Turn My World Upside Down: Jo's Story (28 page)

“Your sister,” he murmured, “is a—”

“What?”

“Pain in the ass,” he wanted to say, but he couldn’t really say it to a ten-year-old. Damn it, if Jo thought he was going to stay away when she was still dealing with this shit, then she was headed for real disappointment. He was in this and he was
staying
in this, until Smith was a distant memory.

Once Cash was sure she was safe—when he knew she’d be all right . . .
then
he’d let Jo go.

“I’ll sign it later,” Cash said, steering the boy out of the workshop. He picked up the bicycle from where Jack had dropped it in the driveway, and then set it in the truck bed.

“Where we goin’?” Jack asked.

“Your house,” Cash answered.

“Bastardo,”
Nana muttered. “You are inna my way. Move over.”

“Maria,” Hank whispered, “if you don’t be quiet, we won’t hear anything.”

“I
hear
everything,”
she warned, a steely look in her eye
.

“Great. Super-Nana.” Hank forgot about his mother-in-law and focused his attention on the scene playing out in the backyard
.

“I had to see you.”

Jo sat in one of four lawn chairs pulled up beneath the shade of an oak that had been standing in the Marconi yard since long before there was a house there. She leaned back into the green plastic chair with the wobbly front leg and studied the woman opposite her.

Steve Smith’s wife, Melanie, was as pretty and soft as her name sounded. Her blond hair was cut into a feathery-looking do that left little wisps framing her pale face. Her green eyes looked huge under perfectly arched brows, and rose-colored lipstick gave her milky-white skin some color. She wore a cream-colored suit with beige heels and a beige bag.

It was as if she were deliberately trying to be invisible.

“How’d you find me?” Jo asked after a long minute.

Melanie smiled uneasily from her perch on the edge of a matching lawn chair. “It wasn’t difficult. Linda—Steve’s assistant? She knew your name. Looked you up on the Internet.”

Great
. Thank you, Google.

Across the yard, from inside the house, she knew her father and grandmother were posted at the windows, watching. She shouldn’t be glad they were such devoted snoops, but at least someone was going to be a witness to this.

“Did Steve send you out here to—” She stopped, unsure just what his motive could possibly have been to send his wife out to see his rape victim.

“No.” One word. Fast. Melanie jumped to her feet and clenched her hands together at her waist. “He doesn’t know I’m here. He
can’t
know I’m here.”

“Okaaaayyy . . .”

The agitated woman took a few short steps, her beige heels sinking into the Marconi lawn, before she turned around and came back again. “He hurt you, didn’t he?”

“He raped me.” No easier to remember, but it was getting easier to say. What did that mean?

“Oh God.” Melanie lifted her left hand to rub her forehead and her wide gold wedding band glinted dully in the sunlight. “I thought so. Linda said you . . . hit him and I—”

It dawned on Jo finally that this visit wasn’t about
her
. It was about Melanie. Fear rippled off the woman
in little sonic waves and Jo’s instinct to protect kicked in. “Are you all right?”

She laughed. “No. No, I’m really not.”

“What’s he done to you?”

Melanie’s gaze shot to hers. “I didn’t say he—”

“Relax,” Jo said, her voice low, soothing, as she stood up carefully, making no fast moves. She had the feeling that Melanie was already regretting her visit and was, in fact, on the verge of bolting. “You’re safe here.”

“Jo?”

“Damn it.” She saw Melanie flinch and tried a smile. It wasn’t easy.

Cash Hunter came around the edge of the house from the driveway and his long legs were making short work of the distance separating them.

“Who is that?” Melanie demanded.

“A . . .” Good question. Just who the hell
was
Cash, anyway? Friend? Lover? Annoyance? “Long story,” she said finally, then added, “He’s okay. A pain in the ass, but okay. Trust me.”

“Issa Cash.”

“I can see that, Maria,” Hank snarled. “What’s he doing here?” He was still dealing with the fact that his daughter had taken
Cash
with her, instead of her papa, to face down the son of a bitch who’d raped her
.

“
He’s a good boy,” Nana whispered in that throaty half-shout of hers. “Not
cattolico,
but good boy just the same.”

