Hold Me Close

by Rosalind James

  Luke was so still. So very still. “So what you’re saying is,” he said slowly, “that you can’t. That it was forever. Already.”

  “What?” She turned to look at him. “No, Luke. No. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying—love’s worth it, and it’s . . . it’s expandable, you know?”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t know. I don’t know what you mean, but, man.” He laughed, but it didn’t sound steady at all. “I sure wish you’d tell me.”

  “When I had Eli,” she said, “I thought I loved Kurt. No, I knew I loved Kurt. But I didn’t realize how much room my heart had in it. Not the same room. A different room. And now . . . I think I’ve been waiting. Holding back. Not because of the pain, not because of the bad times, but because of the good ones. Feeling like if I loved again, if I gave my whole heart, if I loved . . .” She breathed out, and said it. “You. That if I loved you the way I wanted to, I’d be losing those good times, pushing Kurt out of my heart. But I don’t think it’s that, after all, not anymore. That’s what I’ve been thinking. He’s in my heart, and he always will be, just like Eli is, but there’s more room in there. All I have to do is unlock that door. There’s a whole room just waiting to be filled, and it’s a beautiful room, too, I can tell. That’s the paradox of love, I guess. That you can love with your whole heart, and it doesn’t use up all your love. That there’s still more to give.”

  She couldn’t see his face well enough. But she had more to say anyway. “If you can live with that,” she said quietly. “If you can live with knowing that I loved someone before I loved you, and that I can’t push him out of my heart, but that I don’t have to do that in order to have you there.”

  “You’re worried that I’d be jealous. That you’d have to hide that you loved Kurt. That you wouldn’t be able to say his name.”

  “Yes.” She said it softly, but firmly, too. Because that was it.

  “I probably would be,” he admitted, and she started a little, but he was still there, still holding her. “I’d have to remind myself, just like you did. I’d have to tell myself—how can I be jealous when he’s gone, and I’m the one who gets to be here holding you? When I’m the one who gets to love you? And I can be grateful to him, too. At least I hope I can. I can remind myself that he was the man who taught you how to trust, and how to love. And that he was the man who taught Eli those things, too. I’m guessing he was a hell of a guy, and that I would’ve liked him. If those feelings can come back now for you, and for Eli, that’s because both of you learned how with him.”

  “No. We started to learn how with him. And now we’re learning some more with you.”

  He was still again for a long second, and then he sighed. “Damn. You’re just bound and determined to make me cry tonight. Well, if I’m going to go, I’m going to go whole hog. I know I’m not the first man you’ve loved. I won’t lie; I wish I had been. I wish I’d been there all the way for you. I wish I’d taken you to the prom, and that I’d been your first. But then you wouldn’t have had Eli. You wouldn’t have had all the experiences that have made you the person you are, and neither would I. And anyway, who knows? I wasn’t always the smartest guy, and I sure wasn’t always the best man. I’m not sure I could’ve done what Kurt did when I was that young. So maybe it’s for the best, because that man I was might have broken your heart. But the man I am now . . . this man isn’t going to do that. This man’s going to be here for you. And it’s what you said. The past is gone. What we’ve got is the future, and I want it to be with you. I couldn’t be your first, and I can’t help being sorry about that. But I sure would like to be your last.”

  COUNT ON It

  She cried at that, and he choked up, too. He couldn’t help it. He held her close, and rocked with her, and sent up some kind of prayer. Of thanks, maybe, that he’d found her when he had, that her road had led her to him. Of hope, too. That he could live up to this, that he was man enough for whatever lay ahead.

  “There’s something else, too,” she said after a minute, sitting up and pulling out some tissues from her purse to wipe her face.

  “Yeah? What else?”

  She rummaged around some more and pulled out her phone. “This is the other thing I thought about on the way home. This one—it isn’t a good thing. But I think I need to share this, too.”

  “Right.” It looked like he was going to get tested a whole lot sooner than he’d planned. “Tell me.”

