My eyebrows crinkle and I take my hand, lacing our fingers together. “What does that mean?”
He huffs, his exhaustion clear on his face. “I wasn’t the best guy, Rowan. I did bad things, horrible things. I don’t want you to know him. I don’t want to be that man around you.”
I don’t push him for more information. He seems beaten up. I don’t want to add to it. “All right,” I say. “Then don’t. Besides, I kind of like the guy you are now.”
“Oh yeah?” His eyebrows quirk and he looks way too sexy for his own good with those professor glasses. Thank God for the bright stars tonight. I didn’t miss a single expression.
“A little,” I banter.
His head leans close to my mouth, and his cool breath blankets my face. His lips shadow mine and I have to stop myself from pulling them to me. “I kind of like you, too.”
My heart rate begins to thump erratically and I know he sees the panic in my eyes. I pull away from him, ashamed of my reaction to his admission. Danger, Rowan. Danger. The last time I allowed myself to like someone, I mean really like, he broke my heart. He jumped on another train and took a detour to a new place, leaving me in the broken boxcar. I was stuck with the task of finding the parts to make a new train. It’s not easy to allow yourself, one hundred percent, to like someone who you know is bad.
Landon was bad. He radiated playboy and I didn’t see it until I was in too deep. But with Lark, he’s mysterious. I saw it right away. And in some ways, he could be more dangerous.
I begin to open my mouth to explain that maybe we should take things slow, but he cuts me off. “I see it. I see it in your eyes. You want to run.”
My eyes skirt to the side and I don’t answer. I can’t. I’m ashamed. Hell yes I want to run. He actually admitted to liking me. This just got to a whole new level of intense. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to handle all of this.
He unlaces his fingers from mine and pulls me to my feet. Once we are both standing and facing each other, he embraces me in a strong hug. It’s fierce and full of emotion. He has this way of making a simple gesture mean so much more. Very slowly, his head dips to the crook of my neck and his deep, easy breathing fills my ears. “We don’t have to do this. We can go our separate ways when this is all over and you don’t have to see me again. But I know one day we will meet up and it’ll be completely on accident. You’ll be forty and divorced and I’ll take you out to have dinner. We’ll smile and have this same connection. And I’ll look into your eyes and you’ll be reminded of all the years lost between us. And then, at the end of the night, I’ll wait outside and hail you a cab and you’ll wonder why we wasted so much time.”
Thrashing unsteadily in my chest, my heart threatens to crawl out. My eyes mist and my breath comes out in jerky gasps. He hasn’t pulled away to look me in the eye like he normally does, but his heart is beating fast against my skin. He inhales slow and steady, hugging my soul for long moments.
“Be with me,” he says. “Stay with me. Let me take care of you.”
And as I cling to his shirt, I wonder how it would be to be with a man like him. It wouldn’t be easy. No relationship is, really. But he’s right. I don’t know so much about the divorced part, but I know if I left him without pursuing what we have or could eventually have, I’d regret it.
I close my eyes and feel him step even closer to my body. He holds me tight as I work through my muddled brain. I bite down on my lip as a small drop of moisture escapes from my eye and onto his chest. I loosen my arms around his broad body, but Lark holds me closer, clinging to the little world we’ve somehow created together. He shakes his head. “Don’t let go. Not yet.”
And I break. I claw at his back and bring him as close as humanly possible. There’s no end to me and beginning to him. We’re one in this moment. Shudders wrack my body and I feel myself diving off into the deep end. I’m freefalling. The idea of Lark encompasses me like a blanket. It wraps around my body, encasing me in its delicate warmth.
My hands travel up his back, tangling in his hair ever so gently, and I kiss his neck. “Regrets are for suckers,” I say, almost whispering, and Lark smiles against my skin.
SOMETHING ASTONISHING HAPPENS when dark clouds encroach. Your world goes gray and you can’t see past the fog. The clouds move, opaque and heavy, and you have to feel your way around. And in a weird way, it’s comforting. You don’t have to try so hard anymore. You can give up and not feel guilty about your decisions.
