by Kendra Riley
“You didn't tell daddy I wasn't here last night, did you?” she asked, suddenly realizing that he might already have told their parents about her absence. Her heart beat began to quicken and she became short of breath.
The thought of her parents worrying all night for her made her feel terrible and the thought of their reaction to the news that she had not come home until the early hours of the morning was even more frightening.
“No, I had no desire to spend the night praying for your immortal soul with him,” her brother said with an understanding nod. They had both been forced to endure hours of sympathetic prayer with their father, designed to help them understand the error of their ways and find the true path in God’s word.
It was their father’s way of trying to modify their behavior without punishing them, but she and Sam had often joked that they would both have preferred a swift smack on the behind to hours listening to their father tell the Lord all of their shortcomings.
“Thanks,” she said as she breathed a sigh of relief. That, at least, was one disappointed person she wouldn't have to face.
“Who was the guy,” her brother finally asked, trying to make the question seem casual. His sister, after all, had never responded well to his inquiries in to her dating life.
“It does not matter. He is gone now,” she said, sharing all the details that she could muster without losing her composure. Had she told her brother of Jake and all the amazing things he made her feel and how her heart ached for him, the heartbreak would be too real and she wasn't ready to face that yet. Instead, she wrapped her arms around herself as though she was shielding herself.
“He ran out on you?” her brother asked, his temper flaring. He read her protective gesture as a sign that she had been hurt and he couldn't abide anyone causing his sister such pain.
“No, he was just passing through town. I knew that he would be gone by sunrise,” she said, not sure how else to describe the situation to her brother. If she thought those words would calm him, though, she was sadly mistaken.
“And you spent the night roaming town with him?” he growled, his former anger rising again at the thought of some drifter taking advantage of his sweet, trusting sister who wanted nothing more than to find her great love.
In his mind, she was still a sweet little girl playing make believe with her dolls, crafting elaborate tales of knights and princesses and the earth shattering loves she imaged that they had. She was a prime victim for a man with less than honorable intentions.
“There was something special about him,” she said, smiling fondly as she conjured an image of Jake’s sensitive eyes and handsome face.
“What was his name?” he brother demanded, looking as though he could easily kill him.
“And have you and Tony run a background check on him? I don't think I will be falling for that today, big brother,” she said, leaning in and kissing him on the cheek. No matter how badly he overreacted, she knew that it came from a place of love. She had been defensive when he first confronted her, of course, but she knew in her heart it was because of his deep love for his baby sister.
“I'm not going to tell Tony about this,” he said as though it was his offer to do her some sort of favor. That, in turn, peaked her own annoyance.
“Why not?” she demanded, clearly annoyed at his suggestion that she needed to justify herself to Tony. She had work for ages to convince both her brother and Tony that she didn't owe Tony any more than the respect one human being should have for another. She wasn't his significant other anymore and she couldn't make it any clearer.
“Because it would hurt him,” Samuel answered, shaking his head at the thought of Tony hearing the news.
He worried that it might be enough to convince his best friend to move on from his love for Savannah. That was the last thing that Samuel wanted. He had a very clear picture of the future in his mind and, in it, his sister was married to Tony. He was, after all, the only man he could trust to love and protect her as much as he himself did.
“I'm not his girl anymore,” she answered, though she didn't raise her voice when she spoke. She knew how very hard the situation was for her brother and she didn't want to hurt him or Tony any more than she absolutely had to.
“I know but that does not stop him from loving you,” her brother answered. His words were not an accusation though. They were tinged with sympathy, not anger.
“I don't want to hurt him,” she said, not sure what else she could say. The thought of hurting such a good man was painful to her, but not as painful as the thought of spending her life with a man she didn't love.
“I know baby girl. Believe me, I know,” he said, wrapping her in his best bear hug. It was the same hug he had given her when she had fallen off her bike for the first time and then again the first time a boy had broken her heart. It was an embrace that told her that he was there for her, no matter what might come.
“You need to tell him to move on,” she said, tears beginning to fall down her cheeks at the thought of Tony wasting his life pining for her.
“He will never do that,” her brother said, shaking his head as he spoke.
“But I cannot love him,” she answered, feeling as though some wild animal was clawing at her heart. Before Jake, she might have been able to return to Tony and the life he imaged for them. Now, though, she knew was true love felt like and she would rather be alone than settle for less than that.
“Why not?” he asked, genuinely curious about what kept his sister for caring deeply for a man who loved her so much and who was already a part of their family.
“There is just no spark,” she said, shrugging her shoulders as she spoke. She knew that the answer would make no sense to her brother, but it was the only way she could think to describe it.
“No spark?” he asked with a humorless chuckle.
“Yes, no spark. I will not spend the rest of my life wasting away in a loveless marriage,” she said, tears forming anew in her eyes at the thought of just what a lonely life that would be.
