Full Contact (5 page)

Two cars she recognized had driven past. Becca Parsons again. Ellen often passed the mayor during her run since Becca left work at the same time each day in order to have time in the pool with her kids before dinner. Ellen had been in high school when Becca had finally, after more than twenty years of failed attempts, carried a baby to term. The whole town had watched that pregnancy, but no one more than Ellen's mother—best friends with Becca since grade school.

The other car that passed was Keith Nielson's, Bonnie's husband. Josh would have been at Little Spirits, Bonnie's day care, waiting for Ellen to pick him up. If he was in town…

“I have to go.”

“Can we set up a time to talk about what happened today?”

He really seemed to want to help. Seemed to believe he had something to offer.

Was she honestly ready to give up? To accept who
she was, as she was? To be forever held hostage to a past she couldn't change?

She looked at Black Leather. She wasn't afraid of him.

“Do you ever braid your hair?” It was longer than hers. And absolutely none of her business. “Nope.”

She wanted out of the cage her past had trapped her in. She wanted to be able to date. Marry again. She wanted her son to be able to hug her without having his arms wrenched away.

She'd been through counseling—individual and group. She'd exhausted all of the conventional channels and, seven years post-attack, was still struggling to accept being touched. Shawna thought this man could help her.

As a social worker, a counselor, Ellen knew that a huge part of the success—or failure—of Jay's therapy rested with her. If she was going to do this, she had to be open to him. Completely. No matter how hard that might prove to be.

Considering this afternoon in the clinic, she didn't think she could be that open.

But she knew something else. If she didn't at least explore the possibility one more time—by speaking with him—she'd feel as though she'd given up on herself.

“Can you meet me tomorrow morning? Around ten?” Her stepfather, David Marks, was expecting her to help with the church bulletin before that.

“Yes. Where?”

Ellen suggested the Valley Diner.

“You want to be seen in the middle of downtown, sitting at a table with me?”

“Yes, I think I do.”

She wished she could explain to herself why that was.

J
AY MADE IT TO THE DINER
a few minutes ahead of schedule the next morning and went in to use the restroom. By the time he'd returned, Ellen was already seated in the last booth, her back to the wall. He recognized her first by the ruler-straight set of her shoulders then by the distinctive natural blond hair that hung freely down her back.

He knew even before he slid onto the bench opposite her that she wouldn't be wearing any makeup. Nothing about Ellen was made-up.

Hidden, maybe, but not made-up.

“Did you order already?” he asked in lieu of a greeting.

“No, I waited.”

He picked up the menu, decided on the first thing he saw—a man-size stack of homemade pancakes—then returned the plastic-coated sheet to its place along the wall.

Ellen watched him, her hands folded on the table.

“Ellen?” The waitress, a middle-aged woman, approached, staring, not at the woman she'd addressed, but at him.

“Hi, Nancy. How are the kids?”

“Good. You know that Cameron starts at Montford this fall, right?”

“Yeah. And Leah will be following next year, I'm sure.” Ellen ordered a diet soda, oatmeal and toast and waited while Jay asked for coffee, black, and his pancakes.

“Have you eaten here yet?” Ellen asked as Nancy, pocketing her notepad, walked away.

“Nope, this is my first time in.” Glancing around, he figured he could have described the place accurately without the visit. Hometown diners looked the same the world over.

But as diners went, this one was one of the nicest. It was clean, of course, but the decor was…fresh-looking.

And it fit right in with this family-based town.

Jay focused on the woman he'd agreed to help, wondering about her. “Do you have siblings?”

“Three.”

“Younger or older?”

“Younger. I'm the oldest.”

“Are they all here in town?”

“Yep. Shelley's twenty-three, working toward her doctorate in music at Montford. She had her bachelor's at twenty and finished the master's program last year. Rebecca's twenty-two and married. No kids yet. Tim's just turning twenty. He's at Montford, too, playing baseball. And his interest is definitely more on the field than in the classroom, though he's planning to go to law school.”

The woman was beautiful. He stared at her mouth, watching the way her lips moved as she talked. Her features were soft, almost innocent in their allure. Yet her eyes held secrets. And a sadness directly offset by the straightness of her spine.

He liked sitting here with her. Wanted to be here.

He noticed the uniformed man walking toward them. “Sheriff.” He nodded acknowledgment.

