CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Grace straightened to stretch her back. A little girl’s squeal drew her gaze to the old tire swing. The twins were pushing Riley. Her daughter leaned back, her hair streaming in the wind. The kids had run outside to enjoy the short break between rain showers. Their cheeks were ruddy with cold. Riley wiped her nose on her sleeve. Grace’s heartbeat stuttered, then she remembered she wasn’t with Howard anymore. She didn’t have to worry about him getting angry if Riley did any of the normal—sometimes gross—things all kids did.
A mother with nine children didn’t have time to micromanage anyone. This was not a fussy house. Kids were allowed to get dirty. As much as Grace didn’t love being back in her parents’ home, there were benefits.
Grace bent and scraped the hoe through the muddy earth. She’d volunteered to prep the vegetable garden. Her mother wanted to plant the peas and broccoli this week. Weeding the garden had been a dreaded chore for all the Abbott children, but today, Grace turned her face to the damp wind, leaned on her hoe, and enjoyed being outside. The air tasted free.
The house was always crowded. But Grace’s mom had surprised her by giving her and Riley the den. Grace had thought they would insist Riley bunk with the other kids, and that Grace would be sleeping on a couch. The privacy was unexpected and appreciated.
Grace turned more soil. She was trying hard to show her gratitude. She would get through this if she helped with chores and avoided her father as much as possible. Her entire plan rested on her making herself useful, so she and Riley weren’t a burden on her parents. They still had eight children at home. Grace’s oldest brother was a senior in high school, and the youngest—the twins currently playing with Riley—were only six years old.
A weird feeling stirred inside her, a tingling in her bones, like someone was watching her. Grace stopped working and turned in a circle, scanning the yard and empty lot. Other than the three children, no one was in sight. She faced the house but saw no one in the windows.
A flash of movement drew her to the street behind the house. She caught the tail end of a gray BMW disappearing. She froze, her fingers tightening around the handle of the hoe.
Howard drove a gray BMW.
The judge had told him to stay away from her, but Howard wasn’t the kind to obey orders. He thought he was entitled to do whatever he liked. Was he scoping the place out? Learning when Grace’s father was at work?
“Girls?” Grace strode toward the children. She carried the hoe across her body, gripping it tightly with both hands, as if it were a weapon, which it could be. Grace was done being a victim. “Wanna bake some cookies?”
The girls stampeded to the back door. “Yay!”
Once inside, Grace locked the back door.
Her mother was folding a mountain of laundry piled on the table. She frowned and lifted a questioning eyebrow.
Grace just smiled and began gathering ingredients. She’d keep Riley inside during the day. Once her father came home, she would relax. Howard would not mess with him.
Like every coward, Howard only bullied the smaller and weaker.
Riley knelt on a bench and rested her elbows on the table. Grace inhaled to the count of four and exhaled even more slowly. Her hope for a better future felt as brittle as her forced smile.
It could have been someone else driving on the next block in a gray BMW. She hadn’t even seen Howard. But she knew—just knew—that it had been him.
He’d be angry—so angry. She shuddered. Didn’t matter that Grace wasn’t the one who’d filed a complaint against him. Didn’t matter that Grace hadn’t been the one who’d called the sheriff. In Howard’s mind, his arrest was all her fault.