The Lullaby Sky (24 page)

“Beers and tears,” Darcy said. “I cried all night because nothing would ever be the same.”

“And here we are back again without beer or tears.” Liz eased down on the quilt and opened the box of chicken. “I wonder how far along on the trip that Jodie is. I looked it up on the map, and it’s about sixteen hours of driving. That doesn’t include food and gas stops.”

“Maybe about a third of the way,” Travis said. “Donnie said he hoped to be there by one or two o’clock in the morning. He wasn’t planning on making a two-day trip out of it. He wants Jodie back in the hills with her relatives as quick as possible.”

“Smart man,” Cal murmured.

Liz yawned. “I wish I’d brought a pillow.”

“There’s one in the backseat of my van if you can talk Travis into getting it for you,” Cal said. “I’m not moving an inch from this gorgeous masseuse.”

Travis rolled up on his feet, and in a few long strides was back at the van. He opened the door and brought out a bright-red velvet neck roll.

“Ahh, that is perfect,” Liz said. “Good man you got there, Hannah. You’d do well to hang on to him.”

“He’s not my man. He’s my friend,” Hannah argued.

“Your mouth can say that, but your heart knows better.”

“I’ve only been divorced less than a month,” Hannah protested further.

“You’ve been divorced for more than a year. It’s the legal part that’s only a month old. Don’t shut the door to an opportunity before you see what’s on the other side. That’s what you always tell us,” Darcy said.

“That’s right,” Aunt Birdie said.

“I think this might be a conspiracy,” Hannah said.

“Can’t be. If it was, we’d invite you and Travis into it.” Cal grinned.

“Aunt Birdie and Miss Rosie, when we get done eating, you can come with me and I will push you in the swings,” Sophie said when she’d cleaned all the meat off the last chicken leg in the bucket.

Aunt Birdie patted Sophie on the shoulder. “Darlin’ girl, you are not big enough to push us on the swings, but we can take turns going down the slide.”

Miss Rosie clapped her hands. “It’s been years since I’ve been on a slide.” She slapped her hat on her head and grasped Sophie’s hand. “I call dibs on going first.”

After they’d finished eating, the three of them skipped along from quilt to the slide, one energetic little girl in the middle. Her giggles echoed off the big white puffy clouds floating in the sky.

Liz claimed a side of the quilt and the pillow that Travis had brought from the van and fell asleep. She looked better than Hannah had seen her since they’d lived together when Liz was in college and Hannah worked at the hospital.

“I want a whole houseful of kids with Sophie’s energy. She’s an amazing kid. Gets along with kids her age and older folks just as well.” Cal yawned. “That heavy meal is weighing down my eyelids.”

“Then put your head right here in my lap and take a nap.” Darcy leaned back against the tree and patted her thighs.

“Don’t mind if I do.” Cal stretched out.

Darcy splayed out her fingers and dug down into his thick blond hair to massage his scalp. “Shut your eyes. This is guaranteed to put you to sleep.”

“Ahh,” he moaned. “That feels so good.”

“Thanksgiving,” Hannah said.

“I’ll still win,” Travis mouthed.

“What are you two talking about?” Darcy asked.

“A bet we’ve got going. We’ll tell you all about it when we find out who wins.”

Before long Darcy’s head had dropped to her chest and everyone but Travis and Hannah was either asleep or playing with Sophie.

Travis laid a hand on Hannah’s knee. “We should do this more often. Maybe make it a Sunday afternoon thing when nothing else is happening, instead of a Saturday like today. I don’t
read
very often on Sundays.” Travis winked. “I was so afraid you’d have a problem with that.”

“Why?” She could feel the heat all the way through her jeans, and sparks flitted around them like fireflies in a late-summer evening.

“It’s not masculine and it’s . . .”

“I’m proud of you, Travis. Actually, it goes beyond that. I’m in awe. And any time you need to work to meet a deadline, just tell me and we’ll respect that.”

“Really?”

Before she could answer, her phone buzzed. She pulled it from her hip pocket, saw that it was Gina, and smiled at Travis. “Looks like you might need to stay tonight rather than just want to stay.” She hit the “Answer” button on her phone.

“Hello,” she answered.

“I have a guest for you for two nights at the most. I can bring her after five tonight, if that’s convenient. Her name is Arabella. This is a strange situation, but your place is the best for her.”

“Then bring her on. We’re out right now, but we’ll be home by five with no problem,” Hannah said. “Are there children?”

“No children,” Gina answered.

“Sophie will be disappointed.”

