Chapter Three Loretta and Jasper
His voice led me here. This is a sign on top of a sign. I have the seat reclined and the sunshield, which hasn’t seen any sun since August, unfolded against my windshield to give me some privacy as I nurse Arianna. She’s out of her routine and drinks like she’s starving.
It’s nine. Matt’s hopefully heading towards my parents’ place.
The opposite direction from here. I have to call my mom and dad—but if I turn on the phone, then Matt can trace it.
We have Family Location on, so we can always find each other.
It was my idea. I’d seen too many stories about women and their infants getting hijacked or forced into vans in the store parking lot while trying to put their carts away.
Matt’s name is on the account. If I turn the app off, he can put it back on. If I turn the phone on, he’ll find me. I need to call my parents...
The thought runs on a loop as Ari drains my left side, and I switch her to the right. “Ow,” I mumble as her little teeth scrape me.
Can I call the police? I have no evidence or proof. My word against his. He’ll say I’m clumsy. That I bump into things while cleaning. That I’m overreacting.
More horror stories fill my head, of all the women who needed someone to believe them and who instead had to fight for protection from the men who were supposed to cherish and honor them.
Jasper Wainwright walks past again, and my heart thuds extra loud. He’s big and tall, ruggedly handsome, with a wide, gentle smile. He protected me from those gawking guys and their lewd comments.
It was his voice I heard speaking about Pine Ridge. Then he’s next to my car? Like... That’s not a coincidence. That’s someone pulling strings, someone like a guardian angel who finally stopped napping.
Maybe.
I bite my lip as Arianna gurgles and slurps. “I need another sign... I need...” I pray in silence, trailing off because I don’t know what I need. I need to be safe. I need help. I need—
Rrpprprprprp. Blort!
“No! Ohhh.” I wince as the wettest sound and foulest smell attack my senses. “Ari, no...”
She sighs and keeps drinking.
“You’re going to have to take a break, Tiny Toxic Terror. I think you just killed your bunny suit.”
“UM. CAN I TAKE THAT to the trash for you?”
Jasper Wainwright, immaculate in a crisp black suit and perfect white shirt, holds out his big, manly hand to take my daughter’s explosively gross diaper.
“You don’t have to. But thank you.” I don’t know where a trash can is, I don’t want to walk the dark streets of a strange town alone, holding my baby in one arm and a wad of wipes and disaster in the other, and I don’t want to leave it in the car—not when I might be living in there for a few days.
My eyes well up with tears, and I give him the small biodegradable bag with the mess in it.
He nods gravely, as if I just handed him some award, not a poopy diaper. “There’s a trash can at the entrance to the Night Market. There are a couple of vendors still open—fudge and popcorn, but they’re closing soon, if you need a snack.”
“I think I’m okay,” I say, staying near my car like it’s my only friend, my only place of refuge.
“You... You have a little spot on you, Miss Riding Hood.”
I gasp and look down. “Oh, no.”
“If you need a place to change, I think the Jade Forest is still open for another half hour. We like to close things early and get home on Halloween.” Mr. Wainwright looks around when he speaks.
“There’s a big party up at White Pines, and there are probably some festivities in the campus dorms, but we’re homebodies tonight. Most of us.”
I nod, but his words don’t really register. I realize I have nothing else to wear. All my clothes. My shoes. My jewelry. It’s back at home.
I’m not technically homeless. I can go back. I can tell Matt it’s not working out. I can ask for a divorce.
But my insides shrivel. I picture his anger at the news, and I genuinely fear for my safety. If he punched me, I’d probably be okay. If he punched me while I was holding Arianna, and I dropped her...
With a sudden hiccup, a sob bursts out of me. I clutch Arianna, and then to my shock, I’m surrounded by thick arms, by shoulders that instantly pillow my head.
“Miss Hood—”
“Mrs. Loretta Lane. I need a phone. Can I use your phone?”
He hands it to me without a second thought.
I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO do. I threw out the trash and got a bottle of hand sanitizer and one of the shirts from my gym bag in my car. If she can’t get the stain out of the costume, she could wear my shirt. Honestly, it would be a mini-dress on her, but that’s no different from the costume she’s in.
I stay nearby, naturally. I mean, a stranger has my phone, so it’s a given. But I also have to stay near her because my wolf is wide awake and pacing inside, saying that those two are my pack. That I’m a lone wolf who finally found what I need, a mate and pup, and that they need me, too.
