Never Tear Us Apart (Never Tear Us Apart #1)

by Monica Murphy

  I feel like a preteen nursing a crush. This was what Sarah referred to all those years ago. Why she went so boy crazy and wanted to flirt with all of them. I’m not ready to do anything like that, but just watching Ethan stand there waiting for our drinks and checking his phone, his head bent, seeing his hair falling across his forehead, filled me with the sudden urge to push it back . . .

  He glanced over his shoulder, his gaze meeting mine, and a knowing smile curved his lips for the briefest moment. I lifted my head and dropped my arm to the table, my cheeks heating at getting busted, and then I was saved by the barista calling out his name because our drinks were ready.

  Could I make more of a fool of myself? I didn’t have a chance to experience all the dating bumbles and mistakes through middle and high school. I didn’t deal with any of that, and now I have to figure all this stuff out years later.

  I take off the lid of my coffee, watching the steam rise off the thick head of foam. He does the same, popping his lid off, taking the stir stick he must have grabbed when he picked up our order and twirling it in his hot drink, making the light brown liquid swirl.

  “They always make their drinks extra hot here,” he says. “Just a tip.”

  I smile, liking that he said that. It almost implies that he might want to bring me here again someday.

  Maybe. Hopefully.

  Something settles over me; I don’t know how to explain it. This moment just feels so normal, so everyday, and I’m savoring it. I sense that he has no idea who I am. And I’m so fine with that. I don’t want to see the flicker of dismay in his dark brown eyes. Don’t want to watch as sympathy pulls his mouth into an automatic frown and he makes one of those tsk-ing noises. You know what I’m talking about. The ones all of us make just before we say something like . . .

  That’s so awful.

  Or:

  What a tragedy.

  And my favorite one of them all:

  You’re so strong. So lucky you made it out alive!

  I’ve never felt truly lucky. I’m a survivor, yes. Never a victim—God, I hate that word. But lucky? Luck is for those who narrowly miss a car accident or win the lottery, or get a job because the first candidate backed out at the last minute.

  That’s luck. Me suffering through an ordeal no child should ever have to endure only to continue on with her life a shadow of her former self, a sad little adult who feels broken inside? Who’s lonely and craves companionship but doesn’t know how to talk to a stranger, especially a man?

  I don’t consider that lucky. Not at all.

  “How’s your coffee?” Ethan asks and I glance up to find him watching me, his eyes almost owlish behind the glasses. I may be shy and awkward, but I’m not dead.

  The man is gorgeous. That he asked me to have coffee with him is sort of mind blowing.

  “Really good,” I answer with a slight smile, lifting my cup so I can take another sip. I can feel the foam lining my upper lip and I lick it away nervously, feeling like an idiot.

  His gaze darkens, if that’s even possible, and I wonder if it was because he saw my tongue. My heart pounds like a slow, primal throb against my ribs and I wonder . . .

  Could he be attracted to me?

  Am I attracted to him?

  I’ve never been so aware of someone before. It’s like all I want to do is stare at him. Or ask him an endless amount of questions. Then stare at him a little more.

  I’m being ridiculous.

  “How about yours?” I ask, nodding toward his cup. His long fingers are curled around it and I remember how they curled tight into that kid’s T-shirt, trembling with barely restrained violence.

  Another shock of excitement courses through me and I watch in shaky silence as he takes a sip from his white chocolate mocha and smiles at me. “It’s good. I haven’t been here in a while, so I was hoping they wouldn’t disappoint.”

  “I’m definitely not disappointed,” I say with a soft huff of laughter. Am I flirting? I didn’t think I knew how to do that. Maybe it’s just coming naturally.

  “Good.” His eyes squint a little when he smiles and I can’t help but find it attractive. He’s attractive. And large, so broad and tall, with long legs and arms, the muscular shoulders, the wide chest. The round table we’re sitting at is small and his legs seem to sprawl everywhere, taking up every inch of his allotted space and some of mine, too.

