The Good Father (7 page)

Had someone hurt her? On one of those blind dates Chloe had arranged? Or someone else? Were the police involved?

Why hadn’t he known? Jeff had sworn to him that if Ella were ever in trouble, if she ever needed anything, he’d let Brett know...

He couldn’t just sit there...couldn’t stand the thought of his Ella being...

Sweet God, that was why he’d left her. To save her from loving a man who had the pattern of abuse lurking inside him. He knew the statistics. More than half of abusers had grown up with abuse. It was a pattern that repeated itself. And he’d faced the beast of his father inside himself when he’d lain in bed after finding out Ella was pregnant, when he’d closed his eyes and slept. Night after night. He’d seen his father. The raised hand. Heard the anger. And then his own face had been there...

I moved here because of The Lemonade Stand.

His palm settled on the back of her hand, holding it still against the table. “Talk to me, El.”

She looked at their hands. Then up at him. A sheen of tears glistened in her eyes. Panic surged inside him.

“Did someone hurt you?” The words forced themselves out.

She shook her head. But didn’t speak.

Every nerve in his body was tense. He couldn’t get them to release their grip on him. It was a feeling he knew well.

Bracing for a blow.

Only this one wouldn’t be as simple as a fist in the face. Or a belt to the back.

“It’s not me, it’s Chloe.” He heard her, but the words only confused him more. What did her sister-in-law, living in Palm Desert with Jeff, have to do with The Lemonade Stand?

Oh, God. The idea hit him, accompanied by a maelstrom of rejection.

Ella’s gaze was steady now. Steady and needy.

“Chloe’s hitting Cody?” The godson he knew only through pictures. He’d told Jeff, when his friend had called to tell him about the boy’s birth, that, with him being divorced from Ella, he couldn’t possibly be anything to the boy, but Jeff had insisted. It didn’t mean anything. It was just a title.

The shake of Ella’s head caused a new wave of foreboding.

“Chloe’s with me,” Ella said. “Her and Cody.”

“Visiting?”

Another small shake of Ella’s head. Brett realized he was still covering her hand with his own, but he didn’t let go.

“They’re living with me.”

“Where’s Jeff?”

“Palm Desert.”

He sat back, letting his hands fall into his lap. Then reached for his wineglass. “They’re divorced?”

He’d never, in a million years, have figured that one. If anyone was the perfect couple it was Jeff and Chloe. They were crazy about each other. In a way that couldn’t be faked. Even Brett, who’d never personally witnessed a healthy relationship in his life, could feel the bond between Ella’s brother and his wife.

“No!” Ella’s shock righted a world that was quickly spinning out into space. “Of course not.”

Until he considered that she’d just told him that Jeff’s wife and son were living with her, not him.

Not him.

Ella watched him.

Jeff. Jeff?

If she wanted him to think that Jeff Wales had done something that would make his wife need a women’s shelter then she was just plain—

“It’s Jeff, Brett,” she was saying. “He has...bouts. They’ve escalated over the past few years. This last time...Chloe asked me to come get her, and I did. Jeff doesn’t know. That she’s with me, I mean. He has no idea where she’s staying. They communicate by cell phone, and she has a pay-as-you-go one so he won’t be able to get any details from their bill.”

She’d thrown him for a loop. “Have you talked to him? Does he know you know she’s gone?”

“He called me, I think trying to figure out if she was with me, but I went on and on about the new job and how I was in the middle of moving into my new apartment and it was only at the end, when I asked him why he’d called, that he told me she’d left.”

Brett felt as though he had rocks in his gut. He could just imagine how Jeff must be feeling.

“Your brother is the kindest man I’ve ever known.” The only person who’d ever seen Brett cry.

Ella’s older brother had held an eighteen-year-old college-freshman Brett as he’d sobbed out his anguish over his parents. Helped him treat the raw strap marks on his back, left by his father’s belt, so that he didn’t have to report them to anyone. He’d spent many a night sitting with him that first year they were roommates, listening to him talk, or more often, allowing him complete silence without the aloneness that usually accompanied it, and had never told another soul about any of it.

“I know he is.” She was blinking back tears.

