“No, I haven’t had a chance.” She smiled at him, not mentioning that she hadn’t spoken to Sean for three months.
“Well, I hope he’s in a better mood this time. We practically had to force him to come to dinner a couple of weeks ago, and he spent most of the night snapping our heads off. He’s been so, I don’t know, different lately,” Connie said, and then laughed. “Heck, maybe you being gone is too much for his gentle persona to handle!”
Her mother was teasing, she knew. But she didn’t miss the stare Terrance threw her way. He was boring his eyes right through her as if his leer would extract some hidden truth. If only he knew how much truth was hidden behind her mother’s innocent comment.
“Well, now that things are pretty well under control I think I’ll go for a quick run. Unless you need something else.” Isabelle turned to her mother.
“No, no honey you go on ahead. I envy you; I wish I had the drive that you do when it comes to physical fitness.” Connie patted her rounded hips with a look of disgust.
“A beauty like you needs no fitness regimen. You are a natural goddess.” Terrance wrapped his arms around Connie as she rolled her eyes.
“Flattery will get you everywhere.”
They all laughed and Isabelle ran up the stairs to change into her track suit. It was a little chilly outside today so shorts were not an option. Once she was changed she jogged down the stairs and headed toward the mud room. Digging around in a basket that held her old shoes, she found a pair of Nikes. Once she was laced up and ready to go she headed outside.
Walking down the driveway, she started to bend her arms back to stretch them. She stopped at the driveway’s end, by the sidewalk, and sat to do her leg stretches. Five minutes later and she was on her way.
Her original plan was to just get in a quick run to counteract the massive amount of calories she would be taking in later that day. But once she began and felt the cool air hitting her face, it felt too exhilarating to stop.
Instead of sticking to the surrounding neighborhood she decided to run a little farther. Running down Vine Street, she headed for the little shopping complex that was just a five-minute drive away. It had a little court yard in the center of all of the stores. She could take a few moments to rest there before she headed back.
She was in sight of the supermarket that Terrance had just complained about and smiled at the slew of shoppers entering and exiting the building. They looked like manic cattle rushing in and out in herds. She got to the street crossing and waited for the light to change before continuing on.
Crossing into the complex she passed a coffee shop and headed toward the court yard. She wasn’t aware of who she innocently jogged past. Nor was she aware of the look she got when she did.
“Hey, wasn’t that Izzy who just ran by?” Jake asked Sean.
Sean heard Jake talking but he couldn’t comprehend the words. There she was. She was sweaty and her hair was a mess and she was damn beautiful.
“Yo, Sean. Dude, what is with you?”
“Sorry. Did you just see Izzy go by?” Sean asked still staring at the woman who had all but collapsed on the park bench.
“Uh, yeah. Look, I wasn’t going to say anything but you leave me with no damn choice.” Jake’s tone was anything but pleasant.
Sean stared at him, trying to figure out what the problem was.
“What?”
“You tell me. You haven’t been the same for months now. You not the same person since that night I left you alone with Izzy.” The accusation was evident.
“Excuse me?” Sean was angry.
“You heard me. Spill it. What the hell happened with her? What did you do?” The last sentence was filled with disgust.
“She’s my eighteen-year-old stepsister man, watch your mouth.”
“I know how old she is, damn it. Do you?”
Sean had to hold himself back from punching Jake in the face. It was no secret. He had changed. No matter how much he was aware of it and no matter how many people he overheard talking about it at the precinct, he couldn’t seem to change it. That night he spent with Izzy and their subsequent heart-wrenching goodbye had irrevocably ruined him.
“What the—oh hell!” Sean sat down on a chair outside the café.
Jake gauged his response.
“I knew it. I freaking knew it that night. I could feel the tension. What the hell happened?”
Sean couldn’t look up, couldn’t face his friend, his fellow officer. He already felt like a sick, twisted son of a bitch. He didn’t want to see that same look on Jake’s face.
