Mended Hearts (New Beginnings Series) (10 page)

Gracie was chattering from her
bedroom—something about one of the new kids locking himself in a bathroom and the daycare’s director having to take the door off its hinges because the boy didn’t understand he could turn the lock in the other direction. Sonny and Mathias were chuckling as Mathias straightened from where he leaned against the table and started back toward the club chair. As he moved away from the table he knocked her mail off and the few envelopes scattered across the floor. He bent to pick them up, stacking them haphazardly. Sonny watched as Mathias slowly straightened, staring in horror at one of the envelopes and every bit of color drained from his face.

Mathias choked out, “Gracie. Honey . . . come out here a minute.”

The beads rustled again as she walked out in cropped jeans and a ruffled camisole, pulling a pale plum colored cardigan sweater over it. She looked at him curiously. “What is it? Matty? Are you alright? What’s wrong?”

He flung the rest of the mail back onto the table, gently took her arm and steered her to the sofa, sitting her
as close as possible to Sonny—right up against him. He looked Sonny in the eye, as if to convey some sort of message to him, but Sonny had no clue what that was. What was going on?

“Matty! You’re freaking me out,” Gracie exclaimed.

Mathias handed her the letter and all the color left her face too. Sonny glanced down to where she’d dropped it on her lap, as if it had bitten her. It was a personal letter, with the mailing address handwritten. The return address was . . . holy crap . . . California State Prison-Sacramento. That’s when he noticed she’d started trembling. She knocked the letter to the floor and shook harder as each millisecond passed. Sonny got it then—what Mathias needed from him. He wrapped both arms around her and held on. She reached up and gripped his forearms and seemed to settle a little bit.

Mathias picked up the letter
from the floor, where she’d knocked it, and sat on the edge of the coffee table, directly in front of her. “Gracie, honey. Look at me.” She’d been staring blindly at nothing, but at the sound of his voice, her eyes focused. “Gracie . . . how long has it been since you got the last letter?”

“A . . . a . . . months . . . I don’t know . . .
nine months?” she stammered.

“Okay,” he said soothingly. “Did you open that one?”

“No!” she said in horror. “I’ve shredded them all!” She leaned over and started groping for something under the lamp table beside her, but Sonny didn’t let go. “My . . . my shredder is under the table. Just shred it!”

“Wait a minute, Gracie. We need to think about this. I can read it for you. Okay? You can sit here with
Luca and I’ll go in the other room and read it.”

“No! No! If you read it, I’ll know you know what it said. It makes it real. That’s why I can’t read them. If we don’t read them it’s like he never wrote them!” Her voice rose higher and higher
in panic until Sonny squeezed her and murmured non-words to her. She seemed to calm down a little.

He wished to God he knew what was going on.
He didn’t think she even knew he was there.

Mathias patted her knee. “Okay, honey . . . I don’t want to upset you, but . . . how would he have your new address? How would he know you moved away?”

Her eyes jerked back to the envelope he held in his hands. “Oh, God! He wrote my new address. It’s not forwarded.” Her eyes jumped back to Mathias face. “I don’t know. Did Mom and Dad tell someone in his family where I went?”

“I don’t think so, Gracie. They wouldn’t do that. But we’ll call in a little while and make sure.”

She nodded jerkily. Then the tears started to fall. It was like the initial shock suddenly subsided and the floodgates opened. It was the worst kind of crying too. No sobs . . . no sound at all. Just tears falling in a steady stream silently down her face. She didn’t even seem to notice.

Sonny studied Mathias’s face and saw the exact moment the white-hot anger hit him. He jumped up from the table and started pacing. Not that there was much room to pace. “I’m driving up there. I’m gonna pay that little SOB a visit.”

Gracie choked out, “No, don’t!
Please
don’t!”

“Why not? He deserves a lot more than that. I’d like to get my hands on him. Like he hasn’t done enough
. . . and now he has to make his presence known this way—just when you’re working so hard to get back on your feet. I can’t believe this! The least I can do is warn him away from ever contacting you again.” He ran his hands through his perfectly groomed hair, leaving it disheveled. He glanced over at Sonny. “I can bring Luca with me. He can wear his intense Navy SEAL face and really scare him off.”

Gracie jumped at that and her eyes swung to Sonny’s face. She looked startled
, as if she had just realized he was there in the room, and how closely he was holding her. She blushed and pulled away. He continued to stare into her eyes and said softly, “I’ll do anything you want me to.”

“Oh
, Lord!” she cried and buried her face in her hands in embarrassment.

Sonny looked at Mathias. “Do I need to leave?”

“No.” Mathias moved Gracie’s hands from her face. “Gracie, we need to tell Luca the whole story. Okay?”

She looked so miserable, Sonny
almost
said, “Oh no, that’s okay.” But it was looking like they might have a stalker issue . . . with some convicted felon. He knew he needed to know everything to try to protect her.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Over an hour later, Sonny sat in the corner of the sofa, with Gracie curled up on the other end. He looked over to where Mathias sat at the dining table on the other end of the room. He had his cell phone to one ear and his head in his hand, talking quietly to his parents. Sonny couldn’t hear what he was saying. He glanced down at Gracie, who was staring at nothing, her eyes swollen from crying. At least she’d stopped.

He was stunned after hearing the story. Sweet Gracie, still so young, had been married to her high school sweetheart, pregnant with his baby. What kind of jerk treated a woman he’d been with so long—a woman who was carrying his baby—
that badly? Sonny thought he’d seen some of the worst mankind had to offer, but this? This was something even he couldn’t imagine. He reached over to stretch her legs across his lap. He was surprised they weren’t cramping, curled up in a fetal position the way she was. He started massaging her calves.

“Now you know,” Gracie said in a tiny voice.

