Chapter One

 

A tear trickled down Toni’s cheek, then another one. She dashed at them with shaking hands. She’d lost so much, and now this. It was too much to bear, especially on this bitterly cold mid-February day. This situation was all wrong.

Another glance from where she sat in the long driveway of the two-story Victorian house broke her heart. Every inch of the large house, turret, gazebo, and porch had been painted stark white. From her childhood days here in Petersville, Kansas, she’d dreamt of the fading turquoise house with the fancy trim in varying shades of pastel colors. It had always seemed magical to her.

During the miserable ride from Denver back to her roots two days ago, on Valentine’s Day - worst day of the year ever, in her opinion - she’d forced aside her losses and concentrated on her future; this house. She’d endured awful months from June through December while waiting for her divorce to be finalized. What had kept her sane and kept her moving forward was this house. It had been vacant for as long as she could remember. She’d believed that it had needed her to be reborn as much as she did.

Her dream had been violated, like she had.

In October, Donald Caruthers, the realtor she’d found who represented the Carter family who owned the property, had told her that there were still some complicated legal issues to get settled. He hadn’t gone into them really. He’d just said that he was pushing hard for the people involved to get everything settled between them so a clear title could be signed. He’d assured her that she would get it, as long as she could be patient a little while longer. Then he’d suggested that, if she would make a substantial down payment, the people holding things up would take that as a good sign, and that everything would move along faster. She’d been suspicious, but he’d always sounded so positive every time she talked to him on the phone. Finally, she’d given in and done as he’d advised. Stupidly.

She gritted her teeth and tried to calm down. She was tired of being a victim.

Two weeks ago, Caruthers had said there were only some minor legal matters with one of the relatives left to deal with. He’d told her that she could move into the detached carriage house that had a remodeled apartment above it. Again, she’d been concerned. Yet when she’d received the key a couple of days ago, she’d packed up what little she had at the condo in Denver, checked on her furniture in storage, and headed here.

Minor legal matters? She blinked tears of frustration. He hadn’t said a word about anyone else being involved in the sale. Certainly nothing about someone having made changes to the main structure, or about someone having moved into the house.

Not a house now, a business. One with a sign planted in the flowerbed in front of the long, covered porch: Anderson and Anderson, Attorneys at Law.

She’d been lied to yet again.

Only twenty-seven, her belief in love had been shattered already. And now this supposedly kind-hearted older man she’d not actually talked to face-to-face had cheated her. She’d been right to be suspicious. Her trust in men was seriously damaged.

Yes, she should have checked Caruthers out more. She’d never handled any kind of business on her own, but she thought she could manage this. And he’d seemed so helpful.

She climbed out of the hot red Mustang she’d purchased with money from her hard-fought-for divorce settlement and carefully closed the door. Darn it all; she’d been violated, mistreated for the last damned time.

Aching clear to her soul, she marched up the sidewalk, intending to have words with the man she felt certain was responsible for the abomination: Chad Anderson. She hadn’t thought about her brother’s long-time friend in years. Although he was five years older than her, they had a complicated history. Mostly, he’d seen her as an annoyance, except he’d seemed to like when they’d disagreed about things. Early hints of his becoming a lawyer like his father. She’d had a ridiculous attraction to the good-looking, older boy. Now she didn’t care what he looked like. Now she simply wanted him not to be messing with her new life.

The lackluster square white sign with its black lettering caught her attention. No, no, no!

She set her purse on the ground. Sucking in a breath of irritation, she turned sideways, lifted her arms up by her chest, balanced on her right leg, and then did a roundhouse kick with the ball of her foot right into the center of the words, yelling, “Hai ya!”

The wooden sign broke in half, each part crashing back against the porch railing with a loud thump! Her former karate instructor would be so proud. Unfortunately, the stiletto heel of her shoe had broken off, taking some of the pleasure out of the moment. She’d really liked these Christian Louboutin patent leather pumps, even if the five-inch heels made her wobble a bit at times.

