Husband by Choice

Because that code—that cops stood up for cops—had gotten his wife killed.

* * *

MAX FED CALEB. He wiped the toddler’s face and hands, and when his son asked for his mama, he assured him she’d be right back. He was calm. Moved with ease around the kitchen. And when he dropped Caleb’s Melmac ABC plate, splattering the remains of Meredith’s pre-made ground beef stew all over the floor and lower cupboards, he carefully cleaned up every drop.

He had a follow-up call from his Las Sendas police contact. And when Caleb cried for a cookie, and Max remembered that they were out of the little vanilla wafers that were the only treat the boy was allowed, he lifted Caleb out of his chair, grabbed his keys, strapped the toddler into his car seat and went to the store.

He wheeled the cart around the store without hurry, going up and down every aisle, aware that Caleb attempted to touch things he couldn’t reach, and focused on the displays in the aisles and the wares on the shelves. Considering them all with utmost concentration so that he didn’t miss something else they might need, or were out of.

Meredith had been missing for a couple of hours. She’d left Devon’s house late. He’d had confirmation on that point. But she should have been at the day care by the time Max had arrived.

There’d been no reported accidents anywhere in the area involving her. She wasn’t in a hospital emergency room.

And they didn’t need toilet paper. He’d had to replace the roll before dinner and there’d been a twelve-pack in the closet.

Ditto on the paper towels. He’d used half a roll on stew cleanup. And had found a bulk pack in the pantry.

Meredith was a firm believer in being prepared.

Tissue, he couldn’t remember. He hadn’t used any. But if Caleb’s nose started to run, he’d need a lot of them. Certain that Meri had extra tissue at home, too, he threw in an extra three-pack anyway. It didn’t spoil. They’d use it eventually.

Better safe than sorry.

Wherever Meri was, it probably wasn’t good. She’d have called or texted if she could and since she hadn’t....

She’d put on her stiff-chin face, get through it, and fall apart when she got home. She’d deal with whatever challenge she was facing with enough strength to move mountains. And be too weak to climb the stairs when it was all over.

In the safety and security of his arms she’d tell him what had held her up. Like the time she’d passed an old woman waiting at a bus stop and given her a ride. Or the time she’d helped a friend get a deadbeat ex-son-in-law out of her home. She’d survive. And then she might fall apart, depending on the situation.

The tears, when they came, could last a while.

Tissues were good.

Still, in both of those instances, and various others, she’d always called or texted him. Meri didn’t want him to worry. Because he had a past, too.

“Mama!”

With a force that hurt his neck, Max swung around in the paper product aisle, expecting to see Meredith walking toward them. But he and Caleb were the only ones there.

“Mama!” Caleb said again, kicking his feet against the grocery cart.

The boy was staring at Max. Obviously expecting him to produce.

“Mama’s busy, son, I told you that, remember? She’s helping someone and she’ll be back very soon.” He didn’t lie to Caleb. And the words calmed him as much as they appeared to calm the boy.

Meri didn’t risk her life. Or the safety of her family. It was the golden rule by which she lived.

So different from Jill’s call to serve—with a gun at her side, a Taser and a club hooked on her belt and a knife strapped to her ankle.

But like Jill, Meri had enough compassion to fill an ocean. And couldn’t bear to let someone suffer.

Opening the box of vanilla cookies, he gave one to Caleb, and pushed on, navigating his cart through aisle after aisle.

He would not let Meri’s panic infuse him. It was the golden rule by which he lived. He’d promised her he’d be the keeper of her panic. His job was to make certain that old fears didn’t live in their home, lest fear rob them of the second chance at happiness life had afforded them. Steve Smith, former Vegas police detective and abusive ex-husband, was in her past.

Caleb needed a bath. And it was coming close to bedtime. But he wasn’t leaving the store. Not until his phone rang and he knew that Meredith would be at home waiting for them. Or, at the very least, knew where she was and that she was safe.

Of course she was safe. His phone would ring any minute now.

