He picked me up and started to carry me to the truck. “Cade, it’s okay. I can walk.”
“Like hell you can. I’m carryin’ you to the truck. Izzy B walk with Uncle Cade, ‘kay?” He kept walking until we reached the truck. He sat me down in the front seat and started to put Isabella in the backseat of his double cab pick-up.
“Uncky Cade, I need my car seat. Momma says it isn’t safe for me to wide without it.”
“Is your car locked?” he asked me. I shook my head and he went over and grabbed her car seat out of the back and buckled it into his truck. He helped her get buckled up, “All better, now?”
“Sank you, Uncky Cade.” She blew him a big kiss. He smiled a little before his face returned to that horribly pissed off look he had before.
When he pulled out of my drive, he started toward town. “Where are you going?” I asked.
“To the hospital. Where the hell do you think I’m goin’?” he glared at me.
“No! No, Cade. We can’t go to the hospital. I’m fine. It’s really not that bad. I promise. Can’t we just go to your house?” I couldn’t go to the hospital. I couldn’t let other people see what I had allowed my husband to do to me.
“You need to be checked out. You look like hell. I really think you should let me take you to the hospital, Suzy Q.”
I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder, “Please, Cade. Please just take me to your house. I just need some pain meds and a hot shower. I’ll be okay, I promise.”
He didn’t say another word all the way to his house. I used the bathroom downstairs to clean up, while Cade put Isabella to bed. I looked horrible. My eyes were almost swollen shut and my face was purple. I had hand prints around my neck, and I was gonna have bruises all over in the next couple of days. My ribs were so tender. The pain in my stomach was so intense that I had a hard time cleaning up. When I walked into the living room, Cade was standing beside the couch. He had a bottle of ibuprofen and a glass of water.
“This’ll help the pain.” He reached out to me to place it in my hands. “I need to go out for a bit. My shotgun is on top of the fridge. I want you to sleep in my room and take it with you. I know you know how to use it. If he steps foot in my house, you put a hole through his brain. Do you understand me?” he asked with a face Cade didn’t show very often - a serious one.
“Where are you going?” I knew exactly where he was going. But I couldn’t let him do this.
“I think you know the answer to that, Suzy Q. I called Cord and he’ll be here soon to keep an eye on the two of you. Clay and I are goin’ huntin’.”
“Cade, please don’t do this. No matter what he’s done, he’s her father. You can’t kill him.”
“Wanna bet?” he asked in his snarky tone.
“Please Cade. You’ll go to jail. I can’t lose you too. Please...I’m begging you. Let this go. Please.” I was pleading. I was doing everything I could do to make sure he didn’t do something stupid. With Branch’s dad running the police department there was no way Branch would get in any trouble. He’d gotten him out of everything ever since he was a kid. And if his dad didn’t get him out of it, he threatened the officers with getting them fired if they didn’t let him go. But if somebody hurt Branch...they’d go to jail and his daddy would throw away the key. I couldn’t let him do something that would take him away from me, away from us.
“I need to ask you a question, Suzy Q, and I need you to be straight with me.”
“Okay,” I said as I walked over and sat down on the couch. I motioned for Cade to sit down by me. I couldn’t stand up another minute.
“Has he hurt you before?” Cade placed his hand on my knee. I had no doubt in my mind that was the question he was going to ask.
“Yes.” I responded in a monotone voice.
“A lot?”
“Yes.” When I answered his question, his grip on my knee got tighter.
“How long?” Cade was looking at me with those eyes that could see into my soul. And I didn’t have to answer. He knew. “When was the first time? Before or after you married him?”
I couldn’t look at him. The embarrassment was too great. “Our wedding night.” Cade jumped up off the couch and started pacing in front of me.
“He hit you on your wedding night? Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” He didn’t stop pacing the entire time he was talking to me.
“I was pregnant, Cade. You’d told me not to marry him and I didn’t listen. I was too embarrassed to say anything to you. I loved you and I didn’t want you to know what I had become. What he had turned me into. I tried to put on an act with you…with everyone.”
“Well, you did a damn good job. Because I had no idea that bastard was hurtin’ you. Has he ever hurt Izzy B?”
“No, Cade. I would never let him hurt my baby. Never.” Cade reached over and lightly wiped a tear from my cheek. I hadn’t noticed, but I guess I had started to cry again.
