Gage was silent during the rest of the drive to the Houston Medical Center, the biggest medical district in the world. It consisted of many different hospitals, academic and research institutions. I had no doubt my family had donated new wings or equipment to at least a couple of them.
“Was this the first time?” Gage asked as we pulled up to the emergency room parking lot.
“No.”
He muttered a few choice words. “If I’d ever thought the bastard would raise a hand to you, I’d never have let you go with him.”
“You couldn’ have stopped me,” I said thickly. “I was determined. Stupid.”
“Don’t say that.” Gage looked at me, his eyes filled with anguished fury. “You weren’t stupid. You took a chance on someone, and he turned out to be . . . Shit, there’s no word for it. A monster.” His tone was grim. “A walking dead man. Because when I get to him—”
“Please.” I’d had enough of angry voices and violence for one night. “I don’t know if Nick realized how much he hurt me.”
“One small bruise is enough to warrant me killing him.” He got me out of the car, picking me up and carrying me as if I were a child.
“I can walk,” I protested.
“You’re not walking through the parking lot in your socks. Damn it, Haven, give it a rest.” He carried me to the emergency room waiting area, which was occupied by at least a dozen people, and set me gently beside the reception desk.
“Gage Travis,” my brother said, handing a card to the woman behind the glass partition. “I need someone to see my sister right away.”
I saw her eyes widen briefly, and she nodded to the door on the left of the reception desk. “I’ll meet you at the door, Mr. Travis. Come right in.”
“No,” I whispered to my brother. “I don’ want to cut in front of everyone. I want to wait with the other people.”
“You don’t have a choice.” The door opened, and I found myself being pushed and pulled into the pale beige hallway. A wave of anger rushed over me at the manhandling from my brother. I didn’t give a shit how well intentioned it was.
“It’s not fair,” I said fiercely, while a nurse approached. “I won’t do it. I’m no more important than anyone else here—”
“You are to me.”
I was outraged on behalf of the people in the waiting room, all taking their turn while I was whisked right on through. And I was mortified at playing the role of privileged heiress. “There were a couple of children out there,” I said, pushing at Gage’s restraining arm. “They need to see a doctor as much as I do.”
“Haven,” Gage said in a low, inexorable tone, “everyone in that waiting room is in better shape than you. Shut up, settle down, and follow the nurse.”
With a strength fed on adrenaline, I jerked away from him and bumped against the wall. Pain, too much of it, too fast, came at me from various sources. My mouth watered, my eyes began to stream, and I felt a rising pressure of bile. “I’m going to throw up,” I whispered.
With miraculous speed, a kidney-shaped plastic bowl was produced as if by sleight of hand, and I bent over it, moaning. Since I hadn’t eaten dinner, there wasn’t much to disgorge. I vomited painfully, finishing with a few dry heaves.
“I think she’s got a concussion,” I heard Gage tell the nurse. “She has a lump on the head, and slurred speech. And now nausea.”
“We’ll take good care of her, Mr. Travis.” The nurse led me to a wheelchair. From that point on, there was nothing to do but surrender to the process. I was X-rayed, run through an MRI, checked for fractures and hematomas, then disinfected and bandaged and medicated. There were long periods of waiting between each procedure. It took most of the night.
As it turned out I had a middle rib fracture, but my jaw was only bruised, not broken. I had a slight concussion, but not enough to warrant a stay in the hospital. And I was dosed with enough Vicodin to make an elephant high.
I was too annoyed with Gage, and too exhausted, to say much of anything after I’d been checked out. I slept during the fifteen-minute ride to Gage’s condo at 1800 Main, a Travis-owned building made of glass and steel. It was a mixed-use structure with multimillion-dollar condos at the top and offices and retail space at the base. The distinctive glass segmented-pyramid surmounting the building had earned 1800 Main a semiiconic status in the city.
I had been inside 1800 Main a couple of times to eat at one of the downstairs restaurants, but I had never actually seen Gage’s place. He had always been intensely private.
