The Lone Wolfe

by Kate Hewitt

  He looked startled, but he didn’t avoid the question. He didn’t even avert his eyes. ‘Yes.’

  Mollie wanted to groan. Or scream. She also wanted to sing with joy. ‘Then why did you just tell me you were leaving? Why can’t we work through this, Jacob? Whatever it is? Isn’t that what love is all about? Trust? ‘

  ‘It’s not you I don’t trust,’ Jacob said quietly. ‘It’s me.’

  ‘You don’t trust yourself?’ Mollie repeated blankly. She trusted Jacob so utterly the very thought was bewildering. ‘Why?’

  Jacob didn’t speak for a long, tense moment. The silence ticked on, tautening the very air.

  The wind rustled the papers on the desk again. Mollie didn’t say anything. Didn’t move. She just waited.

  ‘I remember the first time my father hit me,’ he finally said, his voice quiet, calm, as if he was simply telling a story. ‘I was six years old. I’d come home from school for Christmas, and I knew something was different. Wrong. Even the little ones could feel it. My stepmother, Amber, Annabelle’s mother, had died—of a drug overdose, I learned later—the year before. I thought my father was sad because of that, and perhaps he was in his own way.’ He took a breath and let it out slowly. ‘I wanted to comfort him. I knew he wasn’t like other fathers, the way dads are supposed to be, but as a child I kept trying to act like he was. I think I thought if I acted that way, perhaps he would too.’ He gave her a fleeting smile, a humourless curving of his lips. ‘But of course it didn’t. You can’t will things into being. And I think, looking back, that my attempts to comfort him—to make him seem normal—frustrated him. Perhaps he realised the magnitude of his own failings.’ He paused. ‘That is a hard thing to bear.’

  After another pause he resumed his story. ‘In any case, that Christmas he was worse than ever before. Drunk most times, although it took me a while to realise it. It was as if …’ He stopped, searching for the words that seemed to come from the very depths of his being. ‘It was as if he’d surrendered to the worst part of himself, and allowed it … control.’

  Mollie made some inarticulate sound, as it all started to make such terrible sense. Jacob’s determination to remain self-controlled. His refusal to drink. And he’d seen this all when he was six.

  ‘We had a series of temporary nannies to take care of us, and one morning the nanny left without even telling my father. I can hardly blame her—we were a ragtag bunch. Jack was four and Annabelle and Alex were barely two.’ He shook his head, remembering. ‘Anyway, I went in search of my father, and found him in bed with a bottle even though it was nearly noon. He was a mess. Weeping and raging at turns.’ Jacob’s mouth twisted in memory. ‘In that moment I was so angry because I knew he should be taking care of us and he wasn’t. At least with Amber we’d had some kind of mother. I remember her being fun and loving, at times. But William alone …’

  He shook his head again. ‘So I took those whisky bottles and dumped them in the sink. I was so full of self-righteous fury, much good it did me. My father was unbelievably angry. I’d never seen him like that before … he was incoherent with rage.

  He hit me then, and Lucas too, and we took it because we were too young and too surprised to know what to do. He’d never hit us before.’

  ‘Oh, Jacob …’

  ‘I knew then how it would be,’ he finished flatly. ‘How it would always be. My father may have had his good moments, when he played with us, or gave us presents, but underneath I knew what he was. So did he, and he could never escape from it. Sometimes I pitied him. Most of the time I hated him. And I always promised myself I would never, ever be like him.’ He turned to face her, his expression bleak yet determined.

  ‘You’re not like him, Jacob,’ Mollie whispered. ‘Not one bit.’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ he returned flatly. ‘I am just like him. Sometimes I hide it better, and most of the time I keep it under control. But underneath? Where it matters? We’re the same.’

  He spoke with such absolute conviction that Mollie wanted to cry, both for him and herself. It was hopeless. He’d never be convinced he was different, or that he was worth loving. ‘I don’t believe that,’ she told him in a choked voice. ‘I don’t believe that at all.’

  ‘You wanted to know the truth, Mollie, and now you have it.’

  ‘This is your terrible secret?’ she demanded. ‘This distorted, guilt-ridden version of the past?’

  ‘There’s more.’

