“He saw it?” She was horrified that Matt had been exposed to this part of her life and now Shane had been too? Great.
The doctor came in and pushed him out of the way to shine a pen light into her eyes and check her other vitals. Matt stood to the side, not letting her out of his sight.
“You’re all right. Concussion. I told you the last time to watch yourself. Ms. Murphy, your father—”
“Yes, I know, Doctor.” Tate cut him off before he could say anything else but she caught Matt scrubbing his hands over his face. The last time echoed in her ears and she knew he’d heard it too. Shame, sharp and acute roiled in her stomach and she had to fight back heaving her breakfast.
“Well, you’re going to have a shiner where the railing of the steps connected with your face when you went down. We’re going to keep you here overnight for observation, you know the drill. Your eye is fine and the bruising should go away in a week or so. Your ankle on the other hand is sprained. You twisted it when you went down. You really shouldn’t wear such high heels, they’re murder on you.”
“I like ‘em and they’re definitely murder on me,” Matt murmured and Tate snorted a laugh.
Before leaving, the doctor said a nurse would be in within the hour and to ring if she needed anything. She did indeed know the drill.
Once alone she turned to him. “Oh fuck! Your family picnic. Go on, now and get going. I’m fine. I’ll doze and be woken up repeatedly and you can call me tomorrow when I get home.”
He shook his head and kissed her temple. “Tate Murphy, you are the dumbest woman I know. I’m not going anywhere. What kind of man would I be if I went to eat fried chicken and watch fireworks when my girlfriend was in the hospital? Plus, there’s plenty of fried chicken here. Your whole family and mine are all in the waiting room. I doubt they’d let us picnic in here but I promise once I make sure it’s okay, we’ll get you a plate and you and I can snuggle and have our July Fourth lunch right here.”
She started to cry. What had she done to deserve this man? He took the hand what wasn’t hooked to an IV, alarmed. “Venus? Honey, what is it? Why are you crying? Are you in pain? Should I call the doctor?”
“They’re all here and I’m your girlfriend?”
“That makes you cry?”
“It’s a good kind of cry. Answer me.”
“Woman, I told your blonde ass I loved you over a month ago. Of course you’re my girlfriend. You think I’d let just any woman make me scratch biscuits and cherry pie with fresh whipped cream? And I hate to say this, Venus, but only a man who loves you would stick around after hearing you sing in the shower. You’re my woman. My heart.”
She nodded, wincing a bit at the pain but happy. So damned happy. “Good. Okay then. Matt? I love you too.”
She did. She always had in some sense as a fantasy but the reality of Matt Chase was beyond anything she could have imagined. Sweeter than her visual donut. He was special and there for her when she needed it. She’d have to worry about whether he’d bolt when he heard the full truth later. For the moment though, she let herself love and be loved.
At her admission, relief washed over him and he wanted to kiss her. Hell, he wanted to whoop at the top of his lungs, chide her for not saying so sooner, scoop her up and protect her forever and fuck her ten ways til Sunday all at once.
Instead, he sighed with a grin. “’Bout time you said so. I was beginning to think you were just using me for the sex. And where else would your family be? They love you too. And mine. As a matter of fact, they’re all worried sick. Let me step outside and tell everyone you’re okay. Your brothers and sisters are going to want to see you too.”
“Matt?”
“Hmm?”
“Thank you for knowing they need to see me. Thank you for being okay with that.”
“Honey, family is everything. It’s one of the things I love most about you.”
He walked outside and leaned against the wall, relief that she’d finally allowed him to love her and herself to love him warring with the rage he felt for her father. Bill Murphy would never hurt Tate again. Not while Matt had breath to draw.
Everyone looked up expectantly when he entered the waiting room. Marc, Liv, Kyle and Maggie had arrived. “She’s awake now. The doctor came in and checked her out. She’s got a shiner, apparently she whacked the railing with her face on the way down. A sprained ankle, you know the heels she always wears.” He laughed, emotion still tight in his chest. “They’re going to keep her overnight.”
Shane put his arm around Matt’s shoulder.
