# Once a Family

Tara Taylor Quinn

There's truth–and then there's love Sedona Campbell is an attorney who works with The Lemonade Stand, a unique women's shelter in California. She's called in to advise fifteen-year-old Tatum Malone, who claims she's been abused–by her brother, not her boyfriend. It's Sedona's job to sort out truth from lie. She soon discovers that's not an easy task, especially once she meets Tanner Malone. Because despite herself, she's attracted to him.Tanner has always protected his younger sister–but she's lying about him. And he's falling for Sedona. Between them, maybe they can figure out why Tatum's doing this. Maybe then he and Sedona will be free to love each other….

There’s truth—and then there’s love

Sedona Campbell is an attorney who works with The Lemonade Stand, a unique women’s shelter in California. She’s called in to advise fifteen-year-old Tatum Malone, who claims she’s been abused—by her brother, not her boyfriend. It’s Sedona’s job to sort out truth from lie. She soon discovers that’s not an easy task, especially once she meets Tanner Malone. Because despite herself, she’s attracted to him.

Tanner has always protected his younger sister—but she’s lying about him. And he’s falling for Sedona. Between them, maybe they can figure out why Tatum’s doing this. Maybe then he and Sedona will be free to love each other….

A war was raging inside Tanner

A war between guardian and man. His entire adult life had belonged to the guardian. Tonight, the man was fighting for life. He wanted these few minutes with Sedona. Wanted to relax and enjoy the peace she seemed to bring into every room she entered. Into every space she occupied—even outdoors.

He matched his pace to her more sedate one, listening to the waves. “So why are you telling me this?” he asked. She’d said she liked him.

“Honestly?” She kicked at the sand, sending it shooting in front of them. “I’m not sure.”

“Guess.”

“I like you.” She repeated what she’d said earlier, but with a deeper note in her voice.

“And that’s a problem?”

“It is if it gets in the way of my professional judgment.”

“So don’t let it.”

“I’m trying not to. But…”

Another surge of emotion hit him at that but and he waited for it to dissipate before saying, “What are you afraid of?”

She shrugged again. Her shoulders, accentuated by the thin cotton straps of her dress, seemed so feminine to him. So…in need of protection. “I guess I’m afraid you’ll like me, too.”

He bent his head. The move wasn’t premeditated. He touched his lips to Sedona’s and just…felt.

Dear Reader,

Life, in all its messiness, is a miracle. We have to be willing to stay on the ride, sometimes just holding on, when the road gets bumpy, in order to avail ourselves of the perfect moments.

And sometimes we need a safe place in which to take a time out.

The Lemonade Stand, Where Secrets Are Safe, is one of those places. The Stand is going to be around for a long time. You’ll have many opportunities to stay here with me. And to experience some perfect moments while you do—you know the kind, where you escape into a story, experience a whole other world, maybe find some meaningful tidbits that somehow apply to your life, all without leaving your chair.

I hope you’ll also see the perfection in the messiness. The value in the struggle. Families are tough. Maybe more than anyone else, we trust our family members to have our backs. To love us no matter what. And with that trust comes the capacity for great pain—if our trust is broken. If family members aren’t who we think they are. We can misunderstand each other. And we understand, too. We know that family is heart. And heart is the one thing we can’t ever completely walk away from.

So we run to a place like the Lemonade Stand, Where Secrets Are Safe and pain can be healed. Come on in. Get comfortable. And be prepared to find family and love!

I’m a spokesperson for the National Domestic Violence Hotline (www.thehotline.org. 1-800-799-7233), and I also work with an organization called Chrysalis (www.noabuse.org). Chrysalis has several shelters and they offer certified counseling for victims and for abusers, as well as legal aid and financial aid for those starting over.

I love to hear from readers. You can reach me at www.TaraTaylorQuinn.com.

Tara Taylor Quinn

P.S. Watch for my new women’s fiction title, The Friendship Pact, coming from MIRA as an ebook this month.

Once a Family

Tara Taylor Quinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

With sixty-six original novels, published in more than twenty languages, Tara Taylor Quinn is also a USA TODAY bestselling author. She is a winner of the 2008 National Reader’s Choice Award, four-time finalist for the RWA RITA® Award, a finalist for the Reviewer’s Choice Award, the Bookseller’s Best Award, the Holt Medallion and appears regularly on Amazon bestsellers lists. Tara Taylor Quinn is a past president of the Romance Writers of America and served for eight years on its Board of Directors. She is in demand as a public speaker and has appeared on television and radio shows across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning. Tara is a spokesperson for the National Domestic Violence Hotline, and she and her husband, Tim, sponsor an annual inline skating race in Phoenix to benefit the fight against domestic violence. When she’s not at home in Arizona with Tim and their canine owners, Jerry Lee and Taylor Marie, or fulfilling speaking engagements, Tara spends her time traveling and inline skating.

For Rachel Marie Stoddard.

Let your spirit soar, sweetie.

Always listen to your heart. Be happy.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Extract

CHAPTER ONE

“HOW OLD ARE YOU, Talia?”

The tanned teenager, straight from the mold of California-model gorgeousness, looked Sedona Campbell in the eye. “Fifteen.”

Sedona believed her. “You told Lila McDaniels that you’re nineteen.”

The five-foot-five-inch blonde, with a perfect figure, perfect makeup and skin, wearing all black, looked about twenty-five.

And, at fifteen, on a Tuesday in the second week of April, she should have been in school.

“I didn’t want her to call the police. I’m not pressing charges.”

“You’re a juvenile. You claim you’ve been hit. The staff here have to notify the police. It’s the law.”

“Not if they think I’m nineteen and I say I don’t want the cops called. I checked. They don’t have to call for adults who don’t want the police notified, especially if they’re not getting medical attention.”

The law didn’t read quite like that. But the girl wasn’t wrong, either.

“They’d have to prove they had no way of knowing that you’re underage.”

The girl said nothing.

“They know you lied about your identity.”

Talia Malone, aka the juvenile sitting in front of her, slid down into the plastic chair on one side of the table in the small but private card room Sedona used as a makeshift office during her volunteer hours at The Lemonade Stand. Her gaze darted from the floor toward the edge of the table, and back again.

Sedona was not a psychiatrist, but as an attorney specializing in family law, specifically in representing women going through divorce or in need of protection orders, she was well versed in reading people.

“I’m here to help, Talia. You can trust me.” And here in the middle of a workday because Lila McDaniels, managing director of The Lemonade Stand—a one-of-a-kind, privately funded women’s shelter on the California coast—had phoned asking that she drop everything to tend to this situation.

Talia curled a strand of hair around her little finger. With a covert glance, she met Sedona’s gaze, but only for a second.

Sitting next to the troubled girl at the table, Sedona touched her hand. “I believe you were hurt,” she said, her tone compassionate, but professional, too. By the time she got to the victims, they needed help, not drama. “But I can’t do anything for you, no one here can, if you aren’t honest with us.”

Talia’s eyes were blue. Intensely gray-blue. They were trained on Sedona now.

And that emotional crack that opened sometimes, the one she’d never quite managed to close within her professional armor—an armor that hid a natural instinct to nurture—made itself felt.

“Why wouldn’t you agree to see the nurse?” Sedona tried another way in.

Talia shrugged.

“Do you have any injuries that need to be tended to?” Lila had already told her that Talia had refused to be examined by Lynn Duncan, the on-site nurse practitioner, saying she didn’t have anything wrong with her.

If Talia saw the health professional, and Lynn determined that there were injuries due to domestic abuse, California law would require them to report to the police or risk a fine at the very least. Lynn could risk her license.

And still, only about ten percent of California’s health professionals actually reported. For various reasons. Talia’s lower lip pouted. “There’s nothing right now.”

“Have you had injuries in the recent past?”

She nodded but didn’t elaborate.

And Sedona’s mind riffled through possibilities like cards on the old Rolodex her father used to keep on his desk when she was a kid.

Was this young woman on the run?

From one or both of her parents?

Another family member?

Or a nonrelative? A teacher at school?

Was the abuse sexual in nature?

Hiding information was classic behavior for someone being abused. With her near-perfect features, Talia didn’t look as if she’d taken any blows to the face. But that was more typical than not, too. A lot of abusers kept their blows to parts of the body that could be covered. Hidden.

“Has anyone touched you...sexually?” An officer would ask more bluntly. And with Talia’s age, if they didn’t find her family, the police were going to be called in. That was a given.

“No.” Talia met her gaze fully on that one.

Satisfied that the teenager was telling the truth, Sedona asked, “How long ago was the abuse?”

Another shrug was her only response.

“A week? Two weeks? A year?”

“A month. Maybe. And then last week.”

Okay. So... “What brought you here today?”

According to Lila, Talia had called from a public phone that morning and been picked up by a staff member not far from a nearby bus stop. “I was talking to...someone...who told me about this place and this morning I had a chance to get on a bus without anyone knowing.”

“On a bus from where?”

“Where I live.”

“Where do you live?”

The girl frowned. “I thought this was a safe place. Where people who had to hide wouldn’t be found.”

“It is,” Sedona assured her. “But the people here have to know who you are, they have to know the particulars of your situation, or they can’t help you. This isn’t a runaway haven, Talia. It’s a shelter for victims of domestic violence.”

The girl’s chin was nearly on her chest, but she looked up at Sedona. “I know.” The words were soft. And not the least belligerent or defensive.

And nothing like the tone one might expect from someone as fashionably perfect and seemingly confident as Talia’s appearance implied.

“Are you a victim of domestic violence?” If not, Sedona would still see to it that the girl got help. Just not at The Lemonade Stand.

“Yes.”

The answer was unequivocal. Which satisfied Sedona’s first concern. Between her, Lila and Sara Havens, one of the shelter’s full-time counselors, chances were they’d get the rest of the information they needed to be able to help their mystery child.

To be most effective, to represent the girl’s best interests and to see that all of her rights were properly respected, Sedona needed answers before the police were called.

“Then we’ll help you, but we have to know who hurt you, Talia. We have to know where you live and what you’re running from. We have to know your real name.”

“I don’t want you to tell the police.”

“Why not?”

Talia looked at the floor again, where her sandaled feet sported perfectly manicured toes. “Because.”

“That’s not good enough. Are you afraid that if we go to the police whoever’s abusing you is going to know where you are? Because you don’t have to worry about that. I promise you. The police are our friends here. They will protect your location as vigorously as we do.”

“What happens to me if I don’t answer your questions? What if I don’t tell you who I am?”

“We still call the police. You’re a juvenile on the run. We can’t let you just leave here on your own.”

“Maybe I lied about my age.”

“Did you?”

Talia gave her a hard look. A determined one. And then her entire demeanor changed. Her chin dropped and she shook her head. “But I need a little time to think,” she said. “If you call the police they’ll take me away, won’t they?”

“It depends,” she said. “Child protective services could be called. Someone would be assigned to you. Once everyone figures out what’s going on and what’s in your best interest, decisions will be made.”

“And what about you? Do you have anything to do with this?”