Balancing awkwardly on the damaged shoe, she bent to pick up the heel and her purse. At the same instant, the front door opened and two people rushed outside. A stunned-looking twenty-something pregnant woman gaped at her first. The man she’d intended to have words with shifted by her until he could glower down at Toni from the steps.

“What the hell have you done?” Chad growled, his face tight with fury. He strode down the steps, an iPad or tablet or whatever held firmly in one hand. “You haven’t been back in town two days and already you’re making trouble.”

Her breath hitched at the anger in his deep baritone voice; an automatic response. Her heart pounded. Her stomach knotted and she hobbled backward. It took a second for her to regain control and remember this wasn’t Stanley. Her ex-husband wasn’t getting ready to attack her again. She shoved those horrible memories aside and concentrated on where she was and who had spoken.

Chad knew she was in Petersville again? Of course he did. Her brother must have told him.

She stiffened and walked right up to him, tears of anger and weariness stinging her eyes. The gangly but handsome teenage boy she’d had a crush on was gone. He’d always been a lot taller than her, but now he was well-toned and definitely all mature man. He filled out a dress shirt in an impressive manner. Awareness and physical interest tingled inside her in a way it hadn’t in a long time, surprising and unsettling her.

Appalled with her body’s response to him, she motioned to the Victorian as fury surged through her. “You’ve mutilated my house.”

A thick, dark eyebrow lifted. “Mutilated?” His forehead knitted in vexation. “Your house? What are you talking about?”

The young woman inched closer, worry creasing her face. Even as Toni noted that, Chad’s gray-haired, still striking father and law partner walked onto the porch as well. She heard an engine as another car drove up and stopped behind her. A door opened and closed. She didn’t bother to look back at whoever had arrived.

“Antoinette,” Chad prodded, talking in a clipped tone.

He knew she hated that name, as much as he didn’t like being called Chadwin. Her redheaded temper, held under rigid control during the six years of her disastrous marriage, broke free. “Chadwin Anderson, you knew how much this house meant to me. I used to talk about it all of the time.”

“You were a child. Kids have silly ideas,” he said in dismissal.

Even if that might be true of some kids, this had been an important dream of hers. It had stayed with her ever since she’d foolishly run away to get married in Las Vegas on her twenty-first birthday. Somehow, it had been her link-pin to her hometown and to the family she’d disappointed and barely spoken to since. Many times she’d talked about returning here to somehow make peace with her family, but Stanley had always talked her out of it. He’d controlled her in so many ways. Plus she’d been raised to believe that you fought for your marriage. She’d done her best for as long as she could; longer than she should have.

God, she’d been so weak-willed, so naïve in her trust of the wrong person.

But this wasn’t the time to think about him or her other reasons for coming home.

“You’ve taken my one surviving dream and ruined it. You…” The rest of her rant got clogged up in her throat.

His expression softened and he watched her with wariness. “Ted mentioned that you’ve had a bad time recently, but…”

“A bad time?” She’d been emotionally battered and bruised by her lying, cheating ex-husband. After their break-up, their marital problems had been dragged through the Denver society pages. She’d been made out to be the one completely at fault.

“You can’t possibly know all that I’ve been through! Nobody here knows.” She didn’t want to think about how far past ‘bad’ things had gotten. But she was glad that her shame wouldn’t have spread to her hometown. At least she hoped it hadn’t.

He glanced at the young woman standing close by, worrying her lower lip. “Maybe you should call…”

“What? Call my father? Because I’m acting a little wild?” Toni snorted and cut him off. “I have every right to act upset. Yet another man has messed with me; lied to me.”

His angular face tightened in annoyance. “I still have no idea what you’re talking about.” He stepped closer and reached for her.

“No!” She jumped back, breaking off the other stiletto heel, and barely managed to keep from falling. Her entire body tensed.

A memory flashed into her mind. Stanley had grabbed her arms during their last argument, right after they’d eaten a special meal she’d prepared for him. His grip had been agonizingly tight. When she’d hissed in pain, he’d shoved her away. She’d landed hard on the floor, knocking her head against the dining room table. After a half-second of possible regret, he’d turned and hurried out of the house. No apology.