Tim and Beth stood. “Can she see people?”
“Yeah, I know she wants to see you all. They said two at a time.”
“We’ve done this before.” Anne sighed. “You guys go first. Nathan and I’ll go next. Then William can go in. Jacob and Jill should be here in an hour or so. Go on, I’ll call them and check in. Mom too, I suppose,” she said. Tim and Beth nodded before going down the hall toward Tate’s room while Anne headed outside to use her cell phone.
“You okay, son?” Edward asked.
“Yes, sure. No, no I’m not. Damn it. She could’ve been really hurt.”
“Well, it’s happened. You knew you loved her, but now you really see the power of what it means to love someone. A powerful thing, love. The power of the connection you feel but also the power of the fear of losing it,” his mother said as she patted his hand. “Bend on down here and give your old mom a kiss. I’m proud of you. You have excellent taste.”
Matt smiled and bent to hug and kiss his mother. “She told me she loved me.”
Nathan grinned. “About time. I’m glad. You’re good for her, Matt. But, you know this isn’t going to be easy.”
“Hasn’t been so far. But it’s been fun when I’m not scared to death.”
“I’d like to see her too,” Cassie said quietly, telling him with her eyes that she’d try to help Tate through the trauma if she could.
“Thank you, Cassie.” Matt breathed a sigh of relief.
“We all want to see her. We’ll wait for her kin and then we’ll go in and let that girl know we love her too.” Polly squeezed Matt’s hand.
“Fine, that’ll be fine, Momma. I’m here for the night,” Matt said, distracted.
“You sure about that? You won’t get any rest with them waking her up hourly,” Nathan said. “We’ll all be here if you need to get home for work.”
“You think I’d leave her alone here? After what happened to her today? If she’d only called me before she went over there.” He sat down, head in his hands. “Why didn’t she do that?”
“Because, she’s been handling my dad—and worse for most of her life. She’s ashamed,” Tim said, after coming out of Tate’s room to sit across from Matt.
“I’m going to go in now while Beth’s still with her. Tell him. It’s been a secret too damned long,” Anne said softly. Nathan kissed her cheek as she passed him to go toward Tate’s room.
“It’s not her fault, why should she be ashamed?” Matt didn’t like feeling helpless and he really didn’t like it that she’d feel responsible for being hurt by someone else.
Tim started to speak but he seemed so angry he had to shake his head and point at Nathan.
“Look, you have no idea what it’s like to live in a family like mine. Your parents are educated, you grew up with money and prestige. Yours is one of the premier families in this area. You were all loved and cherished.
“My family wasn’t. My mother took off for weeks at a time, leaving us with my father. It’s no secret that he’s a drunk, a mean drunk. He didn’t work much so Tim and Tate had to take care of the rest of us. You can look at Tate and see she’s not his, he knows it too. She embodied my mother’s infidelity, a slap in the face every time he saw her.”
Beth and Anne came out and Nathan stopped the story. “I need to see her. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” William joined Nathan as they went to Tate.
Matt heaved a sigh and Polly dab
bed her eyes.
Beth settled in next to Tim and Susan.
Tim took a swallow of his coffee and continued. “So I’m big. Big like he is and after a few memorable knock downs with my dad, he left me alone, physically anyway. But Tate is small. I had to work, to bring food in for the others. She stayed at home for the kids, to take care of them that way. So the only way she could keep safe was to fade, to stay unnoticed. Other than me, she had no one who could protect her. She had to keep her focus on the little ones, he wasn’t above hurting them to hurt her.
“I’ve seen your house at Christmas, by the way. All lit up with sparkly lights, that big tree in your front window. My house, our trailer, wasn’t on the Petal Christmas lights map. You think Tate’s reservations about your differences are silly, I know you do. And I know it’s because you don’t know any better. But at our trailer Christmases were hell. Any excuse to drink more was a disaster. We didn’t have a big shiny tree with loads of presents. We had one tree and my mother set it on fire to get back at my dad for something.
