| |
The whole family was out on the lawn playing with lawn darts when they pulled the ATVs into the yard. Dan hadn’t thought it was possible for Temperance to hold him any tighter, but when he swerved wide to avoid getting stabbed with a falling lawn dart, she squeezed the last bit of air from his lungs. Dan parked his ATV beside the others and cut the engine.
He untangled himself from Temperance’s grip and dismounted from the four-wheeler. After a deep, freeing breath, he turned to help Temperance off. She stared past him, up the long driveway towards the road. Her face was pale, pinched tight with stress and fear. “We need to get out of the open. Bill is coming.”
“Bill?” Dan didn’t follow her gaze to the road. He looked back the way they came. The sheriff’s house was on the other side of the ridge. “Bill Morrow?”
Temperance gripped the front of her jacket as if the sound of his name sent a chill up her spine. “Please, can we go inside?”
Dan helped his mom and Ellie pull the twins off their ATVs, and the group retreated to the house. While Vivian and Temperance lagged behind, Ellie was out in front, doing her best to put the girls at ease. Though they were polite, their eyes had turned to deep pools of mistrust. They’d obviously gone through something horrific, but Dan couldn’t imagine something so scary coming from Bill.
The girl with the tender ankle didn’t want to be carried anymore and her sister propped her up like a living crutch. Ellie talked while she waited for them to climb the stairs to the front porch, one step at a time. “You picked a great day to visit. Today is our family reunion. There is a ton of food to eat, and lots of games to play. How old are you two, five or six?”
“Nine,” the girls answered in chorus. The one struggling to carry the weight of her sister added, “We just had our birthday. Bill bought us puppies.”
Ellie’s smile faltered. She looked at Dan, eyebrows furrowed with concern. She pointed to the edge of the property and mouthed, The sheriff? Dan nodded. He guessed it was true what they say. You never know what people are like behind closed doors.
But still...
Ellie’s eyes trailed down to the girls, and she pushed her smile wide again. “I love puppies. What kind are they?”
Conversation about their dogs seemed to make the twins more comfortable. They talked back and forth, finishing one another’s sentences. Of course, it was easy to be comfortable with Ellie. She was bright and kind. She smelled delicious; like sugar cookies and lemonade. She lit every room she walked into with her smile.
Just like these twins, Dan had been a mess before Ellie. But ten minutes with her changed everything.
When they entered the house, Dan watched the girls cling to one another while they took in every detail. They froze in place when a stampede of six kids rattled down the stairs and pulled to a stop just before they knocked the newcomers over. Ellie spoke to the oldest girls in the riotous group. “Jenny, Amy, this is Patience and her sister, Pace. They need a little help. Can you run back upstairs and find them some clean clothes?”
Jenny’s smile looked overlarge riding atop her teenaged beanpole frame. “Sure, Aunt Ellie.”
Patience followed Dan’s nieces upstairs. One boy shouted they’d meet Jenny and Amy outside, and then the herd of children was off again, whooping and hollering like bandits. Pace remained at the base of the stairs, wobbling on her good leg and testing her twisted ankle. She waited for her mother to enter the room, then straightened her back, set her jaw, and worked her way up the steps and out of sight.
“Who do we have here?” Grandma Betsy asked from the rocker in the corner.
“I’m Temperance.” The slight woman’s face lifted in a timid smile, and she pointed up the stairs. “Those are my girls. Pace and Patience. Sorry we’re crashing your party.”
“Nonsense,” Vivian cut in. She squeezed herself between the bodies in the room, heading for the kitchen. “Ellie, dear, I’ll be in the usual spot. Get me when it’s time for something exciting to happen.”
“Vivian May Walker, get your butt back here. We haven’t done the family report yet!” Grandma Betsy screeched.
Vivian had already disappeared around the corner in the dining room, but called back, “Like I said, get me for the exciting bits!”
“Damn that girl! Somebody ought to tan her hide.” Grandma Betsy scowled. The rocking chair’s tempo increased with practiced aggravation. “One of these days, she’ll be the one wanting everybody to report their where’s and why’s and she’ll find out what it feels like to be stood up year after year.”
“I have a feeling she’ll cancel the family report when she’s in charge,” Dan said. “And Grandma, Mom’s sixty-seven. I think if you wanted to throw down the law with her, you probably should have started sooner.”