Sedona was careful about the cases she took. Because, based on her clients’ emotional states, she had to be able and willing to stay with them for the long haul. Her assistance was needed when a woman’s deepest trust had been abused. In a big way. Her clients were victims. Injured. Vulnerable. She had to be able to go the distance....

“I’m willing to represent you, free of charge,” she said, already aware that Talia, while well dressed and expensively groomed, had less than a hundred dollars on her person. “Whatever happens, I’ll be by your side, making certain that, legally, you will get the best care.”

“What are my chances of getting to stay here?”

“It’s a possibility, depending on the facts.” She wasn’t telling what those were. Or giving any hint. The troubled teen was in survival mode and clearly not above lying to save herself if she knew the right things to say. Lila had asked Talia if she had a cell phone. The question was common practice at The Lemonade Stand after one resident’s abuser found her through a downloadable tracking app he’d placed on her phone.

In response to her question, Talia had produced an old flip phone that was out of battery charge and couldn’t be turned on. The phone was so old Lila didn’t even have a charger that would fit.

“They said you’re a lawyer.” Talia’s gaze was solemn—and searching.

“That’s right.”

“And you deal with this kind of thing all the time.”

“I do.”

“Will the people here get in trouble if they let me stay just one night? Until I figure out what to do?”

There were rules. And there were circumstances.

“I might be able to get you one night. But only because it’s late in the day and we know that the chances of getting you to social services are slim. We could determine that it’s better for you to stay here than to spend the night in jail, which is where, as a runaway, you could end up.”

Because Talia didn’t display any overt signs of abuse. No broken bones. No bruises or scars—at least of a physical nature.

“But you won’t be free to leave,” she added.

“I don’t want to leave.” Talia sat up. “I just want to make certain that my... That no one can make me leave here.”

The girl’s desperation to stay at the shelter—clearly not a cool hangout for kids her age—helped convince Sedona to fight for her.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “But only with your understanding that if by tomorrow morning you haven’t told me who you are and what this is about, I will have you turned over to the police.”

Talia didn’t flinch. “I understand.”

And for now, that was that.

CHAPTER TWO

WHOEVER SAID WINE grape growing was easy had obviously never cane-pruned twenty acres of pinot vines. The pruning had to be done in its own time, not by a calendar man had planned, during the dormant season, when the dead leaves had fallen and just as buds were beginning to grow. In the winter. Or early spring. Depending on the vines. Sometimes it had to happen in April, too.

And it had to be done by hand. With clippers. One vine at a time.

For some vintners this meant having someone on staff, maybe a farm or winery manager, who would keep close watch and disperse employees out to the arduous but artful task, as needed.

For Tanner Malone, it meant that even though his little sister had a day off school on Tuesday for teacher in-service meetings, he had to be out in the groves all day—leaving her to get into whatever trouble she could manage with too much time on her hands and the house all to herself.

He hired a couple of seasonal helpers during harvest, but the rest of the work he did himself to save money for Tatum’s college expenses.

Letting himself in the back door of their sizable but very old farmhouse, as the early April sun was setting, Tanner prepared himself for make-up, tight jeans and blonde hair styled to perfection. There’d be attitude for sure.

But maybe there’d be some dinner on the table. Even boxed macaroni and cheese would be welcome to his empty stomach.

“Tatum?” he called as, walking through the spotless untouched kitchen, he headed into the equally undisturbed living room.

His sister was good about picking up after herself, but the couch pillows were just as he’d tossed them that morning on his way out the door. He knew because one had fallen sideways and it still lay there, cock-eyed.

With a hand on the banister leading upstairs, he leaned over to see the landing at the top and called, “Sis?”

Could it be that she was in her room studying? Getting ready for the intensive college entrance exams she had coming up the following fall? Tanner and Tatum’s brother, Thomas, had spent a good six months in preparation for his SATs, resulting in a full scholarship to an Ivy League school back east.

And he hadn’t come back to California since he left. That was ten years ago. Tatum had been five. Talia sixteen. And Tanner? The big brother who’d managed somehow to keep his family together after their mother, Tammy, had finally done them a favor and skipped out on them, had been a mere twenty-three.

Was he only thirty-three now? He’d felt forty ten years ago.

But then he’d been the unofficial guardian and sole supporter of his younger siblings for a couple of years by then.

Thankfully there’d been enough money left from his father’s life insurance policy to buy this farm with an ancient house that still needed a lot of work, but enough land to grow grapes that partially supplied a couple of California’s premier wineries.

He was a moderate vintner himself now, too. Which was another reason why getting the pruning done was so important. He had a shipment of recoopered oak barrels arriving in a couple of days and had to prepare the framework upon which they were going to sit.

Tatum wasn’t answering his calls.

Which wasn’t all that unusual these days.

But she wasn’t on her phone, either. He hadn’t heard that sweet laugh of hers. Or the irritated tone she took on when someone said or did something that she deemed stupid.

Del Harcourt...

If the asshole was here...

Taking the steps two at a time, Tanner was upstairs, bursting through his sister’s bedroom door before he’d finished the thought.

He stopped short. Tatum’s bed was made. Her desk neat. The books he’d brought her, study guides for the big test, lay neatly stacked in front of her computer screen.

The room had one purple wall while the others were painted off white, just as his sister had wanted. The quilted bedspread covering her queen-size bed was bedecked with butterflies. The furniture was old, but she’d had her pick of anything she wanted in the barn filled with who knew how many decades of discarded antiques they’d inherited when he bought the place.

One of the jobs on Tatum’s list for the summer, other than preparing for her October test, was to look up the pieces in the barn on the internet, catalog what they had and see if they could make some money on them. Which meant he’d have to get an entire barn’s worth of furniture unstacked so she could begin going through it....

“Tatum?” He couldn’t hold the panic at bay any longer. Tatum’s bedroom, like the rest of the house, was empty.

In one stride he was at her closet, hand on the antique glass doorknob, pulling with such force the knob came off in his hand. It had been loose for a while.

Another jerk on the door, with his fingers through the hole left by the fallen knob, and the small, wood-floored space where Tatum’s relatively meager but expensive wardrobe hung came into view.

He’d been fearing emptiness. Empty hangers at least. Instead, his sister’s clothes hung in order, just as they’d been the last time he’d seen them. Shirts with shirts. Pants with pants. And dresses on the far right.

What happened to the days when she was a little sprite too busy exploring anything she could get into to pick her clothes up off the floor? Too busy even to put them in the laundry hamper he’d placed right in the middle of her floor to make it easy for her?

Spinning, he took in the rest of the room. Opened some drawers to satisfy him that they weren’t empty, and then moved on to the bathroom he shared with her.

The drawers, split three to one in her favor, were neatly filled, and the bathroom with its pedestal sink and claw-footed iron tub looked just as it had that morning. Tatum’s wire rack hanging from the shower head was still filled with her salon-purchased shampoo, conditioners and lotion-dispensing razor.

Back downstairs, he checked every room. The little library, the formal dining room he used as an office, the mudroom that doubled as a laundry room. The huge kitchen. The only thing missing, other than his recalcitrant fifteen-year-old sister, seemed to be the tie-dyed hippie bag she called a purse.

Tatum wasn’t old enough to drive. For the past three months, he’d been keeping all vehicle keys on his person, in any case.

But she had friends with mothers who drove—who’d been known to help him out when he couldn’t be two places at once.

Grabbing his cell phone off the holster on his belt, Tanner dialed his sister’s cell number. Not surprisingly, it went straight to voice mail. And then he dialed first one and then another of the girls Tatum hung out with.

Only to find that she hadn’t been hanging out with them.

Not since Harcourt. The girls didn’t sound any happier about the asshole’s advent into his sister’s life than he was.

Taking deep steady breaths, Tanner walked, very deliberately, out to the far barn—the one that they never used because half of it was missing. In the standing half was a small tack room—the only room inside, enclosed with drywall, as though someone had once used the place as a getaway. A hideout. Maybe yesterday’s version of a man cave.

An old round wooden table, with one rotted leg, stood in the middle of the room. On the walls hung several framed photos—or a rendition thereof. The frames were falling apart at the seams. The glass was broken.

And there was one unframed poster hanging there. A newer poster. One he’d hung as a reminder of why he worked and sacrificed every day. The anti-drug poster depicted a meth addict. A woman with stringy, dirt-blond hair and black gaps where her teeth should be. There were sores all over her face, so much so that you couldn’t tell if the woman had ever been beautiful, or just plain. Her eyes held no light, but he still saw something there. He didn’t know the woman, but every time he looked at that poster, he felt as if he did. He saw a woman he knew.

A woman his siblings knew, as well. She’d given birth to them.

Anytime he was feeling overwhelmed all it took was a look at that poster, a reminder of what they’d escaped, and he found the strength to climb one more mountain.

Every problem had a solution. He just had to find it.

Tanner took a step back, feeling calmer.

Until he thought of finding Tatum with that big-spending rich daddy’s boy...

Very carefully, he removed the top two tacks holding the poster in place, exposing a piece of drywall with a couple of fist-size holes in it.

With one powerful thrust he added a third. Pinned the poster back in place. And, ignoring his red, throbbing knuckles, went out to his truck, started the ignition and tore out the circular drive, his tires spitting rocks and dust behind him.

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.

Tanner waited for the second call. For the sound of the woman’s footsteps on the stairs as she made a climb similar to the one Tanner had made a mere half hour before. Waited for her to realize that her son wasn’t home, either. The punk had taken Tanner’s youngest sister someplace and he wanted her back.

“Yeah?” The male voice that sounded at the top of the stairs held none of the respect Tanner had heard two mornings before when the asshole had tried to convince him that he loved his sister and would never do anything to hurt her. It was Del. He recognized the voice. Not the tone.

It was as if the kid was speaking to someone beneath him. A servant.

Or a woman?

“I’d like you to come down, please.”

“I’m busy.”

Did he talk to Tatum that way, too?

“Del, do I have to call your father?”

A door slammed. Tanner heard tennis shoes on the stairs. “I’m here, now what?”

“Come into the living room, please.” Callie’s voice lowered, as though she didn’t want Tanner to hear what she was saying. Or how she was saying it?

“What for?”

Just then another door opened, somewhere deeper in the house. “Your father’s home.” Callie’s voice took on strength.

And before anything else could happen, Del, dressed in tight-fitting jeans, a surfer shirt and expensive-looking rubber-soled sports shoes, entered the room.

“Mr. Malone? What are you doing here?” The boy’s tone of voice changed again. Back to two mornings before. Like the asshole didn’t know Tanner had heard him addressing his mother?

“He’s looking for Tatum, Del. Do you know where she is?”

“No.” The boy’s chin lifted.

“I don’t believe you.” Tanner didn’t bother with niceties.

Callie glanced from Tanner to her son. “Del? Do you know something you aren’t telling us?”

“I’m telling you, I don’t know where she is,” Del insisted. Shrugging his shoulders he shoved his hands in his pockets, the blue ends of his blond hair giving him an air of otherworldliness that set Tanner’s already stressed nerve endings on edge.

