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Hours after she’d picked Kelsey up from school, Jenny was still shaking. Every time she thought of Maverick at the fence, talking to Kelsey, her heart squeezed.

She’d caused a scene in the classroom, when Betsy had explained what had happened. They hadn’t called her. They’d been worried enough to call the cops, but no one had bothered to call Kelsey’s mother. Just hey, good to see you, and by the way, there was a strange man talking to your daughter at the fence today.

Not a stranger. Maverick. Doing things his way, as usual. She’d been reasonable and far more flexible than he deserved, and goddammit! She’d told him to wait, that she needed time. Three days later, he was stalking Kelsey at school. Talking to her.

She sat on the closed lid of the toilet and watched her little girl playing in the tub, singing nonsense to herself and piling pink bubbles on her head.

“Hey, pixie?”

“Yeah, Mommy?”

“I want to talk to you about what happened at school today.”

Kelsey frowned. “You did mean talk at Miss Betsy.”

“I know. I told her I was sorry.”

“Your sorry was mean talk, too.”

That was true; she’d barely managed to get the words out of her infuriated head. All she’d been thinking through the whole scene was YOU STUPID BITCH YOU STUPID BITCH. In fact, she liked Betsy and Connie and everybody who worked there, and overall, they did a good job of teaching and caring for the kids. But today, they’d dropped the ball, and that ball had been her daughter.

So yeah, she hadn’t been kind, even in apologizing.

“That’s not what I want to talk about, Kelse. I want to talk about what Miss Betsy told me.”

“I talked to a sad man and that was bad.”

“It wasn’t bad, pix. It was unsafe. Do you know why?”

“Stra-nger Da-nger.” She nodded seriously, dipping her head low, and the bubbles slid off her head and over her face. Sputtering, she pushed them away.

This was dicey territory. Maverick was her father. If Jenny did decide to let him into their lives—a much less likely scenario now—then she didn’t want Kelsey to be afraid of him when she was properly introduced. If she’d never seen him, that wouldn’t have been a problem, but now she had, and if Jenny made her think of the ‘sad man’ she’d met—Jenny’s heart had cramped a little at that—as dangerous, things could get complicated when she found out that man was her father.

Fuck you, Mav. Just fuck you for having to get your way every goddamn time.

“Right. You have to be careful when you meet somebody new, and you should always be with somebody you trust when you do. Right?”

“Uh-huh. A good grownup. But he was a good grownup, Mommy. He was nice, and he said to not talk to strangers, just like you say.”

“Why did you talk to him, then, Kelse?”

She shrugged and pushed a boat through the disintegrating bubbles. The water was probably getting cold by now. “I don’t think he’s a stranger, Mommy.”

Jenny’s breath stilled. There was something lurking in her daughter’s statement. Something profound. “Why not?”

Kelsey’s only answer was another shrug. Her attention had returned to her bath toys, and Jenny knew that the conversation was over, whether there had been a resolution or not—and there definitely had not.

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~oOo~

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Once the house was quiet and she was in bed, her room dark and still, Jenny’s mind went haywire. She didn’t know what to do, and all her brain could offer was a constant barrage of questions and images and fears.

If only he had just waited. Just given her the time she’d told him she needed. Just for once, done what she’d said she needed and not what he thought was right.

Sleep was impossible, but she didn’t want to ramble around the creaky old house in the middle of the night, either, so she lay on her back in the center of her bed, perfectly still, staring up at the shadows. The back yard backed onto a rain culvert that was lined with trees, so they had a lot of privacy in that direction. She never closed her bedroom curtains; she didn’t like the closed-in feeling of four solid walls.

The moon was bright, and the trees and leaves, the utility poles and wires, and the skeleton of the old swing set made an elaborate pattern on the ceiling. Some of the shadows moved; others simply shifted with the moon.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d stared without noticing, but one shadow was wrong. It was too thick and heavy to be leaves or wires, and moving too much to be a tree or a pole. As she focused on it, she decided that it was a human being. Somebody was in her back yard.

Rather than go to the window to see—if there was somebody out here, she didn’t want to give up the element of surprise—she eased from her bed and into her closet, leaving all the lights off. By feel, she found the gun box and turned the combination. With her .38 in both her hands and her finger safely across the trigger guard, she left the room, worked her way around all the creaks in the floor, and moved to the back door.