“My senior year in high school I only went enough to get my diploma. By then I worked two jobs and Tate did housework on the side for different families around town to bring in the money. I moved out and we brought all the kids with us. Tate finished school the best she could but worked every spare moment. Then she graduated and Anne did it, Nathan after her.” Tim’s voice broke.
Anne took over the telling and Matt realized what a unit they all were, with Tate at the heart. “We tried but we’d have fallen apart if it weren’t for Tate. She missed a lot of school, didn’t go to dances, didn’t date. She dumpster dived for clothes even though it got her teased. But let me tell you, none of us missed school. She wouldn’t allow it. She worked nights for Doctor Allen in Riverton so we could have healthcare.” Anne worried her lip with her teeth. “Tate isn’t heavy because she eats for stress or whatever, she’s always been curvy, and our father would use that like a bludgeon. The stuff he says to her, it’s repugnant.”
“This isn’t her first concussion,” Cassie broke in gently.
“No. I told you, she was, is, his favorite target. Most of his abuse was verbal and emotional along with neglect. But when he got really drunk and if she was around…” Anne paused, taking a breath. Her hands shook and Tim ran a hand up and down her arm. “He broke her arm when we were in elementary school. She’s had two concussions. He knocked her into a door when she shielded Nathan, she was like fifteen maybe? And another time, right after we’d moved out. Technically, Tim and Tate had no right to take us. She paid him to let her bring us with them. She doesn’t know we know that, it would kill her with guilt if she knew. She was late with the payments and he beat her pretty bad.”
Anne put her hand over her mouth, unable to finish. Nathan rejoined them with William at his side.
“That’s shame, Matt. Living with secrets, living with people who’d shake you down for money, people who harm you because you’re the face of their failures. So no, she didn’t call you. We were raised to hide it. Tate has lived her life for all of us, even for my asshole of a father and my waste of a mother. It’s not that she didn’t trust you to protect her, it’s that no one has ever protected her ever. She’s only had herself.”
“She never said. I’ve asked her about it but she wouldn’t talk about it. I knew it had to be sort of bad, but why didn’t she tell me?”
“Jesus man, have you not heard a thing we told you? She’s ashamed of it! She’s afraid you’ll judge her, the way people have judged us all our whole lives. Deal with it. How does one tell someone they’ve been abused anyway? Is it appropriate between courses at dinner? After a picnic? How should she have told you and how would you have reacted? She’s afraid of letting anyone in, because people hurt her or they ignore it when she’s hurting.” Nathan shook his head sadly.
“Good Lord,” Polly whispered, holding Edward’s hand.
“If you’re going to leave her over this, please do us, do her a favor and wait until after she’s recovered and home,” Beth said.
“You think I’d walk away from her because of this? God, what kind of man do you think I am? I love her. I wasn’t making that up. She’s…in the months we’ve been together, she’s become so much to me. I would never hurt her, especially not over something that wasn’t her fault.”
“We’ll be her shiny Christmas mornings,” Polly said quietly. “We’ve got room around our tree for fourteen more.”
Matt kissed his mother, fighting back tears. “Thanks, Momma. Why don’t you and Daddy go to see her while I get myself together.”
His parents nodded and headed down the hall. Matt stood and faced her siblings. “Thank you for trusting me to tell me this and for helping me to understand her better.”
“We trusted you with the story because you seem worthy of her. Please let us be right.” Anne stood and hugged him.
“I love Tate with all that I am.”
His siblings and their wives surrounded him, hugging him.
Shane looked into his face. “You gonna be all right? We’ve got your back.”
“Yeah, but thanks. Thanks to all of you.”
“It’s gonna be hard to make charges stick if the mother won’t remember anything. If he says it was an accident they may not go forward. It’s not my choice, I want you to know I’ll do all I can, but you should be ready for that eventuality.”
Matt sighed, swallowing hard. “We’ll handle it if it comes along. Maybe the mother will do the right thing.”
Shane’s face told Matt just how dubious he was at that idea.