  ‘Then tell me,’ Mollie said, folding her arms. ‘Because I want to hear it.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Jacob snarled. ‘Examples? A list of all the times—’

  ‘Yes,’ she retorted. ‘Yes, I would. Just when were you so like your father, Jacob? When you took care of your family? When you saved Annabelle—’

  ‘Saved her?’ Jacob repeated in scathing disbelief. ‘I raised my hand to her.’ Startled, Mollie’s mouth snapped shut, and Jacob nodded as he saw her response. ‘I raised my hand. I barely kept myself from hitting her, just as my father did. She saw it. She saw my hand, and she saw the rage in my eyes, and she cowered from me.’ He drew in a shuddering breath. ‘It was after

  … after everything. She’d come to find me with tears in her eyes, because she needed someone to talk to. She was so lonely, shut away in the house, and so young …’

  ‘So were you,’ Mollie whispered. ‘You were only eighteen, Jacob.’

  ‘I was old enough to know better,’ he returned savagely. ‘Old enough to control myself.’

  ‘You did control yourself.’

  ‘That time.’ He looked at her bleakly. ‘That one time. But I knew there would be others, and who knows if I could control myself then? I didn’t.’ There was a new, darker note in his voice now and Mollie felt a tremble of fear ripple through her. Jacob saw it and knew what it was. He nodded. ‘You’re right to be afraid of me.’

  ‘I’m not afraid of you,’ Mollie returned hotly. ‘No matter what you tell me now.’

  ‘All right, then,’ Jacob said. His voice was like a terrible caress, a low, silky whisper.

  ‘Here’s the truth, Mollie. Here’s what you don’t know. What nobody knows.’ His eyes met hers, glinting blackly with challenge, and Mollie lifted her chin, ready for the worst.

  ‘The night my father died,’ Jacob told her, his voice still a soft whisper that coiled right around her heart and squeezed, ‘I was out at a party. I liked to go out to parties. Going out and getting drunk was about the only respite I had.’

  ‘That hardly shocks me, Jacob.’

  ‘That’s nothing,’ he dismissed. ‘It’s what happened when I came home.’

  ‘I know William was whipping Annabelle with a riding crop,’ Mollie told him. ‘She spoke of it once to me. And Nathaniel and Sebastian were trying to stop him.’

  ‘They couldn’t,’ Jacob confirmed. ‘They were too young. They were crying, although Annabelle was silent. She was curled up on the floor, covered in blood. I thought she was dead.’

  Mollie closed her eyes. She could hardly bear to imagine the scene, and yet Jacob had lived it … and still lived with it, nearly twenty years later.

  ‘In that moment,’ Jacob told her in a cold, detached voice, ‘I felt anger like I’d never known before. It was a red mist before my eyes, in my heart. It covered me. It controlled me, and I raised my hand to my father.’

  ‘To save your sister,’ Mollie finished swiftly. ‘To save her. It was the right thing to do, Jacob. It was self-defence.’

  ‘Was it?’ he asked quietly. ‘Don’t you think there could have been another way? I could have grabbed the riding crop, or wrestled him to the ground, or taken Annabelle away from him.’

  ‘Perhaps, but you could hardly consider all your choices right then,’ Mollie argued. ‘It was the heat of the moment.’

  ‘Exactly. The heat of the moment. And in that heat, I wanted to hit him. So that’s what I did.’ He spoke with such self-loathing that Mollie felt helpless in the face of it. ‘I was so angry, as angry as he�
��d ever been with me.’

  ‘It’s different, Jacob,’ Mollie insisted. Tears crowded in her eyes and thickened her throat.

  ‘How is it different?’ His gaze suddenly swung back to her, pinning her mercilessly with its bleak truth. ‘How, Mollie? I saw myself just as I really am in that moment. Someone controlled by anger, who acted on the most base instinct—’

  ‘The instinct to protect your sister?’

  ‘I hit him as hard as I could, Mollie. As hard as I could. I punched him with all the anger I’d ever felt, all the abuse I’d ever taken, and—’ he drew in a shuddering breath ‘—in that moment, before he fell, it felt good.’

  ‘Of course it did,’ Mollie returned. ‘He’d been abusing you and your brothers and sister for years, and you never fought back.’ Her voice rose in an anger of her own. ‘Why are you defining yourself by that one moment, instead of all the other moments when you protected your family, when you did what was right and good?’

