obscenities in a cloud of exhaust smoke. There was nothing he could do to bring his wife back except, perhaps, call the police. But then he might have to explain why she’d fled. And I doubted he’d want to do that.
I rounded a corner, putting Dr. Porter out of sight. Another stretch of residential street, another quick turn, and I joined the heavier traffic on a main thoroughfare and headed for the interstate.
A glance in the rearview mirror briefly revealed Missy’s blotchy, tearstained face. Then she covered her face with her hands. I changed lanes, then checked the mirror again, seeking Gran’s eyes. But I was distracted by a quick movement beside me as my sister turned back around in her seat to stare at Missy. Her golden hair framed a face twisted ugly with anger. Her hazel eyes were narrowed, and her full bow lips were pressed into a tight line. Then she opened her mouth.
“Hey, you! Missy Porter!” she said, her usually soft, breathy voice sounding tight.
Certain that she would say something we all would regret, I reached quickly for the dashboard, cranked the volume setting on the radio up to maximum and turned on the power. Noise blasted through the van’s interior and drowned out Katie’s shrill yelp as I pinched her hard.
“Behave,” I mouthed as she jerked her head in my direction.
Katie surprised me by doing as I said. She faced forward again, sat rigidly with her hazel eyes fixed on the view out the front window. The muscles along her jaw flexed as she gritted her teeth.
I reached out again and dialed the radio down several notches.
“Sorry,” I said loudly in no one’s direction.
Then I fiddled with the controls until I found a country-western station where Toby Keith was singing something bawdy. The song was just loud enough to cover a front-seat conversation.
“What’s wrong with you?” I said to my sister once both of my hands were back on the steering wheel. “You don’t have any reason to be mean to her. You weren’t inside that house, didn’t see what she had to endure. She didn’t have a choice.”
“Oh, yes, she did,” Katie hissed. “She could have stayed with her children. Protected them. That’s what a good mother is supposed to do. Isn’t it?” And then more urgently, she repeated: “Isn’t it?”
That’s when I realized that she wasn’t really talking about Missy Porter.
“This is different,” I said. “Missy’s not like her.”
Eleven years earlier, our mother had left us alone with a stranger. Just for a little while. While she got a fix with the money he’d given her. She didn’t bother asking him what the money was for, didn’t wonder about his generosity.
When he began touching me, Katie had attacked him with teeth and fists.
“Get Momma!” she screamed as I broke free.
I ran as fast as I could. I searched for our mother in all the places I knew. The alley. The street corner. The bar at the end of the block.
I couldn’t find her anywhere.
So I did what she said we should never do. I found a cop and showed him where we lived.
I took him into our building, dragged at his hand so he would hurry, hurry, hurry. I told him to ignore the roaches and, instead, to concentrate on not falling through the traps that Momma and her friends had cut into the stairs and in the upstairs hallway. To keep the police from sneaking in and throwing everyone in jail.
Momma had said that the police put children in jail, too. But I didn’t care. Because even then I knew there were far worse things.
I’d brought help as fast as I could, but the stranger had already gone.
He hadn’t left right away.
Briefly, I looked away from the traffic, reached across the front seat of the van and covered Katie’s hand with mine. Our eyes met, and the smile that passed between us was sad and full of memory. And though I was sixteen and old enough to know better, I wished that I could go back in time. Wished for a chance to run faster, to find a cop sooner, to be brave enough to stay and fight by Katie’s side. I wished for a chance to save my sister just as she’d saved me.
Gran always said to be careful what you wished for.
Chapter 1
Eight years later
Lust.
That’s what any thought of Chad Robinson’s muscular six-foot-two frame, copper hair and green eyes inspired. The sound of his deep voice with its down-home drawl