he was still covering her hand with his own, but he didn’t let go.
“They’re living with me.”
“Where’s Jeff?”
“Palm Desert.”
He sat back, letting his hands fall into his lap. Then reached for his wineglass. “They’re divorced?”
He’d never, in a million years, have figured that one. If anyone was the perfect couple it was Jeff and Chloe. They were crazy about each other. In a way that couldn’t be faked. Even Brett, who’d never personally witnessed a healthy relationship in his life, could feel the bond between Ella’s brother and his wife.
“No!” Ella’s shock righted a world that was quickly spinning out into space. “Of course not.”
Until he considered that she’d just told him that Jeff’s wife and son were living with her, not him.
Not him.
Ella watched him.
Jeff. Jeff?
If she wanted him to think that Jeff Wales had done something that would make his wife need a women’s shelter then she was just plain—
“It’s Jeff, Brett,” she was saying. “He has...bouts. They’ve escalated over the past few years. This last time...Chloe asked me to come get her, and I did. Jeff doesn’t know. That she’s with me, I mean. He has no idea where she’s staying. They communicate by cell phone, and she has a pay-as-you-go one so he won’t be able to get any details from their bill.”
She’d thrown him for a loop. “Have you talked to him? Does he know you know she’s gone?”
“He called me, I think trying to figure out if she was with me, but I went on and on about the new job and how I was in the middle of moving into my new apartment and it was only at the end, when I asked him why he’d called, that he told me she’d left.”
Brett felt as though he had rocks in his gut. He could just imagine how Jeff must be feeling.
“Your brother is the kindest man I’ve ever known.” The only person who’d ever seen Brett cry.
Ella’s older brother had held an eighteen-year-old college-freshman Brett as he’d sobbed out his anguish over his parents. Helped him treat the raw strap marks on his back, left by his father’s belt, so that he didn’t have to report them to anyone. He’d spent many a night sitting with him that first year they were roommates, listening to him talk, or more often, allowing him complete silence without the aloneness that usually accompanied it, and had never told another soul about any of it.
“I know he is.” She was blinking back tears.
“He puts bugs outside rather than killing them.”
“I know.”
Memories glided through his mind like a picture show. One after another. “And...what about Missy’s little sister?” They’d all been juniors in college the year a friend of theirs had brought her three-year-old sister to school for a family weekend visit. The little girl had been afraid of all the guys in their crowd, throwing a tantrum that threatened to ruin the entire weekend, until Jeff had knelt down and very seriously explained something to her, a secret, she’d said. She’d been his adoring fan the rest of the visit. To the point that years later, at Jeff’s wedding, one of the guys had given a toast to the guy they’d all deemed the world’s greatest future dad.
“Jeff slammed Cody into a chair, Brett.”
“Slammed, as in set him down strongly, or as in breaking something?”
“He didn’t break anything.”
“Has he ever broken anything? Or left bruises?”
“Not on Cody.”
“What about Chloe?”
Chin jutting forward, Ella nodded.
And, emotionally, Brett shut down.
His ex-wife wouldn’t lie to him. He didn’t doubt her word for a second. But neither could he believe Jeff Wales would raise a hand to his wife.
“I need your help, Brett. Jeff needs your help.”
He nodded. His buddy sure as hell did need him if someone was trying to pin a DV rap on him. Someone who’d been persuasive enough to convince Ella.
Brett cared about Chloe. A lot.
If he thought for one second anyone was hurting her, he’d hunt whoever it was down himself and have him prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
But he wasn’t going to stand by and see Jeff hurt.
“Has Chloe had medical treatment?” Records were a way to establish truth. Maybe Jeff’s wife had met someone. Had a lover on the side who’d hurt her.
Maybe Chloe had asked to leave Palm Desert to get away from the guy. Maybe she cared enough about her marriage to Jeff to try to salvage it.
People made mistakes.
And deserved second chances.
“No, she’s never had medical treatment due to Jeff’s anger issues.”
Anger issues. Sure, Jeff got mad—who didn’t? But he’d never known a more easygoing, laid-back man in his life. Jeff took it on the chin when most guys, Brett included, would have been swinging.
“Have you ever seen Jeff be abusive to her?”
“No.”
“You’ve never seen any of Jeff’s outbursts firsthand?”
“No. But I’ve seen the bruises, Brett.”
Okay. So, something was going on with his friends. Something bad. Maybe Chloe was sick or something. Or suspected Jeff of having an affair and was trying to get back at him.
Brett knew full well that no one knew what went on behind closed doors. That a man could appear one way in public or in small gatherings with friends, and another way entirely at home with his family. His father had taught him that, too, before he’d learned it in counseling. And with the research he’d done before opening The Lemonade Stand.
But he’d lived with Jeff. For four years. He’d seen him at his best and at his worst. He couldn’t see the man raising a hand to his wife.
The very real concern, the fear, he read in Ella’s expression brought him up short. There was a problem.
She’d come to him for help.
“I’ll talk to him.”
“He’s going to deny it, Brett.”
He nodded. Was pretty much counting on Jeff’s innocence. And then maybe the two of them would be able to figure out what was really going on.