“He puts bugs outside rather than killing them.”

“I know.”

Memories glided through his mind like a picture show. One after another. “And...what about Missy’s little sister?” They’d all been juniors in college the year a friend of theirs had brought her three-year-old sister to school for a family weekend visit. The little girl had been afraid of all the guys in their crowd, throwing a tantrum that threatened to ruin the entire weekend, until Jeff had knelt down and very seriously explained something to her, a secret, she’d said. She’d been his adoring fan the rest of the visit. To the point that years later, at Jeff’s wedding, one of the guys had given a toast to the guy they’d all deemed the world’s greatest future dad.

“Jeff slammed Cody into a chair, Brett.”

“Slammed, as in set him down strongly, or as in breaking something?”

“He didn’t break anything.”

“Has he ever broken anything? Or left bruises?”

“Not on Cody.”

“What about Chloe?”

Chin jutting forward, Ella nodded.

And, emotionally, Brett shut down.

His ex-wife wouldn’t lie to him. He didn’t doubt her word for a second. But neither could he believe Jeff Wales would raise a hand to his wife.

“I need your help, Brett. Jeff needs your help.”

He nodded. His buddy sure as hell did need him if someone was trying to pin a DV rap on him. Someone who’d been persuasive enough to convince Ella.

Brett cared about Chloe. A lot.

If he thought for one second anyone was hurting her, he’d hunt whoever it was down himself and have him prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

But he wasn’t going to stand by and see Jeff hurt.

“Has Chloe had medical treatment?” Records were a way to establish truth. Maybe Jeff’s wife had met someone. Had a lover on the side who’d hurt her.

Maybe Chloe had asked to leave Palm Desert to get away from the guy. Maybe she cared enough about her marriage to Jeff to try to salvage it.

People made mistakes.

And deserved second chances.

“No, she’s never had medical treatment due to Jeff’s anger issues.”

Anger issues.
Sure, Jeff got mad—who didn’t? But he’d never known a more easygoing, laid-back man in his life. Jeff took it on the chin when most guys, Brett included, would have been swinging.

“Have you ever seen Jeff be abusive to her?”

“No.”

“You’ve never seen any of Jeff’s outbursts firsthand?”

“No. But I’ve seen the bruises, Brett.”

Okay. So, something was going on with his friends. Something bad. Maybe Chloe was sick or something. Or suspected Jeff of having an affair and was trying to get back at him.

Brett knew full well that no one knew what went on behind closed doors. That a man could appear one way in public or in small gatherings with friends, and another way entirely at home with his family. His father had taught him that, too, before he’d learned it in counseling. And with the research he’d done before opening The Lemonade Stand.

But he’d lived with Jeff. For four years. He’d seen him at his best and at his worst. He couldn’t see the man raising a hand to his wife.

The very real concern, the fear, he read in Ella’s expression brought him up short. There was a problem.

She’d come to him for help.

“I’ll talk to him.”

“He’s going to deny it, Brett.”

He nodded. Was pretty much counting on Jeff’s innocence. And then maybe the two of them would be able to figure out what was really going on.

CHAPTER SIX

C
HLOE WAS WATCHING
a British arts show on cable when Ella got home just after eight on Friday night. It had been a long day and since she had to work in the morning, she excused herself to bed before her sister-in-law got close enough to smell the wine on her breath.

To ask any questions about where she’d been.

She wouldn’t keep her having seen Brett a secret from Chloe. Chloe knew that Ella’s contacting her ex-husband, Jeff’s best friend, was part of the plan to help save her marriage. The main part, since nothing was going to change if Jeff didn’t get help and, so far, Jeff was still unable to admit that he needed it. Which was where Brett came in.

If anyone could help Jeff see the truth, it would be Brett.

And he’d agreed to speak with Jeff.

Their plan was on track.

The future looked hopeful.

All of which she’d share with Chloe in the morning.

Tonight Ella needed the privacy of her locked bedroom door and pillows to muffle her sobs as she lay herself down to sleep. She was weepy from the wine. From the emotional roller coaster that day had been—first the situation with Nora and then seeing Brett for the first time in more than four years.