All the years of the constant one-night stands and faceless women I encountered apparently took its toll on me. They were my metaphorical dark clouds. Not the ladies themselves, but what they stood for. And I didn’t know my world was dark until Rowan came in and offered a flashlight. I’d try to numb the agony away by using women. I’d search to see if I could find someone to fill me up inside, and kiss away the pain. It wasn’t that I couldn’t find someone to do that. There isn’t a shortage of women in the world to help me out, but none of them were what I truly wanted—needed. I was so closed off that I hardened my heart. I was blind. Even as I made my way through college, I had issues with finding the right girl. I don’t even think I knew it. No one lived up. And Whitley, as much as I thought I loved her, wasn’t what I truly desired. And maybe that’s why I stayed the way I was for so long. A liar. I had to lie to myself in order to get past my yearning to be with someone different. Someone like Rowan. It’s kind of ludicrous. I didn’t even know Rowan’s last name, but I’d put her up on this unreachable pedestal and no girl lived up to it.
Had I repressed that memory? I think deep down, I always knew something was missing. I always knew that there was more out there, but I didn’t have a face until I was brought back to Rowan.
She’s the one good, redeeming quality I have. Being better because of another person—it seems irrational, but it could work for me. I can work past my issues and find a way to be better for her. For us. Whatever us is.
“What are you thinking?” Rowan asks, snapping me from my haze. We’ve been rocking back and forth in the hammock for the past hour.
There’s something to be said about being in the vast dead of night. Things don’t seem so serious. We can hide from the ugliness of the world and bask in the serenity of the darkness.
I breathe in deep through my nose. “About a lot of things.” I laugh and a yellow leaf from the tree above us falls into my lap and I pick it up. The texture is brittle and fragile, but as my fingers bend it in half, it doesn’t crack. The late autumn usually forces the leaves to dilapidate and die, but this one leaf seems to be holding on for dear life. Kind of like me. I’m a tattered and yellow wilting leaf, holding on for something.
“I get a lot of flack for not cussing,” I begin.
Rowan nods and puts her head on my shoulder. “It’s quite endearing.”
I laugh. “Not all people agree with that. In my life, being in the military and then the FBI, cussing is something everyone just does.”
“Then, why don’t you?”
I rub my lips together, preparing myself to work up the courage to talk about the deep, dark things hidden away in my closet. “My dad was in the military, you know?”
Again, Rowan nods, bringing her hand to my chest, clinging to my shirt. “I remember.” “He retired our senior year. And for most of my life, every other word that came out of his mouth was a curse. I began to hate those particular words.” I shake my head, fighting the menacing smile threatening to break free. Thinking about dad makes my irrational behavior seem normal. Living in that world for so long screwed with logic. “I craved the words that didn’t sound so unforgiving and harsh. They were a welcome distraction.”
Rowan snuggles closer and I bring her closer into my grip. I feel my hands begin to shake and I have to close my eyes. “I lost my brother, Charlie, when I was thirteen,” I croak out. My voice breaks and I have to clear my throat.
“Oh, God,” Rowan whispers, her voice entirely too sad for my liking. “I had no idea.”
>
I shrug my shoulder. “Not many people knew. We were young. I didn’t advertise it around school. ”
“How?” she asks in a small voice. “Can I ask how it happened?”
I swallow past the ever-growing guilt in my throat and bob my head. “Friendly fire in Afghanistan.” My eyes begin to prickle and I swipe at them. “It was his second tour in the Air Force. An accident that turned deadly. Somehow he managed to cross over into the wrong area and got separated from his flight. It was late at night and they thought he was an intruder. Tired eyes and scared minds aren’t a good combination.”
Tremors travel through Rowan’s body, migrating to mine. We cling to each other while she absorbs the information bomb I just dropped.
“How old was he?” she asks, her eyes glossing over.
“Twenty-three.”
“Jesus.” She blinks at rapid speeds and then looks away for a second.
“The moment we got the call that he had died, my world changed drastically. Dad pushed himself further into his job and mom delved deep into depression.”
