The door opened and he heard the click of a light switch being flipped. “Sorry for not waiting for permission, but it seemed like it would be easier to talk without the door. You hungry yet? Got some of Josie’s chili simmering downstairs if you want it.”
“Is that where Josie is? Downstairs? And you still haven’t told me why you’re here.”
“Josie was afraid this might happen. That’s why she called me in, so you wouldn’t be confused.”
He shook his head. “If she called you in to keep me from being confused, it’s not working, because I’m still not understanding what’s going on here.”
“According to Josie, you fell asleep and she didn’t want to wake you because she thought you needed it after getting that news today.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, signaling for Mac to get on with the story.
“But she told me to wake you by eight, because you hadn’t eaten lunch and she wanted me to make sure you got some dinner in you.”
He shook his head. “I’m still not understanding why you’re here telling me this and not her.”
Mac’s next words hit him like a punch in the gut. “Oh, because Josie left out of here a couple of hours ago. She said something about it being her night off. She also said not to wait up for her, because she’s going to be back real late, so she’ll… er…. just sleep in her own room tonight.”
Beau sat there feeling like a fool. While he’d been dreaming of weddings on football fields, Josie had been stealing away to meet up with Sam. And she hadn’t even respected him enough to tell him in person that she was leaving.
“Mr. Prescott?” came Mac’s voice again. “You all right?”
CHAPTER 14
IT WAS HER NIGHT OFF. She was allowed to leave the house. Beau couldn’t keep her from living her own life in her off hours.
At least that was what Josie told herself. But guilt plagued her as she went about her business at the shelter. As busy as Ruth’s House was, with the usual stack of paperwork, piles of linens that needing washing, and two new intakes, one of a willowy blonde with two big-eyed children in tow, thoughts of Beau Prescott dogged her as she helped Sam put out one fire after another.
Coming here had seemed like a great idea earlier in the day. She’d let her Saturday duties go the week before, and she knew Sam could more than use the extra pair of hands.
But really it was Beau’s command that she come right back after going to the grocery store that had made the decision for her.
She had adjusted surprisingly fast to being someone’s sex partner for money. But the way Beau tried to keep her from leaving the house made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Not just because of the presumption of it all, but also because it reminded her of Wayne who by the last year of their marriage, didn’t let her go anywhere but the grocery store unaccompanied.
At first, he, too, had said things like he wanted her there when he got home. He couldn’t stand to be apart from her for as long as it would take for her to have a girls’ night with a kind neighbor who had invited her over for a book club and drinks. At first it had been romantic.
But then it had turned into something else. Commands to stay in when he was at work. Threats about what he would do if he found out she was visiting her mother without him. “You want her to go back to being some white family’s maid?” he asked her. “Because I can make that happen. But I hope she’s got some retirement savings, because I don’t know anybody looking to hire a middle-aged live-in maid.”
Her mother didn’t have any retirement savings, and by the time Wayne stopped bothering to even pretend he was a remotely decent person, Josie didn’t feel like she had any choice but to do what he said for fear of what would happen to her mother if she left him.
Later, when she started volunteering at Ruth’s House, she found out this story was so common, it would have been a cliché if it hadn’t been happening to women across the country every day. Intake after intake told her the same tale: a guy who seemed like a fairytale come true at first only to morph into a cruel task master. These men would insist on getting them pregnant as soon as possible or setting up a beloved relative in a nice place, only to eventually use their loved ones against them. Many men had threatened to take their abused wives’ children away, and Wayne wasn’t the first hole to threaten to put a parent out on the street.
After Josie finished shopping, she’d used the store’s ATM to withdraw some “walking around” money, only to discover her bank account had gone from three to five digits. She stared at her new balance, which was more than she could have made in a year doing domestic work. It was enough to keep the shelter open for the next six months at least with money leftover for her to start at UAB in the spring.
The money represented a fresh start, but it also represented what was really going on between her and Beau. As sweet as that scene had been this morning, she wasn’t his girlfriend, she was his kept woman. And that was all she’d ever be to him—something he’d bought and paid for.
Josie had come straight back from the grocery store, like Beau had told her to, but she had ured herself she wasn’t under his thumb the way she’d been under Wayne’s. She’d prove it by going to the shelter that night.
And if Beau tried to stop her, she’d remind him about the terms they’d agreed to. But when she’d crawled into bed with him after his appointment, it had been more than she’d expected.
She hadn’t been surprised he hadn’t wanted to talk about his appointment with the UAB neurosurgeon. But then he hadn’t let her finish the blow-job that had been meant to take his mind off of it.
Why had he insisted on coming inside of her, like he really did care about her and wasn’t just interested in having a play-thing until he could get back to his groupies in L.A.? Why had he held on to her like that when they came together, like he was trying to crawl inside of her, so they could be bound in the moment forever?
And why had he looked so peaceful, when she crept out of bed and arranged for Mac to come over? Like sex with her hadn’t just been a distraction, but also a healing balm for the wound he’d received that day.
“Josie? Josie? Please report to the front desk!” Nancy’s young voice sounded frantic over the intercom and it was enough to snap her out of her Beau meditation.
She threw down the sheets she’d been folding and ran to the reception area.
“What’s up?” she said to the girl, who was ducked below the window, obviously hiding from whoever was out there. She’d dropped the metal curtain down, but that wasn’t enough to keep the sound of someone shouting, “Hey! Hey!” and banging so hard on the window the curtain rattled.
“There’s a guy out there who says his wife is here. I think he’s drunk.”
They both jumped when a fresh round of bangs sounded on the window. “Hey! I know you’re in there! Open up!”
“And there’s a new intake out there with him. He must have followed her in.”
“Did you call Curtis?”
“He’s still dealing with the guy from earlier.”
Josie cursed. This was what Sam referred to as a pile up and it was also the reason they’d wanted more than one security guard for the shelter for some time now. The problem with abusive husbands was they weren’t dumb. On big intake nights, Ruth’s House could usually count on at least one husband or boyfriend figuring out his wife or girlfriend was at Ruth’s House and creating a ruckus until Curtis threatened them with jail time. Then if they didn’t go away, Curtis would cuff them and take them to the security trailer, which sat behind Ruth’s House until the police showed up.
However, if another husband showed up while Curtis was in the security trailer, and managed to get past the first set of doors, usually by sneaking in behind a possible intake, that was what Sam called a “pile-up.”
Josie didn’t know what was scarier, that the situation happened enough for Sam to have a nickname for it or that it was happening right now.
“Did you call Sam? She’ll know what to do.”
“She’s in deep process with that blonde and her kids.” Nancy said. “But I can call her on the intercom if you think I should.”
Deep process meant the woman wasn’t sure if she could leave her abusive husband yet, so Sam had commanded they not be bothered while she tried to convince the woman to make a decision that could save both her and her children’s lives.
Josie shook her head. “No, let me see if I can handle it.”
Taking a deep breath, she walked up to the window and yanked open the curtain. “Sir! Our security guard will be back any moment now, so I suggest you stop banging on this glass and get out of here…”
She trailed off when she saw the person on the other side of the glass. It was Beau’ high school football buddy, Mike Lancer! About fifty pounds heavier, and from the look of his red drunk face, about twelve years meaner, but it was unmistakably him, nonetheless.