Once a Family
He was thirty-three, not twenty. He owned a home, a business.
And he was losing control of his baby sister. Cold sweats swept over him. Through him.
“What does she want?” If their mother thought she was going to ride back into their lives and sweep her baby away, she was wrong.
No matter how vulnerable a girl Tatum’s age might be to her mother’s false promises of newfound sobriety. Tanner, Talia and Thomas had heard them all too many times. But Tatum...she’d only been five when she’d last heard from Tammy.
“Have a seat, Mr. Malone.”
Because he was feeling a bit sick, Tanner did as she asked. He’d be fine. He knew the signs of post-stress-induced anxiety. And knew how to overcome them, as well.
The law was on his side. He had to remember that.
“Tell me how much she wants.”
The woman’s creamy white brow furrowed. Who had creamy white skin in California? “I’m sorry?”
“You’re a family lawyer,” he explained slowly. If this lawyer wanted to play games she’d soon find she’d come to the wrong man. He knew all his mother’s tricks. Eventually, he’d grown immune to every one of them.
“That’s right.”
“The only times my family has ever needed a lawyer have been when our mother deigns to make an appearance in our lives.” That was true even before she’d left them for good and given him custody. He’d had to quit school to protect the kids from her—and the court system. Not that anyone needed to know... “Tell me, what’s Tammy said or done to get to Tatum and how much does she want?”
“I don’t know your mother. Or anyone named Tammy.”
Leaning back in his chair Tanner feigned a nonchalance he didn’t feel. He’d learned early on that if he showed a woman weakness she’d use it to wipe her feet. Spreading his hands and then steepling his fingers, he said, “So whatever she’s calling herself this time, how much does she think it’s going to cost her to provide the life my sister needs?”
Because Tammy would never admit the money was for herself. To feed her habits. No, she’d blink those big blue eyes and swear that it was for her children.
She’d tried a few times over the past ten years to extort money from them—from him. Playing on his love for his siblings. But it had been a while since he’d heard from her. Three years. He’d looked it up as soon as Morris had left.The longest she’d ever gone.
Sedona Campbell flicked a strand of really long hair behind her shoulder. A move that accentuated her femininity. And worried him. “Let me get this clear,” she said. “You think someone has your sister?”
It was like a game of chess. He not only had to plan his moves a minimum of three in advance, he had to assess his opponent, to predict what she was thinking and, more important, to ascertain her next moves before making his own.
“Tatum’s a good girl,” he said. “A straight-A student who loves to read. She has an appreciation for antiques and nurtures hurt animals anytime she can sneak one in. She also has no problem speaking her mind. She is not the type of person who would just up and leave on her own.”
“Especially since you’ve made her a virtual prisoner out there on that vineyard of yours.”
“That’s what Tammy told you?”
Ms. Campbell looked at the table. Seeing a chessboard of her own? After a couple of seconds, she glanced back at him. “Let’s get one thing clear, sir. I’ve never met your mother, or anyone else who knows your sister. I am here on Tatum’s behalf. Period.”
A vise descended upon his chest. And he was sweating again. From the inside out. “You want me to believe that my little sister hired a lawyer?”
“Technically she can’t do that without your signature.”
Right. Okay. But... “She sought one out, though?”
“She came to us for help.”
His feet landed flat with a thud as he sat forward and put his arms on the table. “Who is us? Why does Tatum need a lawyer? Where is she?”
He was back to Del Harcourt. This was about that punk kid like he’d originally thought.
But he had the senior Harcourt in his corner. And he’d put his money on the mother standing by whatever Ken Harcourt dictated.
Not that that was necessarily a healthy thing, but it would serve his situation. And theirs was none of his business.
“Your sister is at a women’s shelter.”
Oh, God, no. “Is she all right? Is she hurt?”
“Physically she’s fine. But women, and more particularly teenage girls, don’t turn up at shelters just for fun.”
“The bastard hit her again?”
“You’re saying you didn’t do it?”
Breathe, man. In and out. Relax your chest and breathe. “I didn’t do what?”
“Hit your sister.”
Everything inside Tanner stilled in that moment. His heart. His soul. “Is she saying I did?”
Tatum was pissed at him. But she wouldn’t turn on him. They were tight. More so than the other two. Since the day she was born she’d been his little girl. More daughter than sister. There had to be a misunderstanding. Someone at that shelter, this lawyer perhaps, had listened wrong.
“Are you denying that you hit your sister, Mr. Malone?”
“Hell, yes, I’m denying it!”
“But you knew she’d been hit?” The woman didn’t believe him. Her disdainful tone was enough to tell him that, but the cool look in her eyes was a dead giveaway, too.