“Did he ever hurt you?” Rowan asks. “Your dad, I mean.”
My hand grips her shoulder harder and I drag my other hand down my mouth. “Dad was more of a mental manipulator, if you know what I mean. If words caused bruises, I would have been black and blue every day.”
A crow caws in the distance and Rowan jumps but I soothe her with my reassuring grasp. She deflates after a second as she absorbs my honest reality. My immediate family members are the only ones privy to what actually happened behind the closed doors of my house.
After long minutes, Rowan finally speaks, “Thank you for telling me. It explains a lot about you. And I’m so sorry about Charlie.”
I swallow my own urge to flee. She knows more about me than anyone now. This would be the time I’d get up and go away. Actually, if it were any other woman, I wouldn’t have divulged the story. “Me too. I just—I don’t want secrets between us,” I say, absorbing my fear. My mind is made up. “I have to change who I am. I want to. This job was easy because it gave me a good outlet to be the liar that I’ve always craved to be.”
Rowan takes a sharp intake of breath and cuts a look into my eyes.
I continue, “Lying became who I was. In order to make Dad happy, I had to be someone else. Who I was, wasn’t good enough.”
Rowan gets a quizzical look on her face. “What do you mean?”
My lip curls and my shoulders go stiff. “Being a piano playing, comic reading, car loving, baseball playing kid wasn’t acceptable. I didn’t like the right things,’” I say in a tone that lacked dad’s sternness. “The only kind of hobbies that were acceptable to him were war games, hunting and shooting.”
Rowan shakes her head, confused. “Then why join the military and the FBI?”
My posture relaxes. This answer is easy. “I wanted to do something to honor Charlie. I thought maybe if I joined and did some good, I could keep his memory alive.”
“You do,” Rowan says with absolute confidence. “Putting yourself in danger for someone else is the bravest thing a person can do.”
I nod, indifferent. I don’t know if I agree with that. “Is that how you caught the attention of the human trafficking group?”
Rowan sighs heavily and crosses her arms. “I’m not brave, Lark. I try to help and bad things keep happening.”
I take note of her rigid stature and tilt my head. “You’re braver than you know.”
“Penny Middleson was fifteen when I met her. I had been working with Sacred Solidarity for almost two years when she was rescued. They had brought her in after she was beaten, sold for human trafficking and damn near broken. She was the youngest girl I’d seen in the institution. And my heart broke for her. The shelter was over capacity with women and they asked if I’d help out and house her for a while. She was this tiny thing.” Rowan laughs, her smile brightening her face. “Blonde hair and blue eyes. And she was fierce. Somehow, after all she’d gone through, the group that kidnapped her didn’t break her spirit. She had more fight in her than I’d ever seen anyone have.” She stops, this time tears falling from her eyes. “She went everywhere with me. Work, class…she was my little shadow. I’d never had a sister, so we got incredibly close.” A sob rips from Rowan’s chest and she turns her face into my body. “She was my family.”
Was…
Cries break free from Rowan’s mouth and I let her mourn, again. The sun is about to peek over the horizon, the sky turning a light grey but I refuse to move.
After the weeps subside, Rowan rubs her eyes and clears her throat. “A family adopted her and she moved to Maine. I remember the day so vividly. She was ecstatic to be with a real family. But, I got a call from the police four months later, just after her sixteenth birthday. The group found her and…”
Dead? She’s dead.
My heart stops and tears well in my own eyes. “Oh Christ,” I say, grinding my teeth.
“That’s why I became more involved with Sacred Solidarity after that. Penny lost her life and I wanted to find a way to stop the violence. If I could save just one life…it would be worth it.”
“Do you think the same group is targeting you?” I ask. My blood is at a dangerous temperature and I swear to myself I’ll find the organization and bring them to justice. For Rowan. For Penny. For every woman who has ever been hurt.
“I’d imagine so,” Rowan says. “I stepped up my involvement and became the face of the cause.”
I kiss her temple and breathe her in. “We will catch them.”
She sniffs, another tear falling down her cheek. “I know you will. But I don’t want to lose you in the process.”
