The Girl and Her Ren

by Pepper Winters

  It was the best Christmas present even though he’d bought me a new laptop and I’d bought him a new oil skin jacket.

  Every touch was precious.

  Every thrust was infinite.

  Every year more treasured than the last.

  * * * * *

  2026

  We hadn’t celebrated our shared birthday in a while, thanks to parenthood, hospital visits, farm running, horse businesses, and all the other things that made up a hectic life, but on 27th of June—our official date of creation (even if Ren had borrowed it from me)—we asked Cassie to babysit our monster four-year-old and headed to a local diner for our tradition.

  The meal of greasy food and naughty but oh-so-delicious burgers was a flashback to a lifetime of togetherness.

  Halfway through the meal, Ren tugged at the ribbon holding my braid together, unravelling it with a look of intensity.

  I gulped, burning up in the coffee fire of his gaze, then tears welled as he pulled a fresh string of blue from his pocket. “I’m afraid I’ve been rather slack on replacing your ribbon the past few years. This one is looking a little faded.” With swift fingers—used to tying bows from my childhood—he retied my braid with new, bright cobalt, then went back to eating as if nothing had happened.

  I’d wanted to pounce on him there and then, but it was almost a game to him. A game to see how much he could seduce me by not even touching me.

  By the time we’d polished off a chocolate brownie for dessert, I was ready to fool around in the back of the second-hand pick-up truck we’d bought two years ago.

  However, Ren took my hand and guided me down Main Street.

  My skin itched for his touch. My lips watered for his kiss. My patience was stretched with need.

  “Are we ambling aimlessly, or do we have a plan?” I asked. “Because I need you and a bed and alone time, stat.”

  He chuckled. “Stat, huh?”

  “Immediately.”

  “Well, you’ll have to be patient. I’m looking for something.” Ren smiled, the street lights casting his handsome face in shadows and illumination. I was seriously the luckiest woman in the world to love someone so beautiful inside and out.

  I wanted to leap into his arms and force him to take me, but I ordered myself to be a grown-up. “Looking for what?”

  He grinned wider, tugging me down a side street with a single glowing sign still on at this time of night. “That.”

  “Jill’s Quill?”

  “Yup.” He nodded. “For your seventeenth birthday present, I bought you ink that teases me every day you slide out of bed and every moment you walk barefoot toward me. I don’t think I ever told you how much that ribboned R means to me. Didn’t really know how. So…I figured, why bother telling you when I could show you?”

  Coughing once, he dragged me toward the tattoo parlour and through the glass door.

  “Ah, you must be my nine o’clock.” A spritely woman looked up with colourful tatted sleeves and a stretched hoop in her ear. “Sit. Let’s get started.”

  Ren didn’t give me time to ask what the hell was going on before he pushed me toward the black pleather couch and took a seat on the plastic wrapped recliner in front of the artist. “You got the design I emailed?”

  “Yup.” The artist, who I assumed was Jill, snapped on a pair of gloves and grabbed a stencil already printed and ready to go from the table beside her. “Where do you want it?”

  Ren pointed to his forearm. “There.”

  “Alrighty.”

  I had no idea what it was or how this had happened so suddenly.

  Nerves bubbled in my belly the entire time the tattoo gun buzzed.

  Afterward, Ren ordered, “Pay the woman, Della Ribbon. This is, after all, your birthday present to me.”

  Laughing under my breath, I rolled my eyes at the craziness of my husband. I slipped cash from my purse, waited until Jill rung me up, then turned to face him with a hand on my hip. “Okay, enough of the secrets. Show me.”

  With a soul-stealing look, he came toward me, holding out his arm. “It’s not a secret that I love you.”

  My eyes locked on his fresh ink.

  Blue, the same colour as mine.

  A ribbon wrapping around his arm instead of my foot.

  A ribbon that looped into a J before finishing in a D, just like mine finished in an R.

  He was right.

  Telling me how much my tattoo meant to him would’ve been useless.

