by Rachel Hanna
"For opening my door."
"You shouldn't ever have to say thank you when a man opens your door. Any man who's with you should open your door for you, Tessa. A real man is willing to do anything for a woman he cares about." She halfheartedly smiled and nodded her head as he closed her door and pointed towards the front steps.
They walked up the stairs and into the house, Aaron calling his mom's name. She came down the stairs with a big bright smile on her face. Adele Parker was beautiful with blond hair and a petite frame. Tessa hoped that she would look that good when she was her age, although she didn't feel that way right now. She felt like she was one hundred years old after all the stress that had come along with her life in the last few years.
"Well, hey there! You must be Dawn, and you must be Tyler. My name is Mrs. Parker." She was full of energy, and Tessa couldn't believe that she had recently been in the hospital. Aaron had told her all about that on the drive over, although she didn't have much to say since she was lost in her own thoughts most of the time.
"Hi. So nice to meet you," Tessa said shooting a glance at Aaron. He had told her that her name was Dawn, and she wondered why he did that.
"Welcome to my home. Tyler, I hear that we're going to spend some time together this afternoon. Let me ask you something. Do you know how to bake chocolate chip cookies?" she asked him kneeling down and smiling.
Tyler grinned from ear to ear and started jumping up and down while clapping his hands. "I sure do!" he said.
"Well good ‘cause I'm going to need some extra hands in the kitchen. I’ve already got my friend, Kaitlyn, in there up to her elbows in cookie dough,” she said smiling at Tessa. “I love to bake dozens and dozens of chocolate chip cookies and take them around to the local fire stations. Do you think you might want to help me do that today?"
"Yes, ma'am!" he said as he grabbed her hand and followed her into the kitchen. Aaron stood there grinning and threw his hands up in the air.
"Did you see how she just completely ignored me? She loves little kids more than anything, but it was like I wasn't even standing here!" Aaron said laughing.
"Tyler just took right to her. That makes me feel so much better. But why did you tell her my name is Dawn?"
"I figured it was the best thing to do just in case your ex come sniffing around. My mom won't know who Tessa is, so she won't be of any assistance to him. I’m just trying to protect you and her at the same time. I hope that's okay."
"It's more than okay, Aaron. I'm so thankful that you thought about that because I didn't. I really need someone with a level head helping me with this because I'm not thinking clearly about everything I need to do to make sure that Tyler is safe."
"Yes, you need for Tyler to be safe but you also need to be safe yourself. And that's what I'm here for. That's what friends are for, right?”
Tessa nodded her head, but she wasn't sure why she felt a little sad inside when he said the word friend. Was that all they could ever be? What was she thinking? She just gotten out of a tumultuous, violent relationship and here she was starting to develop feelings of attraction to her new friend. She needed a friend more than she needed a boyfriend, so she was determined to push those feelings aside and think of Aaron as nothing more than someone who was helping her.
"So where are we going today?" Tessa asked.
"I have a place in mind where we won't be interrupted and we won't have to worry about anybody finding us. Do you trust me?"
"Of course I do, but why can't we just go back to your cabin?"
"Because I run that place, and my guests and employees won’t leave us alone if they see my car there for long. If we’re going to go somewhere and talk and really think out the logical steps to getting the situation resolved, we need to make sure that we’re uninterrupted and no one will find us. I have the perfect place."
"Okay, if you say so."
"Let's go tell Tyler goodbye and get on the road."
Chapter 6
As they drove down the road toward Aaron’s mystery destination, Tessa couldn't believe that she’d left her son in the care of someone she'd only just met. It shocked her as much as it probably shocked Aaron, but she was desperate. It scared her a little bit because any other time that she’d been desperate in her life, she'd made some very poor decisions. She hoped that she was making the right decision now by telling Aaron everything and allowing Tyler to stay with Adele. She sighed lightly, thinking of how she was so sick of second guessing every decision in her life. Why couldn’t she just be a normal twenty-something woman with normal twenty-something problems?
The one good thing she had going for her was that Adele Parker was very known in January Cove. Her signs were everywhere, and she raised five children on her own. She had to be a pretty good woman to create children who were doing so well in their lives.
"So, no clues as to where we’re going?" she asked with a sly smile.
"You even know this area?" Aaron responded with a laugh.
"Nope. Not a bit. I sort of ended up here by default. We rolled into town on fumes, and I saw a sign for your campground before it was too late. In fact, I'm not sure how I'll ever move the camper off your land."
"Well, I can always push it up to the road," Aaron joked. “Of course, I’m not even sure a homeless raccoon would want to live there.”
"Gee, thanks," she said, lightly punching him in the arm.
"So, tell me a little something about yourself, Tessa. First of all, what's your last name?"
"Why does that matter?" Her guard immediately went back up like a fortress around a castle.
"Because if I'm going to help you, I'm probably going to need your name. Tessa isn't exactly enough information to go on," he said.
"My last name is Reeves.
"Good to know. Tessa Reeves. I like that. It's nice."
"I'm glad it meets with your approval," she said smiling. "So you tell me something about yourself then."
"What do you want to know?"
