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He wasn’t going to touch Del Harcourt, but he was going to bring his little sister home.
Period.
* * *
“WE’VE GOT A bed for you for tonight, Talia.” Lila McDaniels’s steady presence seemed to calm the girl as they sat on a leather sofa in her office Tuesday just before dinner. Sedona, sitting on the other side of the girl, took note. With her gray hair and no-nonsense slacks and blouse, Lila didn’t draw attention to herself. But while some people might overlook her, think they could ignore her, they’d soon find that she was always there. Always everywhere.
“Thank you.” Talia’s tremulous smile was clearly genuine.
“I’ll take you to dinner in a few minutes,” Lila continued. “You’ll be staying in Maddie Estes’s bungalow tonight. She has an extra room.”
Sedona knew a female Lemonade Stand staff member would also be in the bungalow alongside Maddie and Talia, just as she was every night in case Maddie, who had special needs, woke up and was frightened or confused. Talia wouldn’t be unsupervised for a moment.
“Maddie’s going to be getting married soon,” Lila said. “I’m sure you’ll hear all about it.”
Talia’s glance showed interest. “You help people get married here? Like they can stay until they get married and move in with their husbands?”
“Some women leave here to marry, but not many,” Lila explained. “The Lemonade Stand is a place where women come to heal when they’ve been mistreated. It’s a place where, hopefully, they can live with respect while being exposed to healthy relationships and learning how to love well. It’s also a safe house. Those who don’t treat our residents well are kept away from them.”
When Talia’s shoulders visibly relaxed, Sedona exchanged a glance with Lila. The older woman nodded.
“Tell us what happened to you, Talia.”
The girl looked from one to the other of them. Her lips were trembling.
“You told Ms. Campbell that you were hit.”
Talia nodded, her eyes brimming with tears.
“More than once?” Lila conducted the interview like the professional she was, and once again Sedona was filled with admiration for this woman who’d given up any chance of a life of her own, a family of her own, to run this wonderful, beach-front shelter and to give abused women a chance to know how it felt to be treated well. To give hundreds of women and children the chance to have happy families of their own.
“Maybe I was hit a couple of times.”
“Maybe?”
Talia stared downward. “Okay, a couple of times.”
“Recently?”
The girl shook her head. Shrugged. And then nodded.
“We need to know who you are, Talia.”
“I’m Talia Malone.”
“The ID you showed me bearing the name Talia Malone said that you live in an apartment in Los Angeles.”
“That’s right.” Talia picked at the side of her finger with a perfectly manicured purple nail.
“That apartment complex was torn down a couple of years ago. After a fire. The address is an empty lot.”
The slender shoulders between the two women shrugged again. “I moved.”
“The ID also says you’re nineteen, but you told Ms. Campbell you’re only fifteen.”
With her head bowed, the girl looked right, then left, and didn’t look up at either of them.
Sedona ached to help her.
Did the girl have family who would report her missing? Anyone who would care about her absence that night?
The same person who’d hurt her?
Right now, Sedona’s only concern was the girl.
“Talia?”
Those gray-blue eyes trained on her, and the wealth of hurt—and confusion—pooling in their depths grabbed at Sedona.
“You said I could have until tomorrow morning.”
“You can. We won’t call anyone until then. But at least tell us your name.”
The girl shook her head. “I told you, I’m Talia Malone.”
“Tell us who hurt you. Who are you afraid of? Who are you running from?”
Talia picked at her nails some more, around the edge of the nails, not touching the glossy purple paint.
“What if the person you’re afraid of followed you?”
“He didn’t.”
So it was a “he.”
“How do you know?” Lila’s quiet concern continued to flow around them, holding them all in a sacred place. For the moment.
“Because.”
“He could have had someone else follow you. Or someone might have seen you and told him they saw you get on a bus.”
Talia’s hands shook. She continued to pick. And if she kept it up, she’d soon draw blood.
Sedona covered the girl’s hands with her own. Holding on. She had no idea how it felt to have a trusted loved one turn on you with hate in his eyes, or violence in his words or hands.
But she knew, instinctively, that this young girl did. And knew she had to do something about it.
“Tell, me, Talia, please. I can’t help you until I know the problem. Who are we protecting you from?”
Talia’s fingers stilled and Sedona held her breath.
“My brother.”
The words fell into the room like a ton of bricks.
CHAPTER THREE
HE’D NEVER BEEN to the house, but Tanner knew right where it was. Behind the massive wrought-iron gate that might intimidate some.
But not him.
Stopping in front of the entrance, he searched for an admittance button. Had to get out of his truck to push it. And waited for a response.
“Tanner Malone here to see Del Harcourt,” he told the female voice on the other end of the speaker.
“Tanner? Tatum’s brother?” The female on the other end sounded delighted—and surprised.
“Yes.”
A click sounded, followed by whirring as the gates opened from the middle. “Come on in, Mr. Malone,” the woman said.
Hopping in his truck, Tanner did just that. Whether the voice on the other end belonged to a lenient housekeeper or a family member, he didn’t know.