“Where who is?” The quiet, deep voice belonged to the tall guy in the suit who just entered the room.

“Mr. Harcourt?” Tanner assumed the financier’s identity.

“That’s right.”

“I’m looking for my sister. I have good reason to believe that your son knows where she is. She’s only fifteen, it’s a school night and she belongs at home.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t believe I’ve made your acquaintance.” Stepping past his son as though the boy didn’t exist, Harcourt glanced at his wife.

“This is Tanner Malone, Kenny. Tatum’s brother.”

“Tatum’s missing?” The concern on the other man’s face appeared genuine as he swung toward his son. “What do you know about this, Del?” The voice was still low, but with a growling note. “If you know where that girl is, you tell us. Now.” Harcourt was almost gritting his teeth.

Del shrugged again, but his head bowed a bit as he looked at his mother. “Mom, I’m telling you, I don’t know where she is.”

Harcourt’s hand snapped out and formed a vise around his son’s arm, squeezing with obvious force. “I’m warning you, son, if you’re hiding something...”

The threat was left unsaid, but Del seemed to hear it loud and clear.

“I don’t know where she is.” Del looked his father in the eye, but backed half a step away, so that they weren’t directly facing each other.

Something was going on there. Something bad. Unhealthy.

But Tanner didn’t have the time or wherewithal to care. If Tatum’s friends didn’t know where she was...and Del didn’t have her...then...

“When was the last time you spoke to her?” Tanner asked, holding his teeth together to keep himself calm. To prevent the panic that was raging inside him from taking control.

“She’s not allowed to speak to me, remember? You said you’d take her cell phone away if she did.”

In unison, the elder Harcourts looked at each other, then at their son.

“What about on the internet?” Callie asked.

“Answer your mother,” Harcourt demanded, more loudly than his wife, before Del even had a chance to respond.

Del stared at the floor. Harcourt grabbed his son’s arm a second time. “Delaney?”

“She private messaged me on Facebook this morning.”

“And?”

“I don’t know.” The boy, pulling out of his father’s grip, backed up. “I didn’t answer her, okay? I knew he’d be watching.” He practically spit the word he’d as he looked at Tanner.

“What did she say?” Tanner asked, still the calmest one in the room. If you didn’t count the frustration—the fear—raging inside him.

“I can’t remember...” Del’s reply ended abruptly as his father took a step forward. “She said that she loved me.”

“And?”

“And, nothing.”

Harcourt slapped the back of his kid’s head. Not enough to be considered violent or even cause Del’s neck to snap back, but harder than a love tap.

Instead of cowing the boy, the slap seemed to have the opposite effect. Del straightened. He looked at all three adults in the room and said, “She told me she loved me. That’s all.” His tone told them he’d take any beating they wanted to hand out but they weren’t going to get another answer from him.

Because it was the truth?

Or because the punk was that determined to have Tatum all for himself?

So he could knock his little sister around like his father did him?

Looking at Callie Harcourt, Tanner wondered where she played into the “normal” Harcourt household. Did her husband intimidate her, too? With a little physical persuasion now and then?

Or did they both just think that rough parenting was the only way to keep their far too rich and spoiled brat in line?

If it was the latter, Tanner wasn’t sure he faulted them. He was sure he wasn’t going to get any closer to Tatum in that living room right then.

“I’m going to the police,” he stated unequivocally to the room at large. “If you have anything to do with this, Del, you will pay.”

“I’m telling you—”

“Save it,” Harcourt said to his son, walking behind Tanner to the vestibule. “If the boy knows something, I’ll get it out of him.”

Even though he could guess what Harcourt’s tactics would probably be, Tanner wasn’t altogether sorry to hear it. “I’m sure the police will want to talk to him.”

“We’ll be here all night.”

Asking Tanner to keep them posted, the Harcourts showed him out.

Tanner, already on his cell with 9-1-1, barely noticed.

CHAPTER FOUR

SANTA RAQUEL, CALIFORNIA, had to be heaven on earth. Sedona, who’d been born and raised in the quaint coastal town, sat on her deck Tuesday evening, sipping a glass of wine, munching on Havarti, grape jelly and French bread, while she watched the waves come in. Again and again. Washing to shore. Going back out to sea. Only to return again.

They were steady. Assured. Reliable. Sometimes they were angry and plowed onto the beach with the force of a minibulldozer. Other times they were calm, almost sleepy, sliding quietly up on the sand and dissipating with hardly a trace left behind. But, always, they were there.

Like the love her parents shared. With each other. And with her and her brother, Grady, a pediatrician in Scottsdale, Arizona.

She didn’t know what she’d do without her older brother in the background of her life. He was her best friend. Her confidant.

She couldn’t imagine being afraid of him....

Sedona sipped. Bit off a piece of cheese and then breathed, pulling the salty tang of air deep into her lungs. Washing away the day’s impurities from her bloodstream as the ocean’s energy erased twelve hours’ worth of tension, blanketing her in peace. When she felt a little more relaxed, she’d go in and change out of the navy suit she’d worn to work that day. Slide into some workout clothes and take a walk on the beach.

Grady had called the night before. Her older brother’s wife was expecting their second child. A man who’d dedicated his life to caring for children, Grady had clearly found his own piece of heaven when his son, two-year-old Cameron, had been born. And now he’d have heaven times two.

Sedona was happy for him. She liked to hope that he’d found a bit of heaven in his wife, Brooke, as well. She just didn’t see it.

The flap of the doggy door sounded behind her, and Sedona waited for Ellie—short for Elizabeth Bennet from the Jane Austen novel—to appear. The rescued, seven-pound poochin had to knock a few times before she trusted the entry and exit way Sedona had had installed for her. Every time she went in or out. Heavy plastic whooshed against metal framing again. And then Ellie made her appearance on the wooden decked balcony, stopping about a foot short of Sedona and staring at her. The little miss didn’t make a sound. Didn’t scratch at her or jump up. She just stared.

“You could just take yourself, you know,” Sedona told her, setting her glass of wine down on the round glass-topped wicker table next to her as she scooped up her apricot-colored family member and carried her down the three steps to the small patch of fenced-in grass she’d had planted the week after she’d adopted her Japanese Chin/poodle mix.

Ellie had been a couple of months old then. Sedona had been visiting Grady and had attended a barbecue with him and Brooke in a little town called Shelter Valley, Arizona. She’d heard about the animal rescue organization being run out of the local vet’s office and had asked to see the current rescues.

And had fallen in love with Ellie on sight. The little girl held herself with dignity even after spending the first eight weeks of her life locked in a windowless shed with so many other puppies there hadn’t been enough floor space for them to live without lying on top of one another.

Even now, three years later, Ellie didn’t travel far alone. She completed her business a short distance away and came right back, jumping a couple of feet off the ground to bounce off Sedona’s hip.

Catching her in midair, Sedona thought about a walk on the beach. And noticed the Richardsons outside with their four-year-old son. The private stretch of beach behind her small house was shared by four other homes. And tonight she felt more like finishing her glass of wine than socializing.

Besides, Joshua, the Richardsons’ son, liked to run after Ellie. His parents thought he was playing with the little dog. To Sedona, who admittedly coddled her little girl, the activity seemed more like torment.

Margie Richardson saw her and waved. Still holding Ellie, Sedona knew she was going to have to go say hello. And could feel the tension beginning to seep back into her bones.

She took one step and her phone rang.

From the table. On her deck. Next to her glass of wine.

“Saved by the bell,” she said softly to Ellie as she waved once more in the Richardsons’ general direction and hurried up the stairs to grab her phone.

“I hate to disturb you again, Sedona, but you said to call immediately if there was any break in the Talia Malone situation.” Lila McDaniels did not sound calm.

“I did and I meant it. What’s up?” Switching mental gears in a blink, Sedona set Ellie inside the French doors leading to her living area and, with her phone held between her shoulder and her ear, grabbed the glass of wine and plate of cheese and headed indoors.

“Lynn Duncan just left Maddie’s. She called right afterward to tell me that Talia looks like a girl she’d seen a picture of on the news a little while ago. She’s a missing person. And if it’s the same girl, her name’s not Talia. It’s Tatum.”

“Can you wait for me to get there before you do anything?”

“Of course.”

Wine down the drain, Sedona dumped the remainder of the cheese and bread into the trash and, making certain that Ellie was in her bed, grabbed her keys and was out the door.

“She’s safe here.”

“Exactly.” The old Ford Thunderbird started up first try and Sedona was on her way. “If she’s been reported missing, the police might return her to her family. With no bruising, no reports or evidence of previous abuse it might be that the most we can hope for is the assignation of a caseworker for follow-up....”

Her mind was racing. With the laws. And the ways to use those laws to protect her young client.

“I can’t not report her. Not now that I know who she is. She might be just what they suspect, a runaway. I can’t risk the lives of my residents if I get embroiled in a lawsuit.”

“I know. I’m not suggesting that you should. Just let me talk to Tatum. And then I’ll call the police myself.”

Good thing she’d only had a couple of sips of wine. It was going to be a long night.

* * *

TANNER WASN’T ABOUT to just go home and wait. He wasn’t a sit-by-the-phone type of guy. But the law enforcement representative he’d spoken with, a no-nonsense dispatcher who’d taken his report immediately at the neighborhood station when he’d stopped in, said an officer would meet him at his house.

While the calm and efficient manner of the phone representative had reassured him, the urgency with which the department was acting set his anxiety levels soaring again.

He’d pulled Tatum’s recent school photo out of his wallet and handed it over. He’d emailed some photos from his phone while he’d been standing in the station. He’d already given a list of the social media sites she used, complete with usernames and passwords, explaining that he’d made her share them with him as a condition of her right to go on the sites.

And while he’d nodded, expressing his thanks for the officers’ help, they’d scared the shit out of him.

They’d assured him that an Endangered Missing Advisory would be issued immediately.

Endangered missing?

The words conjured up all kinds of horrible images. He couldn’t allow them to take root.

He wasn’t going to lose Tatum. He couldn’t lose her. He’d loved the others—Talia and Thomas—still loved them. He’d taken good care of them. He’d give his life for any of his siblings.

But Tatum...she was more daughter than sibling to him. He’d sacrificed everything for her.

And she was going to be okay. They’d find her. There’d be some reasonable explanation for her absence. Just because he couldn’t come up with it didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

She’d be home, sleeping in her own bed that night, or, at the very latest, tomorrow. And life would go on. Just like normal. Things would be fine.

She’d take her SAT test in October. Outscore her older brother. And the sky would be her only limit.

Because she was sweet baby Tatum....

A tan-colored four-door sedan was parked in his driveway as Tanner pulled in, barely getting the truck into park before jumping from the seat. He didn’t recognize the car, but if someone had brought Tatum home to him...

A couple got out of the car—one male, one female, both in dark suits. Both pulled badges from their pockets as they approached.

Detectives Morris and Brown, they introduced themselves.

“We’d like to take a look around your sister’s room,” the older of the two, the female, Morris, said. “According to our report this is the last place she was seen, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

They entered the house. Tanner stood in front of the cockeyed pillow in the living room, finding it incredible that it was only that morning that he’d tossed the stupid thing. Unbelievable that something so horrific could have occurred while the pillow just sat there as if nothing had happened all day.

