Until You Loved Me (Silver Springs #3)(110)

Savanna’s house had been egged—twice. Someone had driven onto her lawn and peeled out, leaving deep ruts. And someone else had thrown a bottle at her car that’d broken all over the driveway. But she’d never been directly confronted by one of her husband’s victims—only their friends or family or others in the community who were outraged by the assaults. Facing Meredith wasn’t easy. Savanna wished she could melt into the floor and disappear—do anything to avoid this encounter. Meredith didn’t understand. Savanna had watched her on TV with the same compassion and fear all the other women in the area felt. She’d had no idea she was living with the culprit, sleeping with him—and enabling him to operate without suspicion because of the illusion she helped create that he was a good family man. She’d thought he was a good family man, or she wouldn’t have married him!

“Meredith, don’t do this. Let’s go.” Her sister tried to drag her off, but Meredith remained rooted to the spot, eyes shining with outrage.

“Where were you, huh?” she cried. “How could you have missed that your husband was out stalking women at night?”

Abe had been a mining-equipment field-service technician for the last five years of their nine-year marriage, which meant he drove long distances to reach various mines and worked irregular hours. Savanna had believed he was on the road or repairing equipment, like he’d said. She’d had no idea he was out prowling around. Despite what Meredith and everyone else seemed to believe—that simply by being close to him she should’ve been able to spot such a large defect in his character—he’d never done anything significant enough to give himself away.

“I thought... I thought he was doing his job,” she said.

“You believed he was working all those hours?” Meredith scoffed.

“I did.” She hadn’t been checking up on him. She’d been trying to manage the kids, the house and her own job working nine-to-five for a local insurance agent. Besides, Abe always had a ready excuse for when he came home later than expected, a believable excuse. Another piece of equipment had failed and he’d had to drive back to his last location. His truck wouldn’t start, and he’d had to stay over to get a new battery. The weather was too terrible to begin the long trek home.

Were those excuses something a wife should have been leery of?

“Maybe you should’ve paid a little more attention to what was happening in his life,” Meredith snapped.

Savanna began to tremble. “I wish I had. Look, I’d be happy to talk to you—to explain my side so that maybe you could understand. But...please, let’s not do this here, in front of my children.”

Meredith didn’t even glance at Branson and Alia. She was too angry, too eager to inflict some of the pain she’d suffered on Savanna. “Your husband didn’t care about my children when he put his hands around my neck and nearly choked the life out of me. Thanks to him, I haven’t been able to have sex with my own husband since!”

“Meredith!” Her sister gasped, obviously more aware of the children and, likely, the attention this confrontation was drawing.

Alia, Savanna’s six-year-old daughter, pulled on Savanna’s sleeve. “Mommy, why did Daddy choke her?” she whispered loudly, her big blue eyes filling with tears.

“Your father...” Savanna’s throat had tightened to the point where she could scarcely breathe, let alone talk. “He made some poor choices, honey. Like we talked about when he went away, remember?”

“Choices?” Meredith echoed, jumping on that immediately. “That man is pure evil. But keep lying—to them and yourself.”

At that point, Meredith’s sister managed to pull her away. They left Savanna standing in front of the cooler that held the milk and cheese, feeling as if she’d been slugged in the stomach.

“Show’s over,” she mumbled to those who’d stopped to watch the drama unfold and were still lingering.

“The kids at school say Daddy grabbed three women and ripped off their clothes,” Branson said, his voice small as his gaze followed Meredith and her companion to the checkout register at the opposite end of the aisle. “That’s true, isn’t it?”

He wasn’t asking. He was just now realizing that Abe wasn’t innocent as they’d all stubbornly hoped. That her son would have to accept such a terrible truth, especially at his tender age, would’ve broken Savanna’s heart—if it hadn’t already been shattered into a million pieces. “They’ve been talking about your father at school?”

For the most part since Abe’s arrest, Branson had clammed up when it came to discussing his father, pretended as if nothing had changed. Almost every day, Savanna had asked him how things were going at school, and he’d insisted that everything was fine.

This proved otherwise, which made her feel even worse.

Head bowed, he scuffed one sneaker against the other. “Yeah.”

“Mommy?” Alia’s lower lip quivered as she gazed up, looking for reassurance.

Savanna knelt to pull them both into her arms. “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay. You aren’t responsible for what your father did.” She wanted to believe she wasn’t, either, but part of her feared that maybe she had more culpability than she cared to admit. Had she been too gullible, too trusting, as everyone implied?