Once a Family. Tara Quinn Taylor

“The girls would have been foster kids, not eligible for adoption. Together, at least we had one another. A place of our own where we belonged. We loved one another. And we understood one another’s challenges, too, since we’d all come from the same place.”

      Sedona wondered if the siblings needed one another as much as Tanner had evidently needed them? Had Talia, Thomas and Tatum been his sense of family? Of belonging? And now that Tatum, the last of them, was almost ready to fly the coop, was he having a hard time letting her go? Serious enough to use physical force to keep Tatum with him?

      “I am not now nor have I ever been in contact with your mother,” she told him, aware of the lateness of the hour. Of Tatum waiting back at The Lemonade Stand, nervous and wondering what was going to happen to her. “Your sister showed up at The Lemonade Stand today, out of the blue. She asked for our help. We’re trying to give it to her. That’s what we do.”

      “And she says I hit her.”

      “That’s correct.”

      His gaze didn’t waver. “I didn’t.”

      She believed him. And wasn’t sure she trusted her own instincts at the moment. This man was having an effect on her that she didn’t understand.

      “She’s afraid of something, Mr....Tanner. I’ve never witnessed nor even heard of a fifteen-year-old begging to stay locked in at a women’s shelter before. Not without just cause.”

      “Harcourt has something to do with this.”

      “Maybe he told Tatum to seek help.”

      He didn’t flinch. Didn’t show any overt reaction at all. Tatum had said her brother was a vintner. That held weight with a wine connoisseur like her. It took real dedication, tenderness, an attention to art, to produce a good wine.

      Maybe that was why she felt such a strong desire to like him.

      “What happens if I insist on taking her home tonight?” It didn’t sound like a rhetorical question. “Other than me royally pissing her off, of course.”

      “We’d have to call the police. They’d come out.”

      “Would they take her?”

      “They might.”

      His eyes narrowed, and Sedona was afraid she’d somehow transmitted a compassion she shouldn’t be feeling toward this man.

      “What are the chances they’d take her?”

      She wanted him to trust her. Because Tatum obviously loved him. Not only had she said so, but her refusal to press charges also pointed to an attachment to him. One thing Sedona was already completely sure of—she was already fond of Tatum and wanted to help her and her brother be as happy as they possibly could be.

      It sounded to her as though they both deserved a big dose of the secure, happy and loving environment she’d grown up in.

      But she could not take even a minute chance of possibly returning an abuse victim to her abuser. Not for any reason.

      “Tonight? Not good at all.”

      That eyebrow rose one more time. And taking a last-ditch chance on a nurturing instinct that had been muted in law school, she said, “Your sister has said that if we call the police, she’s going to tell them that she lied to us. She’s going to insist you’ve never hit her. She has no bruises left to show. There have been no prior complaints or reports, no reason for anyone to seriously suspect that this is anything more than a recalcitrant teenager trying to get back at the guardian who thwarted her love life. They might or might not assign a caseworker. If they did you’d have to endure a few visits. And as long as there are no further instances of abuse, you’ll carry on as you’ve always done.”

      She’d handed the life he wanted back to him on a silver platter. Tanner Malone continued to watch her, his face as placid as always.