by Dawson, Zoe
“I can’t trust myself with you.”
“You’ve never done anything to threaten me, you’ve been gentle, kind…”
I shook my head and paced away from her. “I almost killed your father.” I said. “I didn’t see your father. I saw the rebel leader out there chasing you.” I had no anger left, only the sadness of what I had endured and that it would keep me from Alissa. “But, what if next time I see him in you? What’s to stop me from choking the life out of you like I choked the life out of him?”
The shock on her face made me retreat deeply into myself. It hurt more than anything I’d endured so far in my life. “I took a vow never to take a life. But I didn’t understand violence then. I was a nurse. What the hell did I know about violence until it broke inside like a disease I couldn’t cure? The demons took me and I killed a man. I killed him with my bare hands because I wanted to watch him die. I wanted to see the light go out of his eyes and have him feel the terror that Elsa felt, the brutality. It broke me. It destroyed me, it took everything that I knew, everything I was, everything. And obliterated it.”
Scalding tears squeezed from my eyes and I looked at her blurring there in front of me. But then her arms were around me.
“No, they didn’t. They didn’t, Dakota. They didn’t take that man, the one who carves beautiful works of art, a walking stick carved with flowers for a pure, unselfish purpose, the man who teased me, the man who held me, the man who bandaged my ankle, carried me in his arms, the man who risked his life to save me from a frozen death on a ledge. That’s all still here. It’s here.”
She placed her hand over my heart and I thought it was just going to shatter.
I broke free of her arms, and looked at her, agony twisting in my gut. “Don’t you know the real reason I came here? Haven’t you figured it out yet?”
The pain of her knowing washed over me in such a heavy wave of emotion I covered my eyes.
“You came here to kill yourself.”
“Yes!” I shouted and looked at her, my pain and my fury making my voice shake. “Yes! I couldn’t do it! I couldn’t do it. Now I know why. I wasn’t going to give up on myself. I had the courage all along, but I only just discovered it because of you. But I have to tell you the rest of what I did six months ago. Let me tell you what happened.”
“Tell me everything, Dakota and you will be free, too.” she whispered.
“After they killed Elsa, I pulled so hard that the stake came out of the ground, and I was free and the demons inside hunted down the man with the scars. I was on him like a wild man without thought for my own safety, without thought of how this might affect me, without thought for my vow and for who I was deep inside. I hit him like a battering ram, locked my hands around his throat, and I squeezed and gloated as the life left his eyes.”
She was silent, her eyes only going softer, gentler.
“Then I got up and kicked him and kept kicking him, until one of the SEALs grabbed me around the waist and took me down and held on to me, until the fury and demons took me deep into the darkness, off the path of light, and into nightmare.”
Without a word, she wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me tight.
I buried my face in her neck and the agony of what had happened on the Ivory Coast washed over me along with the loneliness of the many months I’d spent trying to get up the courage to take my own life. And now I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to leave her.
I loved her.
I fucking loved her with everything I had.
I don’t know when it happened. Somewhere between the deep blue of her eyes and the warmth of her touch.
I didn’t want her to leave. I didn’t want to die. I don’t think I ever had. I just thought I should.
#
Alissa
Overwhelmed by the feelings that one revelation set off in me, I held on to him with all the love and strength I possessed. For an instant, for one instant, he remained motionless. Then with a gruff sound, he enfolded me in a fierce embrace, holding me as if I were his next breath. Fighting against the tears, I closed my eyes and cradled his head against me, loving him so much that I felt almost suffocated by it.
“You’ve got to go, Alissa, and handle your own situation. You’ve got to let them know who Charlie was to you and why you did what you did. You need to mourn him. Let yourself feel it. Remember to let yourself feel it. You set him free. You kept your promise and released him.”
Kissing the side of his neck, I smoothed down his hair, trying to comfort him by touch alone. Then, taking a deep, tremulous breath, I caught his head between my hands, my chest so full I could barely breathe. I felt the muscles in his jaw contract as he tried to swallow, and I tightened my hold, willing him to look at me. Finally he met my gaze, the rawness in his eyes going straight to my heart.
“Now I’ve got my own demons to face. Believe me, I don’t want to leave you, but if you hadn’t stopped me, I might have killed your father. I can face them now, knowing that you are waiting for me. I’ve got to do this, or I can never be free of them. I want to be with you more than I want my next breath. You woke me up, made me feel again, live again.”
I looked up at him, the richness, the unity, of my feelings nearly overwhelming me as I tightened my hold on his face. “But I’m afraid. I don’t want you to be alone.”
Twisting his face away from my touch, he caught my hand, then laced his fingers through mine with a tight grip. His face revealing a range of emotions, he closed his eyes and pressed my hand against his mouth, his voice hoarse. “I won’t be alone.” He pressed a piece of paper into my hand. “That’s my cell number. I want to talk to you every day. And, I’ll carry you here, in my heart. I’m going home. Home to my mother and father, my grandfather and my sisters. I’ve got to do this. You need to go home, deal with your family and Charlie’s, and finish school. Those are our priorities. For now. I need you to have faith. I need you to be brave for me. Can you do that?”
