Silver Thaw (20 page)

Jeb cut the engine. “Mandy?” He gave her a light shake. “We’re back, honey. You need to wake up so we can go in and see Chloe.”

She jerked erect as if he’d poked her with a needle. “Chloe?” She struggled with her seat belt. “Oh, God. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“You needed the nap. And don’t get in a rush. Wait until I come around to help you out. I don’t want you falling on the ice.”

Jeb swung out of the truck, slammed the door, and walked around to open Amanda’s side. Normally, he took her by the arm, ever aware that she didn’t care to be touched anywhere personal. But tonight, she extended both arms and fell into his embrace. Grabbing her tightly, Jeb cherished the brief moment of holding her.
Oh, man, I’ve got it bad. If she can never love me back, I’ll have to accept it. But letting her go will half kill me
. He held her for as long as he could, pressing his cheek to the top of her head.

“Don’t let my brothers overwhelm you,” he told her. “We’re a rowdy bunch sometimes. Barney must have called in the troops when he heard Chloe might be in danger.”

She glanced up, her beautiful eyes shimmering in the darkness. “If they’re like you, they won’t overwhelm me.”

Jeb shifted his hold on her to grasp her arm. Before they started toward the porch, he slammed her door and used his key remote to lock up. If Mark was out there
somewhere watching, Jeb wanted no surprises when he brought Amanda and Chloe back to his vehicle. If the guy was packing, not even Bozo would be any protection.

At the thought, Jeb switched sides without losing his hold on Amanda. Three steps later he shifted sides again. “What are you doing, an ice dance?” she asked.

“Something like that.”

She stopped short and shot a frightened glance over her shoulder. “You think he could be out there, don’t you? You’re shielding me because he may have a gun.”

“Something like that,” Jeb repeated, and got her moving again. “You told Johnson he has weapons. Is he a good marksman?”

“I don’t know,” she replied with an edge of fear in her voice. “I never saw him shoot anything. One of his favorite games was to put a gun barrel to my temple and pull the trigger. I never knew if it was loaded or not. One time I got so scared that I wet myself.”

Jeb’s stomach rolled. Mark Banning was one sick cookie.

Once on the porch, Jeb stood behind Amanda and reached over her shoulder to rap on the door. No point in trying to just walk in as he normally did. He knew the door was locked, with the dead bolt engaged. From inside the house, he heard Bozo give a happy bark.
Good boy
. The dog had caught Jeb’s scent, which confirmed his belief that the mastiff could smell danger as well.

The dead bolt inside clicked. The door cracked open, and Barney peered out. He had one shoulder braced against the wood to prevent an unwelcome visitor from shoving his way inside.

“Hey,” Jeb said in greeting.

“Hey.” Barney pulled the door wide. “Come on in. Supper’s almost ready.”

Forgoing introductions, Amanda circled Barney and ran to find her daughter. After Jeb entered, his brother closed and relocked the door. “Friendly little thing, isn’t she?”

“She’s just eager to see her daughter.”

Barney grinned. “She’s safe as can be. I think Dad is feeling his age. He asked all of us to come, and now he’s still paranoid.” His smile faded. “It’s kind of sad. Growing up, I always thought he could take on anything. Now he’s calling on us for backup.”

Jeb’s throat tightened. Like Barney, he’d had every confidence that his dad could handle protecting Chloe, but apparently Jeremiah wasn’t so certain. “That is sad. Especially when I think he can still pin me to the mat.”

Barney shrugged. “Same for me. But Dad’s self-confidence is apparently in the shitter.”

Jeb had long since stopped feeling as if he were looking in a mirror when he was with one of his brothers. But he noted the striking resemblance tonight. All Jeremiah’s boys had been poured from his mold. The girls looked more like Kate. Jeb wondered what Amanda would think of the Sterling crew. He made a silent wager with himself that she’d have trouble telling his brothers apart for a while. She would remember Barney because he was in uniform, but the other two would be harder for her. They all had certain dissimilarities, but they were too slight for a stranger to notice right away.