  “It’s Alan. He was up there a few weeks ago, looking for me.”

  His arm tightened around her as he tried to control his breathing. “What happened?”

  “Kurt’s dad—Don—ran him off, I guess. He couldn’t tell him anything, because he didn’t know anything. And they won’t say anything now, I’m sure of that. But he’s looking, Luke. And there’s worse.”

  When she told him what it was, it took everything he had to stay there with her, not to get up and climb in his rig and drive to Boise right then. With a name. And a gun.

  “I don’t know if he’s lying or not, though,” she finished. “Do you think . . . maybe you could find out if there’s really a warrant out for me? You said your family had some . . . some connections. Is there somebody who could check that?”

  “Yep. Got a cousin who’s a deputy sheriff. I’ll call him tonight. He’ll find out. If it’s a lie, we’ll know. And if it’s the truth—my folks know a judge, too, and plenty of lawyers. We’ll find out what we have to do, and we’ll take care of it. Don’t you worry.”

  “If you have to do that,” she said, “you’ll need evidence. And there’s something I need to share with you. I need to give you his name. And something I need to e-mail to you, just in—in case. In case he does find me, and something happens to me. I need you to have the evidence.”

  He could feel the tension in her slim frame. He had the feeling he wasn’t going to want to see this at all. “Tell me,” he said, and if his tone was grim, he couldn’t help it. “And show me.”

  He could hear as well as feel the breath she had to take in order to do it. “His name is Alan Yeomans. He’s a county prosecutor.”

  While he was still reacting to that, taking the name and holding it hard, a rough pebble in his fist, she went on. “And this is what he did to me.”

  She clicked around on her phone. “They took these when Eli and I first arrived. We were at a shelter. They said it could be important to have a record. They took a statement, too. It’s not as good as going to the police at the time, but it’s something, for women like me who can’t do that. The shelter has that on file, and I need to tell you that they do. And to show you these.”

  Her screen was there, in front of him, and looking at it was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. She clicked, and she clicked again, and that soft voice was telling him things he’d have paid any money not to hear.

  “My face,” she said. “He didn’t usually hit me in the face, where it would leave marks that people could see. But you saw that already.”

  It hadn’t been this bad when he’d seen it, though, her cheekbone a red, swollen mess.

  “My arm,” she went on. The clear marks of fingers, a thumb.

  She was silent for the next one. Her bare torso, thinner than he’d ever seen it, the ribs showing clearly. And the livid red splotches mottling them.

  “Punches?” he got out through a mouth that had gone dry.

  “Yes. And kicks. When I was on the ground, curled up with my hands over my head.”

  Her back, her legs. More red, and black-and-blue, too, because there were older marks. And even older ones. Green and yellow stripes across her back, her buttocks, the backs of her upper thighs.

  “These,” she said, her voice nearly level, “they were the vacuum cleaner cord. And the worse places—those are the plug. When I didn’t do the vacuuming the way he wanted. He liked to punish with the . . . the thing I’d done wrong. He
called it ‘natural consequences.’ ”

  He hadn’t realized it was possible to sit still when you had that much rage in your body. When you felt like the top of your head was going to blow off from it.

  “That’s all,” she said. “Can I send them to you?”

  “Yeah.” He swallowed, and said it again. “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know who else.”

  “No. Don’t be sorry. I need to know.”

  She sat still for another minute, then said quietly, “Don’t ever hit me. Not even if you think it’d be . . . sexy, or something, to spank me. It won’t be sexy for me.”

  “No,” he managed to say. “No.”

  “I need to go home,” she said with a sigh. “I left Eli alone. I’m so glad I don’t have to leave him alone anymore while I work. You’ll watch him, won’t you? When you have him. Just in case.”

  “Yeah. I will. And I’ll look Yeomans up online. I’ll make sure I know his face.”

  “I’d feel better,” she said, and he knew what it had cost her to admit it.

