Ladd Haven (21 page)

“
I have to do something,”
Cal said.

“
Hurry up, brother! Time’s a
wasting,” Jack’s voice taunted.

Rage iced Cal’s compassionate gaze to
arctic stone. Fixing on Delaney as if to retain a piece of his
sanity, he said, “If you change your mind, you let me
know.”

“
Sure thing.” Glancing at
Jack’s swollen face, she added, “But can you take him away from
here? I can’t stand to look at him.”

Cal set his mouth in a stony line. With
one last look at her, he turned, marched over to his brother and
slammed a fist across his jaw. Jack reeled. “That one’s from
me.”

Troy grinned.

Jack came back at him and Cal thrust
his chest forward, cocking a fist in a show of force Delaney didn’t
think him capable of. Cal had grown into a quiet, peaceful man with
no resemblance of the bluster and brawn of his younger days. “Go
ahead and give me a reason to beat the crap out of you.”

Apparently sensing there was more to
his meeker brother than met the eye, Jack held back. He wrenched
his face and spat, “You aren’t worth the effort.”

Troy stood waiting and ready. If Jack
hit Cal, it was clear Troy would welcome another round with him.
Delaney dropped her head back against the wall. He would have
beaten the man to a bloody pulp and left him to die. Visions of
Jack’s attack assaulted her mind—hand, nails, digging—it was the
last thing she expected. The man was unpredictable, yes, but a
rapist?

Her daughter came to mind, the reason
for this visit, and Delaney cringed. If Felicity knew what had
transpired this evening, it would crush her, destroy her. She
already believed he was a monster. Believed her mother was one,
too.

Overwhelmed by a heavy
sadness, Delaney closed her eyes, warding off images to painful to
allow. Felicity hated her, might never forgive her. Nick’s image
steamrolled into her thoughts and she groaned. She hadn’t been
worried about handling Jack but Nick had been.
Don’t confront Jack about Felicity
. At
least she’d kept to her word. He confronted her, not the other way
around. But still...

She had believed she could handle him.
Visions of Jack at the other end of her barrel recharged her
nerves. She’d been prepared to shoot. Sure as she was sitting here,
she would have shot him. Did, or so she’d thought.

I heard enough to know he
would have got what was coming to him
.

How long had Troy been lurking in the
shadows? How much had he seen?

Shame slinked through her. Troy was a
good kid. He was doing his best to make up for his past mistakes.
Witnessing the ugliness between her and Jack was the last thing he
needed. While the boy was good at heart, he had a grenade of a
temper. Short-fused, it didn’t take much to set him off.

Invariably, it seemed to be his temper
that landed him in trouble. Thank God she didn’t shoot him by
mistake.

Chapter Sixteen

After refusing escort to her cabin,
Delaney hiked the steep incline alone in the dark. No flashlight
was needed this evening, not with a nearly full moon floating in
the sky overhead. Leaves and trunks were cast in a pale glow, the
ground dark and narrow beneath her feet. Katydids pulsated
rhythmically in the night, her skin chilled by the moist damp air.
Placing a hand to the knotty bark of a tree, she stepped from rock
to rock, then pushed off from a massive root embedded in the clay.
She knew the way by heart. Every stone, every branch—she could hike
this path with her eyes closed. Tonight she wanted to do just that,
close her eyes and shut the world away. Immerse herself in the
comfort of the familiar, the safety of these woods, her cabin
sanctuary above.

As the shock wore off, the reality of
what happened trickled in. She’d been shaken by the incident more
than she realized. More than almost killing her ex-husband—a
thought that unsettled her—his outrageous behavior disturbed her.
Could he attack Felicity? Was he unstable enough to attack his own
daughter? It was too horrible a thought to consider. She and Jack
had their issues, but Delaney always believed he drew the line at
Felicity. After tonight, Delaney wasn’t certain whether that line
was eternally blurred.