Please let it be Mav. Please let it be Mav. Maverick, she could deal with. She might shoot him anyway, just on principle, but at least she’d know what he was about. A stranger with some other purpose would scare the fuck out of her, and she didn’t know if she’d be able to do what she needed to do.

Taking a big breath and blowing it out, she opened the door and stepped out onto the back porch. It was screened, but the moonlight was almost as bright as sunlight, and she could see the yard clearly. She could see that the dark figure sitting on top of Kelsey’s Little Tikes picnic table with his head in his hands was Maverick.

She went through the screen door and stepped into the yard, keeping her gun aimed. He looked up as the door shut behind her, and then he stood.

Kelsey’s father. The sad man she’d met that afternoon.

The gun shook in her hands, but she steadied her grip and walked toward him, still aiming.

“Are you stupid? What the fuck are you doing out here, Maverick? And after the shit you pulled at school!”

“I taught you how to shoot that thing.”

“And you did a good job, so answer my fucking question before I show you how much I remember.” She cocked the hammer.

“Don’t cock a gun you don’t mean to use, babe.”

Jenny cocked her head, too, challenging him.

He laughed. “Maybe you should. Maybe that’s what needs to happen. Just aim true and get it done. ‘Cuz I can’t fucking deal out here. Not without my family. I got nothing under my feet, Jen. This is freefall.”

“Don’t put this on me, Maverick. Don’t you dare tell me that I’m standing between you and a bullet.”

His mouth quirked up and dropped, a spasm of humor. “Actually, you’re behind the bullet right now.”

She decocked the gun and dropped her aim. “You know what I mean.”

His eyes rested on the lowered gun. “Talk to me, Jen. We can work this out if we can just talk.”

Because he could talk circles around her, and he knew it. She’d get emotional, he’d stay ‘reasonable,’ and she’d start thinking she was being silly. The only thing she’d ever been able to hold him back on—until that final, fateful day—had been her father. And that was because she’d been terrified of what he’d do if she gave in.

And rightly so.

“I told you I needed time.”

“I don’t have time. I’ve been on ice for four years, and now that I’m out, I’m rotting away.”

“Why did you go to her school today?”

If the change in direction threw him, he didn’t show it. “I had to see her. I didn’t mean to talk to her—I just wanted to see her. I needed her to be more than a picture. When she came up to me, I didn’t know what to do.”

“You made everything more complicated. Now you’re a stranger that she’s supposed to be afraid of. I don’t know how to undo that.”

Maverick smiled suddenly and stepped closer. Surprised, Jenny realized that she’d just told him, with other words, that she was willing to try.

Also, she was fucking talking to him. Dammit.

“You need to go, Mav. Go home. I’ll call.”

She turned, meaning to get her ass back inside, but he grabbed her hand, and the touch, its familiarity, set off a chain reaction inside her, like switches going off, up her arm and into her chest.

“Jenny, please. I’m begging. I will kneel if you want me to.”

It was much harder to think while he touched her. He took another step closer, and Friday night at the bar was going to happen all over again. From the day they’d met, her body had craved his. Her heart had craved his. How could she stand up for herself when everything inside her clamored to be consumed by this man?

She took a step back. “Porch. You can’t come inside. We can talk on the porch.”

When she tried to pull her hand free, he tightened his hold and drew her closer. “Thank you.”

He was going to kiss her, and she wasn’t strong enough to resist. “Mav, n—”

His mouth came down on hers, and her whole body wanted to form itself to his and let him have his way.

But her brain held back. She was strong enough, after all. Instead of cleaving to him, her hands went to his chest and shoved, hard, so that he took a step back.

“Dammit, Maverick! If you want a chance to know your daughter, you have got to listen to me. I know you think if we talk you can spin your webs and get me trapped into thinking your way. But here’s how it’s gonna go. I am going to talk. You’re going to shut the hell up and listen—really listen—for once. You start talking over me, and I’m done. Do you understand?”

She didn’t like his grin—well, truthfully, she’d always loved that smirk, but now she understood the patronizing bullshit behind it.

“Do. You. Understand.”

“Oh—you mean I can answer? You told me not to talk.”

“Fuck you and your fucking games.” She turned. He could stay a stranger to Kelsey for all she cared.