“We’ll need the names of everyone she knows or has had anything to do with now or in the past.”

Calmly standing, while the detectives sat down uninvited, disturbing his pillow, Tanner listed every name he could remember. A total of nine.

There should have been more. A lot more.

But he’d been busy growing grapes and couldn’t remember.

“You can check her Facebook page,” he said, relieved when he came up with the idea. “Everyone she knows or has ever known is on there.”

“We’ve already got someone doing that,” Brown said. Tanner nodded. What else did a guy do when everything that mattered to him was on the line and he stood there completely helpless?

“Does she have any enemies?”

“Not that I know of.” Did Morris just frown at him? Okay, so maybe he’d been a bit preoccupied lately, but it was only so that he could make enough money to send Tatum to college if she didn’t get the scholarship she was hoping for.

He’d had to spend a sizable chunk of savings the previous year to buy Talia out of her marriage to a man who’d been pimping her out to powerful acquaintances for profit. In fact, Tanner had bought her “services” from the man for an extended vacation, which had actually been time she’d spent in a safe house while she got help to divorce the man.

After which she’d returned to exotic dancing.

But the detectives didn’t need to hear any of that.

“What about family?” Morris asked. She wasn’t writing any of this down.

“No one in our family would hurt Tatum. We all adore her. She’s the baby.” He and Thomas and Talia fought sometimes. They didn’t always agree on life choices. But they’d never once disagreed about Tatum. That baby girl had been their only joy when they should all have been having the time of their lives.

So could Tatum be with Talia?

“Who is ‘we all’?” One of Morris’s very thin brows rose. Her tone of voice had changed. And for the first time Tanner realized that he might be a suspect.

The detectives weren’t just there to help him find Tatum. They were there to investigate him.

Here he was ready to piss himself or puke he was so worried, and they thought he’d done something to Tatum?

* * *

“I’M SORRY, MR. MALONE, I know this is difficult, but we have to ask, were you and Tatum having problems?”

Brown had stayed with Tanner in the living room while Morris went up to Tatum’s room to look around. And now she’d returned to grill him some more. No telling what she’d found in his sister’s things.

Lord knew he wasn’t her favorite person anymore.

“Yes, we were,” he said now, hands in his pockets as he stood in his living room facing the two detectives sitting side by side on his couch. “But I didn’t hurt her. I was out in the vineyard all day. I can show you the fresh-cut clippings to prove it.”

“But you don’t have an alibi?”

“No, I do not.” He wasn’t going to lie. There was no point. But... “Put someone on me, look into every aspect of my life. But please, don’t stop looking for my sister while you do so. I am not your man and if you waste time focusing solely on me, God knows what will...”

No. He couldn’t go there. He’d had enough heartache to last him a lifetime and could not borrow more.

“You said you two had trouble....” Morris’s tone had softened, though not perceptibly.

“About two months ago Tatum met this rich kid, Del Harcourt, at a party. He’s spoiled and selfish and I’m pretty sure he hit her. She had a bruise on her arm, a bad one.”

“You saw the bruise?” Brown’s eyes widened.

“Not at first. She kept her arm covered. But I grabbed her once—” which sounded bad “—and she flinched. I made her show me her arm. The bruise was faded, almost gone, but it was from a fist, I’m sure of it. She insists she walked into an old furniture spindle in the barn.”

“And that’s the trouble you’ve had? You didn’t believe her about a bruise?”

Tanner didn’t like the way Morris was studying him. But he wanted Tatum found. At whatever risk to him.

“Two days ago I threw the punk out of my house and told Tatum she was not to see or speak with him again. And I took away her smartphone.”

He felt a cold knot of fear as something else occurred to him. It should have been his first thought. Would have been if Tatum hadn’t been so crazy about the asshole.

“There is someone,” he said, his mind coldly calculating. “The woman who gave birth to us...” He couldn’t bring himself to say mother. “Last we knew, her name was Tammy Malone, but it changed frequently. She’s usually high, homeless and spreading her legs, and once tried to sell my other sister for a fix. Usually I wouldn’t expect Tatum to have anything to do with her, but now that she’s mad at me... Anyway, if Tammy sees money for herself in having Tatum, she might try to work her.”

“Is she in the area?”

“I have no idea. Not recently that I know of.”

“How long has it been since you’ve heard from her?”

Last time she’d come begging for money. “A year, maybe two.” He didn’t mark his calendar with things he preferred to forget.

“Has she been in touch with Tatum in the past?”

“Not since she was five.” It couldn’t be Tammy. Pray God it wasn’t Tammy. Tatum was at a vulnerable age. And partially because of him, Talia was out of her life and...

“Did you sue her for custody of Tatum?”

“No. She signed her and my other two siblings over willingly.” To avoid a jail sentence.

It was a long shot. In ten years, Tammy had never contacted Tatum. There was no reason to panic.

“I see here that Tatum has an old flip phone with no texting capability.” Morris looked down at the clipboard on her lap.

“That’s right. It was an old one of mine. I called my provider and changed her line over temporarily. She has no data plan at all. For a month. She lied to me. I can’t tolerate that.” Tatum had too much free time, too much lack of supervision, to allow for lying. He had to be able to trust her. “But I couldn’t just take her phone away,” he added. “It’s not safe for a young girl to be at school without a phone these days.”

“Smartphones have tracking apps on them.” Brown looked apologetic as he explained the dilemma Tanner had unknowingly caused.

“Her number goes immediately to voice mail,” Tanner told them.

Morris pulled a charger from the black leather satchel she wore on her shoulder. “I found this in her room,” she said as Tanner recognized the charger for his old phone. And took hope.

Until another thought chased that one.

“She wasn’t planning to be gone long.” He voiced his first thought. And then, more slowly, his second. “Which makes her disappearance look more like she didn’t leave of her own accord.”

“You said her purse is missing.”

“Yes.”

“Was there anything else missing?”

“No. Not even her retainer case.” Tatum was always careful to store the expensive mouthpiece carefully. Her straight teeth meant a lot to her.

Obviously she’d been planning to return home that evening. So...he just had to be patient. Wait. She’d show up.

And have one hell of a lot of explaining to do.

“We’re going to need to take something personal of hers,” Brown said as the two detectives stood. “A toothbrush. Or hairbrush...”

For DNA. Tanner watched television on occasion. He knew why they were asking.

And handed over a couple of items from Tatum’s bathroom drawer without saying another word.

CHAPTER FIVE

“I CAN’T TELL you what to do, Lila, you know that. I represent Tatum Malone, not The Lemonade Stand, on this one.”

That was the funny thing about volunteer service—lines blurred when there wasn’t someone paying the bill. When there wasn’t someone with whom the buck stopped.

“I have to call the police.” Lila spoke softly, walking with Sedona toward Maddie Estes’s bungalow. The special-needs woman had no idea what was going on, and Tatum hadn’t been alerted yet, either. “She’s a minor and I can’t keep her here without guardian permission.”

“That’s a fact of law, yes.”

“But who’s to say when I found out that she’s an official missing person?”

“Lynn Duncan.” The live-in nurse practitioner who was not only Maddie Estes’s friend and protector, but soon to be her sister-in-law, too.

“Lynn’s not going to say anything to anyone.”

The Lemonade Stand was a place where secrets were safe. For good reason.

And sometimes, for that good reason, law enforcement looked the other way when they couldn’t conform to the letter.

“I’ll take her to the Garden,” Sedona said. “It’s almost dark. We should be alone there. I’ll do my best to find out what’s going on and then figure out a legal way to keep her from being sucked up into a system that might or might not be able to help her.”

Lila’s footsteps were soft whispers on the meandering sidewalk. Floral scents wafted from the gardens on both sides of the path.

“If there’s no proof of wrongdoing, no viable reason to remove Tatum from her home, to take away custody from a family member, a judge could determine that it’s in Tatum’s best interest to go home. A judge can order her home,” she said.

“I know.” Lila sounded less than satisfied.

“But you’d like it if I could get temporary placement here. At least until we get this figured out.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

“I NEED TO speak with Talia Malone, please.”

“Yes, sir, can I say who’s calling?”

With his back to the room, Tanner stared out the kitchen window. His vines were out there. Sucking water and nutrients out of the earth. Growing. A testimony to the resilience of life. And to its fragility, as well.

“Tanner,” he said into the cell phone he was holding so tightly his knuckles shone white. Unless she was onstage, in the middle of...well...what she did up there, they’d call her to the phone.

“Tanner? What’s wrong?”

He didn’t have to wait long. And she was out of breath. He didn’t want to know why.

“I tried your cell, first. When you didn’t answer...”

“It’s fine, Tanner, what’s wrong?”

He’d shown up at Talia’s place of business one time. It hadn’t been pretty. But he’d been assured any future calls would be answered.

This was the first time he’d tested the theory.

“Have you heard from Tatum?” Why was he doing this? It wasn’t like Talia would be able to help. The sisters hadn’t spoken in more than a year.

“Of course not. Even if I had, I wouldn’t have broken my word to you. No contact, just like we agreed. She’ll be eighteen soon enough and free to make her own choices. And I don’t want her making mine. You were right about that. I don’t want her future on my shoulders.”

“She mimicked your every move.”

“And that’s why you’re checking up on her? Because you think she’s like me and will go behind your back and get into trouble?”

Wincing at the sarcasm in his twenty-six-year-old sister’s voice, Tanner pinched the bridge of his nose, right between his eyes, in an effort to make the pain stop. The pain in his heart...

“I shouldn’t have humiliated you at your place of business, Talia, I’m sorry.” The irony in the words choked him. His hauling her away from a client on the way to a lap dance was humiliating to her, and undressing onstage was not?

“You say you love me, Tanner, but you don’t accept that I’ve made a choice I can live with.”

“You’re a...” He wasn’t going to do this.

“What? A hooker? Go ahead and say it, big brother. It won’t kill you.”

Talia was beautiful. Had so much going for her...

He loved her. But not enough, apparently. Or maybe it was their mother, and her father, who’d failed to give her the validation she’d needed—driving her to find it in the eager paws of men who were so hot for her they’d pay her for privileges.

Or pay just to see her swing around a bar and take her clothes off.

“Tatum’s missing.”

“What does that mean, missing?” She sounded sharp, but he heard a note of concern, too.

Because, deep down, they were family. They loved each other.

And that was why he’d made the call.

“I don’t know, sis.” In one long breath Tanner summarized the hellish couple of hours he’d just spent. “They’ve put out a bulletin and now we wait. I just... They took some things...for her DNA...and I... You should know.”

“They think someone snatched her?”

“They don’t have any evidence of that. They’ve searched all around the house, outside and in, and around the area, too, and so far there’s no sign of struggle and no one saw anything.”

“Have they considered the possibility that she ran away?”

“Yes.”

“It’s what you think, isn’t it?”

