Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
“ O kay, slow down,” Mack said, already sprinting toward his truck. “Where are you?”
“I’m driving around town looking for Lyle’s black Honda.”
“I’m coming.” He started the engine and put the truck in gear. Gravel spit from beneath his tires as he tore down the driveway. “Hold on, I’ll be to town in two minutes. I’m already on the highway. Tell me where to look. Or tell me where to meet you, and we’ll look for him together.”
“I don’t know. I’ve already called my house, just in case he brought him home. But Gertie said she hadn’t seen them. I’ve checked the diner parking lot and the drugstore thinking he might have taken him for ice cream, but didn’t see his car either place. Not that he’d ever done that in all the years we were married, but I don’t know what else to do.” She sobbed into the phone. “What if he really took him? What if he’s driving down the pass with him, and I’m just running around town thinking they went for ice cream?”
“Hang on, honey. I’m driving into town now. Where are you?”
“I just drove back to the school. Should I call the police?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Let’s keep looking for a few minutes then decide.” He turned into the parking lot of the school and saw her sitting in her minivan, her head bent over the steering wheel, her shoulders shaking. “I’m here.”
He parked next to her and bolted from his truck. She looked up, saw him, and started crying harder as she opened her car door and fell into his arms.
He pulled her close, rubbing her back as he murmured soft words into her hair. “It’s okay. Shh. I’m here. We’ll find him.”
She pulled back, sucked in a deep breath then swiped at the tears on her cheeks. “I’m all right. Just had to get that out of my system.”
Her hands were shaking, and he picked them up and squeezed them in his. “Come on. We’ll look for him together. We can take your car since you have the booster seat, but I’ll drive, and you can watch for them. We can search this whole town in fifteen minutes. If we don’t find them by then, we’ll call the police. Deal?”
“Yes. Deal.” She ran around the car to get into the passenger side as he slid behind the wheel and started the van. “Tell me again where you’ve already checked.”
“The diner, the drugstore, my house, the fairgrounds, and the school. I feel like I’ve driven up and down Main Street several times and the side streets around the school.”
He put the car in gear and headed out of the parking lot. “Think like a dad. Where would you want to take your son for an outing? Maybe the high school football field where Lyle used to play, or a baseball field to play catch?”
“Good idea. Let’s drive by the high school. I can imagine Lyle wanting to brag about his football days, but I can’t see him trying to play catch with Max.” She pulled a Kleenex from a box in the console and blew her nose. It felt like she was calming down now that they had a plan.
The high school was only a few blocks away, but no cars were in the lot and the football field was empty.
“What about the park?” he asked, scanning the side streets as he drove through an intersection. “Did you check there?”
“No, but that’s a good idea, too. Max loves to swing.” She leaned forward to peer through the windshield as he turned onto the street with the park.
Mack caught sight of Lyle first, sitting on a bench next to the playground, his head down as he focused on his phone. Then he saw Max, his small legs straddling the bars at the top of the climbing structure. His shoulders sank inward and even from across the lawn, Mack thought it looked like he was crying.
“There he is,” Lorna cried, already reaching for the door handle as Mack pulled into a parking spot. She flew out of the truck and tore across the grass, calling her son’s name.
Mack raced after her, trying to keep an eye on the boy and his mother. And his asshole father.
Lyle finally looked up from his phone, saw Lorna running toward the playground, and stood, a smirk on his face that Mack would take supreme pleasure in smacking off.
Max saw Lorna, and his face lit up. “Mommy,” he called, but in his haste to try to climb off the top of the structure, his foot missed the final bar, and he fell forward, smacking his face on it before his body fell to the ground.
“Max!” Lorna sprinted to her son, Mack right on her heels.
The boy lifted his head to let out a wail of pain as bright red blood spilled from his mouth.
“Oh dang,” he heard Lyle say as Mack fell to his knees in front of Lorna as she gathered Max into her arms.
“Let Mommy see,” she told Max, trying to pull him back as he cried into her shoulder. “You’re okay, but it looks like you split your lip, and you’ve got a bump on your cheek.”
“I fink I bit ma tongue,” Max said as he opened his mouth and blood spilled over his bottom lip.
“I’ve got my Stanley cup in the car. I’m sure it’s still got ice in it. We can put some on your lip and cheek as we drive to the Urgent Care.”
“For shit’s sake, Lorna. You don’t have to baby him or run off to the doctor for every little bruise.” Lyle had come up behind them and was leaning casually on the side of the play structure. “It’s just a split lip. Put some ice on it. It’ll be fine.”
Mack wondered if Lyle had used that line on her as he watched the array of emotions flash across Lorna’s face—terror, sadness, anger, then pure white-hot rage.
Her son had to weigh fifty pounds, but she lifted him as if he were a toddler, clutching him to her chest as she narrowed her eyes at Lyle and spoke with a barely contained fury. “He wouldn’t have a split lip or a bloody face if you hadn’t taken him from school. Without. My. Permission.”
Anger flashed across Lyle’s face. “I don’t need your permission to see my own son.”
“But you do need to watch him if he’s in your care,” Mack said. “What the hell was he doing on top of that jungle gym anyway?”