“Ellen, you okay, sweetie?” Greg asked.

“Hi, Greg. Yes, I'm fine.” Ellen's tone, her smile, was almost that of a child humoring a too protective parent. “Have you met Jay Billingsley? He works at the clinic.”

Greg Richards glanced Jay's way, nodding, but the smile on his face didn't quite mask the concern lining his forehead. “Yes, we've met.”

“The sheriff paid me a visit my first night in town,” Jay said easily. “I invited him in and we—”

“Sheriff Richards. You did not go over and search this man's house simply because he rode into town on a loud motorcycle.” Ellen's grin was filled with a disbelief that could only be genuine.

“No, he didn't,” Jay asserted. If Ellen didn't already know about his police record—and shocking lack of family—then he preferred she not find out now when he needed her to feel comfortable with him. “He introduced himself and let me know that he was around if I needed anything.”

The sheriff had crossed Jay's path twice since then and had been respectful. Jay responded in kind.

“Does your mother know you're here?” Sheriff Richards wasn't letting Ellen off the hook.

“If she doesn't yet, she will soon.” Ellen's slight derision wasn't lost on Jay. And he didn't think the sheriff missed it, either. “I'm okay, Greg, really. David knows I'm here. And why.”

David?

“Oh, well, okay then. Enjoy your breakfast.” With
that, the man was gone as quickly as he'd arrived. Whoever this David was, he apparently had clout with the sheriff.

 

“D
AVID IS MY STEPFATHER
,” Ellen said as soon as Sheriff Richards had left her peripheral vision. Opening up about her family, about her life, with an outsider went against deeply ingrained instincts.

Still, he might look like a Black Leather kind of guy but he was a professional. Shawna trusted Jay. Ellen trusted Shawna. Ellen wanted to get better. Therefore, she had to confide in him. She should have let Shawna fill him in to begin with and saved herself this awkwardness.

“You a churchgoer, Mr. Billingsley?”

“Call me Jay. And no, can't say that I am.”

“I didn't think so. Otherwise you'd know David. He's the preacher here in town.”

“And your stepfather.”

“Yes. It's been seven years and he and my mom are still crazy about each other.” In some ways it was hard to believe that much time had passed. In others, it seemed an eternity. “He's also one of my best friends.”

Let Jay make of that what he wanted.

Nancy reappeared with breakfast.

“I thought you had an appointment at Big Spirits this morning,” she said as she spooned hot oatmeal from the side of her bowl.

“Yes. At eight.”

“How did it go?”

“Good.”

The man kept the confidence of his clients. A point for him.

“I met with a mother and daughter from Phoenix yesterday,” Ellen told him as they ate. “They were looking at the center as a possibility for the mother's brother.”

“I thought the residence was full.”

“It is. But there are a couple of rooms that have been used for storage that can be converted. After the meeting yesterday I volunteered to do the painting and decorating to prepare the rooms.”

“They can't afford to hire a painter?”

“Yeah, they can, but I've got the time right now, and the rooms could be available by next week, which would work for those women. The man is being released from six months of rehab for a broken hip.”

“So his stay will be temporary?”

“No.” Ellen opened a packet of mixed fruit jelly. “He broke his hip when he ran a red light and was sideswiped. His wife died in the accident. His sister wants to take him to live with her, but the man is twice her size and she still works full-time. She can hire a nurse for home care, but she's afraid he's going to mourn and not improve. She heard about us and came for a tour. She has to make a decision this weekend.”

“That's gotta be tough.”

“Yeah.” People had real problems. Much worse than an aversion to being hugged. “I gave her my cell number in case she had questions or concerns.”

“You're committed to your job.”

“I love my job.”

He stopped eating and looked at her. “Why?”

The question was intrusive. Penetrating.

She held the slice of jelly-covered toast. She could do this. She could talk to him. “I have an affinity for
old people. I think in part because they have so much wisdom.” She silently fought the internal battle to flee. “The kind of wisdom you can't learn from books—or even always put into words. They teach by example. And I'm a sucker for that kind of lesson.”

“So how do I teach you by example?”

She dropped the toast, the beginnings of a cold sweat coming on.

“I'm not— You're not—” She couldn't do this. She'd tried, but…

Jay wiped his mouth, put the used napkin in the center of a pool of syrup on his plate, then picked up the bill. “You ready to go?” He stood and pulled a couple of bills from a wad in his pocket and dropped them to the table.

