Into His Keeping

by Faulkner, Gail

  “Stop that,” he crooned softly. “It’s sexy as hell and you need to go easy on me, woman. I’m a helpless male, you know. Slave to my hormones. Try to be gentle with me, Jill.”

  She burst out laughing at his silly comments. They both knew who was in control and it wasn’t her. He’d called her “woman”. It was almost too much. Laughing up into his smiling face made her dizzy on a cotton candy type of high. His hand moved from her mouth to casually reach around her, pulling her up against his body so he could kick the locker door shut. It was done so fast and smoothly she hadn’t even stopped chuckling before he released her and had a hand on her back again as they walked out of the locker room. She had no idea which direction they were going.

  That was when she knew it didn’t matter if this was some sort of joke. Being the center of Holdin’s attention, even for a little while, was worth it. She’d worry about the crash and burn later.

  He grabbed her hand. “Lunchtime, dollface.” he announced as they strolled into the larger staff room.

  Holding hands meant they were dating. It was the sign that said “Holdin’s woman”. Jill knew it but was to breathlessly shocked and then thrilled to question him. She ate lunch with Holdin and didn’t mind at all as he made introductions. It was nice not to have to sit alone and watch people chat. Being the new hire could have been intimidating in this situation. It was late January and too cold to eat lunch outside. Everyone had to gather here. Holdin put her at ease as simply as that. Not only was she included at the center table, she was accepted as Holdin’s woman.

  There were questions and a few almost nasty comments from some of the other women. Holdin put an end to the nasty comments by acting as if the women had to be joking and then ignoring the subject. The older men around the table could have been more of a problem, Jill realized. Holdin took care of that too. At his side, no one bothered her more than once.

  His attention hadn’t been a joke. No, it was almost the most amazing thing that had ever happened to her. Holdin surrounded her, folding her into his world. She was his woman. His girl from the first day she’d stepped into The Connersville Major Department Store.

  Holdin became the center of Jill’s world in ways that were movie cool, right down to being the type of glossy yet rugged good-looking that graced the pages of GQ. Last year, as a senior in high school, he’d been the star quarterback of the football team, he’d lettered in both track and football. His easy personality made him popular no matter where he was and he made her the instant queen of his world.

  She’d learned that Holdin was taking a year off school to work because his father thought he needed to know what it felt like before going to college. Besides, his dad had been a stock boy in this store before he went to college and considered it a building block to settle the boy down and show him the value of an education. Holdin said his dad was trying to scare him into taking his future seriously and understanding what he’d end up doing for the rest of his life if he didn’t.

  Privately, Jill was pretty sure Holdin didn’t need the scare tactic, but she was glad he was there instead of in his first year of college somewhere. The reasons she was there were much more complicated. Not that she told him that. Her story was well rehearsed and he’d not pressed her on it. When they were alone together, they usually had other things to do.

  She’d never know if she’d made the right choice. Not telling Holdin the truth about her life was probably what sentenced her to the last fifteen years of loneliness. At the time, it had seemed like the only choice. Experience had taught her there was seldom only one choice in anything. At the time, her father had been so paranoid, so protective. He had reason to be just that, but at eighteen, she really should have made some choices for herself. She’d thought she was protecting Holdin with her silence. Perhaps she had managed to give him the gift of safety. Look at what he’d become without her.

  Again in that familiar booth, the past evaporated and Jill reluctantly let it go to focus on the present. She looked up to see the man-child striding back to her from the soda fountain counter. He was now the center of her world. He was the reason she was here on what could only be called a desperate mission. So much like his father, Jill mused as he slid the tall fountain glass of water in front of her. The boy naturally took charge where he could. Strong and tall, he would be the image of his father’s genetic blueprint in a few years.

  “Here’s the ice water. Are you sure you don’t want to sit in the corner booth? It’s not so bright. Right here by the window is too much, Mom.”

  “No. This is fine. Really. I’m fine. A few minutes and we’ll go get a motel room. If you go look in aisle four, I bet they still have an excellent selection of hot rod magazines. I’ll be all right in a minute.”

  “I can sit with you. I’ll look at the magazines later. It’s no biggie, Mom.”

  “Right. How cool is that? Sitting with your mom. Go on.”

  His chuckle was too deep for a fourteen-year-old and his legs too long as he turned and strolled away in a rolling gate. Jill watched him go, partly to keep her head turned away from the afternoon sun streaming in the wide windowpane beside her and partly because she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

  Fear settled into the booth with her as he disappeared out of the little soda fountain that was still part of the old-fashioned department store. Hopelessness whispered around her, bringing the shadows that refused to recede. They were her constant companions and never seemed far away these days. These few short days that pressed down on her. Time was her enemy. Each hour that slipped away was a loss she couldn’t recover.

