The Solemn Vow

by Bree Dahlia

  The Solemn Vow

  By

  Bree Dahlia

  * * *

  Copyright © 2018 by Bree Dahlia

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, without the written permission of the author.

  The Solemn Vow is a work of fiction based on real-life characters and events. In some instances, the names, places, and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

  * * *

  Edited by Hot Tree Editing

  * * *

  Cover Design by Sommer Stein at Perfect Pear Creative Covers

  Contents

  Buried and Breathless

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Epilogue

  Epilogue

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  When you’re at the bottom, remember to always look up. As long as there’s breath inside you and a sky above you, nothing is impossible.

  Buried and Breathless

  I’m roadkill.

  Gutted and discarded.

  He leaves the room without another word, and I hug my knees to my chest, tightening into a rigid ball as the vitality drains from me.

  I wonder how life can be so cruel. Crippling numbness and excruciating pain shouldn’t be allowed to exist in the same feeling.

  Ripped open, hollowed out, and siphoned dry. I clutch harder to keep myself together for a few more moments, but it’s a fool’s attempt. The tears are leaching everything from me. I have no control.

  I weep for the man who had my heart first and for the man who healed it. I weep for the pain both of them have caused me and for the pain both of them have endured outside of me. Two men own my heart, and that’s unforgivable.

  More pieces crack. More dirt falls. It feels like my soul implodes and my outer shell crumbles around it. But he’s not here to put me back together and stop me from suffocating. My sobs turn everything into sludge and I gasp, sucking it deeper within.

  I need the man who fixed me. I need the man who prevented me from breaking.

  My heart needs the man who completes it.

  But he’s not here.

  The last shovelful of earth does me in.

  Buried and breathless.

  One

  Three months earlier

  The house is alive.

  A white beast with its own heartbeat, breathing in tune to mine. I feel it. Feel her. She wants us here.

  “Come on.” Cain nudges me as he walks past. “Let’s get inside.”

  I glance down at the box in my hands. The last one of the night. The rest can wait. I’m anxious to get inside as well. I stop staring and start moving. I still can’t believe this place is all ours.

  We approach the front porch and I pause to turn a spindle. The paint flakes off under my fingertips.

  “I bet it was gorgeous back in the day. Just imagine after we fix it up, sitting out here in the summertime.” I flash him a smile. “Rocking our babies, living the dream.”

  “Yeah.” He smiles back. “But one thing at a time, okay?”

  He opens the door for me, despite carrying triple the amount, and I bring my box to the kitchen. The furniture and larger items were brought in and set up last weekend, not taking much time at all. Going from a tiny city apartment to a three-thousand-square-foot farmhouse makes moving the easy part. I scope out the room, the dust layering the dirt. Cleaning… not so much.

  Cain slips his hands underneath my shirt and grasps me around the waist, pulling my back flush against his chest. His ring feels cool on my overheated skin.

  He rests his chin on my shoulder. “Are you up for the challenge? It’s going to need a lot of work.”

  I spy the yard-long crack in the wall and hope it’s not a symptom of a deeper, out-of-our-price-range foundational problem. “Nah, just slap on a coat of fresh paint and we’ll be good to go.”

  He squeezes me tighter, and I wonder if we’re ingesting lead and asbestos as we speak. Cain came out of it all right, but there’s no way I’m bringing up a child in this tumbledown house until I’m guaranteed it’s up to code. It wasn’t even born in the same century.

  “You sure you’re not having second thoughts?”

  I swing around to face him. “Of course not.” I only needed to visit this place once to know it was meant to be. Couple that with a sweet deal and it was a no-brainer.

  His lips brush against mine. “My aunt really let it go, but at least the roof’s been replaced. That’s one less thing to worry about.”

  “Well, I think it’s perfect.” I look down. “Crumbling tiles and all.”

  He gives me another kiss, then spins me around.

  All right, maybe not perfect. The mauve and olive-green décor has to go, starting with the eyesore drapes. And for now, I’ll just pretend the dirt basement doesn’t exist.

  He sets me down with a crunch under my shoes, and I grab one of the unopened boxes and peel off the packing tape. Out of my peripheral, I notice him walking around, gliding his hands over the walls. “Is it strange living here again?” I ask, pulling out my wind chime and unraveling it from the bubble wrap.

  “No.” He wanders through the arched doorway and down the hall. “But it’ll be better after we claim it as ours.”

  “Do the fireplaces work?” We have two in the home, one down here in the parlor and one up in our bedroom. I’m giddy with the thought of using them when the weather turns cold again. I always wanted a fireplace.

  “Not sure,” he calls out, no longer in sight.