Reaching the top, she paused. Boulders
were pillows of gray, the gravelly road a sheet of silver carpet
leading up to her home. She’d taken her time climbing up, yet she
was winded, her energy drained from the ordeal with Jack. After a
few moments she pushed herself forward, recovering her breath as
she walked the gentle incline to her cabin. Inside, the lights were
on. A brief hope bloomed. Felicity’s car was parked down in the
lot, but it didn’t mean she was home. She could be with Travis.
Grabbing the stair railing, Delaney hauled herself up the few
steps, opened the screen door and strode to the front door, peering
inside as she passed. Inside, Felicity was seated on the couch
reading a book. A decisive misgiving twisted in her gut. Delaney
knew she should keep the evening to herself, but couldn’t shake the
words from last night.

You’re as big a monster as
he is. How could you do that to me
?
Where was the overprotective mother when I needed
her
? Felicity had been angry, hurling
insults as hard and fast as she could. Delaney wasn’t a monster for
keeping the truth from her. Funneling her line of vision on the
lone strawberry-blonde head, she wondered,
Was I
?

Tugging the boots from her feet,
Delaney transferred the pistol to her waistband and opened the
door. Felicity’s head jerked at the sound. Instantly she rose from
the couch, circled the end and headed for the stairs. She wouldn’t
even look her mother in the eye.

“
Felicity, wait.” Delaney
reached out and grabbed her by the arm. “Stop, I need to talk to
you.”

Flames licked at Felicity’s green eyes.
“I don’t want to talk to you.”

“
I almost shot your father.”
The words spurted from her lips before she could rein them
in.

“
What
?”

In the space of a second, Delaney
realized she had to tell her. She had to tell Felicity what
happened. It would eventually get out anyway and if she learned the
truth from someone else, Delaney’s fate as liar and
truth-withholder would be sealed. “He came by the stables. He
accused me of turning you away from him.”

Felicity slackened within her grasp. No
longer angry, she stood gripped by confusion. “What are you talking
about?”

Heaving a sigh, she dropped her hand.
“He thinks I’m the reason you’re not returning his
calls.”

She screwed her expression.
“You have nothing to do with
that
.”

Relief swept through Delaney. “I know.
But he was angry. He had to blame someone and that someone was
me.”

A sudden fear bridled in her eyes. “Did
he hit you?” Studying her face as though seeing her for the first
time, Felicity stared at her mother, hard. “Did he? Did he hit you
again?”

“
No.” Delaney felt the
weight of the evening press squarely on her shoulders. “But it
wasn’t pretty.” Cradling her daughter in her gaze, hating what she
was about to tell her but knowing there was no way around it,
Delaney bolstered her resolve with Nick’s advice.
Don’t sell your daughter short. Felicity is made
of strong fiber
. Yes. Yes, she was. “Come,”
Delaney murmured. “I’ll tell you everything.”

She plodded to the couch, dropped to a
seat and watched as her daughter follow, sitting on the opposite
end. She was near but not too close. Because Felicity remained at
odds. Taking a deep breath, Delaney began, “Jack”—she refused to
grant him the privileged term of father—“came by the stables to
make trouble. He was angry and drunk. He accused me of filling your
head with poison, then he jumped me.” It was an ugly picture she
was painting, but an honest one. “He was drunk and unstable so I
was able to get away from him, but he didn’t give up. I pulled my
gun, warned him to back off.” She paused, tormented by the horror
wrenching the fine features of Felicity’s face. “He drew a gun. I
pulled the trigger but I didn’t hit him.”

Luckily. Delaney inhaled, calming a
spurt of adrenaline, and continued, “Troy jumped Jack and sent him
to the ground.”

“
Troy?”

She nodded. “He must have been working
late. He heard the commotion and took action.” Delaney was indebted
to him for it. He saved her from making the biggest mistake of her
life. Compounding Jack’s abuse with his untimely death at the hands
of her mother would only have made things worse for Felicity. “Troy
called Cal. Cal came and removed his brother from the
property.”

