Page 36 of Blame it on the Mistletoe
“But?” he asked.
“I hate buts, don’t you?” Realizing what she’d said, she held up a hand and he grinned. “I meant, I want to find out for myself, but I’ve been burned.”
Too many times to count. Although her heart kept a checklist of each and every one and liked to review them whenever she watched a sappy movie.
“So have I,” he said, taking her hand. “You want to know why I used to come here?”
He placed her fingers on the tiny scar at his temple that she’d noticed more than once and had chalked up to the hazards of his chosen profession. With his hand over hers, he traced the length of the wound, which started above his ear and ran deep, disappearing into his hair.
Her lips parted on a gasp as she tenderly followed the puckered skin until she was holding his head. He leaned into her palm and closed his eyes, and in that moment, she felt a connection between them that would never fade away.
“This was a Christmas gift from my old man the year after my mama passed,” he began, and something inside her heart broke open. “My kid brother, Beau, was looking through my mom’s stuff and came across a box of glass ornaments. He was eight, maybe nine, and had grown like five inches that summer. So he was still finding his legs—and was about as coordinated as a newborn colt.”
“He broke them?” she guessed.
“No, that’s what’s so crazy. Beau wanted to surprise the family by stringing the ornaments under the mantel, thinking . . .” He trailed off, his accent thick with emotion. “I don’t know. Maybe he thought that if he decorated the house, it would be like my mama was back, and things would return to the way they were. Heck, I don’t know what he was thinking.”
“We moved here a few years after your mama passed, so I never got to meet her. But Mrs. McKinney thinks the world of her.” Everyone in town had loved Miz Tucker.
He smiled fondly. “She was pretty amazing. To deal with three wild, rough-and-tumble, troublemaking boys the way she did and keep my dad’s beast at bay. Not many could’ve handled all that the way she did, and she never had to even raise her voice or a hand. Anyway, she wasn’t there, and those glass balls were a reminder. When Silas came in for dinner, we could tell he’d been drinking and was already spittin’ mad on account of some cattle busting through the fence. He took one look at the mantel and I knew. Ms. Luella was already gone for the night, Cody was working in the barn, so I told Beau to run and hide—”
Faith’s hands flew to her mouth. “Oh, Noah, you took the blame.”
“You could say that. Although it was more like the blunt end of a hoe to the head.”
Faith framed his face, hating the shame hiding in his eyes. “I don’t know how someone could do that to a child. To their own child. I am so sorry,” she whispered, then pressed a gentle kiss to his ear. She couldn’t take back what had happened, but she could hold him now. “Did you tell the police?”
Faith already knew the answer to that because, although she’d never been beaten, she’d lived through enough violent situations to know that the law doesn’t protect everyone.
“Nah. Beau found me, and we hid here until Silas sobered up.” He rubbed his cheek against her hand, and she held him close. They were two broken souls who’d somehow managed to find each other.
Faith closed her eyes, then took his hand, placing it under her sweater, low on her hip. She held her breath as his fingers brushed over her skin.
“My dad is Timothy Shane,” she said, finding the courage to tell him the story she had never shared with another living soul. “He’s serving a double life sentence in Attica for shooting an officer.” Noah didn’t comment, but continued tracing over the scar on her hip. “It wasn’t his first offence. Hope said he liked nice things but didn’t like to work. He also liked to argue. One night he got into it with a neighbor over a parking spot in front of our house. It didn’t take much to rile him up. The guy refused to move his car, so my dad punctured his tires.”
Faith paused for a moment, listening to the steady beat of Noah’s heart. Finding strength in it. “I was six and had spent that afternoon with him at Coney Island, the two of us. I was covered in cotton candy, so Hope put me in the bath. I heard a crash downstairs and lots of shouting, so I put on my nightgown and ran to see what was happening.”
It was all so strange, rattling off the facts of an event as if it hadn’t happened to her.
“Later I learned the neighbor had called the cops and when they showed up, my dad refused to let them in. But since he was still on parole for a burglary charge, he wasn’t allowed to deny them entry. He also wasn’t allowed to have a gun.”
Beneath her, Noah’s body tightened, his free arm wrapping around her to hold her close.
“All I remember was thinking this man was yelling at my dad, so I ran over to help him. I didn’t know I was walking into the middle of a standoff. The officer was a rookie, so when my dad moved to grab me, Officer John Harding saw he had a gun and fired, hitting me here.” She placed her hand atop his again and he laced their fingers.
Even now, she remembered the searing pain in her side. Red seeping through her white nightgown and staining the carpet beneath her. She struggled to breathe, her lungs frozen from being thrust backward, and the corners of her gaze turned black. Then her daddy was there, standing over her and asking her to open her eyes. His face was contorted in anger and concern, his hands ever so gently holding her.
He whispered, “I’m so sorry,” over and over.
“My dad’s aim was better,” she continued. “Not lethal, but accurate enough that Officer Harding retired shortly thereafter. The man who read to me every night before bedtime and braided my hair when my mom couldn’t be bothered shot a policeman.” Her throat closed on the last word. “And that’s only husband number one. I can tell you more.”
“Baby,” he said, situating them so that they were both on their sides, facing each other. He wiped away her tears with the pad of his thumb. “There are so many things seriously screwed up about what you just told me, but none of that is on you.”
“I know that now, but for years I played the ‘what if?’ game. What if I hadn’t gone downstairs? What if I hadn’t moved when I did? What if my dad had simply let Officer Harding in? What if he hadn’t had a gun?”
“You can’t go down that road—it will drive you mad. Trust me.”
“The worst part is I still love him,” she whispered, horrified at the admission. “He’s a bad man and I still love him.”
