“I can’t pay for that,” I argued, wondering what kind of doctor would come here and work on a patient without equipment.

  “And you won’t need to. He will do it as a favor,” Maeme informed me. “King, you can go now.”

  I turned to watch him walk out of the room without a word. He closed the door behind him, and I took in a shaky breath.

  What had I gotten myself into? I could have kept trying to find a woman to help me. Those men weren’t that big of a problem. It wasn’t like one of them was going to abduct me from the store in front of all those people. I was scared and alone, weak and terrified. He had approached me at the right time.

  “Take off the shirt and show me what has you holding that side like it hurts to breathe,” Maeme directed me. It was said in a kind tone, but the demand that left no room for argument was also clear in her voice. It was amazing how she could sound like a kind grandmother but have a fierceness that had you obeying her.

  I was also worn down. It was clear she wasn’t going to listen to me. I had to get through this, and in the morning, I’d find a way to leave.

  I placed my purse on the dresser, then unbuttoned my blouse, only wincing when I had to shrug it off my shoulders. I’d done the best I could with athletic wrap this morning that I kept in my closet for times when Hill went beyond bruising me.

  “Let me,” Maeme said with her eyes locked on my ribs.

  The pain in her gaze as she began to gently remove the wrap was the first time I’d had anyone genuinely care about me. I felt my eyes begin to burn, and I blinked, fighting back the tears. I would not cry on this woman.

  Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply as the cool air hit my skin. I was afraid to look at the damage that had been done. I knew by now that the bruising would have set in.

  “Son of a bitch,” Maeme muttered.

  I opened my eyes as she was studying me, shaking her head with a look of fury on her face.

  “I’m not a doctor, but I’ve seen enough broken ribs to recognize one when I see it. I’m gonna wrap you up with something a bit better than this, but why don’t you go stand in a hot shower first? It’ll make you feel better. Wash every bit of that bastard’s touch off your body. I’ll go get you some pain medicine that’s strong enough to ease the pain with a glass of sweet tea that I promised. Don’t you worry. We are gonna handle this. You’re safe now, honey.”

  Even though I knew this sweet grandmother meant well and probably believed everything she was saying, I was aware that she couldn’t handle my problems. I’d dug myself a deep one by running. I could still go back. Tell the truth and hope the police believed me. I could call them now and tell them what I’d done and why. But then a battered wife who ran would look like the number one suspect. I didn’t have money for a lawyer. I wasn’t on any of Hill’s bank accounts. He had given me one credit card, and it had a two-thousand-dollar limit.

  “Come on now. I’ll get you a towel and get the shower going,” Maeme said gently. “Everything is going to be okay, Rumor.”

  No, it wasn’t, but I nodded regardless. I’d let her help me tonight. In the morning, I’d leave. Thank them for their help and walk out the door to get in a taxi. I could pay in cash and hopefully have enough for a bus ticket and motel room. I couldn’t let this nice lady be held accountable for my actions.

  • six •

  “Keep your chin up. Life will get better.”

  Rumor

  When I stepped out of the shower, there was a glass of iced tea and a pill lying beside it. I didn’t question it. The pain had gotten worse even if the rest of me felt refreshed from the warmth of the shower and the lavender scent of the body wash Maeme had given me to use. There was a plush white robe hanging on the hook that hadn’t been there when I got in the shower. Assuming Maeme had left it for me, I slipped it on, then dried my hair with a towel the best I could, only using one hand, then ran a brush through it.

  Facing whoever was downstairs eating sounded like more than I was up for at the moment. I was grateful to Maeme for her hospitality and willingness to help, but I had to think. Plan. Prepare for what I was going to do next. Without my cell phone, I didn’t have a way to actually call a taxi without help. I kept forgetting that. I would need to borrow a phone to get any kind of taxi service.

  Opening the door, I stepped into the bedroom and found Maeme sitting on the chaise lounge, near a man with a thick beard and friendly eyes, wearing a white oxford button-up and khaki pants. I paused my gaze from shifting between the two of them. Maeme stood up and stopped whatever she had been saying to the man.