She nodded then followed him outside. “Thank you for breakfast.”

Every single person in the diner had watched them walk out. She slid her hands into the front pockets of her jeans and resisted the urge to run.

“I'm not giving up on you.”

His quietly spoken statement slowed the cacophony inside of her. He wasn't giving up on her. Was she?

“I have a son.” Josh. If she couldn't do this for herself, she had to do it for Josh. “His name's Josh. He's five.”

They were standing on Main Street on Saturday morning. Attracting looks.

Shelter Valley protected its own—most particularly Ellen. She'd been in the papers. Everyone knew who she was.

“Did you talk to his father about your session with me?”

“No. Josh's father lives in Colorado now. He's got
a live-in girlfriend. Josh is with them for the month of August.”

“Oh.”

One word, but it seemed to mean more than a professional collection of knowledge.

Or she was overreacting.

“How long has his father been in Colorado?”

“Three years. He left us to take a job there.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

“Me, too, for Josh's sake.”

“Not for yours?”

Ellen shrugged. “Not so much. By the time Aaron left, our divorce was almost a relief.”

He didn't ask any more. But she could see the questions in his gaze. The battle raging inside her—
run, get away, protect, protect, protect!
on one side and
you need help, you'll be imprisoned for life, you'll never be normal!
on the other—was overwhelming her. She couldn't hear either side clearly.

But she could picture her son's face.

“Do you have time to take a drive with me?” She was losing it. She couldn't be doing this. Couldn't be contemplating opening up any more to this man.

She had to do something.

“In your car?”

“Yeah. I drive or we don't go.”

“I have no problem with that.”

She did, but she wasn't going to let that stop her. She lived life. She didn't run from it.

J
AY HAD NO IDEA WHAT
,
specifically, was going on. But he knew it was significant. In her jeans, Ellen looked about eighteen behind the wheel of her mini SUV as she drove beyond the city limits and approached the highway entrance ramp. He glanced at the steely set of her chin.

From there he watched the road. And waited.

Past the ramp, she turned into a parking lot full of potholes and in need of repair. He'd ridden by the seedy-looking motel turned studio apartment rentals any number of times. At least fifty years old, the place had clearly seen better days, and he had thought it closed before he'd seen a car parked outside one of the rooms earlier in the week.

Judging by the way she drove in without hesitation, Ellen had been there before. She pulled up in front of door fourteen, then put the Escape in Park.

Surely she didn't live here?

Even if she did, she wouldn't be taking him inside. The car was still running.

“How much time do you have to talk?”

The question wasn't what he'd been anticipating. At the least, he'd expected an explanation of why they were here. The trashy place with its peeling paint and
filthy windows wasn't the setting he'd pictured for the intimate conversation he'd been hoping to have.

“A couple of hours. I've got a client at two.” In Phoenix. Because work would initially be slow in Shelter Valley, Shawna had asked if he would be willing to do a few sessions in Phoenix. He was using the space of another medical massage therapist who didn't work weekends.

But right now, Ellen was all that mattered to him.

“I had the perfect life growing up,” she said. “Parents who loved me. A safe town where people care about each other. Enough responsibility to shape me into a contributing member of society, enough freedom to learn from my mistakes, enough material comfort to more than satisfy my needs and enough time for fun.”

Jay listened. He stared at the ugly door and didn't kid himself that he and Ellen were simply getting to know each other. Something was coming.

The life Ellen described didn't cause PTSD.

She was narrating her life with the detachment of a stranger. As though she had no connection to the woman about whom she spoke. She was speaking analytically, like a counselor discussing a client.

“All that changed when I was nineteen.”

That young. Damn.

The four was crooked, as though the nail had come loose.

She glanced at him. “I'm sure you've seen Montford.” She named the college around which Shelter Valley was built. Around which the town orbited. He nodded.

“My father was a professor there.”

“What field?”

“Psychology.”

So it probably wasn't her social work degree alone that had given her understanding about life. “Did he share his insights when you were growing up?”

“Yeah.” She smiled, and the warmth that flooded her gaze knocked him for a second. “He was the greatest, always explaining why things were the way they were. From rules they laid down to feelings we'd have in given situations.”

