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Mitch wasn’t happy. He paced the spa’s reception area as he waited for Jodie to come inside and explain what the hell was going on. One minute he’d been grinning at the thought of another battle of wills with Jodie and the next thing he knew, Deke was dragging him into the spa. All while Jodie and an older woman tried to calm a hysterical young woman.
He hadn’t wanted to go into the spa. Something was seriously wrong. The woman had taken one look at him and completely lost her mind. She wasn’t just hysterical, she was terrified. Of him. And that was a feeling Mitch never wanted to experience again. Ever. Damn, it made him feel dirty inside just thinking that he was responsible for making a woman react like that.
The heavy door slammed open and Jodie barrelled into the room, followed closely by her brother. Neither of them were smiling.
“Mitch,” Jodie said. “What are you doing here?”
She stood in front of him, arms folded, legs apart, eyes dark—ready for a fight.
He held up the bag he’d picked up from Fort William that morning. “I was being a friend. Dropping by like normal friends do. Bringing a gift—seeing as we’re doing the whole gift thing now.” Mitch took a step towards her. “Want to tell me what happened out there?”
Her eyes cut to Deke, who was standing at the edge of the room, his pose identical to his sister. Something passed between them. Mitch wasn’t sure what, but he’d been a lawyer and a businessman long enough to know that there was something heavy going on and these two were right at the centre of it.
“You surprised us. Fiona is...sensitive.” She sounded casual, but she couldn’t look him in the eye. “She scares easy.”
That set off alarm bells in his head. “That wasn’t someone who was a little bit surprised and called out. That was a woman who was about five minutes away from needing sedation.” Mitch looked between the brother and sister. He didn’t like what he saw. They were tense. Closed up. Anxious. “Something’s going on here. Something bad. No woman should be terrified like that. I think we need to call Matt in.”
“No!” Jodie gave her brother a look that bordered on panic. “We’ve got this under control.”
“Right.” Mitch ran a hand through his hair. “Did you call a doctor? That woman needs help. I’ve never seen anything like it before. She took one look at me and lost it entirely.” The words slowed on his tongue. Things he’d seen and heard over the past week began to click into place. The isolated house, hidden from the road. The security system Lake and Matt had been talking about. The terrified woman. The panic in everyone’s eyes. The fear at the sight of a strange man. “This is a refuge for battered women, isn’t it?”
Jodie opened her mouth and he could tell by the look on her face that she was going to deny it.
Deke spoke first. “Yes.”
“Deke!” Jodie railed on her brother.
Deke threw an arm out. “You think he isn’t going to ask questions at the police station? Matt and Lake are already suspicious and digging into our story. We don’t need to pour fuel on the fire.” The look he gave Mitch was pure steel. “You can’t talk about this.”
Mitch’s agile mind was working at full speed, taking in more information, following more clues and coming to more conclusions. “This isn’t an official refuge, is it?”
“No.” Deke walked to the fridge behind the reception desk, pulled it open and took out three bottles of beer without asking if they wanted one. He opened all three and shoved two over the counter towards them.
“You have beer in your reception area?” Mitch grabbed the beer and slipped onto one of the high stools at the counter.
“It was for the work crew. The health drinks are for the clients,” Deke said.
Jodie stayed rooted to the spot. It was clear she was still trying to figure out whether they should give any information to Mitch at all. It stung a little that they didn’t know each other well enough for her to trust him.
He looked at Deke. At least her brother was willing to open up to him. “How’d you get into this?”
Deke let out a heavy breath. “Long story. The most relevant part is what’s happening now.” He glanced at Jodie, obviously hoping she would step up and explain. When she didn’t move, he carried on. “There are women out there who aren’t safe in the official system. These women need support and help to disappear. They need somewhere they can live and be safe.”
“And that’s what you’re providing,” Mitch said. “Housing, jobs, safe environment and a new identity.”
“Yeah.” Deke drained his bottle and smacked it onto the high reception desktop.
Mitch wasn’t dumb; he could join the dots better than most people. “You’re part of a network that helps that happen. Like the old Underground Railroad system in the US.”
Deke nodded. “But more so. We don’t just provide safe passage for these women; we provide a safe haven when they reach their destination.”
Mitch’s mind was running with possibilities. “You’d need some way to monitor information. A way to keep track of who was where and if they were still being hunted.”
“We have a secure website.”
“And if one of the women is found, you move her on.” It wasn’t a question. Mitch knew it was the only way the system could work.
Deke didn’t say anything and Jodie hadn’t moved from her spot. Mitch didn’t know what to make of that, so he kept his attention on Deke.
“What happens if one of you is pressured into giving out information on the whole operation?”
“There are fail-safes. The first being that we don’t know about the whole thing. We know about the people on either side of us on the line. That’s it. We know where the women came from and who to contact to move them on. We don’t know where they go from here. If someone wanted that information, they’d need to work their way down the line and pressure each person in turn.”
“And by that time the whole thing would have shut down,” Mitch said. “What about legal action? Cop involvement?”
“Most of the women already tried the usual system,” Deke said. “Their men found them, sometimes multiple times, and their lives became worse. For other women, things started out too bad for the system to cope with. Or they got out of their situation in a way that meant going to the authorities would not be good for them.”
