Her shoulders lifted. “What’s there to tell? My sister was the prettiest girl in town. Kind to everyone, smart like Riley. She was always so full of life. Travis took all of that away from her. She could’ve had any man she wanted, good men, here in Parrish Falls or anywhere else. She chose him.”
Knox moved in beside Leni, knowing it couldn’t be easy for her to talk about her sister. “I know he brutalized her, but was there more?”
“Yeah, there was.” She scrubbed at one of the plates before letting it sink back into the water. “He got her hooked on drugs when she was a freshman. She kept it hidden from us for about a year. I was only eleven around that time. I didn’t know what was going on. Mom and Gran tried to shield me from Shannon’s problems. Eventually, things got bad enough that there was no hiding it.”
“What happened?”
“She struggled with her classes, then started skipping them altogether. She spent some time in and out of rehab down at the county hospital.”
“And Travis?”
“He’s a Parrish,” she said, swiveling a bleak look at him. “They’re untouchable around here. Enoch Parrish and his sons own the lumber company on the edge of town. It used to be worth a fortune, but it’s gotten hard to make a living in the timber-cutting and log-hauling business. Hard even for them, although you’d never know it. Rumor has it the family’s still worth millions just for the twenty-thousand or so acres of farmable land they still own. And Travis was their golden son, at least until Shannon sent him away to prison.”
Knox inclined his head, hearing the pain in Leni’s voice. “Men don’t just wake up one day and decide to beat a woman so badly she ends up in a hospital. Had he hurt your sister before that final time?”
Of course, he had. Leni’s expression said it all. “She came home with bruises sometimes. And other . . . pains.”
“Why didn’t she press charges before it got worse? I don’t mean that as a judgment, just a question. Had he threatened retaliation if she spoke out against him?”
“I don’t think so. Shannon thought she was in love with him. Travis took full advantage of that fact. Once the trial got under way, his father and brothers spread lies about Shannon. They made sure the whole county believed she was combative and mentally unstable. They made it seem like she deserved what he’d done to her.”
Knox bit off a low curse. As satisfying as it had been to send Dwight Parrish into the river last night, now he wished he’d drawn blood, broken bones. Choked the last breath out of the bastard. Of course, the true target of his lethal inclinations was the Parrish brother who’d be coming home the day after tomorrow.
The assassin in Knox wouldn’t need to hear much more to feel justified in ending the son of a bitch. Or the whole miserable Parrish clan. If he thought Leni’s life in Parrish Falls could continue with impunity afterward, Knox would be more than tempted to finish his business there the minute Travis’s feet touched ground in town.
His first choice, however, the best one, was still to get Leni and her nephew out of the striking zone. He had thoughts on how he might accomplish that. He wasn’t without a few connections, albeit distant ones. There were strings he could pull if he thought Leni might go along willingly.
And if she wouldn’t go willingly?
Knox shook his head, refusing to consider the kinds of methods that would only leave her hating him. He wasn’t ready to venture down those paths just yet, but if he got the slightest whiff of danger in these next couple of days . . . he would find a way to live with Leni’s despisal.
“I can see why you don’t want your sister’s child anywhere near his father and his kin,” he said, attempting to broach the subject from a different tack. “If she were here, I doubt she’d want that, either.”
Leni nodded. “It was one of her biggest fears all through her pregnancy and into the trial. She told me countless times before she went missing to promise her I’d look out for Riley. I’m not going to let her down.”
Leni must have sensed the direction of Knox’s thoughts. Pivoting away from the dishes in the sink, she dried her hands on a towel and faced him square-on.
“Before you tell me again that I should run away or try to hide Riley somewhere far from Parrish Falls, it’s not happening. I’m not going to let the Parrishes run me off. You’ve met Riley now. That little boy is innocent and everything that’s good in this world. He has the bravest heart I’ve ever seen, and I’m not going to give him a reason to be afraid, or to think I believe for a minute that his mommy really is never coming home.”
But Leni had her doubts.
She hadn’t let her defenses slip in front of Knox until now.
“I realize you think I’m being stubborn by staying put here. Last night, you said I was being foolish.”
He frowned, unable to deny either of those arguments. “What I’d like is for you to be careful, Leni.”
Yes, because she was a Breedmate. But also because in the short time since he’d met her, he had seen the same things in her that she saw in her little nephew.
Lenora Calhoun was good and kind, even innocently so. She was brave. And he’d be damned if he wanted to stand by and watch while the Parrishes gave her any more reason to be afraid.
“What made you leave Florida, Knox?”
The question hit him blindside, jolting him away from the dangerous path his thoughts had gone. He’d hardly remembered mentioning anything about his life outside the Hunter program, but now their conversation in the truck came back to him. He wanted to forget he’d opened up to her about anything in his past, but she didn’t seem inclined to let it go.
“Why do you want to know?”
“I’m just trying to understand how you can find it so easy to pull up stakes and live on the road for five months at a time.”