“Tell me, damn it!” Jake snapped out the words.
“Shit, fine. You wanna know? Because I got to tell you, man, I don’t think you do.” His head still hung down.
“Tell me.” It wasn’t a request, but a demand.
“Jesus, I slept with her. I took a sweet vulnerable girl and I stole her innocence.” Sean’s head was still hanging down but his voice had changed. Every word he uttered was racked with misery.
“You took—she was a virgin?”
Sean nodded.
“You stupid son of a bitch! What the hell’s wrong with you? You’re a fucking cop man. What the hell were you thinking? She’s a damn child.” Jake took a steadying breath before he continued. “Tell me it was only once. That you screwed up and you knew it but you didn’t touch her again.”
Sean kept his head hung down and said nothing.
“Holy shit! You didn’t stop did you? Damn it Sean! I should have never left you two alone. If I had stayed—when did it start, anyway? It was at her prom, wasn’t it? You selfish bastard, you were screwing around with her all summer, weren’t you?”
Sean’s head rose at that. “No, it happened that night you left. Nothing happened before that night, I swear. But not for lack of her trying.”
Jake was about to say something when he caught the meaning of the last sentence.
“What? You mean she was pursuing you?”
Sean nodded.
“I tried, man. For months I tried. She would kiss me, tell me she loved me. She even showed up one time at my place with the intent surprising me by handcuffing herself to my bed. I was even able to turn her away then. But then my resistance faltered. I was freaking weak and I gave in. I know it was wrong, I just—” Sean shook his head and ran the fingers of a hand though his hair.
“Sean, I’m sorry man. I just assumed that you had seduced her. I mean, Izzy is so sweet. I never would have thought—well, I’m sorry I said what I did. This changes everything.” Jake’s tone was friendlier now.
“What could it possibly change? I still did something that I know I shouldn’t have.”
“She was eighteen, right?” Sean nodded at that. “And she pursued you; you weren’t trying to get a seventeen-year-old girl into bed.”
“Shit, is that what you thought?”
“I guess. I mean, I guess I always noticed the way she looked up to you, almost like hero worship or something. And she didn’t seem like the kind of girl to seduce a man. So I just assumed that it was you who did the seducing.” Jake shrugged.
“Yeah, well, it doesn’t much matter. I’m going to hell for it and I’ll be living in a life of agony until that time comes.”
Jake watched Sean and could see the self-loathing in his eyes.
“Dude, it’s not as bad as you think it is. You’re not really related and she was eighteen, not a minor. Give yourself a break. Lord knows that if she had tried to seduce me I wouldn’t have been—.”
Sean slammed his coffee cup down on the little wrought iron table. Grabbing Jake by his shirt he brought their faces within an inch of one another.
“Don’t you even think about it! She’s off limits, got it? She belongs to—look, just make the damn call, all right? And don’t forget. Five minutes after three, no later.”
Jake watched in disbelief as Sean got up from the table and stalked toward his car. That wasn’t like him; Sean didn’t do things like that. He
didn’t lose his cool, ever. Jake looked over at the bench and saw Izzy still sitting there. He had the feeling that there was a lot more going on than Sean was letting on.
* * * *
Isabelle had finished fixing her hair when she heard Sean come in the house. He had been downstairs talking to his father and now he was in the kitchen with her mother. She wanted to go down. She wanted to prove to herself that she could be around him and not want to die from needing him. She took a deep breath and headed out of her bedroom toward the stairs. She had just begun to descend them when she heard the front door close.
She ran down the stairs and was met with her mother.
“Did Sean just leave?” Isabelle asked, hoping she didn’t sound too desperate.
Connie nodded.
“Sorry, honey. He wasn’t here five minutes and one of the officers he works with called him. They’re short for shifts tonight. Some sort of flu bug or something. He had to go in.”
“Oh. Well, that’s too bad.” Don’t do it. Don’t cry again. It’s been months.