“I talked to Jodie this morning, and she sang your praises for giving her and the children such a wonderful welcome. You are quite an asset to us, Hannah,” Gina said. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

Travis raised an eyebrow when she put the phone back in her pocket.

“I was right. We’ve got company. Her name is Arabella. Sophie can play another hour, and then we’ll have ice cream on the way home before Arabella arrives.”

“No kids from what I heard, right?”

“No kids, and she’ll only be with us two days at the most.”

Travis nodded. “Poor Sophie.”

Hannah pointed to Miss Rosie and Aunt Birdie taking turns with her on the slide and then swung her finger around to include all five of the folks on the quilt. “She has someone all the time.”

Sophie’s little eyes were drooping when they arrived back in Crossing late that afternoon. “I think maybe Lullaby needs to take a nap,” she said.

“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if your kitten has waited all afternoon on you to get home so that she wouldn’t have to sleep all by herself.” Travis opened the van door and got out. “How about I carry you in the house?”

Sophie wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’d like that, Uncle Travis.”

She was asleep before he made it to the front door, her little head lying on his chest. He carried her to her room, laid her gently on the bed, removed her shoes, and pulled a soft throw over her feet.

Hannah stood in the doorway and wished for the millionth time that Marty had had half the paternal instincts that Travis or even Calvin had. Travis kissed Sophie on the forehead and tiptoed out of the room, easing the door shut behind him.

“I’m going to put a pan of brownies in the oven so the house will smell good and I’ll have something to offer the new guest if she wants to sit and talk a little while,” Hannah said.

“I’m going up to my room to give you space and time.” Travis dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “See you later.”

The house smelled like warm chocolate when Hannah heard the first crunch of tires on the driveway. Her hand was on the knob when Gina knocked. She pasted on a brilliant smile and swung open the door.

The smile faded quickly, and her big brown eyes came close to popping out of her head. Her chest compressed when she forgot to inhale, and her hands had grown damp and cold. Surely to God this was a joke. She blinked half a dozen times, but the woman did not disappear.

Right there, with only a screen separating them, was Marty’s pregnant girlfriend, wearing a white satin wedding dress over a bulging baby bump.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-F
OUR

G
ina peeked over the redhead’s shoulder, concern written on her face. “Are you all right, Hannah? You look as if you are about to faint.”

Hannah finally sucked in enough air to ask, “Do you have a cell phone?”

The woman shook her head. “I threw it away.”

“A suitcase or a purse?” Hannah asked.

Another shake. “Just the clothing on my back.”

Hannah opened the door. “You’d better come in out of the heat in your condition.”

Gina and Arabella stepped inside the house, but Hannah couldn’t make herself welcome them. Why, oh, why would Gina ever bring this woman to her house?

Because she has no idea who the woman is,
Hannah’s conscience said bluntly.

“I’ll leave,” Arabella said. “I can stay in a hotel. I have enough cash for one night.”

“What is going on here?” Gina asked. “Do you two know each other?”

“This is Marty’s girlfriend. Or is it wife?” Hannah asked.

“Ex-girlfriend,” Arabella announced stiffly. “I didn’t know that we were coming to your house. I’m as shocked as you are.” She turned to Gina. “Please take me to the nearest cheap hotel. I have a hundred-dollar bill tucked into my bra.”

Gina laid a hand on Arabella’s arm and motioned toward the door with a nod of her head. “I’m sorry, Hannah. I didn’t even tell her your name. I just said that you had a little girl who called this place Lullaby Sky and the last two women that left here said it had done them a world of good to spend time with you. I’ll figure something else out.”

Hannah shook her head. “He’d never think to look here, so this is the perfect place. But why did you leave on your wedding day?”

“Last night, after the rehearsal dinner, he brought out the prenup. He’d had too much to drink and he said some things.” Arabella paused as if trying to decide what to say next. “About you and not having a prenup. How he’d had complete control over you so he didn’t need one, but he wasn’t making that mistake twice. I didn’t want to sign it without reading it, and he got furious and slapped me across the cheek.”

“Sit down,” Hannah said. “You look like you are about to fall. And Gina, we’ll be fine for a couple of days.”

“I didn’t sleep all night. I signed that paper because the look in his eye scared me. This is Saturday, right? Last night was Friday and today we were supposed to get married. June 25. It had to be today, because that is his parents’ anniversary and it was going to bring good luck into our marriage. I’m sorry, I’m rambling.” Arabella sank down on the sofa. “And then he signed it and left my copy for me to give to my lawyer after the wedding was over. I read the thing over and over and over all night. There was a loophole, though. Everything in it would go into effect the minute
after
we were married.”