* * *

CALEB TOOK AN extra-long bath. Happy to splash in the water, poking at bubbles and pushing his plastic boat up the sides of the ceramic tub, he asked for his mother a few times, but then went back to his play.

Max sat on the travertine floor, leaning against the wall, one arm on the side of the tub, ready to grab his son if he slipped or tried to stand. He stared at his tennis shoes—purple high-tops that day—and tried to remain calm.

Purple was a spiritual color according to Meri. She’d told him about color associations and some of that had infiltrated his thoughts, as well. But he’d chosen to wear his purple shoes that day because they were the pair closest to the front of the closet. Not because he’d felt in any need of spiritual protection.

Chantel Harris, Jill’s best friend and fellow police officer, had told him to go home when she’d called and found out he was at the grocery store. Someone needed to be at the house in case Meri returned. Or someone else tried to contact them. He’d given her a list of places Meri frequented, from their dry cleaner and grocery store, to clients’ addresses and schools where she worked. Other than Caleb and him, she didn’t have any close friends.

But there were several people, all women, whom she’d helped out of tight spots during the four years she’d been in Santa Raquel.

Chantel had assured him that local police were checking out every place on his list. As a precaution. Meri was only a few hours late. No one was really alarmed. There wasn’t any need for panic.

But in the four years he’d known her, Max had never known Meri to go anywhere or do anything on the spur of the moment. And she’d never once failed to be where she’d said she’d be without a phone call or text to alert him first.

Chantel was checking into Steve Smith’s last known whereabouts, too. Just to assure Max that he was right not to let Meri’s natural inclination to believe the man would find her someday take over rational thought.

Maybe his shoe laces were too long. They looked like the floppy bunny ears on the wallpaper in exam room four. Not his favorite room.

Caleb splashed.

And Max’s phone rang.

The toddler turned, staring at him as he lifted the device he’d been holding in his hand and glanced at the caller ID. It was almost as if Caleb knew they were waiting.

As if he wanted to know where his mother was as desperately as Max needed to find his wife.

And like Max, was man enough to remain in control while he waited.

Chantel.

“Did you find her?” Watching his son, he kept his tone easy.

“Not exactly.”

Hearts couldn’t actually drop. He was a doctor. He knew how the pumping vessel was attached. And knew what stress could do to it, too.

Chantel’s tone made him want to hang up. To watch his boy play in bubbles and know that tomorrow was another day. That the sun would shine again and....

“They found her van, Max.”

Caleb made a motor sound with his mouth. Seemingly unaware that darkness had descended in their bright and cheery bathroom.

“I can’t do it again.”

“Hold on.”

Of course. That was what he’d do. His fingers gripped the side of the tub, slipped and gripped again, bruising the pads and turning his knuckles white. Pressure stopped the blood flow.

With no blood flow there was no pain.

Was there blood in the van? Jill had bled out on the street. And the clean-up crew hadn’t been fast enough. A vision of the empty street with a pool of his wife’s ended life—a photo that had been all over the news for days after she’d saved the life of a fellow officer—sprang to mind.

Caleb splashed. Laughed out loud. And looked to him for a response. Max smiled. His lips trembled and his cheeks hurt, but he kept that grin plastered on his face.

“Tell me,” he said into the phone, careful to keep his tone neutral. He’d promised himself he’d never again be at risk of a phone call like this.

He’d promised.

And then he’d met Meri. Safety conscious, paranoid, locked-in-fear Meri. Who’d found the heart and soul in him that he’d thought dead and gone, awoken it. And given him a son.

“There’s no sign of struggle,” Chantel’s voice held a note of sympathy, but not alarm. “The van was parked nine rows down in front of Chloe’s at the Sun Oaks shopping center.”

An upscale shopping development in the next town over. A maze of stores and parking that covered a square city block.

Meri liked to shop there.

Max’s thoughts calmed. And he rumbled inside. His stomach. His blood pressure. Every nerve on alert.

“Her cell phone was inside,” the thirty-year-old police officer continued. “That’s how they found the van, by tracking her cell. She’d left it on the console.”