“Antoinette,” Chad said again, sounding cautious.

She pushed the recollection away and looked at Chad. His expression appeared concerned. Again, he inched forward and tried to reach for her.

“Don’t touch me!” she gasped, batting his hand away, dropping the heel and purse. She hated that she was reacting this way but felt helpless to control it.

“What’s your problem?” Appearing confused, he moved toward her once more.

Panicked, defensive, and determined to stop him, she snagged the iPad from his grasp, flung it away. It crashed into the nearby towering, leafless elm tree. The sound of cracking glass made her flinch. What had she done?

Footsteps behind her on the sidewalk pounded in her direction. The young woman on the porch gasped and Chad’s father walked behind him.

“Have you been drinking?” Chad’s tone dripped with disgust as he seemed to sniff for hints of alcohol.

Her cheeks flamed. “No, I haven’t been!” she bit out. It was humiliating to realize that her brother must have told Chad about her drinking problem; something he must have read in the gossip columns.

His vivid blue eyes didn’t look as though he believed her. His jaw taut, he latched onto her left forearm before she could move. He gripped her tightly.

No! Panicked, she drew on the self-defense lessons she’d learned after the separation. With a palm strike, she gave a hard jab to his shoulder.

“What the hell?” he snapped, jerking but not releasing her. His arm was stretched out between them.

Heart racing, she hit his elbow with another palm strike. This time he lost his grasp on her arm and glowered at her in frustration and pain. She sensed he would reach for her again, but she couldn’t let it happen.

She balanced on her left leg, raised her right leg to shoulder level, the denim of her jeans tight with the position. She raised her arms in a protective position and kicked at his chest with all her power.

He crashed backward against the broken wooden sign, lost his footing, and landed against the side of the porch. Despite the horrified gasps of the young woman and Chad’s father, Toni heard the sound of a bone cracking when he hit one of the sign posts. She gaped in horror at the sight of blood oozing down his cheek from where his face hit the porch edge.

“Oh my God,” she whispered shakily, rushing toward him.

Sitting amidst the broken wood and dirt of the garden, he straightened as best he could manage. His face tight with agony, he roared, “Stay away from me!”

She jumped back, arms windmilling to keep from falling on her broken shoes. Her heart pounded harder, shocked at the damage she’d caused.

His father and the young woman hurried to his side to help him up. Both looked at her in warning. Her legs felt weak and she fought to keep standing. She didn’t even recognize the woman she’d become. Never in her life had she hurt someone else.

The steady footsteps stopped their approach and someone grabbed at her left arm. Again, instinctively, she spun around, her hands shooting out in defense. “No!”

A man she recognized as another of her brother’s friends sat on his butt at her feet, dazed, rubbing at his jaw. “Toni, calm down,” he ordered.

The fight drained out of her like a balloon suddenly jabbed with a pin. She began trembling. Tears of shame threatened as she watched Alex Crampton; Sheriff Crampton climb to his feet. The broad-shouldered, mountain of a man watched her with molten brown eyes, as if weighing whether she would attack him again. It sickened her that he would be thinking that way. Yet she couldn’t blame him.

“That’s better.” He seemed to consider the situation for an instant, and then he pulled handcuffs from a clip on his belt. “You’re under arrest, Mrs. Beaton,” he said formally.

He didn’t look happy about it, resigned, and he clamped the cold metal cuffs over her wrists. She was too numb to resist.

“Ms. Thornton,” she corrected automatically. As confused as she was, she never wanted to be connected to that name again.

Could her day - her life - get any worse? “I,I didn’t mean to…” She hung her head in disgrace. There was no denying what she’d done; there were so many witnesses, including the sheriff, who she’d grown up with. Swallowing hard, she asked in a whisper, “Are you taking me to jail?”

He looked hesitant and then they all heard Chad grousing in pain, “She’s a menace.”