Lyle snapped his head up, then pushed away from the play structure and stuck his chest out toward Mack. “Who the hell are you to tell me anything about my son? Just because you’re fucking my wife, that doesn’t give you the right to tell me how to treat my kid.”
“Ex-wife,” Lorna spat before Mack could correct him.
Max whimpered as he buried his face in Lorna’s shoulder. She hugged him closer as she took a step between the two men.
Which made Mack feel like a worthless schmuck. He was supposed to be protecting her. And he wasn’t about to let this asshole hurt her, or her kids, ever again.
“You need to stay away from this family,” Mack said through gritted teeth as he stepped to the side of Lorna. His fists were clenched at his sides, but he was just waiting for Lyle to give him a reason to use them.
“No. I don’t. This is my family. I own them. They belong to me.” Lyle’s sneer held a mix of malice and spite. He turned to Lorna, putting his face right in front of hers. “Don’t forget that, Lorna.”
This time, Mack inserted his body between them, then grabbed Lyle by the shirt collar and hauled him up to his chest. “You gave up your right to this family. Now I think it’s time for you to leave before we call the cops and tell them how you took Max from school without his mother’s permission. I think in this state, that’s considered kidnapping.”
Mack shoved him away, but he caught himself as he stumbled back. Then he held up his hands and let out a disdainful laugh. “Fine. I’m going. No need to get the cops involved. But Lorna, don’t forget how easy it was for me to take my son away from you today.”
Lorna clasped her hands in her lap as Mack pulled the truck up in front of the house at the ranch a few hours later. Duke had already invited them for supper, and it hadn’t taken much convincing when Mack suggested they spend the night as well.
He’d been great through the whole ordeal that afternoon, dealing with Lyle then driving them to the pediatrician’s office, while Lorna sat in the back with Max, holding a napkin wrapped around the ice from her cup against his lip.
The pediatrician confirmed that Max had bit his tongue and assured Lorna he didn’t need stitches in his lip. He’d prescribed Children’s Tylenol, rest, soft foods, and as many popsicles as Max wanted.
Lorna glanced into the back seat where both kids were sound asleep. Max had stopped taking afternoon naps years ago, but the combination of medicine, trauma, and the lull of Mack’s truck engine must have done him in.
She slumped against the seat, fatigue stealing over her, and she felt wearier than she had in a long time. “Can we just sit here for a minute?”
“Sure. I’ll even leave the engine running so the kids don’t wake up.” Mack offered her an encouraging smile as he reached over and took her hand. “He’s okay, Lorn.”
She nodded, tears threatening. She squeezed his hand as she swallowed them back. “I know. And he’s bonked his face and hit his head before, but this is different. It’s not even so much that Max got hurt while he was with Lyle, it’s more about how easily that asshole walked up to the school and just took my son.”
“I still can’t believe they let that happen. Don’t they have some kind of rules about who can pick kids up?”
“They do, but from what Max said, he was already in front of the school when Lyle came up to him and said I’d asked him to pick him up. There are teachers and admins there who have either known Lyle forever or just know he’s Max’s dad from when he was in preschool there last year.” She looked out across the farmyard as she shook her head. “And honestly, because Lyle was gone, I’m not sure if I ever took his name off the list of approved people to pick Max up from school. How could I have been so stupid?”
“Hey. You’re not stupid for thinking you can trust the father of your children not to hurt them.”
“I am if their father is Lyle Williams.” She turned back to Mack but couldn’t meet his eye. She stared into her lap, summoning the courage to tell him the deepest secret and shame of her life.
Glancing in the back seat once more to make sure that Max was still asleep, she took a deep breath then in a soft voice admitted, “He used to hurt me.” She shifted her gaze back to Mack, but he didn’t look horrified or judgmental. Or even surprised. He just looked like Mack—his expression open and ready to listen. “That’s the first time I’ve said it out loud, to anyone. I’m ashamed to admit it, but Lyle used to hit me.”
His expression changed now as his brow furrowed. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. He’s the only one who’s at fault here.”
“That’s kind of you to say. But I’m not sure that’s true. I’m still not sure how it happened. He’d seemed like such a great guy. We hadn’t been dating that long, and we were always careful, but I got pregnant anyway. He seemed so excited and asked me to marry him the night I told him. I thought he really loved me. Although, as I look back now, there were probably signs that I’d missed. A hard pinch to the back of my arm when I’d said something in front of someone that embarrassed him, a playful slap on the thigh that wasn’t always so playful.” She shook her head. “I had no idea when I met him that he had such a capacity for anger. And not just anger, but meanness. I think someone probably hurt him when he was young.”
She held up her free hand to stop him when Mack started to say something.
“I’m not excusing his behavior. But maybe that’s why I did back then. I felt sorry for him. And it started slowly. The first time was a slap. And then he felt so bad and apologized so profusely. He brought me flowers and gifts and seemed like that sweet guy who I’d originally fallen for. I believed him when he said it would never happen again. And it didn’t, not for a long time. And then again, not for a long time again after the next slap. We were broke and had a baby, and I was just trying to survive life, so maybe I didn’t even realize what was going on until it was too late.”
