Cotton, Four Years Later
“HER FUNNY,MAMA!”Saoirse squealed and clapped pudgy two-year old hands as Aria raised her upper lip, showing her teeth.
I chuckled and held Saoirse more securely on the top fence rail. “She’s putting on a show for you, baby girl.”
“Sow.”
I ran a hand over her messy russet curls and pressed a kiss to her crown, my heart squeezing. This child. It was hard to fathom the depth of love I held for her. I sat with her in the nursery after rocking her to sleep sometimes, mesmerized by the shadow of lashes on her plump cheeks, the pale translucency of her baby skin.
She had come along swiftly after Brodie and I married, her arrival a bit of an accident and a lot of fate. Neither of us could imagine a life without her.
“Macushla.”
I turned my head to see Brodie approaching, his long legs clad in faded jeans and a cowboy hat on his head. He had taken to farming and working with horses like the proverbial fish to water, immersing himself with a charming blend of enthusiasm and ignorance as he learned.
At his voice, Saoirse squirmed and I set her down, watching as she ran on squat toddler legs to her daddy. He lifted her against his chest and placed a smacking kiss against her cheek.
“Someone’s here to see you, Em.”
I frowned, not liking the gravity and his tone. “Who is it?” I asked. He dropped a brief kiss to my forehead around Saoirse’s wiggles and we started to walk back toward the house.
“Says he’s a lawyer from down in Texas. And there’s a woman with him. Her name’s Kennon Montgomery.”
Curiosity piqued; I rolled the name on my tongue. “I don’t remember anyone with that name.”
When we reached the house, Savvi was serving glasses of iced tea and lemon pound cake, deaf to the protests of the woman sitting in the parlor. She was slender, with pale skin and huge gray eyes. At first glance she had the kind of unremarkable looks that most people tended to pass over. On closer examination, though, there was an interesting strength keeping her spine straight and her chin tipped. I liked her, I decided.
“You may as well eat it,” I told them as I entered the room. “She doesn’t know the meaning of the word no.” All of them looked up at my words, Savvi with a smile. “And the lemon pound cake is the best around. You don’t want to miss it.”
“It’s won the women’s auxiliary competition so many times, I don’t even bother to enter it anymore,” Savvi said.
I moved forward, hand extended. “Emery Bishop. I understand you’re here to see me?”
“Yes. Thank you so much for taking a few minutes to meet with me,” the woman said. “I know this is strange, and I’m sorry I didn’t arrange a meeting ahead of time. It was a bit of a last minute decision.” She sat back down on the couch, glass of iced tea clutched between her hands. “One I talked myself out of half a dozen times, to be honest.”
I picked up my own glass and sat down across from her, my gaze moving between her and the lawyer, who had not spoken yet.“I’m listening.”
“My name is Kennon, and we have somebody in common. Something in common.” I waited, sipping my tea. She was a strange mix of nerves and confidence, her eyes steady on me but her knuckles white around the glass. “I don’t know how else to do this other than just say it. We were both raped by the same man. And then we were both threatened by the same man afterwards.”
At her statement, I inhaled a sharp breath. How did she know about me and Justin Kittredge?
She was shaking her head. “I know because he told me. The general told me —”
I realized I had asked the question aloud. “I don’t understand. What do you want? Why are you here?”
“I need your help. Justin is dead, and that’s justice. It’s not enough though. I want the general behind bars for covering up his crimes, and your testimony can help me put him there.”
Sitting back in my seat, I was silent. Her request...I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. On the one hand, I could help right a wrong I’d struggled with after Justin’s death. While I’d gotten justice with his murder, my own sense of right and wrong was repelled by the awareness that his father was living life as usual.
The General hadn’t raped me, but he was damn sure complicit.
On the other hand, the thought of living through those months once again was scary as hell. I couldn’t go back to the person I’d been during that time, teetering on a wire between rage and depression.
“It wasn’t just us, Emery.” Kennon’s chin quivered before she firmed it. “There were so many of us.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Brodie in the doorway, a strong, silent presence that immediately soothed. I looked at Kennon.“How many?”
“Justin raped seven women. He killed one.”
