by Lark Watson
But endangering those I loved… Unforgivable.
I shifted the thoughts away, shaking them off. There were no actions I could take now that would change the past. I could only move forward onto an uncertain future.
I was walking up the scattered field stones that lead to the front door when a light over the entrance sparked on directly into my eyes, blinding me. I shouldn’t have been surprised that security protocols were still in place. I began to suspect that they were all the time… Everywhere. The urgency of paranoia had been driven home to me the night I’d left.
Lowering my gaze, I made my way to the door and lifted my hand to knock. I paused there suddenly nervous about my reception. There was always the chance that after all this, my trip was for nothing.
Either way, I’d gather my answers. Just knowing the state of everyone I cared about would be enough I told myself, insisting it was true even as my heart sped.
I let my hand move to knock, but before it made contact with wood, the door opened.
"Mouse."
I gazed up at Micha, oddly surprised to find him here. But I knew that if Micha was here, Mr. Thorneton was most likely present as well.
Without another word, he reached out, taking the shoulder bag I still carried and set it aside.
“This all you have?" he asked, while he ushered me into the house as if I'd only been gone for an afternoon not nearly a year. "We can handle the rest of your belongings for you wherever they are."
Before I knew it the door was closed behind me and I was inside the little cottage, my jacket being taken and hung in a closet tucked just off to the side.
I took a moment to glance around, surprised to find myself in the place I’d conjured so many dreams about.
The house was exactly as I had pictured. Oddly luxurious while still feeling small and cozy. Where Tower House had been all dark wood and rich colors, the cottage was decorated in pale dove gray tones accented with scattered light paintings and a large mirror reflecting the window behind me.
Micha continue to usher me on, into a little sitting room just off to the right. I glanced around, oddly surprised to find it empty, still trying to get my feet beneath me. He closed the carved French doors behind him and came farther in motioning for me to have a seat next to the fireplace. He settled into the deep, cushy chair across from me, hands on his knees, considering me closely.
"Well, Ms. Jane, I'm glad to see you."
I continued to study him realizing I hadn't said anything yet and feeling like I should, feeling like I should have some grand announcement. But all I could think to ask about was where was my Mr. Thorneton.
When I couldn’t respond, Micha continued, "I'll admit though, you look a little shell shocked. But I'm glad you're safe. I kept that damn phone on me day and night, hoping you’d need us." He shook his head, a small smile turning up one side of his mouth. "I should've known better. Not our Mouse. She can handle anything. But now, tell me how you are."
I glanced around trying to give myself another moment to recover. It was as if I were the one surprised to stumble upon someone who had been missing from my life not the other way around. Not as if I had had the day and the miles to consider how I would say or what I truly wanted.
"Micha," I began and then took a deep breath. "Is he okay?"
It made sense to ask the one thing that everything was weighed against.
It made sense to begin with the what everything was weighed against.
Micha sat back in his chair. He had to know this would be my first question—I should have known as well, but even I felt the shock of it.
“I assume you’ve heard about the fire?”
“Yes. Well, slightly. And just this past day.”
“Only now?” He seemed particularly surprised by this.
“I didn’t allow myself anything from my past.” I gave him a wry grin. “As was suggested by someone I trust.”
He seemed taken back by the idea that I trusted him, but I had. I still did.
“And I was not in a place that it was easy to get news privately,” I tried to explain.
He considered this, nodding his acceptance that there were things that would be discussed later—or not.
“What changed?”
Micha had always been too aware for all he cursed me for the same flaw.
I glanced away, wondering how much to share right now.
“I can’t tell you that just now. I can tell you I’m here because of my own choice. That I found a place to search for news because I needed to close my past before I decided upon my future.”
I could see Micha working out what I was saying and making assumptions that were probably frighteningly accurate. At last, he gave a brief nod as if that was all that was needed for now.
“He’s changed. But then, he was before the fire.” Micha gave me a little smile as if to say he knew I was the reason but not the fault of that change. “He was desperate for a bit to find you—to insure your safety. After what happened here the first night, the night you left, we had to convince him to let you go. I knew you’d be back. Mrs. Fairfax was not as sure.”
“Mrs. Fairfax should have been right.” Even I knew returning probably wasn’t what was best for me. And yet, I couldn’t leave the world I had lived in so completely to move into a new world without knowing.
“We convinced him to give you the time.” He gave a quick shrug. “I may have suggested getting his personal house in order while you were absent as well.”
“Was there anything that could be done about that?” If there had been, why wasn’t it done before—well, everything?
“He made it a mission to find a way to protect her without leaving her at risk and separating them in a legal way that would also convince you to accept him.”
It sounded more complicated than him divorcing a wife of convenience should have been.
Micha rose and crossed to a small bar built into the wall, pouring himself a whiskey, then, after a moment, pouring a smaller second one for me.