  ‘I have a dream,’ Jacob said in a low voice. ‘I dream of the moment when I hit my father—over and over again. I can’t escape it. And in the dream—you heard me, didn’t you? The night we were together. I laugh.’ His voice shook. ‘I laugh.’

  ‘It’s a dream, Jacob,’ Mollie said steadily. ‘Not the truth. Dreams distort reality, they make it worse.’

  ‘I scared you, didn’t I?’ Jacob said, gazing at her bleakly. ‘That night. I scare myself. I can’t let go of the anger—I feel it every night, when I have that dream. And that’s the truth of who I am.’

  Mollie stared at him. He might laugh in a distorted dream, but now tears were running down his face, unchecked. Mollie didn’t think Jacob even realised he was weeping. And without considering what she was doing, simply needing to, she closed the space between them and reached up to put her hands on Jacob’s face, forcing him to look at her, her thumbs wiping away his tears. ‘Do you know what I see when I look at you, Jacob? I see a man who sacrificed everything—even his own happiness—to protect his sister. I see a man who, time and time again, showed how much he loved his family. I see a man who has so much compassion and concern inside of him that he would do anything —anything—to keep from hurting the people he loves.’

  Jacob stared at her, unresisting, taking in every word. Mollie leaned forward, on her tiptoes, so her lips were a breath away from his. ‘I see the man I love.’ And then she kissed him; she could feel his shoulders shaking as she drew him towards her.

  The kiss, which had started as a healing balm, turned into something hungry and urgent.

  Jacob’s hands cupped her face and desire leapt low in Mollie’s belly, scattering all the sorrow and regret.

  Jacob softened his kiss, deepening it as his hands stripped away her clothes, buttons popping and scattering. Mollie fumbled with his tie, his blazer, his belt, kicking off shoes and socks and underwear until they were both naked, both breathless and desperate with longing.

  Jacob drove into her in one deep stroke, filling her to completion as she pulled him even closer to her, wanting their bodies to be joined, fused from shoulder to ankle, the final healing.

  ‘I love you,’ she whispered, and he let out a choked sob. Mollie placed her hands on either side of his face, forcing him to look at her. His eyes were still full of torment, an agony she longed to wipe clean away. ‘I love you,’ she said again, forcefully, and then there were no more words as the desire became too great, spiralling dizzily inside her, higher and higher, until with a cry she found her release, and Jacob collapsed against her, his face buried in her shoulder.

  He rolled away from her almost instantly, his arm thrown over his face. Mollie’s heart hammered and her breath tore. She was naked and sweaty and sticky. She reached for him.

  ‘Jacob—’

  He shook his head. ‘No. Don’t.’ He took a few ragged breaths, his chest heaving. ‘You should leave me,’ he said at last.

  ‘No.’ She pulled at his arm. ‘I’m not leaving you, Jacob. Not now, not ever. I love you, and you love me. We’re working through this.’ Her voice shook and tears started in her eyes.

  ‘We are.’ He shook his head, a tiny movement, but Mollie felt it all the way through her. She pulled at his arm again. ‘Look at me, Jacob. Look at me.’ Finally he lowered his arm and gazed at her. In the darkness Mollie couldn’t see his expression. ‘I love you,’ she said, her voice choked.

  ‘I love you and I need you. Don’t walk away from me. Don’t think you’re doing me a favour, or the right or noble thing, by leaving, because you aren’t. Stay with me. Show me you love me by staying.’

  Ever so gently Jacob brushed a tendril of damp hair away from her cheek. ‘I’m so afraid of hurting you,’ he whispered. ‘More afraid of that than of anything in my life.’

  A tear slipped down Mollie’s cheek. ‘You’re a better man than you think you are, Jacob,’ she whispered. ‘So much better. You’re a good man.’

  Jacob gave her the faintest of smiles, yet the sight of it made Mollie want to sing or perhaps weep with relief. ‘As long as you think so.’

  ‘I do,’ Mollie whispered. ‘I do. You’re worth saving, Jacob. Worth loving. And I love you.’

  ‘I love you,’ Jacob told her, his voice hoarse as he pulled her to him. They lay together for a long moment, neither speaking, a new peace settling over them. Yet even so, despite the relief flooding her heart that they had got this far, Mollie knew they hadn’t yet made it to the other side.

