Damon (4 page)

He took off before Damon could form a word
around the lump in his throat.
Turning to the sink to fight tears for the kid, Damon knew as soon as he found that piece of worthless trash Mr. O, he was going to beat the living shit out of him then f
ind a tree and hang him in it.
Then maybe he’d shoot him in the twig and berries, as Pi liked to call the male
anatomy.
Twice.

Damon had French toast and bacon ready when Connor came back downstairs. H
e wanted to laugh, but didn’t.
The same ugly design on the jammies was on the front of his shirt. What on earth possessed Byron to buy something with a large slice of cheese with pants a
nd a tie on it was beyond him.
When he commented on it, Connor explaine
d it was a sponge, not cheese.
Then he sang him the song Connor told him that a ki
d at his class had taught him.
Damon caught himself humming the silly tune all day.

Morgan picked Connor up at ten just as they were coming
up from looking in on his mom.
She said she had to get the boys some n
ew shoes before they could go.
She and Connor were talking about what style he
liked as they went to the car.
Damon went back down to the woman.

She was pretty, he thought.
It was kind of hard to tell
with the bruises on her face.
Her eye color was difficult to tell as well as both her eyes were bloodshot,
but he thought they were blue.
Her hair was blond and about mediu
m length.
It looked as if she had
cut it herself or Connor had.
Tansy said that women did that sort of thing to change
their appearance to hide out.
He t
hought she was probably right.
She, like Connor, was undernourished and dehydrated, but with the IV he had runn
ing, she would be better soon.
He’d made sure Connor drank two
glasses of juice at breakfast.
Her eyes were just fluttering open when Tansy walked in the door to the basement offices.

“Don
’t try to talk too much, miss.
This is Tansy, my nurs
e.
She’ll be s
taying with you until I return.
I have rounds
to make and I can’t miss them
. Y
our son is
with my sister-in-law, Morgan.
She has two of her own so
she knows how to handle kids. She knows to keep him safe.
Are you in any pain?”

“No, not m
uch. Connor safe? I want to see him. Please?”
He knew she was in
more pain than she was saying.
Every move she made caused her to grimace and stiffen.

“We’re going to move you up to one of the
bedrooms as soon as I return.
Once up there, you’ll have t
o rest up.
I’m concerned about the little bit of fluid in your lungs and I don’t want it to go into something mo
re before your ribs are healed.
In a couple of days, I’ll get you up and about then we’ll see about getting you going up and down stairs.”

“Co
nnor.
I want C
onnor.” He smiled at her tone.
It left no doubt that if she had been able, she would have gotten up and demanded a little more forcefully to see her son.

