In His Keeping

Her mother had stood anxiously over Doctor Winstead as he examined Ari, almost as if she were afraid he’d miss something in his diagnosis. But other than the scrapes on her hands and knees, all she had suffered was severe bruising to her ribs; nothing was broken.

She’d be sore and stiff for a few days, and he’d advised her to take it easy and not to overdo it, something her mother had firmly said would not be an issue, and then he’d written prescriptions for muscle relaxers and pain medication that her mother had promptly sent out to be filled and delivered within the hour.

Talk of where they’d spend the summer hadn’t even been broached. Her father had spent the afternoon on the phone making quiet calls and she’d purposely not listened in because she didn’t want to know. Guilt still assailed her because she wasn’t a violent person. It went against her every instinct to willingly hurt another human being.

Her father had always worried that she was too soft—like her mother—but he hadn’t worried overly much, because her mother’s sweetness was what had drawn her father to her in the first place. Her father was a hard man. Unyielding. He could be scary when crossed and yet with her mother? He was a completely different man.

The idea of her quiet, delicate, softhearted mother being able to tame the ultimate bad boy had always been a source of amusement for Ari. And he’d often said that he thanked God that Ari hadn’t inherited any of his qualities. He didn’t believe himself a good man when in fact he was the very best sort of man.

But Ginger brought out the best in him and who could fault a man for doing whatever it took to protect his wife and daughter from the harsh realities of life?

Her mother had hinted on a few occasions that her father had not always been the most law-abiding man in the world but that after meeting her he vowed to change. He wanted to be better. For her. He wanted to be worthy. Of her.

Ari thought it was terribly romantic, but at the same time her parents’ marriage had ruined her for ninety-nine percent of the male population, because she wanted what her mother had. A man who’d go to the wall for her. Who’d move heaven and earth to make her happy. To put her needs and desires above his own and to remove any threat to her.

Which explained her lack of a social life. Her actual dates could be counted on one hand. Two hadn’t measured up to her father’s very extensive background check and weren’t men he—or she—wanted to become involved with. The others? There just wasn’t that . . . spark. The spark she saw every time her father laid eyes on his wife. How his face softened with so much love that it made her very soul ache.

She wanted that. And she refused to settle for less even if it meant spending the rest of her life alone. Not to mention she couldn’t imagine many men who would be understanding or tolerant of her special “gift.” Hell, they’d probably run as far and as fast away as possible while making the sign of the cross.

Who could she trust with her secrets anyway? And she refused to have a relationship steeped in secrecy and lies—even ones of omission. If she ever married, her husband would know the full truth about her and he’d accept it without reservation. Which didn’t leave her with many options.

Not wanting to depress herself even further, she flipped on the TV as she snuggled further into bed, the effects of the medication starting to take hold and remove some of the nagging discomfort in her battered body.

But thirty seconds later, she wished she had just gone to sleep when she saw the lead story on the local news, which would no doubt be picked up by bigger networks and by the morning would be on the major media outlets like CNN and Fox News.

She watched in horror as a video, obviously filmed from a phone, replayed the entire confrontation in the parking lot. Damn it, but there must have been someone passing by that stopped and captured the entire whole damning scene.

The anchor’s words were sensationalistic—of course. How one young woman, a teacher at Grover Academy, and God, they even identified her by name, had managed to fend off three attackers in the parking lot of the school.

She knew from her father that he’d arranged for the video monitoring system for the school to be hacked into and to show the actual attack on Ari so there was no question of self-defense but the footage had cut off—an inexplicable “glitch”—when her powers became evident.

Whoever shot this video caught the entire thing from beginning to end.

Panic surged. Her pulse shot up and her throat closed in as anxiety viciously gripped her entire body. The medication that had eased the pain and tension was rendered useless, because the nagging ache was back with a vengeance.

And then the anchor’s next words sent her right over the edge. The video had gone viral, with already a million YouTube hits and countless Facebook shares, and it was being picked up by the AP as everyone expressed shock and awe at what they’d witnessed.

Everything her parents had worked so hard for in the last twenty-four years was wiped out in a single unguarded moment. She was exposed and vulnerable. Her life would be forever changed because of one self-entitled asshole who thought his parents’ money and status would allow him to coast through life unscathed.

She scrambled out of bed, ignoring the sluggish effects of the medication and the pain that shot through her rib cage. She hurried down the hall and quietly knocked on her parents’ bedroom door. When she heard her father’s summons, she opened the door and entered, her hands shaking, her face bloodless. and Her stark fear must have shown on her face, because her mother immediately got up and hugged her and then urged her down on the end of the bed where her mother and father had been sitting up against the headboard.