  I resume focus on the chime, holding it up and imagining the light hitting it, throwing dozens of tiny stars around the room as it softly jingles. I need to find the ideal place to hang it. Stepping outside onto what was once the back porch, I spy a few hooks screwed into the soffit. I choose the least rusted one and give it several tugs, making sure it’s not rotted out. When I’m certain nothing’s going to collapse, I put up my stars.

  Peering back in, I check out the location. The morning sun will need to confirm, but for now, I’m satisfied. My workstation will likely be the kitchen table for a while, so I want to view it every day and smile.

  I close the glass door and follow along the dilapidated wraparound porch. There are scores of overgrown rose bushes and lilacs that need be cleared out. I envision how lovely this area could be after I cut them back, add some new color. With just a little attention, this place will perk right up.

  Something bronzy peeks out underneath a brittle shrub, and I push it aside to get a better view. Metal doors. I’ve seen this before. It looks like a storm shelter, but they’re not usually this close to the house.

  I touch the handle and—

  I scream, leaping upright and back.

  “I’m sorry, baby.” He’s laughing, his hand on my shoulder. I want to rip it off and beat him with it. “I wasn’t trying to scare you.”

  “Cain!” He holds me closer and I
still my heart. “We’re out in the middle of nowhere. You can’t sneak up on me like that.” I point to the doors. “For all I know, there’s a dead body in there.”

  He laughs harder. “No dead bodies. But be thankful we have a furnace. Now that would be scary.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “Before my uncle passed away, we used a wood stove to heat the house. This is where we stored the wood. It was my job to keep it going through the night.” He reaches down and yanks open a side. “Imagine having to wake up and get out of your warm bed at 4:00 a.m. in the freezing winter to come out here and get wood for the heater. More often than not, the steps were icy. I was lucky I didn’t break my neck.”

  “God, that sounds horrible.”

  He shrugs. “It was a chore. Just one of the shittier ones.”

  “You were only a child.” He couldn’t have been more than six. I can’t get the image of little Cain out of my head, shivering and slipping all over the place. Wisconsin isn’t fucking Southern California. And if he would’ve fallen and cracked his skull open, would anyone have found him in time? Damn it, I want the bastard alive again just so I can kill him. We already have a perfect place to dispose of the body.

  “It’s okay, Maddie.” He chuckles, no doubt feeling me all tense. “Those days are over.” He soothes me with kisses up and down the side of my neck. “And just think, if I hadn’t learned all those life skills at a young age, you wouldn’t have such a responsible husband today.”

  “That wasn’t a life skill,” I snap. “That was abuse.”

  He snickers again. “Easy now. I’m supposed to be protecting you, remember?”

  “Says who?”

  “Says me.”

  I humph and his kisses get lighter, more teasing. “I’m going to the garden store tomorrow and doing whatever it takes to make it pretty out here.”

  “Mmhmm.” His lips make me tingle, and I weaken against his chest.

  “I’m going to completely cover up those hideous doors so I never have to look at them again.”

  “Whatever you want, baby.”

  His fingers slide under my shirt, and combined with his mouth, my blood pulses hard in my veins. It’s an effective distraction, and he knows it.

  “Time to take a break.”

  “But we just started. There’s so much to do yet.” My words are muddled and don’t sound too convincing, even to me.

  “If we’re going to stake claim, we have to start now.” I shiver when he hits the spot above my collarbone. “Lots of rooms to get through.”

  My lids sag and then pop open when I hear the ring through the open window. I turn toward the sound of my cell going nuts on the marble counter.

  “It could be a prospect,” I whisper. He scoops me up and carries me inside, his lips connecting with mine. The last thing I want is to break away from him, but…

  I snatch up the phone and immediately toss it back down. “Sorry, not important.”

  Cain tugs down my jeans and then hoists me farther up, palming my ass, backing me against the wall. I wrap my legs around him. Swaying stars catch my eye, and his gaze follows mine.

  “The first thing you did in our new home is hang up your wind chime?” I nod, his breath hot on my neck. “I fucking love you, Maddie.”

  I gasp out a “love you” as he thrusts into me, pressing me hard into the cool plaster. A piece of it splits off and crumbles to the ground as he pounds me against it. My parted mouth is over his throat, moaning as he brings me closer. Let this entire place disintegrate around us. As long as he keeps grinding his hips like that, we’ll deal with the aftermath.

  His fingers grip my flesh, holding as if I’m a feather pillow. “My God… Cain….” He loves making me struggle for speech, making my words raspy. Making me come hard.

  “Burst for me, stellina.”

  That does it. Every. Time. It shatters me in the best way possible, triggers me into releasing my very core. I clench around him, exploding into dust before rising out of the ashes, new and whole.