  “And you know what would make me feel better. If you and Eli moved in with me. I don’t want either of you to be alone. Not with him out there.”

  “That sounds good, but I can’t. Even with this. For one thing, there’s no way he can find out where we are. I’ve been too careful. And for the other—I can’t move in with you. I can’t. I’ll panic again. It’s too close. Too much. Too soon. I have to be free to go.”

  “You’d be free to go, though. Always.”

  “Not if I were living with you. Not if you were paying. Not if I didn’t have my own place. I can stay with you sometimes, but I can’t live with you. I can’t do it for me, and I can’t do it to Eli. We both need our own place. Trust me, Luke,” she went on urgently when he would have argued. “Please. I’m right about this.”

  “All right,” he said reluctantly. There was no other answer. “But if you need me, if you’re scared, don’t even think twice. Call me. And maybe we should think about a weapon for you down there. A shotgun would be my choice, but a semiautomatic would be better than nothing. Something you could load in a hurry.”

  “I can’t do that. Because of Eli. He’s got so much fear. I don’t—I don’t know what he might do.”

  Luke sighed. “You could be right. I didn’t tell you this, but I’m pretty sure he’s spent a fair amount of time thinking about shooting Alan.”

  She went rigid beside him. “Oh, no.”

  “Yeah. And that’s understandable,” he hurried on. “I’ve done my share of thinking about it myself, and I’m not the one who had to lie in bed, knowing he was beating you and not being able to protect you.”

  She moved convulsively, like she needed to get up. “Kayla,” he said urgently. “No. It’s all right. Those feelings are normal, I’m sure. But, yes, he needs to talk more about them. And we’re going to do one thing. One thing, and please don’t say no. I’m going to buy health insurance for both of you. You can’t be in the system to get help? Fine. We’ll keep you out of it. But he needs to talk that out, and so do you.”

  “All . . . all right,” she said. “I don’t want to say yes, but I’m going to. For Eli’s sake. Just for another couple months, until I qualify for insurance myself through the job. But no gun. Not if he’s thinking things like that. It’s too dangerous. Alan can’t possibly know where I am anyway. And what if somebody came to the door, and he got scared?” She shuddered. “No.”

  “All right. No gun. But keep your phone by the bed, please. Just in case. And,” he decided, “I’m getting you a burglar alarm. A good one.”

  “That would help,” she said with a sigh. “Just in case. And—” She laughed, the merest breath, and his foot stilled on the floor of the porch in surprise. “And so you know—I realize that all this is too much to put on you. I know this isn’t anybody’s idea of a relationship.”

  “This isn’t the relationship. This is a hurdle. We’re going to get through this, and then we’re going to move on to the beautiful part. I promise.”

  “It already is the beautiful part,” she said, and took his breath away a little bit more. She pushed the sleeping bag back and got out of the swing. “And I need to go down to Eli. He’ll be asleep, I’m pretty sure. But . . . I need to go.”

  “Right.” He got up and took her hand. “I’ll walk you home. Every time I can from now on. If I can’t look out for you in my house, I’ll look out for you from my house. You can count on it.”

  OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE WOODS

  “It’s like the song,” Eli said as they headed out to Luke’s parents’, the highway all but deserted now on this snowy Thanksgiving. Luke’s truck cut through the whirling flakes, the windshield wipers working hard to keep up with the onslaught, the headlights shining even in the early afternoon. “Over the river and through the woods, through the white and drifting snow. I mean, if the pickup was a horse. It’s even sort of grandmother’s house.”

  “They still singing that song in school?” Luke asked. “Man, some things never change.” He looked across at Kayla. “How you doing?”

  “I’m fine.” She looked back over the seat to check on the pies. “I hope four’s enough.”

  Luke laughed. “For thirteen people? Even Cal and I can’t eat more than a third of a pie each, not after Thanksgiving dinner. You just wait and see what’s going to be on that table.” He glanced down at Eli. “Did you already get that fraction?”