“Jenny, Jenny. Sorry. I’m sorry. I understand. I’ll listen.”

She kept walking, but when she got to the porch, she held the screen door open for him.

They sat on the ancient metal glider. She’d freshened the paint and changed the cushions a couple of years ago, but the glider itself had been on this porch longer than Jenny had been on this earth.

Right behind them was her father’s bedroom window. She liked that. He usually slept a heavy sleep aided by medication, but his machines showed that sometimes he was awake in the night. She liked the thought that he might hear them talk. It was unlikely he remembered Maverick’s voice, or who Maverick was, but if he did, he’d hate it.

That was the kind of woman she’d become—petty enough to wish her brain-damaged father a little extra dose of unhappiness. It was probably a good thing that Kelsey had other role models in her life.

Would the man sitting beside her become one of them?

“You still thinking about using that thing?”

“Hmm?”

Maverick nodded at her lap, where her pistol was still in her hand. “Oh.” She set it on the weather-beaten table at her side.

“What do you need me to hear, Jen?”

How to say it all? She hadn’t figured anything out yet; she’d never been able to think clearly about everything, not in four years, and certainly not in these past few days. What did she need to say? What did she want?

Suddenly, she realized that she did know what to say. She had been living it for all of these years, and what she needed and wanted had become clear. Her anger had a source and a purpose.

“Do you know why I cut you out?”

A frown winced across his face. “Yeah. You told me. But I was protecting you.”

She threw her hand up. “Shut up with that. And no, that’s not it—or yeah, it is, but it’s not all of it. It’s bigger than just that day.”

When she paused, he kept his mouth shut. A good sign—normally, he’d leap on the slightest opportunity to take over the talk.

“It’s because what you did that day is who you are. In everything. You always have to have your way. You have to win every fight. The way you see things is the only way that matters, and everybody else is wrong. Your truth is the only one you know. That’s how he was, too.” She tipped her head toward her father’s window.

Maverick’s eyes went wide, and his mouth opened, but he didn’t speak. Good boy.

“I’m not saying you’re just like him. But in that way, you are. I was trained to it, I didn’t know any better, and I let you have your way in almost everything. The one thing I held fast on was how to handle him, and it drove you completely batshit.”

“He abused you, Jen. The way you wanted to handle him was to be his victim.”

Her hands clenched together in her lap. “Shut. Your. Mouth. Last warning.” When he slammed his mouth closed, his lips now sealed in an angry line, she continued, “That doesn’t matter. I think you’re right. I was afraid of him, love and fear and hate and all kinds of crap was all tangled up in me, and I was slow to break away. But I had to do it on my terms. It took me a while to figure that out, and now I need you to see it, too. It had to come from me, when I was ready. If I’d let you do what you wanted, I’d just have been hiding behind you. Moving from the shadow of one man to the next. I needed to get out into the light. I cut you out because you wanted to keep me in your shadow, and you would have done the same thing to Kelsey. I couldn’t have that for my little girl.”

“Our little girl.” The words came out through his still-clenched mouth, barely moving his lips.

She let it slide. “Our little girl.”

With every word she said, Jenny dug more deeply into her own understanding of not only Maverick but herself. She was putting thoughts she’d barely allowed herself to think, ever in her whole life, into words for the first time. Expressing herself in the most real and crucial way. She had to do it right, but what was right? What words, dug from the deepest part of her psyche, would make him understand, when he never had before?

He stared at her, his mouth a grim slash, his eyes blazing at her in the sparse light. He was too angry to hear her; it was obvious. She imagined his head so full of all the words she’d refused to let him speak, all the arguments he thought would make her see things his way, that there was no room for her.

But she had to try. Something fluttering inside her demanded that she try.

“You know, I always thought you’d be a good dad. From the day I saw you at Wal-Mart, standing there with sparkly purses hanging all over you, I thought that. But on the day you beat him, seeing for the first time the violence you were really capable of, and having you completely ignore me when I asked you not to go for him—that day, I saw that maybe you could turn out like him. If enough bad things happened. If I pushed you hard enough, or if our child did. I saw that there was a switch inside you, and if it flipped, you’d be gone and I’d be trapped with another angry stranger. You were gone that day, Mav. Just like my father. He was my daddy until my mom died the way she did. It was after that he turned into what he was.” Her voice broke as a burst of emotion flooded through her, and she cleared her throat and breathed deeply. “You were an angry stranger that day. You were gone. That’s how you left me alone.”

