Rhapsody (The Bellator Saga Book 5)

by Cecilia London

  “Very, very good,” she whispered.

  Chapter Eleven

  Caroline stared at Jack as he pulled a polo over his head. He didn’t seem to care that she watched him get ready in the mornings. If he did, he probably wouldn’t do it in the bedroom. He never revealed much but the mystery was part of the appeal. He’d come in after his shower almost fully clothed, wearing an undershirt and pants, maybe taking the time to debate what shirt to wear or what shoes to put on. And she’d watch him, fascinated, wondering if he noticed her rapt attention.

  “You look nice,” she said.

  Jack tucked the shirt into his jeans. “You like this?”

  It was simple, and gray, and poorly ironed, but it looked fantastic on him. “Yeah.”

  He grinned at her. “No accounting for taste.”

  “I guess not. Since when do you wear jeans?”

  “We’re a little more casual here.”

  Well, yeah, but he usually wore khakis or dress pants. “I can’t remember the last time you wore them,” she said.

  “Probably when I was at some county fair in Pennsylvania pandering to the masses.”

  “And then you’d get powdered sugar all over them when you very reluctantly ate a funnel cake?”

  He laughed. “Yes. Just like that.”

  Caroline nestled deeper into the covers. “Are you going somewhere?”

  “I thought I’d check in with my staff, maybe pick up a few items at the commissary. It occurred to me you might want to do some baking to stay occupied.”

  It wasn’t the worst idea in the world. But she felt a little bummed that he was leaving the apartment. She’d gotten used to having him around. “That’s nice of you.”

  Jack took a seat on the bed next to her. “That’s why I’m here. To be nice to you.”

  She sat up. “Remember that time I baked you that strawberry rhubarb pie and forgot to add the sugar?”

  He made a face. “Yes.”

  Caroline smiled. A random memory, but a terribly amusing one. He’d scraped the rest of the pie into the garbage when he thought she wasn’t looking, but choked down an entire piece before doing so. “You pretended not to notice. That was sweet.”

  “If I get you baking ingredients, do me a favor and double check your recipe before putting the thing in the oven. Okay?”

  He seemed frustrated about something. Was he remembering how horrible the pie had tasted? She reached over to fasten the bottom button on his polo. “Okay.”

  “Too sloppy?” he asked, indicating the shirt.

  “We want you looking dapper if you’re going to see your staff.”

  Jack sighed. “You’re being awfully nice today. How long is this phase going to last?”

  And now she was back to feeling guilty. “I don’t know,” she admitted.

  “At least you’re honest about it.” He kissed her cheek before standing up. “I’m going to take advantage of your good mood while it holds. We could go to the lake when I get back. Would you like that?”

  She’d heard worse ideas. “Sure,” Caroline said.

  “I can pack a picnic lunch. We could walk or drive, your call.”

  “Walking is fine.”

  Jack smiled at her. “You don’t need to sound so enthused.”

  She rubbed her eyes. Her hot was starting to run cold, whether she intended it or not. “I’m sorry. I’m sure we’ll have a wonderful time.”

  “I’m sure we will.”

  * * * * *

  It was comfortable out, maybe eighty degrees. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, but that wasn’t unusual for October in southern California. Caroline munched on a peach while Jack skimmed some rocks into the lake. He could barely make them skip twice before they plopped into the water, and it almost made her laugh. She had no doubt he would have done very poorly with some of the training she’d had to go through, what with it being outside and all. He ran out of flat stones and came over to where she was sitting in the grass.

  They had the entire lake to themselves. Whether that was because everyone else was on duty or Jack had somehow reserved the space just for them, she didn’t know. And she wasn’t going to ask.

  “This was a good idea,” she told him. “Thanks for bringing me here.”

  Jack sat down next to her on the blanket he’d laid out, grabbing a handful of grapes. “Now’s the time to make fun of my inability to skip stones.”

  She must not have done a very good job of masking her reactions. “I wasn’t going to do that.”

  “I saw your face. You were trying your damndest not to laugh.”

  A terrible job. “I wasn’t-”

  He grinned at her. “Fess up, Caroline.”

  At least he didn’t seem mad about it. “Fine. It amazes me that a man who played high Division I basketball can’t even get a rock a tenth of the way across a tiny lake.”

  “Some of them skipped more than twice,” he said.

  He was a touch defensive. That was cute. “Reminds me of the time you threw the ceremonial first pitch at that Phillies game and they told you they were going to ask your wife to do it the next year instead.”

  Jack chuckled. “I remember. And the Harrisburg Senators loved you. Remember all the games you’d force me to go to?”

  “Yeah. I miss baseball.” Caroline smiled. “Are you just some sort of basketball genius who can’t do anything else remotely athletic?”

  He popped a grape into his mouth. “Pretty much. Plus I’m old now.”

  “You are not.”

  “Older than I was.”

  Caroline thought for a moment. “You’re fifty-four, right?”

  He smiled. “Until January. Good to know you can still do math.”

  She blushed. “I forgot how old I was last month.”