  “Rumor, this is Dr. Drew. He’s been a family friend for nigh on forty years. He’s here to check you over and to join us for dinner.”

  I listened to Maeme, then turned back to the doctor. How had she gotten a doctor here so quickly? I had only been in the bathroom maybe thirty minutes at most.

  He smiled and gave me a nod. “It’s nice to meet you, Rumor. I hear you’ve been worked over.”

  He was studying my face, now blue and purple with the makeup completely gone. My lip was cracked on that side as well and swollen more than I had realized.

  “Yes, sir,” I replied.

  He gave me a sympathetic smile. “Maeme believes you have a broken rib or two, but if I could see for myself…”

  He didn’t have an X-ray machine, but I figured being rude and pointing that out wasn’t the best thing to do.

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  He nodded to the bed. “I left you a gown to slip on. Then, Maeme will bring you to the examination room.”

  Wait, what? My focus swung to Maeme, who just smiled as if what he had said made complete sense.

  “We will be right down,” she informed him.

  He gave another nod, then headed for the door to leave. I watched him until the door closed behind him, and then I looked back at Maeme.

  “Go on and slip that on. It’s like any hospital gown. Leave it open in the back, and you can put the robe over it. Then, we will take the back stairs, so no one sees you.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “The basement. We’ve got the equipment down there already set up that Drew will need to examine you.”

  I shook my head, confused. “You…you have an X-ray machine in your basement?”

  She gave me a bright smile. “The boys get hurt on those horses so often that it’s just easier to have it available to us.”

  Her explanation still made no sense. King had told me about the horses, but where were they? All I had seen outside were pecan trees.

  I nodded though, deciding this wasn’t really my business. I should be thankful that they had something like that available for me to use. When Maeme didn’t move to leave, I figured she was going to wait on me to slip on the gown. I picked it up from the bed, then went back to the bathroom to put it on.

  When I walked back into the bedroom, she was standing beside the door.

  “Let’s go,” she said, opening it, then waving for me to exit the room first.

  We went in the opposite direction of where we had earlier. A narrow set of stairs was tucked away at the end of the hallway behind a door that was unnoticeable since it blended in with the walls.

  I followed her down the stairs that led into a brightly lit area with white walls, ceramic tile flooring, and three brown leather sofas that were set up in a U-shape with a rustic hand-carved table in the center. A flat screen television covered the wall the sofas were facing.

  We walked past the seating area and came to two doors. The one on the right was open, and Maeme went inside. Glancing back, I scanned the area to make sure there was no one else down here. I found my curiosity was getting the best of me.

  The room I followed Maeme into was small, sterile, and did in fact have an X-ray machine in there, along with an examination table and a wall of cabinets.

  “You can hang your robe over there on the hook,” Dr. Drew informed me. “Then, if you will, come stand right over here. I’m assuming there is no chance you could be pregnant.”

  I shook my head. “No. I get a Depo-Provera shot every twelve weeks.”

  He nodded. “Good. When did you have it last?”

  “Seven weeks ago,” I told him with more certainty than I felt. I had kept track of it on my calendar at home and I wasn’t positive about the timeline without looking at it. But then it wasn’t like I had to worry about getting pregnant anytime soon if ever.

  “Go ahead and step outside, Maeme,” he instructed. “This won’t take long.”

  I stood in front of the machine and moved my arms the different ways he asked. The more his bushy eyebrows came together in a frown, the more I felt my anxiety building. By the time he let out a heavy sigh and told me we were finished, he appeared to be scowling.

  “You have a broken rib and a fractured one. I expected as much. But this isn’t the first time. There are multiple healed fractures on your clavicle and humerus, as well as your third and fourth ribs,” he said, studying me.

  I said nothing. He was a doctor, and he was going to want me to go to the police. File a report on a dead man. One that I had left to lie in our house, bleeding out, alone.