Part of him wanted to believe she had, because it meant there was more of a chance that she was safe. But Tatum had been angry with him before and stayed put. You couldn’t parent a child without pissing her off sometimes. Tatum’s anger always passed.

“What did you do to her, Tanner?”

“I threw her punk boyfriend out of the house and forbid her from seeing him.”

“That’s the first place I’d look for her, then.”

“I did. She wasn’t there.”

“Sounds like she learned from my example, after all.” Talia’s words brought back more memories than he needed at the moment. “I ran straight to Rex, making it far too easy for you to find me.”

He’d brought Talia home that first time. The next time, she’d been eighteen, legally allowed to go, and determined that he wouldn’t find her.

He’d been just as determined that he would. And hadn’t stopped looking. Not for years.

She’d already been working in Vegas when he finally had.

“You were only sixteen.” He stood by his long-ago choice. “Besides, this guy’s a real jerk.”

“Rex wasn’t. He was a college graduate with a good job and he wanted to marry me. It was three months before my seventeenth birthday and we’d already set a date.”

But Rex had lost his job and gone to jail for statutory rape. Because at twenty-three Tanner had been Talia’s legal guardian and he’d pressed charges against the twenty-seven-year-old high school teacher he’d caught bedding his sister.

Talia had been pregnant, too. She’d given up the baby for adoption—her choice. But she’d never forgiven Tanner for any of it. If he hadn’t put Rex away, she would’ve been able to keep her son, to give him a good, stable secure life. Or so she’d believed. He’d told her that if he hadn’t pressed charges, Rex would still have been charged and lost his job. She hadn’t wanted to hear a word of it. She’d said Rex had been willing to lose his job, but that he wouldn’t have done jail time. With the certainty of youth, she’d believed that no one else would’ve filed charges against the man.

Whether, deep down, she’d realized the truth or not, she’d blamed him for her broken heart and broken life.

And no good would come of reopening the old wound.

“Harcourt’s into drugs.” Tanner shoved his free hand into the pocket of his jeans and wondered if Tatum could be out there in the vineyard someplace. Close by. Safe. And just making him suffer.

“Selling or taking?”

“Taking, for sure. And I think selling.”

“Tatum knows better than to get involved with drugs.”

Their mother had been an addict. A couple of her baby daddies had been dealers. And not one of the Malone children had ever touched illegal substances. It was like an oath with them.

“He was smoking a pipe out in the barn. There was more than just marijuana in it.”

Like Pavlov’s dogs, they’d all been trained from the womb to know what certain smells meant. And the consequences that would result.

“I’m guessing Tatum didn’t know?”

He’d have guessed the same.

He’d have been wrong.

But there was no good to come from bad-mouthing one sister to another. Or disillusioning Talia any further, either.

“I asked her if she’s ever used drugs. She said no. I believed her,” he said. “I still do.”

For the time being. Too much time with the punk kid who seemed to have more influence over Tatum than Tanner did, and chances were, Tatum would succumb eventually. He’d heard Harcourt pressuring Tatum to “try it” Sunday, when he’d passed the barn on his way back out to the vineyard. Hell, if he hadn’t broken his clippers, he wouldn’t even have known the two were home.

“She used to write to me about some girl named Amy. They told each other everything. Girls do that. Call her.”

Talia’s “Amy,” Melissa Winchell, had helped Tanner find his sister in Vegas because she’d been worried sick about the choices Talia was making. As far as he knew, the two of them hadn’t spoken since.

But then he hadn’t known that Talia and Tatum had talked to each other during the years he’d been searching for Talia, either. So maybe Melissa and Talia talked, too.

Melissa used to stop by the farm now and then. Just to keep in touch.

“According to Amy, Tatum ditched all her friends when she met Harcourt.”

“This guy’s got a real hold on her.”

“I know.”

“I’m guessing the police know about him?”

“They do. The Harcourts like Tatum. They cooperated. I got the idea that this kid’s a problem for them, too. If he knows anything, his father will get it out of him.”

“So I can expect a call from the cops, too?”

“They asked about her family.”

“I’m guessing you couldn’t wait to tell them what I do for a living. How I’m such a horrible influence on my baby sister that we can’t be in the same room together?”

Okay, so maybe his stance had been a bit harsh on that one. He was willing to rethink it if she would. As soon as they got Tatum home.

“No, sis. I told them Tatum idolizes you and gave them your cell number.”

A long silence followed. “And you’re giving me a heads-up that if the cops call, it’s not me they’re after.”

“Something like that.” He loved her. “And to tell you that Tatum’s missing.”

“In case she comes calling.”

“In case she comes to harm. You have a right to know that she might be in danger.” At the moment, he’d give his vineyards, his house and the rest of the money he had in the bank if Tatum would show up on her sister’s doorstep.

Show up anywhere. Alive.

“It’s not like her to just leave. She didn’t take her retainer or any of her things, which indicates that she didn’t intend to be gone long, and Harcourt’s at home with his folks.”

And Morris and Brown had asked for her DNA.

“Do I have your permission to call her?”

Instincts honed by Talia’s proven lack of trustworthiness almost choked him as he said, “Yes. But I’m pretty sure her battery’s dead. Her phone goes immediately to voice mail and the charger was here.”

“She can get another charger.” Talia’s dry response made him feel a little better. For no apparent reason. “And it’s also possible that she’s sending the line to voice mail when she sees who’s calling. Or maybe she has the phone off to conserve the battery. I’ll keep trying, just in case.”

“Thanks, sis.”

“How much cash does she have on her?”

When Talia had left at eighteen, she’d taken all of his money that she could get her hands on. Close to five hundred dollars.

“I gave her fifty on Saturday, as I do every week. I don’t know if she spends it all every week, or if she’s saved up. She hasn’t accessed our joint account.”

“You’re still keeping your name on everyone else’s accounts, huh?”

“She’s fifteen, Talia. And I also put money in that account for her. Anyway, the punk could have spotted her a thousand easy.”

“I’m sure the cops will find out from his parents if he did. Surely they’d know if he suddenly withdrew a thousand bucks.”

“Unless he got it selling drugs and then they won’t know.”

“You’re telling me she could be anywhere.”

“Yeah.”

“You need me to come home?”

Tanner had a flash of memory―Talia, back when her hair was still long and blond, sitting at the kitchen table with him and Thomas, laughing so hard she spit mashed potatoes on a bowl of peas....

“Not yet,” he said. “Hopefully she’ll be home tonight and I can tan her hide for putting us all through this.”

“Tanner?”

“Yeah?”

“I suggest you don’t touch a hair on her head. If you want her to speak to you once she turns eighteen, that is.”

He’d never hit Tatum. Ever. He’d used the words figuratively. But he’d slapped Talia once. He was seventeen at the time and she’d been ten and had been using words he’d only ever heard come out of his mother’s mouth when the woman was high on something and chasing her next lay.

Talia’s eyes had opened wide, filled with tears, but even then she’d been too tough to let them fall. He’d been more appalled at his action than she had. Had apologized over and over.

Clearly she’d never forgiven him.

CHAPTER SIX

“WE KNOW WHO you are, Tatum.” Sedona waited until they were seated in the Garden of Renewal, a professionally planted utopia on the grounds of The Lemonade Stand, designed with aesthetics, sound and scent in mind. The rock waterfall in the middle of the garden offered a comforting white noise that tuned out sounds from the world beyond.

“My brother found me and told you, didn’t he? And now you’re going to make me go home.”

“No. Someone reported you missing to the police. You’re all over the news.”

“Oh.”

“You didn’t think anyone would miss you?”

The girl’s head was bent as she leaned over, her elbows on her knees, hands on her arms, and rocked.

A defensive posture that was far too familiar to Sedona. She saw it a lot in her line of work.

“I didn’t think,” Tatum said. “At least, not about that part.”

“So tell me what you did think about.”

Tatum sat upright, her eyes glistening with tears. “I had to get away from him, Ms. Campbell. I was online this morning and read about The Lemonade Stand on someone’s Facebook page. I knew I’d probably only have one chance to get here, so I grabbed my purse and left. I didn’t even bring my retainer.”

She was watching and listening for the “tells” because she didn’t have much time.

“Had to get away from whom?”

“My brother. I was off school today and he was going to be out working so I thought it was my chance.”

“What about your parents? Have you talked to them about your brother? Won’t they help you?”

“Tanner’s my guardian. He’s my brother. Our mother took off when I was five. She gave Tanner custody of all three of us kids. He always said that was the one decent thing she did for us before she left. Otherwise, we’d have been split up.”

Okay. Unexpected. Sedona slowed her mind down, reassessing.

“What about your dad?”

“I have no idea who he is. My older sister, Talia, said he was a drug dealer, just like hers and our other brother, Thomas’s. Tanner wouldn’t say. I just know that we all four have different dads and none of them hung around. Tanner’s was pretty decent, I guess. He died when Tanner was little.”

“You have three older siblings?”

“Yeah.”

“And this Tanner, he’s the oldest?”

“Yeah.”

“You have a sister named Talia and that was the name on the ID you gave Lila when you first arrived.”

“Yeah. It was hers. I found it in some stuff she left behind.”

“So she’s gone, too?”

“She’s a stripper in Vegas and Tanner won’t let me see her. Like he’s afraid I’m going to get stripper cooties or something.”

A picture of a drowning man began to form in Sedona’s mind. A man desperate enough to use force to keep his youngest sibling in line as she tried to take control of her own life?

Right alongside that vision was a depiction of a young woman who was more alone than Sedona had ever been.

“So there’s you, Tanner and Talia. What about the fourth sibling?”

“Thomas. He’s in New York. Has some fancy job to do with money but I wouldn’t even recognize him if I saw him. He headed for college the fall after mom left and never came back. He had a scholarship to an Ivy League school back east.”

“How old were you then?”

The gorgeous teenager shrugged her slumped shoulders. “Maybe five.”

“Do you and Thomas ever talk?” Just how isolated was this girl?

“Sometimes. When Tanner makes me. I mean, I don’t really know the guy, you know? We had a druggie mother in common and that’s about it.”

“But Thomas calls?”

“Maybe like on Christmas or something. Mostly Tanner calls him. Sometimes he answers and sometimes he doesn’t. Tanner leaves messages. Thomas doesn’t return them.”

No hope of support there.

“Are any of your siblings married?”

Was there any family that could take this girl? To keep her out of the system?

“Nope. And if Tanner has his way, I won’t ever be married, either.”

Not liking the sound of that, Sedona made a mental note.

“So what makes Tanner angry with you?”

Tatum shrugged again.

“Tatum?” She waited for the girl to look at her. “I can’t help you if you aren’t honest with me.”

“That makes Tanner mad,” Tatum said. “When he thinks people are lying to him. But he lies all the time, you know? He says that he’s there for me, but he’s not. He’s always out in that precious vineyard of his, leaving me alone in that big old house. And when I try to find my own life, my own friends, and to be a part of their families, he gets mad and ruins everything.”

“Like what? Can you give me an example?”

“Like...I have a boyfriend.” Tatum’s entire countenance changed. The girl’s eyes brightened, her cheeks softened. “He loves me, Ms. Campbell. Me. He doesn’t care that I have druggie parents who took off. He doesn’t think I’m any less because of that.”