“There was more to his marriage to Leeanna than I’m sure he shared. There’s much you don’t know about what has gone on in Tower House. I can only suspect you assume the worst and I wouldn’t blame you. It would only make sense from what you’ve seen.” He shrugged and handed me my drink, sipping his as he continued. “These are the things I can’t clear up for you, but I will tell you about Leeanna—or as much as I can at the moment.”
I took a sip of the whiskey, trying not to wince at the heat rushing down my throat.
“Leeanna was the daughter of a powerful man, a man who had once done a favor for Thorne that saved his life. There came a time when she’d grown up to be a beautiful woman who gathered adoration everywhere she went. And she loved it. She did everything to draw attention to her. She became a media darling, one step away from having her own reality show—but she didn’t need one because the cameras followed her everywhere.”
So, basically, the opposite of myself.
“The man, her father,” he continued, “was someone very powerful. Powerful in a way people don’t speak about publicly. One night, some men came for him and when they did, they came for her as well. She was a prize—a trophy. And they—well, let’s not go into that. I’m sure you’re no naïve miss who needs me to spell out the abuses men will do to a woman locked in their control.”
I nodded, pushing my mind away from Mr. Thorneton’s wife as a slave and plaything to the men who would kill her father and take her as a possession.
“Thorne heard about this and by now he was a powerful man himself—one who knew he owed the old man a debt. He’d stepped as far from the life that this man and his daughter were part of as he could, but he knew he’d be stepping back in if he rescued her.”
“And so, of course he did.” Because, while our Mr. Thorneton may not have seen my way of thinking in the matter of his wife, he was a man who lived by a certain code.
“Of course.” Micha took another sip of his whiskey
and glanced across the room to where the bottle was. “I was the old man’s body guard. They got past me.”
“Somehow I doubt it’s as simple as that.”
“It never is, is it?” Micha stood, turning his back to me to pace to the window and gaze out at the dark woods leading up to the cottage.
I gave him the moment. It wasn’t like him to be flustered and so the small amount of privacy was the least I could offer. When he turned back, he’d composed himself and brought a second drink with him back to his chair.
“Thorne found me, making a ridiculous plan that involved blowing a lot of stuff up.” He grinned a little, probably at the thought of the mass destruction he’d planned to create. “He’d heard I’d been asking around about some things and knew I was looking to get her back—anyway I could. He was a cooler head at the time. He and Leeanna hadn’t seen eye-to-eye on a lot. He’d thought she was frivolous and behaved like a spoiled child and she thought he was a stick in the mud.”
“She called him that?” I tried not to smile at the idea, but one couldn’t help but see the humor.
“That and worse.” Micha leaned forward, the glass dangling past the crook of his knee from his long fingers. “Jane, there was never anything between them. It was even less than brother and sister, but perhaps with a taste of the sibling rivalry. Jo—the man, would have allowed her to be raised up to take his place if she’d truly wanted it, but she wanted attention. And as she grew harder to control, he found Thorne, a man who needed a way out of a bad place.”
I nodded, as much of a thank you as I could give him for that.
“So, we went in. We got her. She was hunted after that—for reasons I can’t go into, several different people wanted her in their control. She’s seen stuff, things we never fully learned or verified—not that he’d ask or push with…well.” He shook his head, gaze fixed off out the dark window again. “She wasn’t the same girl she’d been. I’d never seen a human broken like this before. Thorne figure he needed to set her securely under his protection and also had never thought much of marriage. He’s an ugly bastard, he’ll tell you himself. Forthright and too smart for his own good, he figured what woman would want that—beyond the money and power that is.”
I didn’t even know where his power came from. It was just something he’d worn like a cloak, easy to spot and assumed to be his own.
“So, he married her, got her the best doctors, and this house. It was all he could do. Locked her in from both sides of the door to keep her safe from everyone, including herself. And it nearly killed him.”
“And her?” Because names were kept out of the news. I couldn’t even find a true accounting. Every one of them contradicted all the others. I had to believe it was purposefully done.
“She set the fire, you know. Up at the house, not in his room this time.” He glanced away then back to me. “Your room, as if she knew who it belonged to and wanted to take one last swipe at him. Not that there was any love on her side either, but I think she knew like a wild animal does if something is a greater prize to the prey than it is.”
I felt a horrible sorrow for her. That wasn’t a life I’d want, even before her tragedies began. I had to fight down the bile of hatred knowing that she could have killed almost every person on this planet I cared about. I’d have lost him who was most valuable to me without ever knowing because of her—but not because of her. And so I set it aside.
“And himself?”
“Ah, Thorne. He’s…he’s mostly still Thorne.” Micha took a quick sip of his drink. “He’s still bossy and pursuing the same ends he always has. He’d gone a bit mad when you first left, but we talked him down asking if he’d ever met a more competent person than yourself. That and knowing no ransom came and it was unlikely anyone suspected you were vital to him.”
I knew this were true. Our relationship was something separate from the world he came from.
“And he’s…okay?”
