He was simply helping his friend.
At his urging, she spread her legs and his fingers went to work, knowing exactly what to do.
He found his mark on the first try. And discovered that she was already wet.
He could stop.
As soon as he made certain that Jane knew, without a doubt, what she was capable of feeling.
He didn’t look at her face. Couldn’t meet her eyes. He just focused on making her feel good.
And as soon as she’d climaxed, he’d get up and walk away. Let her put herself back together.
That’s what he intended. That’s what he told himself was going to happen.
It didn’t.
CHAPTER THREE
MONDAY MORNING Jane was up, showered, had fed Petunia, her delicate and fragile rescue bird, and was on her way into the city from her Chicago suburb home before she was usually out of bed. She had a nine-thirty meeting with her art people and needed to stop at Durango on the way. She’d promised Josie Barker, one of the shelter’s current residents, that she’d help her with her résumé that morning. Josie was applying for a job that could change her life.
And no matter how Jane managed to mess up her own life, she was going to make sure other women had a chance to improve theirs.
Josie was a lucky one. She’d gotten out of her abusive marriage early, before there were children. And before her self-esteem had been irreparably damaged.
“Jane?” Stopping on the steps up to Durango—a nondescript home close to Chicago’s downtown with absolutely no signage or other giveaway characteristics to alert anyone to its true purpose—Jane glanced over her shoulder as she heard her name. Spinning, she recognized the woman coming up the street.
“Kim! What are you doing here?” And then, with a sick feeling in her stomach, she asked, “You aren’t staying here again, are you?”
“No! Don’t worry, I’m fine.” The redheaded, freckle-faced woman stopped at the bottom of the three cement stairs, her hand on the black wrought-iron railing. “I was just coming to drop this off for Josie.” She held up a hanger covered in dry-cleaning wrap. “For her interview. I’m early, actually, but Jason spent the night with my mom and I had way too much time on my hands this morning.” Kim’s cheer seemed forced, a state Jane knew well from her work with damaged women.
“I’m a little early, too,” she said now, her own troubles fading. “Tell me how things are going.”
“Good.” Kim’s red ponytail bobbed. “Really good. Brad’s fantastic, just like you said he would be. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for setting me up with him.”
“Brad volunteers here regularly,” Jane reminded her. “You’d have met up with him eventually if I hadn’t called him.”
Brad. She’d spent all of yesterday trying not to think about him. And all of last night, too.
“But who knows where I’d have been by the time he made his next visit.” Kim shrugged self-consciously. “Anyway, I know he thinks he can’t discuss my case with you, even though I told him he could, so I wanted you to know that I hired a second attorney, Christine Ryan, just to represent Jason.”
“Why?”
The young woman’s eyes filled with tears. “Because I’m too messed up where Shawn’s concerned to know if I’m doing right by my son, or just knee-jerking. And I need Brad to be looking out for me.”
Shawn. The husband. Whose actions had driven his wife to call the domestic abuse hotline and, with their young son, seek shelter at Durango.
“So he’s still trying to get shared custody?”
“At the moment, I think he’d settle for visitation rights. And I don’t know, Jane. I mean, he never hurt Jason. He really loves him. And Jason misses him so much…”
“Shawn might not have hurt him physically, but I can assure you, Jason has suffered greatly from his father’s aggressive actions.”
Stay strong, Kim, Jane’s inner voice urged. Remember that what Shawn did was wrong. Against the law.
She’d have said the words aloud, but Kim had already heard them many times. It was up to her whether or not she believed them and made choices accordingly. If Jane pushed, she was really no better than Shawn—browbeating Kim into doing what Jane thought was best.
At this stage, she could give Kim validation. Nothing more.
“Anyway,” Kim said, shaking her head, “I’m glad I ran into you. My pastor came up to me at church yesterday and told me that Shawn had talked to him.”
Jane’s nerves stood on alert. “It’s a violation of the protection order for him to use a third party to pass messages to you. Did you call the police?”
“No.” Kim shook her head vehemently. “Shawn didn’t know Pastor Rod was talking to me. I’m sure he’d rather he hadn’t. Anyway, Rod said he’d really struggled with whether or not to say anything to me because of confidentiality issues, but said that he’d rather have betraying a confidence on his conscience than have someone hurt.”
“So what did he say? Does he think that Shawn’s a danger to Jason?”
“No. He thinks he’s a danger to you.”
Jane stepped back, the heel of her pump catching on the cement behind her. “Me?”
“Pastor Rod says that Shawn told him that this is all your fault. He says that if you hadn’t called Brad right away, I’d have come home and given him a chance to apologize. He says he’s lost his son because of you.”
“He lost his son because he doesn’t know how to be a man,” Jane said, forcing her voice to communicate a calm she didn’t feel. Could Shawn be behind the threats she’d been receiving at Twenty-Something? But what “right thing” could he want her to do?
It wasn’t as if she had any power to influence custody orders.
Still, she’d let Detective Thomas know.
“Shawn’s right, though, in one sense,” Kim said, looking down and then back up. “I probably would have done just like he said and gone home and forgiven him.”
Wishing she could take the young woman into her arms and make her world all better, Jane quietly asked, “And do you regret not doing that?”
“No!” The strength with which Kim’s head shot up couldn’t be ignored. “My gosh, Jane, I thank God every single night for you. If not for you, I’d have gone home again and again until he killed me. And maybe Jason, too.”
“And now, if he comes within five hundred feet of you, he goes to jail,” Jane said. “You keep your cell phone with you at all times, and you call the police if you so much as fear that he’s close, right?”
“Right. I thank God for that phone and the protection order, too. Between those and you and Brad, I actually have hope of a life again. But I’m worried sick about you.”
“Don’t be,” Jane assured her. “People like Shawn are cowards. They pick on those who they think won’t hit back. And besides, we know how to keep ourselves safe and what to do if danger approaches. We don’t have to live our lives in fear.”
Jane had had all the self-defense classes right along with the victims at Durango. For cases just like this one. She might not be married to an abusive man, but she helped women who were.
Kim seemed bemused as she peered up at Jane. “You really aren’t scared, are you?”