She thought she’d said everything, but she wasn’t sure. She’d said all she knew to say, so she sat back into quiet. Maverick didn’t speak, either, but in the shaded moonlight, Jenny could see a million words warring behind his eyes.

They were quiet for what seemed like hours before he asked, “Can I talk?” His voice was a low growl, like a warning.

She nodded.

He blew out a breath. “I’m trying as hard as I can not to tell you you’re wrong. But I don’t know what else to say. I’m not him, Jenny. I’m just fucking not, and I want to punch him because you think I am.”

Did he see the irony in that? Rather than follow that rabbit hole, she said, “I don’t think you are, Mav.”

“Then what did you just say? I don’t understand.”

“I think you could be. If you don’t learn to listen.”

He stared at her, his eyes jumping with emotion. After a beat, he shook his head. “I don’t know what you want. I listen.”

“You listen to gather ammunition to advance your case. You listen so you can throw my words back at me. You listen so you can catch your chance to take over. You don’t listen to understand.”

“God, that’s so fucking unfair. You think I’m an abusive son of a bitch like your old man. I beat him up because he was abusing you. He fucking punched you while you were eight months pregnant! I was supposed to let that just go?”

“You were supposed to let me handle it!”

“But you weren’t handling it!”

“I was. I had!”

“By letting him get away with it! He needed to pay!”

Jenny opened her mouth to yell back at him that it had been over with her father that day, that she’d been free of him, until Maverick had stormed in and turned her father into one of her children and trapped her with him forever. He’d made her pay, too. And Kelsey.

But she’d said it before. It didn’t matter to him. He couldn’t see it. He couldn’t hear it.

This was hopeless—and comprehension flashed: she’d had real hope. That flutter in her chest—she’d hoped they could work this out and be together again. The family she’d wanted. The one Maverick had promised her. Tears welled up, and Jenny let them fall. “You’re not listening right now. You haven’t listened this whole time.”

He let out another long breath and calmed again. “What do you want, Jenny? Tell me what you want me to do. I will do it. Just please say it straight out.”

“I’ve been saying it straight out. I just laid my heart out, and all you hear is that I was a victim who needed to be saved. You always have to be the hero of the story. You’re not a hero, Mav. You’re a bully.”

Before she could lose her nerve or get pulled into his web again, she stood up and went to the back door, as quickly as she could without running. Behind her, as he realized what she was doing, Maverick jumped up—the glider slammed into the wall behind it.

“Jenny, no! Wait! Talk to me!”

She pushed into the kitchen and slammed the door shut, turning both locks and hooking the chain.

“Jenny! Don’t do this!” He slammed his fists into the door. “Don’t cut me out! Talk to me! Don’t fucking do this!” A heavy thump, and the door rattled hard, then another thump, and another. He was kicking now. “JENNY! NO! LET ME IN!! SHE’S MINE! MINE!”

She’d never heard him yell before. She’d pushed him to an entirely new level of anger and violence. Just like her father. Folding over, Jenny wrapped her hands around herself and sobbed.

“Mommy?” a tiny, frightened voice cut through the din of rage on the other side of the door. Jenny looked up. Kelsey stood there in her yellow shortie pajamas, her hair a nest of wild sleep, clutching Mrs. Fifi, her stuffed kitty. “Mommy, is it Stra-nger Da-nger?”

Was it Stranger Danger? Yes, it was. An angry stranger, shouting and pounding, huffing and puffing, shaking everything down. Everything she’d feared. Since the day he’d beaten her father, Maverick had made her every fear come true.

Jenny ran across the kitchen and picked her daughter up. Hugging her close, she said, “We’ll be okay, pixie. Let’s go to your room. We’ll close up snug in there, and I’ll call somebody to make the angry man go away. Okay?”

Kelsey nodded, staring wide-eyed over Jenny’s shoulder. Jenny grabbed the cordless off its base and dialed 9-1-1 as she hurried to Kelsey’s room and closed the door.

She hadn’t been much older than Kelsey when she’d seen her parents fight for the first, and the last, time. She hadn’t understood anything that had gone on that night.

She’d hidden in her room then, too. This very room.

The night her mother died.