Fighting against the swell of tears, I tore my hand free and slipped my arms around his neck, a soft sob wrenching loose when he gathered me up in a hard, tight embrace. He roughly tucked my head against his neck and shuddered, and I yielded to the pressure of his arms, tears of hope slipping from beneath my lashes. “Promise me, you’ll come for me. Promise, Dakota.”
Dakota raked my hair back, cradling my head against the curve of his neck, his breath warm against my skin. “I’ll come to you, Alissa. I promise you.”
#
Alissa
My father drove me to my car, but it was hard to worry about the confrontation I knew was coming, because I was only concerned about Dakota, so afraid that I wouldn’t see him again. But I had to have faith. I had to be brave as he asked me to do.
We sat in my father’s Lexus and he didn’t even look at me.
“You’ve disappointed me, Alissa.”
“Well, that’s not news to me,” I said resigned to the fact that my parents would never change and be what I wanted in a family. I knew now after experiencing the love I had for Dakota their version of love just wasn’t enough anymore. “I’ll explain why I did what I did. Hopefully you can all understand how much I loved Charlie and his dying wish was something I couldn’t refuse.”
“We have generously kept a roof over your head and provided everything you need for your whole life. But after what you’ve done, we don’t know you anymore. Your mother and I agree that you should finish your education, and we will continue to support that. But once you graduate, it all ends.”
“That suits me fine. I’ll go back home with you, but I won’t be staying. I’m moving into the dorms.”
“That’s your decision, Alissa. But it’s going to be difficult to overlook this transgression.”
After that he said nothing else to me, and it was a relief.
It was an ugly scene between me and Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins. They were horrified at what I had done. They told me I had no right, but I yelled back at them that I had every right.
That they hadn’t cared about him, making him feel he was nothing but a burden to them. That I’d loved Charlie and he loved me. That was more than I could say for them. It was Charlie’s last wish, his Christmas wish. I told them I had made the right decision. Now he was soaring free just as he’d wanted. They decided not to cause any embarrassment to my parents and didn’t press charges. They let Charlie go as easily as they had ignored him.
I kept to my promise and I moved to the dorms. With Charlie’s money, I was free of them financially, and after the soul-searching I did in that cabin with Dakota, I was also free of them emotionally.
I’d left my heart at that cabin on the cliff, though. With Dakota and Charlie.
#
Thankfully, Dakota and I have been in constant contact, speaking on the phone almost every day, sharing our progress and our dreams. His therapy was doing him a lot of good, and he was having fewer and fewer flashbacks.
During spring break, I was one of a few people in the dorms who hadn’t left. There was a knock on my door and when I opened it, I let out a joyous sound. “Dakota!” I threw my arms around his neck and just held on to him breathing in his scent. Our lips met and I kissed him with all the longing I had been feeling. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m heading down to Coronado. I made an appointment with Sergeant Daniels, one of the SEALs who rescued me. I wanted to ask you to come with me. I need your support and I needed to see you, Alissa. Will you come?”
“Yes! Of course I’ll go.”
“I thought we could fly down to San Diego and spend some time there relaxing. I’ve never been to the city, and then we can drive back up the coast?”
“A week with you? That sounds like pure heaven.”
And it had been. Meeting with that Navy SEAL had been the best medicine for Dakota. He told Dakota that what he did was self-defense, and he had been trying to protect the doctor and Elsa. That any sane man would have done the same thing. That there was no shame in it, and he hadn’t lost anything by doing it. He told Dakota more about the scarred man, and I know now absolutely that he was a terrible human being and the world was better off without him.
And then the SEAL told him that killing that maniac didn’t make him less of a healer, it just made him more human. That helped him so much, that SEAL making him understand that he didn’t have to feel that terrible guilt and the fear that by taking a life he had become a destroyer instead of a healer. He hadn’t. He’d gained something, something important. The knowledge that he’d acted bravely on behalf of two other human beings. He couldn’t save them all, but Elsa’s death and all those other people who’d died in the camp had meaning and were remembered, because Dr. Sanchez and Dakota survived.
What the SEAL said made so much sense to me. It was Dakota’s healing instinct, his need to save people that motivated him to protect Elsa, even by killing that terrible man. I’d told Dakota that we wouldn’t rejoice in that, but we’d understand it.
#
Now four months have passed since Christmas and I was getting ready for graduation, musing over what might be next as I applied my make-up.
As I slipped into my graduation robe, I heard a knock on the door. When I got there, a delivery man handed me a box, and I signed for it.
I closed the door and, with trembling hands, opened the box. My breath caught at the exquisite carving of two wolves, their lupine bodies intertwined.
Through my tears, I read the card. Wolves mate for life.
My heart leapt, and I closed my eyes with joy. Without hesitation, I grabbed my hat, my bag, and my keys, clutching the carving close to my chest as I rushed out of the dorm and headed for the stadium.
When I got to my chair, my cell phone rang. I smiled at the number. “I love it,” I said as I answered.