  Jill remained turned away from the window, shielding her sensitive eyes from the sun. She sat there a moment, looking down at the black-and-white-block linoleum when two large cowboy boots stopped beside her at the table. It took a moment to realize they had not continued moving on. Worn jeans loosely sheathed muscular legs and her eyes reached the knees before it dawned on her that looking higher might involve more drama than she needed right now. It was too soon and much too late. Fate couldn’t be so cruel! But then, had she ever seen a smile from it that wasn’t cruel?

  “Hello, Jilly-girl,” a deep baritone rumbled above her head. The rich tones were foreign and so familiar they grated over her bent head like clawed talons.

  She’d been in town for twenty minutes! This had to be some kind of record for locating the person one is on a wild goose chase to find. Fear washed over her. In its wake resigned endurance settled in for the painful exchange.

  She looked up cautiously. Up the long male legs and over the generous bulge she knew would be below his belt buckle. Up his flat abdomen that showed not even the slightest bulge after fifteen years. His chest was wider, she noted, his neck a bit thicker and then there was his face.

  Looking down at her were those familiar piercing hazel eyes surrounded by seductive dark lashes. His jaw was firmer and the lips above it were not stretched in the mobile grin she remembered. There was a rougher texture to his face that she didn’t remember. It was grim as he gazed down at her. Dark blond hair, still naturally wavy, was tousled on his head. The prince of Connersville still wore his crown. But now he was more like king of the world, she mused in slightly hysterical shock.

  “Hello, Holdin.” She managed to sound almost normal. An amazing feat of will considering how many ways her emotions were trying to fly around her body. She was surprised by the burst of joy stabbing her heart. She’d come here to find this man. Now looking at him shook her to the core.

  “Mind if I have a seat?” he asked seriously.

  “Please do,” Jill responded while silently marveling at how civilized this was.

  “You’re a surprise. Visiting the past?” Holdin asked, his voice icily controlled as he slid into the booth across from her, his big body folding into it with practiced ease.

  “Ah. Something like that,” Jill hedged as she tried to work her way through this moment. She’d imagined it a million times in the last few days, came up wi
th a million different outcomes and still it was starkly terrifying.

  One thing she did know, this was a very public place and there was almost no way to stop the shock that was coming. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you, Holdin. I was planning on calling the ranch this evening…” she trailed off as the reality of sitting across from this man shivered through her again.

  “That’s very thoughtful of you. I’ve been expecting a call for around fifteen years. However, since we’re both here, maybe we could chat now,” he offered calmly. He sounded friendly, but it didn’t disguise the tight set of wide shoulders and almost rigid immobility of his face. Jill knew those signs for what they were. He was clamping down control on his emotions. He had amazing control. He always had it while she felt like an idiot.

  Jill nervously glanced at the department store part of the establishment. “Ah, perhaps it’d be better if we met up later.” She stopped and realized there was no later. Right now was going to happen in full view of anyone who passed by.

  “Later’s not a good time for me. I have some…” Holdin started then stopped as his eyes followed hers and they both watched the lanky young man stroll up to the table.

  Holdin stood slowly as the young man approached them, his eyes measured each stride, the crisp features of a face he couldn’t help but recognize. On that young visage he could see matching hazel eyes, a nose that was Roman straight and lips that weren’t exactly full but not thin. The boy’s jawline was a firm, clean line that jutted out at the moment as he approached the booth.

  “Mom, everything all right?”

  “Ah. Yes, yes it is. Drifter, this is Holdin Powell. Holdin, my son Drifter.”

  Drifter’s jaw clenched in a restrained show of emotion that was as powerful as it was controlled. He held out his hand. “Mr. Powell,” he greeted the tall man before him, and attempted to take control of the situation by initiating the handshake.

  Holdin took the boy’s hand in a firm shake. His eyes sliced to Jill for a brief second charged with unspoken emotions that churned with the heat of molten lava between them. “Your mother didn’t mention her married name, son. However, it’s very nice to meet you, Drifter.”

  “That would be because she never married, sir,” Drifter replied, his young eyes challenging yet defensive as he regarded the older set that studied him.

  Holdin sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, his eyes never leaving the youthful face that so closely mirrored his own. “Jilly-girl, you have something to tell me,” he murmured softly.

  His silky tone rumbled with a thousand unsaid things that made Jill flinch.

  Drifter withdrew his hand and spoke before Jill could. “We were planning to give you a call this evening after my mother had rested. She’s not feeling well. No one intended to spring anything on you, sir. We just pulled into town and she wanted a cool drink.”

  “No one has exactly sprung anything yet. However, when I call you ‘son’, am I being literal?” Holdin asked tightly.

  Jill knew the softer Holdin spoke, the more intense his response to whatever was happening. His amazing control again. He used to baffle her with it.

  Drifter frowned and laid a hand on Jill’s shoulder in a protective move years past his age. “We can be gone in the morning, Mr. Powell. No need to burst a vein over it after all this time. We’re not here to ask you for anything.”

