22. Harlan
Chapter 22
Harlan
A fucking cop. Her piece of shit ex is a fucking cop. Her abuser is a fucking police officer. Someone sworn to protect and serve, and he failed at it completely with a person that’s supposed to mean the most to him.
Rage — pure unfiltered rage — threatens to take me out at the knees. The need to find this motherfucker and end his entire existence is the only thought circulating through my brain as I take in Maisie’s red, tear-drenched eyes — the hollow look of sadness sucking the life out of her gaze.
I focus on my own breathing, pulling in air and letting it out slowly while keeping my hold on Audra gentle.
He’s not here, there’s no handy outlet for my anger, and I won’t send Maisie running because I can’t keep a hold of my own feelings.
The fear in her eyes when she woke up in the hospital. Her reticence in talking to me once she found out my job, the way she flinches if anyone so much as moves fast around her, every ounce of her isolation makes sense now. She couldn’t ask for help, because he was supposed to be the help and took that and turned it into something nightmarish.
“Say something,” Maisie says, her gaze full of sorrow.
“Sunshine, you’re so goddamn brave.” My own voice wobbles and my eyes burn.
Skepticism creeps into the corner of her eyes. “I’m really not.”
“You are.” My tone is steel — nonnegotiable. She can think whatever she wants about herself, but she’ll never convince me otherwise.
“Harlan. I ran. I should have done so many things differently. But I ran.”
“Because you were scared — for you and for Audra. There’s no shame in retreating when you have something precious to protect.”
Audra wiggles in my arms. As if reminding us that she’s there. I set her back into her high chair and fasten the shoulder straps over her tiny frame before skirting into the living room and picking up a cloth crinkly storybook I picked up for her at the store. I drop it on the table and sit back down in my own chair.
Maisie eyes the toy but doesn’t say anything about it when she says, “Maybe there’s no shame in it, but it hasn’t been exactly easy to live under the radar and be terrified that every shadow around the corner is going to be — him. To be afraid that the next time I stop with Audra he’s going to be there waiting.”
“Do you think he’s looking for you?” I ask carefully. My instincts screaming at me to protect her, to get ahead of whatever nightmare might be coming her way.
“I don’t know. But he swore if I ever left, he’d drag me back…”
I hate that we’re having this conversation at my dinner table, where I can’t hold her, or comfort her while she’s reliving a nightmare.
But where else would make this easier for her?
I don’t have the answer to that. Because there’s nothing comfortable about this conversation, there’s nothing that I can do to erase the past hurts she suffered.
“Did anyone ever suspect what was going on?” I ask, reaching for her hand, trying to be as gentle as possible with her, but I need the whole picture before coming up with a plan to keep her and Audra safe. I marvel at the way she threads her fingers through mine. How she gives me this little piece of trust and lets me comfort her.
She shakes her head. “He made sure that I … kept quiet about it. The few times I had to go to the hospital, he was right there with me and made it abundantly clear that he had more than enough friends at work to cover for him if I ever tried anything.”
That fucking fucker.
“I hate that I have to ask this, Sunshine, but did you keep any proof? Anything that shows he was abusive.”
It’s a question I’ve asked before. It’s a question I hate having to ask. But this is different. This isn’t me taking a statement or trying to piece together what happened.
This is Maisie. This is my Sunshine. It’s never easy to ask the hard questions. When it’s someone I care about? It’s a million times harder.
In a perfect world, she wouldn’t need proof. In a perfect world, she would never have been hurt, or if she was, justice would have been swift. But we don’t live in a perfect world and having to ask this woman for proof of abuse makes me want to vomit the little bit of my dinner swirling around my gut.
Maisie snorts, taking me by surprise. “I have an entire folder in a secret email account full of pictures, and I wrote down every date he hit me or hurt me to correspond with the pictures. He used to go through my phone, but I’d wait until he was at work to document it and then I’d delete everything off my phone before he could find it.”
Genius fucking woman. Relief loosens my shoulders. “That’s good. That’s great.”
Every part of me screams not to ask the next question, but I still do.
“What do you want to do?” I keep my tone steady even when it threatens to close at the options I’m going to bring up.
Puzzlement covers her face. “What do you mean?”
