Tara Quinn - Once a Family

“Hell, yes, I’m denying it!”

“But you knew she’d been hit?” The woman didn’t believe him. Her disdainful tone was enough to tell him that, but the cool look in her eyes was a dead giveaway, too.

“I didn’t know. I suspected. When I asked her about it, she adamantly denied it. She looked me in the eye.”

“And that means something?”

“Tatum has lied to me before, but never while looking me in the eye.”

People milled around them, talking over coffee drinks and eating freshly baked cookies. Scattered about at various tables. Some had computers. Tablets. It was a gathering place.

And it was like Tanner wasn’t even there. He had no sense of reality. No way to wake himself from the nightmare.

“But you saw signs that she’d been hurt? Bruises, perhaps, that she explained away?”

“I grabbed her arm out in the barn when she was trying to run after Harcourt. She flinched. I made her roll up her sleeve. The bruise was faded to yellow, but I was sure I saw the imprint of knuckles. She told me I was crazy. That I see the worst in everything. She said she ran into an antique dresser spindle in the barn.”

“Harcourt? Who’s that?”

“A rich punk she met at a party a couple of months back.”

“I take it you don’t like him.”

He wasn’t all that fond of Tatum’s lawyer, either. She looked good enough to eat and had the mind of a barracuda. “I just told you he hit my sister. What do you think?”

“You allege that he hit your sister. Other than that, has he given you cause to doubt him?”

“He smokes dope. I overheard him trying to convince my fifteen-year-old sister to try it. I suspect he’s trying to get her to sleep with him, too. And he speaks disrespectfully to his perfectly respectable mother.” For starters. “Now...I need to see my sister.” He’d spoken with her on the phone, briefly, when Sedona Campbell had called twenty minutes before to arrange this meeting. Just enough to be satisfied that she was fine, so that he could alert the police.

“I can arrange a meeting, but I need to speak with you first.”

“I believe I’m done talking.”

“I’m under legal obligation to call the police and inform them that your sister, a minor, reported abuse at your hands.”

He had to see Tatum.

Had to slow down. His nerve endings were tripping over themselves.

Outwardly, not a muscle of Tanner’s body moved.

This couldn’t be happening. Didn’t make sense. He’d made a good home for Tatum. A normal home.

“Or we can handle it another way.”

The words were a lifeline. And they told him she was working him. Either she was under a legal obligation or she wasn’t. If she had to report him, how could they handle it any other way?

She was the lawyer. She’d know. And she’d figure that he might not.

Eyes narrowing, he watched her. Skipping his next move to wait for hers. Any other time he might have enjoyed the game. But not now, with Tatum’s life in the balance.

“Tatum would like to stay at The Lemonade Stand, at least for the night, and for longer if that can be arranged.”

“My sister has a home.” And, as her legal guardian, he had rights and obligations, too.

“She claims that it’s an abusive one.”

“Just because she claims it―” which he didn’t buy “―doesn’t make it so.”

While he couldn’t believe Tatum would accuse him of something so heinous, so life changing, he couldn’t figure out why this lawyer woman would be lying to him. Unless she’d lied about her client, too. Unless his mother really was involved.

And wanted Tatum.

To sell her for drug money? Or have her go to work so Tammy could stay home with her latest dealer and get high? Stay high?

When people first met Tammy they fell for her vulnerable victim act. Maybe this Sedona Campbell was in the still-believing stage of knowing his mother. Maybe she thought she was fighting for the lives of a helpless woman and her child.

So maybe Tammy had concocted the abuse story and not Tatum. Calming a bit as he thought things through, Tanner figured he’d come upon the more likely scenario. Tatum, and this lawyer, too, were pawns in Tammy’s game.

“I’m assuming, since you didn’t immediately report me to the police, that you have some doubts about my...sister’s...story.” Tammy’s story, he was pretty convinced now.

The woman―a looker, he couldn’t deny that―sized him up. And seemed to be considering him as strongly as he’d been considering her. Because he was right? She had doubts?

Did that mean, if he handled this right, she could become an ally?

“I’m interested in what’s best for Tatum.”

Not really an answer to his question, but it was enough.

“I’m willing to listen to what you have to say,” he told her. He could listen for as long as it took.

And then take his baby sister home.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE MAN DIDN’T look like an ogre. He didn’t seem like the violent type, either. On the contrary, Sedona couldn’t stop looking at him. Sure he was tall, his dark hair was a little long, but he moved with slow grace, agile, but not aggressive. Her first instinct was to like him.

He’d taken his seat as though weighing the options. And every move he’d made since had flowed more than jerked. As though he lived his life deliberately as opposed to reacting to it. That was a characteristic she respected.

“First and foremost, I’d like you to allow Tatum to spend the night at The Lemonade Stand.” Sedona repeated her initial request. She’d wanted to keep her tone congenial. Nonthreatening. Her words came out as more of a plea than anything else. She’d expected not to like this man. Instead, she wanted to get along with him.

For Tatum’s sake. And...just because.

“It’s obvious that your sister is struggling. And that she’s not happy at home. It’s also very obvious to those of us who’ve spoken with her today that she wants, more than anything at the moment, to spend the night at the shelter.”

He watched her. Saying nothing. But his gaze remained direct. Focused.

“We have a bed ready for her. In a bungalow with a woman who lives and works full-time at The Stand. There will be another woman, an employee, who will be awake in the bungalow all night, keeping a watch in case anyone has any problems.”

His brow quirked.

“If you allow her to stay, Tatum will be under twenty-four-hour supervision. She understands that if she stays at the shelter, she will not be free to come and go. She’s a minor. She can only leave on the say-so of her legal guardian.”

“And she wants to stay on those conditions?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I prefer not to be called ‘sir.’ My name’s Tanner.”

There was no invitation to friendship in the words. More like a simple form of address.

Sedona liked that, too.

Remembering Tatum, a girl without a mother, a girl whose big sister had been out of touch, Sedona tried to keep her guard up against this man. “So, Tanner, will you let her stay?”

“I want to see her.”

“I understand. She’d rather not see you tonight, though. She’s asked for this one night of peace to figure things out.”

“There’s nothing to figure out. She’s coming home. She has school tomorrow.”

Sedona tried to smile. It didn’t work. The man barely moved, his facial features relaxed. His voice was so quiet she could only just make it out within the din of the other patrons in the shop. And yet going up against him was like scaling impenetrable rock. Sheetrock. The kind that was strong without bulk.

He was human. When it came to people there was always a way in.

Thinking back over their conversation, she searched for any breach in the facade he presented, any exhibiting of tension. A different tone of voice, or speed of speech. And could only think of one.