  I tremble between him and the wall, and he claims me further, erupting inside me. His kisses are deep, and I relish knowing it’s only a matter of time before he’s spilling down my thighs, marking me his as if I weren’t already.

  We slump against each other and I cling to him tighter. When our breaths slow, I notice the shambles around us and start to giggle.

  “Something funny?”

  He grazes his lips over my forehead, then lowers me down. I pick up the chunk of plaster. “Another thing to add to the tally.”

  I barely have time to pull up my pants before he’s swooping me up again. “And it’s all ours, baby.”

  “So, no second thoughts for you either?”

  “Nope.”

  I let him take me out of the kitchen even though my mind is swarming with things to do. We go into the cramped room with the fireplace, and he sets me upon his lap. We should be unpacking boxes, scrubbing floors, washing down cabinets. Making the unlivable areas at the very least tolerable.

  “We already have it all, Maddie. Now we’re just going to have more of it.”

  To-do lists fade away when he runs circles over my belly. I curl between his legs and lean my head back into the crook of his neck. I can do this with him all night. All eternity.

  “Just imagine this place filled with kids,” he says, “chasing around a puppy or two.”

  I smile wide. “One thing at a time, remember?”

  “We’ll be there soon.”

  “We need to make the house safe first.”

  “We’ll be there soon.”

  And I thought the drapes were bad. I stare down the monstrosity of a couch underneath the massive windows. At least I think it’s a couch. It looks like a skinned horse. I grimace.

  “And we definitely need to rip out that thing. I’m pretty sure it has fleas.”

  He laughs and kisses the top of my head. “We’ll be there soon.”

  “I know,” I whisper.

  Everything aligned at the right time: Cain’s promotion, my new business venture, a home proposal. After three years of marriage, we finally have a place to call our own. A fertile ground to put down roots and grow the family we always dreamed of.

  And at the first opportunity, I’m kicking the Pill to the curb.

  “Are you planning on calling your dad back?” His question makes me sigh. “Don’t even think of hiding it. I saw your phone.”

  “As if I’d hide anything from you. We don’t do that.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Why’d you have to go and ruin our moment?”

  “Maddie….”

  “And he’s not my dad, he’s my father. And even that’s being generous.”

  “Dad” is a title Cain will have someday. It conveys warmth and love and guidance. “Father” is cold and formal and disconnected. As I said, I’m being generous. “Sperm dispenser” is more fitting for the man who knocked up my mom.

  “I thought since you’re living closer now, you might be willing to give him another chance.”

  “Not gonna happen.”

  “Everyone deserves a second chance.”

  “Not everyone.”

  He doesn’t respond, and we sit in silence for a while before I reach up and stroke his hair. I love to bring it next to mine, contrasting his dark strands with my light rosy ones. It reminds me of a chocolate-covered strawberry.

  “Wish you didn’t have to work tomorrow. Then you could come shopping with me.”

  “I wish I didn’t either.”

  “I can’t wait to cheer it up around here. I’m going to make our home beautiful.”

  He brushes his fingers over my cheek. “It already is. You’re in it.”

  I turn and look up at him. “Cain, what if I made a mistake?” Panic sets in when I think of everything we need to buy for the house. “What if I flop?” It’s not as if we haven’t been over this plenty of times, running the numbers until they’re exhausted
, but leaving behind a steady paycheck to make it on your own justifies a bout of insecurity every now and then. The children’s book illustration market isn’t exactly undersaturated and—

  His fingers skate to my lips and freeze my inner ramblings. I smile under his touch. I need this, his anchor when I begin to drift.

  “You’re not going to flop. You’re too talented. Before you know it, you’ll have so much work I’ll feel neglected.”

  My lips curve higher. “I’ll never neglect you.”

  “Is that so?” He stands, taking me with him. “Because I just so happen to have a need that requires tending.”

  “An untended need. Sounds serious.”

  “Very.” He flips me over his shoulder, eliciting a squeal when he swats my ass.

  He carries me up to our bedroom, one of the few areas in decent shape. A round of headboard banging won’t necessitate a hard hat here.

  Fortunately for us. We have another room to claim.

  It’s after three when I’m startled awake. After checking my phone to see if that’s the cause of the disturbance, I notice Cain’s side of the bed empty. I set my phone down on the nightstand, figuring he must be in the bathroom. I’m usually a heavy sleeper, but new house and all.

  The air is chilly and damp, and I draw the blanket up to my chin. We never shut the window before falling asleep, and what was refreshing at the time is now uncomfortable. The breeze is blowing the curtains aside, and the moon is casting twisted shadows all over the room. If it weren’t for the flapping, it’d be eerily quiet.