A White Picket Fence
Page 31
Strong arms encircled Lina from behind and she was dragged backwards. “No!” Lina continued to scream.
“Shut her up!”
“Lina!” Phil’s strong voice pierced through the air.
Lina buried her face in Phil’s neck, clinging to him as she had the entire time they were questioned by the police, when a paramedic approached and asked to examine her. “Don’t let them touch me,” she whispered.
“We just want to examine her—make sure she’s okay,” the young woman said.
“She’s okay,” Phil said.
“Son,” Mr. Hunter began, “they need to look at her.”
“No,” Phil said firmly as he enclosed his arms around her. “She’s okay.”
“We just need to verify that.”
“No! No one is touching her!”
“You should take Lina home now,” Alice told Phil a short time after she and Adele arrived in Shiloh’s hospital room. “She needs to sleep.”
Lina stared at Shiloh’s battered face. Both eyes were swollen shut, her nose was broken and her lip had been busted. If Lina’s bedroom had been closest to the stairs, it would have been her and not Shiloh lying in the hospital bed. It should have been her. She was older and she hadn’t been a virgin. Lina felt something on her face and realized she was crying.
“Lina.” Phil’s voice penetrated her reverie. “I’m taking you home.”
“No, I…” She paused as she again focused on Shiloh’s battered face. “Did someone beat—”
“No, it’s from the impact with the airbag,” Phil told her before speaking to Adele and Alice, who were beside Shiloh’s bed. “I’m taking her home. I’ll come back—”
“Don’t worry about us,” Adele interrupted. “We can take a cab or Uber. Just get her out of here.”
Lina sunk into the soft leather seat of Phil’s car, pushing her thumb and finger into her eyes as she tried to quiet her thoughts, hating the visions swirling in her head of Shiloh’s battered face.
“She’s going to be okay,” Phil said, curving his hand around the back of her neck.
“Did it make you think of that night?” Lina asked.
“Yes.”
“I could never have made it through that without you,” Lina whispered on a shaky breath. Her mind once again transported back to the hospital all those years ago.
“Let’s go home,” Phil said.
Lina was sitting on Phil’s lap in Shiloh’s hospital room, leaning back against him as he held her in his arms. “You won’t leave me?”
“Never.”
“I can’t go back to my house,” Lina said as soon as they were in his car. “Take me to yours.”
Mrs. Hunter came from the back of the house when they stepped into the foyer. “Oh, sweetheart,” she whispered when she saw Lina. “Are you okay?”
“We’re going to bed,” Phil said as he led Lina towards the stairs.
“Good idea. The guest room is all made up. If she needs towels—”
“She’s sleeping with me,” Phil said before following Lina up the stairs.
“They thought we were devil worshippers,” Lina told Mrs. Hunter a few days later. “Their dad sent them to get us. They were going to kill us—a sacrifice or something. The police found this whole setup in their barn. It was because of my mom’s astrology.”
“No, sweetheart,” Mrs. Hunter said, covering Lina’s hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “It was because they were evil people. They were just using that as an excuse to do bad things.”
“But if my mom wasn’t an astrologer, they wouldn’t have come for us.” Lina folded her arms across her chest. “Phil said I could start coming to church with you.”
Several weeks later, Lina donned a pair of shorts and a T-shirt of Phil’s before making her way downstairs. She was approaching the kitchen when she heard his father’s voice and paused outside the doorway. “You can’t do that. I know you love her and she’s been through something no one should ever have to go through, but jeopardizing your future serves no one.”
“I’m not jeopardizing my future,” Phil said.
“Giving up Duke is jeopardizing your future,” Mr. Hunter insisted. “It’s everything you’ve worked for. You can’t just walk away. If she loves you, she won’t ask you to. Your mother and I have been more than understanding with the two of you over the past month. This is a Catholic home and we’re allowing you to sleep in the same bed with—”
“We’re not doing anything,” Phil said. “She can’t sleep without me.”
“Well, she needs to. She’s welcome to stay here with us when you go away. Your mother will take good care of her.”
“I’m not leaving her,” Phil said, his voice calm. “I’m going to Maryland. I’ve already called the coach.”
“You’re committed to Duke!”
“Not anymore.”
“Are you asleep?” Phil asked, bringing Lina out of her recollection.
“No.” She took his hand and held it between both of hers. “Let’s go home.”
“Are you back together?”