In the morning she’d be her usual cheery self. Or so she told herself as ten o’clock rolled around and she was still lying there, mind racing with memories, a nuance in a voice, a look in the eye, the warmth of a hand.

She told herself again at one. And around two she dozed. To dream of Brett. And jerk herself awake before she could fall into a deep sleep that would only leave her disoriented when she woke. She dozed on and off for the rest of the night. And was up twenty minutes before her alarm was due to go off.

Up, focused and fully in control.

An uncomfortable night filled with distressing images, useless longings and long-forgotten feelings was to be expected after a first meeting in four years. Nothing more than a throwback to what had been. It wasn’t permanent. Or even part of present-day reality.

She’d let it go. And Brett’s hold on her would let go, too.

Each step she took forward took her further away from him. From a pain she’d never escape if she tried to hold on to even a small vestige of what she’d thought they had.

She was wearing cartoon-character scrubs with a matching scrunchie around her ponytail, volley clogs, and a shield of calm when she walked into the kitchen to the smell of broccoli quiche at half past six.

“Is Cody up this early?”

Chloe’s schedule had been mirroring her son’s since they’d moved in with Ella.

“No, and if we’re quiet, he won’t be until after you’re gone. You looked beat last night, and I wanted you to have a good breakfast and a little peace before you have to get back at it this morning.”

That shield Ella had erected slipped. People who lived alone weren’t used to being noticed. Or spoiled.

But she was glad she had a minute with Chloe.

“Sit with me?” she asked as her sister-in-law dished up a divine-smelling egg-and-vegetable mixture that stimulated an appetite that had been nonexistent when Ella had left her room seconds before.

Pouring two cups of coffee, Chloe placed one in front of Ella and sat with the other still in her hand, taking a sip.

She had to tell Chloe about Brett. But first, “I was at The Lemonade Stand again yesterday.”

“With a patient?”

She couldn’t say much. And didn’t. Telling Chloe only that her visit had to do with the High Risk team, she said, “I talked to Lila while I was there. Lila McDaniels. She’s the managing director.”

“I remember. You read me her résumé when Brett first started interviewing for positions...”

She’d been in on the beginning stages—the dreaming. Then the dream coming true. The search for a site. The legalities and architectural plans. Even the initial weeding through of potential applicants.

And then her world had fallen apart. Brett had filed for divorce. He’d moved out before they broke ground.

“You remember that?”

“Yeah. Because she had such high credentials, work history that sounded like she was an incredibly well-rounded person and no personal background at all. She had no family or anything that would interfere with the long hours, she didn’t mind spending nights at the Stand when needed, and she had the same last name as my best friend from grade school.” Chloe grinned.

Ella had had reservations about the woman. About her lack of a three-dimensional life. She’d expressed her apprehensions to Brett. He’d obviously found her suitable in spite of Ella’s fears, and his decision to hire her had clearly turned out to be the right one.

“Anyway, I was thinking...you know the core belief at the Stand is that women who’ve known abuse suffer from a lack of self-confidence, which makes them self-destructive, and that, if you counteract those negative influences with positive ones—actions they can feel, not just words that oftentimes go in one ear and out the other—then they’ll be better equipped to know what it feels like to value themselves.”

Chloe put her cup down. “I value myself, El. You know that.”

“I do.” Ella was eating while she spoke. Because she had to go soon. And because she’d had nothing for dinner but a piece of bread with cheese. “I value you, too,” she added with a grin. “This is delicious!”

Life had a way of turning you on your end if you let it get too serious.

Chloe shrugged. “It’s a simple recipe. But I knew you had to leave early, and I didn’t have a lot of time.”

In her short time in Santa Raquel, Chloe had made braised pork chops that melted in your mouth, a vegetable, rice and tilapia dish that they’d finished off the night she’d prepared it, and a chicken salad that Ella wanted in her freezer at all times. Just in case.

And this morning she had things to discuss. “So the grounds at the Stand are resort style, the pool, the bungalows—all elegant. But the cooking—it’s typical cafeteria stuff. You know, feeding-the-masses type of fare.”