  “Even better, then.”

  “That I can remember how old you are, and not my own age?”

  He laughed. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to take it as a compliment.”

  Caroline looked down at her feet and didn’t say anything.

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “That joke was a bit off.”

  As was the entire conversation. “My sense of humor is a little off now, too.”

  “I noticed. You’re forty-three, by the way.”

  She hadn’t forgotten. Maybe that was a good sign. “Figured that out after thinking a little bit.”

  “Does that happen a lot?”

  “More than I care to dwell upon.”

  “Maybe it will get better.”

  She shook her head. “I doubt it.”

  “Does it frustrate you?”

  Caroline gave him a half smile. “What do you think?”

  “You’d never forget anything important,” Jack said.

  Was he kidding? “Oh, I think my date of birth is pretty fucking important, don’t you?”

  “Do you remember my birthday?”

  She thought for a moment. “January seventeenth?”

  He squeezed her hand. “Very good. See, you do remember the important things.”

  It took all her strength not to roll her eyes at him. “Good thing we’ve got this place to ourselves. Your ego is taking up most of the lakefront.”

  “That’s true no matter where we are.”

  “Do you ever think about how the hell we got here?” Caroline asked. “From first pitches and campaign appearances and fundraisers to wondering whether American democracy will ever be restored?”

  “Sometimes. It’s a perfect storm of issues. A lot of things happened that we didn’t notice were going on until it was too late. And now here we are.”

  “Yeah,” Caroline said. “Here we are, so far away from home.”

  “This is our home now.”

  Did he really believe that? “Doesn’t feel that way.”

  “It will, eventually.”

  Was he trying to convince her, or himself? “What if I don’t want it to?”

  “Then I guess you’d better help me overthrow that assh
ole in Washington.”

  She smiled at him again. “I’ll do my best.”

  “Good.”

  Caroline stared out over the water. “Adeline Allen was part of the rebellion.”

  Jack turned to her, surprised. “Really?”

  Where had that come from? She couldn’t take it back. “Bob told me, or he alluded to it when we-” She shuddered, remembering that day. She didn’t want to remember anything else.

  “He was in that place with you?” Jack asked quietly.

  “Yeah,” she said. “A lot of people were there with me. That’s how I know – I mean, they aren’t-” Her voice hitched. “I shouldn’t have brought this up.”

  “Do you feel comfortable telling me who you saw while you were there?”

  When all she wanted to do was stuff that thought back inside her brain? “Not really.”

  “Will you tell me anyway? Just give me a little.”

  She scrunched up her legs, wrapping her arms around her knees. “Bob,” she said softly, though that answer was probably pretty obvious. “Ellie. Jen. And there were others I never saw, but I knew they’d been there.” She choked back a sob. “Katie.”

  “Did they-”

  “I can’t tell you much beyond that. I’m not ready yet.”

  Jack put his arm around her. “I understand.”

  She hugged her knees tighter. “They haunt my dreams.”

  “I know they do.”

  “Do I talk about them?”

  “You don’t mention names, but what you’ve said in your sleep suddenly makes a lot more sense.”

  Shit. She didn’t want to begin to think about what she might have said. “I haven’t had any nightmares lately. At least, none that I remember.”

  “I think that’s a good thing.”

  Caroline shuddered. “Why do you think I got out and they didn’t?”

  “There are no easy explanations for these things, sweetheart. But you shouldn’t feel guilty about it. They wouldn’t want you to.”

  “I know.”

  Jack squeezed her shoulder. “But you will anyway, won’t you?”

  The closeness was too much. She shrugged away from him. “Yeah,” she said, gazing off into the distance again.

  “I still find myself wishing I could take your pain away,” he said quietly. “Even more so now than when you were mourning Nick.”

  Caroline tugged at some blades of grass, letting them sift through her fingers. “Same shit, different day.”

  “It seems so unfair for you to carry these afflictions alone.”

  “You don’t want that burden. It’s so much worse this time.”

  “I would do it,” Jack insisted. “I would absorb it all.”

  He had no idea what he was saying. “You couldn’t do that. It would eat away at you until you were completely gone.”

  “I would. For you.”

  Caroline looked at him. He was studying her intently.

  “I would do anything for you,” he said. “I finally understand why you used to tell me the same thing. I just wish I’d had the strength to verbalize it earlier in our relationship.”

  She turned away from him. He was always doing that, saying things she would have loved to hear when they were first married. Now all they did was cause her pain. She knew that wasn’t his intent but it still hurt. He’d never been one to skimp on physical affection, and she had never doubted his feelings for her. But hearing the words from his lips after so much had happened made it different somehow. Caroline put her head on her knees and began to cry.

  “Please don’t,” Jack whispered. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “You don’t want this,” she said, letting out a small sob. “You don’t want to feel this way.”

  “I don’t want you to suffer alone. You deserve so much more than this.”

  She wrung her hands. “But I don’t want you to feel it either.”

  He pulled her into his arms before she could stop him. “I want to help. I would do it a thousand times over, because I love you. And because you deserve to be free.”