As Jeb crossed the entry hall, he noted that Barney hadn’t followed. He stopped, turned, and gave his brother a questioning look. “What’s up?”

Barney grinned. “Door duty. Dad has us stationed to
guard every possible entry. We’re going to eat dinner in shifts.”

Jeb wished he could say that standing guard every second was unnecessary, but then he remembered the prickly sensation on the nape of his neck as he’d helped Amanda over the ice to gain the porch. “Thanks, bro. I can always count on you to have my back.”

Chloe sat at Kate’s craft table in the great room. It looked to Jeb as if she had gotten more paint on the kitchen towel and herself than she’d gotten into the clear balls. His mom did some kind of swirly thing inside the ornaments with different shades of paint. The spirals of color shone through the glass, looking beautiful, but the outside surfaces were smooth and enduring. She set them in egg cartons, turning them every hour or so to make sure the interior was completely covered. It was a simple process, but apparently a bit more difficult for a six-year-old.

Amanda, crouched next to her daughter, made appreciative noises, saying how beautiful the Christmas decorations were. “I wonder if we might try making some at home. They’d be so pretty on our tree this year.”

Chloe gave her mother a disappointed look. “Won’t that cost a lot?”

Amanda laughed as if she hadn’t a care in the world. “We can afford it, Chloe. I have a surprise for you. Mr. Jeb has hired me to keep his house and cook for him! And even better, we get to live with him!”

Chloe nearly dropped the clear ball she’d been filling with paint. “Really? You mean we can stay there for a long time?”

“As long as he likes my work.”

Chloe flashed a grin. “Oh, goody! Then I can stay with Bozo. He’s my best friend.” In a lower voice, Chloe
added, “Be careful with the working bubbles. They make a bad mess.”

Jeb saw his mother, frozen in motion, as she took in the conversation. Then she glanced at Jeb and smiled. He walked around the island to give her a hug.

Going up onto her tiptoes, she whispered in his ear, “Score.”

Jeb bent to kiss her forehead. “My mother, always the matchmaker.”

“It’s high time someone wonderful came along,” she murmured. “I told you it would happen someday, but you never believed me.”

“Put the brakes on, Mom. It isn’t like that between us.”

“Not yet. But she’ll come around.” She stepped back and tapped the side of her nose. “I can sense these things.”

Jeb could only hope she was right.

*   *   *

Kate yelled, “Dinner! Don’t dally. My chili will get cold!”

Amanda asked where the downstairs bathroom was and then guided Chloe along a hallway to the powder room.

“I like it here,” Chloe said as Amanda scrubbed off the water-based paint that smeared her daughter’s hands and arms. “Mimi is so nice, and so is Pow-Pow.” She grinned. “I named him that today because he went outside and made
pow-pow
sounds with a gun.”

Amanda assumed Chloe was referring to Jeb’s dad. “They both seem like very nice people.”

“Oh, they are. They have an old dog. He’s black. I can’t remember his name.” Chloe made a face as Amanda ran a washcloth over her mouth. “He doesn’t like to play. He’s sleepy all the time. I was glad when Uncle Barney brought Bozo over.”

Alarm washed through Amanda. Chloe was claiming all Jeb’s family members as her own. “I know you like Mr. Jeb’s relatives, sweetie, but don’t forget that Kate isn’t
really
your grandma, or that—”

“Oh, I know that. Mimi explained. She and Pow-Pow and all of Mr. Jeb’s brothers are only my honorary relatives.”

Thank you, Kate
. Amanda smiled and nodded as she dried her child’s hands. “Your
honorary
Mimi is a very smart lady. It’s okay to pretend you have a new grandma, grandpa, and uncles, but it’s important for you to understand it isn’t really so.”

“I’ve got aunts, too! Adriel is the older one. Then there’s Aunt Sarah. Mimi says both of them are lots of fun. They’ll do my hair and put polish on my fingernails, and if we play dress-up games, they’ll let me wear makeup.” Chloe threw her mother a questioning look. “Only if you say it’s okay, though. Will you say it’s okay?”