“My father made life bearable, not because he took care of our problems for us, but because he sought always to teach us to take care of them for ourselves.”

The softness disappeared as quickly as it had come.

She was suffering from PTSD. She was so locked up inside that the mere touch to her neck yesterday had unhinged her. This behavior from a woman with a degree and training in dealing with life.

“David says that Dad taught us to fish rather than giving us fish.” Derision dripped from her tone. And he knew it was directed at the man who was both stepfather and best friend to her.

“You don't agree?”

“Oh, no, I agree,” she said, glancing at him briefly. Her hands were still on the wheel. She wasn't really gripping it, but she didn't let go, either.

“David thinks we need to focus on the good that Dad brought us and forgive the rest. I don't agree.”

Holding on to the anger would bring bitterness. But bitterness served a purpose. Sometimes it was the key to survival—until one was strong enough to survive without it.

“Not about forgiving him,” Ellen added. “I can do that. My father is a weak man. He can't help that. What
I don't care to do is build him up as some kind of great guy, either. Because he's not.”

“Because he's weak?”

“Because he walked out on his responsibilities. Because he lacks moral character.”

If the man had walked out on his family, Jay couldn't agree more with her assessment. She'd summed up his own bottom line. A man who abandoned his responsibilities lacked moral character.

But he was not getting to know Ellen the way a man gets to know a woman. Even if, personally, he found her interesting.

He wasn't here to discuss philosophy. Or his own views. He was here to understand what troubled Ellen so he could help her.

“I was at class the night my father told my mother he was leaving her. She tried to hide it from us kids at first. I guess she thought maybe they could fix things. They were high school sweethearts. He was the only guy she'd ever dated. And they'd been married more than twenty years.”

“Had they been having problems?”

“Not that she'd thought. They'd grown apart, but no more so than a lot of couples with four kids to raise.”

“Is he here in town?”

Maybe in room fourteen? Surely Ellen wasn't rejecting touch because her father had deserted them. She was far too self-sustaining, confident, aware for that.

“No. When he told Mom he was leaving, he didn't mean he was only leaving her. He was leaving all of us. Permanently. To move East and marry a woman who was a couple of years older than I am. She was his
student at Montford. They have two kids now. I've never met either one of them. And he's never been back.”

He agreed with Ellen. The man lacked moral character. In a big way. Jay had a few less acceptable words to describe the guy. But he kept those to himself.

“My father deserted me, too.” Sometimes you helped others by sharing a bit of yourself. College hadn't taught him that.

Life had.

Telling other victims who had experienced the repercussions of criminal actions about his mother's death had allowed them to trust him, to open up to him, and give him the information he'd needed to help bring them closure. And peace.

“He left right after I was born.”

She looked at him fully then and the compassion in her gaze struck him. In ways that he was rarely struck. Jay didn't need her compassion. He didn't need anyone. Never had.

She was a potential client. Someone he was trying to help. Business as usual.

“Have you ever had contact with him?”

“Nope.”

“Did you ever try?”

“No.”

“You didn't want to?”

“No.”

“What about your mother?”

“She died when I was a baby.”

“Oh, my gosh, Jay, I'm so sorry.”

He shrugged. “I had an aunt, my mother's older sister, who took me in. She loved me. It's the only life I knew.” So he'd minimized the situation. His history
wasn't important here. Understanding of the effects of a father's desertion was all that he'd meant to contribute.

 

J
AY MIGHT LOOK DIFFERENT
than anyone she'd ever known. He might turn his nose up at Shelter Valley convention, at the town that was as much a part of her as her arms and legs. He might reject the hospitality that had been offered to him. He might not be a churchgoer. But he had suffered. He knew what it was to feel pain.

To be alone.

He wasn't just a professional anymore. He'd become a person. Ellen wasn't sure if that made trusting him easier or harder.

“My father left my mother with four teenage children to raise. She had to find a job so that we could keep our house. She'd quit college to marry him and have us so she had no real training. But the new job he'd taken didn't pay nearly as much as Montford and the child support just wasn't enough.

“I had a job and helped out with my brother and sisters as much as I could, but I wasn't him, you know?”

Jay's nod, the way he looked at her, as though he understood completely, helped her to continue.

