Mulberry Moon

  When Ben had finally bade everyone good night, locked the front door, and put up the CLOSED sign, he lifted Sissy from the lounge and ascended the stairs sideways to reach the flat.

  “Don’t you still have breakfast prep to do?”

  He deposited her on the sofa. “That’s one of the beauties of entertaining family. They helped in the kitchen. They started early, and I’m done for the night.” He quickly went back downstairs to retrieve her pillows. As he reentered the flat, he went on talking as if there hadn’t been a lull. “You know what that means. I can spend the rest of my evening making passionate love to my future wife.”

  Sissy’s weariness vanished, and Ben followed through on his promise, making love to her three times before they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The next evening, right after the last customer left the café, Ben got a phone call as he locked the front door. When he came into the kitchen, he said, “That was my dad. He’s been training two horses that were brought to me. Apparently, he’s been looking high and low for a special bit and hasn’t been able to find it. I can’t remember where I put it, but it’s for sure not in the tack room where it belongs. I’ve got to go find it so he’ll have it come morning.” He glanced at the counters, laden with dirty cookware and dishes. “I won’t be long. If your leg’s bothering you, take a rest, and we’ll knock it out together when I get back.”

  Sissy’s leg ached only a little. “I’m fine,” she assured him as she followed him to the back door. “Don’t drive too fast on the curves. It may be icy out.”

  He bent to kiss her. It was a long, leisurely exploration of her mouth that left her feeling breathless. “Do you really believe I’d drive like a maniac with a beautiful woman like you waiting for me? If I got in a wreck, I might miss out on happy hour later.”

  Sissy giggled. Then she sobered. “I’m no longer on crutches. I miss Finnegan. He’s a part of our family, and it doesn’t seem right without him here. Could you run by Barney’s and pick him up on the way back?”

  “He could still trip you.”

  “He won’t. He’s smart, Ben. He’ll realize I’m hurt and be extra careful.”

  “All right, I’ll bring him home, but not tonight. It’s late. We’ve got cleanup and prep to do. And Barney may already be in bed.”

  “But you’ll get him tomorrow?” she pressed.

  Ben sighed. “Against my better judgment, yes, I’ll bring him home tomorrow.”

  Sissy locked up behind him, listened for the familiar thump of his boots going down the steps, and then leaned against the door for a moment, smiling. He hadn’t said he would bring Finn here. He’d said he would bring Finn home. That made her feel so secure and—well, just happy.

  Hobbling on her cast, Sissy made her way toward the kitchen. She’d just entered the café proper when Ben’s distinctive and never-changing knock, three raps with long pauses in between, resounded up the hallway from the back door. She smiled and retraced her steps.

  As she turned the key in the lock to disengage the mechanism, she said, “What did you forget?”

  The door burst open with enough force to knock her backward and off her feet. Her head smacked the wall, making bright spots appear before her eyes.

  When her vision cleared, she saw the man of her nightmares standing over her. He smiled as if seeing her sprawled at his feet amused him. Sissy glanced past him and saw that he’d closed the door. She had no doubt that he had locked it, and she could tell by his glazed eyes that he was either drunk, stoned, or both.

  Sissy refused to call him Dad. He didn’t deserve the title. “What are you doing here?”

  He grabbed her arm in a brutal grip and jerked her to her feet. “I came for what’s ours. The money. Mabel never stopped loving me. She almost married me. Your mom and I should have inherited this dump and all her money. If you behave yourself for once in your miserable life, maybe that’s all I’ll take. You don’t have that tire iron now, sweet cheeks.”

  Sissy almost fell again as he released his hold on her arm and shoved her up the hallway. She lurched against the wall, throwing all of her weight on her injured leg. She managed to keep her footing, but only just barely. She remembered how he’d mimicked Ben’s knock, and knew that he’d been watching her and waiting to strike. He was like a rattlesnake . . . except he gave no warning.

  “Is my mother in on this?” she asked over her shoulder. “Did she tell you where I am?”