  But I don’t scoot my chair away from him. I don’t try to withdraw. I stand my ground, enjoying the way his foot seems to nudge against mine every few minutes, the brush of our jeans-clad legs sending a spark of fire across my skin when it happens. It’s weird, but he feels both familiar and new, comfortable and thrilling, all at once. I don’t get it.

  “So how long have you lived here?” I ask, trying my best to make small talk, something I’m not very good at.

  His eyes slide away from mine to stare out the window at the ocean spread out before us, and he works his jaw. “Um, we came here when I was nine. My family and I.”

  “Oh.” I nod, wondering why he doesn’t seem very comfortable. Have I already blown it? Pried when I shouldn’t have? God, I don’t know how to do this, how to be casual and talk to a guy. I’m freaking pitiful. “Can I ask how old you are?” I’m sure that’s a faux pas, too, but who cares. I’m too curious to worry about it.

  “Twenty-three.” His gaze meets mine once more and he leans across the small table, putting himself into my personal space yet again. It’s like he can’t help himself and I don’t mind, because now I can smell him. Feel the warmth radiating from him in palpable waves. For some reason I want to get close to that warmth. I can’t explain why. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-one,” I answer. And never been kissed. You’re my first real date and you probably don’t even count this as one.

  “A legal adult then.” He leans back in his chair, his gaze still locked on mine. “It’s not all that it’s cracked up to be, is it?”

  I shrug. Take another sip of my drink before I answer. “I don’t feel like an adult, if that’s what you mean. But I’m thankful I’m not a child any longer, either.”

  The light dims in his gaze and for a panic-stricken moment, I wonder if I said too much. “Didn’t have a great childhood?”

  “It was okay when I was really young. Once I hit my teen years . . .” I don’t finish the sentence. I don’t need to. For some reason, I think he might understand. Does anyone think their teen years were easy? Probably not.

  Mine were just abnormally awful.

  “I get it,” he says with a nod, and relief hits me square in the chest when I hear those three words. “Most of the time, being a teenager fucking sucks.”

  I burst out laughing, shocked and pleased by his blatant description. “Well, you don’t mince words.”

  “What’s the point?” He shrugs those broad shoulders. “I’m just being honest.”

  “Are you always honest?” The pointed question makes him pause and I realize that I’m not good at this. Not at all. I ask invasive questions or ones guys don’t want to answer.

  “I try to be,” he says after a moment’s pause. His eyes darken, as if an ominous cloud drifted past them, and I wonder why. “As best that I can.”

  I say nothing. It’s not my place to judge, to have expectations. We’re two people who met over strange circumstances and are now having coffee together. That’s it. Once we’re finished I’ll get in my car and drive back home. Never to see him again. I’m fine with that.

  Really.

  An hour later, I walk her back to her car. The wind had whipped up almost violently while we were inside the coffeehouse, and now it knocks into us as we head down the sidewalk, our heads bent, our bodies leaning forward. She wraps her arms around her middle, a visible shiver racking her body, and I wish I could slip my arm around her shoulders and pull her into me. Share my warmth, hold her close.

  More like I just want to hold her close.

  She stops directly in front of her car and turns
to smile at me tentatively. “Thank you again for the coffee. And the conversation.”

  We’d chatted easily, though at times she’d seemed uncomfortable. She also asked me questions that were tough to answer, which in turn made me uncomfortable. I tried my best to brush it off. Blame it on her not dating much because I know she hasn’t. Being with her, spending time with her one-on-one like I’ve been doing, I can tell.

  It was her question about being honest that got me. Has stuck with me no matter how much I’ve tried to shake it. I’m an asshole for giving her some bogus answer. I’m an asshole liar.

  I should come clean, but how? That’s why I need to walk away and end this. I got what I wanted. Hell, I even rescued her. Saved her from getting her purse stolen. Talked with her, got to know her a little bit and see that she’s doing all right. She will be all right. I know it.