“And other kids do?”

Tatum’s eyes grew shadowed again. “Some do. They say things when they think I don’t know or can’t hear them. They did that to Thomas and Talia, too.”

“How do you know? I thought you and Thomas seldom speak?”

Maybe she spoke with her siblings more than she realized. Maybe they cared enough to step forward. Maybe Thomas had a significant other. Was part of a family Tatum could join.

“Talia told me. She said that I wasn’t supposed to listen to them. And that I wasn’t to let Tanner suffocate the life out of me, either.”

“She said that.”

“Yes.” Tatum nodded. “Exactly those words—not to suffocate the life out of me.”

It was tough to form a picture of a family, to get a realistic sense of the dynamics, in a half-hour conversation with a distressed teenager. And yet...she was hearing enough to know that Tatum’s problems were real.

“When did Talia tell you that?”

“The last time I spoke to her.”

“Was she living in Vegas then?”

“Yes.”

A stripper feeling she’d been suffocated? Because the older brother had tried to save his sister from a dangerous and potentially unhappy life choice?

For a second, Sedona pitied the man. A seemingly young man who’d had the well-being of three younger siblings thrust upon him.

He could be forgiven for making some mistakes.

Sitting solemnly on the bench beside her, Tatum shuddered and Sedona could only imagine what the girl was remembering.

Mistakes were forgivable. Hitting a defenseless fifteen-year-old girl was not.

“I asked you why you thought that if your brother had his way, you’d never get married.”

“Because he hates Del,” the girl said, her voice impassioned. “That’s my boyfriend,” she offered as an aside. “He went off on him on Sunday, and there was this huge fight. He says Del can’t ever come back, I can’t ever see him again and I’m not allowed to talk to him, either. He took my phone and left me with this flip thing with no data plan so I can’t even text.”

“Why doesn’t he like Del?”

Hands clasped tightly, Tatum shook her head. “Because he thinks we’re gonna sleep together, I guess. He caught us out in the barn.”

“Are you sleeping together?”

“No.” A new note entered the girl’s voice.

“Tatum, I’m not your judge. I’m the one who has to know the truth so I can best defend you.”

“We haven’t had sex,” Tatum said. “I’ve never... But he wants to. He was trying to talk me into trying it when Tanner suddenly showed up.”

“Do you want to?”

The darkening night was cool, but she and Tatum both had sweaters and were enclosed in a thick circle of trees surrounding the several-acre garden. The orange-and-golden California poppies on the outskirts of the garden hadn’t yet closed for the night.

“Yeah, I want to. Sorta. I mean, I want to be...you know...together and all. I just, I mean, Tanner’d kill me and...”

Sedona wasn’t a juvenile counselor. But being a family lawyer specializing in divorce and family arbitration meant that she often found herself in the role of counselor. She’d had some training.

She also remembered being fifteen....

And she had decisions to make. Every hour that law enforcement personnel were searching for Tatum, an endangered missing child who wasn’t missing at all, they were being taken away from other important work.

The scent from the flowering plants in the beds close by wafted around them. Sedona focused on those flowers for a moment, seeing some color but mostly shadows within the soft glow of strategically placed landscape lighting.

“Does Del know you’re here?”

“No.” Tatum shook her head. “I...” The girl’s voice faded and Sedona sensed her inner struggle.

“You love Tanner,” she said now. The brother might be overprotective. Was possibly abusive. But he’d been the only parent this girl had known.

“Sometimes, I guess.”

“And you love Del.” Or she thought she did.

“Yes. I do.” There was no doubt that Tatum believed the words. And maybe they were true. It wouldn’t be the first time a love that was born in high school lasted a lifetime.

She had to look no further than her own parents to see that.

“Does Del know that Tanner hit you?”

“No.” No hesitation there.

Time was of the essence. The bottom line was that Tatum had had the courage to reach out for help.

“Do you think Del is the one who reported you missing?”

“No. I messaged him on Facebook this morning to tell him I loved him and that I was leaving but I wouldn’t say where I was going. I didn’t want him to have to lie when his dad asked him about it.

“I know Tanner turned me in. It’s just like him. He did it to Talia, too, the first time she ran away. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. I just found out the name of this place and then called a hotline to find out more about it and knew today was the only chance I’d have of getting here.” There was absolute conviction in Tatum’s reply.

“You mentioned the first time Talia ran away. There were more?”

“The second time she took off, she was eighteen and he couldn’t do anything. She’d left a note saying she was moving out so she wasn’t, like, in danger or missing or anything. But for years he couldn’t find her. When he finally did she was in Vegas and there was nothing he could do to her.”

“Did he hit Talia, too?” Sedona kept her tone soft, unthreatening. And tried to stick to the facts, not giving rein to any of the emotions that were creeping up on her.

In a small voice, Tatum said, “Yes, he did. The big kids always hid everything from me like I was too dumb to know what was going on. But one time after Thomas left and Talia and Tanner were in this really huge fight, Talia screamed at him to get away from her and said he’d gotten away with slapping her face once but that if he ever touched her again she’d report him.” The girl frowned.

And Sedona could only guess at what Tatum was feeling in that moment.

“Is that why she ran away?”

“I don’t know. I was only seven.”

“So you really don’t know her, either?”

“Talia was like my mother until Tanner drove her away. And she still kept in touch with me. In secret. Until Tanner threatened her or something and made her cut me off.”

“How long has it been since you’ve had contact with her?”

“Almost a year. He caught me talking to her last summer. He’d just found out from an old friend of hers where she was in Vegas and then, just my luck, he comes in from the vineyard and hears me saying her name. Next thing I know, he’s off to Vegas and when he comes home he tells me she won’t be contacting me again.”

“Did she?”

“Nope. She had her number changed, blocked my email and unfriended me, too.”

“Even though she communicated with you in secret for all those years?”

“Because Tanner didn’t know then. She wasn’t really crossing him until he knew and I’m sure he expressly forbade it. You have no idea how convincing my brother can be.”

“Is that when you found out she was a stripper?”

“No. Talia told me what she was doing. That’s why she couldn’t petition for custody and let me come live with her. Because child services would never have approved her for my guardian. She wanted me to know she wasn’t ditching me. That she loved me and would take me if she could.”

It seemed to Sedona that Tatum had tried to look at other avenues to make a good life for herself. To fix her problem.

Without success.

That was going to change.

Tanner Malone wasn’t just dealing with a fifteen-year-old girl anymore. He had Sedona Campbell to contend with now.

For better or worse.

CHAPTER SEVEN

TANNER WAS OUT in the furniture barn, looking under an old claw-foot couch that Tatum had wanted to move into the living room. She couldn’t possibly fit under it, but—because he was out of his mind with worry—he had to look everywhere. He hit his head when his cell phone rang. It was Detective Morris.

“The boyfriend repeated that she messaged him this morning. And as he told you, she said she loved him. He also admitted, when we told him we could trace deleted Facebook posts, that she told him she was leaving but wouldn’t tell him where she was going so he wouldn’t get in trouble.”

His heart sped up. And dropped. Tatum had left? Without taking any of her things? Where could she have been going? Harcourt had to have made some provisions for her, given her someplace to hang out....

“We know she got on a bus.” Morris’s voice was all business. And Tanner’s heart rate escalated again. “Heading toward Santa Raquel beach. We’ve spoken with the driver. He told us where she got off.” The detective named an intersection he could place, but wasn’t all that familiar with. It was easily twenty miles from the vineyard that was situated halfway between Santa Raquel and Santa Barbara. “Do you have any idea why she’d get off there? Is there someone she knows in the area? Someplace you used to go?”

“No. I... We’ve never been there. I have no idea....”

He tried to remember, forcing his throbbing head to work overtime. Had Tatum attended a birthday party in Santa Raquel, maybe?

“She loves to go to the beach,” he said, for lack of any better ideas.

And there were a handful of them a hell of a lot closer than Santa Raquel. Besides, Tatum knew better than to go to the beach alone.

“We’ve got officers canvassing the area,” Morris told him. “Someone has to have seen her.”

He was beginning to think more clearly. He headed to the truck, about to get to know that unfamiliar neighborhood really well. “Was she alone?”

“As far as we can tell. The driver said she was the only person to board the bus about a mile from your place.”

He knew the stop. Little more than a bench on a country corner. How in the hell had Tatum gotten there?

Harcourt. He had to have taken her. Had to know where she was.

“He said there was an older woman who got off when she did, but they didn’t seem to know each other and went in opposite directions. She didn’t fit the description of a druggie or a homeless person and he didn’t recognize her from the picture you had of your mother.”

Tatum didn’t know any other older women that he was aware of. “Harcourt’s got to be meeting her later tonight. When he can get away without anyone noticing.”

“We’ve spoken with his parents. He won’t be getting out of their sight tonight.”

“So if she’s waiting for him someplace, she’s going to be alone in the dark.” He wasn’t sure which was worse, Tatum alone with Harcourt all night or out by herself.

Or with Tammy.

He feared that the lesser of two evils was the young man he’d banned her from seeing.

In his truck, driving toward the main road, Tanner said, “Can we call them and have them give him his freedom? Just in case. He could lead us to her.”

“I’ll give them a call,” Morris said, not sounding happy about the prospect. “But if they don’t want their son used as bait, I can’t blame them.”

Tanner could, though. If not for their corrupt son, Tatum and Tanner would still be okay, sitting at home, ignoring each other.

Ringing off, he pushed the pedal to the floor, determined to make twenty miles in fewer minutes than that.

* * *

“WE’RE GOING TO have to let the police know where you are.” Sedona needed a lot more answers. And had no more time. “They’re wasting valuable dollars searching for you.”

The eyes that looked over at her were filled with fear. And resignation, as well. It was a look far too mature for a fifteen-year-old girl to be wearing. “They’re going to send me home with Tanner,” she said, without a hint of a whine. “This will all be for nothing.”

“If Tanner’s hitting you I can ask for an emergency order to have you kept away from him, at least until the state has time to investigate your allegations.”

“I told you, I’m not going to report him to the police.”

A response that wasn’t all that unusual in domestic situations where the abused also loved their abusers.

“You’re a minor, Tatum. And you told me about it. I’m legally obligated to report it.”

“I’ll just deny having told you. Or I’ll say I lied. I thought this was a safe place. Where I could come and just tell someone here and have a place to stay until I can get settled on my own.”

“You’re fifteen. You not only have to finish high school, but you’re under your brother’s guardianship. He’s legally responsible for you.”

“I’m not reporting him.” Tatum crossed her arms, her face set.

“Why not? If he’s hurting you, he needs help, Tatum.”

Her gaze darting around the subtly lit garden, Tatum straightened, flicking her long blond hair over her shoulder. “It’ll be my word against his,” she said. “I don’t have any proof. It’s not like I took pictures. Or even told anyone. They’re going to think I’m just a fifteen-year-old kid who’s mad at him because he won’t let me be with my boyfriend.”