"Tell me about the relationship that went sour."
"I've already told you everything there is to know.
"I don't think so. You gave me the Cliff Notes version, but there has to be more to it than that. Were you really in love with her?"
"I thought I was. When all was said and done, I think I was more in love with the idea of being in love with her. I'd really like to settle down and have a family, and I thought we had that kind of relationship. I'm glad that I know now that she wasn't the kind of woman I want to spend the rest of my life with, but it didn’t make it any easier to go through all of that."
"Does she ever try to contact you?"
"You know that's two questions. I get to ask you another one," he said with a wicked smile.
"Fine. Ask away. I can't promise that I'll answer, but you can ask," she said with her own sly smile.
"You have family?"
"You mean like a mom and a dad?"
"Yeah."
"My mother passed away when I was ten years old, so I was raised by my father. Unfortunately, my father got into some trouble when I was a teenager and ended up in prison. He died there when I was nineteen years old. That's when I met my ex, at my lowest point in life."
"I don't hear from her anymore."
"Who?" she asked.
"I assumed that you wanted the answer to your previous question. Her name is Natalie, and I don't hear from her anymore. I see her around town with different guys, but I don't care to hear from her."
"You shouldn't want to talk to someone like that. Anyone who could hurt you must not be a very good person," she said offhandedly.
Aaron looked at her with a grateful smile and then returned his eyes to the road. "Thanks."
"It must've been hard to grow up without your father."
"Yeah, but I never really got a chance to know him. I was only two years old when he died, so I only know him through the stories that my mother tells and pictures. I assume it was a lot harder for you because you got to
spend the first ten years of your life with your mother."
"It's never easy to lose a parent, but it was especially hard to lose my mother. I was an only child and I felt like I lost my way after that. A girl needs her mother, and my father just went downhill after she died. It was like he lost his will to live and started doing all kinds of stupid things that messed up both of our lives."
"So that's how you ended up with your ex?"
"Partially, I guess. I didn't have a good sense of direction when I was a teenager or in my early twenties. I didn't have a mother to teach me what to look for in a man, and I didn't have a good father to show me the kind of man that I should be looking for. I guess I was just lost, and I didn't have a lot of self-esteem. I suppose I don't have a lot of self-esteem right now either, but at least I realize it."
"Here we are," Aaron said as he pulled onto a long gravel driveway.
"What is this place?" she asked as they went around the big curve and faced a large, white antebellum house.
"This is a place that my mother owns. It's actually an investment property that used to be a bed-and-breakfast. Right now it's empty, with the real estate market being what it is. I thought we could come here and spend some time talking without being interrupted. There are few people who even know this place is back here these days," he said.
"It's beautiful. I've never seen an antebellum house up close like this. It's very majestic," she said.
"I've always dreamed of living here, but that would require me to move away from the campground which I really can't do right now."
"Why can't you move away?
"Well, first of all I have no one there that I trust to run it by themselves. And secondly, I don't feel like I need a house this big unless I'm going to have a family of my own. Now I seem to be further away from that goal than I ever was, so I really don't need all this space."
"Maybe things will change. I hope they do, Aaron, because you deserve all good things."
"Thank you," he said as he reached over and squeezed her leg lightly. The touch of his hand sent shock waves up and down her body. She’d never felt such a spark from a man's touch before, and it almost made her shake.
"Shall we go in?" she asked trying to break the tension in the car that was building. How was she so attracted to this man that she'd only just met, and how could she ever be sure that her ability to choose a man was correct?
Aaron unlocked the front door and waved Tessa inside. The home was beautiful and ornate, and a bit sad from being empty. The winding staircase in the foyer reminded her of Gone With The Wind, and she could imagine the regal parties that were hosted in this house during the Civil War era.
“Let’s go into the parlor. We still have some furniture in there,” he said pointing to a room on the right.
“The parlor?” she said with a chuckle.
“Hey, that’s what my mother calls it. I don’t feel very manly saying it, but…” he said with a shrug. Tessa sat down on the red velvet sofa and Aaron sat down next to her, putting his leg up onto the couch so he could face her.
"Okay, I guess this is as easy as it's ever going to be for me to give you this information. My biggest concern is that you're going to think less of me, and I wouldn't blame you if you did. My story only shows what a weak woman I am."
"That can't be, Tessa. I've already learned so much about who you are, and your past doesn't matter to me. As far as I'm concerned, you have a clean slate with me."
"Thank you for saying that, but I'm not sure you'll feel that way once you hear the story," she said as she took in a deep breath, steeling herself for a moment. "I met Ethan when I was nineteen years old just after my father died in prison. He was ten years older than me at the time, so I guess I looked up to him. Ethan was a new officer on the police force in our town, and he had run ins with my dad on multiple occasions. My dad hated him, and I hated my dad at that time. I felt like he'd screwed our lives up and he made my name mud in our small town by all of his antics.
Right after my father passed away, I was living in this little efficiency apartment that I could afford while waitressing at the local diner. That's when Ethan came by one day to express his condolences, or at least that's what he was pretending to do. It wasn't long after that when he asked me out on our first date and we started being known as a couple around town.