“You couldn't love Tony?” her brother asked, looking as though he was realizing for the first time that his sister might never change her mind and return to Tony’s safe embrace.
“Not in the way you should love the man you promise before God to spend the rest of your life with,” she said, her voice so full of emotions that Samuel couldn't doubt that she meant every word that she spoke. All he could do, he realized, was try to change her mind.
“You couldn't try again?” he asked, careful not to push her too hard.
“I tried. You know I did. He is a great guy. If I could have loved him, I wouldn't have left him,” she said with a sigh of disappointment. It was very much the truth, though. She had known how easy it would have been for everyone if she loved Tony and she had tried.
In truth she had tried for longer than she should have out of respect to her brother and Tony. Had she refused any of his attention the moment she realized there would never be a spark, it might have saved them all a great deal of pain.
“It puts me in a rough spot,” he said with a sigh. If she truly didn't change her mind, he was going to spend the rest of his life nursing his heartsick best friend through his feelings for Savannah.
“I know,” she replied, clearly bothered that she might play a role in creating any kind of divide between Sam and Tony.
They had been best friends for their entire lives. They had grown up together, the three of them. Though the boys were five years older, they had brought her along with them on all of their adventures. Tony had protected her like a brother and teased her like a brother. So much so, in fact, that she wondered if he was confusing that affection that he had for her for the deep love he claimed to feel. He had no siblings of his own, so it didn't surprise her that he might not understand the depths of such a bond.
“I mean, he might be the only guy I wouldn't have to hate just because he was with my sister,” her brother teased, trying to lighten her sour mood. He didn't wa
nt her to be sad. All he wanted in the whole world was for his sister and his friend to be happy. That was the first moment, though, that he had considered that being together might not make both of them happy.
“I know what a struggle it will be for you,” she said with a genuine laugh of amusement as she tried to wipe the tears from her eyes.
“Get on up to your room and get cleaned up before Momma and Daddy wake up,” her brother urged, willing to cover for her just as he had when they were children and she had gotten herself in to some scrape or another.
“Thank you for covering for me,” she said, planting a gentle kiss on his cheek.
“Anything for you, little sister,” he said with a smirk as he nudged her towards the back staircase that would lead her safely back to her room without running the risk of waking her parents by passing their room.
Once she reached the safety of her room, Savannah could feel a flood of tears forming behind her eyes. Her brother’s sweet support, though he didn't agree with her actions, was more than her carefully crafted composure could withstand. As the tears began to fall, hot and stinging against her soft skin.
The sobs shook her whole body and she did all that she could to muffle the sound. If her Momma heard her crying like that, there would be no keeping her out of the room and she couldn't imagine how she would explain her tears to her sweet, conservative mother.
She would never understand how her daughter had allowed herself to fall so far so fast for a boy that she knew could never really be hers. Savannah couldn't bear the thought of having her mother dismiss what she had shared with Jake as puppy love or an infatuation. It would create new pain in her heart and it might very well be something that she couldn't forgive her mother for.
She knew that she should shower and let the tears all wash away, along with her memories of the night before. Still, though, she could faintly smell Jake upon her skin and she wasn't ready to part with that last bit of him that she carried with her. Instead, she drew back her covers and crawled in to her bed, creating a cocoon of sorts where she felt warm and safe. There, in the quite comfort of her room, she allowed her emotions to fully overtake her.
She cried so hard that eventually, she tried herself out. As the last tear fell from her cheek, she drifted off into the deep sleep of exhaustion. There, in her dreams, she was still in Jake’s arms. The dreams were so tender and so real that her subconscious couldn't be roused. Indeed, it was well afternoon before she awoke again.
Her mouth tasted of the salt of her dried tears and her body ached from the shaking sobs that had come over her like waves. Still, she was calmer when she awoke. Slowly, she rose from her bed and prepared to face her life once again. The fact that Jake would never again be a part of it made her feel hollow inside, but she did all that she could to hold on to the feeling that had blossomed within her when he held her close.
She knew that her life was changed, though she couldn't know how much. All she could do was find what joy and happiness she could in what awaited her outside of the safety of her room. She knew that her father would gently ask how her show had been and her mother would scold her for sleeping the day away. She expected Samuel to be around later in the day as well, just to check up on her. It wouldn't even surprise her if Tony dropped by after hearing the same rumors that Sam had.
She couldn't let any of it faze her and she couldn't allow it to tarnish the warmth that Jake’s memory gave her. No matter what life brought to her door, he was out there in the world and his heart belonged to her. Many women went through life without ever knowing the kind of love that he had shown her. Though it wasn't what she would have chosen, one perfect night would have to be enough to sustain her through the many cold nights ahead of her.
Chapter7
When Jake finally did force himself to leave, he felt as though he was walking through a fog. He made his way through the town, watching all the locals go about their morning rituals. Some sat in a little coffee shop, others were leaving the corner store with newspapers tucked under their arms. To all of them, it was a normal day. To him, though, it was the darkest day of his life. He tried to focus on anything but the pit of loneliness growing within his stomach.
