The Foster Family (15 page)

Neither of them said anything. Malcolm held me close like that, and Lissa stood guard and watch at the door. The officers that showed up were nice. They took notes, and when Malcolm thought to drop Officer Karl’s name, they assured us they would give him their report to add to what he already had, though I was sure the two incidents had nothing to do with one another. Everyone else seemed to think I was an idiot on that score, but I didn’t feel like arguing.

I protested riding in the ambulance and utterly refused to let Lissa go with me. She had a store to run, and customers, and there was a reason she and Marcus had hired me. It was too much for one person to run alone. Reluctantly, she stayed behind to help her husband, but only after extracting a promise from Malcolm that he would keep her informed.

There was no talking Malcolm out of coming, of course. He gave his car keys to Lissa so she could park his car, and she assured him she’d have his purchases delivered to his place that afternoon. All in all, everyone was efficient and helpful and kind, and I went through the whole thing in a daze.

I was surprised when Charlie met us at the hospital. I hadn’t heard or seen Malcolm call him, but there he was, hovering, doing every small thing Malcolm hinted needed doing until the hospital staff told them they should back off and let me get some rest.

“I just want to go home,” I muttered. And then realized what I had said and blushed.

What was home, anyway? A couch in Lissa’s great room? Or a spare room with a hook in the ceiling and a locked toy cabinet in the corner? I was an employee. A plaything.

“We’ll see about—”

I shook my head at Malcolm. “Never mind.” Rolling over, I put my back to them and let out a soft sigh, trying to keep it unheard. “I’m tired. Maybe I should stay and let them observe.” I didn’t need observation. I was fine. I didn’t have a concussion, hadn’t needed stitches, and the only reason the hospital was letting me use the bed at all was because Malcolm had done whatever he had to do to make sure they got paid.

“Kerry.”

“I’m tired,” I whispered. A jolt of heated pain spiked through my chest as I shrugged Charlie’s well-meaning hand off my shoulder. Maybe the nice nurses could look into that while I was here. Not that they’d find anything for that kind of hurt. “I want to sleep,” I told them.

After a few moments, I heard the shuffle of feet, and the door thumped closed. I could feel the aloneness in the room hovering. It would blanket me before long, weigh me down under a thick mat of chill and emptiness. It was an oddly comforting idea. I had slept under that blanket so many times growing up. It was familiar, and I closed my eyes and rolled to my back, waiting for the stillness, the quiet, to settle over my body.

Moments later, the door opened again. For all of about three heartbeats, I managed not to look. Finally, I opened my eyes to see Malcolm pulling a chair over and sitting down. He spared me one glance, then turned his attention to his cell and began scrolling through whatever he was looking at. He said nothing. I said nothing. Eventually, I got tired of watching him ignore me and closed my eyes again. My face ached. My wrist was sprained and swollen, and the bruises I had on my back from a week ago had been aggravated by Andrew’s visit today. I hurt. I was tired. Eventually, I went to sleep under that blanket that had settled over me. Only it wasn’t so cold or empty this time, and I thought that should have seemed weird and uncomfortable.

It really wasn’t.

I didn’t stay the night or anything. I had a nap, a nurse came in to check on me, and then a doctor came, signed some papers, and I was free to go home. Malcolm bundled me into his car, which someone had brought from the nursery, but instead of driving to his place, he took me to the police station.

“Why are we here?”

“I spoke to Officer Karl. He suggested we come in and file that restraining order now. The sooner we get things in the works, the sooner you’ll be protected.”

“What difference does it make?” I muttered, hunching down in my seat. “Not like he’ll follow it if he doesn’t want to. Rules don’t apply to Andrew.”

“Rules always apply,” Malcolm said darkly. “Stop arguing.”

I clamped my mouth shut. It wasn’t like he was going to listen to me anyway.

The paperwork was simple enough. I gave Malcolm’s address as my current address, told Officer Karl exactly what had happened. Or tried to. It was shocking how unclear most of it was in my mind. What I did say was apparently enough. He told Malcolm to have my attorney get in touch, at which I snorted and Malcolm nodded sagely.