Meri’s phone was a lifeline to her—her safety net. One push of a button and she could be connected to law enforcement. To Max. Or to The Lighthouse—a women’s shelter she’d been volunteering at since he’d known her. The shelter she’d lived at when she’d first come to Southern California.

She didn’t go from one room to the next without that cell phone. Wore it in a holster that clipped to any waistband. Showered with it on a shelf she’d had him install above the tile in the stall....

“There was a note, Max.” Another drop in Chantel’s tone. Another splash from the tub. Another rumble inside. “She said that she just couldn’t do it anymore. That she was too worried about Caleb all the time. That she couldn’t even leave him at day care for an afternoon, so how would she ever cope when he went to school? She was afraid that her paranoia would rub off on him. She said she had to go before he was old enough to remember and be traumatized. She left the phone because it was in your name.”

She’d have told him if she was leaving him. She would never have left Caleb. It didn’t make sense. He wasn’t going to panic.

“Were the keys in the car?” If she was ever in trouble and had to run—if she ever thought Steve was after her—she’d leave the car parked with the keys under the driver’s seat. It was one of the many precepts she’d laid out when she’d agreed to marry him.

Precautions, she’d called them.

They had to be prepared, she’d said.

“They were in the closed cup holder. Just like she said they’d be in the note.”

Who left a note in a car telling whoever looked that the keys were in the cup holder?

He sank down a little farther against the tub. She’d very clearly told him she’d leave them under the driver’s seat.

“She left you, Max. I’m so sorry....”

Another rumble. Another splash. And Dr. Max Bennet started to panic.

CHAPTER THREE

JENNA MCDONALD SAT at the white faux antique desk, a diary opened in front of her, and picked up a pen.

DAY ONE.

Pausing, pen suspended over the page, she read what she’d written.

Not her usual handwriting. There was some familiarity to it, but it was too shaky. It would improve. With time.

Everything did.

Until a time came that it didn’t? Did one have warning when that time had come? Did one know?

The wall in front of her was off-white. Her gaze following the color upward, she studied the soft gold-painted wood trim at the top. To remind her that a pot of gold awaited her, she’d been told. Different rooms had different messages. She’d chosen the pot-of-gold room. Jenna liked gold.

Something good to know. To hang on to.

Turning, she took in the generously sized room. Off-white metal furniture, including a queen-size bed, nightstand, and two dressers, fit with room to spare. The floor was carpeted, a light plush beige.

Nice. Peaceful.

The adjoining bathroom had a granite vanity, extra deep tub and walk-in shower. All donations, she’d been told. And lovely.

The closet was small. But too big for the couple of outfits hanging there—chosen from the impressive collection on-site—more donations. They’d told her to take as many as she’d like or thought she could use.

Taking things one day at a time suited her best. Until she figured out what was to come.

It had been said that clothing choice spoke of personality. Jenna’s personality wasn’t clear to her yet.

Somewhere in the folder of paperwork she’d amassed over the previous couple of hours, there was a coupon for a makeover, too, if she wanted one. Though her lack of need for one had been stressed ten-fold, lest she think she wasn’t good enough just as she was.

Lovely surroundings. And the price of admittance was higher than money could ever pay.

With a sigh, Jenna turned back to the diary she’d found still wrapped in its package, along with a new pen in the drawer of the desk at which she sat.

DAY ONE. She read again.

She might do the makeover. Just for the fun of it. Having someone fuss over her might be nice. As long as she didn’t get used to it.

Jenna McDonald was going to live an independent life.

At least she wasn’t financially dependent. She’d grabbed the few hundred dollars she’d had hidden behind the glove box closure. And always kept a few hundred hidden in her purse, too. She had her checkbook for the personal account Max had insisted she have, just so she’d feel safe. There was enough money in there for her to be fine for a while—not that she wanted to use it. The checking account could be traced....

She glanced at the diary. It was something she had to deal with. The woman who appeared on that page.

DAY ONE. Jenna touched the pen to the page.

I’m bereft. So much so it hurts to draw breath. The pen faltered as her fingers grew weak. She paused. Read the written words. And resumed writing.