“You mean they killed to get out,” Mitch said and Deke nodded.
“Don’t you dare judge.” Jodie stalked towards him. “You have no idea what those women had to deal with.”
Mitch held up his hands. “No judgment. Just a helluva lot of questions.”
“We deal with women who need to stay hidden,” Deke said. “Women who still have a threat hanging over them. Whether that’s from the authorities or from their past partners, it doesn’t matter.”
“What about the woman outside? The one I terrified.” He hated saying that. Hated that he’d caused that reaction just by being a guy.
There was silence while Deke and Jodie looked at each other. It lasted so long that Mitch thought they weren’t going to answer his question.
“Her husband is a cop,” Jodie said at last.
Mitch felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “He wasn’t charged?”
She shook her head. “His friends stood by him. There were explanations and alibis. There might have been suspicion, but his circle closed tight around him and made it impossible to pin anything on him. He even went as far as trying to have her committed to a mental hospital as proof she was making up stories. It was his word against hers, and she didn’t stand a chance. She was in hospital after he’d almost killed her and a nurse who knew about our network helped her escape. Her husband went looking for her and when he couldn’t find her, he took it out on her sister. The sister is in a coma.”
Mitch sucked in a breath. “No charges?”
“No witnesses.” Jodie walked over to them and grabbed the bottle of beer. “The nurse at the hospital, the one who treated our woman, recognised the sister’s injuries. They were almost identical to Fiona’s. The nurse was too scared to go to the police and tell them she thought the same guy had beaten both sisters, so she told her network contact instead. The only option for Fiona is to hide.”
Mitch let out a string of curse words. Deke opened the fridge, took out another couple of beers and put one in front of Mitch.
“She’s still dealing with the situation,” Deke said. “It was too early to bring her into a situation like this. The woman who brought her, Tara, is going to take her somewhere where she can get help. Somewhere with a counsellor and no men around. It will help her to deal with what happened to her.”
“But the husband still gets away with what he did.” The words stuck in Mitch’s throat.
“That’s why we need places like this,” Jodie said. “There will always be guys who get away with it. There will always be women who have to live with the threat of them coming after them again.”
Mitch clutched his beer bottle tight. “The system is flawed.”
“You’re the lawyer,” Jodie said. “Feel free to work to change it.”
“Now I understand why you don’t want the cops here,” Mitch said. “It would send up red flags that Fiona’s husband would recognise. It would endanger her.”
“And the rest of the women here,” Deke added.
“You haven’t been in town that long,” Mitch said. “You could trust Matt with this. He’s one of the good guys.”
“He’s a cop,” Deke said, as though that explained everything.
“Yeah, but he’s been known to colour outside the lines. He would keep this out of the system. He would help you to protect the women.”
“It’s a risk we aren’t prepared to take,” Jodie said. “Matt has his job. His loyalty lies there. He might be a good guy, but we don’t know him and he’s part of the system that is hiding Fiona’s abuser.”
“How do you two expect to protect these women alone?” Couldn’t they see that they were in over their heads? A state-of-the-art security system wasn’t going to keep out someone if they were determined to get in. Especially if that guy didn’t give a crap about the consequences of breaking in.
“We’re set up tight,” Deke said. “Jodie and I can take down any guy who comes around, and if there was a full-out attack, we’d call the cops. Hell, we’d call everybody. But the chances of the women being found are slim. By the time they get to us, they’ve gone through several safe houses and identities. Their trails are cold. We have a couple of women who’ve been running for years. We hope this will be their last stop, that they can set up home here and get on with their lives.”
“You guys are hoping a lot of things,” Mitch pointed out.
“What are we supposed to do, Mitch?” Jodie’s anger burst out. “Stand back and abandon them? Leave them to fend for themselves? Watch their partners find them and kill them? These women don’t have anywhere else to go, or anyone else to trust, except for the people who’ve been through it themselves.”
Mitch stilled, every cell of his body alert. His focus completely on Jodie. “You?” The question was quiet because he was certain he already knew the answer, and it sickened him.
“No, my ex-husband didn’t hit me. He wouldn’t have dared. There was no way he could take me in a fight.” Her look was pained. “And that’s why he left me. Apparently strong women emasculate men. Who knew?” Her droll tone was a challenge.
One Mitch wasn’t going to rise to. “Baby, I’ll tussle with you anytime and I don’t care if you win.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, I’d win.”
For some reason, that look and those low words made all his blood rush south. Deke cleared his throat and when Mitch glanced over at him, the guy was trying not to laugh.
Mitch gave himself a mental shake. “If you weren’t beaten, how did you get involved in all this?”
“I’ve volunteered at refuge centres for years. That’s how I found out about the network.” There was something in the flat way Jodie delivered the information that made Mitch think there was a whole lot more to the story than she was letting on.
Mitch turned to Deke and cocked an eyebrow at him. Deke didn’t seem to have the same problem his sister did with sharing information.
“We grew up in the refuge system.” Deke could have been talking about the weather.
