Sanctuary (Family Justice Book 3) (8 page)

Fat.

Her dad gasped.

Mom whimpered.

Jason fumed and his parents tut-tutted.

And her? What did it matter? She was … fat. It didn’t get any better after that.

By Christmas morning, no one was talking. Her folks even circled the wagons to keep the interfering in-laws at arm’s length. It wasn’t necessary to manage her husband. He’d taken off shortly after declaring her an oversized beast. The whole thing was awful.

The Allen’s big celebration was set for December thirtieth. Two hundred guests and an event planner … fun times. It was pretentious, ostentatious, and cold-blooded. Heather remembered hating her dress … it made her look like a plus-sized pilgrim. The food upset her stomach and the band played music too old for her tastes.

And her husband? After posing for a load of pictures that were so fake and phony they needed a green screen and special effects, he quietly vanished. Again.

She found him hours later in the pool house, pants down around his ankles, fucking some society twat who squealed like a pornstar, crying “Oooh, Daddy! Your cock is soooo big.”

Jason was mind-numbingly disgusting in his reaction. Being caught triggered a hurtful outburst. Declaring her unsexy, ugly, and unfuckable, he ranted and raved about how she was ruining his life. How she’d deliberately trapped him by getting knocked up. How he hadn’t wanted to marry her. This was the true Jason. Someone she’d seen glimpses of during their time together. Selfish. Delusional. Cruel. Entitled.

Dazed and in shock, she’d made it through the rest of the evening although everything took place in her own private corner of hell. Her parents knew something was up, but she’d been too rattled to seek them out.

And then, the night of a thousand agonies played out and her life would never be the same. He’d thrown an angry hissy fit when she put on a big sleep shirt instead of some sexy lingerie. She’d thought him an asshole. But he was only getting started.

Completely out of his mind, he’d ranted on and on and on until something inside him snapped. That was the way she remembered it. A snap. Next thing she knew, he’d torn the nightwear to shreds. Once he got a good look at her naked, pregnant body, he went apeshit.

“How do you expect me to fuck such a disgusting pig?” Words that would stay with her forever.

Shattered, she’d tried to put some distance between them, but he wasn’t having it. Screaming that she wasn’t allowed to ignore him, he’d jumped her, pushed her down onto the bed, and without missing a beat, viciously raped her. The moment he’d finished, she retreated to a corner, an empty shell. The reality of the situation nearly consumed her soul.

Not satisfied, he dragged her from the corner and hit her for the first time,
whomp
, smacking her so hard she thought her cheek must have shattered. She remembered him screaming a litany of vile words as spittle flew, “Ugly cunt. Your body disgusts me. Fucking you is like fucking a pig.” He’d kept it up. Nonstop.

A night of terror followed which led to Jason smacking her into unconsciousness. When she came to, he was throwing her around like a ragdoll in between sexual assaults. How he got her out of the house without anyone knowing was a question that would never be answered. Dragging her by the hair, she bounced down the stairs like a rubber ball and was a bruised and bloodied mess when he’d dropped her at the curb of the local community hospital and drove away. The next night, right before the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, she’d miscarried.

Her parents were beside themselves and even threatened her in-laws with every imaginable ‘fuck you’ they could think of. Jason’s parents begged her not to press charges, convinced their precious son would never overcome domestic abuse on his record. They used their influence to put out the fairy tale that she’d fallen down the stairs. The police were never called. It was a holy mess.

Broken, she returned to grad school, her body bruised and empty. How she managed during those sad days, she’d never know. Despite being a cash-strapped, struggling grad student with a pending divorce, she still managed to finish her Master’s. Not long after, she’d taken a job in the social services department of a university hospital, when Jason reappeared with new and better ways to torture Heather for having fucked up his life. Stalking and threats were his specialty. She’d gone through the legal system high and low to stop him. Restraining orders. Private numbers. Security systems. Nothing ever worked for very long.

Being a drunk, abusive motherfucker wasn’t enough for him. He’d hacked her computer. Intercepted her mail. Emptied her retirement account. Photographed her. Even sent dead flowers to her workplace. Ripped up her flower beds. Every time the phone rang, her stomach would roil and she’d run to the bathroom. It went on like that for over a year until finally, she ran. Believing it would be easier to get lost in the busy streets of a big city, she went off the radar, hiding out in NYC working as a medical receptionist, a job that didn’t require professional credentials. By then, she was fully manic—morning, noon, and night—courtesy of what she’d realize much, much later was the start of the fear-driven PTSD that plagued her still.

For a couple of months, her anonymity seemed secure, and then he’d found her again. Because she was in a new city under an assumed name, her previous restraining orders were void. He’d jumped her one night after she got off the subway. Beat the snot out of her screaming she ruined his life and had to pay.