The future looms before me. Frightening. I feel today that my life will be short. I won’t grow to be an old woman. I won’t live another year.

I want to live. I want to be the wife and mother I tried to be. More than anything.

Pen clutched in her sweaty grasp, Jenna gritted her teeth, closed her eyes. And breathed. She was fine. She’d been here before. Oh, not the room, here. Or even the building here. But she’d been at this point.

And being here again...this she could do.

Opening her eyes, she picked up the pen again. She couldn’t turn her back on the woman on the page.

How does a woman leave the man who is her whole world? Who cherishes her and loves her as much as she loves him? How does she leave a good man?

And how does she leave her baby?

Jenna’s pen flew across the page so quickly now her hand cramped up.

How did her heart continue to beat? Her blood to flow and her stomach to feel hunger pangs?

How could it be that she’d woken that morning as one woman and would go to bed that night a totally different person? Not just a woman with a different name, but a woman who was irrevocably, permanently changed?

But I did the right thing. The only thing. I am putting action to the greatest gift life has to offer. The gift of love. I, of all people, know the value of unconditional love. I was given a chance to know it in its truest sense. And now I must honor that love by loving selflessly back.

I can live the rest of my life, however long or short, knowing that I loved my men enough to put their well-being before my own. I can leave this world in peace knowing that.

Peace. I need it. For them, first. And for me, too.

The pen paused and eyes closed, Jenna tried to clear the mind that raged inside of her. The mind of a woman who’d been so many people. In so many places.

I am absolutely certain that I am not going to run again. I don’t know yet how I’m going to do what I’m going to do, but I am in a place where I will be safe while I figure out exactly how I am going to stand up to the man who’s determined to keep me down, to hold me locked in an embrace that stifles everything that is good inside of me.

As soon as I have figured out how to beat Steve Smith at his own game, as I know now that that is the only way to beat him, I will present myself for battle. To his death or my own. I must either be free to live with my husband and son, or die fighting for that freedom. There is no other life for me. I am not the same powerless woman he once knew. Love gives me the strength to fight the demon....

Jenna jumped as a knock sounded on her door and quickly closed the diary, sliding it inside the desk drawer without making a sound. She moved just as quietly to the bed, lying down with her back to the door.

“Come in.”

“Jenna?” She recognized the voice. Lila McDaniels had introduced herself earlier that evening as the managing director of The Lemonade Stand—Jenna’s current abode.

“Yes?” Hoping that the older woman would respect her need for solitude and go away, Jenna didn’t turn over.

“We missed you at dinner.”

She’d smiled when they’d rattled off the cafeteria hours. And smiled a second time when Lila and Sara had invited her to join them.

“I had some fruit in my bag,” she said. And still did. Left over from another place and time. It had been meant for another. A little boy. She’d get rid of it before it rotted. Just not that night.

The bed depressed and knowing that she wasn’t going to get her way, which was to be left alone, Jenna rolled over. And welcomed the calm that descended over her as she met the other woman’s gaze.

“You’re sure there’s no one we can contact on your behalf?” Lila asked.

“No, ma’am, but thank you.”

She was an adult. Free to travel from place to place as she chose.

“No one who will be worried about you?”

“No.”

“Someone knows you’re here then?”

“Someone knows I’m gone. No one knows I’m here.” The point was critical.

Lila nodded, a sad smile on her face, looking as if she wanted to say more.

“That’s fine, then,” she said. “Your secrets are safe here.”

“I appreciate that so much.”

“When you’re ready, I hope you’ll talk with one of us, Sara or myself or any of the other counselors. We’re here to help. And anything that’s said within these walls stays here.”

“Thank you.” She’d met Sara. Had liked her. But Jenna could probably facilitate any counseling session these good women had to give. There was nothing they could tell her, in terms of battered-wife recovery, that she didn’t already know.

And sometimes all the knowing in the world, all the protection in the world, wasn’t enough.

Sometimes a woman had to be enough all on her own. No matter the consequences.

“You’re sure you don’t want us to notify the police?”