“I didn’t know. I suspected. When I asked her about it, she adamantly denied it. She looked me in the eye.”
“And that means something?”
“Tatum has lied to me before, but never while looking me in the eye.”
People milled around them, talking over coffee drinks and eating freshly baked cookies. Scattered about at various tables. Some had computers. Tablets. It was a gathering place.
And it was like Tanner wasn’t even there. He had no sense of reality. No way to wake himself from the nightmare.
“But you saw signs that she’d been hurt? Bruises, perhaps, that she explained away?”
“I grabbed her arm out in the barn when she was trying to run after Harcourt. She flinched. I made her roll up her sleeve. The bruise was faded to yellow, but I was sure I saw the imprint of knuckles. She told me I was crazy. That I see the worst in everything. She said she ran into an antique dresser spindle in the barn.”
“Harcourt? Who’s that?”
“A rich punk she met at a party a couple of months back.”
“I take it you don’t like him.”
He wasn’t all that fond of Tatum’s lawyer, either. She looked good enough to eat and had the mind of a barracuda. “I just told you he hit my sister. What do you think?”
“You allege that he hit your sister. Other than that, has he given you cause to doubt him?”
“He smokes dope. I overheard him trying to convince my fifteen-year-old sister to try it. I suspect he’s trying to get her to sleep with him, too. And he speaks disrespectfully to his perfectly respectable mother.” For starters. “Now...I need to see my sister.” He’d spoken with her on the phone, briefly, when Sedona Campbell had called twenty minutes before to arrange this meeting. Just enough to be satisfied that she was fine, so that he could alert the police.
“I can arrange a meeting, but I need to speak with you first.”
“I believe I’m done talking.”
“I’m under legal obligation to call the police and inform them that your sister, a minor, reported abuse at your hands.”
He had to see Tatum.
Had to slow down. His nerve endings were tripping over themselves.
Outwardly, not a muscle of Tanner’s body moved.
This couldn’t be happening. Didn’t make sense. He’d made a good home for Tatum. A normal home.
“Or we can handle it another way.”
The words were a lifeline. And they told him she was working him. Either she was under a legal obligation or she wasn’t. If she had to report him, how could they handle it any other way?
She was the lawyer. She’d know. And she’d figure that he might not.
Eyes narrowing, he watched her. Skipping his next move to wait for hers. Any other time he might have enjoyed the game. But not now, with Tatum’s life in the balance.
“Tatum would like to stay at The Lemonade Stand, at least for the night, and for longer if that can be arranged.”
“My sister has a home.” And, as her legal guardian, he had rights and obligations, too.
“She claims that it’s an abusive one.”
“Just because she claims it―” which he didn’t buy “―doesn’t make it so.”
While he couldn’t believe Tatum would accuse him of something so heinous, so life changing, he couldn’t figure out why this lawyer woman would be lying to him. Unless she’d lied about her client, too. Unless his mother really was involved.
And wanted Tatum.
To sell her for drug money? Or have her go to work so Tammy could stay home with her latest dealer and get high? Stay high?
When people first met Tammy they fell for her vulnerable victim act. Maybe this Sedona Campbell was in the still-believing stage of knowing his mother. Maybe she thought she was fighting for the lives of a helpless woman and her child.
So maybe Tammy had concocted the abuse story and not Tatum. Calming a bit as he thought things through, Tanner figured he’d come upon the more likely scenario. Tatum, and this lawyer, too, were pawns in Tammy’s game.
“I’m assuming, since you didn’t immediately report me to the police, that you have some doubts about my...sister’s...story.” Tammy’s story, he was pretty convinced now.
The woman―a looker, he couldn’t deny that―sized him up. And seemed to be considering him as strongly as he’d been considering her. Because he was right? She had doubts?
Did that mean, if he handled this right, she could become an ally?
“I’m interested in what’s best for Tatum.”
Not really an answer to his question, but it was enough.
“I’m willing to listen to what you have to say,” he told her. He could listen for as long as it took.
And then take his baby sister home.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE MAN DIDN’T look like an ogre. He didn’t seem like the violent type, either. On the contrary, Sedona couldn’t stop looking at him. Sure he was tall, his dark hair was a little long, but he moved with slow grace, agile, but not aggressive. Her first instinct was to like him.
He’d taken his seat as though weighing the options. And every move he’d made since had flowed more than jerked. As though he lived his life deliberately as opposed to reacting to it. That was a characteristic she respected.
“First and foremost, I’d like you to allow Tatum to spend the night at The Lemonade Stand.” Sedona repeated her initial request. She’d wanted to keep her tone congenial. Nonthreatening. Her words came out as more of a plea than anything else. She’d expected not to like this man. Instead, she wanted to get along with him.
