Home to Me

by Bybee, Catherine

  Once they reached the ridgeline, he kept going past the burn areas of the past season’s forest fires, and he found a day camp area that he knew was up there. He was also aware that the place was almost always deserted. In fact, there weren’t any cars in the small lot, and the only thing he could hear once he cut the engine was the wind in the tall trees above his head.

  They walked hand in hand down an overgrown path to a creek that was still flowing after the heavy rains they’d had all winter. It was by no means something they would want to go into, but it did make for a nice sound and a sense of serenity.

  “This is really beautiful, Matt.”

  “I haven’t been up here in a while. Glad to see it’s still being maintained despite the lack of visitors.”

  They found a shade tree, and he stretched out a small blanket he’d rolled up and put on the bike before he left his place.

  She unzipped her new jacket and put it to the side.

  “Have you always ridden a motorcycle?”

  “Yeah. We grew up on them. Dad was a motorcycle cop, and he made sure we all knew how to ride early on.”

  “Even Grace?”

  “Yup. I’m the one who kept it going after we grew up and moved out.” He explained that his father had a bad spill that resulted in a long hospital stay, and his mom nixed family vacations that involved motorcycles, but he’d never lost the passion for riding.

  “You like the adrenaline rush,” she told him.

  He nodded. “Guilty. And it’s in everything I do. My job, the bike, my vacations.”

  They talked for some time about the high-octane adventures he’d been on and how his buddies he’d met through firefighting were all similar in their hobbies. “It’s rare to find a woman who likes it, so imagine my excitement that you’re asking to go out.”

  “I’m probably being naive about the dangers.”

  “There is risk in everything. You minimize that by being smart, wearing the right gear, and paying attention on the road.”

  She handed him a sandwich. “You pay attention to the road, and I’ll be mindful of where I rest my hands.” She peeked over her sunglasses, suggestion written all over her face.

  “I multitask better than most men, feel free to rest your hands wherever they land.”

  They ate lunch in the shade and talked. Erin asked a lot of questions about him. What was his childhood like? The best and worst parts of being a firefighter? The list went on. It dawned on him that she asked another question every time he presented one of his own.

  “Enough about me.”

  “I like talking about you,” she said, smiling.

  He was leaning back on his elbows, the food forgotten. “Did you always want to be an editor?”

  She shook her head, then nodded, and shook it again. “Not of novels. I thought I wanted to be a reporter. I like research and writing. I fell into editing fiction.”

  “Do you like it?”

  She shrugged.

  Matt took that as a no. “So why not get a job as a reporter?”

  “Editing novels is a lot more isolating. Less exposure. Reporting news or writing commentary would mean getting myself out there. And that can’t happen.”

  Because of her ex. “So you just give up on your dreams forever?” He hated that idea.

  Erin looked away and up into the sky. “I’m out here with you on this beautiful day, and for the first time ever I don’t have to wonder if I’m going to do or say something wrong. I feel free. I’m not going to mess that up by exposing myself any more than I have to and risk all that going away. Editing pays my bills. And if it dries up, I’ll figure out something else.”

  “Some reporters make good money.”

  “Name one outside of who you see on TV?”

  He couldn’t name any.

  “Money isn’t everything.”

  “Only people with money say that,” he said.

  Erin nodded. “It’s true. I’ll never drive fancy cars again or shop in Paris. That life came with a huge price tag. I’m much happier baking brownies for my boyfriend and playing with my friend’s dog.”

  He squeezed her hand. “I’ve never been to Paris.”

  She sighed. “It’s fabulous.”

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re not talking about a precollege backpacking experience through Europe?”

  He could see her struggling with her words long before they came out of her mouth. “He, who shall not be named, had money, Matt. Money and influence. And before you ask or assume . . . no, I didn’t marry him for any of that. I was born with a silver spoon and a dad who was just as big of an asshole. He didn’t beat us, but he did ignore us.”

  Lots of questions formed in his head. “Us?”

  She looked at him, looked away.

  “You can trust me.”

  “Sister. I have a sister. She’s older. Married, has a family.” Erin smiled into a memory only she could see. “Barely out of high school she eloped with her first love. My dad pretended to be furious, but he barked about it for all of ten minutes, then moved on to me. Only I was younger so he had to wait. Then at some point he realized that I could become a bargaining chip with his colleagues.”

  Matt narrowed his eyes. “I’m not following you.”

  Erin ran a hand through her hair. “My father introduced me to my ex. In the beginning, the two of them spent almost as much time together as we did. My ex joined me in a dislike for my dad, which made me think we had more in common than we did.”

  Matt sat up. “If your ex hated your dad, why spend time with him?”

  “Pawns in a game of chess. De—my ex suggested we keep my father happy so that he would give me a significant wedding gift.”

  “A wedding gift? Like what, Grandma’s china?”

  She laughed. Matt wasn’t trying to be funny, but Erin was laughing hard.

  “No, Matt. I don’t think my grandmother ever had china. We’re talking shares in a company they were both a part of. It was something my dad had stock in, but really didn’t care about. But Desmond did . . . he wanted—” Erin slapped a hand to her mouth.

