?”

  He was the one who sounded annoyed.

  She decided pointing it out was not a smart route to take. “Yes,” she said. “We’re partners.” Then she looked out the window beside her because the words sounded far more momentous than they ought to when all they were talking about was a simple workshop. The kind of workshop she’d conducted more than once for Sally Youngblood at the legal aid office.

  She nervously rubbed her finger up and down the side of her warm cup as the lights of Braden thinned.

  Just a workshop. Just a workshop.

  Just. A. Workshop.

  Finally, when the lights behind them had fallen away altogether, she felt brave enough to tackle the lingering sense that there was something amiss. “We were still talking about the women’s expo, right? The workshop.”

  He waited a beat. Long enough for the skin on the back of her neck to prickle.

  A lot.

  Then it was just one word from him. “Sure.”

  She was not reassured.

  But it wasn’t as if he could commandeer her into becoming a real partner. She had a job now, anyway, working for his grandmother. At least temporarily until the library was truly underway.

  And what are you going to do then?

  There were so many thoughts circling in her mind, it was exhausting. She was glad she wasn’t the one behind the wheel. Until she’d driven with Archer to see Lincoln Swift earlier that evening, she hadn’t realized how the road became even narrower and more winding on the way to Braden once it passed where Archer lived. Considering how distracted her thoughts were, she’d be a danger on the road.

  “Thanks for bringing me.” She meant it, but mostly she needed to hush the noise inside her head. “To see your brother-in-law, I mean.” Seeing Lincoln had been the purpose for the trip, but that seemed to have taken a back seat once Archer had pulled her inside his parents’ home. “It was really nice seeing your folks again, too. It doesn’t seem like they’ve changed a bit. They’re so—” She broke off, hunting for the right words.

  He seemed to understand, though. “I know. They fit. You look at them and you think, this.”

  She shivered and all of the busyness inside her mind went still.

  This.

  He shifted slightly in his seat and if he noticed her startled reaction, he didn’t show it.

  “If you had to pick two people who seem ideal for each other, you’d never think to pair a guy like my dad with a woman like Meredith. He’s rules and order and always hedging against disaster. The only thing orderly about Meredith is her constant disorderliness. But together, they’re like two halves of a whole.”

  He dropped his right hand down to his own to-go cup on the console between them.

  Nell knew the contents would be the exact opposite of hers.

  She rested her head against her backrest and studied him. His profile was little more than a shadowy outline. Not even the bluish glow from the gauges on his dashboard was enough to penetrate the utter darkness.

  She could look her fill and he’d never be the wiser.

  She fit her coffee cup into the holder molded into the console. She was very aware of his arm just a few inches away from hers. If she spread her fingers, they’d be touching his. “Ros always saw that, too. The way her mom and your dad were together.”

  “It’s part of the reason why she didn’t like having to come and visit.”

  “You knew?”

  “Hard not to. Through no fault of her own, she got the short end of the stick.”

  She felt indignant on behalf of her friend who no longer even wanted to be her friend. “If you feel that way, why have you always been so at odds with her?”

  “Calm down, Cornelia. Understanding her situation doesn’t mean she wasn’t a pain in the butt.” He let out half a laugh. “Even under the best of circumstances, Ros is competitive as all hell.” She felt his gaze. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  She couldn’t. Her indignation was dribbling away. “There’s nothing wrong with having a competitive streak, though.” Ingrained habit still made her defend Ros. “It makes us all strive to do better.”

  “Some people strive to do better just because they want to do better. Not because their life seems to depend on outrunning the person in the lane next to them.” He lifted his cup for a drink and when he lowered it once more, his arm seemed to be resting even closer to hers. “Problem with Ros is that she’s never understood she didn’t have to compete for Meredith’s love. She was always so busy trying to outrun us all that she couldn’t see she was also running in the wrong direction. You know why Meredith left Martin?”

  The abrupt question took her by surprise. She moistened her lips, feeling suddenly awkward. “Not, um, not really.”

  “For a lawyer, you’re a crappy liar.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment since I don’t have any desire to be a really good one!”

  “You heard that she was having an affair with my dad when they worked in the same office. That’s why you think they split up.”

  “It’s none of my business!” She wished they’d never ended up on the subject. Meredith held a secretly special place in Nell’s heart. She had done so ever since that long-ago summer. Whatever her history was, Nell had no intention of sitting in judgment.

  “Martin beat her.”

  “What?” Shock slid through her with nauseating speed. “How do you know?”

  “Because my dad had the pictures he took of her when he first realized what was happening.”

  Archer looked toward her, as if he expected her to say something, but she was too busy struggling with her dismay and after a moment, he turned his attention back to the road. “Ros was just a baby then,” he went on. “When Dad first left the army, he moved with Hayley and me to Cheyenne. He went to work at the insurance company where Meredith was working part-time as a file clerk. That’s how they met.”