Matt’s head spun. He didn’t quite know how to process all he’d heard. He felt a deep, murderous rage toward Tate’s father and bottomless tenderness toward his own woman. He knew he couldn’t show her any pity or she’d be hurt. Knew she didn’t want it, just his love and respect.
Tate looked up to see Cassie Chase come in. Deep, bone-deep exhaustion settled into her. She wanted to be that cultured, that beautiful and graceful, and that wasn’t going to ever be. She’d never be tall and beautiful like Cassie.
“Hi, Tate, how are you feeling?” Cassie sat in the chair next to the bed and kicked off her shoes.
“Been better.” She smiled weakly.
“Yeah, worse too, haven’t you?”
Tate stilled as Cassie looked at her through alarmingly perceptive eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes you do. Takes one to know one, Tate. I’ve been there in a hospital bed after a man gave me a concussion. More than once as a matter of fact. I know the bitterness of shame in my gut, too. I know what it is to hide it and think people will judge. Do you know my story?”
Tate shook her head. “I know someone tried to hurt you a few years ago.”
“My ex-husband. Tried to kill me actually. For the second time.” Cassie told her the story of her years of abuse and of how her ex skipped out on his sentencing and then came to Petal to try and finish the job he nearly succeeded in before.
Cassie held up her right hand, the middle finger was bent at an odd angle. “This is what he did with the hammer. I’ll never be a surgeon again. Funny how life works. Still, it drove me here to Petal, which brought Shane into my life and I realized what happened to me wasn’t my fault. Wasn’t my shame to bear and it’s not yours either, Tate.”
“I can’t…how did you know?”
“I saw how you reacted after dinner the other night. I saw myself in your eyes. Heard more from your family just now.”
Tate felt the heat of her blush, replaced by the familiar coldness of the shame. “They told you? All of you? They told you all of it?”
Cassie reached out and took Tate’s hand. “I’m sure there’s more. Years of shame. They told us enough that I know you were abused and still are. Enough that I know what an amazingly strong woman you are for stepping in with your younger siblings. You have a family with them. Your father tried to destroy it but you didn’t let him. You win, Tate. That’s what he hates so
much. He can’t break you.”
Tears rolled down Tate’s face. The wall of shame, the barriers that’d kept it all back were gone and it rushed out in wave after wave of emotion. Cassie got in the bed next to Tate, putting her arms around her.
“You win, Tate Murphy. Don’t you see? You’re worthy of all the people who love you. And let me tell you, your brothers and sisters love and respect you so much it made me proud to know you. And Matt, he loves you, Tate. It’s not charity. It’s not pity. He loves you. All of you, flaws and alcoholic father, neglectful mother, everything. Let it go and stop letting him get to you.”
“That’s so easy to say,” Tate sobbed as Cassie continued to hold her. Wanting with all she was for it to be true.
“It is. Now. It wasn’t just a few years ago when it was me in your place. I was a successful vascular surgeon, Tate! I had a good family who loved me, privilege, all the advantages in life and I ended up with a man who raped me and tried to kill me. I didn’t deserve love. I didn’t deserve a man like Shane. I didn’t want a bossy, pushy control-freak cop who barely fits through doorways without having to turn to the side.”
Tate couldn’t help but laugh.
“I know. He’s huge. Heh, yeah, that way too. But I digress. Listen, you, Polly is on the case so just give in. The woman will stop at nothing, you do know that? Matt loves you, you love him. He wants you and she’ll stop at nothing until she helps him get you. And since you want him too, why fight it? Stop letting your father control you. Stop going over there. If neighbors call, call the damned police. I promise you your father won’t be shoving Shane around. You are not responsible for your mother and the life she’s created for herself. You are not responsible for your father’s pain that you’re not his. It is not his right to harm you. Stop letting him control you. It’s the only way you’re going to heal and be free of it. And your siblings will follow your lead. They look to you for guidance.”
“I have to eat with them at least once a year. For Jacob and Jill’s loan stuff.”
“Fuck that. Come on, Tate. Look, there are six of you and all the Chases too, we can come up with alternatives. It’s one year. Don’t let him control you this way. Let the people who love you help.”