by T. L. Haddix
~ * * * ~
When Beth arrived home after leaving the courthouse, she had excused herself and gone straight to the shower. Running the water as hot as she could stand it, she stayed in until the spray ran cold. She had then stumbled out, barely managing to dry off and set the alarm clock before falling into bed and asleep. The morning had absolutely wiped her out, leaving her more tired than she had been in months.
When the alarm went off hours later, she rolled over and slapped at the snooze button, groaning. Pushing her hair back off her face, she turned the alarm off and headed to the bathroom. She considered putting on makeup, but thinking about her tears this morning, decided to forego it. Dressed in jeans and a light sweater, she locked the door behind her. As she left the guest house, she saw her mother puttering around in the flowerbeds along the back of the main house and walked in that direction.
“Hey, honey. Headed out?”
“Yes. I’m going to meet Ethan at his house and talk.” She waited to see how her mother would take the news.
Jackie stood up slowly and pulled her gloves off, looking at Beth for a long moment without speaking. She tilted her head toward the house.
“Come inside with me.”
Beth followed her into the mudroom, glancing surreptitiously at her watch.
Jackie washed up, then dried her hands and carefully folded the hand towel and laid it on the counter. She turned to Beth. “You’re old enough to know your own mind, so I won’t bother with some ridiculous lecture about taking the time to think things through. You’ve had months to do nothing but think. I’ll say this, instead. Make a decision you can both live with, and accept the consequences of that decision, whether they’re good or bad.
“I also want you to know that whatever you decide, your father and I will support you. I’m relieved you’re trying to settle this thing with Ethan, whatever the outcome.”
Beth felt tears spring into her eyes, and she threw her arms around her mother. “Thank you so much. I love you, Mom.”
Jackie smiled. “I love you, too, honey.” She held Beth for a long moment and gave her an extra squeeze before letting go. “Not everyone is ready to forgive Ethan for hurting you.”
“You mean Chase. I know. I need to talk to him, and I will.” She glanced at her watch again and winced. “I have to go, I’m sorry.”
“Of course. Be careful, honey. I’m here if you need me.” Smiling her thanks, Beth headed out the door.
Chapter Fifty Eight
Beth pulled into Ethan’s driveway at six o’clock on the dot. She forced herself to not think too much as she headed up the front steps. Ethan was waiting for her at the front door and held the screen door open.
“Thanks for coming.”
She just smiled, trying to appear calm and not let on how nervous she actually was. As she walked into the living room, she looked around with surprise. Ethan had done quite a bit of remodeling work since she had been there last - painting, trim work, refinishing the hardwood floors - and the house looked very different.
“You’ve been busy,” she commented. Ethan just stared at her without speaking. “The remodeling?”
“Oh, that.” A slight flush spread across his cheeks. “Yeah, it’s been therapeutic. Come in, have a seat.”
She took a step toward the couch, but stopped. With a slight hesitation, she turned to face him, her eyes not meeting his. “This may sound strange, and please feel free to tell me no, but would it be okay if I went upstairs?” She felt Ethan’s shock, but after a second he stepped back, moving out from between her and the stairs.
“Whatever you’d like.”
Still avoiding his gaze, she walked past him and put her hand on the newel post at the bottom of the stairs. She started climbing, steady and determined, with Ethan following behind her much as he had that fateful day back in the fall. When she reached the landing at the top, she paused before she walked into his bedroom. She expelled a long breath to try and calm her nerves.
Moving to stand beside the bed, she looked around the large room. The bed itself was neatly made, covered in a faded quilt, and aside from a pile of folded laundry in a basket, the room was in order.
Ethan stopped in the door and leaned against the frame with his arms crossed over his chest, an inscrutable look on his face.
She turned to him. “You probably think I’m the rudest person to walk the face of the earth, but I needed to come up here. I needed to see this room again, face this demon.” She turned to face the bed again and touched its surface lightly, running her fingers over a seam in the old quilt. “Sometimes in our minds, we make things out to be bigger or scarier than they really are, and I’ve found that the best way to deal with that is to just confront whatever it is that’s causing the problem.”
He moved to stand beside her, not touching, but close enough that she could feel the heat coming off his body. “I understand. You don’t owe me any explanations, Beth.”
“Oh, but I do,” she disagreed. “I think Jason was right when he said you were hurt almost as badly as I was.” She fell silent for a few seconds before she continued in a voice so quiet Ethan had to strain to hear her. “Do you think about that night?”
“You mean the night we were together? Yes, I do. Every time I come to bed, I think about it. It’s a blessing and a curse. Do you think about it?”
“Yes. Like you said, it’s a blessing and a curse. After everything happened between us last fall, I really blamed you for most of what I went through.” She turned and sat down on the bed. When she saw the devastated look on his face, she hurried on. “Not the kidnapping, Ethan. I know you didn’t have anything to do with that, not in any way that mattered. But everything else? For that, I was only too happy place the blame on your shoulders.”
Ethan sat beside her, bracing his arms on his knees. He was shaking his head adamantly. “A lot of what happened was my fault. You know that as well as I do. Don’t try to absolve me of all guilt, because that’s just not how it was.”