“It’ll be fine. I’ll make a plate for him and take it to him tomorrow. You could come with me, you know. I swear every time I stop by his place it’s a disaster. I go over for one thing and spend the rest of the day cleaning and doing laundry.” She tried to sound annoyed but instead smiled. Her mother was always the consummate housekeeper, content in doing menial chores, taking care of the ones she loved.
Go to his house? Where they made love, several times. No way. She was trying to be strong, but she wasn’t stupid. There was no way her heart could take the memories and the pain that would surround her there.
“We’ll see. I was thinking about calling some old friends from school tomorrow. Seeing if any of them wanted to get together.”
“That sounds like a good idea. Come now, help me set the table.” Connie put her arm around Isabelle’s tense shoulders and led her to the dining room. Neither one of them noticed Terrance standing in the doorway to his study. Watching them, and especially watching Izzy.
Terrance walked back into his study and sat in his favorite leather chair. He glanced at the photo of a younger Isabelle standing next to Sean. It had been at her seventeenth birthday party. She was wearing a bracelet than Sean had gotten her and was smiling up at him. Before, it seemed like just a good picture. But now, looking at it, Terrance wondered if it didn’t show more. The look in Isabelle’s eyes did not look like that of a child. He saw something there that he hadn’t noticed in all the times he had looked at it before.
She was in love with his son. She was a child in this photo, but she was in love with an older man. Stranger yet were his son’s distance and mood swings in the past months. And they started right around the time that Isabelle had left for school.
Terrance remembered the morning when they realized she hadn’t come home from a “friend’s” house. She had told Terrance and her mother the night before that she wanted to say goodbye to a friend before she left town. Then the next morning Sean told them that he and Isabelle had fallen asleep watching television.
Why hadn’t Isabelle just said she was going to see Sean before she left? It wouldn’t have been that odd. But knowing that she lied about it made him wonder. A chill ran down his spine as he pondered the possibility. All of the clues were apparent.
She had stayed out all night. Lied about where she had been going. The red, swollen eyes the next day were an obvious sign that she had cried many tears. And Sean, his son, hadn’t been the same person since that night.
“Dear God. Please don’t let it be true,” he said quietly to himself, although deep in his heart he feared that it was.
Chapter Seven
June 2009
Isabelle hung up the phone and felt guilty all over again. Her mother had been so sad when she heard she wasn’t going to come home for her summer break. She had decided to take a job at a local clothing boutique and take some summer classes. She rationalized this to her mother by explaining that if she took a couple extra courses every summer she would probably be able to graduate a year ahead of schedule.
What she hadn’t told her mother was the truth. Although she hadn’t seen Sean for nine months, she still loved him. The hurt was still just as strong and the pain just as fierce. When she had gone back home during Christmas break Sean had devised every possible scenario he could come up with to cancel at the last minute. He hadn’t even been there to open presents with them on Christmas morning.
She was no fool. It was obvious that he was doing everything in his power to avoid her. Even her mother had mentioned to her that it was too bad that his work always seemed to need him the most whenever she was in town. And she still felt the watchful eye of Terrance whenever her mother had mentioned Sean.
She knew that a three-month break from school was more than enough time for fate to play its card, and eventually they would run into each other.
It irritated her that Sean had gone to such lengths to avoid her. But at the same time, she had been thankful she hadn’t had to deal with the pain of seeing him, either. The thought of being near him, knowing that she had bared her soul to him and begged him to want her the way she wanted him, cut her too deeply. No matter how many ways she had tried to be strong, she knew that if she saw him for only a moment she would melt.
And Isabelle melting into a puddle of need would be no good for either one of them.
* * * *
Sean entered his house and was startled to find his father sitting at the kitchen table and he did not look happy as he lifted the beer in his hand to take a giant swig while staring at his son. He was about to say something when his father motioned for him to take a seat.