  “Yep. What d’ya think, that she had a sudden personality change? You know her as well as I do. She never turns up her nose at free money. And she was mad as hell when we found out Mabel left you this place. Doreen thought she should have inherited it, not you. I’m here to take what I can of what should’ve been ours.”

  Even though fear reigned supreme within Sissy, she felt a stab of pain in her heart. Her mother had betrayed her.

  Ben had already counted down the till and put the day’s proceeds in the safe.

  He had been making regular deposits at the bank for her, but he only did it once a week, on Monday. This was Friday. Five days of profit sat in the safe. Sissy had already lost enough money after her accident while the café was closed. There was no way she would open that safe and let her father take nearly a week’s income.

  Ben had worked so hard here to keep Sissy’s restaurant operating in the black. In a way, her father would be stealing Ben’s sweat. The thought infuriated her.

  Sissy’s mind raced. Douglas Bentley was a big, ham-fisted man. Physically, she was no match for him. Her only hope was to outsmart him.

  Once he’d pushed Sissy into the café dining room, he seized her arm again and dragged her to the cash register. “Open it.”

  Sissy knew that he’d realize she had more money stashed somewhere if she gave in too easily. All that remained in the till was the next morning’s startup cash. “No way!” she said, forcing defiance into her voice. “My whole week’s profit is in there. I’m not going to let you walk out of here with it.”

  Doug Bentley drew back his arm and slapped her. Even as Sissy staggered backward and nearly fell under the force of the blow, she knew she’d gotten off lucky. In the past, he’d always used his fists.

  “Open it, or I swear to God I’ll bust that leg of yours again and make you a cripple for the rest of your life.”

  Feigning reluctance, Sissy fished under the counter for the register key, which she always kept hanging on a nail where few people would think to look for it. “You’re a bastard. Do you have any idea how badly it’ll hurt me financially if you take a whole week of my profit? Look at this place. It’s a dump. I’m barely making ends meet.”

  Doug sneered at her. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a shit.”

  Sissy opened the drawer, hoping that she had played her role convincingly enough to make her father believe he was making off with every dime she had in the building. “Help yourself, then. Ruin your daughter financially. You may find the checks difficult to cash, and a lot of people use credit cards, but you can take everything else.”

  Her father shuffled through the bills in each divider. Then, without any warning, he snarled and backhanded Sissy across the mouth. The blow sent her stumbling backward, and she fell against the shelving. Pain streaked up her leg.

  “Do you really think I’m that stupid?” he asked. “This is only the opening money for tomorrow.”

  Looking up at her father’s glaring eyes, Sissy knew that he might kill her if she refused to open the safe. No amount of money was worth dying for, especially not when she was so happy for the first time in her life. Ben. A future with him, getting married and raising a family with him. To her, that was the true treasure. Giving her father even as much as a dime stuck in her craw, but as she regained her feet, she assured herself that this would be the last time she’d ever have to deal with him. The moment he left,
she’d dial 911. He would be arrested before he left town. And she wouldn’t hesitate to press charges. He’d do hard time for robbery, breaking into her building, and assaulting her.

  For once in his life, Douglas Bentley would get what was coming to him.

  Sissy hobbled to the safe in the kitchen pantry, detesting the man who followed behind her. He’d injured her leg. It didn’t feel as if it was broken again, but it did hurt when she put weight on it. What bothered her was that he didn’t care. If she ended up being a cripple for the rest of her life, he’d never feel a moment’s remorse. There was something missing inside of him, that part of a person that allowed him to experience compassion and love.

  Sissy was so furious that her hand didn’t shake as she turned the dial to unlock the safe. When she heard the click, she pulled open the door and stepped back. He grabbed an empty money bag. Ben had stacked each denomination of bills and secured them with paper clips.

  Sissy watched her father grabbing money, filling the bag as full as he could get it. He couldn’t close the zipper. Sissy knew he’d just relieved her of about seven thousand, maybe more. That had once seemed like a lot to her. Now she thought of it as working capital, which would quickly deplete when she paid for supplies. The café provided her with a comfortable living, but it would never make her rich.