“You shoulda told me. You really shoulda said somethin’, Suzy Q. I could’ve helped you years ago. I love you, hon. I was always here. I’m sorry you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth.”
Those words hurt. “I trust you with my life, Cade and with Isabella’s life. When it first started I thought he was just mad and drunk. Then I realized that he was just, what I call coping-crazy. He could act perfectly normal around other people, but then come home and beat the hell outta me. I lost the baby I was pregnant with when we got married because he…he hurt me at our wedding reception. He was so upset when he saw you at the chapel. I knew something wasn’t right. But I thought I deserved it. I thought that was the life I deserved, Cade. I couldn’t tell you, because I couldn’t stand to have you look at me the way you’re looking at me right now.”
Cade stopped pacing and sat down beside me. He took both of my hands in his and leaned in to kiss me on the cheek. I jumped back because my face was so sore.
“I’m sorry, hon. I know it hurts.” He pulled my hands up to his mouth and placed a light kiss across my knuckles. “I love ya, Suzy Q. Always.”
~Chapter 16~
Suzanna~
Staying with Cade felt natural. It felt like all was right with the world when Isabella and I were wrapped up safe and sound at the Walker Ranch. We had been here for a couple weeks. Right after the beating, Cade and the other Walker boys went back to the house and packed up all of my and Isabella’s stuff and we stored most of it in an old outbuilding behind Cade’s house.
Cade and the other Walker boys had been looking for Branch everywhere. He was nowhere to be found. It scared me that he was out there, but I felt safe here with Cade. I knew he would make sure Isabella and I were safe.
My face was healing up nicely. I still had a lot of bruises, but most of them were really faint now. Cade had explained what happened to his cousins and Larry. As much as it pained me, I knew I had to explain all of this to my parents. I knew my dad would be sympathetic and loving. He always was. My mother would be a different story. I assumed they hadn’t heard anything about it, because even though we lived in a small town, this hadn’t made the gossip cycle yet. The people who knew weren’t talking. It was just a matter of time before the shit hit the fan though, so I had to do this today.
“I can stay, Suzy Q. I don’t have anything that I gotta do today,” Cade said as we sat outside my parents’ house in his truck.
“I need to do this by myself, Cade.” I put my hand on his knee. “I can handle it. Give me about an hour and then I’ll be ready to go. Take good care of your Uncle Cade for me, Isabella. Momma needs to go visit with Gramma and Grampa for a bit, okay?” Isabella nodded and I started to open the truck door. Cade reached over me and pushed it open.
“We’ll see ya in about forty-five minutes. Talk fast.”
My parents still lived in the same little house we moved into when we came to Dexter when I was nine years old. My dad kept it looking immaculate on the outside, and my mom wouldn’t have it any other way on the inside. The only thing that had changed was my bedroom. The minute I moved out, my mom turned it into her craft room. She boxed up all of my stuff and gave me two days to come and get it out of her craft room. My mom was never a loving mother. I was dreading this talk, but I knew it needed to happen. They needed to know what Branch had done. I wasn’t sure that my mom would even believe me, but they deserved to know the truth.
I knocked on the door and waited for someone. My family was not one of those families where the grown kids just walked right in. Oh no, you knocked first before you entered my mom’s house. I mean my parent’s house. Who am I kidding? My mom ruled the roost and my dad was just there. That’s the way it had always been. I didn’t see that changing anytime soon.
“Suzanna, so good to see you, sweetheart.” My dad smiled as he opened the door and gave me a quick hug.
“You too, Dad. Is Mom here?” I asked, while following him into the living room. We sat down on the big brown, paisley print couch. My dad propped his legs up on the matching ottoman.
“Yeah, she’s in the kitchen whipping up some lemon bars. You know how she loves those things.”
“Yeah, Dad, I know.”
“Where’s my grandbaby and that husband of yours?” Dad asked as he took a drink from his coffee mug.
“That’s why I’m here. There are some things that I need to discuss with ya’ll.” I stood up and headed into the kitchen to find Mom. Dad didn’t say another word. I think he might’ve been relieved that I was looking for Mom. He probably thought it was some girl thing that I would worry her with, and then he wouldn’t have to think about it. I knew he loved me, but he wasn’t a real problem solver. He left all of that up to Mom.