“Let me put my service revolver away. I’ll be right back.” Sean left the room and went upstairs to his bedroom. He hated this damn room. He slept most nights on the couch. He could still see Izzy lying underneath him while they made love. He swore he could still smell the scent of her passion.
He reached into the top shelf of his closet and pulled out the electronic fire safe he used to keep his gun in while he was off duty. He entered the combination to open the top and gently placed the revolver inside. Then he closed the safe and placed it back on the shelf.
He should have gone straight back down stairs, but he wanted to change and get comfortable. He reached into his closet for a t-shirt and felt an ache when he saw which one he had grabbed. It was the one Izzy had worn the morning he broke her heart. The same morning he broke his own heart.
He couldn’t wear it. He threw it on the top shelf of the closet and hoped that it would stay hidden. He didn’t want any more reminders of that horrible morning after when he pushed Izzy away. He had known such happiness and such contentment that night, only to throw it away the very next morning. He quickly found something else and changed, then headed back down to the kitchen.
Sean walked to the refrigerator and got a beer. He popped the top off and tossed it in the trash before sitting in the chair directly across from his father. He took a pull from his beer and met his father’s steely gaze.
“What’s up, Dad?” He posed the question casually.
“It’s time, Sean,” Terrance said simply.
Sean’s brows bunched together.
“Time? Time for what?”
“Time for you to tell me what happened between you and Izzy.”
Sean’s beer stopped on its way to his mouth. He looked at his dad and then slowly took a drink to quench his suddenly dry mouth. “What do you mean, Dad?”
Terrance chuckled, but not out of humor, but frustration.
“Okay, is that how you’re going to play it? Like when you were a kid and you wouldn’t confess to what you’ve done while you tried to figure out how much I knew?”
Sean shrugged.
“I guess so, because I don’t know what—”
Terrance slammed his beer on the table as it splattered.
“Enough, damn it! I am your father, so do not play with me, boy.”
Terrance released his beer and ran two hands through his hair before continuing. “She’s not coming back, you know. She called her mother today and said she was staying at school to take extra courses.”
“Good for her. We’ve always said she was a smart—”
This time Terrance’s fist hit the table.
“I said not to play with me. I’m losing patience with you.” He hated losing his temper, absolutely hated it. “Look, stop beating around the damn bush all right? I know something happened. I know it just as sure as I know you have avoided her ever since that day she left for school. And I know it just as sure as I know that her blood-shot eyes the day she left for school were because she cried tears over you. So, while I don’t know what happened exactly, I do know that it was something and whatever it was it had to do with you. And now she’s running scared. She’s staying at school to avoid you, just like you’ve been avoiding her.”
Terrance took a moment, swallowed some beer and continued, “Her mother hasn’t caught on yet, but she will if this continues. So what happened? And don’t even think about lying to me.”
Sean sat there and listened to the vehemence in his father’s voice. He couldn’t tell him. His father would be disgusted with him, almost as much as Sean was with himself. Probably more so.
“I’m waiting, Sean.”
Sean took a giant swig of his beer and expelled a huge breath. Here goes.
“I slept with her. I took her to bed.”
Terrance’s eyes widened. He hadn’t expected that. Well, in a way he did, but he had hoped that it was much simpler, something like they kissed or made out. Maybe some touching. But he never in his wildest dreams imagined that the son he raised could do that.
Sean watched the shock in his father’s eyes. It hurt him. He knew now what it was like to be a complete failure in a father’s eyes. He had let him down, just as he had let Izzy down.
“You had sex with your stepsister?” Terrance choked on the words, still in disbelief.
“Yes. I did and I regret it every damn day.”
“Just once? Was it just one night?”
“No and yes.”
“So are you telling me that you didn’t even realize what you were doing was wrong? Because I thought I raised you better than that.” Terrance was past the shock and now angry with his son.
Morgan, Nicole - Love Knows No Boundaries (Siren Publishing Allure) Page 7