He rewards me with a wicked smile that goes straight to my core.
Fifteen minutes later, we’re walking out my front door. While I was showering in my bathroom, Gunnar used the guest bathroom. Somehow, we moved around each other in perfect cadence, like two people who’d been existing in the same space for a long time. It was weird, yet comfortable.
When we pull up in front of the studio, the windows inside are dark and my car is the only one on this side of the street. Gunnar parks behind it and turns off the engine. We both sit in silence for a few moments and then his hand reaches for mine.
“Promise me if you want to talk, you’ll talk to me?” he asks, his gaze meeting mine, eyes pleading. “And I promise I’m not going to push. But I’m here for you, whenever, however, whatever you need.”
“Okay.”
“Want to tell me about yesterday?” His hand gives mine a gentle squeeze of reassurance as I realize I never told him why I was upset or what sent me to the studio. I feel bad. I owed him that much, but when we got to my house, all I could think about was being close to him and letting him take away the day.
“A mother and daughter from the shelter were abducted yesterday,” I tell him, glancing at my phone lying in my lap. There’s nothing on it—no missed call from Helen. “I saw it happen.”
He stills his hand. “I’m sorry . . .I—”
“Why would you be? It’s not your fault,” I tell him, not realizing I’m snapping at him until it’s already out of my mouth. Biting down on my cheek, I wince. I hate that about myself. The way I can just turn on someone. It’s a coping mechanism, I know that, but it’s the worst and it always makes me feel shitty when it happens, and yet, I seem to have no control over it.
When he shifts in his seat, I wait for his departure, thinking he’ll leave me sitting here like he left me standing at the farmer’s market the last time I lashed out at him. “I’m sorry.” Turning toward him, this time I’m the one to reach out to him. “That was rude. You were just being compassionate. I don’t know why I do that.”
“You do it to protect yourself,” he says matter-of-factly. “Maybe a part of you wants to drive me away because it’s easier for you to deal with your emotions when you’re alone.”
I fight back a smile. “Are you sure you didn’t go to college to be a psychologist?”
“No.” He shakes his head, giving me a small smile. “But I’m good at reading people. My mom says it’s a gift. A sixth sense, if you will.”
I nod, admiring Gunnar in the early morning light, soaking him in. He really is beautiful, inside and out. He deserves my trust and honesty. I want to give it to him, but it’s going to take time. “They remind me of my mother and me,” I admit, starting with this small piece of myself. “The mother and child—Lisa and Allie. When I see them together, it’s like I’m transported back to when I was at the shelter.”
Gunnar’s head cocks to one side, but he stays quiet, patiently waiting for more.
“My mother sought shelter there. I was seven. And my first memory was from the day we checked in. Helen gave me a teddy bear. Everything before that is dark and murky. I can’t remember anything before that day.” I want to add, “except for screaming and pain,” but I can’t. Not yet.
Baby steps.
He nods his head, processing the information. Thankfully, there’s no judgment on his face, or worse, pity. He just accepts it and asks, “What about Lisa and Allie? What happened?”
I give him a brief summary of yesterday, starting with me turning off the main road and seeing them walking, and ending with the police officer coming to take the official report.
“I felt helpless and all I could think about was getting to you.”
Instead of saying anything, he draws me to him, enveloping me in his arms. “Thank you,” he whispers, his voice rough at my ear, yet gentle all the same. “For trusting me with this. And for coming to me.”
He keeps me safe in his embrace for a few long moments. I close my eyes and breathe him in, clinging to his t-shirt like a lifeline. We soak each other in, him taking part of my burden and me taking part of his strength. “Is there anything I can do to help?” he asks, pulling back enough that we’re nose to nose.
I shake my head. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do.” His lips brush mine, not in a needy kiss, but a soft reminder—I’m here . . . it’s okay. “The officer who took the report said cases like this are unpredictable, and since I didn’t get a tag number, there’s not a lot to go off of, except her ex, who we don’t have much information about.”
Gunnar grunts his disapproval. “That’s not your fault.”
“I know,” I say with a sigh, leaning back and letting my eyes travel outside of the truck. The sun is fully up, and I know I’m limited for time if I’m going to make it back for the farmer’s market. “I should go.”
“You sure you don’t want to come in for a cup of coffee?” he asks. “Or we could go across the street to the bakery and make Tempest feed us muffins.”
Smiling, I bring my eyes back to him and roam his face, categorizing every perfect imperfection: the scar that’s healing nicely, and another small one under the opposite eye. They remind me of my own, some more noticeable than others. “Another time?” I ask, hoping I can have a rain check.
“You got it.”
There’s a promise there, like he’s planning on holding me to it, and I hope he does.
A few minutes later, I’m sliding into the driver’s seat of my car and waving at Gunnar who’s still standing on the sidewalk looking a little forlorn, and I’m forced to smile. He makes me smile. I give him one last wave and pull away from the curb, slowly, watching him in my rearview mirror.
Never, in my wildest dreams—mostly because I never allowed myself to have dreams, wild or otherwise—did I ever imagine meeting someone like Gunnar Erickson.
