The Good Father

She needed him.

Ella just prayed, every day, that she could keep her sister-in-law in Santa Raquel long enough for her brother to get healthy.

“Yes,” she said. Yes, their goal was to see her brother and his wife in a happy, healthy marriage.

“Obviously I’m the Jeff part of the plan, and you are the Chloe side. Seeing that Jeff won’t put you in the middle, and he and I are good. And Chloe’s staying with you.”

“Which Jeff doesn’t know.” She couldn’t have Brett going all solitary man on her and disrespecting Chloe’s choices.

“I’m not going to tell him, Ella. Not without discussing it with you and Chloe first.”

She relaxed. One thing anyone could count on with Brett Ackerman was that he kept his word. The value of the Ackerman watermark on any nonprofit organization spoke to the power of Brett’s word.

He was a good man to the core.

Remembering that was okay.

“I intend to keep in close contact with Jeff.”

To “work” on him, of course. Ella read between the lines of what Brett was saying, because with the Brett of today, that was the only way to understand his true meaning.

“I think it’s also important that you and I stay in regular contact,” he said.

“I agree.” Her answer was instantaneous.

“I also think it would be good if the four of us, you and me and Cody and Chloe, met up another time or two. I stand to gain more with Jeff if I can tell him I know for certain that Chloe is fine, and I can only do that if I know firsthand that what I say is true.”

“How do we tell him that, let him know that you’ve seen her, without him figuring out where she is?”

“She has friends in LA. I’m there on business every week. I travel frequently. For all he knows, I saw her in Palm Desert over the weekend. I could arrange to meet up with her anywhere.”

“What if he asks you where she is?”

“He won’t. Just like he’s not asking her. He’s respecting her wishes. Again, this is your brother we’re talking about. You know him.”

He’d shoved his wife into a doorjamb so hard it left a bruise all the way down her back. “And if he does ask?”

“I’ll tell him the truth. That I agreed not to share that information.”

Brett had an answer for everything.

She would do well to remember that.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

BRETT HAD ONE more stop to make before he went home for the night. He called Jeff on his way. Assured himself that Jeff was fine, for now. Jeff had had a good day out on the course and was buzzing about some stock that had just taken a larger upswing than he’d predicted, meaning that he was going to have a busy but good week. He was at his computer, working already, when Brett called.

The conversation was brief. But healthy. Work was the panacea. Brett knew that firsthand. And felt confident that his friend would be perfectly capable of giving his wife some more time to figure out what was going on with her life.

He was at his mother’s gated community moments later, used his access card to get in through the security gate and made quick work of checking over her place, reading the note she’d left for him—telling him that she didn’t need anything.

To satisfy himself, he opened the cupboard under the sink. Her trash was all emptied—she wouldn’t even leave him some garbage to dump—and she had a fresh case of water in the refrigerator. Couldn’t leave it for him to carry in from the garage. Not that she wasn’t perfectly capable of lifting a case of water, but it would be nice to be able to do something for her.

He checked the water-softener salt. The level was good.

Scribbling a note to her, telling her he loved her—as he did every single week—he was back out again.

She wouldn’t come home if his car was out front, and he didn’t want to risk finding out what would happen if he broke their agreement to always park out front when he visited so she’d know he was there.