The Wife Lottery_Fallon

by Charlie Hart

  It doesn’t matter--the what if’s. The truth is she’s my wife, and if that means pissing her off to keep her safe, so be it.

  I rake a hand through my hair. “You can’t do that, Hypatia.”

  “Do what?” She shakes her head, clutching her arms, looking so fragile out here in the open. So vulnerable. This is why she can’t leave the house alone. “Be a person? No one else in the house wants to keep me prisoner. Just you. And yet I’m supposed to believe you have my best intentions at heart? How could you when you don’t even trust me--”

  “Dammit, Tia,” I cut her off, stalking across the driveway, desperate to look in her eyes as I tell her the truth. “It’s not you I don’t trust.” Pointing to the woods beyond our property as I shout, “It’s them.”

  “I’m not naive Fal, I get it. The world is a disaster and there’s no hope for humanity and maybe I was a fool to think there might be some hope for me here. And I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I never should have come.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying,” I tell her, reaching to pull her into my arms, but she backs away, wiping her eyes. “You see me as a bully, a man who refuses to hear anyone else, who only wants what I want, but that’s not me.”

  “Then who are you Fallon?” she asks, eyes blazing and hair whipping around her. She looks swept up in something I don’t understand, like she’s already drifting away, and I can’t pull her back. Everything I say seems to push her further from where I want her.

  Here. With me. With us.

  She continues, fervor in her tone and regret in her words. “Because all I see is a man who keeps trying to push me down. If I wanted that, I would have...” She shakes her head, and the way she looks at me is heartbreaking. Anger. Frustration. Resentment. Fear. But mostly despair. As if the man I am is nothing but a disappointment.

  I imagine her wishing I were like the other men she married. Funny and charming and fucking oblivious to what’s happening around us.

  But I’m not that man and I never want to be. It’s not what she needs, either. She needs a man who will stand up for her, fight for her, because Alaska has turned into the wild west, the rules have changed.

  “I believe in a better tomorrow,” I tell her. “Maybe I don’t wear my heart on my goddamn sleeve, but I joined the military and fly bush planes for a reason. To help the greater good. To work for a better tomorrow.” I take a deep breath, knowing I need to lay it all out there if I want her respect. Right now, she sees me as a threat to her happiness, not a man who will fight for her until the bitter end.

  I run a hand over the curve of her cheek, and when she flinches, trying to pull back, I don’t let her. She doesn’t seem to understand that I know what she needs.

  I am hers and she is mine.

  “I saw you on the boat,” I tell her, my throat gone dry. “The day you were rescued.”

  Her green eyes flash, specks of gold lighting them up as she remembers the night she was found.

  “I saw you there, Hypatia, nearly frozen, lips blue and you were so alone. All I could think…all I wanted…was to make sure you were safe.”

  She shakes her head ever so softly. “I don’t remember you-”

  “I know. You were dehydrated, famished, at death's door. The medics came, took you in their ambulance and I followed them. I kept vigil all week, staying in the waiting room at the damn hospital, praying for you to recover.”

  “You were there? But you never came to me…”

  “It’s not the man I am. I knew I might not have you as my wife, so I didn’t want to give myself false hope. I never considered the lottery before you. Never wanted to consider falling for a woman who I might watch…” I can’t finish the sentence. My conversation from earlier today, with my father, fills my mind with the worst.

  “A woman you might watch die,” she whispers.

  I nod.

  “You entered the lottery for me?”

  “Only you.”

  “If you wanted me so badly, then why have you been so hard on me? The other guys give me their key cards, let me out of the house. They trust me.”

  “It’s not trust. It’s stupidity. Women are raped and killed in the wild every month Hell, my dad was just telling me about that very thing happening down at the wharf. This isn’t about control. It’s about survival. It might be safer to deliver a child here, but not safer to be a female. You are at risk every time you walk outside.”

  She closes her eyes, and I draw her close. She’s so cold, and I want to bring her inside, but I also need to speak to her without anyone else around. I need her to know why I care so much.

  “The others-”

  “They don’t understand. They haven’t seen what I’ve seen. But I’ve lost people I care about Hypatia, and I won’t lose you too.”

  Under the pale light of the moon it’s easier to share my most intimate thoughts. She doesn’t say anything for a long time and I wrap my arms around her, resting my chin atop her head.

  “Why is it so hard for you to do as I say?” I finally ask.

  She exhales slowly, looking up she answers plainly. “You see me as the fragile woman you rescued from the cargo ship. But that’s not all of me, Fallon. That was me at my worst. I’m more than a shell of a girl, I’m a woman. And every time you tell me no, I want to fight it, because it’s all I’ve ever been told by men my entire life.”

  “It’s going to get you killed. You realize that, right? If you keep taking chances...” Emotions swell inside me, thinking of her suffering the same fate as Caroline.

  She furrows her brow, resolved to fight me on this too. “At least I’d die kicking and screaming, not pushed into a corner.”

  I step back, wanting to howl at the moon, scream until I knock some sense into her.

  “I love you Hypatia. But I don’t fucking understand you.”

  “Maybe it’s better that way,” she says, her voice hushed and reverent, as if she believes her words with all that she is.

