The Lullaby Sky (16 page)

“Hindsight,” she murmured.

“Get dressed. We’ll hold the fort down until you come home. If Liz needs you, stay with her as long as necessary.” Travis tipped her chin up.

She saw worry for Liz in his eyes, but something else, too. She didn’t have time to analyze it, because his lips met hers in a kiss that made the house tilt under her feet. Her arms snaked up around his neck, and she rolled up on her toes for a second kiss. A rap on the back door made her step back, and Travis headed down the steps to let Miss Rosie inside.

“We’ll talk later,” he threw over his shoulder as he disappeared into the darkness.

She hurriedly threw off her nightshirt, suddenly blushing at how little she was wearing when she’d pressed up against him so tightly. Shoving a leg down into the jeans that she’d worn that afternoon, she hoped that Jodie wasn’t uncomfortable with Miss Rosie and Travis. By the time she started zipping her pants, anger had set in.

“It’s a damn good thing that Wyatt is in jail. If Aunt Birdie didn’t shoot the sorry sucker, I would,” she said aloud to herself.

Miss Rosie shuffled into the bedroom with her. “You’ve got a daughter to raise. I’d do the shootin’ if there’s any to be done. Now get on a bra and a shirt and get out of here.” She wore a bright-red sweater over a floral nightgown and a pink-checkered cotton robe and carried a tote bag full of clothing. “I’m going to sleep right there.” She pointed at the unmade bed. “You call me, no matter what time it is when you find out how Liz is. I want to know if she is dead. If the latter is the case, then Travis will have to cook breakfast for your guests, because I’m going to the jail with my pistol in my purse, and honey, it will be loaded.”

“Let’s hope you cook breakfast instead.” Hannah put on a bra and grabbed the first T-shirt out of her dresser drawer. “Lord, I’m glad I brought a few clothes up here. It would terrify Jodie if I had to go into her room in the middle of the night.”

“Birdie is waiting, so hurry up, child.” Miss Rosie dropped the sweater and housecoat and crawled into the bed.

Hannah did hurry, but she stopped long enough to plant a kiss on Miss Rosie’s forehead before she left the room.

“Take a sweater. Them hospitals is always cold,” Miss Rosie said.

“I can’t. They are all in my room and I don’t want to wake Jodie,” she answered.

“Then take mine. I can get dressed before I go down to make breakfast. And don’t worry about what goes on here. Me and Travis can take care of things just fine.”

Travis was in the kitchen, and as she passed through he handed her an insulated cup of coffee. “Call me as soon as you know something. I’ll have the phone right by my side. Aunt Birdie said that she left a note for Cal. I expect he’ll be at the hospital as soon as he wakes up. Darcy will meet y’all there.”

“Thanks, Travis, for everything.”

He brushed a quick kiss across her lips. “You drive safe and call me when you get there.”

Aunt Birdie was waiting on the porch, just like Travis said. When she saw Hannah back the car out of the driveway, she hurried out to the side of the road and had the passenger’s door open before the car even came to a complete stop.

“I packed us a few things in case we have to spend the rest of the night and tomorrow at the hospital.” She slipped the tote bag through the space in the front seats and gave it a shove. “Don’t matter if it falls out. I can put it all back in a jiffy.”

“What do you know?” Hannah asked.

“He was supposed to be home tomorrow, but he called about ten when me and Liz were about to go to bed and said he was coming in early and he’d be here at eleven. I had a bad feelin’, so I called Rosie and we waited up for Liz after she went to the house. At eleven thirty Rosie got worried and drove down to check on things. I should’ve gone with her, but we figured I’d stay at the house. That way if Liz came back I’d call Rosie and she could turn around and come on back home. She found Liz in her front yard with Wyatt still beating and kicking her, even when she was down. Rosie called nine-one-one and held him off with her pistol until the cops and ambulance got there.”

“Is she going to live?” Hannah asked.

“Rosie said that she looked like warmed-over hell on Sunday morning. He’d used the buckle end of his belt and steel-toed boots. If she dies, he does. Plain and simple. I don’t mind spending the rest of my days in prison,” Aunt Birdie said.

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN

I
t looks worse than it is,” Liz said through a lip with three stitches. “They won’t let me go home, Hannah. It’s going to be all over school and the county.”

“It needs to be.” Darcy had a firm hold on Liz’s left hand. “And you will press charges. Rosie heard him say that he’d kill you before he let you leave him.”

Hannah reached through the bedrails and held Liz’s right hand. Not crying was even tougher than that day in the courtroom. If she broke down, Liz would be compelled to comfort her, and this wasn’t about Hannah. She’d had her day of friends gathering around for support. Now it was Liz’s turn. Still, seeing Liz with taped ribs, butterfly strips on her forehead and cheek, and a busted lip brought tears to her soul.

