Love Bound

by Rebecca Ryan

  Chloe bedded down around eleven. She was quiet and reclusive, and hadn’t said much to me the day before when I first met her. But she looked exhausted. And when Claire offered Chloe her old room, Chloe's eyes rimmed with tears and she wiped her nose on her sleeve. She thanked Claire, but explained she had a room here. That she was offered a job at The Inn. As a chef. A real chef.

  "Breakfast cook," she explained to Claire.

  I had to say "chef" three times before they waved me off. Travis carried Cory home and Devon and Claire had some swift words on the front porch before they embraced. Then, Devon and Laurel walked home with their brother holding the little guy.

  What a family.

  Claire's in the shower now, with bathroom door open.

  I'm on my stomach on the bed, still dressed. "So, surprised?"

  She catches the curtain and pulls it back. "You have no idea. No idea," she says, and disappears again behind the plastic.

  When she arrives next to me, damp and cool and smelling lovely, she spies the shallow square box in the middle of the bed wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with twine. "There's more?"

  "Isn’t it to be expected?" I counter.

  "Why so formal?"

  "Just open it."

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, Claire picks up the box and slowly unwraps it. When she lifts the lid to expose the necklace I made her, she just gasps. "Oh, Finn!"

  "Do you like it?"

  She holds it up and bows her head slightly so I can put it around her neck. "Oh my God, and it’s the green heart sea glass. When did you make this?"

  She holds it in her hand and it looks beautiful. I had set the bluestone she found above the rounded green sea glass all in silver on a thin chain.

  "When you were in the hospital. I had a lot of time on my hands. Besides," and now my voice catches, even though I try to even it out, "it's because of me you had to go through—"

  She says something and then I hear it again. "Come here." She pulls me down next to her on the bed and presses her hands on either side of my face. "You are never to say that again. Ever. It’s not your fault what happened. It’s not." She lifts a hand to her chest. "Look. Look how pretty this is."

  The stone dances when she leans forward, and it reflects the blue in her eyes while the green sea glass—brushed by sand—casts light with a humbled brilliance. It looks beautiful against her golden skin.

  "But—"

  "Stop,” she says. “It was awful. It was scary. I thought I was going to die—"

  I try to pull away from her, to look away. We haven't talked about what happened, hardly at all. All I know is after two sessions, she turned down the rest of the counseling appointments they offered her at the hospital.

  "Hold still, let me finish," she says.

  "Claire, it was just luck. It was luck that we barely got to you in time. You nearly died—"

  She braces my face, shifts, and climbs onto her knees so we are eye to eye. "But I didn't. You, Nic, and Bryce saved me. You did get there in time. Do you know how lucky that makes me?" She pauses, releasing my face as I stare into my lap. "People all over the world suffer terribly. They suffer terrible loss, see their mothers raped in front of them, their brothers and sisters killed, or they live in abject poverty with nowhere to go. Or natural disasters leave them with nothing." Then, leaning forward, she whispers in my ear, "I've been through worse."

  I know she's talking about her parents. The car accident. The long-term effort she had to undertake to keep her family together. The pain she had to negotiate around and stay strong every time she saw grief in her brother's or sisters' eyes.

  I love her.

  I reach for the stone, but she takes my hand and raises it to her lips.

  "You never, ever, need to take on any guilt. Ever. I've done that. I did it for years." She looks right at me, ducking her head to make sure her eyes meet mine. "I used to think I was the reason my mom and dad were killed. I wasn't. It was the judge and alcohol and crappy weather."

  Wiping my face, I reach for the pendant, noticing where I need to crimp the glass more evenly along the edge of the setting.

  She lays a hand on my thigh. "I’ve had people taken away from me. But I've had someone given to me as well."

  "This is us," I explain, and it's just long enough that she can see it dangling. I lay it in my palm and point to the glass heart. "This is our love, holding up and balancing our world of two."

  "Like the blue planet."

  "Our planet," I clarify.

  "I just love it. And I love it more because you made it."