  Because nothing could describe the tidal wave of lust, love, and loss that filled me.

  He’d marked himself forever.

  He’d take me and Jacob wherever he went.

  He was mine, not death’s or pain’s or time’s.

  Mine.

  The permanent ink said so.

  * * * * *

  2027

  “I can’t believe you’re making me do this.” Ren laughed, hoisting five-year-old Jacob onto his hip.

  The past few years had been a whirlwind of Ren teaching his son everything he could. From camping trips in summer, to tractor snow ploughing in winter, and even sitting with him and doing ‘homework’ like I’d done even though Jacob only attended preschool.

  Ren was besotted with his son, just like I knew he would be.

  And I was besotted with both of them, often drifting into a dreamy trance while watching Ren interact with Jacob—laughing with him, joking, arguing, and even scolding.

  Each day, I fell helplessly in love with him.

  Which only added another layer to my hurt.

  And each month I hoped I’d fall pregnant again, desperate to give Ren the daughter he wanted.

  But each year, it never came true.

  “Don’t blame me. Blame Cassie.” I stuck out my tongue as Jacob squirmed in Ren’s arms.

  “Down. Down.” Jacob pointed at the ground. “Nina has chocolate. I want some.”

  “After.” Kissing my unruly child on the nose, I made sure his string tie was neat, his black shirt was buttoned, and tiny Wranglers were hay free. Once he was presentable, I tackled my husband, rubbing at a dirt smudge on his cheek, lamenting over the soil beneath his nails, and tucking his matching black shirt into his waistband to reveal the silver belt buckle I’d bought him last Christmas.

  He’d rolled his sleeves up to reveal his ribbon tattoo with our initials in it, his hair obscured by a cowboy hat.

  He was a quintessential country boy and had some god-like power that made me find him ever more handsome as the years went by.

  However, nothing could hide the fact he was lankier than filled out these days.

  That was the reason for the photo-shoot.

  To permanently etch us in place, where time and sickness couldn’t touch us. It’d been Cassie’s idea when I’d had a weak moment and sobbed in her arms.

  It wasn’t often I buckled beneath the always impending knowledge of our future, but when I broke, I broke big.

  Luckily, she was always there to pick up my pieces, drown me with wine, and send me back to my family with a patched up heart and paper bravery.

  The past few months had been hard.

  Ren had gone downhill again.

  At the start of the year, his coughing came back with a vengeance, and, whenever he lay down or bent over, he struggled to stop. His throat became raw, his energy levels depleted.

  The more he tried to hide his discomfort, the worse it got, and Jacob flinched just as much as I did when he had a coughing fit.

  Rick said Ren’s tumours hadn’t spread, but he was suffering pleural effusion and suggested surgery. If he didn’t, Ren would continue to drown in his own lungs, thanks to fluid constantly building.

  For a week, Ren and I tossed up the pros and cons.

  Pros—if the surgery went well with no hiccups, it would mean he’d have a better quality of life, wouldn’t cough or be out of breath so badly, and be back to being active and strong. If the Keytruda kept his immune system supported and attacking his mesothelioma, there
was no reason he couldn’t have many more years.

  Cons—if the surgery ran into complications, he might be hospitalised for a while, running the risk of becoming ill with pneumonia or worse…putting his body under such strain it suffered respiratory distress or cardiovascular problems.

  In the end, it was Jacob who helped us decide.

  He ran into our bedroom one morning and slammed to a stop as Ren came out of the bathroom, dripping wet and wrapped in a towel.

  His adorable little face scrunched up as he pointed across the room. “You’re skinny.” Running over to his father, he poked Ren in the side—or as high as he could reach—saying, “One, two, three ribs, Daddy. Eat more, ’kay?”

  Ren had looked at me, another awful cough tumbling from his lips.

  He just nodded, and I knew.

  The next week, Rick organised the Pleurodesis surgery, and Ren had a night in the hospital after the procedure, just to make sure there were no issues. Rick told us to be kind to ourselves and not panic about the results for a few days. However, by the fourth day at home, Ren’s colour was already better, his appetite improved, and his coughing nowhere near as wracking.