Liz squeezed Hannah’s hand. “It’s all right, Hannah. I was never unconscious. I faked it so he’d stop and so he wouldn’t overpower Miss Rosie and kill her.”

“Why didn’t you fight him harder?” Aunt Birdie asked.

“He said Hannah getting a divorce caused this and he was going to take care of her and Sophie next. I still had my phone in my hip pocket, so I dialed nine-one-one. I couldn’t let him hurt that precious baby girl,” Liz answered.

“Miss Rosie called them,” Hannah said.

“She was only there five minutes before they arrived.” Liz tried to smile and flinched. “Don’t tell her.”

“Enough talk. You sleep and we’ll be right here when you wake up,” Aunt Birdie said.

Liz nodded once and shut her eyes, but she did not let go of either Darcy’s or Hannah’s hand.

Travis awoke to the aroma of coffee and bacon. He couldn’t sleep the night before, so he’d written two chapters on his work in progress. He was ahead of schedule despite the construction job, and that made his agent and publishers very happy. He liked writing, all of it, from the beginning sentence in a novel to the last page. What he didn’t like was not being able to talk about it with Hannah. But it was best this way. Only his agent, his editor, and his publisher knew his real identity. Hannah would look at him with disgust if she knew the whole reason he was independent and could work at whatever he wanted was because he wrote romantic suspense novels.

He hurriedly shaved and dressed in a pair of better jeans and what he deemed a decent T-shirt and made his way to the kitchen. Cal looked up from the waffle maker and nodded toward the coffeepot.

“How are we going to play this one?” he asked.

“You mean as in temporarily or permanently?” Travis poured a cup of coffee and took a stack of plates down from the cabinet.

“For today, right now. We’ll worry about the other if they let him out of jail.”

“I thought maybe you and I would go to the hospital for an hour or so.” Cal removed a waffle from the iron and laid it onto a plate. Miss Rosie added half a dozen strips of crisp bacon to the side.

She pointed toward the waffle maker. “You can make yours now, Travis. I’ll keep frying bacon.”

Travis poured half a cup of batter into the iron. “The folks here will be fine for a couple of hours with Miss Rosie. Then I’ll bring Aunt Birdie home with me and you can stay with Hannah through today. Darcy had to go in to work this morning, but she’s making arrangements to leave as soon as she can and stay the night.”

“I figured you’d want to stay with Hannah yourself,” Cal said.

“I do, more than anything in the world, but Hannah will want me to be here as much as possible. Maybe Liz will only have to be there for a day or two.”

“And Hannah,” Miss Rosie said, “is Liz’s strength right now. She’ll want her by her side until she comes home.”

Jodie yawned as she made her way across the kitchen toward the coffeepot. “Good mornin’. I’m sorry I wasn’t up to help, but I haven’t slept like that in years. Bella only woke up one time all through the night, and she’s still asleep. It’s amazing.”

Miss Rosie smiled at her. “A place without fear does that to a person. You can have the waffle machine after Travis gets done.” She went on to tell her where Hannah was that morning and the plans for the day.

“No.” Jodie shook her head. “You stay with Hannah, Travis, and you, too, Cal, if you want to. I’m very comfortable with Miss Rosie and Aunt Birdie. For that matter, I could take care of myself in this wonderful house. But I think that Sophie will be happier if someone she knows well is here. I’d feel better if y’all don’t treat me like company. Please let me help out so I’ll feel like I’m earning my keep around here. I may have a busted leg, but I can still work.”

“Are you sure?” Cal asked.

“Very. I haven’t felt like this since I left the hills of Kentucky. I had a gut feeling that I was making a mistake when we crossed the border into Tennessee, but I wanted my baby to have a father. I’ve found out since there’s worse things for a child.”

Travis removed his waffle, and Jodie started another one.

“I’m so, so sorry about your friend—Liz, right? It must be big comfort to have all of you to help her through this mess. I hope her husband dies in prison.”

Miss Rosie chuckled. “I like you, girl.”

“The way I see it is like this,” Jodie said. “The Good Book says, ‘Do not kill,’ but that was a commandment for a man’s family, for his brethren that he was traveling across the desert to the promised land with. It was not given for his enemies, and anyone trying to kick a woman to death is an enemy.”

“Amen,” Travis said.

Darcy sneaked back into the room in the middle of the morning. “Is she going to be all right?”

“Of course I am.” Liz opened her eyes. “I just have to heal and then this will never happen again.”

Darcy clenched her hands into fists. “I should have gone with you to tell him that you’d left him. We never should have let you go alone.”

“Shhh,” Liz said. “It’s over. I’m glad you are here, but I’m so sleepy. It must be the medicine they keep putting in that IV.”

Darcy gently patted her shoulder. “You need to rest so you will heal.”

