Hope Springs - 05 - Wedding Cake by Lynne Hinton Page B

family.
    “Thanks, Darlene,” Charlotte responded. She turned and walked back to her office. She wanted to make sure that Maria had gotten hold of the nurse and that she was going to be able to stop by.
    Maria met her in the doorway to the office. “Laurie said she can be here in an hour,” she reported.
    “Great,” Charlotte said. She moved over to her desk and sat down.
    “Did he tell you who she was?” Maria asked.
    Charlotte nodded. She knew that Maria was asking about Donovan and referring to the relationship between him and the victim, not just the woman’s name. “He told me she was his ex-wife,” she replied.
    “Is he in any danger?” Maria asked.
    Charlotte looked up at the volunteer. She hadn’t even considered that. Surely, she thought, the abuser knew his wife’s ex-husband. He probably even had guessed that he would be the person she ran to. What if he went looking for Donovan before the police could pick him up? she wondered. “I don’t know,” she answered. “He was sending another officer to make the arrest.”
    Maria paused. “He’s bringing her here then?” she asked.
    Charlotte nodded.
    “You need me to do anything else before they come?” she asked.
    Charlotte considered the question. “We’ll probably need some medical supplies. Can you get the first aid kit from the storage room? The big one,” she added, “the one with the large bandages. And we should probably get towels and some of the old sheets to put over the bed linens.”
    “We don’t know what kind of injuries she has?” Maria asked.
    Charlotte shook her head. “Donovan just said that she was pretty messed up and that she should go to the hospital.”
    Maria considered this information. “I’ll get the Ace bandages from the laundry room.” She had just washed a large stack of them earlier in the day. The shelter went through lots of Ace bandages. There were always sprains and broken bones healing at St. Mary’s. “How about dinner for the others?” she asked.
    “It’s Iris’s turn to cook and the groceries were picked up yesterday, so she’ll take care of that after she and Darlene have cleaned up,” Charlotte replied. “Oh, I knew I needed to be somewhere.” She shook her head, recalling a previously arranged engagement.
    “What?” Maria asked.
    “I need to get Martha and Denise from the bus depot.” She remembered that two of the residents were waiting to be picked up after their day of work, and then she was supposed to pick up Martha’s two children from a day care center not too far away from the depot. She glanced at her watch. She had been planning to pick them up, get the children, and then stop by a local parish to get supplies they had collected during the holidays. She had been trying to get there to pick the supplies up for weeks and just hadn’t found the opportunity. She had forgotten until just at that moment that she had made arrangements to pick things up that evening.
    Maria seemed to read Charlotte’s mind. “I can get Gilbert to go tothat church,” she noted. “He knows exactly where it is and he has a truck,” she volunteered. “And I’ll go get the girls.” Charlotte smiled. “You are the best!”
    “Can I wait at least to see how you look at each other when he gets here with his ex-wife?” Maria asked.
    Charlotte laughed. “No, because Martha and Denise will freeze out there waiting for you if you do.”
    Maria nodded. “Yes, it’s true. It is cold out there. I will leave now to collect them.”
    Charlotte was actually glad that Maria wasn’t going to be around when Donovan showed up. She knew it was going to be awkward. Here was
her
date bringing
his ex-wife
to the battered women’s shelter where
she
worked. She wasn’t sure what to expect, but she would rather face it alone than have her friend watching his every move and then making judgments about what she thought she was seeing.
    “This may be a sign,” Maria said as she gathered her coat and gloves