That hurt. She needed to help him somehow, make him understand. But understand what? Even she couldn’t comprehend her actions. She’d known Chad all of her life, except for the years of her marriage. He’d never been a fighter; never hurt anyone that she knew about. Yet she’d turned on him in a moment of distress. She’d used the defensive skills she’d learned to cause damage to property…and to injure an innocent man. Away from that panicked moment, she knew he hadn’t meant her harm.

“Your family isn’t going to like this,” the sheriff said on a heavy sigh. He didn’t like it, either.

Reality hit hard. She could barely breathe, she felt cold all over. She was going to jail. Her family would be seriously unhappy with her. Not any more than she was with herself, though.

She offered a heartfelt but shaky, “I’m sorry.” After what she’d done, she didn’t consider the apology enough. And from Chad’s hard expression, he didn’t either.

Unable to stay there an instant longer, she glanced at the sheriff, determined to think of him in that capacity, not as someone she’d known forever. “Let’s go. Now.”

***

“This can end here,” Alex said, as he opened the back door of the patrol car, looking down at her uneasily. “I’m sure Chad…”

Toni shook her head, tipped out her chin. “He was right. I deserve to be locked up.” Although the idea made her almost sick.

She felt sorry for herself during the short ride downtown to the sheriff’s office. Chad Anderson had cheated her; his father, too. They were involved in some kind of evil plot with the realtor to destroy her happiness. Chad thought she was a drunk, a menace to society.

But when the car stopped in front of the sheriff’s office, the excuses for her behavior faded away. She had done wrong and there was no one else to blame.

Alex helped her carefully out of the car. He’d been bigger than most of his peers all of his life; could look intimidating just because of his size, but he was a gentle soul. It seemed odd that someone like him would become an officer of the law. Yet she also sensed a harder side to him that hadn’t been there the last time she’d seen him. She knew he’d gone into the marines at the same time her brother and Chad had gone off to college. For a second, she wondered what had happened to change him, what internal baggage he carried around. Everyone had some; she certainly did.

As they stepped away from the patrol car, a middle-aged couple walked by on the sidewalk toward the Dine-In Café a couple of buildings down the street. Toni’s face flamed as she recognized the members of her father’s church. No doubt news would spread quickly among his congregation that Reverend Thomas Thornton’s mischief-making daughter was back in town and in trouble again. Perfect.

“Come on,” Alex said, lowering his rumbly tone. “Let’s get you inside before anyone else wanders by.”

Bearing up to her shame, she hurried toward the office door. From the corner of her eye, she noted how the couple had stopped to stare. She still had the handcuffs on, although Alex had wanted to remove them before she’d climbed into the backseat of the car. He’d been annoyed that she wouldn’t allow it. Now she wished she hadn’t been so stubborn.

She stopped in the middle of the open area with a pair of worn desks belonging to the deputy who worked the next shift and to the sixty-something receptionist.

Bella Hampton pursed her lips and shot Alex an are-you-serious glower. “Really? You arrested her?” She gave Toni a sympathetic look.

Toni sensed his discomfort as he moved behind her to unlock the handcuffs. “I didn’t have a lot of choice,” he muttered. “Call her father to come take her home.”

Bella reached for the phone, but Toni faced him and protested, “Did I damage someone’s property? Did I injure someone? Did I…” She couldn’t believe she was insisting that she actually be tossed into the jail cell. But, darn it, she had done wrong and hated herself for it. She needed a time out, adult style.

“Toni, I’m sure you can work this out with Chad and his father,” Alex countered, his tone strained. “They’re reasonable men.”

“Well, Chadwin didn’t appear all that reasonable when he called me a menace,” she grumbled, still wounded by the comment. She desperately wanted to sit down and do a bit of pouting.

“Chadwin?” Alex questioned, amusement ringing in his voice. One corner of his mouth lifted. “I believe you’re the only one who ever got away with calling him that.”

