Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Poundtown is fun until you end up with a little pound cake in the oven.
— Bryson to Jeremiah
JEREMIAH
I watched the snow fall from the huge plate-glass window of my apartment.
I was one of four apartments in the newly renovated downtown area.
Five years ago, when the idea to revitalize the downtown area had been brought up among my siblings, Noel , Ginger , and Christopher , I’d loved the idea of these kinds of apartments.
I also loved the idea of giving back to my community.
So with Ginger and Noel’s help, Christopher and I had started planning.
Christopher with his construction company, and me with the money that I had to back it, we totally revitalized the street that we now lived on from top to bottom.
Then , our revitalization of our downtown street had then sparked the city to also revitalize the rest of the downtown area.
Now it was the most quaint little Christmas village downtown area that I’d ever seen. And the snow that was falling down only made the Christmas wonderland thing even more gorgeous.
The snow made all the colors along the roofs, around the light poles, and along the shop windows pop.
But even as beautiful as it was, it wasn’t enough to get my mind off of the woman that I’d met at the arena.
Then again at her candy store.
When she’d walked into my grandmother’s bathroom with her daughter, I’d known she was meant to be someone important in my life.
When she’d left, my heart had sank.
When my grandmother had explained that she thought that she was the sweetest girl ever, but was scared of her own shadow, my stomach had soured.
I wanted nothing more but to go to that house and ruin the man that dared put that look of defeat in Merriam’s eyes.
But my grandmother had cautioned me when I’d told her what I suspected.
Give her time, sweet potato. She doesn’t trust easy. If you can just be there for her, she’ll come around.
Sweet potato.
Even my grandmother’s cute pet name for me wasn’t enough to fix the feeling in my gut that I’d done something terribly wrong.
I’d left them both there, alone, with that man that beat his daughter.
Maybe he didn’t beat the kid.
But why the hell did that little girl only whisper? Why was she afraid of her own shadow?
I really didn’t like the picture my mind was painting. I also didn’t like that she felt like she was stuck, with no way out.
Ultimately , that’d been why I’d given her my name, address and phone number.
I wanted her to know that she had an option.
My phone rang, and I absently pulled it out of my pocket and answered it.
“ Hello ?” I called.
“ Hey ,” Grams said. “ So guess what I’m doing?”
I frowned. “ I’m hoping you’re staying inside and out of trouble.”
I wouldn’t put it past her to walk her happy ass down to Noel’s place.
“ I’m inside,” she quickly assured me. “ But I’m also watching Merriam throw clothes out the window.”
“ Really ?” I asked. “ Why ?”
“ I think she’s packing her car,” she admitted. “ I’ve watched her make about a hundred back-and-forth trips.”
“ Where’s her daughter?” I wondered.
“ In the car bundled up,” she answered. “ Now she’s taking her pillows.”
“ Whoa ,” I said. “ That’s good, right?”
“ Yeah ,” she said, “but I’m scared that she’s about to wake the asshole in his recliner.”
“ Maybe she won’t,” I replied hopefully.
“ I think this must be her last trip, because her back hatch is full, and the only thing she had in her hands this trip through her window was the cutest little snow boots,” she answered.
Snow boots that I’d picked out with my own two hands.
That made me happy that she was leaving.
Though , as soon as that thought hit my head, it made me freeze.
I studied the roads.
They were really bad.
The snow had been falling all night, and there was a good six inches of it all over everything.
“ She’s already made it out and back once,” she said, reading my thoughts. “ Where do you think she’s going to go?”
“ Maybe her friend’s place,” I replied hopefully.
I was hard pressed to believe, though, that Gisela knew about Merriam’s circumstances and didn’t fight to do something about it.
The way Gisela came off to me, if she’d known about Merriam’s troubles, Gisela would’ve already had her ass in her place.
“ She’s gone,” Grams said. “ I can’t tell you how much better I feel that she left that disgusting man.”
“ You knew?” I asked.
“ I knew.” She sighed. “ There’s only so much hiding of bruises you can do, just like you saw yesterday. This has been going on for the entirety of my living here.” She started to laugh. “ The little minx left her bedroom window open.”
“ Good ,” I said. “ Maybe he won’t notice that she’s gone and it’ll ruin his house.”
“ Nobody is that lucky,” she grumbled. “ That man is disgusting.”
“ Thanks for calling me, Grams ,” I said. “ That makes me feel better that she got out of there.”
“ I just hope that she stays gone,” she sighed. “ It reminds me of your mother’s situation.”
I felt my stomach sink.
My mom had met my father when she was eighteen and he was twenty-four. They’d gotten married about six months after meeting because Mom had found herself pregnant with me.
That was the beginning of the horror show that my mother would live with for the next fifteen years.
