Chapter 17

“What. The. Hell.” Maddie stood with Tiffany, watching the EMTs take Dan Torrington away from his engagement party on a stretcher.

“Goddamned Jim,” Tiffany muttered, mortified and humiliated by her ex-husband’s tirade. At times like this, she had no idea how she ever could’ve loved him. “What was he hoping to prove by pulling a stunt like this?”

“He looked like he’d been drinking for days.”

“I wondered why he hadn’t called to see Ashleigh in a while. For all his faults, that’s not like him.”

Maddie’s arm came around her. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I guess. Just kind of shocked to see him lose it that way. I had no idea his business was in such bad shape.” Suddenly chilled to the bone despite the warm summer day, Tiffany wrapped her arms around herself protectively. “You don’t suppose Blaine will kill him, do you?”

“I’m sure he’d like to rough him up a bit, but he’d never do that to you or Ashleigh. He’ll go totally by the book on this one because of who Jim is to you.

“He’s nothing to me,” Tiffany said forcefully.

“You know what I mean. He’s still Ashleigh’s father.”

Tiffany knew her sister was right, even though Blaine was already more of a father to Ashleigh than Jim had ever been. Speaking of her husband… He came back into the room, his face stony with anger. When the brown eyes that normally looked at her with nothing but love and lust and tenderness connected with hers, she realized he was incredibly angry. At her.

Tiffany’s stomach ached with apprehension, a feeling that reminded her all too well of her unhappy years with Jim.

“Uh-oh,” Maddie muttered as Blaine crossed the room to them.

“Where is he?” Tiffany asked. “What happened?”

“I turned him over to my people.” His words were clipped and economical, nothing extra offered to calm or soothe her the way he normally did. “He’s on his way to jail, where he belongs. Let’s go.”

With a grimace for her sister, she let her husband lead her from the room. He held the passenger door to his department-issued SUV for her and waited for her to get settled before he slammed it closed. As he stalked around the front of the truck, Tiffany’s nerves skyrocketed into all-too-familiar terrain. She’d spent years with a man whose mercurial temper left her in a constant state of dread over when the next blowup might occur. If a blow up with her new husband were imminent, at least Ashleigh wouldn’t witness it. She was spending the afternoon with Jim’s parents.

Blaine got in the truck and slammed his own door as hard as he’d slammed hers. He pulled out of the parking lot, leaving a cloud of dirt in their wake, and drove to their house in total silence.