“I’m not. You still have plenty to be held accountable for. I suppose what I’m trying to say, and not doing a very good job of,” she said as she leaned her shoulder into his for a moment, “is that I owe you an apology. I assumed things I had no business assuming, and we both paid the price for my arrogance.”
He was staring at her with a hard frown on his face. “Why the hell would you think you owe me an apology? After the way I treated you, it’s nothing short of a miracle that you’re even willing to sit here talking to me. If your brothers had decided to take me out into a field somewhere and leave me staked out there, I’d deserve it. You owe me an apology? Not bloody likely.” He snorted, incredulous.
Beth shook her head with sadness. “You may not think so, but I do. I owe you a big apology. God, this is so hard to say.” She drew in a shaky breath, getting ready to lay all her cards on the table. “Ever since you and Chase became friends when you were teenagers, we’ve been close, you and I. You never treated me like a tag-along, and you always listened to me. From the first time you came home with him, you’ve been a member of the family. I’m not sure when it changed for me, but somewhere along the line, it did. At some point, I stopped looking at you like an older brother, and started seeing you…” Her voice trailed off as a flush of embarrassment washed over her. The fact that his gaze had locked onto her didn’t help. Drawing herself up straight, she continued.
“I started seeing you as a man, damn it. I pretended for so long that everything was the same, but it wasn’t. I told myself over and over again to move on, to stop mooning over you, but I just couldn’t do it. Everyone teases me because I’ve dated so many men over the years. Just one or two dates, and I move on to the next hapless victim. Do you know why I’ve done that? Why so many guys never made it past a second date or a kiss? Aside from the idiots, I mean?”
Ethan shook his head.
“They weren’t you.” She met his gaze for an instant before she stood, walking to the dresser to play wi
th the handles on the drawers as she let her nerves calm down. She finally faced him again, her arms crossed.
“If a single one of those men had made me feel half as much as you did, I’d have married him. But none of them did. God help me, not even the guy I slept with in college.”
He started toward her. “Beth…”
She held up her hand and stopped him. “If I don’t finish it now, I won’t be able to.” He eased back down onto the bed and waited for her to continue. After a moment, she did. “After I was shot and after I left, I looked closer at myself than most people probably ever do. I didn’t like what I saw.
“I swear I didn’t do it intentionally, but I’d gotten this idea in my head of what my life was going to be like and everything I’ve done since I was a teenager has been directed toward achieving those goals. I knew that I would go to college and get my degree, and then I would come back here and work at the paper. In a few years when Marshall was ready to retire, I’d take over and become editor.”
The next part was the hardest. “I also thought in the back of my mind that someday I would win you over, you would realize you loved me, we would get married and live happily ever after, kids, dogs, house - the whole nine yards. I never stopped to really consider where your feelings fit into the picture.” Running her hands through her hair, her laughter was ragged.
“After I left and started analyzing my life, I thought back over the last few months before the shooting. When I realized what I’d done? There just aren’t words for the guilt,” she whispered. “We fought like cats and dogs most of last year, Ethan. I blamed you for that, for running hot and cold, and I truly saw myself as some blameless victim.
“What I failed to realize was that I had been pushing you, deliberately provoking you into doing and saying most of what went on. I never stopped to think about what I was doing, and what the impact was on you or your life. That’s why I owe you an apology. I’m so sorry. I’m just so damned sorry.”
She clamped her hand across her mouth and tried to hold back the tears as Ethan stood up. He hurried over and pulled her into his arms, and she wrapped her arms around him and clung tightly. Rocking her back and forth, he stroked her back with his hands, holding her until he felt some of the tension leave her body.
“Do you honestly think you’re the only one who felt that way? You have no idea how long I’ve fought the way I feel about you. I told you earlier. You don’t owe me an apology. Not for anything. I meant that.” She started to speak, but he silenced her with a soft finger across her lips.
“What happened between us last year, it had been building for a long, long time. If you want to blame someone, blame me. I was determined to ignore my feelings for you, and it didn’t matter that I was hurting you because I wanted you to hurt. I didn’t think it was fair that I was the only one suffering. I wanted you to feel the same pain I did,” he admitted, letting his arms fall. He moved back to sit on the bed. He didn’t speak again for several minutes, and when he did, his voice was low.
“You aren’t the only one with embarrassing confessions to make. I never thought I was good enough for you. I always figured if I made a move in your direction, your brothers would kill me. You were Beth Hudson, polished, wealthy. Your family is the royalty of Olman County, and I was just that Mexican kid who tried to pretend he was white. Who was I to be putting my hands on you?”
Beth was astonished. “Ethan Moore, you know better than that. We’ve never treated you like you were second-class.”
“My head may have known it, but my heart didn’t. Do you know why Nina called off our wedding?”
She didn’t really want to hear the answer, but knew she didn’t have a choice. She shook her head.
“She found out that my father was a first-generation American, that my grandparents are Mexican. Let me tell you, I’ve had to endure some pretty harsh teasing over the years, but the things she said to me cut deep. It changed me.”