  Her father placed the money back on the shelf and said, “Well, now, I’ve got nearly everything I came for.”

  He lashed out so fast to grab her by the hair that she couldn’t move quickly enough to evade him.

  “I’ve been waiting ten years for this moment, ever since you turned sixteen and got tits.”

  Sissy’s skin went icy. She knew what he intended to do, and she also knew she couldn’t stop him.

  “I’m your daughter,” she reminded him.

  “You aren’t my kid. Before you were born, I got thrown in jail for six months, and when I got released, Doreen was three months gone with some other man’s brat.”

  Sissy knew he was lying. She hadn’t taken after her father in build, but she had his dark hair and blue eyes. She also had a little bump on her right earlobe that her mother had told her ran in his family. She shifted her gaze to the side of his head and saw it. He was a piece of trash. “I wish I weren’t yours! I’d give up an arm not to have your blood in my veins. But that’s your fairy tale, not mine. You’re a bastard who’s about to rape his own daughter.”

  He doubled his fist and really hit her then. Sissy had endured blows from his bunched knuckles enough to know that he might have fractured her cheekbone. If so, it wouldn’t be the first time. His grip on her hair kept her from falling. She glared up at him. She was frightened. Somewhere behind her rage the fear clawed at her stomach like icy talons. She knew she couldn’t fight him off. He looked soft, but under the layer of flab, he packed a lot of muscle. If he got her underneath him, he would be able to pin her with his weight alone.

  Sissy was going to come out the loser in this battle. Ben wouldn’t return in time to save her. The physical closeness between them had been sacred, or something very close to it. What her father planned was just the opposite, a sacrilege.

  Her mouth was dry. But she tipped back her head, despite the sting of her hair follicles, and with all the force that she could muster, she spit in her father’s face.

  He roared with anger, and with one powerful swing of his arm, he threw Sissy so hard that she hit the lower cabinets of the kitchen before she landed on the floor. Dimly, she realized that her cast had broken. Through the pain that radiated over her body, she also knew she couldn’t try to run, not without anything to brace her leg. She could break her tibia again.

  Her father snarled and sprang at her. For an instant, it seemed to Sissy that he floated on the air with his arms spread. And then he landed, all two-hundred-plus pounds of him flattening her against the floor with such impact that all the air in her chest gushed from her mouth. She tried to scream, but instead she could only gasp with lungs that refused to inflate. Black spots danced before her eyes. She felt her blouse rip. Felt her father’s beefy hands on her bare skin.

  Finally, she was able to drag in a jagged breath. Her vision cleared. With horror, she felt the waistband of her sweatpants down around her hips. She turned her head to look for a weapon. She had fallen near the open shelving that housed her cooking pots. The small cast-iron fajita skillets lay just beyond her reach.

  Her father was grunting above her and tearing at her bra. Sissy strained to reach the handle of a fajita skillet. It wasn’t large, but if she could grasp the handle, it would be light enough for her to swing it with all her might. She managed to shift her shoulders closer to the shelf. Her father was so intent on pulling up her bra that he’d lifted some of his weight off her.

  Sissy touched the tip of the handle with her fingers. She still couldn’t get a solid grip. She pushed with her good leg, trying to inch closer. Finally, she was able to curl her fingers around the stout handle. At the edge of her mind, she realized her father had bared her breasts and was pinching her nipples. Her stomach heaved with revulsion.

  My father, she thought. And then, with all the strength she had left, she swung the skillet at his head. Then she swung again.

  He went limp, his weight still pinning her to the floor. She lay beneath him, keeping a death hold on the cast iron, prepared to bonk him again if he came around. She didn’t care if she killed him. All she cared about was getting him off of her, being free of his stench.

