“Brian?” Jake couldn’t get his head around that. “Brian Delray has been beating Macy for years. She’s miscarried at his hands?”
“You don’t believe me, do you?” She tried to get off him as he spoke, but Jake held her there.
“I’m not saying I don’t believe you, Rosebud, but give me a minute here, all right? It’s just going to take a bit to process something like that.”
“I shouldn’t have told you, but I thought you needed to know and that you would help us keep her safe.” He saw she was genuinely worried, and that just pissed him off, that she would think he was a threat to Macy.
“You think I would betray a woman who is being beaten, to the man who’s responsible?”
“No!” Her reply was instant and made him happier. “I just don’t know where to go from here, Jake. Brian is a popular man in Howling, and when it gets out what he’s done, I’m sure there will be some people who won’t believe Macy.”
“Because she’s never shown us what he’s capable of until now?”
“Yes, but, Jake, if you could see the bruises on her that I saw last night, some old some new, you’d feel as bad as I did. I just stood there and cried, and do you know what she said?”
“What?” He had a really sick feeling in his stomach now at the thought of Macy suffering and none of them realizing it.
“That she deserved some of them.”
He whistled softly. “I’m going to have a little chat with Mr. Delray when the time comes and explain how a lady should really be treated.”
“You believe me then?”
“Of course. If you say it’s true because you believe her, then it is.” And it was that simple to him.
“Oh… oh dear.” She pressed a hand to her mouth and tried to get off his lap again.
“You going to cry?” He wrapped his arms around her tight.
“No… maybe. It’s all the emotion. I’m not used to it.”
“Here’s some more for you,” he said to the top of her head. “I love you.”
“What?”
“I’m sure you heard me.”
“I love you too.”
“You don’t sound too happy about that, sweetheart.”
She chewed her lip. “I am. It’s just that I’m not used to it anymore.”
“‘It’ being love?”
“Love, friendship, emotion, they’re very tiring. People always smiling at me or asking after me. Last night I made more friends, more relationships to juggle. Even Mr. Heath told me that I could go to him if the Book Club ladies gave me any angst.”
He smiled into her hair. His town was folding her into their ranks slowly, molding her into one of them.
“Millie Lawrence doesn’t like me, though.”
“Millie Lawrence doesn’t even like her own kids, Rosebud. Don’t take it to heart.”
She sat upright and looked at him. “Okay, you all win. I give up. I’m now a Howler.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“And if you ever just fly off in that helicopter without telling me where you are going or when you will return again, I will not be accountable for my actions, Jake McBride. You got that?”