Mack was still holding her hand. His voice was soft as he said, “You can’t blame yourself.”
“It’s hard not to. Especially now when I look back and see how he so methodically manipulated me. He’d always been possessive. But he made it seem like he wanted to be with me instead of that he was discouraging me from spending time with my mom or my sister or the few friends I’d had left from high school. I was kind of an introvert anyway, and in the beginning, he made me feel special the way he love-bombed me and said he wanted me all to himself and how I was the only person he needed. It wasn’t until later that I realized he’d been systematically isolating me from my family and friends for years.”
“That’s what they do,” Mack said. “My mom was with men like that. And they always made her feel like it was her fault for making them smack her. But it wasn’t her fault. And it wasn’t your fault either.”
She shrugged, but kept a tight hold of his hand, as if it were the only thing holding her together.
“I hear women talk about it sometimes, and they always say how they would leave immediately if a man ever laid his hands on them. But it’s not that easy. Not when you have a baby, and no money, no job, no friends, and a strained relationship with your family. And he was so kind and loving to me for months after it happened that it almost seemed worth the pain to have that sweet guy back. But, as you can imagine, things got worse, and the slaps turned into punches and the beatings got worse. I knew I was in trouble, but I didn’t know how to get help.”
“And your mom never knew?” Mack asked.
“Maybe. I think she suspected something wasn’t right. But, like I said, I didn’t see her very often, and I spent so much time at home that it was easy to hide a black eye or a bruised cheek, or a sprained wrist. The only one who ever saw the evidence was Max, and I just prayed he was too young to understand what was going on.”
“Did he hurt Max?”
“No. Not physically. He said mean things, but he never hit him. But I saw it coming. His rage was escalating. He wasn’t doing well at the insurance agency, and he kept borrowing money, not just from the bank here, but from a credit union in Denver, and from people in town who used to be his friends. I don’t know how much he owed, but I found some of the paperwork from the bank, and it was a lot.”
She glanced in the back seat again to make sure Max was still sleeping and waited to speak until she saw the rhythmic rise and fall of his small chest. “And then one night, he came home, drunk and angry at the world, and he took all that mad out on me. He beat the hell out of me. He left me on the floor in the corner of our bedroom, and when he went to the kitchen for another beer, I got Max and locked us in the bathroom all night. In the morning, I heard his car drive away and even though I had one eye so swollen shut I could barely see, I got myself to the emergency room. He’d broken my arm, and I needed stitches for a cut on my forehead. They asked if someone had hurt me, if I felt safe at home—what a joke—and if I wanted them to call the police. But I knew Lyle was going to be pissed off enough that I’d even gone to the hospital, so I lied and said that I’d fallen down the stairs.”
Mack winced and squeezed her hand even harder. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
“Me, too. And I’m sorry I didn’t ask for help sooner. I’d like to think I would have, especially after that last time, but then something changed. Lyle started spending more time at the office, and then he had all these meetings he had to attend at night after work, and then a couple of out-of-town trips for some insurance conferences. I think I knew what was happening,but I didn’t care. He was in a better mood, and I was just happy he was gone all the time and was leaving me alone. Everyone in town felt so sorry for me when he left town and divorced me for Misty, but they should’ve been feeling sorry for her.”
“Do you think he tried something with Misty, and she kicked him out?”
“Maybe. Honestly, I’m a little worried about her. She’s younger than me, but she grew up with three older brothers so maybe she’s stronger or better at fighting back and could hold her own against Lyle. I was weak and never knew quite how to stick up for myself.”
“You’re not weak. You’re one of the strongest women I know. Look at all you’ve done in the past year and a half that he’s been gone.”
“Thank you. I feel stronger. Now. And like a veil has lifted, and I can finally see what was happening. I have Leni and my mom back in my life, and friends for the first time in a long time. It’s a hard thing to talk about and for people to understand. I hear so many women say they would never let this happen to them or that they would fight back. But the women who say that aren’t usually the ones who have taken a punch to the face. The pain and the shock—it stuns you, and even if you swear that the next time you’re going to fight back, you can still end up cowering in the corner praying he doesn’t hit you again or he’s through with you for the night.”
Mack still held her hand, and he pulled her from her seat and into his lap. Her shoulders were against the window and his arm was wrapped around her waist as he cradled her against him. “First of all, I want you to know that I’m proud of you.”
She scoffed, but he shook his head.
“Don’t do that. Don’t downplay what you’ve survived and what you’ve made of your life and your children’s lives. They are happy and healthy, and you’re an amazing mom who puts her family first but also runs a successful business. Which you set up and started all on your own . That’s impressive and something to be proud of.”
She nodded, the emotion burning her throat again.
“And secondly, I want you to know that he will never touch you again. Above all else that’s going on with us, I am your friend, and I will be here for you, no matter what. You have a family now, not just me, but the whole damn Lassiter clan, and we will never let anyone take you away or isolate you from us.”
Her eyes brimmed with tears as she nodded again, unable to speak.
He held her gaze, his eyes suddenly steely and hard. “And if he ever hurts you or the kids again, I will kill him.”