Kele Moon - Crossing the line

“Will you wait until I get her out?” Romeo lifted his gaze to Wyatt. “You got the sheriff SUV.”

“Yeah, I’ll wait.” Wyatt rolled out of bed and tried not to think about Romeo in the shower with his sister. “Downstairs.”

Romeo gave him a wan smile. “Thanks, Wyatt.”

“I love you, Wy Wy,” Jules whispered, the tears still sounding in her voice.

“Okay, Ju Ju,” Wyatt said softly. “We got your back, darlin’. You’re almost to the finish line.”

Jules nodded as Romeo helped her up.

Wyatt walked out of the room and closed the door behind him. He ran into Tino in the hallway and yanked the kitchen towel out of his hand. Then he went one step further and snapped it harshly at his face.

“Merda!” Tino dodged the attack and shouted, “What the hell was that for?”

“You know she ain’t supposed to be standing long enough to take a shower,” Wyatt growled at him. “You’re lucky I ain’t punching you for putting her health in jeopardy.”

Tino held up his hands in challenge. “Bring it, but be careful. I fight dirty.”

“Yeah, that ain’t a lie.” Wyatt huffed as he walked past him. “We got to work on that with you. I’ve never seen a fighter get more penalties than you do.”

“Hey, man, it’s survival of the fittest in the cage. I gotta do what I gotta do.”

“It ain’t a street fight, Tino. It’s a sport,” Wyatt said defensively. “Winning by following the rules is part of the art.”

“Rules have never been my friend, Conner,” Tino said as he followed Wyatt down the stairs. “I’m not Mr. Sheriff of Hicksville who never broke a fucking rule in his life. Where I come from, you gotta break rules to survive.”

“Tino, I’ve broken rules too. Plenty of ’em, but I’m older than you. I’m telling you at some point you got to learn to follow them, and if I catch you breaking a law in my town, I’m gonna forget we’re family.”

“Yeah, I know, Sheriff,” Tino said sarcastically. “You remind me every time you see me.”

“How’s Nova?” Wyatt asked in concern as he sat down on the leather sofa in Jules’s family room. “Speaking of fellas who break the rules.”

Tino shrugged as he sat down next to him and grabbed the remote off the coffee table. “Why do you always ask that? You know you don’t want the answer.”

Wyatt rubbed a hand tiredly over his face. He hadn’t been getting much sleep since Tabitha started having nightmares. “Believe it or not, I like your brother. I wish I could help him somehow. I know it upsets Jules he’s still caught up with everything in New York. It’s not good for her. It’s not good for any of you. This mafia crap is real bullshit.”

“He’s got his business handled,” Tino assured him with unbending confidence. “Things have settled down.”

“Okay.” Wyatt sighed, even if he was far from convinced. “I hope so.”

“He’s good. Don’t worry about it.”

Wyatt sat there watching television with Tino, silently thinking through over everything. Something occurred to him, and he turned to Tino curiously. “When you say you ended worlds over your redhead—”

“Whoa there, Sheriff,” Tino cut him off. “You start questioning me, and I’m gonna have to call my lawyer.”

“Do you need a lawyer to talk about what happened?”

“If I’m talking to you, I do.”

Wyatt stared at Tino, who had obviously rinsed his hair in the sink. It was pushed away from his forehead, leaving him exposed as he stared at the large, flat screen. That haunted look was back, and Wyatt couldn’t help but ask, “Did you love her?”

“I still love her,” Tino confessed without looking away from the MMA reality show they were watching. “All the other ones are just a way to forget. The booze too. The partying. The fighting. All of it. Just trying to forget, but none of it works. Jules doesn’t get it, but I do. When you love a girl like you love that Tabitha chick, nothing makes it stop.”

“If you care for her that much, you should go after her.” Wyatt took a deep breath as he mourned over his decision to let Tabitha go all those years ago. “Regrets like that are hard to live with. Trust me on this.”

“Nah.” Tino shook his head. “Good girls need guys who follow the rules. That’s not me. I did both of us a favor by cutting that one loose.”

“Tino, you better not be breaking the rules,” Wyatt warned. “I ain’t kidding when I say I will arrest you if I find out you’re bringing that mafia shit into my town.”