As Amanda changed the bandage on her finger, her mind spun back through time. At Chloe’s age, she’d been fascinated by girly stuff, especially lipstick and nail polish, but the possibility that her daughter might also be curious about those things hadn’t entered her mind. Her heart panged. While she’d been with Mark, luxuries like that had been out of the question, and after leaving him, she’d been so focused on survival that she’d never moseyed through a cosmetics aisle to see if there might be a bottle of nail polish she could afford.

“I’ll say okay,” she assured her daughter, “but only if I get to play dress-up with you!”

Chloe’s eyes went wide. “You like to play dress-up?”

“I love it!”

*   *   *

The only male who joined Kate, Amanda, and Chloe at the table was Jeb. Kate had made a huge dish of corn bread to complement the chili, which smelled delicious. Bewildered by the absence of the other men, Amanda bent her head for the blessing and then served Chloe before dishing up food for herself. With one hand on Chloe’s knee, she gave the child a squeeze when she reached for her soupspoon.

Bending low, she whispered, “Mimi’s our hostess. We must wait to eat until she takes a bite. When the man of the house is present at the table, you must wait for him to take the first bite.”

“How come?” Chloe asked.

“Because that is proper etiquette.”

“How come Mr. Jeb isn’t waiting? Doesn’t he know about proper eat it kit?” Chloe whispered back.

“Etiquette,” Amanda corrected, glancing across the table at Jeb. She’d heard the expression
wolfing down one’s food
, but until now, she’d never seen someone do it. Jeb normally ate slowly to savor a meal, but tonight he ate as if he were in a face-stuffing competition. Kate, who must have overheard the whispered exchange between Amanda and Chloe, tucked into her chili, signaling that it was now okay for her guests to eat.

Jeb muttered, “Please, excuse me.”

He went to the sink to rinse his bowl and spoon before putting them in the dishwater, hurried toward the front of the house, and a moment later, one of his brothers took a seat at the table. “I’m Jonas,” he said, “the youngest brother.” He smiled at Chloe, bent his head to pray, and then filled his bowl, grabbed a piece of corn bread, and began eating with a speed equal to Jeb’s.

“I like all my honorary uncles,” Chloe said. “I’ve got
three
, Barney, Ben, and Jonas. I wish all of them could have dinner with us.”

“They’re taking turns,” Kate explained. “They’re playing a game. They are princes in a castle, and they’re guarding all the outside doors to make sure an enemy doesn’t cross the drawbridge and get inside the great hall.”

Chloe’s eyes shimmered with excitement. “When I’m done eating, may I play with them?”

Kate nodded. “I think they plan to continue the game at Mr. Jeb’s house, though, after you and your mother finish dinner.”

“Maybe I can play the game with them there!”

Until that moment, Amanda hadn’t realized just how seriously the Sterling men were treating this situation. They believed that Mark Banning presented extreme danger to her and Chloe. Her appetite for the delicious chili waned. She grew more alarmed with each passing moment. She had lived with her fear of Mark for years. At times during her marriage, she’d grown numb and wondered if she might be the one who was crazy. But now that a crusty old attorney had expressed concern for her and Chloe’s safety, all the men in this family took it gravely. Even Jeb, who until now had seemed like a calm, levelheaded man, was acting as if the devil himself lurked outside.

Amanda could only hope that Mark’s bid for divorce would look like a Christmas card, filled with pretty lies about how great he was, compared to hers, which would reveal him as a vicious monster. With luck, he was cooling his heels in a jail cell right now.

But what if he wasn’t?

Jeb wasn’t pleased with the idea that all his brothers were driving over to spend the night at his place and would remain there until he got a security system installed. Jonas needed to attend classes. His education was important, and here he was ditching school. And only yesterday, Barney had refused to take time off for his birthday party at the folks’ place, insisting that they celebrate at least two weeks from now because he couldn’t be spared at the sheriff’s department. Now all of a sudden he had all the shift flexibility in the world. And Ben, who raised rodeo stock for hire, had numerous animals he should be caring for. The last thing Jeb wanted was for any of his brothers to take a hard hit professionally or educationally over family issues. Hell, this wasn’t even a
family
issue. Amanda and Chloe weren’t related to Jeb, but his brothers and parents acted as if they were.