“You grew up in refuges?” Mitch stared at the two of them. They were acting as though that wasn’t a huge piece of personal information to just drop on a guy.
Jodie was staring at him intently. “Don’t make a big deal out of this, Mitch.”
“Don’t make a big deal?” Yeah, he sounded like a demented parrot. But this was a big deal. Suddenly Jodie’s reluctance over getting into another relationship made perfect sense. She’d grown up around a man she couldn’t trust, then lived amongst women who only knew men who abused their partners. Add to that a failed marriage to a guy who sounded like a total loser and getting close to her was going to be the emotional equivalent of climbing Everest.
“He’s doing that thing,” Jodie said to her brother.
“Oh yeah.” Deke took a drink from his beer, but he was clearly amused.
“What thing?” Mitch knew he probably shouldn’t ask, but the words escaped anyway.
“The thing people usually do when they hear this stuff,” Jodie said. “If it’s a woman we tell, she suddenly starts looking at Deke as though he’s five years old and needs to be rescued.”
“I get lots of cooing, petting and pitying looks,” Deke said. “Don’t mind the petting so much, but the pitying looks and the cooing get on my nerves.”
“At least that’s better than the other reaction you get,” Jodie remarked.
“Oh yeah, the one where she runs a mile because she figures being a violent arsehole is hereditary. That one is great for your self-esteem.” Deke took another drink from his beer bottle.
“And if it’s a guy,” Jodie said, “he starts thinking I have monumental trust issues that only he can overcome. I become a challenge to his manliness.”
“Trust me, baby,” Mitch said, “my manliness is pretty secure and doesn’t need a challenge. This isn’t about me. It’s about you. And you do have trust issues.”
She let out a heavy sigh as her brother chuckled. “No. I have common sense. That’s a totally different thing.”
“You had a bad marriage and now you’re scared to try again. That’s a trust issue. And that’s without even getting into the things you dealt with as a kid.” Why Mitch was fighting about this with Queen Oblivious, he didn’t know.
“My pitiful marriage has nothing to do with not wanting a repeat performance. I don’t want to get into a relationship because I’m done with that phase of my life. I’m happy on my own. It’s got nothing to do with trust. I’ve been there, done it, got the t-shirt. Why is it that men think every woman wants to get married? Why is it normal for a guy to want to remain single and sow his wild oats, but if a woman wants to do the same there’s something wrong with her? Something like trust issues.” The crazy woman actually made quote signs with her fingers around the words “trust issues,” as though he was the one talking madness.
“I can’t speak for all women, or all men, but I can tell you from personal experience that you have serious trust issues. That’s why you’ve been avoiding me and shutting down any talk about our relationship.”
“We. Don’t. Have. A. Relationship.”
“See what I mean?” Mitch gestured to her as though she were evidence. “You get touchy when I even mention the word. That isn’t normal.”
“And yet you still want to hang out with me. I wonder why. Could it be because you think you can somehow fix me? Maybe you plan to mend my warped thinking by sexing it out of me?”
“Jodie, I had to blackmail you into hanging out with me. If it was left up to you, I’d get relegated to the role of sex toy and we’d never see each other in daylight.”
Her hands went to her hips. “And what is wrong with that, exactly?”
“It’s wrong because it’s a choice you’re making out of fear. You break out in hives at the mention of the word relationship. Let’s face it, ‘friends-with-benefits’ is just another way of saying you’re dating and you can’t handle it.”
“We. Are. Not. Dating.” Her eyes blazed.
He pointed at her. “There it is again. Trust issues.”
“Okay, it’s time for you to go.” She took a step towards him.
“Jodie, think about it for a minute. You’re reacting emotionally. Try to be logical.” Mitch knew the second the words were out of his mouth that it was the wrong thing to say. The fact that Deke made a clucking noise confirmed it.
“I’m being emotional?” Jodie practically screeched, and Mitch winced. “I need to be logical? Fine. How’s this for logic? I’ve had enough hanging out together for one day. Consider the friends portion of today’s arrangement over. Bye-bye, Mitch, your hotel room is calling you.”
She grabbed his arm and hauled him towards the door.
“Jodie, you’re being unreasonable.” Mitch seemed determined to dig himself into a hole then shovel the dirt in over his head.
“Unreasonable? Try this for reason and logic. This arrangement of ours doesn’t involve heart-to-hearts. I’ll be in touch next time I need to scratch an itch, or want someone to watch a movie with me. Until then, have a nice life.”
The next thing he knew, Mitch was standing outside.
“You agreed to be friends,” he shouted at a closed door.
“Friends know when they’ve overstayed their welcome,” the door shouted back.
Mitch could have sworn he heard Deke’s muffled laughter.
“Friends don’t kick each other out when the conversation gets uncomfortable,” Mitch shouted.
“Friends kick each other’s backsides when they need it, and I’m beginning to think you could seriously use a good backside kicking.”
Okay, he knew a threat when he heard it. It was time to leave. “This isn’t over. We’re talking about this. I’ll be back,” he shouted at the damn door.
There was no reply, only the rumble of male laughter. Mitch had no recourse but to head back to the hotel—taking the gift he’d brought Jodie with him.