We rode a swift elevator to the eighteenth floor. The condo door was open before we even made it to the end of the hallway. Liberty was standing there in a fuzzy peach-colored robe, her hair in a ponytail.
I wished she weren’t there, my gorgeous, perfect sister-in-law who’d made all the right choices, the woman everybody in my family adored. She was one of the last people I would want to see me like this. I felt humiliated and troll-like as I lurched down the hallway toward her.
Liberty drew us both into the condo, which was ultramodern and starkly furnished, and closed the door. I saw her stand on her toes to kiss Gage. She turned to me.
“Hope you don’ mind—” I began, and fell silent as she put her arms around me. She was so soft, smelling like scented powder and toothpaste, and her neck was warm and tender. I tried to pull back, but she didn’t let go. It had been a long time since I’d been held this long by an adult woman, not since my mother. It was what I needed.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she murmured. I felt myself relaxing, understanding there was going to be no judgment from Liberty, nothing but kindness.
She took me to the guest bedroom and helped me change into a nightshirt, and tucked me in as if I were no older than Carrington. The room was pristine, decorated in shades of pale aqua and gray. “Sleep as long as you want,” Liberty whispered, and closed the door.
I lay there dizzy and dazed. My cramped muscles released their tension, unraveling like braided cord. Somewhere in the condo a baby began to cry and was swiftly quieted. I heard Carrington’s voice, asking where her purple sneakers were. She must have been getting ready for school. A few clanks of dishes and pans . . . breakfast being prepared. They were comforting sounds. Family sounds.
And I drifted gratefully to sleep, part of me wishing I would never wake up.
AFTER YOU’VE BEEN systematically abused, your judgment erodes to the point where it’s nearly impossible to make decisions. Small decisions are as tough as big ones. Even choosing a breakfast cereal seems filled with peril. You are so scared about doing the wrong thing, being blamed and punished for it, you’d rather have someone else take the responsibility.
For me there was no relief in having left Nick. Whether or not I was still with him, I was buried in feelings of worthlessness. He had blamed me for causing the abuse, and his conviction had spread through me like a virus. Maybe I had caused it. Maybe I had deserved it.
Another side effect of having lived with Nick was that reality had acquired all the substance and stability of a jellyfish. I questioned myself and my reactions to everything. I didn’t know what was true anymore. I couldn’t tell if any of my feelings about anything were appropriate.
After sleeping about twenty-four hours, with Liberty checking on me occasionally, I finally got out of bed. I went to the bathroom and inspected my face in the mirror. I had a black eye, but the swelling had gone down. My jaw was still puffy and weird on one side, and I looked like I’d been in a car wreck. But I was hungry, which I thought was probably a good thing, and I was definitely feeling more human and less like roadkill.
As I shuffled into the main living area, groggy and hurting, I saw Gage sitting at a glass table.
Usually he was impeccably dressed, but at that moment he was wearing an old T-shirt and sweatpants, and his eyes were underpinned by dark circles.
“Wow,” I said, going to sit by him, “you look terrible.”
He didn’t smile at my attempt at humor, j
ust watched me with concern.
Liberty came in carrying a baby. “Here he is,” she said cheerfully. My nephew, Matthew, was a chubby, adorable one-year-old with a gummy grin, big gray eyes, and a thatch of thick black hair.
“You gave the baby a Mohawk?” I asked as Liberty sat beside me with Matthew in her lap.
She grinned and nuzzled his head. “No, it just sort of fell off the sides and stayed on the top. I’ve been told it’ll grow back in eventually.”
“I like it. The family’s Comanche streak is coming through.” I wanted to reach for the baby, but I didn’t think my cracked rib could take it, even with the support of the elastic rib belt around my midsection. So I settled for playing with his feet, while he giggled and crowed.
Liberty looked at me appraisingly. “It’s time for your medicine again. Do you think you could eat some toast and eggs first?”
