Her Gentle Giant Read online

  "I hope you don't think less of me because I kissed you, though."

  "Not a chance, honey," he reassured, his hand coming up to stroke her hair. "Do you want to know why?"

  She glanced at him shyly. "Yes."

  Hoyt put his hands over hers. "I respect that you didn't want to talk about this, but you're not. I am. And I would be willing to bet that it was Mr. Messier who hurt you. I'm not asking you to confirm or deny that. It's just my hunch."

  She was biting her lip again, and he hated to see that uncertainty creeping into her eyes.

  "You—" she began then took a deep breath, gathering herself. "You're not wrong," she said in a voice that was barely audible.

  He resisted the urge to clutch her to him at that enormous admission, but he settled for squeezing her hand. "Thank you for telling me that. I'm honored that you did."

  She nodded.

  "Did he ever abuse Emmy?"

  Ari shook her head. "H-he would have, if I'd let him."

  Hoyt gasped, and for a long moment, he couldn't speak.

  "You offered yourself up instead, didn't you? To protect her?"

  She didn't say anything, but he saw—rather than felt, as the nerves had been destroyed—a tear drop land on a hand that was more scar tissue than not.

  This time, he didn't try to keep himself from pulling her close, knowing he could never have ignored the impulse. Still, he was in complete control and as considerate and careful of her as he hoped he would always remain. She didn't dissolve into tears or wail or moan as he held her to him, settling her small body comfortably—bonelessly—against him in a way that touched and humbled him to his core.

  He hadn't cried very often in his life, but his eyes filled with tears. He didn't need to know any of the details of what she'd been through—just her admission that she'd been hurt was almost more than he could bear. Yes, he wanted to rip the still beating heart out of the man who was her husband and burn it in front of him, but his most overriding impulse was simply to protect her and make sure she never felt unsafe again.

  And he got that opportunity much sooner than he could ever have anticipated.

  As she sat there on his lap, being hugged and coddled and soothed by him, there was a knock on the door.

  Arianne was across the room before he realized what was going on.

  "That's him," she whispered, sounding as if she was announcing the arrival of Death, himself.

  Chapter 7

  "How do you know that?" Hoyt asked, crossing to stand near her, but not trying to touch her in any way.

  She looked hunted and haunted at the same time, her eyes wild and full of a fear he hoped he never again saw in her eyes.

  He moved to stand in front of her, but she was looking anywhere but at him.

  "Arianne, look at me."

  It took her a long moment, and he repeated himself patiently several times, but eventually, she did.

  "You are not alone in this anymore. I'm here, and I'll take care of you and Emmy. I know that telling you you don't need to be afraid of him any longer is a stupid thing to say, but it's true. I will handle him. You stay right here, okay?"

  He waited until she nodded in agreement, then he handed her his phone. "Call 911, honey. Your husband's going to need it."

  It was a good thing for him to have done—giving her a task to accomplish. As much as she had one eye on him, she also phoned in and asked to have a cruiser come to her address.

  Matt wasn't a patient person. After that unmistakably precise knock, he had rapidly descended into pounding on the door and screaming at and for Arianne.

  Hoyt would have preferred to have had a real weapon on him before he met up with this asshole, but he did tuck a small, serrated kitchen knife into the sleeve that covered his bad arm. People who saw his scars often assumed that he was badly injured and didn't have use of that limb. He had—on occasion, not long after he was discharged from the hospital and was still dealing with residual anger issues—enjoyed proving them very wrong.

  He couldn't imagine that this piece of shit would be any different.

  He stood in front of the door as the pounding and the screaming grew louder and more explicit, took a deep breath, and opened the door, moving to stand almost in the door frame, essentially filling it with his large presence.

  "Who the fuck are you?"

  If Ari hadn't been in partial shock, she might have laughed at the outrage and confusion in his tone. Dr. Messier didn't like being taken off guard.

