Chapter 40
SAFE AND SECURE
“Why is everyone here?” she asked. “What bad news am I going to get now?”
The next day, Meredith was in Clay’s living room sipping coffee and being surrounded by his parents and all his siblings.
She had to spend Monday in the hospital. Blaze had checked her over but wanted her kept for observation. She’d said she was fine, but she still felt off from the drugs. Considering she barely remembered seeing her parents there meant she needed that night to be watched over.
They’d discovered that her toast had more drugs mixed in the peanut butter, but Karl must have made sure he didn’t touch that part when he pulled it off to test it.
Thankfully, she had done little more than drink the coffee.
If she had eaten anything else, she wouldn’t have been able to escape with Clay.
She knew he’d come for her. She believed in him. Believed in them.
He needed time and she’d give it to him.
“We all want to make sure you’re better,” Brooke said. “It was a scary thing to have happened.”
“I’ve been there,” Reenie said. “If you need to talk, I’m here.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I might take you up on it, but right now I’m happy to be in a place I feel safe and secure. I’m not sure I can go back to my home again.”
She’d have to find somewhere to live. She’d be able to go back and pack her things with other people, but staying there alone would never happen.
There was no way to escape being violated there. Physically or emotionally.
It could have been so much worse than it was and she was holding onto the fact it hadn’t happened.
“You don’t have to,” Clay said.
He said that now, but in a few days he’d get sick of her.
“I just got more information,” Ford said. “I thought you’d like to know what we discovered about Karl.”
“There is a big part of me that never wants to say his name again, let alone think of him.”
“You’re not going to heal fully if you do that,” Clay said. “I know that. You taught it to me.”
Her bottom lip trembled slightly when he said that. Breaking out in tears would only panic everyone.
Gale got up and gave her a tissue to blot her eyes.
“I’m glad,” Meredith said. “And you’re right. I should know.”
“Karl Green has a history of mental illness. We found several prescriptions in his house. It looks as if he stopped taking them recently. We contacted his mother who said that Karl has had anger issues and a tendency toward violence most of his life. He’d seen several specialists and as long as he stayed on his meds he had some control, along with what she’d instilled in him through discipline and training. ”
Things Karl had let slip. She wondered if that only made matters worse in Karl’s life and then knew it hadn’t mattered.
“I had no idea,” she said. “He’s always been so nice and helpful. Nosy, sure, but I never thought he was dangerous.”
“You’re not the first person he’s stalked. Though his mother said Karl often made women up in his head. She’s kept her distance since he lost his temper and hit her when he was twenty-one.”
“That’s horrible,” she said.
“She blames herself, but knew it was best that she stayed away though she did talk to him a few times a month. His past restraining order was in college. He lived in an apartment with two other people and was stalking another student. She left the college once the order was in place. That’s when he lost it with his mother and hit her. He blamed her.”
Meredith shook her head over this. She never would have figured any of it.
“What was he doing to her? The same things?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Clay said. “Right, Ford?”
“Clay is right. Times were different then. He had a history of mental illness prior, but it escalated when that happened. Maybe if he stayed on his medication, things would have been different. Something triggered it.”
Her shoulders dropped. “He said he was going to move. He bought that house for us, but then he thought I’d move before he could take me there and he couldn’t risk it.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Callum said. “That won’t solve anything.”
Callum was looking at Clay. She wondered if his family knew about Colin. He’d told her only Ford did but not as much as her.
Or maybe this family was just so close that they knew it was in Clay’s nature to blame himself if something went wrong.
“I know,” she said. “I’ll work on it. I promise. If I could have prevented this I would have. I’m such a fool. I feel as if I led him on but didn’t even know.”
“You didn’t,” Clay said. “Never think that. He was ill. He knew it.”
“I saw more signs of it, but there was so much going on with everything else, I just dismissed him.”
And dismissing him seemed to have escalated it in Karl’s mind. That she took him for granted.
“I should have listened to you when you said things were done in the house and you didn’t remember doing them,” Clay said.
She let out a not so funny laugh. “And I should have pushed more. I was distracted.”
She laid her head on his shoulder. He’d been sitting next to her. He barely left her side, even spending the night next to her in the hospital.
If he got up to leave for something, he didn’t do it unless another family member was present.
She hoped she didn’t have a bodyguard now. There was no way she could handle that.
“How many people can boast that they had four different people mad at them for completely different reasons?” Clay asked.
“It’s not something to brag about. Or even be proud of. I guess I need someone strong enough to keep me in line. Maybe even keep me safe.”
His arm squeezed her shoulder. “Yeah. I might be the only one who can do it. If you believe in me.”
“I think that’s our cue to leave,” Gale said.
“You don’t have to go,” she argued. “You just got here.”
“We are going back to my house,” Brooke said. “I’m making dinner. You and Clay can come down when you’re done talking.”
Meredith watched his family leave. The support they’d given her had been insurmountable. She was someone full of crazy amounts of words and yet she’d never be able to express them all.
“We’ll be there,” she said.
“You need to rest,” Clay said.
“I need to eat. I need to be around people. People I’m comfortable with. I won’t stay locked up away from the world. It’s not healthy and not me.”
“You tell him,” Ash said, then shut the door.
“My family thinks you’re perfect for me.”
Her heart sank a tiny bit. “I appreciate they do, but I care more about what you think than them.”
“Do you?” he asked. “What do you think of me?”
“We’ll play it this way. You need someone to keep you grounded. You need that in your blood to remind you of where you’ve been, where you need to go, and who you are. To bind you somewhere. First it was by loyalty.”
“Now it’s by love,” he said. “I’m bound by you here.”
Her eyes went wide. “I’m right?”
“You are,” he said. “You get me when so many others don’t. Why doubt yourself?”
She laughed. “Do you love me?”
“I just said I did.”
“No,” she said, flicking her finger on his arm. “You didn’t say that. Not the actual words.”
“Do you need them?” he asked.
She sighed. “Not all the time, Clay. But it’s nice to hear once in a while. I don’t do well with guessing. Haven’t you realized that in the past few months?”
“I suppose you’re right. I love you, Meredith Banks.” He lowered his lips to hers. “I have for weeks but have been afraid to admit it to myself.”
“I thought Clay Ridgeway wasn’t afraid of anything.”
“Only afraid of letting people down. Of not being enough. Of proving myself.”
“Doesn’t it feel good to get that off your chest?” she asked.
“Maybe.”
She gave him a quick kiss. “Never be afraid around me. Not of letting me down or not being enough. And you sure the heck don’t have to prove yourself. Who else can save me as wonderfully as you?”
“No one,” he said, hugging her tight to his chest.