“Of course.” Malcolm stood and held out a hand. “Thank you for your time, Officer.”

Karl glanced my way and nodded. “Anything you need.” He patted my shoulder awkwardly. “I watch my kid deal with this shit every day at school for being different. I’ll do what I can to make sure this doesn’t go any further.”

So Officer Karl had a kid. A “different” kid. Pulling my hoodie tight around myself, I nodded in his general direction. “Thanks.”

He patted my shoulder again. “You know where to find me, Kerry.” He didn’t even care I was acting like an ungrateful prick, so I tried my best to smile at him.

“Yeah.”

“Come on.” Malcolm bundled me out of there, and it was all I could do not to shake his hand off my shoulder. I didn’t need to be treated like Officer Karl’s special kid. I was a grown man. A sore, beat-up, aching grown man who wanted to curl into a ball and pretend the world actually would go away just because he wanted it to.

“Let’s get you home safe,” Malcolm said softly as he led me out to the car.

He didn’t take me straight to his house, though. He took me to Matt’s.

“What are we doing here?”

“Go in and get your things,” he ordered.

“What?”

“Go inside and pick up your things. Lissa called and told him to expect you.”

“I don’t have anywhere to put them.”

“Don’t be an idiot. Go.”

“But Lissa’s and Marcus’s house is really small and—”

“We’ll be stopping there too. Do you have an extra set of glasses?”

I shook my head. “What’s going on?”

Malcolm turned in his seat to face me. His expression was stern, but his eyes, with that almost-glowing blue ring around the irises, were soft. “Did you, or did you not say you wanted to go home?”

I shrank into my seat. “I was delirious, obviously. I don’t have a home.”

“Now you see?” Malcolm said, facing the wheel. “You’re being obtuse again. I’m just not sure if you’re doing it deliberately or not.”

“Huh?”

He let out the kind of sigh you might expect from a mother toward a really small, stubborn child. “You’ll be moving in with Charlie and me, obviously,” he said like it was already a done deal. “I’d dictate you would be quitting that job, as well—”

“No!”

“I know.” He let out another of those sighs. “Obviously. Lissa and Marcus need you. They’ve trained you and you love it, so I won’t. But I don’t like that he knows you work there. It’s a public-access place, and days at least before the restraining order goes through.”

“He wouldn’t follow it anyway,” I mumbled.

“And if he doesn’t, then he goes to jail, where he should be, as far as I am concerned.”

I shook my head. “He’s just a guy. Confused.”

Malcolm turned his head to stare at me. “Do you have any idea what your face looks like right now?”

I shook my head again, though the movement sent an ache through every muscle of my neck and shoulders.

“He’s just lucky Charlie or I didn’t walk in while he was still there. He lays one finger, one glimpse on you, ever again, and—”

“Please don’t.”

“Why the hell would you protect him?” he all but roared.

I flinched. “I don’t give a shit about him.” I reached over and laid a shaking hand over his fist sitting on the armrest between us.

Slowly, his hand relaxed as he loosened the fist, and eventually, he turned his hand over to clasp mine. “He can’t hurt me,” he assured me.

“He’ll sue. Press charges. He’ll end up coming out smelling like a rose. He always does. Just let it go.”

“He hurt you and you want to let it go.”

I licked my lips and pulled in a breath, gazing at his profile. “I came here with no one. No one back where I’d started to call and tell I’d arrived safely, no one to greet me at the airport. I came with a backpack of clothes and a suitcase of textbooks, and I managed for two years on a sad little paycheck and tiny apartments I shared with people I didn’t know. I ate Top Ramen and apples and peanut butter, and when Andrew popped into view, I made a stupid choice because I was so sick of being lonely.”

He nodded.

“Three people appeared to save me today, Malcolm, and maybe it’s pathetic to hear, pathetic to say, but that’s more than I’ve ever had at any one time in my life. Ever. Please, just let this go. He isn’t worth whatever you’re thinking right now.”

“Why does he hate you so much?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t really care.”