“Daniel William Walker! Don’t you talk back to me like that!” Grandma Betsy leaned forward as if she might get up to chase him around the room. Halfway to her feet, she groaned and sat back down. “Holy Lord. I feel older every day. Ellie, get after that boy for me.”
“Gladly.” Ellie slapped Dan’s backside with a smirk.
Ed, Dan’s brother, wandered through the room with a platter of sliced watermelon. “Hey, you two. Get a room.” He caught sight of Temperance and flashed her a smile. “Hi there. You look like a woman who likes watermelon.”
“Sometimes.”
“Well, I hope today is one of those times. I’ve got two more melons in the truck.” He wandered around the room, holding his platter in front of each person, refusing to leave until they took a slice.
“Napkins?” Dan asked.
“Let it drip,” Grandma Betsy said before taking a bite from her own slice. With her mouth full, she added, “If Vivian complains, we’ll tell her we didn’t want to bore her with asking where she keeps the napkins.”
Dan laughed and took a bite from his slice of watermelon. Its juice dribbled down his hand. It was warm, sweet, and tasted like every summer he could remember. He finished the messy treat quickly before Ed came around to force another piece on him. Between bites, he turned to Temperance. “So, what exactly happened with Bill?”
Temperance pressed her lips together in a flat line. After a long moment, she said, “When we met, Bill was wonderful. He was sweet with the girls and took care of everything. We eloped a few weeks ago. As soon as we moved into his house, everything changed.
“He drank too much and pushed me around a little. It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. But this morning, I caught him with the girls. They were.... He was...” Tears welled in Temperance’s eyes and her cheeks bloomed red. “I told him we were leaving, and he blew his top. Tore up the house and said he’d kill all three of us.”
Time stood still. No one so much as blinked. The watermelon juice still clinging to Dan’s tongue turned sour. “How did you get out?”
“He went to the store,” Temperance said quietly. “I knew it would take him a while to come back from town, so I gathered up the girls and we started running. I didn’t know where I was going. Thank God you found us before he did.”
Ellie cleared her throat and broke the uncomfortable silence. “Do you want to use the bathroom to get cleaned up? I’ve got a spare set of pajamas that should fit you. After a shower and a bit of rest, things will look a lot brighter.”
“Oh.” Temperance looked around the room like she’d just found herself up on stage in a middle-school play and didn’t know the lines. “I don’t know...”
“It’ll be good for you. Vivian’s got three bathrooms. I’ll take you to the one by the room Dan and I are staying in. Nobody should bother you back there.” Ellie handed Dan her watermelon rind and walked down the hallway.
Temperance slouched into the folds of her grimy jacket and looked at Grandma Betsy. “It was nice to meet you.” She handed Dan her uneaten watermelon and trudged after Ellie.
She’d hardly left the room when Grandma Betsey narrowed her eyes on Dan. “They were just wandering around the woods? How on earth did you find them?”
“I was setting up for the bubble war out back and saw the girls fall off the ledge at Morrow’s hill. Temperance came down after them. They’re in a bad way.”
“They fell over the cliff?” Ed said. He circled the room again with a plastic bag for the rinds and a towel slung over his shoulder to mop up watermelon juice. “How are they still walking?”
Dan shook his head. “Sheer will, I guess.”
“Is she some kind of criminal?” Grandma Betsy asked. She shook her head. “If Bill’s got a beef with her, she’s hiding something. I don’t want someone like her skulking around my daughter’s house.”
“Someone like her?” Dan asked in disbelief. “A mom with nine-year-old twins? Come on, Grandma. You can’t seriously be taking Bill’s side in this.” The words didn’t come easily. Temperance and her girls deserved to be protected, no matter who their abuser was. But he’d known Bill since kindergarten and had been friends with a couple of Bill’s girlfriends in high school. No one ever said anything to him about Bill being rough with women. That didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.
And if his childhood friend had it in him to abuse little girls, Dan hadn’t known the real Bill at all.
“Did you talk to him?” Ed asked.
Ellie returned to the living room, joining the conversation. “No. And we’re not going to. She’s scared to death he’ll find out they’re here.”
“What do we do? Call the cops?” Dan asked.
“You really think any of his deputies will keep her location a secret?” Ellie shook her head. “Imagine yourself in her shoes. The county sheriff wines you, dines you, marries you, then beats the hell out of you and hurts your kids. You get away only to have the whole department track you down. Whose side do you think they’ll be on?”