  “Don’t you hear me?” I shout. “I love you.”

  “This is not love, Fallon,” she says, tears streaking her cheeks. “It’s fear.”

  Chapter 21

  Tia

  I walk into the house and it’s dead silent. Every eye is watching me. The men are all here, standing in the foyer, having heard every shout, every whisper...everything.

  Fallon laid his heart on the line, but I can’t accept it. Not his words and certainly not his love.

  I don’t deserve it.

  Any of this.

  None of these men deserve me as a wife.

  I filled out a form after I came to the hospital. With an IV in my arm, a drip rehydrating me, an elderly nurse held a tablet and asked for my information. Through gritted teeth, feigning delirium, I managed to cobble together a story I prayed would buy me some time.

  I told her I was Hypatia Thorne. A twenty-two-year-old orphan from a small farming town a few hours from Seattle with no family to speak of. I told the nurse I’d spent the last several years in my family home, living on canned goods and keeping my head low as the last survivor.

  It isn’t an unheard-of story. I’ve heard of families who hide their daughters, not wanting to subject them to being sold to a man with the highest bid.

  My father always spoke of such families as selfish. He believed that in refusing to send your daughter to be tested and cared for in a government sanctioned boarding house for women, the scientists in our country would never have the opportunity to find a cure. They needed women to test medications and therapies if there was any hope of reversing the devastation.

  But not everyone believes that science will find the cure for the very thing they created.

  And I pretended my parents belonged in that group.

  If only.

  The nurse bought my story. Or, if she didn’t, she didn’t fight me for facts. She was old enough to have lived through the entire breadth of our world’s devastation, to have witnessed years of loss upon loss upon loss.
r />   It will never end.

  How is she still here, still standing? How do you put one foot in front of the other when you know there is nothing waiting for you at the end of the road except more sorrow?

  I can’t be the cause of more pain in this already ruined place.

  I look at my husbands, they watch me with so much concern that I don’t know where to turn--who to turn to. It’s too much. Their devotion should be a safety net, but in this moment, it feels like a noose. I betrayed them since the moment we met. I don’t deserve for them to catch me in their large, protective arms.

  Behind me, Fallon steps into the house and I want to lean back, let my body rest against his chest.

  But I don’t. I can’t.

  Giving into my own desires will only make them hate me more than I already know they will.

  I will not be the end of them.

  Chapter 22

  Fallon

  The other men are quiet as we watch Tia disappear up the stairs. And I can’t get her words out of my fucking head.

  This is not love. It’s fear.

  She’s wrong.

  I’ve never felt anything more strongly than I do for her.

  Yeah, I’m afraid. Fucking terrified of losing her. But that only proves how much I care about her.

  I think about going after her. Arguing with her until she stops acting so damn stubborn. But the looks the guys are giving me now tell me I’ll have a fight on my hands if I try.

  Banks gives a hard shake of his head before going into the study. It’s Giles who follows me into the kitchen, arms crossed as he watches me pull out a beer and uncap it.

  “Don’t need a lecture,” I say, sitting down at the table.

  “Wasn’t going to give you one.” He pulls out a chair across from me and sits. “I get your concern.”

  Of course, he does. Of all the men here, Giles knows the dangers that can come to a woman out here.

  “Saw my father today.” I spin the bottle cap between my fingers, thoughts turning dark. Wondering if the man isn’t right about all this. Hating that I feel like my world is spinning out of control, danger lurking on every side of me.

  Haven’t felt this way in years. Not since Caroline.

  “How is he?”

  I shrug. “Defeated.”

  Giles sighs and leans back in his chair. “What he lived through...”

  “What we lived through,” I add.

  “Yeah.”

  We’ve never spoken of that night. Not in words. Can’t. Even now. Some things are just too terrible to utter aloud.

  “Have you told Tia?” Giles asks, his jaw clenching and unclenching, emotion stirring in his eyes.

  “No.”

  “Maybe you should. It might help her understand.”

  I hold his gaze, and then shake my head. “She already understands the dangers, she’s just too stubborn to follow my rules.”

  “I wasn’t talking about the danger. I was talking about you. Help her understand why you are the way you are. Why you’re so hard on her.”

  “I’m not hard on her.”

  He grunts. “You are.”

  “What I don’t understand is why you’re not.”

  Giles is silent for a long moment, before saying, “Remember that damn rabbit Caroline had as a kid.”

  I snort. “Yeah, the thing almost bit off my finger when I tried to pick it up once.”

  Giles gives a small smile, eyes going distant with memory. “She found it out in the woods. Leg was broken.”

  “My mom had a fit when she brought it into the house. God, it was a mean thing.”

  “But Caroline loved it.”

  I take a sip of my beer, knowing he’s got some point to make by bringing it up.

  “Your mom made her set it free when it’s leg was better.”

  “I remember.” I shake my head and sigh. “She cried herself to sleep for a week straight afterwards.”

  “Until it came back.”

  I’d almost forgotten that part.

  A small smile tugs at Giles’ lips. “She built a small house for it behind your dad’s shed. God, she loved that thing.”