“Mom. Dad. I— No! No, did you tell him where I... No, thank God, you don’t know.
I’m in a little town not too far from Binghamton.
Please, please, please don’t tell him. I’m not joking.
No, this isn’t some Halloween prank! Mom, his temper has gotten really bad.
He started drinking more. Daddy... I’m afraid he’ll hurt Ari and me. ”
Loretta is whispering tearfully, but I can hear every syllable, and my wolf is clawing inside, as alert as if the full moon were rising. He whimpers inside to get out, and my senses sharpen.
This sweet girl and her child are someone’s prey.
And I suddenly want to rip out his throat, an urge I’ve never, ever experienced. Pine Ridge isn’t the place for wolves who can’t control their bloodlust, for those who could hurt innocents.
But he put the pup at risk, my wolf snarls inside. There is no innocence left once you hurt your mate, your sacred love, the little life you promise to protect once you bring it into this world...
I shake myself out of it when Loretta’s strained voice pierces my thoughts.
“No, I can’t come there. I mean, I will, of course, but not yet.
Because he knows I’ll go to you! And if I go to you, he’ll be waiting.
I... It hasn’t been all bad. Some of it was good.
So good, at first, when we were happy, and I’m afraid I’ll go back.
I’ve been putting up with so much, too tired to change things.
Not even realizing I needed to change things.
Yes, I know you were only over last month.
Mom? Remember when you asked if I was anemic because I had bruises on one arm?
Matt told you I just bruise easily. Blamed it on me being sleep-deprived and bumping into things?
He was the one bumping into me, with his hands, grabbing me and shaking me whenever he wanted to shout in my face, or shoving me away from him.
He never hit my face. He still hurt me.” Her voice is so small and bereft.
The sound of broken trust, shattered dreams, and love that didn’t fade or die of natural causes, it was poisoned by violence.
There’s a long silence. No one is speaking, no one on either end of the call.
In a whisper, Loretta asks, “Should I go back? He’s struggling. Maybe if I stood by him and we figured out how to get him some help, we—”
“No!” I blurt out the word.
Loretta turns, baby on her shoulder, greenish-blue eyes wide under dark, perfectly smooth brows.
“No. I know it’s none of my business, but please, no. As a reporter, I have read news stories that have sickened me to my core, and heard interviews that would break your heart. Please don’t become one of those statistics, Mrs. Lane.”
“I don’t know who that is, but he’s smart. Loretta, you need someone to bring you home. Someone to protect you on the way. I’ll meet you wherever you are, and you’ll stay with us while you get a lawyer and a divorce.”
“And a restraining order,” I mutter. If this guy is putting his hands on Loretta now, what’s to stop him from putting his hands on the baby when she disobeys, or even just irritates him? If they end up splitting custody, what’s to stop him from hurting Loretta when she comes to pick up the baby?
“You can’t. Daddy, he’ll follow you. And you can’t use my phone number. I have to keep it off because Matt can track it. I’ll... I’ll get a new phone.”
“We’ll send you money!” her mother cries.
“You can’t. All our accounts are joint. Matt will see it. Matt will freeze them. I...Oh, God. I don’t know what to do.”
“I can put you up as my guest tonight, Mrs. Lane. I can call a friend who has twin toddlers. They’ll have something you can borrow, like one of those portable playpen cribs.”
“I have one in the trunk,” Loretta says.
You hear that? She says she has a crib. She doesn’t say, “No, I’m not staying with you, you stranger creep!”
“Tomorrow, I can drive behind you until you get to a meeting place with your parents if that’s what you decide to do.
And you can use my phone for tonight. Tomorrow morning, I can take you to the mall nearby and get you set up with a new phone in your name, or in mine, if you can’t access your accounts. ”
Her mouth drops. Her eyes are wide.
She looks like an angel.
Okay, she looks like an angel sent to tempt weak men, a cross between the Madonna and a pin-up girl, with a baby on her hip.
I’m so fucking screwed, so lost to her, and she’ll never be mine. Even if she wanted to be, she’ll be gone tomorrow, and she’ll probably need a few years before she’ll want to date anyone, and...
I wonder if it’s too soon to tell her I’ll wait for her?
“Why would you help me like that?” Loretta demands.
“Because I’m not a monster.” Ha. Lies. “I mean, I’m a decent human being, and I have a house with enough room to offer shelter and enough money to help someone in need. If it’s a pride thing, you can always pay me back. You know where to find me. You could even send it care of WPNR.”