Lina opened her eyes, lifting her head from Phil’s chest as she adjusted to her surroundings and Logan, his eyes narrowed in confusion, staring at her from the doorway between the kitchen and family room.
“Are you?” he repeated.
“Gives us a minute, Logan,” Phil said, his voice husky with sleep. “We’ve barely slept.”
“No church, right?” Katie asked as she appeared, holding a bowl full of cereal.
“Not for us, but you can take your brother,” Phil said.
“Why don’t you just tell us?” Logan asked.
“That’s not fair,” Katie complained. “Why should I have to go if you’re not? You’re the one who likes it.”
“You can pray for Shiloh,” her father said.
“Grandma said she’s going to be fine. I don’t need to pray for her. Plus, if I don’t believe—”
“Katie, would you just listen to your dad and stop arguing?” Lina asked. “Please?”
“If he’s moving back here, you need to make him understand that Matt eats dinner here all the time. That’s not going to change.”
“Go,” Phil said, pointing towards the kitchen, “both of you. I need to talk to your mom.”
“How did we fall asleep here?” Lina asked, her head returning to his chest when Katie and Logan retreated to the kitchen.
“We were going to talk, but you fell asleep on me.” He began to scrape his fingers over the back of her scalp. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired.” She closed her eyes.
“Maybe we should go up to bed.”
“Maybe we should.”
Phil’s hand stilled in her hair. “Together?”
“Don’t stop rubbing my scalp. It felt good.”
His fingers again began to run over her head. “What do you want to do?”
“I want you to come home, Phil.”
Epilogue
Three Months Later
“Are you going to need this?” Phil asked, holding out a handkerchief.
Lina turned her head and saw the amusement in his eyes. “No.”
“Good, because I might, and I only brought one.”
“Behave,” she whispered, but couldn’t hide her smile.
“This means you’re no longer from a broken home. My mom will like that.”
“Shh, it’s starting.” She squeezed his thigh.
Her parents were getting married again. And as her mother had promised they weren’t just getting married at the courthouse like a normal sixty-something couple. No, Alice Rayburn, in her typical unconventional style, was having a traditional wedding in front of one hundred and fifty guests with the man who left her and her three daughters more than three decades earlier.
Lina watched Katie, in a strapless teal dress, begin to walk down the aisle. Lina’s eyes shifted to Matt, who was temporarily distracted enough by Katie’s appearance to stop pulling at the knot
of his tie, which he’d insisted earlier was choking him. After Lina made Phil look at it to make sure it wasn’t actually choking him, Matt admitted it was the first time he’d ever worn one.
“How can you stand it?” he’d mumbled to Phil.
“You get used to it,” Phil assured him. He wouldn’t admit it, but Lina knew Matt was starting to grow on him. Phil had stopped complaining that Matt was at the house too much, and if he needed another pair of strong arms for something, Phil would ask for Matt’s help if he saw him before Logan.
Megan was next, looking beautiful and older than her nineteen years as she took her place beside Katie.
“Did Alice invite Julian?” Phil asked.
Lina followed his gaze to see Julian sitting beside Shiloh, who miraculously was almost one hundred percent recovered from her injuries. As promised, Julian had stepped up and treated Shiloh like a precious flower during her recovery, but Lina was only cautiously optimistic that the change was permanent. “She’s giving him another chance,” Lina said.
“We’re not.”
“I know. Shh, here they come,” Lina said as Logan, looking more like a man than a boy in a black tuxedo, began to walk Alice down the aisle. “She’s beautiful,” Lina whispered as they came to their feet. In a cocktail-length white wedding gown, her hair swept up in a chignon bun, Alice Rayburn shined like a bride.
“She is,” Phil agreed.
As Lina’s eyes focused on her parents standing before a minister, she thought of her own marriage and the promises she and Phil made to each other all those years ago. Phil broke one of those promises, testing the very strength of the foundation binding their family together—a foundation conceived, built and nurtured by years of shared experiences. And as painful as the past year had been, their foundation was now stronger, not because of the infidelity, but because when they believed their foundation was crumbling, the thousands of memories it was built upon flashed before their eyes, reminding them of what they knew when they saw each other across that dance floor twenty-five years earlier—they belonged together.
“Where are you?” Phil’s voice in Lina’s ear pulled her from her reflections.
“With you,” she answered as she took his hand. “Always with you.”
Also by Laura Branchflower
When I Saw You
A Sense of Belonging