  “I get what you’re saying. But Tia’s not a fucking rabbit.”

  He shrugs, and then stands. “I was just sharing a memory.”

  “And it would have been safer in the damn house,” I mutter, watching his back.

  “Maybe. But would it have been as happy?”

  “It was a fucking rabbit. Who cares if it was happy?”

  I hear Giles chuckle as he leaves the room.

  After I finish my beer, I go upstairs, stopping outside of Tia’s bedroom. I lift my hand to knock, then stop myself. I’m about to walk away when the door opens, and Tia stands there, her eyes puffy from crying.

  Shit.

  I did that to her.

  “Tia, I’m...” I rub the back of my neck.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, taking a step towards me. “Not for going out. But for the words I said to you.”

  I pull her against my chest and feel a tremble of emotion rush through her, and she lets out a small sob. I pull back, and tuck my hand under her chin, making her look at me.

  “I’ll...try to be more understanding. To give you more freedom within the compound.”

  She gives a small smile, and then stands on tiptoe and brushes her lips against mine.

  “I should have said it back.”

  “What?”

  Her breath comes out shaky. “That I love you.”

  My chest squeezes.

  Her palm rests on my cheek. “No matter what happens, you need to know that.”

  “Nothing is going to happen if you let me protect you.”

  “And who’s going to protect you?”

  I frown at her words and she pulls away. “I don’t need protection.”

  She sighs, and I see it again, the emotion that bothered me the most earlier - despair. “I’m really tired. I think I’m just going to go to bed.”

  “Tia?”

  A single tear falls down her cheek. “I love you, Fallon.”

  I pull her back to me, because I swear to fucking God, there’s finality to her words. And it scares me.

  “Talk to me. Is something else bothering you?”

  She hesitates before answering, “No.”

  I don’t believe her.

  Maybe she’s still pissed at me. I don’t know. Just know something’s eating at her.

  I kiss her forehead, and then release her. “Okay.”

  There’s a sadness in her expression, one I haven’t seen before as she goes back into her room and shuts the door.

  Emerson is coming up the stairs when I start back down them.

  “She okay?” he asks, nodding at Tia’s door.

  “Something’s bothering her-”

  “Other than you being an asshole again?” He says, one brow cocked, a slight grin pulling at his lips.

  I grunt. “Maybe she’ll talk to you.”

  That has his eyes widening. And I get his shock. I haven’t been exactly good about letting the others have time with her. But I want what’s best for Tia, and right now that’s not me.

  Chapter 23

  Tia

  Curled up in a nightgown on my mattress, I flinch when someone knocks on my door. I can’t deal with the men right now. Not when I don’t know what I’m going to do. How I’m going to fix this.

  “Tia?” Emerson’s muffled voice comes through the door. “Can I come in?”

  I sigh. “Sure.”

  The door opens, and he shuts it behind him. He crawls across the bed towards me, and without a word he pulls me against him, so that my cheek is against his broad chest.

  It’s too much. His kindness. His affection. The way my body melts into his. And a small hiccup of a cry leaves me.

  He lets out a low, uneven breath, pulling me tighter.

  “Want to talk about what’s bothering you?”

  “No.” I sniff.

&nb
sp; “Okay.” He kisses the top of my head. “Mind if I stay here with you?”

  “You can stay.” I tangle my fingers with his.

  Emerson isn’t a greedy man, he is generous and willing, and right now that’s what I need more than anything. A man who I can cling to, even if I have to let him go.

  “I hate to see you cry, Tia,” he whispers, his arms holding me tight. I look up at him, his soulful eyes penetrating mine.

  “You’re too good to me,” I murmur, as his hands run through my hair, soothing me in a way I didn’t know I needed.

  “No such thing,” he tells me.

  Guilt gnaws at me. Being here, with him, suddenly feels selfish. I just take and take and take but now, as I lift my body from the bed, all I want to do is give.

  I roll on top of him, pushing down his jeans, taking them off because I want nothing in the way of this moment. This is our time.

  Then his warm skin is against mine and I want to give him all I have left.

  “Tia, you don’t have to do this,” he tells me, his hands on my bare thighs, my nightgown pushed up high on my legs.

  “I want to.” Need to. Need him.

  And so, I do. I lean down, taking his mouth, kissing his soft lips, and memorizing them as they part.

  As our tongues meet, our bodies move in sync.

  He pushes himself up, and my legs wrap around his, we tug off his shirt and pull the nightgown over my head. I need to be naked, bared. To just be his. Even just for this one night.

  Because I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. I know I can’t keep up this charade. Not when it means putting these men - my men - in danger.

  “Tia, you are everything to me.” His mouth moves to my breast, sucking and licking me as if he holds the world in his hands. His touch is soft but strong, and it makes him passionate in a way that makes my heart ache.

  “Em,” I moan, sitting in his lap. His body is a work of art, broad shoulders, and a ladder of abs.

  I move a hand to his impressive length. He’s thick and grows beneath my touch, so smooth yet rigid in a way that I know will make my core ache with delight.

  My eyes close and my head falls back as we begin to explore one another more fervently. My pussy is wet, and he guides me to my back, leaning over me with a hungry expression.