“Sunshine, this is your war. I’ll be your army, but you call the shots. Do you want me to find him and eviscerate him before having him arrested and put in prison for the rest of his natural life? This is your life, your decision. If you want to keep going as you were, we can have you back on the road in the morning. If you want to stay with me — be with me, we’ll make that happen. But what do you want?”
If she says she wants to leave, to keep running, to stay safe the only way she’s known how, I’ll pack her and Audra up myself.
But god. I don’t want that. I want her and Audra here, with me, where I can keep them safe. Where I can stand between them and the asshole who wants to hurt her. On the road, she’s on her own — here… she has me, and I’ll fight to keep her safe until my dying breath.
I continue, “Or we can start taking the steps to remove him from your life permanently.”
A glimmer of hope shimmers in her gaze. “How?”
I latch onto that hope like a dog with a bone.
“I do some discreet digging. Figure out what he’s doing and where he is. We gather knowledge. And then we file a report on the abuse, on the sexual assault.” My throat tightens at the word. “We’d get an order of protection against him — a restraining order. If he violated it, he’d be tossed into jail, no questions asked. And then we nail the bastard.” My voice is demonic, the frustration and rage deepening and distorting it.
I’ve been either training to be or working as an officer of the law my entire adult life. The fact that someone would take the privilege of this job, the duty of it — it’s backbone — and use it as a means to do harm to another person is abhorrent to me.
“Can I think about it? I just … I don’t want anyone to know. I want to stay, I don’t want to run anymore, but I don’t want anyone to know.” She picks at the seam of her shorts as she whispers the words. “About what happened. Everyone here is already so nice to me, and I don’t want the pity that would come from anyone finding out.”
“Baby.” My heart breaks for her. “Fuck what people think, but you’d probably be surprised at other people’s reactions if they heard anything. But yeah, you can think about it before we do anything.”
She nods. “Thank you.”
I stand — needing to move, to shake some of this anger out — and take my mostly uneaten dinner and wrap it up before putting it in the fridge.
Audra’s squirming in her chair and making little noises when I come back to stand next to Maisie and hold out a hand. “Come on, let’s move to the living room.”
I want out of this kitchen, where the trauma and heaviness are sitting in the air.
Maisie stands and picks Audra up from her chair before following me. I pull one of the throw blankets off the back of the couch and spread it on the floor so she can put Audra down before I tug her toward the couch with me.
The next conversation might be as hard as the last, no point in us being uncomfortable for it though.
Sitting down, I pull Maisie with me, setting her on the cushion next to me and pulling her legs over my lap, my hands resting on the top of her thighs.
Mindlessly, I start to draw circles with my thumbs and the goosebumps that crop up fascinate me. That she can have that type of reaction after everything she went through is a miracle. That she’s comfortable enough with me to not pull away when I touch her is a gift I can’t describe.
“About us,” I start.
“Yeah?”
“I want you to stay. I want to try. I want to be here for you — you both, no matter what you decide.”
“Okay.” Her voice is small. Quiet and shy between us.
“Is that what you want?” she said as much earlier, but after what I just learned I need her to be sure.
She nods.
“Give me the words, Sunshine. Am I what you want?”
Her silvery blue gaze locks on to mine. “Yes. You’re what I want.”
I lean forward and tug her closer, lightly pressing my lips to hers in another light kiss. Her lips are so damned soft under mine. Her taste — perfect. Blood zips through my veins at the contact, and I want to deepen the kiss, drag her down with me until she can’t think, can’t breathe without my lips on hers.
It might kill me — to take things slow — but at least I’ll die happy.
“Everything is in your control. How fast or slow we move. If we’re ever together — intimately or otherwise — and you say stop, I stop. You say wait, I wait. If something scares you or you need time, I want to know and we can talk about it. No shutting me out.”
She nods. Relief loosening the pinch between her eyebrows before she tosses a saucy smirk my way. “And if I said I want more?” Her gaze drops to my mouth.
I nod to Audra who’s busy examining her toes. “That’d be a little hard right now, Sunshine.”
Maisie laughs. The sound light and carefree in the cozy evening on my couch.
“Yeah. You laugh. You’re not the one with a raging cockstand over there.”
Maisie’s eyes widen. “Cockstand?” Her gaze drops to my lap, which is thankfully hidden by her legs.
