Honeysuckle Summer (The Sweet Magnolias #7)(8)
“Far as I know, she’s there permanently.” Howard Lewis regarded him with curiosity. “Haven’t seen much of her, but she used to be a pretty little thing. You interested?”
“Not a chance,” Carter said fiercely. “The only thing I care about is making sure she doesn’t let those kids go roaming around on their own again. Next time, things could turn out a whole lot worse.”
Howard frowned at his somber tone. “You feel that strongly about it, maybe you should have a talk with Travis. He’s about to become their stepdad, and he just now walked in the door.” He beckoned the man in question over to the booth. “You two musta met yesterday. Travis McDonald, Carter Rollins.” He stepped aside and gestured for Travis to sit. “I’ll leave you both to your meals.”
Presented with the opportunity, Carter laid out his concerns for the man seated opposite him. As he talked, though, Travis’s expression turned increasingly indignant.
“Nobody loves those kids or is more protective of them than Raylene,” he told Carter. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“She didn’t do much to keep Tommy safe yesterday afternoon, now, did she?” Carter said. “I didn’t see her combing the streets to find him. No, indeed, she stood right there on the front steps and waited for everyone else to get the job done.”
Travis leveled a hard look at him that gave him pause. “I thought folks in police work were supposed to wait till the evidence was in before jumping to conclusions.”
“I saw all the evidence I needed to see,” Carter insisted, refusing to back down. “It was plain as day what happened. She didn’t take her responsibility seriously, and Tommy wandered off and could have gotten himself run over or kidnapped or who knows what. I’d think you’d be as concerned about that as I am.”
Despite the dire picture Carter painted, Travis didn’t back down. “Did you notice that even after Tommy came home, Raylene never left that front stoop?”
“Probably too guilt-ridden,” Carter assessed, dismissing the odd behavior that, frankly, hadn’t struck him at the time as anything other than a complete lack of caring. “Or scared I was going to arrest her on the spot.”
“No, it’s because she couldn’t,” Travis said, heat in his voice. “She has something called agoraphobia, at least that’s what Sarah and Annie think. Hasn’t left the house but once or twice since she moved in and that was well over a year ago, after she arrived here all battered and bruised from her abusive husband. Just think about that for a minute, why don’t you?”
He leaned in closer to hammer his point home without raising his voice. “That front stoop is as far as Raylene can make herself go without having a full-blown panic attack. When she phoned me yesterday, right after calling the sheriff’s office, she’d made it to the sidewalk and was beside herself that she couldn’t take another step. In fact, she was so guilt-ridden, she wanted to move out so the kids would never be at risk again.”
“Maybe she should,” Carter said, though he was beginning to see another side to the story, one he wasn’t quite ready to believe.
Travis’s scowl deepened. “Not happening,” he said emphatically. “For the record, she’s not the babysitter. In fact, she’s the one who insisted we hire someone else to look after the kids because of her panic attacks. She was only alone with them yesterday because Laurie ran to the store for a few minutes.”
Carter had heard of that kind of phobia, but he’d never run across anyone who suffered from it. Agoraphobia had always struck him as some sort of psycho-babble explanation people used as an excuse to avoid things they didn’t want to do. Given how seriously Travis seemed to be taking it in Raylene’s case, maybe he’d been wrong.
Still regarding Travis with skepticism, he said, “Honest to God? You’re sure she’s got a real problem?”
Travis nodded, then slid out of the booth, leaving his menu untouched. Apparently he’d lost his appetite.
“Next time you might want to do a little more investigating before making judgments,” Travis suggested mildly. “People in this town don’t take kindly to newcomers talking trash about one of our own. If you’re going to do any good in this community, you’d do well to remember that.”
He walked away and left Carter feeling like a jerk. Okay, maybe he’d been well intentioned, but he sure as hell hadn’t been fully informed, just the way Travis said. It was a good lesson for him. To his surprise, he realized that even though he hadn’t made a single accusation to Raylene’s face, he felt as if he owed her an apology.
And one of these days, when he’d managed to swallow his pride, he’d have to deliver it in person.
Walter dropped by Sarah’s house on his lunch hour. He’d seen the guilt in Raylene’s eyes the day before, and it had gotten to him. He might not be the most sensitive guy on the face of the earth, but somehow he felt connected to her. They’d both been down some bumpy roads and were still struggling to find their way.
During all the time his relationship with Sarah and his kids had been on shaky ground, Raylene had bridged the gap. She’d talked to him in her frank, un-censored way and made him see his own flaws. If things were better now between him and his ex-wife, it was at least in part due to Raylene. He didn’t want to see her worrying herself sick over what had happened, and he knew, without a doubt, that she would be.