Hank gritted his back teeth and squinted into the sun, trying to see past the light to the patch of shadows under the oak. “I don’t care if he’s Catholic, for God’s
sake. And him being a ‘gooda’ boy doesn’t tell me why he’s here.”

“He inna love with Josefina.”

“What?”

“Basta! He no know it yet.”

Hank spared a glance for the old woman beside him. Crazy? Undoubtedly. Right? Who the hell knew?

“What’s this about?” Cash asked as he stepped up to align himself with Jo. “Is everything okay?”

“I’m fine, go away.”

He snorted. “Not likely, I’m in this. Right here with you.”

Now Jo snorted, almost forgetting about the other woman as she sneered at Cash. “Sure you are.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

“You know just what it means,” Jo snapped.

“I have to go.” Melanie grabbed her bag and turned to leave.

“Damn it!”
Jo reacted in a heartbeat. Shooting Cash a furious glare, she stepped around him to grab the other woman’s arm and draw her to a stop. “Don’t leave. You came here for a reason, didn’t you?”

Green eyes flashed quickly toward Cash and away again. “Yes.”

“Then ignore him and tell me.”

“So what is it, Melanie?” Jo asked, fixing her gaze on the other woman. “What brought you all the way out here to see me?”

Several long seconds ticked past and the only sound was the sigh of the wind through the trees and the rumble of Nana’s whispers from the kitchen.

Finally, though, Jo’s valiantly maintained patience was rewarded.

Melanie took a deep breath to steel herself, then blurted out, “I have to leave him before he kills my baby. And I need
you
to help me.”

“The last time I was pregnant,” Melanie said, pacing nervously, digging her heels out of the grass over and over again, “Steve—
hit
me.” She stopped, looked over at Jo and corrected herself. “No, that’s not true. He’d hit me before, but that night was different. He beat me until I was on the floor, begging him to stop. He didn’t want children, he said. Had no intention of having an anchor around his neck. Then he kicked me in the stomach.”

She shuddered and reached for the back of the lawn chair. She curled her fingers around the top rung and held on until her knuckles went white. “I lost the baby.”

“Oh God.”

“After that, I was careful,” Melanie said, not reacting to Jo’s sympathy, not allowing herself to be silent—as if she’d been quiet for too long already. “I wanted children, but after that, I was careful. Until now.” She shook her head. “This pregnancy was an accident. Steve doesn’t know about it yet and it terrifies me to think of what he’ll do when he does find out.”

“And you
want
his baby?”

“I want
my
baby.”

“Then why don’t you leave?” Jo felt bad for asking it, but dear God, to stay with a guy who used you for a punching bag?

“Because he wouldn’t allow it.” Melanie huffed a breath and almost laughed. “He said he needed me to get elected. I look good in pictures. Know all the right people—my father sat on the State Supreme Court until he died two years ago.”

“What about your mom? Does she know what’s going on?” Cash asked.

“My mother died five years ago. And
no
one else knew about the abuse until today.” She looked at him. “Who’d believe me? He’s rich, handsome, charming. People don’t expect snakes to come in such a nice package.”

“What’re you going to do?” Jo asked. “And why did you come here? To me?”

Melanie’s gaze shifted to hers. “You stood up to him. You
hit
him. When Steve came home that night, he was furious. I thought sure he’d turn on me, he usually does. But he didn’t. He was so angry he couldn’t speak, but he just locked himself away in his study.”

Good, Jo thought, relieved she hadn’t been responsible in some way for Melanie taking another beating.

“Linda, his assistant, told me that
you
had hit him, and I knew that’s why he was so furious. Because a
woman
had stood up to him. And who knows, maybe that’s why he steered clear of me that night.” Her gaze locked with Jo’s. “All I know for sure is that when I found out about you, I thought—maybe there’s a way. Maybe I could get out. Take my baby and get out.”

“You should go,” Jo said, then worried. “Is there anyone you could go to? Somewhere you’d be safe?”

“My sister lives in Michigan. I could probably go to her. Yes,” she said, and nerves tugged at her lower lip. “Probably. Most likely. But the more I think about this, the more I think that coming here was a mistake.”

“No. No it wasn’t,” Jo said quickly, moving to lay one hand on the other woman’s arm. “It was brave of you to come.”