Sedona couldn’t deny the possibility. She’d already thought of it and had to be straight with her client. Even though, technically, Tatum couldn’t be her client without her brother’s, or the court’s, approval.

“Is that what’s happening here?”

“No!” Tatum’s eyes widened and she faced Sedona squarely. “I’m pissed at him about Del, yes, but I’m not just a spoiled kid who can’t take no for an answer. I’m here to find answers.”

“What kind of answers?”

Tatum sat back. “You know, about what someone does when they’re a victim of domestic violence.”

Tatum could be playing them. She could just be saying the right words. And if she was, she’d be caught out. If she wasn’t, and they sent her home...

Sedona couldn’t take a chance on sending this young girl back to get beat up on again. Statistics showed that domestic violence issues in the home escalated from incident to incident. The next time Tatum might not just get off with a few bruises.

“I have another suggestion,” she said, believing that, under the circumstances, it was the best option for the moment.

“What?”

“I can try to talk your brother, to let him know that you aren’t missing and haven’t run away so that he can alert the police to drop their search. And then ask him if he’d be willing to let you stay here—even if it’s just for a day or two, until we get this settled.”

“It’ll take a lot more than a day or two for anything to get settled with Tanner. More like a lifetime.”

“Either way, we’re out of time,” Sedona said, aware that Lila would be pacing her office, looking at the clock.

They could only pretend not to see the news bulletins for so long.

“What’ll happen to me tonight if I tell the cops that Tanner hit me? Which I’m not going to do. I already told you that. But what would happen to me if I did?”

“I can’t say for sure. I can probably arrange to have you spend the night here tonight. But they might come for you in the morning. And then it will be largely up to the court. They’ll assign a caseworker to you. And investigate the situation.”

They could send her home as early as that night, too. Or the next day. Based on the lack of evidence or witnesses—and if no domestic violence reports had ever been filed for Tanner Malone, and there were no medical records of abuse and no problems reported by Tatum’s school, and if Tatum said she lied, they probably would send her home. And just keep an eye on things.

Which, as Sedona knew all too well, so often meant wait until the abuse happened again....

She could contact Talia. See if she could get testimony out of the older sister regarding previous abuse. But again, with no corroborating evidence, and considering Talia’s current situation and previous history with her brother, her testimony wouldn’t be all that credible. The court could go either way. Unless reports had been filed in the past.

“Even if I talk to Tanner, whether he lets you stay here or insists on taking you home, I’m going to have to report the abuse to the police, whether you want to do so or not.”

A caseworker would be assigned. Tatum would most likely still be sent home because, as the teenager said, she could just be a truculent child lashing out for having her boyfriend privileges removed.

There would almost surely have to be another abusive incident before anything more could be done.

“What’s your choice?” she asked Tatum, standing up in the dimly lit garden. “The police have to be notified that you’re safe, Tatum, one way or the other. Do you want me to call your brother or not?”

It felt cruel, to be putting such a choice to a child who’d turned to them for help. But it was the best she could do. Short of putting the girl in her car and running with her.

Standing, her chin low and shoulders sagging, Tatum gave Sedona Tanner Malone’s cell phone number.

* * *

“WHERE’S MY SISTER?” Tanner approached the woman with the thick blond hair sitting at the corner table in an upscale sandwich shop not far from the corner where Detective Morris had told him Tatum had exited the bus.

Sedona Campbell, she’d said her name was. And that she’d be wearing navy pants and a jacket with a cream-colored blouse.

“She’s fine,” the thirtyish woman said. “She’s with a couple of friends of mine,” she said. “Female friends.”

“Who are you?”

Reaching into her pocket the woman pulled out a business card and placed it on the table.

Sedona Campbell, Attorney at Law

He read the name of her firm, but didn’t take it in. His heart racing, Tanner stood there, trying to slow his mind, to calm the panic.

He was thirty-three, not twenty. He owned a home, a business.

And he was losing control of his baby sister. Cold sweats swept over him. Through him.

“What does she want?” If their mother thought she was going to ride back into their lives and sweep her baby away, she was wrong.

No matter how vulnerable a girl Tatum’s age might be to her mother’s false promises of newfound sobriety. Tanner, Talia and Thomas had heard them all too many times. But Tatum...she’d only been five when she’d last heard from Tammy.

“Have a seat, Mr. Malone.”

Because he was feeling a bit sick, Tanner did as she asked. He’d be fine. He knew the signs of post-stress-induced anxiety. And knew how to overcome them, as well.

The law was on his side. He had to remember that.

“Tell me how much she wants.”

The woman’s creamy white brow furrowed. Who had creamy white skin in California? “I’m sorry?”

“You’re a family lawyer,” he explained slowly. If this lawyer wanted to play games she’d soon find she’d come to the wrong man. He knew all his mother’s tricks. Eventually, he’d grown immune to every one of them.

“That’s right.”

“The only times my family has ever needed a lawyer have been when our mother deigns to make an appearance in our lives.” That was true even before she’d left them for good and given him custody. He’d had to quit school to protect the kids from her—and the court system. Not that anyone needed to know... “Tell me, what’s Tammy said or done to get to Tatum and how much does she want?”

“I don’t know your mother. Or anyone named Tammy.”

Leaning back in his chair Tanner feigned a nonchalance he didn’t feel. He’d learned early on that if he showed a woman weakness she’d use it to wipe her feet. Spreading his hands and then steepling his fingers, he said, “So whatever she’s calling herself this time, how much does she think it’s going to cost her to provide the life my sister needs?”

Because Tammy would never admit the money was for herself. To feed her habits. No, she’d blink those big blue eyes and swear that it was for her children.

She’d tried a few times over the past ten years to extort money from them—from him. Playing on his love for his siblings. But it had been a while since he’d heard from her. Three years. He’d looked it up as soon as Morris had left.The longest she’d ever gone.

Sedona Campbell flicked a strand of really long hair behind her shoulder. A move that accentuated her femininity. And worried him. “Let me get this clear,” she said. “You think someone has your sister?”

It was like a game of chess. He not only had to plan his moves a minimum of three in advance, he had to assess his opponent, to predict what she was thinking and, more important, to ascertain her next moves before making his own.

“Tatum’s a good girl,” he said. “A straight-A student who loves to read. She has an appreciation for antiques and nurtures hurt animals anytime she can sneak one in. She also has no problem speaking her mind. She is not the type of person who would just up and leave on her own.”

“Especially since you’ve made her a virtual prisoner out there on that vineyard of yours.”

“That’s what Tammy told you?”

Ms. Campbell looked at the table. Seeing a chessboard of her own? After a couple of seconds, she glanced back at him. “Let’s get one thing clear, sir. I’ve never met your mother, or anyone else who knows your sister. I am here on Tatum’s behalf. Period.”

A vise descended upon his chest. And he was sweating again. From the inside out. “You want me to believe that my little sister hired a lawyer?”

“Technically she can’t do that without your signature.”

Right. Okay. But... “She sought one out, though?”

“She came to us for help.”

His feet landed flat with a thud as he sat forward and put his arms on the table. “Who is us? Why does Tatum need a lawyer? Where is she?”

He was back to Del Harcourt. This was about that punk kid like he’d originally thought.

But he had the senior Harcourt in his corner. And he’d put his money on the mother standing by whatever Ken Harcourt dictated.

Not that that was necessarily a healthy thing, but it would serve his situation. And theirs was none of his business.

“Your sister is at a women’s shelter.”

Oh, God, no. “Is she all right? Is she hurt?”

“Physically she’s fine. But women, and more particularly teenage girls, don’t turn up at shelters just for fun.”

“The bastard hit her again?”

“You’re saying you didn’t do it?”

Breathe, man. In and out. Relax your chest and breathe. “I didn’t do what?”

“Hit your sister.”

Everything inside Tanner stilled in that moment. His heart. His soul. “Is she saying I did?”

Tatum was pissed at him. But she wouldn’t turn on him. They were tight. More so than the other two. Since the day she was born she’d been his little girl. More daughter than sister. There had to be a misunderstanding. Someone at that shelter, this lawyer perhaps, had listened wrong.

“Are you denying that you hit your sister, Mr. Malone?”

“Hell, yes, I’m denying it!”

“But you knew she’d been hit?” The woman didn’t believe him. Her disdainful tone was enough to tell him that, but the cool look in her eyes was a dead giveaway, too.

“I didn’t know. I suspected. When I asked her about it, she adamantly denied it. She looked me in the eye.”

“And that means something?”

“Tatum has lied to me before, but never while looking me in the eye.”

People milled around them, talking over coffee drinks and eating freshly baked cookies. Scattered about at various tables. Some had computers. Tablets. It was a gathering place.

And it was like Tanner wasn’t even there. He had no sense of reality. No way to wake himself from the nightmare.

“But you saw signs that she’d been hurt? Bruises, perhaps, that she explained away?”

“I grabbed her arm out in the barn when she was trying to run after Harcourt. She flinched. I made her roll up her sleeve. The bruise was faded to yellow, but I was sure I saw the imprint of knuckles. She told me I was crazy. That I see the worst in everything. She said she ran into an antique dresser spindle in the barn.”

“Harcourt? Who’s that?”

“A rich punk she met at a party a couple of months back.”

“I take it you don’t like him.”

He wasn’t all that fond of Tatum’s lawyer, either. She looked good enough to eat and had the mind of a barracuda. “I just told you he hit my sister. What do you think?”

“You allege that he hit your sister. Other than that, has he given you cause to doubt him?”

“He smokes dope. I overheard him trying to convince my fifteen-year-old sister to try it. I suspect he’s trying to get her to sleep with him, too. And he speaks disrespectfully to his perfectly respectable mother.” For starters. “Now...I need to see my sister.” He’d spoken with her on the phone, briefly, when Sedona Campbell had called twenty minutes before to arrange this meeting. Just enough to be satisfied that she was fine, so that he could alert the police.

“I can arrange a meeting, but I need to speak with you first.”

“I believe I’m done talking.”

“I’m under legal obligation to call the police and inform them that your sister, a minor, reported abuse at your hands.”

He had to see Tatum.

Had to slow down. His nerve endings were tripping over themselves.

Outwardly, not a muscle of Tanner’s body moved.

This couldn’t be happening. Didn’t make sense. He’d made a good home for Tatum. A normal home.

“Or we can handle it another way.”

The words were a lifeline. And they told him she was working him. Either she was under a legal obligation or she wasn’t. If she had to report him, how could they handle it any other way?

She was the lawyer. She’d know. And she’d figure that he might not.

Eyes narrowing, he watched her. Skipping his next move to wait for hers. Any other time he might have enjoyed the game. But not now, with Tatum’s life in the balance.

“Tatum would like to stay at The Lemonade Stand, at least for the night, and for longer if that can be arranged.”

“My sister has a home.” And, as her legal guardian, he had rights and obligations, too.

“She claims that it’s an abusive one.”

“Just because she claims it―” which he didn’t buy “―doesn’t make it so.”

While he couldn’t believe Tatum would accuse him of something so heinous, so life changing, he couldn’t figure out why this lawyer woman would be lying to him. Unless she’d lied about her client, too. Unless his mother really was involved.