“He’s not here.
He and my nephe
ws are at the zoo with Morgan.
I’m sure he’ll tell you all
about it when they get back
. Y
ou rest now.
I’ll be back soon.”

~~~

“
You should have seen it, Momma.
I thought Morgan
was going to pee in her pants.
That kid just jumped out of the cart he w
as in and right into the door.
If I hadn’t been there, he might have bashed hi
s whole skull in to his brain.
She must
a thanked me a thousand times.
It was sta
rting to get on my last nerve.
And she let me spend as much as I wa
nted in the store as a reward.
I di
dn’t get nothing but a poster.
Damon said I could decorate the room
I’m staying in like I wanted. I really liked the zoo.
How you feeling?”

Connor had come i
n as soon as he’d gotten home.
Tha
t had been almost an hour ago.
Charlie had heard the child jumping out of the stroller story three times now and the number of times
he’d been thanked had tripled.
Smiling through th
e pain had never felt so good.
Damon and Tansy had moved her up to this room at around one and she had been dozing until four when Connor quietly came in.

The room was beautiful.
The bed she was in was a king-si
zed four poster with a canopy.
The blanket and comforter were dark blood red velvet and so soft under her fingers that she couldn’
t resist running them over it.
The lace of the canopy alone probably cost more than her entire wardrobe at the Ormond house, including
the thing they were stored in.
The matching dresser and tallboy were dark like the wood of the bed, and the same lace was i
n the curtains at the windows.
There were four of those, two on each side of the bed, and sunlight filtered through the room. The walls were a dark paneling and she doubted it was anything but real wood and not the kind that cam
e in sheets to look like wood.
There was even a fireplace that had fake logs in it and was burning brightly in th
e warm room.
Tansy had told her that when they took the catheter out, she had her own bathroom and there was a nice deep tub and a shower big enough to house the entire bunch of those Grant boys.

“So you you’re bei
ng really careful, aren’t you?
I know you’re having a good time, but we c
an’t get too attached, Connor.
If Anthony finds us
, we’ll have to get out quick.
These people have been nice to us, but you know what he is and those people stick together.”

Everytime she and Connor had gotten away, they w
ere brought right back to him. No one would listen to them.
He had them eatin
g out of the palm of his hand.
The one time they had gotten the lady at the shelter to listen, she had end
ed up dead the following week.
Accident, they had said. Well, she knew better.

“I’m being careful. Momma, I really like it here.
Damon and his brothers are real big. Maybe they can whop him
some so he’ll leave us alone.
He whops on people and they leave him alone.”

“What
if they can’t beat him, honey?
Do you want something
to happen to your new friends? I don’t.
Dr. G
rant has been very kind to us.
But they als
o seem like they obey the law.
I don’t want to make them hav
e to choose between us or him.
As so
on as I’m able, we’ll move on.
Don’t get any more attached to these people than you already are, baby.”

Co
nnor left her soon after that.
He had grown quiet when she tol
d him they had to leave again. But what choice did they have?
Anthon
y had money and he had a badge.
Two things people like her couldn’t win against.

It was nearly six o’clock
when Damon came into the room.
He was upset about something, bu
t he didn’t take it out on her.
She didn’t ask him what it was.
She, too, had to pu
ll back from these nice people.
And Damon Grant was too handsome and too nic
e for her to get attached too.
Especially under the circumstances.

Charlie knew what she was.
She wa
s what her momma called a slut.
She’d had Connor
when she’d just been seventeen.
Connor’s daddy had taken advantage of Charlie after getting her drugge
d up on something.
She didn’t remember a thing other than waking up wi
th sticky blood on her thighs.

He’d told e
veryone at school he’d had her.
Told them all wh
at a lousy lay she’d been too.
She couldn’t deny or confirm anything until three months later when the doctor told he
r momma Charlie was expecting.
Of co
urse she’d kicked Charlie out.
Her being a Christian lady and all, she couldn’t have a slut daughter around when the
ladies of the Church came by.

It took her a while, but Charlie had gotten her education and even went on to take nursing class
es after Connor had been born.
Mostly it had been paid for by the governm
ent, but she still had to work.
Babysitting was expensive and so were diapers and formula.

Then one night while working at the hospital in Tulsa, Anthony Ormo
nd had come in with a suspect.
While she stitched up the man’s arm that he claimed the officer had done after
he’d gotten into the cruiser,
Ormond aske
d her out and she had refused.
He was handsome in an “I know I’m good-looking” sort of way. But Charlie had a plan and it didn’t
involve a man she didn’t trust.
Over the next several days,
he kept showing up at her job.
Then at her home while she was there and sometimes while she wasn’t. The last straw had come when he had taken Connor out of the daycare center he’d been in
and brought him to his house.

“
You stay away from me, Officer.
I’ve told you several times I want nothing to do with you. I have a son, my son, and we ar
e going to make it on our own
. Y
ou come around again and I’ll report you to your boss.”

The next night,
she got a ticket for speeding.
She hadn’
t even driven her car to work.
The officer, Officer Crews, had showed up at her work and told her that he’d clocked her
going ninety in a thirty-five.
When she tried to explain that her car was in the shop and had been for over a week, he took the ticket back and put the dat
e for the previous week on it.
The nex
t afternoon, she sold the car.

It took all day at the court house to try to get someone to listen to her and finally, she had ended up paying
the ticket and letting it go.
She couldn’t afford
to miss any more work over it.
Three days later, she was arrested.

She was caught shopliftin
g, the arresting officer said.
When she asked him from where and when, he didn’t say a thing, only put her in the back of his c
ruiser and took her down town.
That’s when Anthony explained to her how things
were going to go from then on.

“I’m going to go get that brat of yours and when we come back, you are gonna pack up y
our shit and move in my house.
Then when I feel you’ve learned your lesson, I’ll take you down to th
e court house and we’ll marry.
I don’t wanna hear no more bitching about how you’re
going to make it on your own.
I decided your mine and that’s all
there is to it.
Understand me?”

“Why are you doing this? I don’t even like you.
I want you to leave us alone or I swear to—” That wa
s the first time he’d hit her.
His fist had come out so fast and connected with her jaw that she was on the floor and bl
eeding before she could react.
The next time he hit her was the same evening when the evening sitte
r wouldn’t give Connor to him.
He’d beaten her so badly that time that s
he spent time in the hospital.

She’d called her best friend Jorden and had her bri
ng Connor in and they had run.
They made it all the way across the state before he found them. Another four days in the hospital with two
broken ribs and a broken arm.
With him holding Connor hostage, sh
e had no choice. She moved in.

Every time he took her to the court house to marry, she would have such a fit that he would bring
her back without it happening.
It cost her. Every time she
denied him, he would beat her.
Sometimes so badly that she would spend day
s, even weeks, in the hospital.
The good thing was that he did
n’t believe in premarital sex.
She didn’t
understand his logic in that.
He’d beat her senseless then he tell her it was a sin to have sex wi
thout the benefit of marriage. She was fine with that.
Then he’d hit Connor.