  The memories were still there. The sorrow and heartache and bone-deep guilt.

  As long as you think so.

  Yet Jacob needed to think so too. He needed to believe—in himself.

  As the darkness deepened around them, Jacob stirred and finally rose from the study floor. He scooped Mollie up in his arms, smiling as she curled into him, as contented as a cat.

  ‘I think we need a bed,’ he said, and she nodded against his shoulder.

  The house was swathed in darkness as he strode down the hallways to the foyer, paused at the foot of the great staircase. He’d always hated this place, hated the mental image the stairs alone conjured. Annabelle bloody. His brothers weeping. His father dead. Yet now, as he stood there for a moment, the images didn’t rise up the way they usually did, and their absence gave Jacob a little flicker of hope. Perhaps the past could be forgiven. Perhaps Mollie was right.

  Mollie looked up at him, her face open and so very trusting. ‘Jacob?’

  He smiled down at her before mounting the stairs, and she curled into him once again.

  Up in his bedroom he peeled back the duvet and laid her on the bed gently, as if she might break, though he already knew how strong she was. She looked up at him, still and waiting. Jacob slid in next to her and pulled her close.

  The only time he’d spent the night with a woman in the past twenty years had been the night with Mollie in the London hotel. He didn’t let women close enough to see him vulnerable, to witness his sleep—or his dreams.

  That night he’d been so buoyed with hope he’d risked it, with disastrous consequences.

  Yet now he knew there was no risk. Mollie had already seen him at his worst, at his most appalling and abject, and she loved him anyway.

  She loved him. It felt like a miracle.

  He rested his head on the softness of her hair and closed his eyes. He slept.

  The dream came. Even as it attacked the fringes of his mind, Jacob felt resignation settle in his soul. He’d known this would happen. He was so agonisingly familiar with this dream; it had played in a relentless loop in his mind for too long.

  Yet this time it was different. This time he wasn’t in the dream; he wasn’t even himself.

  He was a silent, invisible spectator, watching that terrible moment unfold like a scene in a play.

  He saw Annabelle huddled on the floor, his brothers begging their father to stop, tears in their eyes. He saw William, the riding crop raised over his head, and he saw himself.

  It was strange, to look upon
himself like another person, yet it also felt right. This was the truth, untainted by fear or uncertainty. He watched as his hands curled into fists; he waited, his own heart pounding, as he raised those fists. He saw his father raise the riding crop again. And then he watched himself hit his father. He heard that awful laughter.

  Except it wasn’t a laugh, not the laugh of his dreams, that shout of manic glee that had tormented him for so long. This was halfway to a sob, a groan of despair and anguish over what he’d just done … what he’d had to do.

  And in that moment he understood himself in a way he had never had before. He understood the anger and sorrow and even that brief second of satisfaction he’d felt when he’d hit his father, and he accepted it.

  He let it go.

  Jacob opened his eyes, coming awake with ease and peace. Mollie was still curled close to him, asleep. His own heart rate had slowed, and he wasn’t drenched in sweat as he usually was after the dream. He hadn’t laughed aloud. He hadn’t laughed at all.

  He lay there, quietly, letting the feeling of calm acceptance spread through him. He felt different. He felt at peace. He drew Mollie close again and closed his eyes, and this time when he slept there were no dreams at all.

  Chapter Eleven

  Mollie woke to sunlight and the heavy warmth of Jacob’s arm across her. She shifted, and his eyes flickered opened. ‘Good morning.’

  She smiled, blinking the sleep from her own eyes. ‘Good morning.’ She gazed at him, his features softened into a smile, and she realised she’d never seen him look so relaxed before. So at peace. ‘You’re different,’ she said softly, and he smiled back at her.

  ‘I feel different.’ He captured her hand in his own and pressed it against her cheek. There could be no denying that this peaceful morning was a world apart from the shattered aftermath of last night’s revelations. Mollie chose not to ask Jacob why. Not yet. He would tell her when he was ready.

  ‘Come on,’ she said instead. She slipped from the bed, reaching for one of Jacob’s T-shirts, discarded on a nearby chair, and slipped it over her head. ‘I want to show you something.’