For Tatum’s sake. And...just because.
“It’s obvious that your sister is struggling. And that she’s not happy at home. It’s also very obvious to those of us who’ve spoken with her today that she wants, more than anything at the moment, to spend the night at the shelter.”
He watched her. Saying nothing. But his gaze remained direct. Focused.
“We have a bed ready for her. In a bungalow with a woman who lives and works full-time at The Stand. There will be another woman, an employee, who will be awake in the bungalow all night, keeping a watch in case anyone has any problems.”
His brow quirked.
“If you allow her to stay, Tatum will be under twenty-four-hour supervision. She understands that if she stays at the shelter, she will not be free to come and go. She’s a minor. She can only leave on the say-so of her legal guardian.”
“And she wants to stay on those conditions?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I prefer not to be called ‘sir.’ My name’s Tanner.”
There was no invitation to friendship in the words. More like a simple form of address.
Sedona liked that, too.
Remembering Tatum, a girl without a mother, a girl whose big sister had been out of touch, Sedona tried to keep her guard up against this man. “So, Tanner, will you let her stay?”
“I want to see her.”
“I understand. She’d rather not see you tonight, though. She’s asked for this one night of peace to figure things out.”
“There’s nothing to figure out. She’s coming home. She has school tomorrow.”
Sedona tried to smile. It didn’t work. The man barely moved, his facial features relaxed. His voice was so quiet she could only just make it out within the din of the other patrons in the shop. And yet going up against him was like scaling impenetrable rock. Sheetrock. The kind that was strong without bulk.
He was human. When it came to people there was always a way in.
Thinking back over their conversation, she searched for any breach in the facade he presented, any exhibiting of tension. A different tone of voice, or speed of speech. And could only think of one.
“Why would you think your mother hired me? Has she tried to be in touch with Tatum?”
“She’s tried to contact us a few times. When she was down and out and needed money or a place to stay. I won’t let her anywhere near us. She signed away her rights to her minor children ten years ago, and other than the gift of life, she’s never given them anything worth having. I’m not going to have her insidious filth anywhere near them.”
There was no venom in his voice. Just calm conviction.
“What makes you think she’d hire me now?”
He looked her straight in the eye. “My mother is ruled by one thing and one thing only—her addiction to drugs. If she’s desperate, she’ll do whatever it takes. She once promised a guy he could join my sister Talia in the shower if he’d give her a hundred bucks. I’d left to take Tatum next door when Talia got in the shower, not knowing that Tammy had this guy in her room. I traded off with the neighbor, taking the little ones to kindergarten. Tammy got confused and thought it was my day to drive them. I came back and heard what was going on and kicked the guy’s ass out of our house.”
Sedona believed him. She didn’t know why, but she did. “How old was Talia?”
“Sixteen.”
Hadn’t Tatum said her sister was sixteen the first time she’d run away?
“Did you press charges?”
“I had no proof because nothing actually happened. It was their word against mine. And I didn’t want Talia to know what I’d overheard, or what had almost happened to her, which she surely would have found out if we’d gone to court. But I knew, because of our past history with the system, that I stood a much better chance of being believed than Tammy did. So I told her I was going to press charges unless she gave me custody of the kids, then got out of our home and never came back.”
He didn’t seem to be looking for sympathy. Or even understanding. And he’d given her far more insight than he probably knew or intended. Tonight she saw a man who’d had a lot of responsibility thrown on him from a very young age. And a boy who’d clearly seen and known more than any child should.
She saw a man who’d had a tough life.
And who could have developed an unhealthy view of relationships. And of family.
A man who would resort to hitting his sister if he thought, for one second, she was going to fall into her mother’s ways? A man who thought physical discipline was far healthier for his teenage sister than the drugs and sex her boyfriend was using to tempt her away?
The drugs and sex that had ruined their mother’s life?
“When was the last time you heard from her?”
“Three years. But it makes sense for her to show up. Tatum’s fifteen. Another three years and we’ll be home free. She’s running out of time if she hopes to milk one last penny out of having given birth.”
Wow. How could a person say such words without any hint of bitterness in his voice? The guy was cold as ice—or was healthier than she figured she’d have been if she’d grown up like he had.
“You have a brother, Thomas, correct?”
“Yes.”
“How does he feel about your mother?”
“You’d have to ask him.”
“I’m asking you.”
“Thomas’s father was Tammy’s dealer. And, I believe, her pimp. When he was five, Thomas disappeared for three days. I never knew what happened to him, but I know he was with his father, and when he came back he didn’t talk for more than a month.”
“Did you report this to anyone?”
