“I don’t want you to tell the police.”
“Why not?”
Talia looked at the floor again, where her sandaled feet sported perfectly manicured toes. “Because.”
“That’s not good enough. Are you afraid that if we go to the police whoever’s abusing you is going to know where you are? Because you don’t have to worry about that. I promise you. The police are our friends here. They will protect your location as vigorously as we do.”
“What happens to me if I don’t answer your questions? What if I don’t tell you who I am?”
“We still call the police. You’re a juvenile on the run. We can’t let you just leave here on your own.”
“Maybe I lied about my age.”
“Did you?”
Talia gave her a hard look. A determined one. And then her entire demeanor changed. Her chin dropped and she shook her head. “But I need a little time to think,” she said. “If you call the police they’ll take me away, won’t they?”
“It depends,” she said. “Child protective services could be called. Someone would be assigned to you. Once everyone figures out what’s going on and what’s in your best interest, decisions will be made.”
“And what about you? Do you have anything to do with this?”
Sedona was careful about the cases she took. Because, based on her clients’ emotional states, she had to be able and willing to stay with them for the long haul. Her assistance was needed when a woman’s deepest trust had been abused. In a big way. Her clients were victims. Injured. Vulnerable. She had to be able to go the distance....
“I’m willing to represent you, free of charge,” she said, already aware that Talia, while well dressed and expensively groomed, had less than a hundred dollars on her person. “Whatever happens, I’ll be by your side, making certain that, legally, you will get the best care.”
“What are my chances of getting to stay here?”
“It’s a possibility, depending on the facts.” She wasn’t telling what those were. Or giving any hint. The troubled teen was in survival mode and clearly not above lying to save herself if she knew the right things to say. Lila had asked Talia if she had a cell phone. The question was common practice at The Lemonade Stand after one resident’s abuser found her through a downloadable tracking app he’d placed on her phone.
In response to her question, Talia had produced an old flip phone that was out of battery charge and couldn’t be turned on. The phone was so old Lila didn’t even have a charger that would fit.
“They said you’re a lawyer.” Talia’s gaze was solemn—and searching.
“That’s right.”
“And you deal with this kind of thing all the time.”
“I do.”
“Will the people here get in trouble if they let me stay just one night? Until I figure out what to do?”
There were rules. And there were circumstances.
“I might be able to get you one night. But only because it’s late in the day and we know that the chances of getting you to social services are slim. We could determine that it’s better for you to stay here than to spend the night in jail, which is where, as a runaway, you could end up.”
Because Talia didn’t display any overt signs of abuse. No broken bones. No bruises or scars—at least of a physical nature.
“But you won’t be free to leave,” she added.
“I don’t want to leave.” Talia sat up. “I just want to make certain that my... That no one can make me leave here.”
The girl’s desperation to stay at the shelter—clearly not a cool hangout for kids her age—helped convince Sedona to fight for her.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “But only with your understanding that if by tomorrow morning you haven’t told me who you are and what this is about, I will have you turned over to the police.”
Talia didn’t flinch. “I understand.”
And for now, that was that.
CHAPTER TWO
WHOEVER SAID WINE grape growing was easy had obviously never cane-pruned twenty acres of pinot vines. The pruning had to be done in its own time, not by a calendar man had planned, during the dormant season, when the dead leaves had fallen and just as buds were beginning to grow. In the winter. Or early spring. Depending on the vines. Sometimes it had to happen in April, too.
And it had to be done by hand. With clippers. One vine at a time.
For some vintners this meant having someone on staff, maybe a farm or winery manager, who would keep close watch and disperse employees out to the arduous but artful task, as needed.
For Tanner Malone, it meant that even though his little sister had a day off school on Tuesday for teacher in-service meetings, he had to be out in the groves all day—leaving her to get into whatever trouble she could manage with too much time on her hands and the house all to herself.
He hired a couple of seasonal helpers during harvest, but the rest of the work he did himself to save money for Tatum’s college expenses.
Letting himself in the back door of their sizable but very old farmhouse, as the early April sun was setting, Tanner prepared himself for make-up, tight jeans and blonde hair styled to perfection. There’d be attitude for sure.
But maybe there’d be some dinner on the table. Even boxed macaroni and cheese would be welcome to his empty stomach.
“Tatum?” he called as, walking through the spotless untouched kitchen, he headed into the equally undisturbed living room.
His sister was good about picking up after herself, but the couch pillows were just as he’d tossed them that morning on his way out the door. He knew because one had fallen sideways and it still lay there, cock-eyed.
With a hand on the banister leading upstairs, he leaned over to see the landing at the top and called, “Sis?”
Could it be that she was in her room studying? Getting ready for the intensive college entrance exams she had coming up the following fall? Tanner and Tatum’s brother, Thomas, had spent a good six months in preparation for his SATs, resulting in a full scholarship to an Ivy League school back east.
And he hadn’t come back to California since he left. That was ten years ago. Tatum had been five. Talia sixteen. And Tanner? The big brother who’d managed somehow to keep his family together after their mother, Tammy, had finally done them a favor and skipped out on them, had been a mere twenty-three.
Was he only thirty-three now? He’d felt forty ten years ago.
But then he’d been the unofficial guardian and sole supporter of his younger siblings for a couple of years by then.
Thankfully there’d been enough money left from his father’s life insurance policy to buy this farm with an ancient house that still needed a lot of work, but enough land to grow grapes that partially supplied a couple of California’s premier wineries.
He was a moderate vintner himself now, too. Which was another reason why getting the pruning done was so important. He had a shipment of recoopered oak barrels arriving in a couple of days and had to prepare the framework upon which they were going to sit.
Tatum wasn’t answering his calls.
Which wasn’t all that unusual these days.
But she wasn’t on her phone, either. He hadn’t heard that sweet laugh of hers. Or the irritated