Embattled Home Read Online Free PDF Page A

girl to her hip.
    “I need to go, Dunc. I’ll call you back in a while.”
    “Okay. Keep your eyes open.”
    “Always.”
    Little Mercy had calmed somewhat. She surveyed her mother’s injuries with fear in her eyes, though. “Did Derek do that?”
    Lora’s eyes darkened, but her chin tipped up. “Yes, he did, honey. But I’m okay now. Did your grandmother say where you were going?”
    Mercy’s little chin quivered as she shook her head back and forth. “No, but she said we were going on a trip. And she wouldn’t let me bring ‘ansom.”
    Chad frowned at the word. Ransom?
    “Well, I’m sure Handsome would have been very upset if you had gone on a trip without him.”
    Mercy nodded. “I told her that but she wouldn’t listen. She kept saying we need to go, we need to go. And she yelled at Heather.”
    Lora looked up at the sitter, who still looked upset. “What did she say to you?”
    Chad stepped up behind them. “Let’s go into the house to talk about this. Get out of the view of the neighbors.”
    Lora didn’t say a word, but she did wrap her girl into her arms and walk into the house. The sitter, Heather, looked at him with fear in her eyes. Chad held out his hand. “Chad Lowell. I’ll be watching over Lora and Miss Mercy for a while.”
    The emotion in the woman’s eyes eased but she didn’t reach out for his hand. She crossed her arms over her narrow chest and turned to follow Lora inside. Chad frowned at the look she tossed him over her shoulder, as if he were going to attack her from behind.
    A chill settled in his gut. He’d seen behavior like that before in his own family, from his sister. She’d married young and had children young, and been a battered wife by her early twenties. Lora and Heather both had that look in their eyes.
    Inside the house, the sitter had obviously tried to put the rooms to rights. The potting soil had been swept from the carpet and the blood was gone from the walls. The back patio glass slider was still a gaping, open wound though.
    “Do you have any plywood or anything big enough to cover the hole?”
    Lora shook her head, settling onto the couch. Mercy was still wrapped around her mother like a little monkey, but Chad got the impression that the little girl was doing it for her mother.
    Chad pulled his phone from his pocket, swiping the screen. He thumbed out a text message and sent it. Almost immediately the phone buzzed in his hand with a response from Roger. He would be here within an hour.
    Chad motioned for the sitter to have a seat. “Can you tell me what happened, Heather?”
    The woman was actually older than Chad first thought. A little more experienced.
    “She knocked on the door, and when I answered she just walked in like she owned the place. She said she knew Lora had been hurt and that she had come to get Mercy until Lora was better.”
    The woman looked at Lora. “I’m truly very sorry. I didn’t know who had hurt you and her story sounded so believable. She just acted like she was supposed to be here. It wasn’t until Mercy started to put up a fuss that I became concerned.”
    Lora ran her hand over her daughter’s pale blond hair over and over again, obviously reassuring herself that she was fine. “It’s okay, Heather. That’s just how they are. They roll in as if they own the place and take over.”
    “I tried to call the hospital but you had already been released. When I couldn’t get your cell phone I started to call the police. That’s when you pulled in.”
    Chad felt bad for the woman. She was feeling a lot of guilt right now for being taken in. “I’m glad we got here when we did.”
    Lora glanced at him, then away without saying anything.
    Chad felt like she barely tolerated his presence. Actually, they both made him feel like a disgusting bug they wanted to crush under their shoes, but he couldn’t do anything about that. They needed protection. He would be cognizant of their issues to the extent he could. He would