  “I’ll never be free,” Caroline said. “Or safe.”

  “You can be. You have to let go of the things you can’t control.” He pulled a few random blades of grass out of her hair, tracing his finger around the outside of her ear. “I know it’s hard, but you need to let me take some of this on for you.”

  She shook her head. “You can’t. It’s my cross to bear. My experiences. My regrets.”

  “Some of them are mine too.”

  “That’s my point. You have enough to handle without taking on my shit.”

  “I want to take it on,” Jack said, his voice harsh.

  Was he trying to start an argument? “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Caroline murmured, slipping away from him. Away from everything.

  * * * * *

  Jack scowled. He’d get close, so close, maybe have her open up to him, and she’d pull back. He’d try again and the same thing would happen. It was like taking two steps forward and one back, except he was standing in the same place when it was over.

  Caroline stared out across the lake and he gave her a minute, knowing she was upset. She had that vacant look in her eye. Not the dangerous look, the kind that meant her mind was fading, but the one that reminded him he really had no concept of how much damage had been done. He glanced over at her boots, arranged neatly in the grass next to her socks. She had wanted to enjoy the sun as much as she could even if she wasn’t about to expose too much skin. Her feet were apparently safe.

  Maybe he could try a safe topic. One they could both play off and pretend they intended to discuss from the very beginning. “I could find you a pair of sandals so you don’t have to wear those damn boots all the time,” he said. “Sneakers, too.”

  “You have connections?”

  Too many to mention. He even knew who to contact if he was hard up for alcohol. “I know what they’re hiding in the storage rooms in the commissary.”

  “Oh. I have a beat up pair of workout shoes but I guess I could use some new ones.”

  That had been easy. Maybe he needed to keep a list of random emergency asides to whip out whenever they started going down a dark road. “Whatever you need, I can get.”

  “Thanks.”

  Jack looked out over the water and smiled. “Remember when we took that trip with the girls to Lake George after we picked them up from camp? I think that was the first year I was governor.”

  Caroline wrapped her arms around her knees again. He’d given her that speech about taking up space and she’d been trying to shrink herself ever since. “Kinda,” she said quietly.

  “And Sophie and Marguerite tricked you into thinking they were in shallow water, and you swallowed about half the lake?”

  She stiffened. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

  “It was funny,” he said. “I thought I was going to pass out from laughing so hard, and then you-”

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it,” she snapped.

  Jack turned her to face him and saw the tears in her eyes. “Oh, sweetheart. Please don’t start crying again. I didn’t – I was trying to remind you of something happy since you were so upset a minute ago.”

  Caroline wiped her face. “I can’t talk about things like that.”

  He put his arm around her and kissed her cheek. Dammit. He hadn’t meant to set her off again. He’d missed every goddamn hint. “I thought it might make you feel better to think about them.”

  “It hurts too much.”

  “Did you ever talk to Natalie about them?”

  “Once,” she said. “It was too hard, so Natalie didn’t push me. Maybe you should follow her lead.”

  She wanted him to let it go. He didn’t want to. “Caroline-”

  “Please don’t mention them again.”

  “So, you’re just going to pretend they never existed?”

  “That’s not what I’m doing.”

&
nbsp; He removed his arm, scooting away from her. “That’s exactly what you’re doing. You do it with every positive memory you have. Do you really think that’s the best way to deal with things?”

  She rubbed her forehead. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll humor you. The children are off limits but pick another topic and we’ll talk about it.”

  Jack gave her a wry smile. “Caroline, you make conversations so much fun sometimes.”

  “I try.”

  “I want you to pick the topic. Go ahead, ask me anything you want. It can even be something bad.”

  “I don’t want to ask you something that will upset you. I feel like maybe only one of us should be lurching toward emotional instability at a time.”

  “Then ask me about something good.”

  She stared at him, thinking. But she didn’t smile. “Okay.”

  * * * * *

  Caroline had no idea why they were going down this road. Why she was asking the question. “Did you really decide you were going to marry me the night we met?” she asked.

  “Of course. You’ve known that forever.”

  He hadn’t hesitated, not even to act surprised at her question. Strange. “No,” she said. “You told me you fell in love the night we met. You didn’t mention marriage until that therapy session we had.”

  “Oh,” Jack said. “I wasn’t aware there was a difference.”

  “There is.”

  “If you want to split hairs.” He picked up her hand and kissed the back of it. “Doesn’t matter. You’re stuck with me forever.”

  “Do you really think that?”

  “We’ll figure this out eventually.”

  “I wish I could share your optimism.”

  “You used to be the reason behind it.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t hang your hat on who I used to be, because she doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “I’m not going to do that,” he said. “And I’m not going to argue about who you are. Let’s move on to something else.”

  She wasn’t sure she could. And she wasn’t sure why she was so hung up on this issue when it had never presented itself before. “Why did you want to marry me?” Caroline asked quietly. “After that first night. How could you have been so sure?”

  “Are you asking because you doubt my sincerity, or because you really want to know the answer?”