  It had been a gamble, but it’d paid off, and yet again, we had a future with sunshine rather than shadows.

  For so long now, we’d existed in the middle of a seesaw. Sometimes sliding one way, only to scramble back to the middle before slamming to the ground.

  Ren never missed a treatment of Keytruda, and for now, he remained stable with no side effects. We were optimistic but also realistic.

  Hence the photo-shoot to capture Ren fit and smiley…just in case.

  “Okay? You ready?” The purple-haired photographer popped her bubble-gum, smiling. “Arrange yourself on the hay bale. The light is good against the barn, so we’ll start there, then make our way around the farm and any other places you want, okay?”

  I nodded. “Sounds great.”

  Cassie stood to the side with Chip and Nina, ready for her own photo-shoot once ours was done. John lingered, overseeing with encouragement and wisecracks, occasionally agreeing to photo bomb and be forever immortalized.

  As Ren gathered me in his arms, smoothing my white dress, and Jacob stood obediently in front of us with my hand on his shoulder, my heart fluttered for more.

  More of this.

  More of everything.

  Just more.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  REN

  * * * * * *

  2028

  “YOU TRULY ARE a miracle, Ren Wild.”

  I smirked at my oncologist who’d become a firm friend over the years.

  Rick Mackenzie was a rare type of human who I didn’t just tolerate but genuinely liked his company. He was calming, encouraging, and made me fight just that little bit harder because to let him down was unthinkable.

  “I have too much to live for.” I put my t-shirt back on after yet another chest X-ray. If my lungs didn’t kill me, the radiation from all the X-rays would.

  “I told you love would turn out to be your biggest ally.”

  I glanced at my tattoo, familiar crests of affection rising in my heart. “Love is worth fighting for.”

  “I think you just stole that from a Hallmark card.” Rick chuckled, typing into his computer the results of today’s check-up. I let him finish before he suddenly said, “Oh, almost forgot!” Wrenching open his desk drawer, he pulled out a folder with a flourish. “After waiting so long, the trial went well.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I sat down, recalling the affidavit I had to give, the tests I’d submitted to from doctors trying to prove I was lying, right through to agreeing to be shadowed for a few weeks seeing as I was one of the younger patients but also one who’d survived the longest.

  Lawyers had taken every bill and invoice I’d incurred in the years, along with tallying up the free healthcare I’d received, thanks to the off-label trial.

  The asbestos trust did not want to pay out.

  But my evidence was conclusive.

  “They were found guilty on six counts of negligence and undue personal injury. The trust fund will pay out in three months.”

  My jaw fell open. “A-are you serious?”

  “Deadly.”

  I flinched. I’d become rather sensitive to that word.

  “Sorry.” He laughed. “But this is good news, Ren. Really good news.”

  “How good?” I leaned forward.

  When Rick suggested suing the asbestos manufacturer, I hadn’t held out hope. Pay outs ranged from nothing to mega bucks, but I’d never done this for the money.

  It had been my only avenue of revenge—to hurt them in their pocket while they stole my life. In a way, I still didn’t feel right about it. I’d gotten sick while at Mclary’s. In my mind, I blamed him. It had been a struggle separating the two.

  “Two and a half million good.” Rick grinned, clicking his pen like an addict.

  “Wait. What?” My ears rang. “I must have heard you wrong.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “What did you say?” My skin slicked with cold sweat. “How much?”

  “Two and a half million dollars. You’ve done what you wanted.”

  My life slowed, saying no to death and thank you to all my wishes coming true.

  I couldn’t believe it, even as the fears I’d always carried fell away.

  Never again would we be destitute or homeless.

  Della is safe.

  “I’ve protected her,” I breathed, still in shock.

  With or without me.

  Della and Jacob would always be safe.

  It didn’t make any of this easier, but the shackles of panic fell away.