Well, he couldn’t fault his brothers for standing behind him, and they were all big boys who could make decisions for themselves. As he drove, with Amanda in the front passenger seat and Chloe snuggling in back with Bozo, Jeb sensed tension rolling off Amanda. He needed to
focus on her concerns and be a good friend to her, since anything more was out of the question right now.

“Hey,” he said, reluctant to take his gaze off the icy road. “Don’t be worried. Okay? You heard what Johnson said. A certain individual is probably safely tucked away by now. We’re just being extra cautious.”

“What if he isn’t?” she asked in a tight voice.

“Well, if he isn’t, and he somehow learns where you’re staying, he’ll find a house guarded like Fort Knox. I’ll call Howdy Gowdy—his first name’s actually Burt—this evening to get my place so armed with security that I’ll know if an ant gets on my porch.”

“It’s short notice,” she said. “Mr. Gowdy may not be able to get it all done that fast.”

“You don’t know Gowdy. He’s a friend of mine, and his wife, Jerri Lee, who’s kept her maiden name, Christi, to avoid being greeted with ‘Howdy, Gowdy’ like her husband, runs a tight ship for him. When I tell him it’s an emergency, he’ll put everything else on hold and be all over it. If he doesn’t have the right cameras in stock, he’ll send someone to Bend or Crystal Falls to pick them up.” He shot her a grin through the dash-lighted darkness. “Stop worrying. Is it that you don’t want my brothers around?”

“No,” she said. “I’m just—” She broke off and glanced over the console at the child and dog behind them. “Well, you know. What if he already split, and the, um, authorities can’t find him?”

Jeb considered that possibility and suddenly felt thankful that his brothers were trailing him in their trucks like ducklings in a queue. Nobody in his right mind would mess with all the Sterling boys, especially not when they were armed.

“Or what if he lies so convincingly that he isn’t
arrested?” she asked. “Or, even worse, what if he gets a judge on his side and wins in court?”

“Didn’t you hear what Johnson said? He only takes on cases that he feels are worthwhile and he can win. For tonight, have faith in me, my brothers, and Bozo to keep you safe.”

Chloe piped up from the backseat. “Mommy, are you talking about Daddy?”

Long silence. Jeb wasn’t sure what to say. Trust Chloe, intelligent as she was, to pick up on unsaid things.

Amanda saved him by replying, “Yes, Chloe, we are talking about your daddy, but you mustn’t feel afraid. Mr. Jeb took me to see a lawyer who’s really,
really
good at making people safe. And until the lawyer can do his job, Mr. Jeb, Bozo, and his brothers are going to watch over us.”

Chloe digested that. “Bozo will sleep with me. He won’t let
anybody
, not even my mean daddy, hurt me.”

Jeb totally agreed, but not even his faithful mastiff would remain standing with a bullet between his eyes, and Jeb didn’t doubt for an instant that Mark Banning would pull the trigger.

*   *   *

Amanda didn’t know when Mark would be served with the divorce papers and learn of her whereabouts. Had he already been arrested? And in cases like this, would photographs of the abuse be enough to keep him in jail? She imagined a clever attorney getting Mark out on bail, and her skin crawled. And what if they couldn’t find him? He could have moved. Or he could be tracking her down. He could be anywhere.

She cringed when she recalled Jeb seeing all those pictures of Chloe, not only once, but twice. He’d dropped his gaze while Johnson viewed the pictures of Amanda,
but he’d looked when Chloe’s photos came up. Chloe with bruises all over her body. The horrible wounds on her small hand from when Mark forced her palm onto a red-hot stove burner. Jeb had to be asking himself what kind of woman stayed with a man after he began to hurt her child. In a normal world, things like that didn’t happen. How could Jeb, how could anyone, truly comprehend the situation Amanda had been in?