  Hoyt took a moment to look the guy up and down in as extremely insulting a manner as he could manage. Messier was big, but not as big as he was. He was the office type of dude who had probably been a big man on campus in high school and college but went to seed as soon as possible afterward. He had a pot belly, a round face, but his hair and beard were almost too carefully coiffed.

  Hoyt recognized exactly the kind of jackass who was standing in front of him.

  "You don't need to know who I am. All you need to know is that this is my house, and I do not give you permission to enter it. In fact, I do not give you permission to be on this property or any of my other properties. So, I would suggest you walk away, get into your car, and drive it back to whatever hole you crawled out of," he said clearly, standing there and waiting, knowing that the motherfucker wouldn't be able to resist completely ignoring what he'd said and doing exactly as he pleased.

  And he did, seconds later, laying hands on Hoyt as he tried to get by him. But he couldn't move the bigger man, despite his injuries, so Matt resorted to throwing a big, swinging punch that the ISS could have seen coming. Hoyt got an incredibly amount of satisfaction out of ducking that punch, then, very carefully and precisely, punching the guy.

  As he held his now broken nose, Matt looked at Arianne then screamed at Hoyt, "She is my fucking wife, and I would bet that my kid is somewhere in this shithole, too, and both of their little asses are coming home with me, where they belong, one way or the other!"

  "Keep your voice down, Matt—do you want to wake Emmy?" Arianne called as she stood in the kitchen, wringing her hands.

  "That's right! It was always all about that brat! She always got all of your attention, and there was never anything left over for me!" He practically pounded his chest. "Not that you were any good at fucking anyway, bitch!" He turned his attention back to the man in front of him. "They're mine, and I'm taking them back tonight!"

  Hoyt just grinned at him. A sane person would have taken that for the extremely dangerous sign it was, but this man wasn't that smart—no surprise there at all.

  "You gotta get through me first," he said, almost happily.

  The other guy—who was about three quarters of his size but none of it muscle—returned boldly, "No problem. You punch like a girl. And damn, your face! You look like something out of a goddamn drug induced nightmare! How could you choose a freak show like him over me, you cunt?"

  Hoyt's grin had gotten bigger, especially when her husband came at him again with his silly attempts at hitting him, but it disappeared altogether when he'd used that word in regards to Arianne.

  Messier then tried some fake-assed martial arts stuff on him, but—since Hoyt was a master of nearly all of them—none of his attempted blows actually landed. Even with his gimpy leg, he could easily dodge every move or punch the weak, bloated cocksucker attempted, after broadcasting it months in advance. Really, Hoyt was just playing with the guy, letting him tire himself out before he began to deliver blow after punishing blow, thoroughly enjoying the fact the he had been granted the opportunity to get out his frustrations on the actual cause of Arianne's misery.

  It was his lucky day!

  Matt Messier, however, couldn't quite say the same thing.

  Although he delivered a savage beating, he pulled himself back, physically and mentally—purely for Arianne and Emmy's sakes—and didn't kill him, as he certainly had the ability and Lord knows, the desire to do.

  Full of adrenaline, Hoyt raised himself up
off his knees from where he'd been sitting on the man's chest. It was an athletic move he hadn't been able to pull off since he was injured, and he ignored the pain it caused him that he knew he was going to pay for the next day in favor of walking over to where Arianne was standing there trembling, looking small and vulnerable and afraid all over again.

  As much as he wanted to haul her into his arms and hug her tightly, he stopped a step away from her. "Are you okay?"

  She nodded, but her eyes were on the ground.

  Hoyt reached out and brought them to his. "Are you sure?"

  "Yes," she whispered.

  "I don't think you'll have to worry about him anymore, but I'll be around if he ever bothers you again."

  "I don't think you could get here in time, but thank you for wanting to attempt to, anyway."

  He had some ideas about that, but he didn't say anything at the moment.

  When the police arrived, her husband was still lying in a groaning heap in the entryway.