Liz shut her eyes again and began to snore softly. Darcy pulled up a chair and sat down beside her, taking Liz’s left hand in hers.

“Thank you,” Hannah said very softly. “I need to go to the bathroom, and every time I let go of her hand she gets agitated.” Hannah eased her hand out away from Liz’s and tiptoed out of the room.

All the stalls in the bathroom were empty, so she chose the one closest to the door and sat there with her head in her hands long after she’d finished using the toilet. Tears bathed her face as she prayed desperately for Liz to be all right, to move on past this horrible experience.

Finally, she pulled up her underpants and jeans and left the stall to wash her hands. Holding them under the warm water, she noticed that they were still shaking. She was one of the lucky ones. She’d only gone to the emergency room one time with cracked ribs. That time she’d lied and told people that she’d fallen down the stairs. After that, Marty was careful with his abuse, leaving bruises only where most folks couldn’t see them. She looked at her reflection in the mirror and immediately reached for paper towels. She couldn’t go back into the room with tearstained cheeks and swollen eyes. Liz didn’t need that on her plate in addition to all the emotional baggage she would be carrying around for months, maybe years.

She finally got control of herself enough to push open the bathroom door and head back down the hallway to Liz’s room. She’d only taken two steps when the sound of the elevator doors opening caused her to look over her shoulder. There was still a fear in her heart that Wyatt would make bail and come back to finish what he’d started.

But two policemen, along with Cal and Travis, stepped out. Travis caught her eye immediately and waved. She stopped walking, and they quickly caught up to her.

“We thought we’d let Aunt Birdie go home and stay awhile with y’all,” Cal said.

Travis nodded toward the police. “This is Officer Dale and Officer Brody. They are here to talk to Liz.”

Hannah nodded. “Aunt Birdie does look tired. It’s been a long night.”

The four men crowded into the small hospital room. Liz opened her eyes and sighed. “He made bail, didn’t he?”

One officer nodded his head. “We booked him on domestic abuse, and his girlfriend showed up and bailed him out.”

The tears dried up, and Liz’s jaw worked like she was chewing bubblegum for a few seconds before she spoke. “I feel sorry for his girlfriend. I want a restraining order, and I have faith that karma will come around and bite him on the butt. Maybe this girlfriend has more fire than I did and she’ll shoot him the first time he whips off his belt.”

“That’s not good enough. Rosie was there and gave you her statement. He would have killed Liz if she hadn’t held that man off with a gun.” Aunt Birdie’s voice had gone high and squeaky, which meant she was about to blow.

“He says that Liz brought that gun to the house and threatened him with it. He threw her off the porch and the gun went flying out into the yard. Then the elderly lady picked it up and held it on him until we got there. I don’t believe a word of it, but that’s his statement. Have you filed on him before for abuse?”

Liz shook her head.

“I don’t give a damn. I want him tried for attempted murder,” Aunt Birdie said. “Not pay a fine for domestic violence and do a few hours of community work.”

“Let it be,” Liz said. “He can sweet-talk the pantyhose off a nun, Aunt Birdie. If he’s got a girlfriend, he’ll stay away from Crossing. I’m good with him being out of my life forever.”

“But I’m not,” Aunt Birdie huffed. “He should be dead or in prison.”

“Ma’am,” Officer Brody said, “if it helps any, the woman who bailed him out of jail didn’t look to me like she’d take sass off nobody. He might end up dead if he does this kind of thing to her.”

“And if you want to go through with it, you’ve got a good chance of putting him away with the pictures the doctors took and that lady’s testimony about the gun. She seemed like a credible witness to me,” Officer Dale said.

“I’ll think about it. Right now I just want to sleep.” Liz flinched when she yawned.

“You let us know. If you want to proceed with it, we’ll bring the papers when you go home, along with the restraining order,” Officer Dale said.

Liz nodded and drifted back to sleep as the officers exited the room.

“Give me your keys, Hannah,” Aunt Birdie said when the officers left. “I’ll drive myself back to Crossing. Y’all have got two vehicles here, so you’ll be fine. And two people at a time are enough in this room. Travis, you take Hannah to get some food in the cafeteria and let her rest an hour or so out in one of the cars. She’s not even closed her eyes all night.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Travis said.

“And when y’all get back, Cal and Darcy can go out for two hours. That way you all won’t get plumb wore out.”

Hannah fished in her purse for the keys and handed them to Aunt Birdie. “Thank you for staying with me all night. I really thought he’d go to jail for this.”

“I had my doubts. I’ve worked with Gina a long time.” Aunt Birdie shook her head. “One set of y’all come home tonight. She don’t need a roomful with her. Since Sophie is going to need you, Hannah, you might come with Travis tonight and then let Darcy and Cal have tomorrow off while you stay with Liz.”