“Yes, please.” I watched as she settled Matthew in a high chair and scattered some Cheerios on the surface. The baby began to rake the cereal bits with his fist, transferring them to his mouth.
“Coffee?” Liberty asked. “Hot tea?”
I usually preferred coffee, but I thought it might be tough on my stomach. “Tea would be great.”
Gage drank his own coffee, set the cup down, and reached over to cover my hand with his. “How are you?” he asked.
As soon as he touched me, a nasty threatened feeling came over me. I couldn’t stop myself from jerking my hand away. My brother, who had never done violence to a woman, looked at me with openmouthed amazement.
“Sorry,” I said, abashed as I saw his reaction.
He tore his gaze away, seeming occupied with a fierce inner struggle, and I saw that his color was high. “You’re not the one who should be sorry,” he muttered.
After Liberty had brought me tea and my prescription pills, Gage cleared his throat and asked gruffly, “Haven, how did you get away from Nick last night? How did you end up with no purse and no shoes?”
“Well, he . . . he sort of . . . threw me out. I think he expected me to wait on the doorstep until he let me back in.”
I saw Liberty pause temporarily as she came to pour more coffee for him. I was surprised by how shocked she looked.
Gage reached for a glass of water, nearly knocking it over. He took a few deliberate gulps. “He beat you up and threw you out,” he repeated. It wasn’t a question, more a statement he was trying to make himself believe. I nodded yes and reached over to nudge one of Matthew’s Cheerios more closely within reach.
“I’m not sure what Nick’s going to do when he sees I’m gone,” I heard myself say. “I’m afraid he might file a missing persons report. I guess I should call him. Although I’d rather not tell him where I am.”
“I’m going to call one of our lawyers in a few minutes,” Gage said. “I’ll find out what we need to do next.” He continued talking in a measured tone, about how we might need to take photos of my injuries, how to get the divorce over with as quickly as possible, how to minimize my involvement so I wouldn’t have to face Nick or talk to him—
“Divorce?” I asked stupidly, while Liberty set a plate in front of me. “I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”
“You don’t think you’re ready? Have you looked in the mirror, Haven? How much more of a pounding do you need to be ready?”
I looked at him, so big and decisive and strong-willed, and everything in me rebelled.
“Gage, I just got here. Can I have a break? Just for a little while? Please?”
“The only way for you to get a break is to divorce the son of a”—Gage paused and glanced at his attentive baby—“gun.”
I knew my brother was trying to protect me, that he wanted what was best for me. But his protectiveness felt like bullying. And it reminded me of Dad. “I know that,” I said. “I just want to think about things before I talk to a lawyer.”
“God help me, Haven, if you’re actually considering going back to him—”
“I’m not. I’m just tired of being told what to do and when to do it. All the time! I feel like I’m on a runaway train. I don’t want you making decisions about what I should do next.”
“Fine. Then you make them. Fast. Or I will.”
Liberty intervened before I could reply. “Gage,” she murmured. Her slim fingers went to the taut surface of his clenched bicep and stroked lightly. His attention was instantly diverted. He looked at her, the lines on his face smoothing out, and he took a deep breath. I had never seen anyone wield that kind of power over my authoritative brother, and I was impressed. “This is a process,” she said gently. “I know we want Haven to skip over the middle part and get right to the end . . . but I think the only way for her to get out of it is to go through it. Step by step.”
He frowned but didn’t argue. They exchanged a private glance. Clearly there would be more discussion later, out of my hearing. He turned back to me. “Haven,” he said quietly, “what would you say if one of your friends told you her husband had thrown her out on the doorstep one night? What would your advice be?”
“I . . . I’d tell her to leave him right away,” I admitted. “But it’s different when it’s me.”
“Why?” he asked in genuine bewilderment.
“I don’t know,” I answered helplessly.