  “If Martin was abusing her, how did he ever end up with custody of Ros? How—”

  Archer closed his hand over her fingers and her words stuck in her throat as surely as Meredith’s everything-free brownies. Nell would’ve reached for her coffee to wash the knot down but doing that meant moving her hand from beneath his.

  “You know the position of authority an abuser holds over his victim.” Archer’s voice was neutral. “She was afraid.”

  Despite the neutral tone, though, Nell could tell there was a volcano brewing beneath the surface.

  She’d never seen Archer truly angry. Over the years, in court and out, she’d seen him hypnotically charming. Contemptuously cold. And myriad shades in between.

  But she wasn’t sure she’d ever actually seen him angry. Really and truly, wrenchingly angry.

  She wasn’t sure she ever wanted to see that.

  “Afraid,” h
e repeated, squeezing her fingers tighter. “And more afraid than ever once my dad got involved.”

  She shifted in her seat, angling toward him even more. “Archer, you don’t have to—”

  But clearly he did, because he ignored her tentative attempt to stop him. “He started out just wanting to help her escape her situation. It hadn’t been that long since my mom had died. Hayley was like three years old.”

  Nell felt his gaze slide her way again even though she couldn’t actually see it.

  “He tried talking Meredith into leaving Martin—for her own sake if nothing else—but she refused. She’d already tried to escape once and the slimeball had her convinced that she’d never see Ros again if she tried leaving him.”

  Nell couldn’t stop a dismayed sound from leaking out. Even if she hadn’t discovered his attempted collusion in the Lambert probate matter, Nell could well imagine Martin convincing Meredith of such a claim. He simply was that intimidating.

  Nell knew Meredith didn’t have other family. More than thirty years ago, she would have been so young. So alone.

  “No wonder you can’t stand him.”

  “That’s just the start.” The neutrality of Archer’s tone edged into grimness. “Even though he now knew the truth, my dad couldn’t stop Meredith from quitting her job. He couldn’t force her to leave her husband. She doesn’t talk about what happened during those few years that followed, but you can be pretty certain Martin didn’t change his ways. People like him usually don’t.”

  “No. They just get more entrenched in them.”

  Archer’s fingers squeezed hers. “Anyway, Dad moved us to Braden. I don’t know if it was because he wanted to put more distance between him and Meredith or not. My uncle was already there with his medical practice. So maybe it really was because of that. In any case, he started up his own agency and time passed. But eventually he ran into Meredith again. And this time, things got even more serious even faster, and she ended up pregnant with the triplets. Which put her really between a rock and a hard place. Protect herself and the babies she was carrying by leaving to be with my father, or stay with Rosalind, who was still just a toddler.”

  Nell pressed her lips together. Even though she knew how that situation had ultimately ended, she couldn’t help feeling anxious. “What happened? What made her leave Ros with him?”

  “She didn’t leave Ros.”

  “But—”

  “Martin discovered the affair. He tried to raise his hand against her again but this time she fought back. She ended up clocking him with a cast-iron frying pan. Knocked him out cold. Put him in the hospital, in fact, with a concussion. She bolted with Ros and went to my dad.” Archer’s voice tightened. “But a few days later, the cops came to arrest her for assault and they put Rosalind right back in her father’s hands.”

  “But Martin was the abuser,” Nell argued as if there was something that could still be done about it. “He was the one who belonged in jail. Not Meredith—”

  “Use your head, Cornelia. This was more than thirty years ago. Laws then were even less perfect than they are now. You know that sometimes the bad guys win. He was already making a name for himself in legal circles. The people’s champion.” He made a disgusted sound. “He had people lined up vouching for his character. Attesting to what a good father he was. The best parent for Ros, certainly, since his wife was clearly unstable. How hard do you think it was for him to find a judge who gave him quick custody? Particularly with Meredith in jail for assault.”

  “Was there never a record of this?” It was inconceivable that Ros didn’t know any of this, but if she had known, how much different would things have been for her friend? Ros wouldn’t have worked her entire life to earn her father’s love if she’d known he’d abused her mother.

  “Officially?” Archer made a rough sound. “You worked with Pastore long enough to know his methods. The only records that exist show his magnanimousness in dropping the assault charges. He’d won, of course. He had Ros. And Meredith was still terrified that he’d disappear with her the way he’d threatened before. So Dad pulled out those old photos.”

  “He still had them!”

  “Insurance,” Archer explained.

  “I’m surprised Meredith allowed it.”

