“I know I’m making excuses.” With a long, shuddering breath, Cassie shut her eyes. To Regan, at least, she could be honest. Because Regan, in the three years they had known each other, had always been there. “He hasn’t had the flu. He’s been drunk almost day and night for a week. They didn’t lay him off, they fired him because he went to work drunk and mouthed off to his supervisor.”
“And then he came home and took it out on you.” Rising, Regan took the kettle off the hot plate and began to make the tea. “Where are the kids?”
“At my mother’s. I went there last night, after. He hurt me pretty bad this time.”
Unconsciously she touched her hand to her throat. Beneath the turtleneck there were more bruises, where Joe’s hands had held and choked her until she accepted that he would kill her. Almost wished for it.
“I got the kids out, and I went to Mama, because I needed some place to stay.”
“Okay, that’s good.” Ready to move step-by-step now, Regan brought two china cups to the table. “That’s the best way to start.”
“No.” Very carefully, Cassie wrapped both hands around her cup. “She expects me to go back today. She won’t let us stay another night.”
“After you told her, after she saw you, what he’d done, she expects you to go back?”
“A woman belongs with her husband,” Cassie said simply. “I married him for better or for worse.”
Regan had never understood her own mother, the easy subservience, the catering. But, while it had infuriated her often, it had never appalled her like this.
“That’s monstrous, Cassie.”
“It’s just Mama,” Cassie murmured, wincing as the tea stung her puffy lip. “She believes a woman should make a marriage work. It’s her duty to make it work.”
“Do you believe that? That it’s your responsibility to take this? Do you believe that means you are supposed to stay for better or worse, even if worse means being beaten whenever he has the whim?”
“I used to. I tried to. I took vows, Regan.” She took a shuddering breath, because to her that had always been the bottom line. She had promised. “Maybe I was too young when I married Joe. Maybe I made a mistake, but I still took the vows. He didn’t keep them. There were those other women, he didn’t even care if I knew who they were. He was never faithful, never kind. But I took vows and I wanted to keep them.”
She began to cry again, quietly now, because she had failed. “We’ve been married ten years. We have children together. I make so many mistakes—using my tip money to buy those shoes for Connor, and letting Emma play dress-up with my lipstick. And we couldn’t afford that washing machine. I was never any good in bed, not like those other women he’d go to. I knew—”
She broke off when Regan only continued to watch her.
“Are you hearing yourself this time?” Regan said quietly. “Are you listening to yourself, Cassie?”
“I can’t stay with him anymore.” Her voice broke, shattering like thin, fragile glass. “He’s hitting me in front of the kids. He used to wait until they were in bed, and that was bad. But now he hits me in front of them, and he says terrible things. Things they shouldn’t hear. It’s not right. It makes them part of it, and it’s not right.”
“No, Cass, it’s not right. You need help now.”
“I thought about it all night.” She hesitated, then slowly eased down the neck of her sweater.
At the sight of the raw marks scoring that pale, innocent flesh, Regan’s face went white and cold. “Oh, dear God—he tried to strangle you.”
“I don’t think he meant to at first. I was crying, and he wanted me to stop. But then he did.” Cassie lowered her hand again. “I could see it in his eyes. It wasn’t just the drinking, or the money, or the other women he seems to want. He hated me just for being there. He’ll hurt me again if he gets the chance, and I have to think about the kids. I have to go to Devin and file charges.”
“Thank God.”
“I had to come here first, to get up my nerve.” Knowing there was no more point in them, Cassie wiped at the tears. “It’s hard, being it’s Devin. I’ve known him all my life. It’s not like it’s a secret. He’s been out to the house I don’t know how many times when the neighbors called in. But it’s hard.” She sighed. “Being it’s Devin.”
“I’ll go with you.”
Cassie closed her eyes. That was why she had come here, to have someone stand with her. No, she admitted, ashamed all over again. To have someone hold her up.
“No, I need to do it myself. I haven’t thought about after,” she said, and soothed her raw throat with a sip of tea. “I can’t take the kids back to the house until I know what’s going to happen.”
“The shelter—”
Stubbornly, Cassie shook her head. “I know it’s pride, Regan, but I can’t go there. I can’t take my kids there. Not yet, anyway.”
“All right, then you’ll stay here. Here,” Regan repeated as Cassie protested. “I only have one extra bedroom, so you and the kids will have to rough it.”
“We can’t pile in on you that way.”
“You were the first friend I made when I moved here. I want to help. So let me help.”
“I could never ask you that, Regan. I’ve saved some tip and overtime money. Enough for a motel for a couple of days.”
“You wouldn’t want to hurt my feelings that way. You’re going to stay at my place. For the kids,” Regan murmured, knowing that nothing would tilt the scales as heavily.
“I’ll go get them after I see Devin.” She had no pride when it came to her children. “I’m awfully grateful, Regan.”
“So am I. Now.”
“What’s this? Tea party during business hours?” Because his eyes were on Regan, Rafe had stepped into the office and tossed his coat over the back of a chair before he saw Cassie’s face.
Regan was stunned to watch charm metamorphize into pure violence in a split second. The quick, potent grin sharpened into a snarl. His eyes fired. Her first startled thought, as that lean body tensed to spring, was wolf.
When his hand shot out, Cassie flinched, and Regan leapt to her feet. Before Regan could step between them with some wild idea of protecting Cassie, Rafe’s fingers stroked, gentle as a kiss, over the battered face.
“Joe?”
“It—it was an accident,” Cassie stammered.
His opinion of that was one vicious word. He swung around, blood in his eye. Cassie was on her feet and racing after him.
“No, Rafe, please don’t do anything.” Desperate, she pulled at his arm, all but jumped
