just a sturdy utility boat with a 5-HP 4-cycle motor that they had taken out on a regular basis for their excursions on the nearby Tennessee River. Nolan had sold Bill Perdue’s boat less than six months after his marriage to Bill’s widow. Jack and Maleah had watched from the kitchen window as the new owner hitched the boat trailer to his truck and drove away. While holding his arm comfortingly around Maleah’s trembling shoulders as she cried, it had been all the thirteen-year-old Jack could do not to cry himself. Selling their father’s boat had been the least of Nolan Reaves’s crimes, but it had been a forerunner of things to come.
Jack inhaled deeply, taking in the sweet smell of honeysuckles covering the back fence. His stepfather had kept the wayward vine cut to the ground, calling it an insect magnet and otherwise worthless. Jack allowed his gaze to travel over the overgrown shrubbery and the ankle-deep grass. Nolan had been a stickler for keeping the yard neat. Flowers were not allowed, despite the fact that Jack’s mother had loved them. He would never forget the expression on her face when Nolan had cut down every bush in her beloved rose garden and then dug up the roots and burned them.
Jack finished his coffee, set the mug on the ground and marched toward the carriage house. He swung open the wooden gate that led from the backyard to the gravel drive. The closer each step took him to the side door of the carriage house, the louder and faster his heart beat. The last time his stepfather had beaten him, he had been a sophomore in high school and had just turned sixteen. He had stood there and taken the punishment Nolan Reaves administered with such deliberate pleasure. A strap across Jack’s back, butt and legs. That time, the beating was not to atone for a mistake Nolan believed Jack had made, but one he thought Maleah had made. Three years earlier, after the first time Jack saw the bloody stripes across his eight-year-old sister’s legs, he had made a bargain with the devil—from that day forward, he would take his own punishment and Maleah’s, too. The deal had seemed to please Nolan, who took a sick delight in beating the daylights out of Jack on a regular basis.
Jack’s hand trembled—actually shook like he had palsy—when he grasped the doorknob. Son of a bitch! Old demons died hard. He was a trained soldier, an Army Ranger, one of the best of the best, and yet here he was acting like a scared kid.
The boogeyman is dead. Remember? And even if he were still alive, there would be no reason to fear him.
He tightened his grip on the doorknob, turned it and opened the door. Nolan had always kept the door locked. Jack had no idea where the key was or even if there was a key. Neither he nor Maleah had mentioned the carriage house when they had discussed the possibility of him living here.
Leaving the door wide open, Jack entered the dark, dank interior of his teenage hell. In the shadowy darkness, he could make out the workbench, the rows of waist-high toolboxes, the table saw, the push mower, the Weed Eater and various other yard-work devices. His gaze crawled over the dirt floor, around the filthy windows and cobweb-infested walls, to the triangular wooden ceiling. He stopped and stared at the row of menacing leather straps that hung across the back wall. He counted them. Six. At one time or another, Jack had felt the painful sting of each strap.
“You don’t have to do this, you know.” Lorie Hammonds poured herself a second cup of coffee, laced it liberally with sugar and cream and set the purple mug on the bar that separated the kitchen from the den.
Cathy glanced at a silk-nightgown-clad Lorie as she hoisted herself up on the bronze metal barstool, picked up her cup and took a sip. Lorie was thirty-five, a year older than Cathy, and sophisticated and worldly-wise. She was also beautiful in a voluptuous, sultry way that drew men to her like bears to honey. Her long, auburn hair hung freely over her bare shoulders, streaks of strawberry-blond highlights framing her oval face. She stared pensively at Cathy, a concerned look in her chocolate-brown eyes.
“Call your mother and tell her to bring Seth over here this afternoon,” Lorie said. “Just because J.B. and Mona demanded a command performance doesn’t mean you have to oblige them.”
Cathy sighed. “They expected me to show up for services this morning, with Mother. I’m surprised she hasn’t called me by now.” Cathy glanced at the kitchen wall-clock. “Church probably let out about fifteen minutes ago.”
“If you weren’t ready to make an appearance at church today, what makes you think you’re ready for a family dinner?”
“I have to be ready. I want to see Seth. I need to talk to him. And by agreeing to dinner with my in-laws and my mother, I’m showing all of them that I am more than willing to meet them halfway. The last thing I want is to alienate Mona and J.B.”
Her mother was another matter entirely. There had been a time when she had jumped through hoops to please her mother. But after a year of therapy, Cathy had come to realize that pleasing Elaine Nelson was impossible. Pleasing her in-laws might be just as impossible, but she felt she at least had to try because they were her son’s legal guardians, something she intended to change as soon as possible. And for Seth’s sake and in honor of Mark’s memory, she intended to remain on good terms with the Cantrells.
“Want some advice?” Lorie asked.
“Something tells me that you’re giving it to me whether I want it or not.”
“Just come right out and tell Mark’s parents that you plan to find a house soon, and, when you do, you expect Seth to live with you.”
“What if Seth doesn’t want to leave his grandparents? After all, he’s been living with them for a year now and—”
“You’re his mother. He loves you. He’ll want to live with you.”
“I’m a mother who had a nervous breakdown and fell apart in front of him. Every time he came to see me at Haven Home, I could tell how nervous he was just being around me, as if he was afraid I’d go loco at any minute.”
“The more time you spend with Seth, the more he’s going to see that you’re the wonderful mother who raised him.” Lorie took another sip of coffee.
“But that’s just it,” Cathy said. “I’m not that same person. I’m different.”
“Yeah, I know, but you’re still Seth’s mother. You still love him. He’s still the most important person in your life. None of that has changed.” Grinning, Lorie cupped the purple mug in her hands. “Besides that, you’re different in a good way.”
Cathy nodded agreement. The changes in her were good changes. She had no doubts about that fact. She was stronger, more confident, more independent and absolutely determined to never, under any circumstances, allow anyone or anything to undermine her new, hard-won self-confidence. Gone forever was the meek, subordinate pleaser who had deliberately buried the real Cathy Nelson Cantrell deep inside her.
“You’re right.” Cathy straightened the Peter Pan collar on her simple, navy blue shirtwaist dress, touched the single strand of pearls resting on her chest and smoothed the pleated shirt. “How do I look?”
Lorie inspected her from head to toe. “We need to go shopping and buy you a new wardrobe. God, honey, that dress is awful. It screams dowdy housewife.”
Cathy smiled. “Mark liked this dress. It’s suitable attire for a minister’s wife. J.B. and Mona will approve.”
Lorie shook her head. “I thought trying to please other people is no longer on your agenda.”
“It’s not, but just for today I don’t want to do anything to antagonize my in-laws. I want them to turn Seth over to me without a