  “I don’t know that he gave her a chance to argue the point. But it was good that he’d kept them. Even as an abuser, Martin had been calculating. He hadn’t been stupid enough to leave marks on her where a casual observer might see them, but he had been twisted enough to use a cigarette to basically brand his initials on her. The photos were pretty intimate.”

  Nell’s stomach churned even more. She thought about the warm, loving woman experimenting with her brownies. And about Martin the last time Nell had seen him in his office. Sitting at his desk, arrogant and confident despite the evidence she’d all but thrown into his face. “That’s revolting.”

  “It was. All along, Meredith had been adamant that the photos would never be seen. It’s amazing that she’d let my dad even photograph her like that in the first place.”

  “She wanted help.”

  “Help that she ended up not even taking for another few years. But by then, she had more than just herself to consider. She was pregnant. How could she sacrifice one child to make sure the others who weren’t even born yet were safe from Martin? She told me once that every step she took landed her deeper in the weeds until she felt like she was drowning in them. And that falling for my dad—right or wrong—was like finding air to breathe again.”

  “Thank goodness for that.” Nell’s eyes burned. “So what happened? I assume your dad used the threat of exposing the photos as leverage against Martin.”

  “Let’s just say they came to an agreement.”

  “Martin had to keep Ros in the state where Meredith would have reasonable visitation,” Nell concluded.

  “He also had to get the assault charges dropped. And if he ever laid a hand on Ros the way he did Meredith—” He shook his head. “I think my dad would have ended up in jail for attempted murder.”

  “But once Martin was over the barrel, why not push for regaining custody altogether?”

  “Because even when he’s over a barrel, he has an angle. Meredith and Dad weren’t the only ones who could go public. Martin could, too. Those photos were a double-edged sword. As much proof of their affair—remember, they’d been taken a few years earlier, even—as they were proof of Martin’s abuse.”

  “Of course he had an angle,” she said huskily. He’d had one with her, and she was chopped liver in the scheme of things.

  “Meredith didn’t care about her reputation, but she did care about Dad’s. He had a new insurance business where reputations did matter. She didn’t want any of her children exposed to Martin’s vitriol. You know him. He would’ve made sure the scandal never died. And my dad didn’t want Meredith to be humiliated that way, either. The scandal of it all had taken a toll on her. She’d already spent weeks in jail. He was worried about her health. About her pregnancy. So they took what they could get.

  “I believe they intended to push for more at some point, but it never came to pass. Meredith never wanted Ros to know how treacherous her father had been.”

  Nell turned even more toward him, pulling one knee up beneath her. “But they told you.”

  “My father told me,” he corrected. “Not until Meredith agreed to it first, but he was the one to tell me. And only so I could make sure Ros would always be protected where Martin was concerned in case something ever happened to them. Just because Martin never mistreated her once all the dust had settled after the divorce, it doesn’t mean he wouldn’t change his stripes again if he had the chance. Ros idolizes him. Always has. Does even now when she’s a grown woman who should know better. But if she were to get on the wrong side of him?”

  “How long have you known all this?”

&nbs
p; “Since I passed the bar. Dad calls me up. Invites me out for a beer. Figured he was going to congratulate me. You know. All that.” He shifted in his seat again, the only evidence that the subject was more disturbing than his steadily delivered explanation hinted at. “And he did congratulate me. But then he pulls out an envelope containing a half-dozen old photographs and—” He made a rough sound. “It’s bad enough seeing something like that when it’s a client. When it’s the woman who has loved and raised you for most of your life—”

  Nell turned her hand until her fingers slid through his. The glowing dials on the dashboard blurred. “Why are you telling me all of this? Ros is the one who needs to know the truth.”

  “Like she accepted whatever truth it was that had you moving away from Cheyenne?”

  Nell’s chest squeezed. Her situation with Martin was a water droplet in comparison with what he’d done to Meredith and Ros.

  “As smart as she is, Ros is not reasonable when it comes to Martin. She’s been drinking that Kool-Aid for too long now. Which leaves it up to someone else to keep a watch out for her interests even if she never knows it’s happening.”

  “Yes, well, if she did, she’d be furious.”

  “Yes, well, chances are she won’t ever know. Won’t ever need to know.” His fingers curled tighter around hers. “But Dad had his plan of succession by telling me. I have my plan by telling you.”

  She felt a sudden knot in her throat. “Archer—”

  “—And I trust you enough to know you’ll never breathe a word of it unless it’s to protect my stepsister.”

  She blinked hard and looked away, but a tear still leaked from the corner of her eye, feeling just as hot crawling down her cheek as his palm felt against hers. “I don’t know what to say.” Her voice was husky.

  “You don’t have to say anything. You just have to believe what I’ve told you.”

  “You wouldn’t lie about something like this.” That was Martin’s way. He’d twist words, twist situations. Always calculating. Always manipulating.