A passerby intervened and called the cops. He’d been arrested, arraigned, charged with assault, and bailed out by his parents in record time. Nothing new there. And then the real crazy got unleashed. Fueled by twin demons—rage and substance abuse—he went on an ever-deepening downward spiral. He’d cause a scene, get dragged off by the cops, spend a night in jail, get out, and start all over again. Heather slowly crumbled into a hundred disjointed pieces. Her life a living hell, she contemplated endless desperate escape scenarios.

That was four years ago. Just when the end of her rope neared, the universe terminated her nightmare. Jason Allen’s life came to an end on a rain-slicked back road when his car slammed into an embankment doing eighty-four miles an hour. His blood alcohol level was off the scale. It would come out later that in addition to the child he’d taken from her, he was the baby-daddy to a boy living in Mexico. The mother was some waitress he banged on a weeklong drug binge south-of-the-border.

The truly disgusting part of the story was that it wasn’t until after his son was born that his parents finally cut him off. Not after he’d beaten the snot out of his wife and effectively killed their unborn baby. Nope. That wasn’t what did it. An illegitimate kid from another country—well, apparently, that was the line in the sand.

The bitterness she felt didn’t do much to help her self-confidence.

But, finally freed from the terror, she moved closer to her family and took the job she still held as staff counselor at a community college just outside the D.C. beltway in suburban Maryland. Before she’d bought furniture, though, Heather threw herself into locating a therapy group for PTSD sufferers. Knowing she wouldn’t make it without some strong support, she put on her big girl panties and found the courage to share.

And who else was a member of that PTSD support group? Brody Jensen.

Thinking about Jason and then having Brody pop into her thoughts wasn’t working for her.

“Move it, ya big lug,” she grunted as she pushed George away. “I see a herd of dust bunnies trying to hide under the bookcase.”

Shutting off the memories, she grabbed a duster and got back to business.

A
FTER COMPLETELY UNDERESTIMATING
how hard it might be to pin down takeout food on New Year’s Eve, Brody carefully stowed the meal he’d pieced together into the backseat of his car.

Waiting till late afternoon to even start getting things together, he’d hit up a grocery store and settled for the last few bottles of some off-brand bubbly figuring something was better than nothing. Same for the crappy leftovers in the floral aisle. Getting flowers was a complete brain fart idea, but once it hit, he was on a one-man mission to find a halfway decent arrangement.

Without a chance in fucking hell of fancy restaurant takeout, all seemed lost until he remembered how much Heather loved Thai food from a little restaurant in old town. Judging by the number of cars in the lot and by how long he waited for his order, he wasn’t the only last-minute customer.

“Right,” he muttered gruffly. “Flowers, dinner, champagne.” Slamming the car door, he sank into the driver’s seat and started the engine to get some heat cranking. Damn, he really hated this weather. What he wouldn’t give for a nice, long ride on one of the ATVs into the desert with the Arizona sun beating down on him. Oh, well. Next year.

Going over the half-assed checklist in his head took no time at all. Planning an actual dinner date wasn’t something he ever remembered doing, so really … he was clueless. It was a special night, though, so he better show up with more than some shit champagne.

Heading out, he made for the other side of town and hoped some kind of inspiration hit him along the way. He laughed when he spied a party shop, also with a jammed parking lot, and decided to take his chances. Half an hour later, he was tossing a bag of hats, noisemakers, and ribbon confetti into the car. The grin was extra. He couldn’t help it. What he was doing was completely out of character and you know what? It felt damn good.

Out of character
. Out of character. The random thought kept running around in his head as he drove. Meghan would analyze the mother fuck out his quandary. She was good that way. Though it put his entire relationship with Alex in jeopardy, he was grateful for the woman’s friendship. Besides, Ol’ Papa Bear had nothing to worry about where his sexy fiancée was concerned, which made watching him lose his shit every five minutes over the bombshell redhead amusing as hell.

Riding in to rescue his bewitching damsel because he knew she’d be having a fucked up day, he flicked the blinker on, slowed at the turn to Heather’s apartment complex, and waited for the traffic to pass. Snorting with laughter, he shook his head at the absurd imagery of him in his bland and boring sedan on a surprise rescue mission. He wondered what she’d say if he thundered in on his motorcycle dressed in riding leathers. There was a whole other side to him that she knew nothing about.

Worry churned in the pit of his stomach. After all, maybe she didn’t want to know. They’d gotten too comfortable with this no-strings-attached bullshit despite the fuckton of strings already attached, which weren’t being acknowledged.

Passing two couples dressed like they were going to a state dinner, he made his way from the parking lot to Heather’s building without dropping anything. A miracle, too, because he was lugging more shit than a Sherpa going up a mountain did.

Man, he hoped he knew what the hell he was doing. New Year’s Eve was an emotional trigger for Heather. He understood all too well about shit like that. Brody had so goddamn many triggers when he first got out, it was a wonder he’d survived.

Hmph.
Simple truth … without Alex and the agency, he might not have. The white knight lurking inside him wanted to do that for her. Be the thing that bridged the trauma and helped bring her back to life. It was time, as far as he was concerned. She’d been running long enough.