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Wan and sporting purple bruises beneath her eyes, Robin sat on one of the stools in the kitchen nursing a cup of coffee when he walked into the house.
He raised his eyebrows. “Where’s Jacob?”
“Your dad took him outside. Apparently there’s a tire swing out there?”
“Hey, yeah.” His headache relented briefly. He half sat on the stool beside her, laying the manila folder on the granite surface of the island. “Ivy and Sara love it. Dad will watch out for him, don’t worry.”
Her freckles stood out more than usual, he saw, probably because the only other color in her face were those circles under her eyes. He wanted to smooth some of that stress away, massage her neck and shoulders until she moaned.
Instead, he kept his hands to himself as she smiled, looking as exhausted as he felt.
“I know. Your father’s being really sweet. You, too. Jacob said you gave him another bath.”
“We boys have to stick together.” Man, he needed to get out of here. Seth flipped open the file and took a pen from his shirt pocket. “I need your signature.”
She stared blankly at the permission form. Eventually, he thought she actually started taking it in, finally signing both copies and pushing them back to him. He gently removed the pen from her hand.
“Take a nap when Jacob does this afternoon, Robin. I’ll bet you didn’t get three hours of sleep last night.”
She searched his face. “You look tired, too.”
“I’ll cut the day short if I can,” he said gruffly. There was plenty he wanted to say and do, but he restrained himself, leaving with her a distantly polite “Thank you,” grating as though he’d lost a layer of skin.
Chapter Nine
The next day, Robin came to the conclusion that Seth intended to stay at his father’s house as long as she and Jacob were there.
His presence both relieved and unsettled her. Robin would have felt horribly guilty if his poor father had been left alone to deal with the awkwardness and extra work of guests he hadn’t even invited. But when Seth was home, she became self-conscious, aware every second of where he was, whether he was watching her or they might touch in passing, how she looked...and of all the darkness in her past that he didn’t know about.
When he came in the door on Tuesday, his expression was grim enough to alarm her. His face was harder than usual, the angles sharper.
To give herself a minute, she turned on the burner beneath the water that needed to boil for the pasta. “Something’s wrong.”
He shook his head, but the deeper lines in his forehead and beside his mouth didn’t smooth out. “Smells good.”
She was making spaghetti, which Michael said was a favorite of his and was also a meal a two-year-old would eat. Robin asked fiercely, “Then why do you look like that?”
“Look like—” He scrubbed a hand over his face without having any effect, then glanced around. “Where’s Dad?”
She grimaced. “Where do you think? He created a fiend when he put Jacob on that swing.”
A faint smile rewarded her. It vanished almost immediately. “I got some of your medical records today.”
“Oh.” She couldn’t meet his eyes.
“Several of the hospitals emailed records and X-rays. They were hard to look at.”
“Surely you’ve handled domestic abuse cases before.”
“I have. But damn, Robin. I didn’t know any of the women as well as I do you. I didn’t—” Seth shook off whatever he’d been about to say. “There were a couple of notes expressing doubt at how you were injured. I’m having trouble understanding why the doctors who saw you didn’t call the police.”
She clasped her hands together so he wouldn’t see the tremor. “Richard, that’s why. He’d probably met most of the doctors at fund-raising events. He’s that well-known. Slick, too. Along with always having a believable explanation, he was really good at seeming scared for me, loving. Looking back, I don’t understand why I didn’t speak up. Maybe I thought—”
Seth cut her off. “It’s not on you, Robin. Abused women rarely ask for help in that situation. You have to know that. Maybe you didn’t think you’d be believed, and you knew what the consequences would be once he got you home. Maybe you still loved him, had hope he really was sorry.”