  Desmond . . . her ex’s name was Desmond.

  Matt crawled across the blanket and placed both his hands on her knees. “Babe. C’mon. I don’t care. His name means nothing to me.” Yeah, it did. He could now place a name on his punching bag and have at it.

  “I shouldn’t have . . .”

  “What did he want, Erin? What did your ex want that he married you for?”

  “His shares in the company combined with what my father gifted him when we married gave him controlling interest. We got married, and my dad washed his hands of me.”

  “It’s like you were chattel.”

  Erin looked at him. “I could have said no. I cared for my ex in the beginning. He grew up with a single mom who brought men around that treated him poorly. He convinced me that we had a lot in common. And I said yes.”

  Matt could see her kicking herself for that decision. “Did your dad ever find out what a douche you married?”

  “My sister did, and she went to our father. They never talked, and it was rare they ever saw each other, but she realized that in order for me to get away, I was going to need some financial help.”

  “So your dad did step up.”

  Erin started rubbing her hands together. “No. My dad told my sister that life wasn’t fair and for me to grow up and figure out my own problems without running to Daddy.”

  What the fuck? Who did that? “Damn, Erin . . . what did you do?”

  “Promise not to judge me?”

  “I’m judging all kinds of people right now, but you’re not in the pool.”

  She patted her feet. “I sold my shoes.”

  He wasn’t sure he heard that right. “Shoes?”

  She smiled. “I saw this movie where a princess wanted to help out her lover, so she went on a spending spree buying all kinds of things. The prince didn’t care that his wife spent money on stuff, but he was
n’t about to hand her cash. So she sold the stuff and gave the cash to her lover. So . . . I sold my shoes. Desmond would have noticed my jewelry missing, so I sold what he wouldn’t miss. I kept the boxes in the back of my closet and emptied them one at a time until I had enough money to start over.”

  He blinked several times, looked at the sneakers on her feet, and grinned. “Shoes?”

  “Designer shoes. They’re pretty spendy, Matt. Women will pay seventy-five percent of retail on a lightly worn pair of Ralph Laurens.”

  “I’m going to have to look up Ralph when we get home.”

  She started to relax. “Would have been easier and faster to just sell his ring. But my attorney said he might use that against me in the divorce and say it was theft on my part. So I left it in a box on my dresser.”

  “What did your dad get out of it? You said he used you as a pawn.”

  “He lost credibility when my mom ran off and when my sister eloped. He had a new girlfriend who was only a little older than my sister, and she wanted me gone. So when he married me off and made a grand gesture of making sure I was provided for by means of giving Desmond controlling shares in the company, he was praised as the best dad in the world.”

  “What an asshole.”

  “The ugly underbelly of money. I don’t want it. Any of it. Desmond can have the money. They can all rot with it.”

  He clasped her hand with his. “You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met.”

  “A strong woman wouldn’t have allowed herself to be used the way I did.”

  “No, babe. Strong people find themselves in hard situations all the time. How you deal with and get out of them is what really shows your power.”

  He could tell by her expression she wasn’t buying what he was selling.

  “Maybe someday I’ll believe that,” she said.

  Matt pulled her over to him and lay back on the blanket. “Maybe someday I’ll prove it to you.”

  She relaxed against his chest as a summer breeze brushed along their skin.

  “I don’t have a ton,” he told her. “But I could probably take you to Paris if I saved up. Not sure if we can invite Ralph, though.”

  Erin’s slow laughter put a huge smile on his face. And when she looked up, he took advantage of the lips she was offering.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Now that the seeds had been planted, Erin found herself finding reasons not to work. What if she could work behind the scenes as a reporter? Did that kind of thing exist out there? Could she write a column for an online publication? Never meet the people she interviewed in person? Like a fake profile on a dating site, maybe she could reinvent herself again in a world where she could follow that dream.

  Matt had brought her home after their ride and had made love to her in the shower before going home. He’d picked up a shift the next day and needed to sleep. They both knew that wasn’t going to happen if he stayed another night with her.

  She found herself chasing the “What if” rabbit down the Wonderland hole until she fell asleep.

  And she started to dream.

  Erin was walking down a hall wearing shorts and four-inch pumps she’d sold. In her head she kept wondering how it was possible that she had the shoes on her feet. They weren’t even her favorite pair of heels, yet there they were making clicking noises as she walked the endless hall.

  She followed the light and walked through double doors, and Matt was there on his bike telling her to get on. She looked around for her helmet but didn’t find it. Still, Matt beckoned.

  Erin smiled, and her tongue ran over her teeth.

  One was missing and the others didn’t feel right. Like they were moments from falling out of her mouth. She covered her lips, hoping Matt didn’t see her broken smile.

  I’m dreaming.

  Only it felt so real.

  Wind was flying through her hair, which felt wonderful, but she wasn’t wearing a helmet and what happened if they crashed? All her teeth would fall out.

  Wake up.

  She looked over Matt’s shoulder and saw a stop sign. On the right was a car.