  “There is scar tissue, some things that should have been seen to properly, and it’s clear that it was not. Are your ribs and face the only areas I need to be checking? What about past injuries? Your head? Anything that might cause you issues later?”

  I shook my head. He was going to mention the police. My hands fisted in my gown, and I struggled to come up with a reason why I couldn’t do that. Why I wouldn’t.

  He gave me a tight smile. “Very well. But if at any time you think there might be, just tell Maeme. She’ll make sure I am here to check it out. I’m going to wrap it properly. Maeme told me she gave you an eight-hundred-milligram ibuprofen. That will take the bite off, but it’s not strong enough for you to get proper rest. I’m going to leave you something that will ease you better.”

  I stood there silently as he began to wrap my ribs. Not one word was said about the police. Filing a report. He didn’t push me to show him where I had been hurt in the past. He simply finished his task. Maeme stepped back in the room, and she looked over at the X-ray he had taken. Her eyes narrowed, and the angry gleam in her gaze made me think she knew exactly how to read what she was looking at.

  “Not the first time,” she said, swinging her eyes to meet mine.

  I didn’t respond.

  She nodded and straightened her shoulders even more so than they had been. “Thank you, Drew. I’ll take her on up to get dressed, and we will see you in the dining room.”

  Once we were alone, her eyes locked on me. “You’re gonna be okay. You’ll heal, and this will be the last time you have to go through this. Keep your chin up. Life will get better.”

  I wish she could control fate with her commands as easily as she seemed to control everyone else.

  • seven •

  “You not gonna spoon me out some too?”

  King

  “You get caught in that banana pudding, and not a one of us will be safe,” Storm Kingston said as he opened the fridge to get a beer.

  “It’s just a bite,” I replied.

  “Get me a beer,” Wells Jones told him as he pulled out a stool from the bar and sat down. “I’m starving. How much longer we got to wait?”

  “Why are we not eating yet?” Thatcher Shephard asked as he strode into the kitchen, still wearing his cowboy hat, which would piss Maeme off more than me tasting the pudding.

  “Doc D is doing an X-ray on her ribs,” I told him, then turned to Storm. “Toss me a beer, too, while you’re at it.”

  “Do I look like a motherfucking bartender?” he shot back, annoyed, but reached into the fridge and took out another beer anyway.

  I smirked, reaching up to grab it. “Thanks.”

  “Fuck off,” he replied.

  “Anyone talk to Wilder? He was supposed to be breaking into the bastard’s bank accounts and draining them,” I asked.

  “You worry about your job. Wilder has it under control,” Thatcher replied.

  “My job is done,” I pointed out. “Successfully so at that.”

  Storm rolled his eyes and pulled out a stool beside Wells. “You had the easiest job. Flash your pretty-boy smile and do the charming shit.”

  I chuckled. “You’d be surprised. She wasn’t easily moved by my smile or charm.”

  “Bullshit. She’s getting a motherfucking X-ray in the basement. I’d disagree,” he shot back at me.

  I shrugged and washed off my spoon before Maeme saw it. “I swear. She was tougher to convince than I’d anticipated. I’d convinced a Christian into a threesome easier.”

  Storm let out a cackle of laughter. “When do you have threesomes? Doesn’t that master kink shit you like only work with one bitch at a time?”

  “Is she as hot as the pics we saw of her?” Wells asked, leaning on the counter and raising his eyebrows, ignoring Storm’s obnoxious questioning.

  I shrugged, unsure why hearing Wells call her hot bothered me. We’d all made comments about her looks when we got all the information about Churchill Millroe. But that had been before I met her. Now, it seemed wrong. She was an abused woman. Yes, she was smoking hot, but she had been hurt in more ways than just physical.

  “Yeah. Could have done way better than that piece of shit she’s married to. One side of her face is pretty messed up, but it’ll heal,” I replied.

  “Body? Tits—small or big?” Wells asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Thatcher drawled, then took a drink of his beer.