  “Thank you for agreeing to come with me,” I say, taking a step back like I desperately need some space between us, glancing across the street where I parked my car in front of the Mexican restaurant. Like a miracle, it’s still there, though I think I see a ticket clamped under the driver’s-side windshield wiper, fluttering in the wind.

  “Thanks for the coffee. And thank you for helping me earlier, with the purse situation.” She sinks her teeth into her lower lip and I want to groan. It’s like she’s so damn sexy and doesn’t even know it. I know she doesn’t know it. That’s part of the reason she’s so damn appealing. “That could’ve gotten really . . . ugly. I can’t say enough how grateful I am that you did.”

  I take a step closer, forgetting my earlier thought about needing space. Fuck that. I need to be close to her. “I wasn’t going to let those guys hurt you,” I murmur, taking her hand and squeezing gently. It’s like a jolt of electricity passes from my palm to hers and I know she feels it. I see it in the widening of her eyes, the way her fingers curl around mine and tighten just the slightest bit. Like she can’t help herself.

  When we’re around each other, that’s exactly it. We can’t seem to help ourselves. The need to touch her, stand near her, breathe her in, is so strong I can’t fight it. I don’t think she can either.

  She tilts her head back, her gaze meeting mine. She doesn’t say anything and neither do I. We just look at each other, the wind swirling around us, golden-blond tendrils slipping from her ponytail and flying about her face. The sun is lower in the sky, casting her in a pinkish-orange glow, and the words slip past my lips without thought.

  “Can we exchange numbers so you can text me when you’re home safe?”

  Her hand doesn’t stray from mine. “Yes,” she whispers.

  I slowly—reluctantly—release my grip on her hand, reaching into my front pocket to pull out my phone. I open up a new text message and she hesitantly repeats her number to me, which I enter into my phone along with a quick message before I hit send.

  Her phone dings and she pulls it out of her purse, smiling when she sees the message.

  Hi.

  Her fingers flash over the screen of her phone as she sends a reply, and my phone chimes within seconds.

  Thank you. For everything.

  My heart cracks. This girl. She’s burrowed right into it. She tucked herself in the depths of my heart years ago, when I first found her on that dirty mattress, bruised and filthy and so scared. It tore me up, what my father did to her, and I wanted desperately to help her, as if my good deeds could make up for that.

  I don’t think it came close to making up for what he inflicted on her, but I tried my best. I rescued her, yet I was still somehow made out to be the bad guy. Is that what she thinks of me—the old me? That I was involved in my father’s sick, twisted games? That I played a part in all of it? Theories abound over what I did. One is that he used me as a way to lure the girls in. Another is that I gave my dad up so I wouldn’t have to go down with him.

  Those two theories hurt the most. To think she might believe it?

  Just about tears me apart.

  “Enough with the thank yous,” I tell her out loud, making her smile. “You’d better get on the road. How long does it take for you to get home?”

  She hesitates as she returns her phone to her purse, almost like she doesn’t want to tell me. I wait patiently, shoving my hands in my front pockets, watching her. “A little over an hour,” she admits.

  It still blows me away that she lives so close to the so-called scene of the crime. It’s as if she wants to test herself on a daily basis.

  “Then you’d better text me in about ninety minutes.” I give her a stern look and her smile doesn’t waver. In fact, it grows even bigger. “Okay?”

  Katie rolls her eyes in exaggeration. “Okay, I will.”

  “Promise?” The word slips out of me, the one word she always used to repeat to me, and her eyes widen as shock washes over her face.

  “I promise,” she murmurs solemnly, her gaze as wide and blue as the ocean behind us.

  I know without a doubt she won’t break that promise.

  “So let me get this straight.” The detective paused, his gaze locked on mine with cool blue eyes that reminded me of ice.

  His attitude was icy, too. We’d been going at it for a couple of hours. Question after question, the same one asked a different way, again and again, until I felt like I was going to break. Which was exactly what they wanted to do.

  Break me.

  I refused. I might have been exhausted and mentally brain dead, but I tried my best to be completely honest. It was like they were dying for me to confess I was involved with my father’s crimes. As if they were waiting for it, wanting that confession so damn bad they were downright breathless with anticipation.

