Love's Suicide (Love's Suicide #1)(72)

It was that pivotal moment where I knew my life was about to change again and as much as it hurt, I knew it was going to be a long and painful journey.





Chapter 34


Brooks didn’t wait for the officer to pull all the way down the driveway before walking me inside of my house. Once the door was shut, he grabbed both of my shoulders and forced me to look at him. One glance at my face told him all he needed to know and that was before I noticed the hand-marks on my arm. “How long has he been doing this to you? Is this because of me?” Brooks looked pained, as if he’d caused me to get beat up by my husband.

I sat down on the couch and started to cry. “No. It’s not you. It happened before. That’s why we separated. He got help and I didn’t let him come back until after he had his accident. Things were better for a long time, but now he’s so jealous and I don’t know how to make him believe that there’s nothing going on between us. He thinks I’ve been sleeping with you.”

Brooks did that thing where he clenched his jaw. B ran over and wrapped her arms around his legs. He picked her up, looking at how she’d been crying too. “Has he ever touched her?”

I shook my head. “No. Never. I don’t know that he would. Bobby only takes out his anger on me.”

He pointed at me, with the most serious look on his face. “He won’t lay a damn hand on you again, Kat. I can guarantee you that.”

“You can’t get involved, Brooks. It makes things worse.”

He kneeled down in front of me. With B on his lap, he looked right into my eyes. “Don’t you get it? I’m already involved. You might be married to him on paper, but that doesn’t make you his.”

I cried harder, scared of what was going to happen next. “He said if I ran to you he’d hurt me.”

Brooks stood up. “Pack a bag for each of you. You’re coming with me tonight and we’ll figure out what to do next in the morning.”

I refused to stand up. “I can’t do that. This is my mess.”

“She’s my daughter, Kat. I might not have been around her that much, but she’s my responsibility. I will kill him if he tries to hurt either one of you again.”

I finally stood up, pleading with him. “That’s exactly why I don’t want you helping. I can’t let you put yourself on the line for me. I’ve done enough harm to you. My marriage problems are something I have to deal with on my own. I shouldn’t have even called you.”

“But you did. You called me, because you knew I’d show up.” Brooks was getting mad at me. “Pack a damn bag now. I’m not leaving here without you. Bobby knows a lot of people in this town. He’ll be released in a few hours and where do you think he’ll come looking first. Is this the first time you’ve had him arrested?”

I started crying harder. “Yes.”

“Then he’s going to be more pissed.” He looked at B. “Tell Mama that she needs to listen to me.”

She looked at me with a straight face. “Yisten, Mama.”

I laughed through my sorrow and finally got up. Ten minutes later we were locking the doors and packing up his truck with our bags. Once we got B’s car seat fastened we were on our way to somewhere that we would be safe, until I could get a protective order and go home again.

It was obvious that I’d also have to contact my lawyer and talk to him about the best way to proceed with my marriage, or ending it.

I was done trying to work things out with Bobby. He would never trust me with Brooks and I wasn’t willing to give him up, whether we stayed friends forever or became something more. He’d always be my daughter’s father and there was nothing that Bobby could do about it.

Since Brooks had to report to work the next morning, he took us to a hotel near the army base. He helped me get everything inside and found cartoons on the television for B. One thing that I liked was that it wasn’t a flea infested dump. It was a well-known chain of hotels that even had room service, so we didn’t have to leave our room, if we didn’t want to. It also had an indoor pool and a gym that I knew I wouldn’t be able to use with B in tow.

Brooks and B sat on the opposite side talking about a cartoon, while I went into the bathroom to wash my face. I looked like Hell and was more than embarrassed to have been around Brooks all afternoon without looking at myself once. I tried to fix my hair, but it was a rat’s nest. When I grabbed my brush and ran it through the back of my head, I hit a tender area and cringed. My fingers felt around and the wetness in a small area let me know that my head had been busted open.

“Brooks, can you come in here for a minute?”

He came in and saw me standing there holding my head. “What’s wrong?”

I looked right at him and reconsidered telling him, since I knew he’d go off the deep end over it. After realizing that I needed first aide and didn’t want to go to the hospital, I was out of other options. “Look at my head and tell me how bad it is.”

I felt his hands touching me and separating my hair. Under his breath, so our daughter couldn’t hear him, he asked, “Did he do this to you?”

I looked at him in the mirror and closed my eyes when I saw how concerned he was. “Yes.”

Brooks grabbed a washrag and wet the tip of it. He dabbed it at my head, to clean the wound and get a better look. “You’re goin’ to need at least one stitch. I can run on base and get a kit if you’d rather me do it here.”