  Apparently Drifter recognized the intensity in Holdin. Briefly Jill speculated on genetic imprinting and such. Her son knew his father was either mad as hell or something equally explosive. Drifter was reacting to the underlying aggression instinctively.

  “Wait a second there. Give me a minute to understand this before you two go pulling another disappearing act. Which your mother is very good at, by the way.” Holdin’s jaw clenched.

  “Please, both of you! This doesn’t have to be a pissing contest. Would you both sit down and let me explain? Sit! Now!” Jill barked at the two glaring males.

  Drifter slid into the booth beside Jill, Holdin folded himself into the seat across from them.

  “I had hoped to do this much more gracefully,” Jill started tiredly, “but life is seldom that kind. I wanted to call you and have a quiet chat about what happened fifteen years ago, not ambush you with information like this. I realize it’s totally unfair to expect you to deal with the reality of a fourteen-year-old son.”

  “Tell me now, Jill.” Holdin glanced around the empty shop. There were several customers in the department store portion and the soda fountain clerk had gone to help one of them. They were relatively alone except for curious glances from people too far away to listen.

  Drifter shifted and focused on his mother. “Mom, are you sure you’re up to this? You need to lie down. We’ve done what we came here to do and I’m fine with it. You don’t have to go on if you don’t want to.”

  “I’m not exactly fine with anything, son. I’d like to hear an explanation,” Holdin interjected firmly.

  “Don’t call me ‘son’.” Drifter’s head snapped back to the man. “I’ve done the math. She was barely eighteen when she got pregnant.” Drifter’s face was a bitter, accusatory mask. “We came here because she wanted to, not me.”

  Jill laid a hand on Drifter’s arm, squeezing in a mother’s message to stop talking. “Drifter! Stop it. This isn’t his fault. It never was. I can’t believe you’re being so rude.”

  “He’s protecting you.” Holdin shifted back, his big body relaxing with a slight smile on his face for the first time. “Don’t worry about it. I understand the instinct. Now, can you please tell me what’s going on? And why he thinks you can’t handle this?”

  Jill heaved a sigh. There was no easy way to do this. “Okay, here’s the really short version of what happened back then. I’ll start there because it directly affects the situation now.

  “My father was a bad guy on the run from worse guys. That’s why we moved around like we did. When I walked in the door after the Fourth of July fireworks show, he already had the car packed. We had to leave. I didn’t want to but I was terrified. Nineteen exhausting hours later and two states away, we had an accident. The car flipped and burned with my father in it.

  “By the time rescue people got there I was the only person to take to the hospital. I was in a coma for fourteen days. There was no identification on me, the car and everything in it had burned. The car’s VIN number showed it was a stolen vehicle from New Orleans. No one had any way to figure out who I was. The only thing they had to go on was the necklace I was wearing with the name Jill spelled out in the charm. Also, I was pregnant.” Jill’s hand went to the neckline of her T-shirt and she smiled softly as her fingers traced the charm beneath the cloth.

  Jill continued. “I woke with no memories. Everyone expected my memories to come back at some point but they didn’t. I wanted to keep my baby so the kind people at the hospital made my approximate age eighteen and put me in a program the city had for inner-city pregnant teens. Since I had no previous identity, I had to get a GED in the months before Drifter was born and qualified for technical education. I became a dental hygienist, a success story for the program and its funding.”

  Holdin’s jaw clenched and he drew in a deep breath. “I should have put my name on the damn necklace,” he growled softly. He felt as if he were holding on to sanity by a thread. The shock of looking into her face today had nearly killed him for a moment. He’d gotten over the fear of that death as he watched a smaller version of himself stroll up to the booth. He’d been almost sure he was going to survive the afternoon but this abbreviated explanation was doing its damnedest to beat the life out of him.

  At his center, each clipped sentence stabbed him. He recognized terrible pain behind the emotionless, unvarnished relating of facts. It was a common tactic used by victims to distance themselves from pain. That simple fact was almost too much for him to bear. Alone and abandoned, the beautiful girl had been forced into being a woman. Not just for herself, but to protect the child she didn�
��t even know how she’d conceived. He should have been there. She was his woman and that had been his baby. Holdin clamped down on the vortex of emotions, afraid she’d try to disappear as the boy wanted if she saw it.

  Jill’s gentle, tired voice continued. “Two weeks ago I had an incident and minor head trauma. When I woke up, I remembered everything.” Jill spread her hands in a shrug. “I couldn’t just call you. I wanted to see this place and we needed to talk face-to-face. It seemed important to do this in person. You deserved to at least meet your son while I could manage it.” Jill leaned back and shut her eyes for a brief second of rest from the emotional storm silently raging around the booth.

  The afternoon sun glaring in on them was beginning to stab at her along with the stress of this little meeting. It was all wrong. She’d imagined telling him so many times in the last few days. None of those times had it been in a rush with these two males growling at each other.