Husband by Choice

She’d left her keys in the cup holder. She hadn’t taken them with her, or disposed of them, so he could imagine that she’d been unable to leave them. They’d been in the cup holder. Where she’d deliberately left them. Not under the seat.

Her message to him was clear.

She didn’t need his help.

The Meri he knew would never have left such a message.

It had to be Steve. He’d found her and she’d reverted back to the terrified woman who did as he demanded so he didn’t beat her senseless. The woman who believed that the former detective, with all of his underground contacts, was more powerful than the laws that were there to protect her. Who believed, deep down, that she’d never be free of him.

She hadn’t wanted to talk about Steve. Seeing how much it upset her—and honestly believing, after years of no sign of the ex-cop, that he posed them no danger—he hadn’t pushed her for more information.

Lying there in the dark, Max feared that in not doing so, he might have made one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

* * *

DAY TWO.

Sometimes the part of me that takes on different names scares me. She’s so capable, but like an automaton. She goes through the day, doing what is expected of her, even watching for and trying to help others when opportunity or necessity presents itself.

She adapts to the situation in spite of her own needs.

And she doesn’t cry. Ever. It’s as if she can’t and that worries me. She is me and if I’m reaching the point where I can turn off so completely, I fear that my heart is really and truly dying.

Pen suspended over the page, Jenna read what she’d written. And shook her head. Sitting at the antique desk in her room just after dinner that Thursday night, she bent over her diary once again.

I just need to trust, like Max tells me so often. Jenna is impressive. She’s the part of me that holds all of my strength. And dispenses it as I need it. Today, she agreed to a group counseling session that I’ll be attending once a day for at least the next week, when all I really wanted to do, when the invitation had been offered, was shake my head and run.

I don’t need any more counseling. But I do need this time here, to mentally prepare myself to get into the psyche of a man with no moral boundaries, and to figure out when and how to meet him to somehow end his reign of terror. And if I must do counseling to keep up appearances, to maintain my cover of an abused woman seeking help, to satisfy those around me that I am getting the help I need, then so be it. After a full day here I am completely committed to my course of action and know from within the deepest chambers of my heart that I am doing what I have to do. Steve’s torment has to stop. And if I can’t find a way to make that happen—legally and for good—then I am willing to die trying.

Because if I don’t, if I live, and don’t live with Steve, Max and Caleb are at risk. Steve knows how much I love them. He knows I’d do anything for them. And he wouldn’t hesitate to use that knowledge as power against me.

Only if Steve is gone, or I am, will Max and Caleb be safe. Unless I go back to Steve. The third possibility isn’t even an option.

I choose death over life with Steve. Better to watch my boys from above (after all, what better place to watch over and protect them?) than to bring Steve’s rage into their physical space. Because I know my Max. He thinks he has all the protection we need in that small police force of his. If I’m with Steve, Max would come charging in to rescue me. And get himself killed...

Jenna’s hand came to a halt as a tear splashed onto the page. Meredith was hurting. Understandably so. And Jenna had to keep a firm hand on those emotions right now. She would be steady on her course. Reach her goal. For Max. And Caleb.

If there was an opportunity to deal with her heart and soul later, then she could cry buckets.

With her emotions once again firmly in check, Jenna glanced at her watch. She’d told Lila that she’d meet with her later that evening. Over a cup of hot tea with milk in the woman’s private on-site suite.

She’d never had hot tea with milk. And she had a sense that Lila didn’t generally invite residents into her private quarters after hours, either.

The upcoming event would consume part of the long evening ahead. But she wasn’t due in the older woman’s suite for another half an hour.

Caleb will have finished his supper by now. I picture him in his booster seat at the table with tomato soup smeared over his chin and the corners of his lips.

I can smell the soup. And see his sweet little face, those precious big brown eyes crinkled almost shut, as he lifts his mouth up to be wiped.

I can’t think about him missing me.

I also can’t picture his father’s identical eyes at the moment.

Maybe in time.

As another tear dripped onto the page, Jenna set down the pen and shut the book.

* * *

MAX HAD JUST deposited his cranky son in his crib Thursday night, turned on the monitor, the night-light, and shut the door when the doorbell rang.

Meri. Heart racing, he descended the stairs two at a time, his black canvas high-tops hardly touching the ground at all, before he realized that if his wife had returned she’d use her key, not ring the bell.

And before the thought slowed his feet, he countered it with the realization that Meri had left her keys in the cup holder of her car. He was supposed to have picked them up at the police station that afternoon but he’d had a late walk-in, a little boy with swollen adenoids and a panicky first-time mother, and the day care had been calling about Caleb’s distress and....

He was pulling open the door before it occurred to him that Meri wouldn’t have left her house key in her car for anyone to find. If someone stole her old van, oh well...but she wouldn’t take a chance on a stranger happening along and getting access to their home.

A woman stood on his front step. Her uniform, the blond hair, caught at his heart and he took a step back before he realized that she wasn’t Jill.

“Chantel,” he said, sounding as surprised as he felt. He wasn’t at his best. Had none of the infamous Bennet bedside manner.

“You look like you were on the losing end of a water fight,” she said, standing on his front porch as though it hadn’t been years since they’d seen each other.

The last time had been....

Jill’s funeral. She’d stood next to him. Squeezed his arm once. And too choked up to speak, had walked off into the sunset.

“Caleb wasn’t happy to take a bath tonight. Kept insisting that Mama do it.”

Her expression didn’t change much, but he was used to reading a female cop’s eyes. The way they’d glisten almost imperceptibly, focus a bit more, when the woman was moved.

“You decided to go with superhero today,” she said, remarking on his black, white and red superhero imprinted scrubs, that were wetter than not at the moment. The shoes matched because Meri liked it when he bothered to find the right color, which he did about half the time.

“You’re a long way from home,” he replied.

“Three hours.” She shrugged. “And I’m here on business.” Holding up her left hand, he recognized Meri’s key ring dangling there.

He snatched the ring. Not wanting anyone to wipe away what was left of Meri on those keys. Resisting the urge to raise them to his lips, he studied them for the couple of seconds it took him to get himself under control. He’d have to go get her van.

He’d gone to work that day because he hadn’t known what else to do. Chantel, people she’d called, were making some follow-up queries, but as far as they were concerned, Meri had left of her own free will.

She’d left a note. There’d been no sign of a struggle.

Didn’t matter that he knew better. Husbands always thought that.

Still, he’d referred most of his patients to another doctor at the clinic that day—a pediatrician in private practice like himself who traded duties with him whenever one or the other of them was sick or going to be gone.

He’d seen a couple of minor cases. And tried to get caught up on his reading. And on a paper he was writing for the pediatric journal, whose editors had sought him out.