“No. I was ten at the time. My father was dead. I had no way of providing for my brother and sister and knew that if they took us from our mother, we’d be separated. I just made certain that I didn’t leave Thomas or Talia alone with Tammy after that.”
“Do any of you have grandparents?”
“Not that we’ve ever known. From what I gathered, Tammy was a lot like her own mother. Egotistical and immature. Just look at the names she gave us—how cute for her, Tanner, Thomas, Talia and Tatum. Unusual enough to be remembered. Poetic, she used to say. But embarrassing as hell to a kid in junior high.”
He paused, like he hadn’t meant to reveal so much. And then, when she said nothing, he continued. “According to her, my father’s parents were horrified that he’d ever had anything to do with her and denied that I was their grandson.”
“And your dad didn’t step up and do something?”
“Nope. But he took out a life insurance policy naming me as his beneficiary. In the event of an early death, the money went into a trust that couldn’t be touched by anyone but me after I turned twenty-three. He died of a heart attack when I was eight.”
So he’d had some money. Sedona was relieved, then pulled herself up short. She couldn’t care. Couldn’t sympathize with him. She was there to represent his sister and Tatum’s charges against him.
“You used the shower incident against your mother because you’d just gotten the means to care for your siblings yourself,” she said. Admiring him even while she assessed him for signs of an abuser.
“I had to know that the court would keep us together, yes, before I could take such a strong stand against her.”
“Would it have been so awful if you’d been split up?” She had to ask. “Did you ever consider the possibility that your sisters would be placed in good homes where they’d be loved and happy and grow up with nothing more to worry about than brushing their teeth and emptying the dishwasher?”
“My mother wouldn’t sign away her rights to anyone but me,” he said, seeming kind now, as he explained things to her. “The girls would have been foster kids, not eligible for adoption. Together, at least we had one another. A place of our own where we belonged. We loved one another. And we understood one another’s challenges, too, since we’d all come from the same place.”
Sedona wondered if the siblings needed one another as much as Tanner had evidently needed them? Had Talia, Thomas and Tatum been his sense of family? Of belonging? And now that Tatum, the last of them, was almost ready to fly the coop, was he having a hard time letting her go? Serious enough to use physical force to keep Tatum with him?
“I am not now nor have I ever been in contact with your mother,” she told him, aware of the lateness of the hour. Of Tatum waiting back at The Lemonade Stand, nervous and wondering what was going to happen to her. “Your sister showed up at The Lemonade Stand today, out of the blue. She asked for our help. We’re trying to give it to her. That’s what we do.”
“And she says I hit her.”
“That’s correct.”
His gaze didn’t waver. “I didn’t.”
She believed him. And wasn’t sure she trusted her own instincts at the moment. This man was having an effect on her that she didn’t understand.
“She’s afraid of something, Mr....Tanner. I’ve never witnessed nor even heard of a fifteen-year-old begging to stay locked in at a women’s shelter before. Not without just cause.”
“Harcourt has something to do with this.”
“Maybe he told Tatum to seek help.”
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t show any overt reaction at all. Tatum had said her brother was a vintner. That held weight with a wine connoisseur like her. It took real dedication, tenderness, an attention to art, to produce a good wine.
Maybe that was why she felt such a strong desire to like him.
“What happens if I insist on taking her home tonight?” It didn’t sound like a rhetorical question. “Other than me royally pissing her off, of course.”
“We’d have to call the police. They’d come out.”
“Would they take her?”
“They might.”
His eyes narrowed, and Sedona was afraid she’d somehow transmitted a compassion she shouldn’t be feeling toward this man.
“What are the chances they’d take her?”
She wanted him to trust her. Because Tatum obviously loved him. Not only had she said so, but her refusal to press charges also pointed to an attachment to him. One thing Sedona was already completely sure of—she was already fond of Tatum and wanted to help her and her brother be as happy as they possibly could be.
It sounded to her as though they both deserved a big dose of the secure, happy and loving environment she’d grown up in.
But she could not take even a minute chance of possibly returning an abuse victim to her abuser. Not for any reason.
“Tonight? Not good at all.”
That eyebrow rose one more time. And taking a last-ditch chance on a nurturing instinct that had been muted in law school, she said, “Your sister has said that if we call the police, she’s going to tell them that she lied to us. She’s going to insist you’ve never hit her. She has no bruises left to show. There have been no prior complaints or reports, no reason for anyone to seriously suspect that this is anything more than a recalcitrant teenager trying to get back at the guardian who thwarted her love life. They might or might not assign a caseworker. If they did you’d have to endure a few visits. And as long as there are no further instances of abuse, you’ll carry on as you’ve always done.”
She’d handed the life he wanted back to him on a silver platter. Tanner Malone continued to watch her, his face as placid as always.
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