  But I had nothing to confess beyond bringing Katie to them. I thought they’d be happy, you know? This girl—I saw her on the news just that morning. A missing child report, stating that she disappeared three days ago at the amusement park down on the boardwalk and they believed she’d been abducted. She’d been seen with a man that they described in the most general terms it was almost laughable.

  Three days gone. I found her on the second day. Brought her to the police station on the third day. What the hell happened to her on that first day? How had I missed it? While the detectives left me stewing in my own thoughts when they first brought me here, I pondered the question.

  Where had I been? How had I missed this?

  I racked my brain until it came to me all at once. I’d gone to football practice as usual, then hung out with a friend for a while. We smoked pot and got the munchies, so we raided his kitchen and then watched TV—old-school cartoons that made us laugh hysterically—until his parents came home from work, ruining our good time.

  It was a typical house, typical family, all of it so nice and normal despite our smoking a joint and eating most of their food. Hell, I guess that part was normal, too. What wasn’t normal was having a dad who, while you were taking care of a case of the munchies, kidnapped a twelve-year-old girl and raped her.

  Fucking raped her.

  Remembering the fear in Katie’s eyes, the way she cowered from me when I first entered the storage room, imagining what he did to her, made me want to puke.

  Worse? How realization slowly dawned. The police didn’t see my bringing Katie to them as a rescue. They wanted to believe it was a confession. Dad, of course, was their number-one suspect. I quickly realized I was their second suspect. They believed we were co-conspirators.

  “Get what straight?” I asked wearily. I was so tired of their questions. Well, the one detective’s questions. The other officer sat quietly, taking notes on a yellow legal pad. His writing looked like chicken scratch.

  “That you have no idea where your father is.”

  I slammed my hand on the edge of the table, startling the other detective so bad his pen dragged across the legal pad in a jagged line. “I’ve already told you, I don’t know where he’s at. I left the storage shed with Katie and brought her here.” I paused, wishing I had something to
drink, but I’d drained the soda they brought me over an hour ago. “Is she okay?”

  “She’s as fine as she can be, considering what she’s been through,” the detective snapped. He leaned across the table, his gaze narrowed, his tone menacing. “Let’s cut the bullshit, shall we?”

  I went completely still. They’d been toying with me since they’d brought me in here. Never coming right out and saying it, but I knew what they believed. They had no plans on letting me out of this crappy little room with the beige walls and no windows anytime soon. I’m surprised they hadn’t tossed me in a jail cell already.

  Not like they could send me home. I’d probably get sent to foster care, and that was the last thing I wanted. My house had been roped off and was officially considered a crime scene, overrun with police officers. And my father was nowhere to be found.

  “Just say it,” I murmured, tired of the repeated questions, the irritation that radiated off the both of them in waves. They hated me. Judged by a jury of two, I’d already been tried and convicted by them.

  “Fine. You want to know what we think? Here it is. We believe you were an accessory to the kidnapping and rape of Katherine Watts.” I flinched at the word rape, and at hearing her full name for the first time. “And we’re going to dig and dig and badger the fuck out of you until you finally come clean and tell us exactly what happened. Because you know. We know you know. You’re just a punk asshole, a replica of your dad.”

  “I didn’t do anything.” My voice hitched and I clamped my lips shut. I felt like crying but damn it, I wasn’t a kid. I needed to suck it up. “I brought her here. I wanted to save her.”

  The detective threw back his head and laughed like I’d just said the funniest thing ever. Asshole. I sat on the edge of my chair, tense with anger, my hands clenched into fists, and I lifted them up, resting them on the table. “You didn’t want to save her. You wanted to save your own damn skin. You knew your father was taking too long with her and that something needed to happen before he blew it. So you panicked. Decided the best thing would be to bring Katherine to us, look like the supposed hero and get yourself off the hook. Throw your dad to the wolves and you end up looking like a damn saint.”