“Not the point, Alexander.” It pleased her to see him wince. He, too, disliked his real name. Tired of the distraction, she strode to the pair of empty cells and stopped in front of the first one. She didn’t face either Alex or Bella, just waited.

“Dammit, Toni. You’re intent on making my life hell, aren’t you?” He marched next to her, then noted the red lines around her wrists from the handcuffs. “Hell! Look at what you made me do.”

“I’m sure it isn’t the first time you’ve done this to a prisoner.” Why was she taunting him? She could see how much the minor injury upset him. But she was in a mood, so he could live with it.

“Never to a woman. Never to the sister of one of my best friends.” He looked miserable, but he opened the door and let her walk past him. “Call her father. Call her brother. Call anybody.”

She went to sit on the narrow bench and started shaking. Yet she met his eyes and said obstinately, “Don’t you have paperwork to fill out? Fingerprints to take?”

He ground his jaw and took a second before he said, “If I fill out paperwork, then this is going to get real serious, real fast. You’ll have to go in front of a judge. You’ll need a lawyer.” He looked at her as if he wondered if she really were crazy. “No fingerprints.”

Her stomach roiled. “If you didn’t know me, what would you be doing now?”

“Dangit, Toni!” he grumbled and then closed the cell door. He barked over his shoulder to Bella, “Call her father!” He focused on her once more. “What lawyer do you want to call?”

Oh, what had she gotten herself into? Why hadn’t she just let him release her? “I, I don’t know who to call,” she stated meekly.

***

When his doorbell rang at home several hours later, Chad wasn’t in the best of moods. Even with the pain medication, his broken left forearm hurt like hell. The side of his cheek stung from the half dozen stitches, too. He didn’t want to talk to anyone at the moment.

Disgruntled from his injuries and from a wasted day of work, he pulled the door open to find one of his closest friends standing uneasily on the porch. It wasn’t Ted’s fault about any of this, but still he frowned as he motioned him inside.

Ted glanced at the cast and the temporary sling, then at the bandage on Chad’s face. “Damn. I’m so sorry.” His shoulders slumped inside his heavy coat. “We knew Toni is a troubled woman now, but… Hell, man, we’re all sorry.”

Chad closed the door with a sigh. “She’s way past troubled. That sister of yours has some serious mental issues. She’s dangerous. She’s …”

“She probably does have some psychological issues,” Ted interrupted quietly, sounding worried.

His friend’s admission surprised him. He’d only made the comment because he was frustrated, in pain, and had been stunned at her odd behavior. “I don’t really think she’s dangerous. I just…” He stopped talking, uncertain exactly what he thought at the moment.

Ted straightened to his full height, looking Chad square in the eye. “She isn’t dangerous, not really. Evidently that was a ‘last straw’ moment for her.”

“I gathered that.” She’d had a temper in the past, but never anything like that. What he couldn’t forget was the way her eyes had widened in genuine fear when he’d touched her.

“She’s hardly told us anything about her marriage; about what went wrong,” Ted said, pulling Chad from his musings. Ted’s expression showed true concern. His hands fisted at his sides. “We think the sonofabitch abused her.”

It took a second for that to register in Chad’s mind. “Beaton beat her?”

He couldn’t imagine the vibrant, fiercely independent woman allowing anyone to do such a horrific thing to her. Not the young woman who used to tease and torment him every chance she got, or argue with him about anything and everything. She stood up for herself, which was part of why he’d liked her so much.

But then he was an elder abuse lawyer. He’d seen and heard of things most people could never imagine. They were inflicted on people by others who supposedly had their best interests at heart, often caretakers or loved ones. It also happened in far too many marriages. He hated to think that hers had been one of those marriages.

A vein pulsed in Ted’s neck. “Possibly, but she hasn’t said as much.”

“Verbal abuse, then?” Chad knew that could be almost as cruel and difficult to deal with. “I can’t see her taking that.”

Ted’s shoulders rose with a deep in-drawn breath, and then slumped. “None of us can. But, dammit, she broke down last night when we were all trying to find a way to make peace.”