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Claire

  I roll over, still groggy with sleep. Mornings still seem disjunct, unorganized somehow because I have yet to figure out any sort of exercise routine. Devon's too fast for me to run with and I don't want to hold her back. And she's an evening runner.

  Who can run then?

  Then I feel a little tug on the sheets. Outside, the breeze is growing cooler as we shift into autumn. The sun still sparkles, but the ocean is already frigid. I know because I waded in up to my knees. That's about all I could take.

  This morning, as I lie in bed half asleep, I can hear Finn in the bathroom, brushing his teeth. He's shaving. As much as I love that stubble and how sexy it makes him look, after so much kissing and hugging and rubbing, I sometimes end up with a stubble rash.

  I watch him through half-closed eyes. And then I doze off just long enough to be startled when he starts pulling the sheet from across my shoulders. It slides down and all I've got on is a tank top.

  I stretch. "Hey. What's going on?"

  He doesn't usually get up first. As I sit up and peer out the window, I see it's just sunrise. There's a pink strip laced with dark red against the watery horizon line. I feel Finn, hear him move against the bed, and then he sits down, his weight causing my body to dip a little on the mattress.

  "Don't ever get rid of this down mattress," I say. "It's always been my favorite.

  "I won't, even though a third of it is probably bacteria and dirt by now."

  I laugh. "I don't care. It's wonderful."

  "Listen," he says, "you need to get up. We've got stuff to do."

  This time, I turn around and look at him. He's encased in black neoprene.

  I rise on one elbow. "Where'd you get that?"

  Finn starts lifting me out of the bed by the arm.

  I clutch at the sheets. "What are you doing?"

  "Oh, you're going for a morning swim."

  My heart leaps to the back of my throat. "I can't—I cannot do this."

  He leans over and whispers in my ear, "Oh, but you will." After straightening up, he holds out my wetsuit. "We're going to do it every morning. Step by step. Just wading in a little bit at a time until you're ready to swim. Until you're ready to go. You love to swim. And I would hate to think that you'd let somebody like Steven Miller hold power over you. He's a weasel. He's an asshole. And he's gone. And that will never, ever happen to you again. So just go ahead. I want you to test the waters with me. Come out with me. You have to admit, I look pretty hot."

  Despite my quivering thighs, I laugh.

  "Get this on." Finn lets me put a hand on his shoulder as he leans down to help me wedge my legs into the neoprene.

  It fits tight and snug—maybe a little tighter around my hips from lack of exercise. I slip each arm in and he zips me up seemingly rather proud of his tactics. He holds me close enough and my body feels electrified under the neoprene. When he kisses me, his tongue deep inside, he smells like cut limes from the aftershave.

  "Come on," he says. "You're going to be fine."

  Grabbing the hood for his own suit, he tucks his hair all up inside the black neoprene cap and I start laughing. It totally changes the shape of his face.

  As I start tucking my hair up under my own hood, I decide honesty is the best policy. "I will look like a pinhead. It’s why I never let you see me in this in the mornings."

 
His eyes sparkle and despite my fears, this makes me happy. "I love pinheads," he says.

  We joke on the way down, grabbing our thin wet shoes by the back door. The little winding trail to the beach is marked with seashells and stone. I'm trying to be funny and buoyant and keep that lilt in my voice, but as we approach the water, my heart starts to race. I know it's completely a PTSD response and I have no control over it, but I feel ridiculous.

  I slip my feet into wet shoes and step into the water, struggling to look determined.

  I'm a grown woman. I'm a strong swimmer. I can do this.

  This is not a problem.

  And yet my body is telling me: Oh, no, this is a huge problem.

  I step into the sea, the water churning around my knees, at which point I stop. "I don't know if I can do this."

  "You'll be fine. I’m right here," Finn assures me.

  How can I tell him he may not be enough? That I don't know if he will be enough?

  Now, I'm up to my waist. My feet are cold, but my body is warm. I shouldn't have to worry; everything is fine.

  Finn doesn’t touch me, but he's right there. I can see him watching me.