“He’s alive.” Micha took a breath, then his grin kicked up again. “I can’t help but think what will make him okay again is sitting right here. But he’s… well, to be blunt he’s scarred and his vision is gone.”
“He’s blind?” It was a shock. For a man who had lived his life making judgments and observing people, that must have been quit a blow.
“The scar doesn’t bother you?”
“The blindness doesn’t bother me either, except for how it makes him feel.”
“Ah.”
“He is otherwise…whole?” How was I to ask if dealing with his insane wife, being nearly murdered three times in one year, not knowing where I was, and finally losing all those things had not driven him to the edge of sanity as well.
“He is otherwise Thorne. A bit testier if you can believe that, but I think we’ll see that ease. Unless…” His gaze swept up to mine now, catching me, trapping me where I was. “This isn’t all you came for was it? Just for word of him?”
Perhaps Mr. Thorneton would not forgive me as Micha expected. He might feel as though too much of what had happened to him was my responsibility. If I’d been here, or if I’d gone away with him, perhaps none of this would have occurred.
“Stop.” Micha reached over and gave my had a gentle squeeze. “You did what you had to do. It was best for you and believe it or not, I think it was best for him.”
I absorbed that, hoping it was true.
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“In his office. He’ll come out at dinner, but he’ll be a bear.”
I laughed because when had he ever been pliable.
“Okay.” Micha shrugged. “More of a bear. He’s been…difficult.”
“I can imagine.”
“I doubt it.
Micha looked a bit wary of his next words, but he spit them out as if there was no other choice. “It’s when he asks after you.”
I took his words like a blow, harsh and hard against my chest, making my heartbeat still a moment before rushing on in a rapid flutter of beats.
"Still?"
He crooked a grin my direction. "Always."
I couldn't help it that my heart sped again at the news, that I had hoped once again I wasn't here for no reason except to extinguish my own need to know.
"Has he forgiven me? " It was my turn to look away into the dark night through the window.
“Mouse." Micha slid to the end of his chair. "I think he thinks that question should be asked in reverse.”
I suppose it was true. I left not only for myself, but for us.
But here I was, back. I couldn't imagine that Leeanna was gone. Especially now that I knew why he had married her. And then I was here hoping for… What? Even I didn't know.
But the way I left, it left too many doors open and I have to see him, I have to know for myself that he was as well as could be expected. Urge him to be better.
“And… Leeanna? "
Micha snapped back as if I slapped him.
"You don't know? "
Suddenly I was afraid again. The fear and hope swung in equal measures back and forth like a pendulum and it was devastating to not know where they would land.
"Jane, I thought you knew."
I shook my head. Whatever it was he thought I knew, I did not. And I couldn’t imagine what it was.
Micha shook his head as if suddenly clear on something that he hadn't known before a small smile tripping on his lips.
“Leeanna died.”
"There is nothing that can be done. She threw herself from your—the window and landed across the barricade. By the time Thorne reached her—any of us reached her, she was dead. There is nothing that could be done. I'm embarrassed to admit it's a relief, not just for me. I think for all of us. She didn't have a life we would've wished on anyone. She was trapped in shadows and constantly hunted by demons.”
Micah took another sip of his whiskey, his hand a bit shaky as he studied me while I took in the news.
“I had to send the others away, back to the city.
The entire household. Only Mrs. Fairfax was permitted to stay. She’s away at her sister’s seeing to the girl and her nurse and making sure Frank hasn’t decided to retire. The men are all in town, keeping to their jobs. But they’d like to be here. In case.”
Ah, the infamous in case.
Which could mean anything with this collection of danger magnets.
“But, he’s still in control. Still the boss. Still making the decisions. We have…jobs that can’t be dismissed. That’s what’s kept him focused when otherwise he may have given himself a bit of self-pity time.”
So, the man loses his vision, has a scar worth mentioning, lost his wife and the woman he would have made his mistress, and had one of his houses burn down around him and didn’t have time for a bit of self-pity?
“And, he’s here?” I felt the ground shift under me.
Of course he was here. Micha had all but told me he was and Micha wouldn’t be reclused in the country alone.
He gave a brusk nod. “He’s working.”
“Did you tell him it was me?” I was suddenly afraid that this was the kiss off. That Micha had been given directions to get me a car back to wherever I’d been and send me on my way.
“Jane, the man wouldn’t notice someone had arrived unless I hit him over the head. The only person he cares to see is you. If I’d have told him… Well, you and I wouldn’t have had these moments and I wanted you to be prepared.”
A chime dinged nearby and it felt like it was drawing our conversation closed.
“We’ve got the whole house wired for sound.” He rose, setting his whiskey aside. “I’ll be bringing him a drink and settling in to give him updates before dinner.”
I watched as he poured another glass, knowing there was no longer a moment to lose as my skin heated at realizing I had no reason to leave again.
“I’ll take it.”
Micha stood, the glass in hand and shook his head. “I’m not sure that’s for the best, Jane.”
“I can’t put it off, Micha. I know you wish we both could, but…”