“Suzanna. What are you doing here? Is Branch with you? I’m making up some of his favorites - lemon bars.”
“He’s not with me. That’s why I’m here actually.” I was losing my nerve. I didn’t want to explain this to her. My mom’s steel gray eyes were boring holes into my face. Just a look from this woman could bring anyone to their knees. She was scary - she always had been. I had to get it out before I decided to take off and never bring it up to them until they saw Branch again.
“Dad, could you come join us in the kitchen?” I called out into the living room. Dad came walking in and sat on a barstool by the island in the kitchen. I climbed up on a stool next to him and started wringing my hands. My dad placed his hands over mine. I looked up into his caring brown eyes and he gave me the nerve to say what I needed to say. “Branch abused me.” There, I said it. It was out. They knew. I waited for a reaction. My mom had turned around to take the lemon bars from the oven. She placed them on the cooling rack on the island in front of Dad and me.
“Really, Suzanna? Are we supposed to believe that?” Her eyes were so cold. Her eyebrow was raised and she was giving me this questioning look that said “I don’t believe a damn word coming out of your mouth”.
“Mom, to be perfectly honest with you I don’t give a flying fuck what you believe. But I am telling you that Branch beat me. He
hurt
me. He did horrible things to me the entire time we were married.” My voice was thick and I was about to break down in tears. “I finally left when he tried to make me have Isabella watch him ‘teach me a lesson’ as he put it. He wanted your three-year-old granddaughter to watch him beat her momma to a bloody pulp and I honestly believe that he would’ve done the same damn thing to her. So, no Mom, I don’t care if you believe me or not, but I had to tell you. You had to know what has been happening to me all these years. I had to do this to heal.” I was sobbing. Tears were pouring down my face and I was having a hard time breathing. I was practically gasping. My Dad stood up and pulled me into his arms. He was crying too.
“I’m so sorry, Suzanna. I’m so sorry that I failed you. I should’ve known. Why didn’t you tell me? I can’t believe you didn’t trust me enough to let me in. I’m your father, Suzanna. I wouldn’t have let him lay a hand on you, had I known.” My dad backed away from our hug and his eyes were full of tears. “I wish I would’ve been the kind of dad that you deserved. I should’ve been the kind of dad that you would trust to keep you safe.”
My mom never moved. She stood there and stared at my dad and me. Melinda Mallory didn’t show emotion. She didn’t show weakness. I knew exactly the type of woman my mother was and I expected nothing more from her that day.
“Dad, I didn’t tell anyone. I probably would’ve stayed with him forever if he hadn’t threatened Isabella.” I looked over at my mother and sneered, “I would never let anyone hurt my daughter. My daughter is a part of me and if someone tries to hurt her, they’ll have to kill me first. That’s what mothers are supposed to do.” I hugged my dad and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“We are staying at Walker Ranch. I’m still trying to figure out what to do next. When I get that all settled I’ll be in touch, Dad. I love you.”
He glared over at my Mom. “Say something, Melinda. She’s our daughter. What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you such a cold bitch?” I had never heard my dad say anything like that to my mother. He always let her get away with murder, because it was easier than causing a problem. My dad was a roll-with-the-flow kinda guy, so this blew my mind.
“What do you want me to say? I’m sorry you married an abuser. Or how about, I’m sorry that you thought so little of yourself that you couldn’t tell anyone you were being abused. Is that what you want me to say?” After she spouted that off, she took her apron off and headed up to their bedroom.
My dad was so angry with her, you could feel the rage emanating from him. “Suzanna, I am so…I am…I don’t even know what to say. We need to pray that God will forgive her for the horrible things she just said and that he’ll forgive me for not being there when you need me. Did Cade save you? Is that why you’re staying with him?”
I couldn’t seem to quit crying. “Yes, he did. Well, actually Isabella did. She called Cade and asked him to come help us. When he got there, I was on the floor in the kitchen and Isabella was hiding upstairs. It was horrible, Dad. I’ve never been so scared in my life. I thought that was it.” I was full out sobbing again. Dad pulled me toward him until my head rested on his chest. He was rubbing my back with one arm and holding me tight with the other. “I thought…she was gonna watch him kill me.”