Things moved really quickly for us, but the abuse didn't start immediately. Looking back now, I can see he was grooming me for what was to come. He always had a problem with anger, but it wasn't directed at me until much later. After we had dated for two years, he proposed to me. By that time, I knew he wasn’t who I wanted to spend my life with, but I was afraid to tell him. His anger was getting worse and worse, and he had this power trip thing going on.
I finally agreed to his proposal, but we never set a wedding date. Instead, I found out that I was pregnant and things went downhill quickly. The abuse actually started while I was pregnant with Tyler. He didn't care that I was pregnant, but he didn't really want us to have a baby. He pushed me down the stairs a couple of times in an effort to try to make me miscarry, but thankfully it didn't work."
Aaron’s face crinkled up as he listened to her story. He didn't interrupt, but instead allowed her to keep talking no matter how hard it was for him not to reach over and comfort her or scream or yell about the idiot that she’d been with for all those years.
"When I was pregnant with Tyler, he started holding me captive. He told everyone that I left him and left town. But that wasn't true. I was actually locked in our basement. He'd set it up so that I couldn't get out, couldn't have access to the outside world and I didn't even have medical care for Tyler. He wanted me at his beck and call, and that included fulfilling any of his sexual needs at any time. He was very rough and violent with me, and because I didn't have any extended family left that I was in contact with, no one was ever looking for me.”
Aaron couldn’t hold back anymore. “Dear God, Tessa, I’m so sorry. Why on Earth would he have become so angry with you?”
“Around that time, an old friend from middle school, a guy, found me on Facebook. We were chatting about old times, nothing major. In fact, my friend is admittedly gay. Ethan still got jealous. He said I wasn’t going to make a fool out of him. He was very impressed with what he perceived as his ‘place’ in the community, and he was sure that I had slept with this old friend of mine and gotten myself knocked up. I offered a DNA test, but he said no way, he didn’t want his name dragged through the small town mud. So, instead, he concocted this plan to punish me and keep me locked away from being ‘social’ with other men.”
“This is just so unbelievable to me…” Aaron stammered. She kept talking for fear of chickening out.
“As I got closer to delivering Tyler, it became apparent that he was going to have to allow me to have the baby. But again, he didn't want any of his police buddies or anyone else knowing that I was still around and he certainly didn’t want anyone to know that I was having a baby. So, I gave birth in a bathtub in our basement and had to take care of Tyler by myself. I had a very difficult delivery, but he didn't even come downstairs. I felt like I was in some kind of a third world country where a woman is forced to give birth on her own. Thankfully, my body cooperated with me and I didn't bleed to death, but I never did get any medical care that I needed for Tyler.”
Unable to contain himself, Aaron spoke. “I can't believe what you're telling me. Why would this man want to hurt you so badly? Why wouldn't he love his child? Surely he knew it was his if you offered a DNA test…”
“Aaron, you're thinking like a normal man. He's not a normal man. In fact, I believe he’s sociopathic. He seemed to take great joy in keeping us captive there, and watching me go from an outgoing woman to a shell of my former self. It was awful, but I tried to get away so many times when I was pregnant. Once Tyler was born, my options were limited as I couldn't get both of us out of there easily without being noticed. He had us locked down like prisoners of
war.”
Aaron asked why her coworkers weren’t looking for her.
“You’ve got to understand, I was from a small town just like January Cove. You see, everyone there really respects law-enforcement, as they should. No one had any idea that he was so sick and demented. Plus, there's a lot of incestuous relationships in the police force there. Everyone is family. In fact, his father and brother are both police officers, so I knew they’d never believe what he was doing. They all really thought that we’d broken up and I'd moved on. I had no options because I knew if I got out of there and tried to run, he’d just find me and kill me. He said so many times. He had no problems killing me and Tyler.”
“So that's why you ran. You didn't feel like you had any options to go to the police. God, Tessa, you must’ve felt so alone and terrified when you saw daylight after three years…”
“It was… and is… terrifying. If I’d gone to the police there, it would've only resulted in me getting killed. He would never let his name be smeared like that.”
“So how did you finally escape?”
“I overheard him on the telephone saying that his father was in the hospital. His dad had a heart attack, and I knew he would go to be by his bedside because they were very close. So, I knew that was my only opportunity to try to get out. He had everything locked down and nailed shut. I had to work very hard over the course of several hours to pry open the door leading upstairs. I was terrified.”
“I'm sure you were,” Aaron said as he slid closer and put his hand over hers. Suddenly, she felt a wave of safety come over her that she’d never felt in her life. He might as well have thrown his body over hers to shield her because that’s exactly what it felt like.
“Once I finally pried the door open, I gathered together what little belongings we had. He would occasionally buy us clothing from a thrift store that was two counties over, but we never got anything new which is why I'm always wearing these old, unfashionable clothes,” she said as she pulled at her skirt. “I had also been putting away a little bit of money here and there that I stole out of his wallet when he was asleep. Of course, I'd have to have sex with him in order to get him to go to sleep anywhere near me.” She cringed as she said the words.