“Yeah, but she’s not in your town, is she?” Tino countered. “She’s in my town, and in my town I gotta break the rules. So stop fucking worrying about it. I don’t do shit but hang out with my family and train. Garnet’s made me a fucking saint.”

“Then bring her back here.”

“She’s married already.” Tino turned and scowled at him. “Drop it.”

Wyatt winced. “That sucks.”

“Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?” Tino agreed. “Sucks big-time.”

Tabitha was drowning.

Slowly but surely she was sinking beneath the surface of fear, losing air and steam faster than she could fight against it. For four months, she had lived in a fairy tale. Being with Wyatt had clicked her brain back into a place before her shattered innocence. She hadn’t dreamed in all that time.

Since the hardware store, the nightmares had returned with a vengeance.

Vaughn’s face was planted in her mind, as if thirteen years of therapy hadn’t done a damn thing to help her combat the horrible reality of being raped and beaten by a man who bought Tabitha from her brother for drugs.

“I have to leave,” she whispered miserably as she looked up at Terry from across his kitchen table. “I can’t hide it from him anymore. I keep having nightmares and—”

“Sweetheart.” Terry reached across the table and grabbed her hand, squeezing it tightly. “What if we told him? Have you considered that? That poor man still thinks you left over a fight.”

“God, no.” She shook her head.

“He’s sheriff now. He ain’t twenty-one anymore,” Terry said evenly. “He’s been the big man in charge now for a long time. He ain’t gonna fly off the handle like he did when he was younger. You got to see he’s grown up since you left.”

“I do.” Tabitha nodded, unable to help the flare of pride despite the horrible circumstances. “But God, sometimes I still see the old Wyatt. I don’t think I can risk it.”

“I know I’m not the best person to talk about this with. What the hell do I know about this shit? This is a very serious problem, Tabitha, and you don’t have any of your support network around. We need another opinion.”

“But Hal’s at work,” Tabitha said frantically. “I came here because you two are the only people in this dang town who know what happened. I don’t want to be this person, Terry. I don’t want to be afraid. I don’t want to be a victim, especially to someone like him.”

“Have you called anyone from your old groups?”

“They all think I should tell him.” Tabitha shook her head again. “But they don’t understand everything.”

“What if we called Melody?”

Tabitha let out a frantic laugh. “Clay’s girlfriend? Are you insane?”

“She runs a shelter for women who’ve gone through things like this.” Terry shrugged. “She’s the only one I could think of who might know what to do. She knows counselors who can help. She’s been through things like this herself. You need an outside opinion, and she knows Wyatt. That’s what you wanted, right? Support that really understands.”

Tabitha wiped at her cheeks, because tears had started running down her face without her permission. “No.”

“Why not?” Terry raised his eyebrows. “Ain’t she obligated to keep quiet? Isn’t that part of the code or something?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“I would not suggest it if I didn’t think it was the right thing,” Terry went on as he reached over and patted her hand. “You have been here four times this week. Every time Wyatt leaves the house, you show up at my door, and I don’t know how to fix this for you. You won’t go to the doctor and get him to prescribe you something for your nerves. You’re having nightmares every night. It’s obvious you ain’t sleeping, and you’re stuck in a house where you have to pretend everything’s fine and dandy. This is as unhealthy as it can get.”

“Shit,” she moaned, knowing she was already defeated. She didn’t want Vaughn to win, and she didn’t have the heart to hurt Wyatt again, or herself. She would honestly rather die than just pack up and leave like she’d never had a second chance. “Fine, call her.”

Tabitha needed to talk to someone. She knew keeping it locked up was a horrible decision. This wasn’t the only bout of extended anxiety she had dealt with, and she had learned a long time ago that when she was drowning, the first thing she was supposed to do was reach for a life preserver. It was the reason she came running to Terry, but he was right. He wasn’t the right person to help.

She covered her face with her hands as her arms shook from the force of her fear. Why couldn’t she fight back? She was a strong woman. She had survived so much. She was successful and independent. Why was she letting one chance encounter with Vaughn in the hardware store destroy her?

She had done all the right things after she left Wyatt. She went to support groups. She got therapy. She had done everything humanly possible to move past the trauma. She had even proven that she could still love and let herself be loved by moving in with Wyatt. Now it was all crumpling around her. She had no idea her house of cards was so easy to shake.