  Then the water is up to my chest, and that's where I freeze. That's when I think I can't go any farther. I reach out to him, my arm swinging in the air, and Finn grabs it.

  Starting to gulp air, I make my point. "I can't do this."

  "But you’re doing it right now," he says. "And I'm right here."

  Again, I want to say but I don't know if you're going to be enough. I don't know if I can do this. And if you're not enough, how awful. How disappointing, how terrible. You'll feel betrayed that I couldn't do this for you.

  My mind starts to coil and spin with these thoughts and panic starts to rise.

  "This is what you do. You do this every morning," he says and then, suddenly, he lets go of my arm and disappears under the water.

  I can't move. I'm standing completely still. My heart slams up against my sternum. Finn is gone and there's just water and me and the hushed muted sound of blood pounding in my ears. Then he surfaces again and blows water from his nose.

  I tremble so hard. "Don’t ever, ever—" but he stops my mouth with a kiss.

  He holds me and puts his face to mine. It's cold, wet. I taste salt on his lips. And he kisses me again.

  My toes lift off the sandy bottom and I wrap my legs around his hips.

  He breaks apart for just a moment and takes a breath. "I want you to think of all these things as we kiss. Of us together. Of our lives together." He touches my chest where the zipper has opened a little. "Of that blue world on top of a heart of sea glass." I see his face—wet, smooth—and his eyes burn into mine. "And think of the little people we could bring into our world. Don’t be afraid." Then he kisses me again, so deep my crotch aches.

  We slip under the water, his mouth still on mine. We are submerged, kissing, and I'm clinging to him. Before I can feel fear, he's standing again, and we break the surface. I'm hanging onto his neck, and we're still kissing. I can feel his heart pounding beneath my hand.

  "Let's do that again." He gasps, and we go under again, though we come back up in an instant—so fast.

  I wanted the kiss to last longer.

  I still have my legs wrapped around him and I grab his face and kiss him back. This time, he remains standing, though currents tug at us from different directions.

  He takes one hand and further unzips the neoprene on my suit. He whispers in my ear, "We're about to take your mind so far away from what happened."

  Suddenly, there is heat between my legs. So much heat, and I'm sloppy with it.

  He slips a hand under the neoprene where my skin is still warm.

  "What are you doing? I can't,” I say. “I can't," but my thighs are shaking, this time, not from the cold.

  "Yes, you can," Finn says. "I will make you forget all of that."

  "What are you doing?" I repeat and then he strokes my nipple with his thumb. I shiver, my sex hot and wet.

  "What I've always wanted to do with you in this ocean." His body is hard, his neck muscles clench, and then he's pulled the wetsuit down around my shoulders.

  I slip my arms out, hanging on to his neck. I drop my arm, unzip my lower zipper and find his with my hand. His erection strains against the neoprene and as soon as it's free he gasps as cold water strikes his cock.

  "Need more time?" I tease.

  "Hell no," he says, helping me onto him.

  I sink down on top of him, his arms under my armpits, my sex stretching to fit him. And then we are so together I want to cry.

  His eyes stay on my face. "I love you, Claire. So damn much."

  And I sink even lower onto him. He inhales sharply.

  We stay like this for a while, a long time, while I slowly take it all in.

  I'm in the water. With him. The sky—wiped of clouds—is wide and blue behind him.

  He is enough.

  I flex my muscles around him and he gasps harder while I cling to him.

  "Jesus, Claire. Stop." He kisses me one more time and gently slides me off him.

  "What are you doing?" I ask as he stuffs my arms back into the wetsuit. I hastily zip up my lower zipper.

  "That was risky." He says. "No protection." There's pause. "Let's go swimming," he says.

  My legs are boneless. I want him so badly—so badly, it must show on my face.

  "You have to swim for it, pinhead," he says, just as my feet touch the bottom again. He pulls me to him and gives me one, long, sweet salty kiss, breaks away with a grin and says, "You want it? You gotta catch me." Then he pushes off with long firm strokes parallel to the shore.