  “Kind of,” he said. “Thirteen people and four pies. So it’s four over thirteen, right? But that isn’t one-third, because there’d have to be twelve people to be one-third. Four-twelfths is one-third, because reducing.”

  Luke shook his head sadly. “Man, I shouldn’t have asked. I’m already staying up late, studying that algebra textbook in a cold sweat, worried that I’m not going to be able to keep ahead of you.”

  Eli giggled. “I’m not doing algebra. I don’t even know what it is.”

  “Maybe you won’t have to be the one keeping ahead of Eli,” Kayla said. “Maybe it’ll be me. You think of that?”

  “You’re right,” Luke conceded. “I defer to the mama bear.”

  “And anyway, I . . .” She breathed, and said it. “I might be studying anyway. Well, I am studying anyway. I got application forms, and I’m signed up for the SAT.” She didn’t tell him how shaky her signature had been on the check.

  “What’s that?” Eli asked.

  “It’s a test to get in to college. I have a feeling that algebra’s going to come into it. I mean, if it happens,” she tried to joke.

  “It’ll happen,” Luke said. “You’ve got this.”

  “You sound pretty sure. I wish I could be that sure. I started studying for the test, and—it’s been a long time. I don’t know. It’s in less than two months. I got good grades in high school, but . . .” She trailed off. “But there’s always next year, right? I’m sure I could learn by then.”

  “You can do it,” Luke said. “You don’t have to know it all. The University of the Palouse isn’t Harvard. Hey,” he said when she opened her mouth again. “I’m graduating a hundred fifty students a year, with maybe three-quarters of them heading off to college. I ought to know. This isn’t just faith in you, even though I’ve got that, too. This is what we call ‘evidence based.’ But that’s great, sweetheart. That’s terrific. That’s something special to think about on Thanksgiving, isn’t it? A straight-up brand-new chapter.”

  “I haven’t started yet, though.”

  “Sure you have. The first step’s the hardest. Plus, you need any help with that test prep, I’m one heck of a tutor. Ask anybody.”

  “You know what Luke is, Mom?” Eli asked.

  “Uh-oh,” Luke muttered.

  “He’s optimistic,” Eli said. “Like Dad, like you said. Thinking that things will work out.” />
  “Yep.” She smiled over Eli’s head at Luke, and dared to believe. “He sure is.”

  He was slowing for the turn into Fulton, passing the post office, then the brick bulk of the Catholic church, and turning into the little street with its tidy houses, its neat front yards buried under a blanket of white. Daisy was up, her front paws on Eli’s lap, and if Eli hadn’t had a hand in her collar, she’d have been all the way over at the window.

  Luke swung into a spot at the curb, because the driveway was full, and Kayla swallowed. So many cars and trucks. So many people.

  “You hang on one sec,” Luke told her, and he was swinging out of the truck, coming around, opening her door, and lifting her into his arms, then carrying her to the shoveled sidewalk while Eli jumped down behind them with Daisy, who barked and raced straight across the lawn for the front door of the house.

  “What was that?” Kayla laughed when Luke set her down.

  “That was me not wanting you to get your feet wet.”

  “I have boots now,” she reminded him.

  “OK, so it was me wanting an excuse to pick you up.”

  He bent to kiss her, and Eli complained, “Mom. What if somebody sees?”

  “Yep,” Luke said. “They might find out that I love your mom. Tragic as that would be—you know what? I’m going to risk it. Come on. Let’s get those pies out of the back.”

  Kayla took an apple pie from him and picked her way up the driveway to the front door. And then she stopped dead, because the door was open, and he was standing there. Bill.

  His hair was gray, and he was more solid, thicker in the face. But his smile was the same. Exactly the same.

  “Kay.” He held the door for her, and Kayla set the pie down on the hall table, and then she was in his arms. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “Little Kay. Oh, thank God.” He laughed, and that was the same, too. Rich and full, coming to settle someplace deep inside her.