“No!” She almost sat up at that. And calmed herself. “Please, no,” she said. This point was not negotiable. “It does you no good to do so behind my back, right?” she felt compelled to point out. To reassure herself. “There’s nothing to report if I don’t speak up.”

“That’s correct. But we wouldn’t go behind your back in any case, Jenna. Not unless you were a minor or had a minor with you. In that case, we have no choice but to involve the police.”

She nodded. Understanding. And concentrated on relaxing her muscles. One at a time.

The diary in the desk was bothering her. Burning at the edges of her concentration. She was going to have to hide it. Or have it on her person at all times.

“Do you have my cell phone?” she asked now. Lila had mentioned a prepaid device that she could have if she wanted it.

“I do.” Reaching into the pocket of her suit jacket, she pulled out an old-fashioned looking flip phone.

It would do nicely.

“You can’t text or get email, but you can make calls....”

“That’s fine,” she said, sitting up to take the phone and liking the way she could clutch the thing securely in one hand. “I don’t have anything to text or email to anyone.”

And she wouldn’t send either if she did have something to say. Data could be traced.

She had a phone. An untraceable phone. The air in the room lifted. Being without a phone had not been good for her. Making a mental note to have an extra prepaid cell phone on hand at all times, she waited for Lila to stand and go.

“I know that there’s nothing I can say that will help you trust me, Jenna,” the woman said instead. And frowned. “Very few of our residents trust any of us at first. I understand that. Trust has to be earned....”

And sometimes trust came too late to do any good.

“But you...you’re different.”

Yes, she was. Oh, she’d been a battered wife like everyone else staying in the bungalows at The Lemonade Stand. But the physical beatings she’d taken had been the easiest part. “I get the feeling that you’ve been here,” Lila said, unsettling Jenna with the uncanny resemblance to her own thoughts just minutes before. “I’ve been at The Lemonade Stand since day one and I know I’ve never seen you before.” Lila shook her head. “And yet, I feel as though you know this place. Or one like it.”

Four like it. The shelters had been the only places Steve had never been able to breach. Most often, the general public knew of them, but didn’t know the exact location of the buildings where the women stayed. At The Lemonade Stand they were sprawled across several acres hidden behind a two-block strip of shops also owned and run by the Stand.

Others had had a known home office, with housing buildings situated in various and changing locations around the city in which they were located.

In each shelter, in different cities, she’d become reacquainted with the self she’d been before he’d found her again. She’d found a way to believe once more. To venture out...

Not this time. Her stay at The Lemonade Stand was for one specific purpose only. To have a safe place to formulate her plan. She needed a little time to research the psychology of abuse, to get so deeply inside Steve’s head that she could figure out how best to manipulate him. Undercover work at its best. Ironic that she’d take what she’d learned while living with an abusive detective to finally be free of him. She’d do the necessary research at the on-site library, or from a computer there. Figure out where and how to meet up with him. Practice until she could act in her sleep.

And then, as quietly as she’d arrived, she’d leave this place.

“You can trust me, Jenna.” Lila’s expression was genuine, the compassion Jenna read there wrenching at emotions she couldn’t afford. Or allow. “I...I...just, please, know that no matter what, you can come to me. Any time of the day or night. All rules and regulations aside. Don’t let anyone stop you. Not staff, not security. Not anyone. If you need me, you get to me.”

The speech wasn’t normal. Didn’t resemble any of the other first night welcome talks, or any other talk she’d ever had at any of the other shelters where she’d sought solace.

And Jenna instinctively knew, as she sat there on the bed with the gray-haired woman, that Lila had never said those words before.

Not to anyone.

“Yes, ma’am.” She swallowed. Knew that she needed to rest. Sleep would ease the need to cry.

Lila sat with her for several more minutes. A silent companion. And then without any fuss she stood and left.

Waiting until she heard the door click shut, Jenna slid off the bed, retrieved the diary from the desk, and tucked it into the waistband of the pair of dress slacks she was no longer going to need. Then, without turning off the light or visiting her adjoining private bathroom, she lay back down on the bed, cell phone still held securely in her palm, and went to sleep.