  A challenge. That's it. He knows me so well.

  I zip the suit up to my chin and duck my head. Then, I start paddling. Right stroke, breathe. Left stroke, right stroke, breathe. Left stroke. And then I'm skimming across the top of the water and I can hear him slicing waves with me.

  "There you go. Babe, I love you. Look what you're doing. Look what you're doing!"

  We swim for half a mile and I'm exhausted. I can't believe I used to do a mile swim every morning.

  I falter once, go under, cough and splutter. He catches me immediately and pulls me up. Then we cut in toward the shore.

  Finn holds me around the waist as we stumble in the froth of waves crashing onshore and make our way back.

  He kisses me on the temple when we hit the beach. "You did it," he says. "You did it."

  He's right. I did.

  Looking back, I never once thought of Steven Miller. Or the curling ribbon of dark red trailing into the water. Or the mask on my face. I didn’t think of any of those things.

  All I could think about was Finn. His body. Those muscles in his chest and back and thighs and what I would do to him when I got him back to the house.

  I kiss him once more, just to feel him against me, and know he is mine.

  Epilogue

  Claire

  It's been ten months since it all happened and spring carries tendrils of warm air. The scent of lilacs in full bloom wraps around the house. I think of it now as a house. A house, with my clinic on the first floor.

  For the first time in forever, it feels like home.

  Cory's sitting on top of Salty, bareback, and I'm leading them in a circle in the paddock. Soon, Cory hopes he’ll be able to ride him along the cliff pasture or through the woods to the Christmas tree farm.

  I smile. It’ll be a while before that happens.

  That farm was harvested and replanted in early November and I had my portable imaging machine a month later.

  “An early Christmas present,” Finn had said with a laugh, carrying it up the stairs to our bed.

  It's already saved Tipsy, an eleven-year-old yellow tabby with a festering hairball. It also delivered terrible news to Mr. Pomfroy. Sheila, that beloved, panting, blue-ribbon Cairn Terrier of his, was impregnated by not one but two dogs. And the second father was not a purebred.

&
nbsp; In March, we had the acre of tree stumps pulled and Finn and I worked with several local gardens, gathering up their discards from their new deliveries, buying plants, shrubs, some trees, then blueberry and raspberry bushes for parents and siblings to pick in the garden. Finn commissioned local stone cutters to make some stone benches, and there were a few picnic tables set near the trail to the beach. And then, all over the garden, there were small stones and rocks to make cairns. Places for people to go and just be in the moment. To be in the present and remember their child, their sister, their brother.

  By June, the flowers had bloomed. I told Finn that in another year, the garden would truly be spectacular.

  And Finn and I are together. Every day, he swims with me, except on the really windy, choppy days. Now he's got the neoprene masks and gloves so we can swim comfortably into late fall. Some days, I roll out of bed and I'm the one leading him to the water. It's almost as though I have no need for his strength and yet I do, every day. I'm always grateful he's by my side in the water, swimming, making that effort. That we are partners.

  I am content, and more often than not, my mind and body have a sense of security and profound grounding I can't remember ever having, except maybe when I was a kid and all things seemed possible. It’s hard to believe, but that chronic worry—that worry about something lurking in shadows of the unknown—has disappeared. There are still balls in the air, but I don’t have to worry about them all.

  It’s a new feeling—this feeling of acceptance. Of trust.

  "Hey, you," Finn says, as he comes up and rests his folded arms on the top railing. "Looking smart up there, Cory."

  Cory beams. He continues to surprise us. Going out with Devon to the firehouse on her first day off, to see where she works, should have set him stimming. With all the lights, reflective surfaces, and loud noises. But she said he clung to her hand quietly and then, ten minutes later, told her he had a meeting at The Inn with Finn.

  That's become code for: “Get me outta here—now!”

  It's so funny because Cory picked that up from Chloe, who still doesn’t say much to me. I've heard her say, "I've got a meeting with Finn," using it as an excuse if conversation grows too sticky and trembling with intimacy.