He’s an anomaly. A divergence from the path my life was on.
I can already tell that even if he realizes I’m more work than I’m worth, or I decide he’s just too much for me to handle, my life will be separated into two parts: B.G.E. and A.G.E.
Before Gunnar Erickson pushed his way past my walls, and after.
As I make my way out of town, past the Piggly Wiggly and then onto the Parkway, I let my mind wander to what it would be like to completely give myself over to the myriad of feelings and emotions coursing through my body and dominating my brain. It’s so great a departure from my normal compartmentalizing that it scares me, so I turn my attention to the trees instead.
Tennessee is beautiful.
The drive to my mother’s cabin is one of my favorites. It’s off the beaten path, one of her favorite parts about it. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you’ll miss it. She drove me out here a couple of times when I was little. Once, for an entire week. I remember eating peanut butter sandwiches and reading books by candlelight. I was maybe eight or nine. The nights were cold, but we had sleeping bags and she made me wear her oversized sweater that smelled like her—earthy and woodsy with hints of floral.
It’s a good memory.
But now as an adult, I realize it might not have been exactly as I remember it. When you’re a child, you easily believe what adults tell you. Whoever you trust most in life is your beacon, directing you in the right path. But that’s a lot of responsibility and it’s easily abused, used to direct a child’s eyes to the apple in an effort to avoid the snake.
I feel like that’s what my mother did.
She redirected my attention to see what she wanted me to see, to hide the ugly truth. But today, I need her to give me more. At twenty-five years old, I deserve to know the truth.
Driving up the wooded path, I eventually come to the small cabin.
It looks a bit fairytale-ish in the early morning light. The entire front is almost entirely covered in ivy and my mother has plants everywhere—pots and beds and hanging baskets. What doesn’t fit in her greenhouse out back, she has scattered arou
nd the yard. Pausing for a moment in my car before getting out, I appreciate the simplistic beauty.
“Francis?” my mother calls from the porch, a confused and worried expression on her face.
Opening the car door, I step out and grab the bag of groceries that have been in my car since Tuesday night—boxed milk, her favorite cookies, pectin for making jam, and a bag of flour. You know, the basics for hermits. “Hi, Mom.”
“Is everything okay?”
She’s always worried when things are out of order or off-kilter. That’s probably where I get my rigid schedule from. Unlike her, I can adapt when I need to, but she’s a lot less malleable.
“Everything is fine,” I assure her, walking up to the front step of the small porch. “I missed my visit on Thursday and didn’t get to bring you the things you asked for from the store.”
“Oh,” she says, relaxing a little as she wipes her hands on a tattered apron. “Well, in that case, it’s good to see you.”
Taking a second to look her over, making sure she’s taking care of herself, I reply, “I also thought I’d get whatever you have to sell at the farmer’s market. If I hurry, I can make it back into town before everything gets going.”
She smiles, a genuine, full smile. “I found another batch of dandelion jelly,” she announces, like she’s found a hidden treasure. I’ll give it to her, the dandelion jelly is good. It’s so sweet and tastes like honey, but she gets a little overly-excited about her jams and jellies.
“That sold well,” I tell her, following her around to the back of the cabin. “Oh, here’s your money from last week.” Handing her the folded bills, she takes them and peels off the top twenty, just like always, and hands it to me.
I’ve told her time and time again she doesn’t have to pay me, but she insists. Usually, I put it back into her grocery money, which she also tries to pay me for, but I never give her the real total. If she ever decides to get off this piece of property and go to the store for herself, she’d be in for a serious case of sticker shock.
“I also have a few jars of honey,” she says, holding them up to show me. “Make sure you get top dollar for this—no haggling.”
Nodding, I hold out my arms and let her begin to fill them with her goods. “I wanted to ask you something,” I say, figuring now was as good a time as any.
“What’s that?” she asks, standing up and brushing her wild blonde hair out of her face. I almost hate disrupting the soft smile she’s wearing, but I can’t help it. I need answers.
“We weren’t in a car wreck, were we?” That’s always been her story, whenever I asked about the scars. When I was younger and started noticing the marks on my skin, she made up an elaborate story about how we were riding in a car with a friend of hers and a deer ran across the road, sending the vehicle into a tailspin. There was glass and that’s how she explained away the scars.
She blinks her eyes a few times. It’s her tell when she’s covering the truth, so I press.
“I’ve been having these dreams,” I start, swallowing down the thickness in my throat from the flashes of memory, or what I think are memories. “I’m screaming. Well, not me now, but a younger me. I know it’s me,” I say, sitting the jars of honey on the grass at my feet. “I feel it right here.”
My hand goes to the space right under my sternum.
“And then,” I continue. “I started seeing something else . . .” Trailing off, I’m afraid to mention this last part. It’s a new development, and it involves her. It’s more than the phantom pain I feel when the younger Frankie screams in my dreams; this part is worse. “You’re standing in front of me and there’s a man . . . and . . . and he hits you . . .” Every time, over and over. I don’t continue because it’s too painful to repeat; from the look on her face, it’s painful to hear.
When she turns her back to me, facing the greenhouse, my insides grow cold.