And frankly, he didn’t care. He was on a mission.
The front door opened as Tanner pulled around the fountain in the driveway and parked in what would have been, at a hotel, valet parking: a triple-wide, paved area, beautifully landscaped with colorful blooms even in midMarch—completely unlike the single-lane dirt path that circled in front of his house.
“Mr. Malone?” A slender, blonde woman in her late thirties, dressed expensively in pants made from the same type of silken fabric Tatum had picked out for her honor society induction the previous month, came down the steps toward him, her hand outstretched.
He noticed her nails were painted red. Tatum wouldn’t wear red. She said it was for old ladies.
“I’m Callie Harcourt,” the woman said. Del’s mom. “Please come in. I’ve been anxious to meet you, but every time I asked, Tatum said you were working. You’re a very busy man.”
Any invitations to this home were news to him. “I’m a farmer,” he said, which, to him, explained everything. “But I usually make time to attend Tatum’s functions,” he added. He wasn’t perfect. But he tried.
“We’ve had a couple of barbecues,” the woman said, ushering him into a bright hallway with cathedral ceilings before leading the way to a great room with tile floors and voluptuous plush beige furniture that looked as if a guy could relax back into it and drink a beer if he had a mind to.
The art on the walls and various tables reminded him of some of the pieces out in his barn. Except these were in exquisite condition, hardly resembling his dusty and scarred versions.
“Tatum says you’re in the old Beacham place,” Callie Malone said, crossing over to what appeared to be a wet bar on the far side of the room.
“That’s right.” Tanner stood his ground about midroom. Ready to take on whatever came his way over the next few minutes.
He wasn’t made of money, but he was as powerful as the next guy when it came to protecting his own.
Callie stood with one arm on the bar. “The Beachams were friends of my parents. I can remember attending summer parties there as a kid. Those barns were fascinating.”
“I’m told they raised horses.”
“Arabians.” Callie nodded. “So sad, the way he died. She just let the place fall into disrepair after that. I’m told she’s in a home someplace up north.”
As Tanner understood it, Walter Beacham had died at the hands of a drunk driver. And his wife had given up on life. They’d never had any children. She had no other family to help out.
Tanner had picked up the property when it went into foreclosure. Just happened to get a bid in during the fifteen-day period that had been restricted to owner-occupied bids before the place was offered to investors.
That had been eight years ago and he and Tatum had been occupying it ever since.
Another two years and his vineyards would finally start to show enough profit for them to start fixing up the property the way he’d envisioned when he’d first seen it.
And his winery would stand in place of those old barns....
“Can I get you a drink?” Callie asked, stepping behind the bar. “Whiskey? Or some wine?”
“No, thank you,” he said. Alcohol was the furthest thing from his mind at the moment.
And other than wine, he didn’t drink, anyway. None of the Malone children did.
“I’ve come for my sister,” he said now. “It’s time for dinner and she has homework to finish before school tomorrow.”
They could do this the easy way. If everyone cooperated.
Tanner realized that it was possible the Harcourt adults didn’t know that Del had been warned to stay away from Tanner’s little sister. Didn’t know that their son was not only dealing and doing drugs, but was trying to pressure Tatum into doing the same. And into sleeping with him, too.
Callie’s frown was his first warning that things weren’t going to be easy. “Tatum? But...she’s not here, Mr. Malone―”
“The name’s Tanner,” he interrupted, more curtly than was called for. If the Harcourts thought their friends in high places were going to intimidate him—as Del had asserted when Tanner had thrown the punk out of his house two days before—if they thought their money was going to make it possible for them to take his sister away from him, they had another think coming.
He’d been raising Tatum on his own for ten years. He wasn’t about to lose her now. Another three years and they’d be there. Just three more years. She’d be eighteen. Legal age of consent.
Then he could set her free—a healthy, well-adjusted, well-educated adult Malone.
A well-loved Malone.
He swallowed. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, Mrs. Harcourt,” he started again, his hands at his sides as he stood tall and straightened his shoulders. He couldn’t do anything about the stained jeans he’d had on in the vineyard all day, or the equally stained button-up white-and-blue-striped shirt turned up at the cuffs. “But I assume your son is at home?”
Tatum had rattled on and on about the perfect Harcourt home, the normal, perfect family Del had. Including the way they ate dinner together every night, at the same time, with no television on. Just Del and his parents, talking about their day....
“Yes, Del’s upstairs doing his homework,” Callie said, coming out from behind the bar, her pretty, perfectly made-up features marred with a frown.
Looking at the woman he saw more of his little sister than he liked. It was as though Tatum was modeling herself after this woman. As if he was not only dealing with puppy love, but a case of heroine worship thrown in, as well.
Distracted for a second at the realization, he wasn’t about to let on.
“Can you call him down here, please?” he asked, as though he was the president of the United States addressing Congress.
“Of course.”
The soft click of Callie’s pumps on the shiny wood floor as she left the room was followed by her voice in the distance, calling for her son.