  I’d beaten the clock at its own game.

  “You have.” Rick smiled. “In sickness and in health.”

  “For richer and for poorer.” I met his eyes.

  My hands shook as I curled them into fists.

  Yet another small victory over death.

  I smiled, grateful, vindicated, hopeful. “She and Jacob will want for nothing.”

  * * * * *

  2029

  “Dad! Daaad!”

  “In here, kiddo.” I tossed back a painkiller, chasing it with orange juice. Morning sunshine streamed into the kitchen, painting everything in summer softness.

  Jacob appeared at breakneck speed, his cargo shorts full to the brim with Legos. His blond hair was shaggy and in need of a cut. His eyes mischievous and far too smart for his seven-year age. “I need your help building the tower on my castle.”

  Reaching down, I grabbed him from the floor and plopped up onto the kitchen bench just as Della padded barefoot from the bedroom wing.

  She caught my eye, smiling sexily.

  I’d had her this morning. I’d had her on her stomach with my hand fisted in her hair. But that didn’t stop my body from reacting.

  “Hi.” She kissed me, pouring herself a glass of juice before kissing Jacob. “Hey, Wild One.”

  Jacob wrinkled his nose. “Ugh, kissing is for girls.”

  “Oh, really?” Della attacked his face with kisses while I held him prisoner.

  He squirmed and squealed while I laughed and Della blew raspberries on his neck. “Wrong, mister. Kisses are for little boys who I love.”

  Wiping his face on my shirt, he stuck out his tongue. “Eww, you suck.” A smile twisted his lips, though, reminding me so much of Della that age. The defiance, the independence, the urge to grow up too fast.

  God, I loved this family.

  Scooting Jacob off the bench, I put him back on his feet. “I’ll come help you in a minute, okay? Just need to talk to Mom real quick.”

  Jacob gave me a stern look. “You better. I’m timing you.” He took off, and I let loose the cough that had been tickling my chest, turning away from Della and clamping a hand over my mouth.

  She rested her palm on my back, rubbing gently as I rode out the worst of it. Once I could breathe again, I turned to face her. “Had some new
s today.”

  “More news like last year when you came home and told me we were millionaires?”

  I chuckled. “No, not quite.”

  The asbestos trust fund had paid out, depositing an unbelievable sum into our bank account. We’d paid off the mortgage, given some to John for the remaining balance of the land—which led to an explosive argument—and set up the rest into an account that would earn good interest while being a safety net for Della and Jacob.

  My life insurance was just a cherry on top now, and the relief that gave me—to know they would always have a home—was indescribable.

  “Our lawyer contacted us. The bank finally managed to sell the Mclary place.” Not once did I ever tie Della to those monsters. It was never her parents’ farm. It was purely a nightmare where we’d both lived for a time.

  “Oh?” Her eyebrow rose. “What does that mean?”

  “It means, after the debt was paid, there wasn’t much left. Fifty thousand, give or take.”

  Della wrinkled her nose, looking all the more beautiful. “I don’t want it. I won’t take anything from them.”

  Smoothing the tiny wrinkle by her eye, I kissed her softly.

  At least I’d earned my final wish—I’d lived long enough to see age change her, just a little—a wrinkle that only appeared when she smiled or scowled.

  “Thought you might say that.” Letting her go, I placed our empty glasses in the sink. “That’s why I asked him to set up a charity for any of the kids found who the Mclary’s hurt.”

  Della froze. “You did?”

  “You’ll need to sign the forms, seeing as you’re the main trustee, but I knew you wouldn’t want their money, and at least, this way, it can be put to righting some of their wrongs.”

  Over the years, the police had found one or two children who’d been sold. The man who’d purchased has-been workers still hadn’t been captured, but newspapers had kept track of the story, spreading composite sketches and even a photo that one of the kids—now in his thirties—had of him.

  No one mentioned if my mother had been found—just as I requested. And the case was only shared when good news could be given.

  Their evil might never be fully erased, but at least some souls had been saved.