Beth sat back down beside him. “You really loved her, didn’t you?”
Ethan shook his head. “Not the way I needed to. Not the way I should have, and it really doesn’t matter now, in any event. After we split up, I started watching the way women responded to me. Most of them couldn’t have cared less who I was inside. They were either looking at the uniform or at my skin color, either way seeing me as a notch on their bedposts, and after a while, it started to get to me. You were different. I knew that, intellectually. But emotionally…
“When I couldn’t fight this attraction for you any longer, I got defensive. I wasn’t going to give you the chance to get at me the way she had, because I knew if you tore me apart like that, I’d never survive it.”
“So you pushed me away.”
He nodded and his eyes closed briefly. “Even though all I wanted to do was pull you closer.”
For a few minutes they sat in silence, each taking in what the other had said.
“Where does that leave us?” Beth asked.
“Hell if I know. Where do you want to go?”
She leaned her forehead against his shoulder and laughed softly. “To quote you, ‘hell if I know.’ And I asked you first.”
He chuckled. “You want the truth?”
“Nothing but. Tell me.”
“I want you,” he said simply. He let that sink in a moment before he continued. “I want a chance to be with you, see what we really have. I want it all. If I can’t have it all, then I’ll take whatever you want to give me.”
Beth was speechless, and when he saw that, Ethan smiled sadly. “I’m tired of fighting. We almost destroyed each other last year. If you hadn’t survived the shooting? I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.”
He stood and walked to the door. “On top of what we did to each other, there’s all this collateral damage. I’m pretty sure Jason will forgive me with time, but what about Chase? We’ve been friends for over fifteen years now. I’m certain that your being kidnapped brought back everything he went through with Kiely. He blames me for leading Ruby to you, and he’s right. I can’t expect him to forgive me. I don’t think I would be able to, in his shoes.”
“I think you’re right about Jason, but Chase is different now.” Beth watched as his shoulders slumped a little at her words. “There’s more collateral damage, though.”
“What do you mean?” He turned toward her, arms crossed over his chest.
She forced her gaze to his. “I mean your drinking.”
His mouth twisted. “There is that.” His tone was laced with self-loathing. “What do you want to know? I’m an alcoholic. I’ve joined AA. Some days are worse than others.”
“How long have you been sober?”
“Since January first. That makes what? Three and a half months? Now ask me how long it’s been since I wanted a drink.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. How long?” She moved off the bed and walked to where he stood in the doorway. Tipping her head back, she met his eyes.
When he saw the calm acceptance on her face, he sighed. “About ten minutes, if that.”
Beth raised her hands and laid them on his arms. She felt the muscles bunch, and she squeezed lightly as he looked away, embarrassed. His eyes glistened with tears, and he tried to pull away, but she grabbed his hands.
“Please don’t shut me out. Let me in. Let me help you.”
“I can’t.” He managed to get his hands free, and turned to go down the hall.
“Ethan, wait.” She rushed after him and grabbed the back of his shirt. Holding on with a firm grasp, she managed to stop him, and they stood in the darkening hall with the house silent around them. Her hand still fisted in his shirt, she moved closer and placed her other hand gently on his back. “You stubborn man, let me in.”
At her touch, his control snapped, and he sank to his knees. Arms wrapped around his stomach, he bent at the waist as the tears took over.
She moved in front of him and slid her arms around his neck, pulling him as close as she could. “It’s oka
y. Let it out. Just let it out, let it go.” She pressed a kiss to his dark head and settled her back against the wall. When she was settled comfortably, she pulled an unresisting Ethan into her arms and just let him cry.
For a long while, they just sat there, Beth soothing him as he let go of some of his demons. When he finally quieted down, she twisted, reaching into her jeans pocket for the package of travel tissues she had grabbed out of her purse.
“I knew those would come in handy.” She pulled out a couple of tissues, which she handed to him. As he sat up and faced away from her, blowing his nose, she continued to rub his back. He started to stand up, and she grabbed at one of his hands.
“Don’t go. Please?”
Ethan stopped and turned his head halfway toward her.
“I - I need to hold you.”
He snorted. “I just bawled like a baby. Yeah, I can see how that’s attractive.”
Beth stood and walked up to him, standing toe to toe. “You idiot. Do you always have to be so damned stoic? I don’t want you to take me to bed, I want to feel your arms around me.”
With a ragged groan, he pulled her close. “Let’s go downstairs, then.”
Keeping her hand in his, he led her down to the living room and settled in on the couch. He opened his arms and, kicking off her shoes, Beth snuggled into his lap. Ethan wrapped arms and legs around her, and placed a gentle kiss on her head.
“Okay?”
She nodded. “Very. No place I’d rather be.”
~ * * * ~
Beth wasn’t sure exactly how long they stayed like that, wrapped around each other. It had been falling dark when they left the bedroom, and it was fully dark now. If the phone hadn’t trilled when it did, they might have sat there all night.
Turning, Ethan reached for the cordless handset that sat on the table behind him, switching on the lamp in the process. He answered, and his gaze shot to hers, unreadable, as he handed her the phone.