“One night, shortly after my father called to say that he and his new wife were expecting a baby, I ran out of gas on my way home from work. I'd been running the kids around a lot and hadn't paid close enough attention to the gauge. I was pretty upset about my father and not thinking as well as I should have been. I knew I had to figure this out on my own. I'd gotten myself into the situation and had to get myself out. I was dating Aaron, Josh's father, but he was busy. I couldn't call Mom and
add to her burdens. She hardly had time to eat and was getting only a few hours of sleep a night.”

“You're being a little hard on yourself. You know that, right? You were nineteen. You'd been driving at most three years. Adults run out of gas. It happens. And when it does, they generally call someone.”

“Hindsight's twenty-twenty. As it turned out, it would have taken Mom far less time to come and get me.”

The sequence was still so clear and, as she relayed it aloud, it unfolded in her mind as though it was happening for the first time…

 

S
HE AND
A
ARON HAD HAD
a fight earlier. He'd accused her of not trusting him. She'd overreacted.

But she did trust Aaron. It was just men and life she was having a little trouble believing in. She hadn't told him about her father's last phone call, about the new baby on the way. Or about how frequently she heard her mother crying in her room when she thought they were all asleep. She didn't know what to do, what she could possibly say that could ease her mother's pain. In the end, she cried, too.

She didn't care what Pastor Marks said. Sometimes life sucked.

And now her car wouldn't start. Ellen turned the key a third time, pumping the gas pedal, but nothing happened. And she knew why. She'd used the last of her gas to flood the engine. The gauge had been below empty when she came into work but she'd decided to fuel up on the way home so she wouldn't be late.

She should have gotten gas after she'd left college this afternoon, before picking up her sisters and brother
from school. There was a station around the corner from Montford. She knew that.

Head on the steering wheel, she promised herself she wouldn't cry. She'd never run out of gas before. Wasn't sure what she should do.

Except not call her mother. There was no way she was going to add anything to her mom's already overflowing plate. The gas station was too far to walk. Besides, there was no guarantee they'd even have a gas can to loan her. And she couldn't call Aaron. Not after the way she'd stomped off.

This was her problem. She'd gotten herself into it. She could get herself out of it.

Filled with resolve, feeling better, stronger, by taking control of her life, she climbed out of the car and headed for the highway ramp at the front of the Walmart parking lot. She'd noticed girls hitchhiking there before and they always seemed to be picked up almost immediately. That didn't surprise her. That's the way things were in Shelter Valley—there was always someone nice willing to help out.

Purse in hand, she reached the road, stuck out her thumb with uncharacteristic boldness and waited. She'd ask to be dropped at Aaron's dorm. First she'd beg for his forgiveness because that was all she really cared about at the moment. Then, if he accepted her apology, she'd tell him about her car. He'd know where to find a gas can. And he would drive her to her car without ever telling her how stupid she'd been to run out of gas in the first place. That was Aaron's way.

It was only one of the hundreds of reasons she loved him so much.

So lost in thought about the boyfriend she couldn't
imagine living without, Ellen almost didn't notice the brand-new Lexus that pulled up beside her. It took the open passenger door and the call to get in to garner her attention. She didn't recognize the car—or the older man at the steering wheel—which was a surprise in Shelter Valley. But she certainly recognized that the suit he was wearing was expensive.

He must be a friend of the Parsons. As president of Montford University, Will was always entertaining rich and important men from Phoenix. And Becca, the new mayor, knew her share of rich folk, too.

Or maybe he was some friend of the Montfords—descendants of the town's founder. They were richer than Becca and Will.

“You heading into town?” she asked, holding the edge of the door as she peered at him.

“I am.” He smiled. “If you'd like a ride, hop in.”

With a lift in spirits that had been plummeting all day, Ellen did as he bid, thanking him and giving him directions to Aaron's dorm. “It's this side of the main light in town,” she told him. “It's not far out of the way.”

Finally something positive was happening. It was like Pastor Marks had said. If you can get through the challenges, and if you do all you can do to help yourself, there's always good on the other side.

“Have you ever been to town before?” she asked the man who had a friendly look about him. “Nope.”

“It's a great place. You'll like it.”

“I'm counting on it,” he said, smiling at her again.

“The turn's right ahead.” He nodded.

“After that next group of trees.”

He nodded again, tapping his thumb on the steering as he drove.

“There,” she said quickly when it looked as though he was going to miss the road.