His eyes jerked from her legs up to her face. She was focused on him now. “Know what, honey?”

Her eyes pooled again, but she didn’t break down. “How stupid I am.”

“Don’t do that. None of that is on you. It’s on him.”

“But, why didn’t I see it? I keep wracking my brain, wondering how I could be so stupid about him.”

Sonny leaned closer, willing her to really hear what he was about to say. “Gracie, when we’re doing all of the things we’re supposed to be doing, we just assume those closest to us—our teammates, so to speak—are doing all of the things
they’re
supposed to be doing. How can you expect to see things that are being kept hidden from you? He wasn’t flaunting anything in your face, was he?”

“Well . . . after I found out about the cheating, I saw things—in retrospect. But I believed all of his reasons for being gone at the time.”

“Of course you did. Why wouldn’t you?”

“I remember wishing he’d step up more. You know? I was so miserable some days . . . with the pregnancy—morning sickness and
I was so tired. I wondered why he didn’t see it sometimes, and then felt guilty for thinking that. I mean . . . he was doing what he was supposed to be doing. Studying hard and preparing for our future. But I never suspected . . .”

“He was selfish,” Sonny stated flatly.

Gracie laughed humorlessly. “Well, I
did
know that—kind of. The whole time we dated, all through high school, his mom spoiled him rotten. So when we got married, I guess he never changed. It was just my turn to keep spoiling him.” She blushed a little. “And the thing is, I didn’t mind it too much. I wanted to do things for him.”

“Of course you did, Gracie. You loved him. Most people want to do things for the people they love.”

“But he didn’t, I guess.”

“Well,
he’s a jerk.”

Gracie whispered, “But all of that isn’t the worst of it. Why didn’t
I see what he was capable of, Luca?”

“You’re talking about the violence,” Sonny prodded.

She nodded jerkily, sat up and leaned against him, her head resting on his chest. He wondered if she did it for comfort, or so she wouldn’t have to look at him.

“Gracie, he never showed it to you. Thank God it didn’t go on for years. What he did to you
that once was bad enough.”

“But, if I saw it sooner—little glimpses of it, before that day—I could have left and saved
my baby.”

“Please don’t do that to yourself,” Sonny pleaded.

“I just wonder . . . if I handled things differently, my baby would be here right now.”

“Gracie . . .
the only thing he wanted from you was a pass. You couldn’t be expected to give him that. It’s all
his
fault, not yours.”

“I know that . . . usually,” she said.

He tilted her face up to look at him. “On the days you forget it, please call me. I’ll remind you.”

They both heard Mathias clear his throat and looked up to where he stood next to them. He sat down on the coffee table in front of them again. “I talked to Mom and Dad. Well, I talked them both down. They were on the verge of jumping into their car and driving down
here, but I convinced them everything was under control.”

“Good,” Gracie said as she moved back to the other side of the couch and curled up again.

Sonny was sad to see her go.

“If you feel better in a little while, you might call them too. If they hear your voice, they may
be less likely to change their minds and come anyway.”

She nodded. “Okay. I can do that.”

Mathis looked over at Sonny. “We never fed you, dude.”

“That’s okay. Not very hungry anymore.”

“Well, we should eat anyway. How about ordering something in? I don’t think any of us are in the mood to go out.”

Sonny leaned over the arm of the sofa to pick up his crutches. “I can run out to get something and bring it back.”

“No, no . . . I’ll call in an order. I found a number for a Chinese delivery service. What sounds good?”

“Nothing, man. Just order whatever.” Sonny looked over at Gracie. “How about you, Gracie? What sounds good to you?”

“Nothing, man,” she said with a small smile, mocking him. She looked at Mathias. “Just order. We’ll probably all just pick at it anyway.”

CHAPTER 7

Gracie sat in the parking lot of Sonny’s building the next morning and looked at
the clock on her cell phone. Ten forty-five in the morning. She wondered what time he had gotten home and debated just leaving and calling him later. But she really wanted to see him, so she dialed his number after all.

“Hello?” Sonny answered groggily.

“Um . . . Good morning, Luca. It’s um . . . it’s Gracie,” she said tentatively.

She heard bedclothes rustling and his voice sounded more alert. “Gracie! How are you this morning? Is everything okay?”

“I’m feeling stronger. Thanks.” She cleared her throat. “Are you still in bed?”

“Well
. . . yes. I can’t lie,” he snorted.

“Oh. Okay. I’m sorry, Luca. I’ll talk to you later . . .”

“No, no. I need to get up. Do you want me to come over there?”

Gracie gave a little laugh. “Actually . . . I’m sitting out in your parking lot. Do you mind if I come up?”

“No! Come on up. Walk slow,” he said.

As she walked—slowly—up the sidewalk, through the door, and up the stairs
—toward his apartment—she thought about the night before. He’d been so understanding and supportive. She’d been humiliated as Mathias told him her and Rob’s sordid story. He didn’t seem to think any less of her, though. Maybe she should have confided in him all along. But she was trying so hard to rebuild her life here and leave that all behind. It was nice to have a new friend who only saw
her
—not the weak girl she felt she’d been back then.

Gracie
was trying to figure out how to knock on the door, with her hands full, just as it opened. She smiled when his eyes lit up at the sight of the two venti-sized Starbucks cups in her hands.

“Which one’s mine?” he asked, even before saying hello to her.

She held out the regular coffee and kept the latte for herself. “It’s black,” she said as he took his first healthy sip. “And really hot,” she added as he gasped. She held up a paper bag. “I brought cream and sugar . . . and apple turnovers and cinnamon rolls.”

He favored her with a fervent, “God bless you!” as he took the bag from her.
He bypassed the cream and sugar and pulled out a fresh apple turnover, took a big bite and finally gave her his attention.