The moment they entered Jeb’s home, Amanda hustled Chloe upstairs for a bath before story time and lights-out. Chloe protested. “But I want to play the prince game with them! I’ll get to be the princess.”

Amanda didn’t want her child to see four men guarding the downstairs doors and windows with weapons. It might frighten her.

“Maybe you can play the game with them tomorrow.” Amanda hoped she might receive word by then that Mark was behind bars. “But tonight it’s late, sweetie, and you’ve had a long, very fun day. It’s time for bed.” To lessen the child’s disappointment, she added, “As a special treat, I’ll read you two stories tonight.”

“Can I read one of them? Bozo likes it when I read to him.”

Amanda glanced at the dog, who’d followed them upstairs. “Of course. It’s good for you to read aloud. You need the practice.”

*   *   *

Jeb grew worried when Amanda failed to come back downstairs and went in search of her. He found her sitting on the edge of her and Chloe’s bed. A night-light cast a dim glow. Bozo was sprawled beside a sleeping Chloe. The dog’s snores reminded him of a chain saw that needed new spark plugs.
Nice background noise for a talk
.

He sat down beside the woman who’d wormed her way deep into his heart. “I know that look,” he whispered. “You’re ruminating on something unpleasant. Is there anything I can say or do to make you feel better?”

She shrugged and released a drawn-out sigh. “Why do you even care how I feel?”

Oh, boy
. “Why wouldn’t I? We’re friends. Friends care about each other.”

“You saw those photographs. You know what a horrible mother I was. If I can’t like myself, how can
you
like me?”

Jeb could see the need for Amanda to receive intense and frequent counseling in the near future, but this wasn’t the time to bring that up. “You weren’t a horrible mother, Mandy. You were a mother trapped in an impossible situation.”

“There are safe houses.”

“Yes, but you had no phone or Internet to search for one near you. You also had no car. Mark deliberately rented a home in a rural area where you had few neighbors and had to walk a long way to town. He cut you off from all the resources available. How can you blame yourself for that? What were you supposed to do, walk to town and wander around until you found a safe house? Or maybe go to the police station for help, only to have Mark get wind of it and light into you again?”

“I should have called the police anyway.”

Jeb tried to think of something more to say. “Fear can be a formidable foe.” He went quiet for a moment to gather his thoughts. “I’m no expert on the profiles of abusive men, but I’ve read a few articles. Abusers are often very charming and quick with believable lies. Cops are in a bad spot. Some women press charges against men who haven’t actually harmed them. Mark was
careful to leave bruises only where your clothing hid them. He was ready with a story to cover his useless ass. If you’d called the cops again, you would have been taking a huge risk.”

Jeb stood and stretched out a hand. “Let’s go talk in another bedroom. I don’t want Chloe to hear any of this, not even in her sleep.”

To his surprise, Amanda put her hand in his and allowed him to help her up. They adjourned to a bedroom down the hall, and Jeb closed the door before taking a seat beside Amanda on the bed.

“I did some reading on the Net,” he said. “Most abusers act like princes while they court a potential victim.”

“When have you had time to research abusers?”

“It’s called lack of sleep. What was more important last night, resting or finding out what that man did to you, not just physically but emotionally?”

Amanda sighed, emitting a sound that epitomized absolute exhaustion.

“Some abusers wait a while before acting out,” he told her. “Others turn mean in a blink. Then there are others who pretend at first that the pain inflicted was an accident. Tripping someone so they fall and then apologizing all over themselves.
Accidentally
jamming a woman with an elbow. Swinging around to
accidentally
smack her in the face with an uplifted hand.”

“Mark turned mean in a blink,” she murmured.

“I’m not surprised, but once they turn the corner, all abusers are dangerous and dream up reasons to justify their actions. They claim the victims
made
them do it. It becomes a horrible mind game for the women involved, and it can take them a long time to regain their confidence and understand exactly what went down.”

In this room, no night-light glowed; only a faint hint of moonshine came through the window. But Jeb saw Mandy wipe under her eyes. “Are you saying that I’m that way—that I don’t understand what happened to me?”