It was the same feeling that he had felt as a small child, so many years ago, before he met his foster brothers. The pain of it seemed as though it would tear him apart at the seams. When he finally got to his bike, he just started driving like hell. Part of him thought that the pain would ease whenever he crossed the town line.
It didn't, though. The further he got from her, the more the pain tore through him. It was as if the very cells in his body were trying to pull away from him and fly back to her. He pushed the gas pedal the whole way to the floorboards, forcing himself to honor his best intentions and stay away from her.
He never usually drove recklessly. After all, it was his role to fly under the radar. Now, though, it was the only way to pull himself away from her. Part of him hoped that he would wreck and spare himself the loneliness and pain of a life without her.
Somehow, though, he made it safely back to the hotel a few towns over where the rest of the guys were waiting for him.
He couldn't bring himself to go in right away. He sat there in the shadow and pictured Savannah's face. The sweet expression on her face after their lovemaking was something that he would hold close to his heart all the days of his life. He knew that he needed to come up with a reason for canceling the job to give to his brothers.
He had never lied to them before, but he wasn't sure that he would share his memories of her with them. They were too private and personal to him.
The guys would never understand. They had all had their share of women, of course. A few of them even had steady girls in a few of the towns they through often on the way from one town to another. Mostly, though, they were bartenders and the connections they shared were only physical.
While he couldn't deny the physical aspect to their relationship, she was so much more to him. She was imprinted upon his heart. It wasn't being inside of her that he craved most, though the desire to enter her sweet folds again was intense. What he wanted most, though, was to feel her in his arms, listening to the sweet sound of her heartbeat as she lay sleeping.
He finally forced himself to go in to the hotel and face his brothers. It wasn't because of a desire to reunite with his brothers though. It was the fact that if he stayed on his bike for a moment longer, he knew he would restart the engine and race off towards Savannah. If he did that, though, he was fairly certain he would be unable to leave her again.
“You're back earlier than I thought," his eldest brother Brian said when he entered the room.
"The town is perfect but now isn't the time," he answered, shaking his head as he spoke.
"Not the time?" Peter, the getaway driver of the group, asked in disbelief. Jake understood his skepticism.
In all the years they had been doing this, he had never once recommended postponing a job. They had walked away from a few when he realized the smooth get away they needed wasn't possible, but he had never delayed one. He knew he should have said the town layout wouldn't suite their purposes. Jake couldn't, though, because he needed the possibility of returning in the future. He needed to know that he could return to Savannah one day.
"I got there just as their yearly festival was ending. It would have been the perfect cover," he explained, though his brothers knew him well enough to see that there was something else going on behind his facade.
"Can't we make it work?" Brian asked, always reluctant to walk away from a job they had invested time in.
"I don't think so. I think we need to hold off," he said, plopping down in a chair across from Brian.
"You look like hell," his younger brother Reese said bluntly.
"I didn't get much sleep," he answered, running his hand through his hair and taking a deep breath after he spoke.
"Really? What was her name?" Peter said, a leering smile on his face.
"
It wasn't like that," Jake said, feeling himself blushing.
"There was a girl then," Peter said triumphantly.
"Scout, did you fall for a girl?" Brian asked, looking shocked. Jake understood his surprise. He had never cared for a girl before. All those who had come before Savannah were one night stands and quick flings.
"A small town girl?" Reese said, clearly fishing for more details.
"This has nothing to do with her," Jake said defensively.
"Who was she?" Brian asked, knowing Jake wouldn't lie to him.
"Someone special," he answered honestly, unable to find better words to describe who she was to him. He wanted to shout from the roof top that he had found his love, but he knew his brothers would only mock him for that kind of devotion to a girl he had met on one of their jobs.
"Really?" Reese asked, surprised to hear that she was more than a fling.
"But that has nothing to do with this. The recon is done. We just need to wait," he said, doing his best to reassure them that he didn't back away from the job to protect her.
"You don't want to go back and do a little more recon?" Peter said with a deliberate wink.
"Yes, a little more recon will be good for you," Brian said, laughing as he rose from the table. Clearly, his brothers were amused that he had found a woman of real interest to him.
"No," he said, shaking his head and fighting the temptation to return.
"No?" Peter asked in shock.
"If I go back to her, I may never come back," he said, his mind and his heart miles away.
"Was she that special?" Reese asked, looking at him as though he was telling him a fairytale.
"Yes," he said wistfully.
"Then staying away is the best thing you can do," Brian advised, looking concerned.
"Feelings will only get you hurt," Peter said, putting an arm around his shoulder to provide what comfort he could. After all, he was perhaps the only one among them who understood what he was going through. He had left a high school sweetheart behind when they began their life of crime. She went on to marry and have a kid with a boy she met in college and Peter had never quite gotten over it.