Gina took a seat on the other end of the sofa. “I’m not sure about this, Hannah.”

“I am,” Hannah said. “I signed on to help abused women. I haven’t changed my mind, and I want to do this.”

“Why?”

“Because I firmly believe things happen for a reason. Arabella’s only chance to escape may lie in this house. If she or her baby was hurt because of my selfishness, I would never forgive myself,” Hannah said.

“Then I’m going to leave,” Gina said. “And if either of you changes your mind, you have my number.”

Silence filled the room after Gina left. Dozens of questions clogged Hannah’s mind. She didn’t know which one to ask first.

“I’m sorry,” Arabella finally said. “I had no idea he was married until he told me that I was going to court with him because he was getting a divorce. By then I was very pregnant and my baby needed a father. I’m finding out that there are worse things in the world than being a single mother.”

Hannah paced from one end of the floor to the other. It would be so easy to blame Arabella for everything. But if she was honest, she owed that woman her new life and freedom.

“Thank you,” Hannah said softly as she sat down on the other end of the sofa.

“For what?”

“For getting me out of a marriage that I’d tried and tried to escape. I’d like to be angry with you, but what I had with Marty was fear, not love. The love part lasted about a month after we were married. If that long. The fear—now, that was a different story.”

Arabella shivered. “Why didn’t you just leave and take your daughter with you? She wasn’t Marty’s child, after all.”

So that was his story.

“She is Marty’s child, and that was the hold he had on me. With his money, he could have taken her from me. He threatened to frame me as an unfit mother, or worse yet convince people that I was crazy and have me committed. Then I would lose her and I never would have seen her again,” Hannah said.

“Oh. My. God!” Arabella gasped. “I believed every word he said.”

“You were smart to get away from him.”

Arabella shook her head. “The prenup was horrible. I have a lot of money—more than he has—and the language said he would have complete and total custody of our child and I would pay him an exorbitant amount of child support if I ever left him. And that I would have supervised visitation for our child at his discretion and only when he or his mother could be there.”

Hannah wasn’t at all surprised. Strangely enough, now that the shock was fading, she was glad that God had sent Arabella to Crossing. She truly wanted to help this woman, and the fact that it was Marty who’d abused her really didn’t matter.

“Someone was with me the whole day,” Arabella went on. “The hairdresser. The lady who did my nails. He made sure I wasn’t alone until thirty minutes before it was time to stand before the preacher. I was about to go crazy trying to figure out a way to get out of the house.” She paused and locked gazes with Hannah a second before blinking. “I don’t know if you believe in God, but I do, and I’m convinced that he gave me a way out. Marty’s mother came to the room and said it was time for me to go downstairs to wait in the master bedroom until I heard the music and then his father would be right outside the door to escort me into the ballroom for the wedding.”

“And?” Hannah asked when she stopped.

“I tucked what cash I had into my bra along with my cell phone. I called a cab and slid open the doors to their patio, kept to the brush along the road until I saw the cab, and stepped out. I was afraid after what all he’d done to you that he had a tracker on my phone, so I tossed it in the back of a passing pickup truck just before I got into the cab,” Arabella said in a hollow voice.

“That was one smart decision. But now you have no identification.”

“All that can be replaced once I’m in Mexico,” Arabella said. “Gina let me call my grandmother before we left to come here. My
abuela
lives in Mexico City, and she is making arrangements to bring me home.”

“That’s very good. Now, about that wedding dress,” Hannah said.

“It’s all I have until I get to Mexico City.”

“My friends help run a little clothing closet out of our church. Would you take that off if I could get you something else?”

Arabella smiled for the first time. “I would trade it for a burlap bag if you can find one.”

Hannah picked up her phone from the end table and called Aunt Birdie. When she answered, she said, “I need some things from the church clothes closet. The lady is pregnant.” Hannah looked at her and cocked her head to one side, studying her round stomach. “Six months, I’d guess.”

“Eight and a half,” Arabella said.

“Okay, then two weeks away from delivery, probably. She’s tall and thin and she needs enough for a couple of days. Maybe two outfits. Bra?” Hannah asked Arabella.

“I have one on that will work.”

“No bra, just underpants and a nice big nightgown in the mix so she can be comfortable while she sleeps.”

“I’m on it. Did the bastard hurt the baby?” Aunt Birdie asked.

“No, she got away before too much damage was done.”

“Good. Me and Rosie will be there in half an hour. Does she need anything else?”

