Chapter 19
Nineteen
Lydia could barely see through her tears as she herded Eli and Rosie out of the barn.
The world was blurred at the edges, swimming in and out of focus like she was underwater.
Her hands shook as she guided them toward the door, one palm on each small shoulder, feeling their bodies trembling under her touch.
The morning air was brisk when she stepped out. Cold and clean and so sharp it made her lungs ache. After the stale, fear-soaked atmosphere inside the barn, all whiskey stench and gun oil and terror, the fresh November air felt almost painful in its purity.
She made it maybe ten feet from the barn door before her legs gave out.
Lydia dropped to her knees on the frost-hard ground, pulling both children into her arms with a fierceness that probably hurt them, but she couldn’t help it.
Couldn’t loosen her grip. Couldn’t stop holding them close enough to feel their heartbeats against her chest, proof that they were alive, that they’d survived, that Tom hadn’t?—
They were shaking. All three of them were shaking as the sirens announced the arrival of the sheriff’s department, and Sheriff Wyatt came running up for a report. Lydia pointed to the barn, declaring that Ethan had Tom under control, then feet pounded past her toward the barn.
Eli’s teeth chattered against her collarbone. Rosie’s small body quaked like a leaf in a storm. And Lydia realized she was sobbing. Great, gulping sobs that shook her whole frame, tears soaking into Rosie’s hair and Eli’s jacket.
She should be strong for them. Should be calm and reassuring and maternal. Should tell them everything was going to be okay.
But she couldn’t stop crying. Couldn’t stop shaking. Couldn’t stop seeing Tom’s finger on that trigger, couldn’t stop hearing the rifle’s bark, couldn’t stop watching Michael fall with blood blooming across his chest.
“Mommy?” Rosie’s voice was muffled against Lydia’s shoulder. “Mommy, you’re squishing me.”
Lydia forced herself to loosen her grip, to pull back enough to look at her children’s faces.
Eli’s eyes were red but dry. Rosie’s cheeks were tear-stained, but she wasn’t crying anymore.
They were looking at her with concern … concern for her …
and that somehow made everything worse and better at the same time.
“I’m sorry,” Lydia managed through her tears. “I’m so sorry. I should have protected you better. Should have kept you away from him. Should have?—”
“You did protect us,” Eli interrupted, his voice firm despite the way his hands were fisted in her jacket. “You stood in front of us. You got the gun away from Dad.”
Dad. He still called Tom “Dad” even after everything. The casual use of the word made Lydia’s heart twist.
“Is Daddy going to jail?” Rosie asked, her voice very small. She was looking past Lydia toward the barn, where they could hear voices. Ethan’s steady baritone, the sheriff’s gruff questioning, and … Tom’s sobbing.
Lydia didn’t want to lie. Had promised herself she wouldn’t lie to her children anymore, wouldn’t sugarcoat or make excuses or pretend things were better than they were. They’d earned the truth. Had survived enough to deserve honesty.
“Yes, sweetheart,” she said, smoothing Rosie’s tangled hair back from her face. “I think so.”
She waited for the tears. Waited for the protest, the denial, the “but he’s my daddy.” Waited for her six-year-old to break down at the realization that her father was going to prison.
But instead, Eli pulled back and looked at her with eyes that were far too old for nine. Eyes that had seen too many things, understood too much, been forced to grow up too fast.
“Good,” he said firmly.
“Eli—” Lydia started, not sure whether to correct him or comfort him.
“He’s bad, Mom.” Eli’s jaw set in that stubborn way that reminded her painfully of Tom. The old Tom, the sober Tom who’d been determined and strong and good. “He tried to hurt us. He tried to kill Ethan. Bad people go to jail.”
Rosie nodded, her little face set in an expression that was far too serious for a child who should be thinking about dolls and cartoons and what flavor milkshake she wanted. “He needs to go to jail so he can’t hurt anyone.”
The casual way they said it shattered Lydia’s heart even as she was proud of their strength.
They shouldn’t have to be this strong. Shouldn’t have to understand at six and nine years old that their father was dangerous, that love wasn’t enough to fix someone, that sometimes family was the thing you needed protection from.
But they did understand. And they were right.
And maybe that understanding would save them from making her mistakes. From staying too long, trying too hard, believing that love and patience and one more chance would somehow fix what was fundamentally ruined.
“You’re right,” Lydia said quietly, pulling them close again but gentler this time. “You’re both absolutely right. And I’m so proud of you for being brave.”