And wanted Tatum.

To sell her for drug money? Or have her go to work so Tammy could stay home with her latest dealer and get high? Stay high?

When people first met Tammy they fell for her vulnerable victim act. Maybe this Sedona Campbell was in the still-believing stage of knowing his mother. Maybe she thought she was fighting for the lives of a helpless woman and her child.

So maybe Tammy had concocted the abuse story and not Tatum. Calming a bit as he thought things through, Tanner figured he’d come upon the more likely scenario. Tatum, and this lawyer, too, were pawns in Tammy’s game.

“I’m assuming, since you didn’t immediately report me to the police, that you have some doubts about my...sister’s...story.” Tammy’s story, he was pretty convinced now.

The woman―a looker, he couldn’t deny that―sized him up. And seemed to be considering him as strongly as he’d been considering her. Because he was right? She had doubts?

Did that mean, if he handled this right, she could become an ally?

“I’m interested in what’s best for Tatum.”

Not really an answer to his question, but it was enough.

“I’m willing to listen to what you have to say,” he told her. He could listen for as long as it took.

And then take his baby sister home.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE MAN DIDN’T look like an ogre. He didn’t seem like the violent type, either. On the contrary, Sedona couldn’t stop looking at him. Sure he was tall, his dark hair was a little long, but he moved with slow grace, agile, but not aggressive. Her first instinct was to like him.

He’d taken his seat as though weighing the options. And every move he’d made since had flowed more than jerked. As though he lived his life deliberately as opposed to reacting to it. That was a characteristic she respected.

“First and foremost, I’d like you to allow Tatum to spend the night at The Lemonade Stand.” Sedona repeated her initial request. She’d wanted to keep her tone congenial. Nonthreatening. Her words came out as more of a plea than anything else. She’d expected not to like this man. Instead, she wanted to get along with him.

For Tatum’s sake. And...just because.

“It’s obvious that your sister is struggling. And that she’s not happy at home. It’s also very obvious to those of us who’ve spoken with her today that she wants, more than anything at the moment, to spend the night at the shelter.”

He watched her. Saying nothing. But his gaze remained direct. Focused.

“We have a bed ready for her. In a bungalow with a woman who lives and works full-time at The Stand. There will be another woman, an employee, who will be awake in the bungalow all night, keeping a watch in case anyone has any problems.”

His brow quirked.

“If you allow her to stay, Tatum will be under twenty-four-hour supervision. She understands that if she stays at the shelter, she will not be free to come and go. She’s a minor. She can only leave on the say-so of her legal guardian.”

“And she wants to stay on those conditions?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I prefer not to be called ‘sir.’ My name’s Tanner.”

There was no invitation to friendship in the words. More like a simple form of address.

Sedona liked that, too.

Remembering Tatum, a girl without a mother, a girl whose big sister had been out of touch, Sedona tried to keep her guard up against this man. “So, Tanner, will you let her stay?”

“I want to see her.”

“I understand. She’d rather not see you tonight, though. She’s asked for this one night of peace to figure things out.”

“There’s nothing to figure out. She’s coming home. She has school tomorrow.”

Sedona tried to smile. It didn’t work. The man barely moved, his facial features relaxed. His voice was so quiet she could only just make it out within the din of the other patrons in the shop. And yet going up against him was like scaling impenetrable rock. Sheetrock. The kind that was strong without bulk.

He was human. When it came to people there was always a way in.

Thinking back over their conversation, she searched for any breach in the facade he presented, any exhibiting of tension. A different tone of voice, or speed of speech. And could only think of one.

“Why would you think your mother hired me? Has she tried to be in touch with Tatum?”

“She’s tried to contact us a few times. When she was down and out and needed money or a place to stay. I won’t let her anywhere near us. She signed away her rights to her minor children ten years ago, and other than the gift of life, she’s never given them anything worth having. I’m not going to have her insidious filth anywhere near them.”

There was no venom in his voice. Just calm conviction.

“What makes you think she’d hire me now?”

He looked her straight in the eye. “My mother is ruled by one thing and one thing only—her addiction to drugs. If she’s desperate, she’ll do whatever it takes. She once promised a guy he could join my sister Talia in the shower if he’d give her a hundred bucks. I’d left to take Tatum next door when Talia got in the shower, not knowing that Tammy had this guy in her room. I traded off with the neighbor, taking the little ones to kindergarten. Tammy got confused and thought it was my day to drive them. I came back and heard what was going on and kicked the guy’s ass out of our house.”

Sedona believed him. She didn’t know why, but she did. “How old was Talia?”

“Sixteen.”

Hadn’t Tatum said her sister was sixteen the first time she’d run away?

“Did you press charges?”

“I had no proof because nothing actually happened. It was their word against mine. And I didn’t want Talia to know what I’d overheard, or what had almost happened to her, which she surely would have found out if we’d gone to court. But I knew, because of our past history with the system, that I stood a much better chance of being believed than Tammy did. So I told her I was going to press charges unless she gave me custody of the kids, then got out of our home and never came back.”

He didn’t seem to be looking for sympathy. Or even understanding. And he’d given her far more insight than he probably knew or intended. Tonight she saw a man who’d had a lot of responsibility thrown on him from a very young age. And a boy who’d clearly seen and known more than any child should.

She saw a man who’d had a tough life.

And who could have developed an unhealthy view of relationships. And of family.

A man who would resort to hitting his sister if he thought, for one second, she was going to fall into her mother’s ways? A man who thought physical discipline was far healthier for his teenage sister than the drugs and sex her boyfriend was using to tempt her away?

The drugs and sex that had ruined their mother’s life?

“When was the last time you heard from her?”

“Three years. But it makes sense for her to show up. Tatum’s fifteen. Another three years and we’ll be home free. She’s running out of time if she hopes to milk one last penny out of having given birth.”

Wow. How could a person say such words without any hint of bitterness in his voice? The guy was cold as ice—or was healthier than she figured she’d have been if she’d grown up like he had.

“You have a brother, Thomas, correct?”

“Yes.”

“How does he feel about your mother?”

“You’d have to ask him.”

“I’m asking you.”

“Thomas’s father was Tammy’s dealer. And, I believe, her pimp. When he was five, Thomas disappeared for three days. I never knew what happened to him, but I know he was with his father, and when he came back he didn’t talk for more than a month.”

“Did you report this to anyone?”

“No. I was ten at the time. My father was dead. I had no way of providing for my brother and sister and knew that if they took us from our mother, we’d be separated. I just made certain that I didn’t leave Thomas or Talia alone with Tammy after that.”

“Do any of you have grandparents?”

“Not that we’ve ever known. From what I gathered, Tammy was a lot like her own mother. Egotistical and immature. Just look at the names she gave us—how cute for her, Tanner, Thomas, Talia and Tatum. Unusual enough to be remembered. Poetic, she used to say. But embarrassing as hell to a kid in junior high.”

He paused, like he hadn’t meant to reveal so much. And then, when she said nothing, he continued. “According to her, my father’s parents were horrified that he’d ever had anything to do with her and denied that I was their grandson.”

“And your dad didn’t step up and do something?”

“Nope. But he took out a life insurance policy naming me as his beneficiary. In the event of an early death, the money went into a trust that couldn’t be touched by anyone but me after I turned twenty-three. He died of a heart attack when I was eight.”

So he’d had some money. Sedona was relieved, then pulled herself up short. She couldn’t care. Couldn’t sympathize with him. She was there to represent his sister and Tatum’s charges against him.

“You used the shower incident against your mother because you’d just gotten the means to care for your siblings yourself,” she said. Admiring him even while she assessed him for signs of an abuser.

“I had to know that the court would keep us together, yes, before I could take such a strong stand against her.”

“Would it have been so awful if you’d been split up?” She had to ask. “Did you ever consider the possibility that your sisters would be placed in good homes where they’d be loved and happy and grow up with nothing more to worry about than brushing their teeth and emptying the dishwasher?”

“My mother wouldn’t sign away her rights to anyone but me,” he said, seeming kind now, as he explained things to her. “The girls would have been foster kids, not eligible for adoption. Together, at least we had one another. A place of our own where we belonged. We loved one another. And we understood one another’s challenges, too, since we’d all come from the same place.”

Sedona wondered if the siblings needed one another as much as Tanner had evidently needed them? Had Talia, Thomas and Tatum been his sense of family? Of belonging? And now that Tatum, the last of them, was almost ready to fly the coop, was he having a hard time letting her go? Serious enough to use physical force to keep Tatum with him?

“I am not now nor have I ever been in contact with your mother,” she told him, aware of the lateness of the hour. Of Tatum waiting back at The Lemonade Stand, nervous and wondering what was going to happen to her. “Your sister showed up at The Lemonade Stand today, out of the blue. She asked for our help. We’re trying to give it to her. That’s what we do.”

“And she says I hit her.”

“That’s correct.”

His gaze didn’t waver. “I didn’t.”

She believed him. And wasn’t sure she trusted her own instincts at the moment. This man was having an effect on her that she didn’t understand.

“She’s afraid of something, Mr....Tanner. I’ve never witnessed nor even heard of a fifteen-year-old begging to stay locked in at a women’s shelter before. Not without just cause.”

“Harcourt has something to do with this.”

“Maybe he told Tatum to seek help.”

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t show any overt reaction at all. Tatum had said her brother was a vintner. That held weight with a wine connoisseur like her. It took real dedication, tenderness, an attention to art, to produce a good wine.

Maybe that was why she felt such a strong desire to like him.

“What happens if I insist on taking her home tonight?” It didn’t sound like a rhetorical question. “Other than me royally pissing her off, of course.”

“We’d have to call the police. They’d come out.”

“Would they take her?”

“They might.”

His eyes narrowed, and Sedona was afraid she’d somehow transmitted a compassion she shouldn’t be feeling toward this man.

“What are the chances they’d take her?”

She wanted him to trust her. Because Tatum obviously loved him. Not only had she said so, but her refusal to press charges also pointed to an attachment to him. One thing Sedona was already completely sure of—she was already fond of Tatum and wanted to help her and her brother be as happy as they possibly could be.

It sounded to her as though they both deserved a big dose of the secure, happy and loving environment she’d grown up in.

But she could not take even a minute chance of possibly returning an abuse victim to her abuser. Not for any reason.

“Tonight? Not good at all.”

That eyebrow rose one more time. And taking a last-ditch chance on a nurturing instinct that had been muted in law school, she said, “Your sister has said that if we call the police, she’s going to tell them that she lied to us. She’s going to insist you’ve never hit her. She has no bruises left to show. There have been no prior complaints or reports, no reason for anyone to seriously suspect that this is anything more than a recalcitrant teenager trying to get back at the guardian who thwarted her love life. They might or might not assign a caseworker. If they did you’d have to endure a few visits. And as long as there are no further instances of abuse, you’ll carry on as you’ve always done.”

She’d handed the life he wanted back to him on a silver platter. Tanner Malone continued to watch her, his face as placid as always.