  “He’s right,” I added. “You go there, and it won’t just be Maeme you have to deal with. Not part of the job.”

  “Blaise will be here tomorrow,” Thatcher said. “He might have her moved to Ocala.”

  It wasn’t the boss I had been referring to, but I let that go. Wells was too damn close to a motherfucking narcissist himself. I wasn’t about to let another man hurt her. She was vulnerable and nowhere near tough enough to handle Wells. That was all it was. I wanted her safe from other assholes.

  “Wilder coming with him?” Wells asked.

  Thatcher smirked and cut his eyes toward Wells. “He’s a newlywed. Doubt he’s gonna leave that pussy since he’s been wanting it for more than a decade.”

  “Thatch, don’t start shit,” I begged.

  We had real things to deal with. Getting Wells all worked up over the past was pointless. Wilder Jones was Wells’s cousin, and Wilder had just married Wells’s first love, Oakley Watson. Not only that, but Wilder had also taken her away from Wells over ten years ago. Wells claimed he was over it, but he and Wilder had never been close again after it happened. Thatcher knew that, and he thrived on conflict.

  “What? Wells is over it. Sebastian isn’t here to fuck with,” Thatcher replied, grinning smugly.

  Oakley had also dated Sebastian once upon a time. He’d proposed, and she’d broken things off.

  Wells shook his head. “That shit doesn’t get to me anymore. Wilder and Oak belong together. She was never good for me.”

  “No, you weren’t good for her,” Thatcher replied. “Cheating bastard.”

  Storm chuckled, and Wells shot him an annoyed glare.

  “I was a fucking kid,” he grumbled.

  That much was true. They had been in high school back then. Sebastian, on the other hand, had dated her years later. Yet he seemed to handle the fact Oakley and Wilder were married better than Wells.

  “Is the dining room table set?” Dr. Drew asked as he walked into the kitchen.

  I straightened from leaning against the sink. “You done?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yeah. And if Maeme gets up here and that table isn’t set, you’re all getting an earful. Thatcher, take off the damn hat. You know she’s gonna be mad if she sees it on in the house.”

  Everyone got into motion. I turned and grabbed the plates. Storm opened the fridge and got out the gallon pitcher of sweet tea. When I headed to the dining room, Thatcher had taken off his hat and was getting the flatware from the drawer, and Wells was carrying the pot of chicken and dumplings.

  “I’ll get the collards,” Doc D said, heading to the stove.

  We all made at least two trips, getting the rest of the supplies for the meal. I checked the oven and found the cornbread warming in the cast iron skillet and a casserole dish full of mac and cheese.

  “I got the cornbread. Someone grab the mac,” I called out and headed back to the dining room.

  When I stepped inside, I paused at the sight of Rumor standing there with her damp curls and clean face. Goddamn, the bruising was much worse than I’d assumed. Her swollen, cracked lip looked as if it had some medication on it now. Those sea-green eyes of hers met mine, and she looked almost relieved. As if seeing me was something she needed. Damn, that wasn’t a good thing, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like it.

  Off-limits. For a list of reasons a mile long.

  “You ready for those dumplings I told you about?” I asked her while setting the cornbread on the table.

  She dropped her gaze, and I saw her eyes widen at the spread. It had been a couple of hours since we’d shared the pizza, and I was starving. I wasn’t so sure about Rumor though. She didn’t look like she ate much.

  “All right, boys,” Maeme said, getting everyone’s attention as they made their way back to the dining room. All eyes were on my tiny grandmother, who stood with her hands on her hips. “I expect your best behavior.”

  She turned to Rumor then. “This here is Storm,” she told her, waving a hand in his direction. “Then, we have Thatcher.” She paused and looked back at Rumor. “He’s got a dark soul, but he’s still a good boy.” Which was a damn lie. Thatcher was a fucked-up son of a bitch. “You know King.” She gave me a pointed look like she had some things to say to me in private. “That there is Wells.”