“I wasn’t brave,” Rosie whispered. “I was scared.”
“Being brave doesn’t mean you’re not scared, baby.
It means you’re scared and you do what you need to do anyway.
” Lydia kissed the top of Rosie’s head, breathing in the smell of her daughter’s shampoo, strawberry, because Rosie had insisted on the pink bottle at the store. “You were both so brave today.”
A sound made her look up. Caleb was staggering toward them across the frost-covered grass, his gait unsteady, one hand pressed to the left side of his head. Blood seeped through his fingers, dark and wet, dripping down his wrist and staining his jacket sleeve.
“Everyone okay?” His voice was slurred slightly, words not quite forming right. Possible concussion. Definitely concussion, given the amount of blood and the way he was swaying on his feet.
“You’re not,” Lydia said sharply, already moving. She set the kids gently aside and surged to her feet, almost grateful that she had something useful to do, and caught Caleb’s elbow as he wobbled. “Sit down before you fall down.”
“‘Mm fine,” he protested, but he let her guide him to the ground anyway. Let her ease him into a sitting position with his back against the barn wall. “‘S just a little bump.”
“That’s not a little bump. That’s a head wound that needs stitches.
” Lydia’s fingers were already working at her scarf, the soft blue one Ethan had given her their first night at his house, saying she needed something warm for the November cold.
She pulled it free and folded it into a makeshift compress. “This is going to hurt.”
“Everything already hurts,” Caleb muttered, but he didn’t flinch when she pressed the fabric against his scalp. Just closed his eyes and breathed slowly through his nose.
The scarf darkened immediately, soaking through with blood faster than Lydia would have liked.
She pressed harder, trying to remember first aid from the brief course she’d taken when Eli was a baby.
Head wounds bled a lot. That was normal.
Didn’t necessarily mean it was serious. But she thought Caleb’s pupils had been slightly different sizes when she’d looked, and that was bad.
That meant brain injury, meant swelling, meant?—
“Kids shouldn’t see this,” Caleb said, his eyes still closed. But he was right. Eli and Rosie were staring at the blood with wide, frightened eyes.
“Babies, can you go stand by that tree over there?” Lydia pointed to an oak about twenty yards away. “Stay where I can see you, but give Mr. Caleb some privacy, okay?”
They went reluctantly, hand in hand, casting worried glances back over their shoulders.
“Good kids,” Caleb said quietly.
“The best,” Lydia agreed. Her voice cracked on the words.
“Hey.” Caleb opened his eyes, his words more articulate now. “You did good in there. Were brave.”
“I was terrified.”
“Yeah. But you did … it … something anyway.” He winced, closing his eyes again. “That’s the definition of courage, you know. Being scared shitless and doing what needs doing anyhow.”
Lydia blinked back fresh tears. She seemed to have an endless supply today, an ocean of them just waiting to overflow at any moment. “You’re the one who got hurt protecting us.”
“Wasn’t much protection. Got clocked with a crowbar inside of thirty seconds.” Caleb’s mouth twisted in something that might be humor or might be pain. “Some hero.”
“You’re still here. You’re still trying to help. That counts.”
The sound of sirens cut through the morning air, distant but growing closer. Multiple vehicles by the sound of it, that wavering, overlapping wail that meant sheriff’s deputies and ambulances and probably half the emergency services in the county descending on this isolated farmhouse.
“About damn time,” Caleb muttered.
The next hour was chaos.
Sheriff’s vehicles first. Three patrol cars that came screaming up the gravel road with lights flashing, spraying rocks and frost in their wake.
Deputies poured out like they were expecting a war zone, hands on their weapons, shouting orders to each other that Lydia couldn’t quite make out through the ringing in her ears.
Sheriff Wyatt was among them. A tall, barrel-chested man in his fifties with a gray mustache and eyes that had seen too much. He took in the scene with a single sweeping glance … Lydia kneeling beside Caleb, blood on her hands and scarf. The kids huddled by the tree. The barn door standing open.
“Mrs. Harper,” he said, moving toward her with surprising speed for a man his size. “Where’s the suspect?”
“In the barn,” Lydia said. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears. Flat, emotionless, like she was reading a script. “Ethan has him. He’s … Tom’s not armed anymore. I took the gun.”
Wyatt’s eyebrows rose. “You disarmed him?”
“He was—” Lydia’s voice caught. “Someone got shot. Tom was distracted. I just grabbed it.”
“Who got shot?” Wyatt’s hand went to his radio, already calling for additional medical support.