“Do you think he’s the one who broke into your place?”

I’d tried not to think about that, but now I shrugged. “Him. Maybe. Or some of his friends. I have no idea.” I dropped my head onto the backrest. “Does it even matter anymore? It was clearly aimed at me and there’s nothing left to destroy, so why chase it down? If there’s nothing else they can do to me, it’ll stop.”

“You think so?”

Honestly, I had no idea, because I couldn’t imagine I’d ever done anything to anyone to incur that kind of wrath. It wasn’t random, but how could I, who had never been close to anyone, have created that much hate in another human being? It made sense it had been Matt, even though I’d dismissed the idea when Malcolm had suggested it. But then, I could see Matt telling me I had to move out just because. I could even see him locking me out, but I could not see him doing something that destructive and mean. It wasn’t the kind of guy he was. Hell, you had to care an awful lot more about a person in the first place to be that vindictive than Matt had ever cared about me personally.

No. If he wanted me out so he could move someone else in, he’d just say so. And he had. And he’d shown way more remorse about doing it than I would have expected, so I didn’t really think he had trashed all my stuff.

Andrew could certainly be that destructive and mean, but he was a football star, a scholarship student because his stepfather wasn’t as invested in him as he was in Andrew’s mother, and getting caught in that sort of shit would ruin all that. He might be a cold bastard, a bully, even, but he wouldn’t break the law. He had too much to lose. Football wasn’t just his life, it was his entire future. However much he hated me and everything I represented about himself, he wouldn’t take that kind of chance. He just wasn’t that stupid.

“Well.” Malcolm broke through my thoughts by squeezing my fingers. “We’ll figure it out, but right now, I want your things in the trunk of this car and you safely at home where we can keep you.”

I waited, expecting something after
keep you
, but there was nothing. I shot him a look. He was watching me, calmly patient, as though there was nothing out of the ordinary about telling another human being you were going to keep him. Like a toy. Some object you’d found on the beach like a pretty shell that sounded like the ocean or an interesting bit of driftwood to be polished up and put on display.

“I can stay at Lissa’s,” I told him. “You don’t have to do this.”

“You can’t.”

“Yes, I—”

“She’s pregnant.”

“What?”

He sighed and let go of my hand. “I’m not supposed to tell you, because she wanted to, when she was ready, but Marcus told me. He likes you, Kerry, and he wants you to be safe, but he also wants his wife and child safe, and I don’t blame him for thinking maybe having you there is not the best for them right now. Not until we know who broke into your home. Not until we are sure Andrew is out of your life.”

“Marcus is kicking me out.” How many times had it happened, and yet, it never left me unaffected. My chest closed and I fought for breath. I was not going to have a panic attack over this. Not now. Not in front of him.

All Malcolm did was reach over without even turning to face me and curl his fingers around my good wrist. “Calm down,” he said softly. There was no mistaking the command in the quiet words. It wasn’t a suggestion. He wasn’t placating me. He was telling me to calm down, and he expected me to just do as he said. As if it was that easy.

I drew in a shallow breath, then another and a third, and it got easier. The moment faded. He tightened his fingers. The connection solidified as I obeyed, and when I was breathing normally again, he loosened his grip, but his hand remained, warm and reassuring on my skin.

“He most certainly is not kicking you out.” Malcolm turned again to face me. “He was not suggesting you move out. He was asking what I thought he ought to do to keep everyone safe. He was worried about you and about his family. I was the one who offered the solution of you coming to stay with us. He very wisely agreed to my suggestion. It only makes sense.” He settled firmly back into his seat, took his hand back now that I was calm and compliant again, and turned the engine off. “You’d be moving in eventually anyway, so this just makes sense.”

“I would be.” I stared at him. He was so smug. So sure of himself. “Says you.”

He actually grinned. “Says me. Yes.” He opened his door and got out.

That, in his mind, had settled everything. He had spoken. I was supposed to just agree, because obviously, he knew best.

I remained where I was, arms crossed, as he sauntered up the walk to Matt’s front door and knocked.