Felicity absorbed the information in
silence. Digesting it, turning it over in her mind, her heart,
Delaney understood her daughter was working to cope with yet
another ugly facet to her father. Delaney felt responsible,
regretting the day she married the man yet accepting that it was
another time, another place. A place she couldn’t return to, a
decision she couldn’t change. Wouldn’t, if given the chance. After
all, she thought. Felicity was the product of their
union.

Felicity was her treasure.

“
I don’t know what to
say.”

“
You don’t have to say
anything, sweetheart. If you’ll listen, that’s all I ask.” At the
silent consent in Felicity’s eyes, Delaney took the first step,
crossing the chasm that had opened between them, “I’m sorry I
didn’t tell you about the divorce, the reason for the divorce. But
you were young, an innocent.” Delaney recalled the freckle-faced
girl of eight, the shining strawberry-blonde curls, the bright-eyed
innocence. “Ernie said we could stay in the cabin.” It was a fight
at first, but because Felicity reminded him of Susannah, he had
agreed.

“
Ernie took to you like a
bear on honey, inviting you to visit him and Albert any time you
wanted.” A smile tugged at Delaney. “You thought it was an
adventure. You were excited by the prospect of living in Grandma’s
tree house. That’s what you called it. Her tree house.” Delaney
pulled a foot onto the couch cushion and tucked it beneath her.
This wasn’t a conversation she ever wanted to have, but now that
she was, she was grateful for the chance to remember the good, heal
the bad. For both of them. “At the time, I told you Daddy had to go
out of town for a while so we were going to live at Grandma’s until
he returned. Weeks passed and I eventually told you that we weren’t
going back, that Daddy and I were getting a divorce.” Her heart
ached at the memory. “Do you remember any of it?”

Felicity shook her head, tears brimming
in her eyes.

“
As you grew older, you were
so smart, so wise. I always thought you were wise beyond your
years. Part of me knew you could handle the truth, but a bigger
part knew it would hurt. Jack used to call and promise you things
and when he didn’t deliver, you were crushed. I could tell you were
still hoping for his return. So I let things lie. Someday, I told
myself, we’d discuss it. But truth was, I didn’t want to ruin the
little life we had created. When you took up the flute, I think
Ernie thought he’d died and gone to heaven, thanked God for the
first time in his life.” Delaney paused. “Do you understand what
those evenings meant to him?”

She tilted her head. “I think
so.”

It was but a whisper, but the first
crack in her daughter’s shell. Delaney yearned for the shell to
split wide open. Brushing hair behind an ear, she continued, “It
meant the world to him. He adored hearing you play, sharing in your
enthusiasm. You reminded him of my mother.” Felicity smiled. Ever
so slightly, but it was there. “My mom was the sugar in his tea,
the butter on his bread. She made everything in his life better,
sweeter.”

Truth be known, Susannah made Ernie’s
life worth living. When she died, Delaney swore she took a piece of
Ernie with her. It was one of the reasons Delaney had tolerated his
verbal abuse. He’d been hurting something fierce, and living with
Albert didn’t help. The man did little more than warm the seat of
rocking chair when he wasn’t swiping the pantry shelves clean. He
proved no comfort to Ernie and vice versa. Looking back, Delaney
thought it a miserable existence the two men shared. Breathing in
deeply, she released her breath in a ragged stream. “As the years
passed, we settled into a routine. You were my world, my
everything. Life rose and set with you. I watched over you like a
hawk.”

Where was the overprotective
mother when I needed her
? The accusation
rose like bile. It was true. She’d gone against her better judgment
and allowed her daughter to go with Jack.

“
Whenever I thought about
telling you,” Delaney paused, “I thought about how it would spoil
your innocence, hurt you. It was an ugly business between Jack and
me, not the kind of thing a girl wants to hear about her father,
even if he was only in your life on the sporadic occasion. In the
rare event he sent a card or called, you were thrilled. You lived
and breathed him for days.”

The tears filling her daughter’s eyes
pulled her back to those days when Felicity literally ran through
the cabin, singing and dancing. “I couldn’t ruin that for you. I
couldn’t take away the only joy you had with regard to
him.”