“Brave.” Tears welled up in soft green eyes and Melanie sighed. “If I were really brave, I’d have left him before he killed my baby.” Her hand moved to cup her still-flat abdomen, as if she were already trying to protect
this
child. “But I was just too scared. Too tired. Too hurt to think of trying to cross him. And he won’t let me go. Won’t let himself look bad to the constituents.”

“But if you stay now, you’ll lose this child, too.”

She covered her face with her hands. “God, I can’t—I’m just not as strong as you. I thought I could be, but—”

Jo understood. God, she understood that mind-numbing fear and the sense of humiliation that somehow, without even noticing how, you’d lost control of your life. Her heart twisted as she looked at the broken woman in front of her. Steve had done this, too. But he hadn’t completely succeeded yet. Melanie was broken, but she wasn’t shattered.

Reaching out, Jo took Melanie’s hands in hers and pulled them away, so that she could meet the woman’s eyes. “I
do
understand what you’re feeling. Because he put me through the same thing. The terror. The shame—”

Melanie gripped Jo’s hands hard, as if clinging to a lifeline—and maybe she was.

Taking a deep breath, Jo continued, “It’s not easy for me to admit this, but it took me
ten years
to find the guts to look Steve in the eye and tell him what I think of him. Courage isn’t always that easy to find.”

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Melanie said softly. “I know what I
want
to do. I just don’t know
what
to do.”

“It’s a big step,” Jo agreed. “But it’s a step worth taking and you already know that, because you’re
here
.”

“Talking about it’s one thing. Actually
doing
it is something else.”

“Believe me,” Jo said, “I
know
that.”

Melanie gave her a brief, wistful smile. “I’m glad I came here,” she said, “talked to you. Whatever happens, I feel better for it.”

“I’m glad.” Releasing the other woman’s hands after a hard squeeze, she urged her to “Just think about it. You don’t have to make up your mind this minute.”

She wished she could do more to help. Old feelings of guilt resurfaced and simmered on the oil slick floating in the pit of her stomach. No matter how much she wanted to jump in with both feet and fight Melanie’s battles, she knew that sometimes, you had to find the will all on your own. No one else could decide for you.

To fight your demons, you had to do it standing on your own two feet.

“It won’t be easy,” she said, meeting Melanie’s eyes and trying to will strength into her. “But if I
can
help,” she promised, “I
will
.”

Jo waved until the dust cloud behind Melanie’s BMW had settled back onto the driveway. Only when she was
sure the other woman couldn’t see her, did she spin around and screech, “That son of a bitch!”

“I wish to God you’d have let
me
hit him.” Cash’s growl came, filled with heat and ice.

But Jo hardly heard him. Her insides jittered, her stomach quivered, and her blood was pounding in her head. Fury, raw and unshakable, held her fast. “This is all my fault.”

He grabbed her upper arm and turned her around to face him. “How the hell do you come to
that
conclusion?”

She yanked free of his grasp and squinted up into the late afternoon sun to look at him. “If I’d stayed at college, pressed charges, Jesus, even
told
people about that bastard ten years ago—Melanie would never have been in this position.”

“I don’t believe this,” he ground out. “You’re going to take the blame for what’s happening to Melanie?”

“It’s not just her.” Jo kept going, riding a swell of incensed rage that had her eyes glazed over and her breath hitching. “Who the hell
knows
how many women he’s brutalized over the years?”

“You can’t take the blame for this.”

“If I’d had the guts to take him on ten years ago, he might have gone to jail,” she shouted, waving her arms as if looking for something to hit. “And he sure as hell wouldn’t be running for state senate now.”

Cash grabbed her shoulders and pulled her close. Anger churned in her eyes, but sorrow and misery were there, too, and they tore at him, damn it. “This is that smooth-talking, rat-faced bastard’s fault, and nobody else’s.”

She got that stubborn look on her face, so he kept talking.

“You were a victim, too, Josefina.” God, it cost him to say that. To remember that she’d once been young and vulnerable and alone. “He hurt you as much as he’s hurt Melanie. Don’t you dare take the rap for him.”

Her mouth worked, but some of the misery faded from her eyes, disappearing behind a flash of temper he was glad to see.