“In emotional ways, yes. You don’t need to work on everything at once, honey. For now, just tackle the feelings that make you blame yourself, and shove them away. Every time you start to think others blame you, shove that away, too. Mark punished you enough. Don’t let him continue to hurt you now by believing a single word he ever said.”

“But some of it is true.”

“No. It’s all BS, Mandy.
All
of it.”

“Then why do I feel so—” She gulped and gestured with limp hands. “My brain goes in circles. I talk to myself. I pat myself on the back for having found a way to get Chloe out of there. I feel better for a while, but then bad thoughts zoom back in, and I feel so inadequate and guilty. I couldn’t stop him from doing horrible things to my little girl. I couldn’t get her away from him. Can you understand? It’s not that I want to have a self-pity party. I just can’t shake the guilt. I was an adult. What Mark did to me, I partly deserved because I married him and didn’t find a way to get away. But Chloe? She’s never done a wrong thing. It was my job to protect her, and I failed. Instead, Mark beat the hell out of me for trying to interfere, and Chloe ended up being my nurse. Five years old, Jeb, and she had to be the adult because I was curled up on the floor, bleeding and with broken ribs.”

Jeb reached up to smooth her hair. “Mandy, sometimes the most difficult part of recovering from horrible things is forgiving ourselves. Why do you think so many soldiers come home from war zones with PTSD? You’ve
got to stop torturing yourself with what-ifs. You did the best you could. And in the end, you did save your daughter. Focus on that.”

“Not in time. I didn’t save her in time. You’ve commented on how mature she seems. That’s why. The night he burned her hand and turned on me for trying to stop him, he knocked me down and kicked me so many times that I couldn’t get up. I bled on the icky old linoleum. I lay there watching my little girl, with a badly injured hand, get on her knees and try to take care of me. Then she tried to clean up the blood because when her father came back, there would be hell to pay if the mess wasn’t gone.”

Jeb opened his arms and murmured, “Come here.” And when she came, he wanted her in a way he’d never wanted another woman. The way she went limp against him was a sign that she no longer abhorred physical contact with him, and, in fact, invited it. It took all his self-control not to take advantage of that. She felt so soft and warm that he wanted to lose himself in her, to taste her skin, to hold her close with both their bodies filmed with sweat, to peak with her into ecstasy.
Bad timing
. She wasn’t ready for that, and his gut knotted when he realized she might never be.

She settled against him like a kitten seeking warmth. His eyes burned as he folded his arms around her. He hurt for this woman in ways that he’d never imagined possible. “You hear Mark’s voice. Now I want you to shove his away and start hearing mine. Can you try to do that?”

She nodded, dampening his shirt with her tears. “I can try.”

“You’re beautiful, not ugly. You’re smart, not stupid. You never deserved a single thing Mark did to you. You were responsible for nothing he did to Chloe. You
plotted and planned and took huge risks to get your daughter away from him. And here you are tonight, safe.”

“Only because of you.”

“I couldn’t have done a damned thing if you hadn’t had the guts to come to Mystic Creek. If you hadn’t been so ingenious, planning every tiny detail before you ran, you never would have made it this far, and I never would have met you.” Jeb pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. “If you think other people blame you, count the heads of the men downstairs. They’re here to protect you. They haven’t even asked for details. All they know is that you were married to an abusive monster and you managed to get away. They take their hats off to you, and they’ve got their guns loaded for him. Not one of them blames you. You’re a victim. Your daughter is a victim.”

“They’re your brothers. They’re taking your side, not mine.”

Jeb felt so frustrated. How could he reprogram her mind? “Your attorney isn’t my brother. When we first walked in, he was curt and rude. After he heard your story and saw those pictures, whose side did he take?”

“Mine, but he’s being paid a lot of money to—”

“Mandy, the guy is richer than we can imagine. He doesn’t need or want your money. Charging you a fee is nothing but professional protocol. He stepped in to be your champion
only
because he sees that you need and deserve his help. He even complimented you on how incredibly smart you were in executing your escape.”