Husband by Choice

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said. “But as it turns out I know one of the guys on the force in Santa Raquel. That’s one of the reasons I’m calling. I found out last night that he’d transferred up there and I wanted you to know. He was in the academy with me and owes me a favor. While we were in training I helped him reconcile with his wife after he screwed up in a bar one night....”

Max wondered about her life. About what she’d been doing in the years since Jill’s death—other than the captain who hadn’t worked out. About what was important to her. But that question wasn’t a priority just then....

“You think this guy will help?” he asked.

“I know he’ll do what he can, but because there’s no crime here, it could take a few days, Max.”

“I’ll do anything I can from my end, too,” he said. They’d already called anyone he could think of whom Meri might have inadvertently mentioned something to. Anyone who might have noticed something. He’d even called The Lighthouse—a women’s shelter where she’d been volunteering since he’d known her. “I’ll keep doing my internet research, but I can also drive around, canvas neighborhoods. You let me know what to do and I’m on it.”

Because he’d promised Meri a lifetime of protection.

* * *

SHE’D CHOSEN The Lemonade Stand for three reasons. First, because she’d never been there before so she could be anonymous. Second, because they were privately funded and not as subject to unbending rules and regulations.

And third, because they were exactly what she was not—focused on comfort. Her focus was and always had been on practical matters. On survival—and serving others. She’d never choose anything fancy for herself. Not a car. A purse. Or a place to hide.

She wasn’t fully in the mind-set of her abuser yet, but one thing she knew for sure was that Steve was confident to the point of being cocky about how well he knew Meredith.

The way to fool him, at least in the short run, was to act out of character.

It would keep her one step ahead of him. She hoped.

Everything she’d read that Sunday morning about the abusive personality reinforced this belief. And so, armed with a momentary sense of safety, and a burning need to be Meredith, Jenna escaped her prison Sunday afternoon.

Steve wouldn’t expect to find her in public, at any of her usual haunts. And she had no doubt now that he knew all of them. That while she’d been daring to hope that she was free of him, he’d been quietly tracking her every move.

Today he’d be watching shelters, probably had others doing so, too, in big cities in surrounding states. Or maybe he had access to an inside database. Shelters worked closely with police departments and while Steve was no longer on the force, he could still have connections.

And running to shelters was what she always did. Ran to the closest state she could get to, contacted Victor, the broker she’d met in Vegas, for another new identity, and entered a new shelter. It might take Steve a bit to figure out her new name. He’d have to check all the new residents at all the shelters and figure out which one was her. But he seemed to enjoy the hunt—something else she had confirmed in her reading that morning.

But this time she’d run differently. She’d stayed close to home. And checked into what was essentially a resort—not a bare-bones place where an actual bed, in place of a mattress on the floor, was a luxury.

She’d stayed close because she wasn’t running from him anymore. And still, as she rode the bus toward the ocean Sunday afternoon, she sat with her long dark hair pinned up and concealed under a big hat. Her cell phone was tucked safely in her bra beneath the too-big silk blouse she’d chosen out of the garment supply at The Lemonade Stand to go with the blue cotton capris—also a little big—to conceal a shape Steve knew only too well. Meredith didn’t carry a bag. She had money tucked in her pocket and her passcode for reentry into the private section of The Lemonade Stand, firmly tucked away in her brain.

The passcode wasn’t her birthday. Or Max’s or Caleb’s, either. It wasn’t her wedding date or the date her final decree had been recorded. It wasn’t either one of her folks’ birthdays. Or even Chad’s—her little brother who’d died way too young.

No, the code she’d chosen as her “key” to her temporary home was the numerical coordinates for the name of her imaginary friends when she’d been a kid. Only her mother had known that she’d called them “my fellas.” Yet it was something Jenna would never forget. Not even under duress.

And who knew how long it was going to take Steve to figure out that she’d changed her M.O.? She could hope for months.

It had taken him that long to find her in the past.

As the bus pulled to a stop only a few mi

les from the Stand, Meredith focused, taking in the entire area, behind her, in front of her, next to her, inside and outside the bus. A group of people stood gathered in the parking lot a few steps away. They appeared to be waiting for more people to join them.

Standing at the exact time as others did, she exited the bus after a couple of people had gotten off but while there were still a few behind her. She walked as closely to the woman in front of her as she could without making her uncomfortable—with the plan that if the woman turned, she’d tell her she loved her shoes and was just trying to get a closer look at them.

They were interesting. Black wedge sandals with gold and silver embellishments. Not her style...too flashy...but she liked them.

She’d chosen tennis shoes off the shelf of new shoes in her size at the shelter. Running shoes.

As luck would have it, the woman in front of her headed straight for the group of people gathered in the parking lot. But instead of joining them as Meredith had hoped, she turned right before reaching them and headed toward the beach.

Meredith’s goal was the beach. If she could get there without drawing attention to herself. At that moment, the woman who’d been her cover turned away, and Meredith slipped in between a couple of people on the periphery of the big group. It didn’t take her long to figure out that she was in the midst of a gathering of distant family members, many of whom didn’t know each other, brought together by a cousin who’d done their familial genealogy and had arranged a picnic on the beach.

She moved through the group. Smiling at anyone who noticed her. And as they started slowly walking toward the beach, she traveled with them.