It was only when I was fourteen, Noel was twelve, Ginger was eleven, and Christopher was eight that my mother left my father. She’d been gone a whole forty-eight hours when my father had caught up with her and murdered her on the side of the road for all of us kids to see.
Then , with his gaze on mine, he’d taken his own life.
That’d been the deciding factor in my life for me—the reason that I’d tried so hard to crawl out of the hell that my father had put us in and give my family the best life that they could get.
Noel and Ginger were now very married. Christopher had a kid on the way, and Noel had three youngsters. Ginger was married, but only newly so, and had no immediate plans for a kid.
I , on the other hand, was the only one left that wasn’t happily married.
I’d been so focused on making sure that my family had what they needed that I hadn’t focused on my own life.
I’d just decided that I needed to do that between chicken wings.
I’d thought I’d gotten a second chance at that today when I’d seen her at the candy shop.
Then again when I’d watched her walk into my grandmother’s bathroom.
But her solid resolve in having nothing to do with me was enough for me to realize that Merriam had to fix her own life first before I could bring her into mine.
She had to make the decision to…
A knock sounded on my door.
“ Hey , Gram ,” I said. “ My building manager is here.”
At least, that was the only person I’d been expecting.
Josh was the manager that kept all the units in order, and today he’d told me he had a new rental agreement he wanted me to go over.
I’d told him to bring it by any time but hadn’t really expected him so fast since he had to drive to get the information to me.
Hanging up with my grams, I put the phone in my pocket and walked to the door.
I opened it without looking, which was why I appeared so shocked when I saw who was on the other side of the door.
“ Merriam !” I breathed.
She swallowed hard, her eyes filled with tears, and said, “ I need help.”
I reached for her, pulling her inside.
“ Did he hurt you again?” I demanded. “ Anleigh ?”
The little girl in her arms wasn’t moving. Her head rested on her mother’s chest, and she was so lethargic that her mom had to clutch the bear for her instead of doing it herself.
“ What had happened?”
“ I …” She looked away.
And just that short amount of movement allowed me to see a red mark on her throat.
Almost on autopilot, I reached for her daughter, pulling her into my arms.
The bear fell to the floor, and neither mother nor child made a move toward it.
Anleigh transferred her limp body from her mother’s chest to mine, allowing me to get a good glimpse of Merriam’s throat.
My heart stuttered in my chest at the very apparent hand mark that was covering the length of it.
“ He choked you,” I whispered, fury rising inside of me.
She made a sound in her throat and said, “ I woke up this morning, and Anleigh had a fever. So I went to the bathroom where I keep her baby ibuprofen. It was gone, and the only time any of my stuff is gone is when my dad uses it. And since he’s my dad, he doesn’t bother to put it back into my cabinet where it belongs. So I went out to the kitchen and…”
She touched her throat. “ Today is the day that my mother died giving birth to me twenty-four years ago.”
My heart sank.
“ Today is your birthday?” I asked.
She swallowed and it looked like it pained her before she nodded. “ Yeah .”
I curled some of her hair behind her ear and said, “ Happy birthday.”
Tears welled in her eyes.
“ I had to go to the store and get some medicine for her.” She gestured at Anleigh , who still lay so still against my chest. “ I was there in the car, and this overwhelming sense of wrongness filled me at the thought of going back into that house.”
My hand dropped to her shoulder, and with zero resistance, she came toward me when I gave her a gentle nudge.
Her face buried in my arm, right next to Anleigh’s chest, and she began to cry silently.
I closed my eyes as the urge to park them both in my bed and haul ass toward their house nearly bowled me over.
I could happily kill that man right now.
“ Tree .”
The near-silent whisper had me saying, “ What did you just say, Anleigh ?”
“ Tree ,” she whispered again.
“ She loves Christmas trees,” Merriam whispered through her tears.
I pulled Merriam in closer, my face going to the top of her head as I tried to reassure her that everything would be okay.
“ I was just decorating it,” I said to Anleigh . “ Do you want to help me?”
She nodded against my shoulder.
Merriam pulled back and quickly dashed away the tears that were staining her face.
“ I just… I didn’t know where to go,” she said. “ Gisela can barely clothe and feed herself because she’s taking care of all of her brothers. I don’t… I don’t have anyone else.”
I cupped her face and said, “ I wouldn’t have given you my personal details if I didn’t want you here.”
She drew in a deep breath when the tears once again welled in her eyes.
“ I felt a connection to you the moment I saw you at the skating rink,” I told her honestly. “ When you left early from the restaurant, I felt like a piece of my soul had left with you.”