“You won’t,” I say quickly, the deception weighing heavily in my stomach. Only this time, I don’t like the way it makes me feel. It’s wrong and the high I used to get only makes me feel like I’m somehow failing Rowan. I’m playing a dangerous game. Situations like this could turn bloody in the blink of an eye. Guaranteeing her I’ll come out unscathed is a risk. I quickly change gears. “I kept you up all night.” I rub her arm with my hand. “Let’s go get some sleep.”
She wipes the moisture from her cries away, her face looking radiant in the morning light despite the tears that grace her face. “I think I can handle that,” she says. Her cheeks are a slight pink color and the freckles that I hadn’t noticed until now make her look younger than her twenty-nine years. They fall on the apple of her cheek and I take my thumb, tracing them. She’s so incredibly striking when she has no make-up on. There’s no worry. The serenity etched on her beautiful face in this very moment makes me want to sit at the piano and write a song in its honor.
We get up from the hammock and make our way to the house. Just inside, Liam raises his cup of tea from the table. I was supposed to be on duty last night, but with the flood of crap I felt when I found out who Rowan was, I wasn’t much use to anyone. I walk away from Rowan and turn to Liam. Rowan stops but I turn to her. “Go on up. I’ll be there in a few.” Rowan winks at Liam and she turns, leaving us alone. I shake my head and put my hands on the table. “About last night,” I begin, pushing my glasses farther up my nose, “I’m sorry.”
Liam takes a loud slurp from his cup and smacks his lips. “Listen, mate. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but the look on your face last night sort of scared me.”
I look down at my hands and raise my eyebrows, ashamed. “It scared me too.”
“Why?”
I shuffle my feet and sit back in the chair, looking right at Liam. I cross my arms and watch as he assesses me. He was the first friend I made at the agency, and I’d like to believe I could trust him. “I know Rowan.”
Unaffected, he looks to the side. “Aye.”
I shake my head. “No. I’ve known Rowan for years. Only, I didn’t realize it until this evening when I saw a picture of her as a teenager.”
This perks him up. “Really?”
I rub the back of my neck. I’ve never be
en one to really talk about my past. I don’t talk about myself at all, actually. When you don’t really like yourself, talking about what you’ve been up to seems pretty dull and unexciting. Not to mention the self-loathing that comes with allowing the past to creep in. Guilt sucks. Hard.
“Uh, this is actually my hometown, man,” I say. “That’s why Logan approved our trip. He figured I had the upper hand knowing where I was going.”
“Bloody hell. I had no idea. I did think it was odd when he approved us, though. I thought the old man was off his rocker.”
I laugh. “Nah.”
“You’re in it with her, aren’t you?” Liam asks blatantly. Things have been a little tense with us the past few weeks. He doesn’t really understand why Rowan gravitated toward me, and really, I didn’t either. But now that it’s all out in the open, I’m on this runaway train, unable to stop it.
“Yeah,” I say, letting a smile play on my lips. “I am.”
And despite the tension with him before, a broad smile appears on Liam’s face. “I’m glad. The two of you playing that cat and mouse game was getting out of hand.”
I agree. “I need you to be straight with me. If this isn’t cool with you or the guys, I’ll back off. I don’t want her and I to get in between our mission.”
Liam levels his eyes. “You couldn’t stop if you tried. Don’t bullshit me. I think it should be fine. If anything, you’ll protect her that much more.”
“True,” I concede. If there’s anything in this world that I’d protect, it would be Rowan.
“She’s in good hands, Lark.”
I stand and clutch his shoulder. “Yeah. You all are really good to her.” If I could assemble a team of more than worthy people to keep Rowan safe, Chris, Evan, and Liam would be the first. There’s something to be said for forming bonds with complete strangers in the face of danger. Before this time together, I’d only talked to Chris and Evan in passing. Now I’d trust them with my life. I trust them with Rowan’s life.
Liam looks down and slaps my back. “You, Lark. I’m talking about you. You’ll take care of her.”
The Truth of a Liar Page 12