  The cop that showed up stepped over him on the way to the kitchen.

  "Skip! How they hanging?"

  The officer looked very surprised to see him. "Hoyt Chandler, is that you? Hell, son, you're even uglier than I remember!"

  He and Skip had gone through high school together and were best friends—or they had been until Hoyt had left for the military then come home and become a recluse.

  The two men shook hands.

  "So, tell me about what happened with Sleeping Beauty in the doorway there, huh?"

  Hoyt spun the story a little, but everything he said was basically the truth. "I want to press trespassing charges, as well as assault."

  Skip rubbed his chin. "You might have some problems with the assault part of it—"

  Hoyt held up his ruined hand. "I am but a poor cripple, you know, Skip."

  "My ass. Excuse me, ma'am," he apologized to Ari, who nodded. "Do you corroborate his story, ma'am? Was your husband trespassing, and was Hoyt acting in self-defense? And did you feel threatened, also?"

  "I do, and I did," she whispered. "M-matt threw the first p-punch. Hoyt threw the l-last."

  He turned to her, asking, "Do you mind if I tell him?"

  She shook her head. "No."

  "You correct me if I say anything that you feel isn't right, though, okay, hon?"

  "Yes."

  He turned back to Skip. "She's a little scared. This guy was…" he considered his words carefully, "…about as far from Husband of the Year as he could get, physically and verbally abusive, and she's working on getting rid of him. She moved down here to get away from him, but he followed her, screaming and banging on the door, and eventually saying that he intended to take her and his daughter back with him quote, 'one way or the other', unquote. To where?" Hoyt turned to ask Ari.

  "New York City."

  "Ma'am, have you filed previous charges against your husband for abuse?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Well, it's no open and shut case, but I think if you got a good lawyer, you could make some of it stick. And you could definitely get a restraining order against him, ma'am."

  "Is Tyrrell Jackson still practicing, do you know?" Hoyt asked.

  Skip smiled. "Oh, he'd enjoy the hell out of prosecuting this guy to within an inch of his life. In both states, if you wanted to, probably. His wife was married to a bad guy before him, too."

  Ari started at his inference about herself and Hoyt. "We're not. He's not. We—"

  Hoyt came over to take her hands in his, looking down at her with a small smile on his face. "He doesn't need to know anything more, honey. It's none of his beeswax."

  "Well, man, if you've found someone who makes you happy, I don't know anyone else who deserves it more than you do. You're a gen-you-wine hero—twice now!"

  She wondered what that meant but was feeling too scattered by the events of the evening to ask.

  Skip touched the brim of his hat to her and shook hands with Hoyt just as the ambulance pulled up.

  Within about twenty minutes, they were alone again.

  The knife he'd secreted in his sleeve clattered onto the counter, and then Hoyt began to move around the house as if he was a man with a plan, throwing an order over his shoulder at her. "Pack a suitcase and get some things together for Emmy."

  "Why?" she asked, her voice dull and unemotional.

  He grabbed an afghan off the back of the couch and approached her slowly—watching for any signs of alarm from her—then wrapping it around her, knowing she was in shock emotionally.

  "Because the two of you are going to come live with me for a while—until the trial or whatever happens next is over. You'll feel safer, and I'll feel better having you with me."

  "I can't possibly—"

  Hoyt took a step back from her, in a reversal of their usual dance, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm not asking, honey. My house is more remote, he doesn't know where it is, and it's more easily defensible."

  "Hoyt, we can't—"

  "Yes, you can," he replied implacably. "You're going to work for me, so you were going to end up spending most of your time at my place anyway. This way, I don't have to spend the time you're away from me worrying that that piece of shit is hurting you when it's entirely preventable."

  "But—"

  He raised an eyebrow at her, and she knew she was going to lose this argument. "I'll give you a choice—which I won't often do, just so's you know. Either you guys come live with me, or I move in here."