She bit her lip, and I reached down to pop it free from her teeth before continuing. “ Every subsequent time I saw you, this little voice at the back of my mind urged me to ask you to stay.” I drew a deep breath and bent down, picking up the bear. “ I walked into the outdoor mall area and saw a little girl on the tree. Every other child I picked off that tree that day, I gave right back to the attendant with a five-thousand-dollar check. But your little girl…” I held the bear. “ I didn’t know her. I just knew that I had to buy this for her personally.”
“ You were her angel?” she gasped.
I nodded. “ I picked out these PJs . I picked out this bear. I picked out that sweatpants set she was wearing yesterday. The boots she has on. The coat. My sister helped with a few other things, but every single thing in that basket was personally picked out by me. And I can’t explain it more than just… I had to do it. I had to.” I reached for her hand and pressed it to my heart. “ There’s something inside of me that insists that I know you. That you’re mine. That you were always meant to be mine.”
She licked her lips.
“ Tree ?” Anleigh whispered again.
“ He didn’t hurt her, did he?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“ And you? You’re okay?” I asked. “ Your throat is…”
“ The only thing he touched today,” she murmured quietly, her eyes falling to Anleigh’s hand that was pressed against my neck. “ He’s never hurt her.”
I squeezed her hand and said, “ Are you hungry?”
She looked at the tree, then back at me. “ I think Anleigh would like to see your tree first, but yes. We’re hungry.”
I could tell by the look on her face that she still wasn’t convinced that she should be here.
That she might bolt at any second.
Deciding the best course of action was to keep hold of her daughter to ensure she wouldn’t leave, I said, “ Go have a seat at the table. I’ll show Anleigh my tree.”
Merriam’s gaze passed from me to Anleigh’s back and back before nodding once.
I let her hand go and took Anleigh over to the tree.
The only thing I’d managed to get on it in the two weeks it’d been up were lights.
My nieces had helped, making the bottom of the tree have quite a bit more lights than the top.
“ Pretty ,” she whispered.
I turned her so that she could see the boxes of ornaments I hadn’t put on yet. “ This is all the stuff I want to put on the tree later. Maybe you can help me?”
Provided Anleigh was feeling better, that was.
“ Yes ,” she continued to whisper.
I smiled and walked back into the kitchen, heading for my fridge.
“ How about pancakes?” I asked.
“ We love pancakes,” Merriam admitted, looking uncomfortable perched on the edge of her seat.
I placed my hand on her shoulder and said, “ Lean back, Merri . I want you here.”
She blinked up at me and nodded once before leaning farther into her chair.
I left her there and started grabbing out mixing bowls and ingredients.
“ I can help…” she said. “ Or I can take Anleigh .”
“ She’s good here, aren’t you, Annie ?” I gave her a slight squeeze.
“ Yes ,” she whispered.
I smiled and winked at her mother. “ Annie was one of the names that I thought about naming her. It resounded so heavily with me right here.” She pressed her hand to her heart. “ I ultimately chose Anleigh because my dad would’ve had a heart attack if I named her after my mother.”
“ Your mother’s name is Annie ?” I asked.
“ Yes ,” she said. “ Just Annie . No abbreviation for anything.”
“ That’s beautiful, and a great tribute to her,” I said softly as I turned the mixer on to allow the ingredients to mix. “ Do you ever call her Annie ?”
“ When we’re alone,” she admitted. “ When my dad can’t…”
When her father can’t beat the shit out of her for hearing his dead wife’s name.
“ I have this overwhelming urge to get in my truck, drive to your dad’s place, and murder him in his sleep,” I grumbled.
She nervously twisted her hands together, not answering.
Not denying me, either, I noted.
“ Why didn’t you leave earlier?” I asked, glancing at her quickly before flipping over another pancake.
“ Can I borrow your phone for a second?” she asked.
I nodded.
She reached for the phone, tapped a few things, then stood up stiffly.
My brows rose as she walked toward me.
“ I told my dad that I was leaving to pursue a career that didn’t follow his path for me,” she said. “ And then he gives me this look and says, ‘good luck with that.’”
I look down at the screen and feel my stomach sink.
It was a credit report.
“ From the age of fifteen, my father had started taking out loans under my name,” she said. “ And not paying them back.”
I blinked, then looked closer.
The credit report showed that she had over five hundred thousand dollars in unpaid loans taken out, all of which were in the red.
“ I didn’t even know about them to pay them off,” she said. “ I …”
That . Asshole .
“ And then I got pregnant with Anleigh , and I just had…nowhere to go. I couldn’t go anywhere at all because I had no job experience. My credit was so bad that not even an insane person would rent to me. I had no friends because my dad was such an asshole that no one wanted their kids to be around him. I just couldn’t do anything at all. There was nowhere else for me to go. No other path for me to follow. Every time I try to leave, he reminds me why I have to stay.”
I turned the mixer off, then turned the skillet on before saying, “ You do now.”