Gage rubbed his face with both hands. He stood from the table. “I’m going to get dressed and go to the office for a while. I won’t make any calls.” He paused deliberately before adding, “Yet.” Going to the high chair, he lifted Matthew and held him aloft to make him squeal with delight. Lowering the wriggling body, Gage kissed his neck and cuddled him. “Hey, pardner. You be a good boy for Mommy while I’m gone. I’ll come back later and we’ll do some guy stuff.”
Settling the baby back in the chair, Gage leaned down to kiss his wife, sliding his hand behind the back of her neck. It was more than a casual kiss, turning harder, longer, until she reached up and stroked his face. Breaking it off, he continued to look into her eyes, and it seemed an entire conversation passed between them.
Liberty waited until Gage had gone to take a shower before telling me gently, “He was so upset after he brought you home. He loves you. It drives him crazy, thinking of someone hurting you. It’s all he can do to stop himself from going to Dallas and . . . doing something that’s not in your best interests.”
I blanched. “If he goes to Nick—”
“No, no, he won’t. Gage is very self-controlled when it comes to getting the results he wants. Believe me, he’ll do whatever is necessary to help you, no matter how hard it is.”
“I’m sorry for involving you in this,” I said. “I know it’s the last thing you or Gage need.”
“We’re your family.” She leaned over and gathered me into another of those long, comfortable hugs. “We’ll figure it out. And don’t worry about Gage—I’m not going to let him bully you. He just wants you to be safe . . . but he’s got to let you be in charge of how it’s handled.”
I felt a wave of affection and gratitude for her. If there was any lingering trace of resentment or jealousy in my heart, it vanished in that moment.
ONCE I STARTED talking, I couldn’t stop. I told Liberty everything, the way Nick had controlled the household, the shirts I’d had to iron, the way he called me “Marie.” Her eyes widened at that last, and she said in a low voice, “Oh, Haven. It’s like he was trying to erase you.”
We had laid out a big quilt with a barnyard design, and Matthew had crawled among the hand-stitched animals until he drifted to sleep on top of a flock of sheep. Liberty opened a bottle of chilled white wine. “Your prescription instructions say that alcohol may magnify the effects of the medication,” she warned.
“Good,” I said, holding out my glass. “Don’t be stingy.”
Lounging on the quilt with the sleeping baby, I tried to find a comfortable position on the pile of pillows Liberty had set out for me. “What’s confusing,” I told her, still pondering my relationship with Nick,
“are the times when he’s okay, because then you think everything is getting better. You know what buttons not to push. But then there are new buttons. And no matter how sorry you are, no matter how hard you try, everything you say and do builds up the tension until there’s an explosion.”
“And the explosions get worse each time,” she said with a quiet certainty that got my attention.
“Yeah, exactly. Did you ever date a guy like that?”
“My mother did.” Her green eyes were distant. “His name was Louis. A Jekyll and Hyde type. He started out charming and nice, and he led Mama step by step into the relationship, and by the time things got bad enough for her to leave, her self-esteem was shredded. At the time I was too young to understand why she let him treat her so badly.”
Her gaze wandered over Matthew’s slumbering body, limp and heavy as a sack of flour. “I think the thing you’ve got to figure out is if Nick’s behavior is something that could be helped with counseling. If your leaving him would be enough to make him want to change.”
I sipped my wine and considered that for a while. Was Nick’s abusiveness something that could be peeled away like an orange rind? Or was it marbled all the way through?
“I think with Nick, it’s always going to be about control,” I finally said. “I can’t see him ever admitting something is his fault, or that he needs to change in any way. The fault is always mine.” Setting aside my empty wine glass, I rubbed my forehead. “I keep wondering . . . did he ever love me at all? Was I anything more than just someone to push around and manipulate? Because if he never cared about me, it makes me even more of an idiot for having loved him.”
“Maybe he cared about you as much as he was capable,” Liberty said.
I smiled without humor. “Lucky me.” I realized we were talking about my relationship with Nick as if it were already in the past tense. “If I had known him longer,” I continued, “dated him longer, maybe I would have seen through the façade. It was my fault for rushing into marriage so quickly.”