He pulled in a breath, but his voice still held pain as he said, “At one point she was sobbing so bad we could hardly understand her. It was clear, though, her scum of an ex had done some major damage to her psyche.”

The whole idea was hard to take in. Chad would have to do some research of his own about the situation. He fought for the underdog on a daily basis. Still, it was hard to see Toni that way. He’d have to think on the matter later when his mind wasn’t dulled from the pain medicine and he was a lot less frustrated with what had happened.

Speaking of that, he asked pointedly, “So, what was the deal with the place Dad and I are buying? She wasn’t making much sense. Talking about how we’d mutilated her house. About the place being her dream.” That was the ‘last straw’?

As he’d tried to think about other things while getting his arm set and the stitches, he’d wondered about her reasoning. She’d always gone after whatever she wanted full throttle. If she’d really wanted the house all these years, he could easily see her trying whatever crazy plan came to her mind to get it. Although destruction of property - like their sign - and assault and battery seemed a stretch.

“We’re fuzzy on that. She’s pretty depressed right now, won’t say much.”

“I’m sure your Mom will…” Chad stopped when he caught the frown on his friend’s face. “What else?”

Ted heaved a breath that seemed to come clear from his toes. “She’s still in jail.”

“What?”

“Still in jail.”

Chad gaped at him. “Surely Crampton didn’t…”

Ted nodded. “Yes, he did.” Disgust filled his face.

“Alex actually arrested her? Wasn’t hauling her away in cuffs enough?” He couldn’t believe Alex would have done such a thing. They were all friends, even Toni. Even a bit crazy Toni.

“My idiot sister insisted on it. She pressed him to do it no matter what he tried to tell her.” Ted looked more frustrated with his stubborn younger sister than Chad ever remembered seeing him. “The last I heard she was waiting for an attorney, except she doesn’t know who to call.”

Well, hell. Chad knew exactly who to call. He strode into the living room and straight to the end table where he’d set down his cell phone. Grumbling under his breath, he held the phone awkwardly in his good hand and thumbed in his Dad’s number.

He didn’t have a chance to speak before his father said, “Already on it, son, but it hasn’t been easy. Little Ms. Toni thought it was a conflict of interest for me to represent her. It took some doing, but her father finally convinced her to let me do so.”

“I’m going to have some words with Crampton tomorrow,” Chad said, feeling a headache that wasn’t related to his injuries coming on. He would call the judge, too, to get this matter dropped. “Thanks, Dad.”

When he disconnected and glanced at Ted, he found his friend grinning in amusement. “What’s so funny?”

“She still gets to you, doesn’t she?”

Chad remembered the night after his divorce and how he and Ted had gone out drinking. It wasn’t something he normally did, but he’d been a broken man that night. His ex-wife had shown a bitter, selfish side he’d never witnessed until that day. Pleased with being free again and with getting a hell of a settlement, she’d stopped him in the hallway outside the courtroom and admitted that she’d had an abortion several months before. She had a career in fashion design she planned to pursue and didn’t want to be burdened with a child to care for. She’d told him that since he was such a workaholic that he’d make a terrible father. So she’d made both of their lives easier.

Drunker than he’d ever been before, he’d told his friend about it. In his stupor, he’d told Ted that he’d never really loved Sandy. That he’d been in lust over Toni for years, until she’d run off to marry Stanley Beaton. Between her betrayal and Sandy’s betrayal, he’d sworn that he’d never trust another woman with his heart. Ted had denied that his sister had betrayed him, since they’d never actually dated. Logic hadn’t mattered then. He’d moved on from that point. Sandy had been right: his life revolved solely around his work.

“Those feelings are long gone.” Even if the first sight of her in six years had about stolen his breath. He cared only about her welfare now because she was his friend’s sister. Nothing more. Right. Who was he kidding?

Ted gave him a disbelieving look and moved toward the door. “She’s going to need help, that’s all I’m saying. Cut her some slack, okay?”

Chad took a second before saying, “I’ll try.” God, what a mess.