Dakota’s voice was soft and warm. “I knew you would. I’m here with you right now, sitting in the stands. I wanted to surprise you.”
I looked for him and found him waving to me.
After the ceremony ended, I met Dakota outside. We went to my dorm room and made love. Afterwards we held each other. He looked amazing. And he smiled at me with love, instead of ghosts, brimming in those ever-changing gray eyes. He just stared at me, closed his eyes and pulled me roughly into his arms.
He drew a deep, uneven breath, his voice raw with emotion. “My beautiful Alissa, it’s so good to see you, hold you. I intend to never let you go again.”
Moved by the depth of feeling in his hoarse declaration, I shifted my head, my mouth connecting with his in a kiss that was filled with so much emotion, with such open, unfettered, joyful love, that nothing else existed. I molded myself tightly against him as he shifted his hold, bringing me fully against him from shoulder to thigh. Nothing was held back in that kiss, nothing. And I felt the fire in him—the wonderful, hot, all-consuming fire that seemed to come from his very soul. It was so magnificent…
He dragged his mouth away, his breathing uneven, his hold almost savage. I wasn’t sure whose heart was pounding harder. Dakota sucked in a deep breath, then dragged his hand up my back, enfolding me in a gentler, protective embrace.
When I opened my eyes, he said “My therapy is ongoing, but I’ve let go of the guilt completely, and it’s been so freeing. I can’t tell you how much your support has meant to me. You were right, the isolation, the silence hurt me more than letting it all out. Letting myself heal has made me realize that I simply cannot live without you, Alissa. Will you marry me?”
He reached into his discarded jeans beside the bed and opened the box. Inside was a precious, beautiful, perfect ring.
Resting my forehead against the angle of his jaw, I weakly closed my eyes, trying to catch both my breath and my balance. He was really here, and he was mine. “Yes. There isn’t anything I want more than to live and love with you for the rest of my life. I’m so happy. I’ve missed you so much, and prayed every day that you were healing and growing stronger.”
“You were brave enough to wait for me, and I was brave enough to come back to you. I love you, Alissa. It’s what has kept me going through all the pain and hard work to get my head on straight.”
“I love you, too, with all my heart.”
“Then the next question is, where do you want to live? I have two job offers. One here in L.A. and one in Portland.”
“There’s nothing for me in California. Nothing at all.”
“You won’t mind living in Portland? It’s not as sunny as California.”
“No, not at all. Wherever you are, Dakota, I’m home.”
Epilogue
Alissa
I leaned my shoulder against the cabin’s back door, gazing out to the cliff. Dakota’s mother and three sisters were putting the finishing touches on the Christmas Eve dinner that we’d be feasting on in just a few minutes.
Dakota and I had found a nice little house overlooking the city of Portland, and we’d settled in. We got married in September in a beautiful ceremony. And I have the sisters I always wanted, and we’ve all bonded and are completely in love with each other.
“Are you ready, Alissa?”
Dakota slipped his arm around me and I snuggled into his warmth.
“Get a move on, you two. Pay your respects and let’s get to eatin’,” his grandfather said. He was a gruff, craggy old man, but he was all bark and no bite. I smiled at him and he winked at me. “Get on with you, you beguiling little pixie.”
“Pixie magic,” Dakota whispered into my ear.
I giggled.
We stepped into the frosty air, the heavy snowfall creating a beautiful white Christmas, but I couldn’t wait to snuggle up into that big warm bed with Dakota and give ourselves to each other…just as we had been doing for the eight months we’d been blissfully and awesomely happy.
I was working for the city and he was loving his job at the hospital.
We ambled toward the cliff, arms around each other’s waists. “How are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m doing grea
t. I miss him so much, but I’m happy to know that he’s free. We’re both free. I feel so strongly that Charlie brought me to this spot, so that I could pay it forward and help you, just as Charlie helped me. I found, in you, the man I was destined to be with. So Charlie hasn’t left me alone or abandoned me as I’d been afraid had happened when he’d died. Instead, he has given me his final gift. You.”
Dakota stopped and pulled me against him, just holding me in a tight embrace. When we finally got to the edge, I remembered falling, falling, falling in love with Dakota. I turned to him, and as our eyes met I heard laughter on the wind. Thank you, Charlie. I wrapped my arms around Dakota. I looked toward the cabin and saw six faces peering through the windows. “Your family is so wonderful.”
When I inclined my head, he glanced at the cabin and laughed. “They love you, too.”
“I love you so much. You’ve not only given me yourself,” I looked down and twisted the gold band butting up against my beautiful engagement ring, “but you’ve given me a close and loving family, too.”
As Charlie’s faint laughter continued to dance on the breeze, and Dakota covered my hand, his ring winking in the sunlight, my heart was so damn full. For a moment I paused in my bliss and recalled Charlie’s dark hair, his wonderful smile, his expressive and beautiful eyes, the joy and love that he had always given me…and my love for him mingled with my love for Dakota as I kissed my husband until I was sure he, and his endearingly nosy family, knew just how much I did love him.
#