I think, deep down, I was hoping she’d tell me it’s a horrible dream—feeding me the lies she’s been telling me my whole life. But she doesn’t. For the first time, she breaks character. No longer is she the delusional mother who lives in the woods.
As she turns back around to face me, she’s a different person—scared, hiding a painful past—and I suddenly feel guilty for making her relive even a small part of it.
“Was that my father?” I ask, needing to go ahead and open the wound.
Sometimes, when an injury doesn’t heal properly, the only thing you can do is cut it open, clean out the infection, and start over.
Her solemn nod is all I get. Without another word, she hands me a crate loaded down with jars and walks away. Before I can even get around to the front, she’s inside with the door shut.
I could push for more, but this is the most honest she’s been with me in eighteen years. So, I take what she’s given, bits of the truth and her jars, and climb back in my car.
When I make my way back to town, I turn off the main road and instinctively glance in my rearview mirror, noticing a bike trailing me. Initially, my heart jumps into my throat, wondering how long it’s been following me, but assure myself I would’ve seen him if he’d been there long.
Regardless, I had to look both ways before getting back on the Parkway. I would’ve seen him then, which means he had to have started following me after that. So, I take comfort in knowing he didn’t see where I’d been.
It’s not until I pull off at an abandoned gas station that I’m even sure it’s an Iron Wraith. But when the bike follows me, I know. However, I don’t recognize the man who pulls up behind my car. He’s older than the ones who usually track me down. His leather cut is a bit more worn. And there’s a difference in his gait as he approaches the car. It’s not demanding or threatening, and for some reason, that puts me on edge. Because like my mother, I always like to know what to expect, and this isn’t it.
“Frankie,” he says with a nod as he comes into my line of sight. I’d already rolled my window down, ready to get this over with. I don’t care what they want today; I’m not going with him. My emotions are at the surface as it is and I’m not interested in having them boil over.
Turning to look at him, I squint against the morning sun. “Do I know you?” I ask, an edge to my voice.
He chuckles, shaking his head as he stands up straight and looks out toward the road. “You don’t want to, but I know you.”
The way he says it has the hairs on my arms standing to attention. It sounds lethal and brooks no argument. Then he adds, “I know your mama, too.”
This has me turning in my seat and reaching for the door handle. I don’t know what I’m planning on doing when I get out of my car, but I feel the need to stand up to him and find out exactly how he knows my mother.
Could he be my father?
“Stay in the fucking car,” he growls. His tone isn’t as aggressive as his words. He sounds more put out that he’s standing here talking to me than anything. “And before you ask, no, I’m not your daddy.”
My chest deflates as I lean back against the seat. I don’t know if I’m relieved or disappointed with that bit of information. Maybe a little of both. I’m exhausted for sure, and ready for this whole thing to be over with, but I don’t know how to end it without the truth. “Who is?”
Again, he shakes his head and paces beside my car, kicking up rocks as he goes. “You don’t really want to know. You think you do—but you don’t. Won’t matter anyhow.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, my voice rising with the anger. “I’m sick and tired of the bullshit and lies.” Hitting the steering wheel with the palms of my hands, I let out a growl of frustration. “I don’t want to do it anymore—patch up your stupid club members. I’m done.”
“That’s good, because it’s over.” He stops, hands on his hips, exposing what looks like the butt of a gun in the waistband of his jeans. I swallow, feeling the familiar burning sensation in the pit of my stomach. What does he plan on doing with that?
He follows my l
ine of sight and smirks, chuckling lowly. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, not planning on using that today. Not right now, anyway.”
“What’s over?” I ask, going back to his statement.
“You’re no longer the doctor on call,” he says. “No one will come looking for you, but you have to promise me one thing.”
It’s over.
How will I get my answers?
How will I ever know who my father is?
How will I know the missing pieces?
“What?” I finally ask, feeling more tired than I have in a long time.
“Drop it. Don’t come snooping around the Dragon. I don’t want to see you anywhere near the compound.”
“And if I do?” I ask, feeling brave and out of fucks to give.
He doesn’t give me a verbal answer. He just pulls his leather vest back to expose the gun, the steel gleaming in the sunlight.
Chapter 19
Gunnar
“So, you’re coming to the benefit?” I ask, kissing the top of Frankie’s head, breathing her in. I make it a point not to call it a fight. After the first few times I brought it up and she winced at the term, I changed my tactic. If she keeps the word “benefit” in mind, remembering it’s for the shelter, it helps her compartmentalize, as she calls it.
I’m all for whatever makes her comfortable.
“I said I’d be there,” she says, turning into my side and wrapping her arms around my torso. “I’ll be there.”
Over the past week, since our first night together, Frankie’s been . . . different.
When she met me at the farmer’s market after visiting her mom last Saturday, I could tell something happened. I said I wasn’t going to pry, so I’m not. It’s taking every ounce of self-discipline that’s been drilled into me over the years, but somehow I’ve refrained.
The only thing she told me was that her mother shared something about her past and she’s processing. As long as that doesn’t include pushing me away again, I’m good with it.
Beef Cake (Donner Bakery Book 4) Page 14