“Honey, if you won’t let us help you, let this young man take you to a hotel, and we’ll send him money to get you a room.”
“That’s unnecessary. My treat,” I say quickly.
Do I sound like I’m trying too hard to help?
Well. I am.
My wolf doesn’t have any throats to tear out, so it’s sitting up straight and begging for head pats, desperate to be called “Good boy” by this angel in red and ruffles.
Loretta gives me the phone. I put it on speaker and talk to her concerned parents for several minutes.
I wait on the line while they call Pine Ridge PD and speak to the desk sergeant on duty.
I hear the mother in the background exclaiming excitedly that I’m a weatherman and I look like Christopher Reeve—but that I really ought to get a haircut.
It’s nice to see Loretta smile. We both smile, and she rolls her eyes at her mother’s comments. “Sorry,” she mouths.
“I get my hair cut twice a month, ma’am, it just grows so fast.”
“All men should be so lucky,” she says.
“Daddy is going bald.”
“They sound like great parents. Do you want me to drive you there tonight?”
“No! No, please, Matt’s already called them. He knows all my family lives in Rochester, except for my sister in Germany and my brother in San Diego. He’ll be going to Rochester for sure. He’ll call the police, report me missing...”
“I can ask the desk sergeant if there are any reports coming in looking for you, but as you’re an adult, and it’s only been—”
“About five hours?”
“Yeah, they won’t move on it just yet, even though, in my opinion, they should start looking much sooner. I guess it’s a manpower thing.”
“He doesn’t know why you left? That you left, left? You didn’t tell him you had enough and you were going?” Loretta’s dad demands.
“No.” Her voice shrinks.
“We raised you to speak up for yourself!”
“Rob. Shh.”
“I’m sorry, honey. I’m going to wring that boy’s neck. He promised he’d take care of my little girl!”
I’ll help you, I think, but keep my mouth shut.
“Mom, Daddy, Arianna’s going to get a cold if I don’t get her inside soon.
She just got over her ear infection, and she’s still having tummy troubles from the antibiotic.
I need to eat something so I have enough to nurse her again.
Her schedule is all thrown off. I... Matt kicked the crib.
Or punched it. She woke up screaming, and I could hear she was afraid.
.. It broke my heart. I knew. I knew right then that I couldn’t stay anymore.
Even though he’s never really hurt me—much, it was obvious in that second that he doesn’t think when he’s mad.
What if he shoves me when I’m holding the baby? What if—”
My brain tunes out the rest of the conversation. My eyes have narrowed, and I’m seeing some man, a fuzzy image, kicking the crib of a sleeping child, and all I can envision is a rat being crushed under my claws.
What a cowardly, immature, unregulated...
“I’ll walk up and down the block while you finish up. We should get you somewhere warm.”
“I’M AFRAID TO BE ALONE. Do you think it’s weird if I stay as Mr. Wainwright’s guest?
He seems—” I gather a breath and my thoughts, wishing I could stop shaking.
“He seems like the sort of person who would rush to help you. He did help me already, and I think that if Matt somehow found me, Jasper wouldn’t let him lay a hand on us.
God, am I in a nightmare? This wasn’t supposed to happen to me. Matt was... Matt wasn’t like this.”
“Matt wasn’t like this,” My mother agrees, voice somber.
“But Matt has always wanted what he wanted, when he wanted it. He was spoiled. Immature. When he didn’t get his way, he would pout and lash out with words.
I remember thinking that when we had to move the wedding venue from the Fountain Room to the Vineyard Room, and he was screaming at the manager. He wanted what he wanted.”
I nod. I remember that. I remember a hundred little signs now.
The way he scowled when the waiter smiled at me during one of our first dates.
The way he grabbed my hand and hauled me to the corner of the dance floor at my brother’s wedding because the best man mentioned me in his toast. “Is it my fault?” I ask, because I need someone to tell me no, it isn’t.
“No.” My parents and Jasper speak in chorus.
“A person who loves you might argue with you, even get upset with you, but there should always be respect. Care that is unshakeable. Pushing you around and endangering your baby is not caring or respectful. Sorry. I have really good hearing. Runs in the family.” Jasper bows out and goes back to pacing the sidewalks.
“That man has his head on straight. His wife is lucky.”
She is. “I can’t wait to meet her and thank her.”