  "I don't have a place to put you here! There are only two bedrooms." Arianne was certainly hoping that he didn't expect—just because he'd spanked and kissed her—that he was going to move into her room!

  His next sentence relieved her of that concern. "I have a pull-out couch in my living room. We'd switch them out."

  "This house is too small for the three of us."

  "And Luci," he reminded her.

  Arianne sighed in resignation and headed down the hall. She knew she should have put up more of a fight about this, but she was much too frazzled to do it, and frankly, staying somewhere where she could really feel safe—for the first time in a long while—was extremely appealing.

  "You don't have to bring a lot. I'll get some friends to get whatever else you might need tomorrow," he called after her.

  Not wanting to wake Emmy until she absolutely had to, she darted in and out of her room as quietly as possible, gathering what she, too, would need to stay for a while.

  For a little while.

  She did not intend to move in for as long as he had suggested, but she was more grateful than reluctant that he had suggested it. Somehow, she didn't feel as safe here as she had before Matt had shown up. Perhaps safety was really just an illusion.

  But Arianne knew that she did feel safer when Hoyt was around. There was no denying that.

  They worked well together as a team, getting stuff together and then loading it into the back of his truck.

  When they were both back inside, Arianne headed to Teensie's room, but Hoyt caught her arm, letting go of it immediately. "Why don't you let me do that, hmm? You hold the doors for me?"

  He went into her room without turning on the overhead light, using the smaller, dimmer one on her nightstand that had carousel horses that pranced around the base of it.

  Hoyt pulled her covers back, and she stirred but didn't waken. He grabbed the comforter off the bed and bundled her up in it before he lifted her to hold her so that her head was on his shoulder. She was still completely out. He could hear her tiny baby snores, and holding her limp, sleep-warm body against his made his chest tighten painfully, and he walked as carefully as he could out to the truck, so as not to wake her.

  Ari made the rounds of the house, making sure that everything that could be turned off was and everything that could be locked was locked, then she paused a moment before she closed the locked door behind her, wondering if she'd ever be back there again.

  They'd been found, and they really should get on the
road to another place as soon as possible. She'd already had one innocent man—who probably shouldn't have, considering his physical limitations—step in and fight for her. She'd never wanted that. She just wanted to be free of her bastard husband—not put someone else in danger.

  Not that it had looked, at all, as if Hoyt had any problem handling Matt, despite whatever his physical limitations were. It was like watching a cat play with a mouse. Matt was really no match for Hoyt, handicapped or not.

  She was quiet on the ride to his place, but he didn't mind. He was sure she was going over the events of the evening very much like he was, only from an extremely different perspective. She wasn't crying, although she didn't seem to do much of that in general, which made him horrified at the thought that she had probably learned the hard way not to because of the man he'd just beaten up.

  Which, of course, only made him wish he was able to go another several rounds with the guy.

  They reversed the process when they got to his place. She stayed with the truck as much as possible, in case Emmy awoke, but moved things out of the truck and put them on the porch for him.

  She even hefted the heavy suitcase she'd packed for herself that he'd specifically told her to leave, as it was too much for her to try to lift over the back gate of the pickup. He'd come back to get it himself, he'd said.

  She was busy gathering Emmy into her arms when she saw him on the walkway, standing there behind the suitcase, hands on his hips, and giving her that look that she could see, even in the relative darkness, was extremely unhappy.

  "What?" Ari asked innocently as she skirted around him.

  "You just earned spanking number two, Miss Arianne," he informed her firmly.

  "Why?"

  "Is that everything?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. And you know why, missy. Don't play dumb with me." They stood in the foyer, and Hoyt said, "There are three bedrooms, downstairs, and two upstairs. I don't like to go upstairs, for obvious reasons, but you're welcome to move in up there, if you like. But that means you'd be going up and down stairs once you put her to bed every time she wants a drink of water and also worrying about her tumbling down the stairs."