“Sunshine…” I wait until her eyes find mine. “My eyes are up here,” I say again and revel in the laughter it unleashes from her.
“Harlan. Thank you.”
“Mais—.”
“No. Let me get this out. Thank you for believing me. For listening and letting me call the shots, not just with us, but with everything else.” Her hand reaches for mine and we intertwine our fingers, her impossibly small hand fitting into my larger one perfectly. “Thank you for giving us a safe place to land when our world went a little topsy-turvy. Thank you for … everything. I won’t lie and say I’m not scared, scared of this — of us — of everything else. But you make me feel safe, and I’m hanging on to that.”
She can hang on to me as long as she likes. Hell, if she’d let me, she could slap my ass into chain mail and dub me her knight in shining armor, and I wouldn’t have it any other way .
I’d stand between the world, protecting her and her daughter if given half the chance.
The sound of Maisie’s groan wakes me the next morning. The warm soft weight of her on my chest and the floral scent of her hair in my nose the best alarm.
After putting Audra down to sleep in her Pack ’n Play, Maisie and I watched movies until she fell asleep on my shoulder — the two of us cuddled close on the couch. I didn’t have the heart to wake her — to send her back up to the apartment knowing that she was probably tired from crying and the heavy conversation from the night before.
I must have fallen asleep shortly after her, because I haven’t slept on a couch since I was in college and my lower back is none too happy with the cramped conditions, but I push the discomfort away and focus on the woman in my arms.
Under my fingers, her skin is so damned soft. Some of her hair has escaped her bun and trails over my chest. I ignore the urge I have to pick it up and bring it to my nose to inhale the scent.
She’s so fucking brave. Now that I know all of what she was up against, I’m in awe of the woman drooling on my shoulder while snoring softly in her sleep.
Being trapped and alone living with a monster, and then finding out about Audra and getting the fuck out of there, took guts. I wish she had someone to help her — to believe her sooner, but I can’t be mad that she ended up in my state, in my town. Not if it brought her to me.
Something settles in my chest. Something that it’s too soon to give name to. Something Maisie’s not ready for .
I crack open my eyes and untangle my arm from under Maisie to glance down at my watch noting the still early time. Maisie readjusts and falls quietly back into sleep.
Wanting nothing more than to scoop Maisie up into my arms and settle us into my bed for the rest of the morning, I can’t. I have to get to the station.
I slowly trace my hand up and down Maisie’s back until she starts to stir. Bleary silver-blue eyes crack open and find mine.
“Good morning, Sunshine. Sleep good?” I whisper between us before dropping a kiss to her forehead.
She snorts and rolls her face against my shoulder like a cat looking for affection, and I press a kiss to her hair.
“Ugh. What time is it?”
“A little after six.”
Maisie’s head pops up, and she turns to the Pack ’n Play that’s set up next to the couch. “Holy shit. Audra slept through the night.”
“I know. I was here.” I chuckle quietly.
“Harlan Calhoun, don’t you laugh at me. I haven’t gotten a full night’s sleep in over a year.” She drills her finger into my side, and I yelp at the tickle before grabbing her hand to stop any future attempts.
Her head drops to my chest, and she wiggles before stilling.
As nice as this is… “Maisie, I have to go to work.”
“Boo,” she whispers into the fabric of my shirt. “That’s okay. I have to work too. And I was hoping to get into town for a haircut today. Andy offered for me to come in yesterday.”
I press another kiss to her hair and quietly soak in the early morning cuddles with her .
“Dinner’s at my dad’s house tonight. You still feel up to that?” I ask.
She nods against me before yawning so hard her jaw cracks. I wince.
The fabric rustling next to us has us twisting out heads. Audra lets out an adorable as fuck coo right before a foghorn sounds from her diaper-covered bottom.
Something that smells eerily like burning rubber wafts toward us.
Maisie’s head pops up, her features twisted in disgust before she covers her nose with her hand. “Oh my god. Audra. What is that? What did I feed you?”
The horror in her tone has me roaring with laughter before I can stop myself. Audra’s head pops up and turns to us before she gives us a gummy smile.
“Crop dusted by my own daughter. The audacity.” Maisie’s teasing tone takes me out, my laughter shaking the beautiful woman giggling on my chest.
Farting babies and all, I want every morning to be like this.