  Desmond sat in the driver’s seat.

  “Stop!”

  Erin shot up in bed, her hand reached for her mouth. She pressed on her teeth, sighed, and flopped back against her pillows.

  The clock said three in the morning.

  She rolled back over with her eyes wide open.

  Outside she heard the cry of a coyote, and before long another joined the chorus. The emergency lights outside the house clicked on.

  She covered her ears in hopes of blocking out the sound and falling back to sleep. Twice she dozed, and twice the animals woke her. Giving up, she crawled out of bed and flipped on her porch light to scare the coyotes off.

  It didn’t work.

  Eventually the animals moved on, but by then, Erin was wide awake. Her dream buzzed in her head.

  Back when she was with Desmond, she’d often have dreams of missing teeth, or walking naked in a crowd. The counselor she’d once talked to said it was a sign of insecurity. That the subconscious made you vulnerable in your dreams so you would wake up to what was wrong in your life.

  So why now?

  Things were steady and secure.

  The only thing she could come up with was that she was revealing her truths to Matt. The man was slowly extracting her past from her and making her think about it all over again.

  He was also giving her hope that she had a future that didn’t involve running and hiding. She’d been warned that would happen. The counselors in the program she’d found to help battered wives told her that once she finally felt comfortable, her mind would settle and she’d go through a growing period where she would battle the demons of her past in order to move on. If that didn’t happen, they would always lurk in the shadows threatening the new life she was attempting to live.

  It would seem her toothless dream was the start of her moving on.

  Instead of fearing her dream, she removed a notepad and wrote down her feelings about it. Words of a song drifted in her head. Write it down and it won’t live inside of you.

  So she did. And when she was done, she opened her laptop and researched the phases of letting go of the past.

  The sun crested the horizon in shades of pink, and by the time she finished her first cup of coffee, Erin had five pages of notes and it was almost eight.

  She’d gotten lost in the work of battling her demons.

  Surprisingly, it made her feel good. “I won’t let you control me any longer,” she said to the man in her past.

  “What are you doing now?”

  Matt glanced up from his tablet, met Tom’s eyes, and looked back down. “Wasting time.”

  “Really? You’ve been on that all afternoon.”

  Yeah, they’d had a slow day. He wasn’t complaining.

  Here he thought Desmond was a unique name, one a Google search would pull up very few of and give him some direction.

  He thought wrong.

  He’d looked up Desmond Fleming. Looked up Erin Fleming. Used searches in celebrity weddings, elite magazines. CEOs, Fortune 500 . . . He realized early on that Erin wouldn’t have kept her married last name. In fact, she probably changed it. No telling if Fleming was her maiden name. Again, if he was hiding from someone who had that information, he wouldn’t use it. Erin was smarter than that.

  All he had was her ex-husband’s first name, the fact that he held controlling interest in a company, and that he abused women.

  He needed more information. A birthday . . . a location to start. Something to narrow his search.

  “Earth to Matt?”

  He closed his tablet in frustration. “Sorry.”

  “You’re up to barbeque,” Tom told him.

  Matt unfolded from his seat and tossed his tablet to the side. “On it.”

  Tom shook his head as he walked by. “Woman. Has to be a woman.”

  Matt was at work. Colin was at his house, and Austin
was out with friends.

  Parker pulled a cork out of a bottle of chilled wine while Erin tossed a salad. “Girls’ night. We absolutely have to keep doing this once I’m married.”

  “Yes. You do. Friends are important in the mix. Trust me.”

  Parker poured wine into two glasses and handed one to her. “You speak from experience.”

  “Much as I wish that wasn’t the case.”

  Parker lifted her glass. “Cheers.”

  They sat on the porch as the heat of the day faded.

  “Soooo, Matt?” Parker wasted no time.

  Erin instantly smiled.

  Parker rubbed her hands together and squealed. “Tell me everything. Don’t leave out one detail!”

  She felt like a schoolgirl talking about her first kiss. “I’m blaming the motorcycle. That darn thing is like an oyster on the half shell.”

  For the next hour, Erin told all. From butterflies to orgasm . . . Parker knew every detail. “But what really threw me was how I knew that if I had to throw in the towel and yell watermelon, he would stop. I never doubted that for a second.”

  “It’s the Hudson charm. It’s a real thing.”

  “He’s so darn perfect. Here I come with all kinds of baggage and he’s like, ‘Let me get those for you.’”

  “It’s a Hudson thing. I can’t find a whole lot wrong with Colin either.”

  “Does he snore?”

  “No. Does Matt?”

  “No.” She stared into her wine. “You’d tell me if I was missing something, right?”

  “In a heartbeat. And I’m not just saying that because Matt’s going to be my brother-in-law.”

  “Good,” Erin said. “And I’d do the same. No sugarcoating.”

  They clinked their glasses together as if it were a sacred girl-promise.

  “Damn, I’m happy for you,” Parker said into her glass.

  Erin giggled and put aside her thoughts that she was missing an important undesirable personality trait. “I’m pretty happy for me, too. Is that bad?”