“I think I’ve got it covered. Thanks, Aunt Birdie.” She hit the “End” button and turned to Arabella. “Hungry?”

“Starving. I haven’t had anything all day. I was too nervous to eat breakfast, and by lunchtime I couldn’t force food into my mouth for fear of throwing it all right back up.”

Hannah stood up and motioned for Arabella to follow her into the kitchen. “I’ll make you a sandwich and then we’ll have brownies as soon as they come out of the oven. Do you like pimento cheese or ham better? And milk or sweet tea?”

“Pimento cheese sounds great, and I love milk. I thought I smelled chocolate. This place reminds me of the way my grandmother’s house smells. She has a fantastic cook. She is sending two of her best bodyguards to take me home to Mexico. I wish I’d never gone to that party where I met Martin. He was charming and sweet at first.”

“Until you got pregnant and then things changed, right?”

Arabella nodded. “I hope I never see him again. My
abuela
wanted to send her personal plane, but I’m afraid to fly this close to delivery, so we’ll drive back and Martin will never see her. I’m talking too much. I do that when I am nervous.”

Hannah whipped around. “Don’t be nervous. The baby is a girl?”

“Marty thinks it’s a boy, but the first ultrasound was a mistake. The recent one, taken last week, shows that the baby is definitely a girl. I didn’t tell him because I didn’t want to disappoint him right here at the wedding time. But I think the biggest reason is that I was afraid to tell him.” Arabella followed Hannah.

“I have one thing to ask. Please don’t tell Sophie that the baby is her sister. She wants a sister so badly.”

“I won’t tell her. How old is she?”

Hannah set about making a sandwich and pouring a glass of milk. “Almost six. She’s napping right now, but she’ll be excited that we have a guest. She loves to have people in the house.”

“When they are grown-up ladies, can we tell them then and let them decide whether they want to meet or not?” Arabella asked in shyness.

Hannah’s dark brows knit together in a frown. It had not been arrogance or uppitiness that she’d seen in the woman that day in the courtroom. Marty had already started the process of teaching her submission. The fact that Hannah was not rich and didn’t have the upper-class social skills had nothing to do with the situation. Arabella had those things, but he’d still managed to control her.

“He looks for vulnerable women. I bet you are basically pretty shy, right?” Hannah asked.

“Always have been.”

“And you have money?”

“My mother’s people were very wealthy, from oil. My dad was a professor in Mexico City. I moved to Fort Worth for a year to help set up an oil company. I wanted a change—look what it got me.”

Hannah set the sandwich and the milk in front of Arabella. “And he sweet-talked you, sent flowers and candy and expensive presents?”

Arabella bit into the sandwich and chewed fast. She swallowed and sipped the milk. “Yes. All of the above. My first present was a lovely diamond necklace with my and his initials interlocked together. He insisted I wear it to the wedding, but I ripped it off and threw it on the floor before I walked out.”

“He’s upped his game. I didn’t get diamonds.” Hannah smiled for the first time. “Does he know your grandmother’s name and where she lives?”

Arabella nodded. “He knows. But Mama Lita—that’s what we call my
abuela
—would love to take care of him in such a way they would never find his body.”

“Enough said.” Hannah pulled the brownies from the oven and set them on a hot pad in the middle of the table.

“Not quite enough said. I’ve been a fool. You are a very kind woman for letting me stay and believing my story. I don’t think I could do that if the tables were reversed. I want you to know that if he ever makes things rough for you, all you have to do is call a number I will leave with you. I will send two very responsible people to bring you and your daughter to Mexico or Mama Lita will take care of it permanently. Your choice.”

The laughter that escaped Hannah was both edgy and nervous. “That sounds . . .”

Arabella nodded. “I know, but it is the truth. She is very, very powerful. I hope I can learn how to be more like her and less gullible in the future.”

“Hey, anybody home?” Travis poked his head in the kitchen.

Hannah smiled. “This is Arabella. She is here until Tuesday morning. And to get it all out in the open, she was about to marry Marty and got smart at the last minute. Arabella, this is one of my lifelong friends, Travis.”

Travis stopped in the middle of the floor. “And you are fine with this?”

“Yes, I am,” Hannah said. “Aunt Birdie has gone to the church to get her something to wear other than that wedding dress. I just hope Sophie doesn’t wake up until she gets changed out of it.”

Travis pulled out a chair and sat down. “Better hide it or Sophie will want to play dress-up in the thing.”

“Can I send it down to your church clothing closet?” Arabella said. “I don’t ever want to see it or the shoes again.”