  She squirmed sideways. He was so heavy he was crushing her. She pushed with her uninjured leg and gained another inch. He was round at the belly and rolled slightly. She pressed both hands against his shoulders and shoved with all her might. He didn’t topple off of her, but his weight shifted, enabling her to wiggle out from under him.

  Every intake of air whined against her eardrums. She turned onto her stomach, still holding the skillet, and belly crawled to put distance between them. When she reached the corner of the cupboards, she sat up and rested her back against the door. She stared at her father, lying on the floor, possibly dead, but more likely, still breathing. She needed to call the police, but her phone had fallen from her sweatpants pocket when he’d been knocking her around.

  Remembering his hands on her breasts, she gagged and purged her stomach. Lumpy liquid landed on her top. It stank, but not as badly as her father.

  Terrified that he might regain consciousness and knowing she didn’t dare try to run, she did the only thing she could. She screamed.

  * * *

  As Ben parked in Sissy’s backyard and opened the door to get out of his truck, he heard her screaming. This time, it wasn’t pain he heard in her cries, but terror. He hit the ground running, cursing the fact that he’d never had a duplicate of her key made. He felt as if he were racing against a headwind, every step taking a lifetime. Across the yard, up the steps. He smacked the back door with such force that he took out the frame again.

  Sissy’s screams came from the kitchen. The hallway seemed to be a mile long. When he reached the dining room, he heard her sobbing. Following the sound, he burst into the cooking area and almost tripped over a man sprawled on the floor. He saw Sissy huddled in the corner of the cupboards. Blood trickled from her nose and puffy lower lip. Her cheek was bright red. The front of her blouse hung open, revealing her bra, pushed above her breasts.

  Ben wanted to kill the man on the floor with his bare hands, but he was either already dead or out cold. There was a deep gash on his temple, which he suspected had been put there by the skillet Sissy still held. He hurried over to her. “Sweetheart, are you okay?”

  When he reached toward her, she flinched away. “D-don’t. Please don’t t-touch m-me.”

  Ben snatched his cell phone from his pocket and dialed 911. A female dispatcher answered. “This is Ben Sterling at the Cauldron. Some man broke in and attacked Sissy Bentley. I believe she hit him on th
e head with a skillet and knocked him out. She may be badly hurt, and he’s unconscious.”

  “I’ve dispatched the call, sir. Help is on the way. Would you like me to remain on the phone with you until the officers and paramedics arrive?”

  “No,” Ben said. “Ms. Bentley needs attention. I have the situation under control.”

  Ben pocketed his phone and gazed down at Sissy. Never had he felt so helpless.

  “My father,” she said, her voice still shaking. “He’s my f-father. And my mother is in on it.”

  Ben’s stomach rolled. He wanted to plant a boot in the bastard’s face and then grab him by the hair and pound his already-injured head against the floor. He’d tried to rape Sissy. Maybe he’d succeeded. Judging by the way she’d shrunk away from Ben’s touch, she appeared to be in shock.

  Ben crouched beside her. “Did he—?”

  “N-no. B-but almost. I b-bashed him on the head to kn-knock him out.” She released her grip on the skillet, and it clanked on the floor. “He br-broke my c-cast. I c-couldn’t run. I was so scared he’d wake up.”

  Just then, she jerked and her eyes widened with renewed terror. Ben pivoted in a crouch and surged to his feet just as Bentley rushed him. Ben had no time to react. The other man’s body slammed him with such force that Ben fell against the grill behind him.

  Ben’s recent rage, diminished by concern for Sissy, returned, licking through his bloodstream. He clenched his hands into fists. Bentley was fair game now, awake and in attack mode. Ben drew back and hit the son of a bitch squarely in the face with all his strength. The older and heavier man reeled backward, but he remained standing. Something primal overtook Ben. He strode across the floor and punched the bastard again, one more time in the face and then with an uppercut blow to his belly.

  Sissy, he thought. Not much to her, Drake had said. And it was true. Yet this bastard, her own father, had harmed her. Broken her cast. Possibly, if her tibia had been damaged, crippled her. Ben wanted to beat him to death.