Soft Wild Ache (Crown Creek)

by Theresa Leigh

  "Oh!" She dropped the sponge she'd been scrubbing with and jumped when she heard my voice. "You're here! I didn't hear the truck!"

  "What are you doing here?" Yellow rubber gloves flopped open at her elbows. She looked like she was wearing some kind of pillowcase trimmed with lace at the collar. "What are you wearing?"

  She looked down at her garb and pressed her lips together. "I was going to change before you got here," she said, looking abashed as she fingered the white fabric that billowed around her. "Chosen undergarments. I only wear them when I clean now."

  I shook my head. "But why are you here? And aren't you working today?"

  She grinned shyly. "I switched hours. I could either clean for other people. or I could come over and clean for you." She struck a proud pose. "One thing is for sure. I know how to clean. It's my job after all."

  I looked at her, hunger thudding in my veins. With her hair pinned up in a halo around the crown of her head and that billowing white garment wafting around her, she had never looked more like an angel. "What?" she asked with a sly grin when she saw my expression.

  In two steps she was in my arms and in ten more we were in the bed. "I don't know"—I groaned into her neck as she tore my shirt over my head—"how long we have. The truck could be here at any minute."

  "So hurry," she whispered as she guided me inside of her.

  I was so worked up it took an embarrassingly short time. Rachel's cries were just dying away when we both froze at the sound of truck tires on the long gravel driveway. Rachel started giggling into my shoulder. "That was excellent timing."

  I kissed her fiercely. "I'll make it up to you later," I promised as I pulled back and tossed her the shirt she'd brought to change into. We hurriedly changed into our clothes and were out on the deck to greet my family before they had even turned off the engine.

  My brothers tumbled from the truck, shouting about who could carry more boxes in one go. Claire followed behind them, crowing about how she'd been the one to find this house in the first place, and my father slung his arm around my mother's shoulder and whispered something into her ear that made her laugh and then dab at her eyes again.

  "I like your family," Rachel whispered.

  I put my arm around her in an echo of my dad, then waved down at them, feeling Gabe's absence acutely. My family was all here, at my house, and I had my girl in my arms to make it even better. I pulled her close, smelling the bleach in her hair before kissing her. Everyone I cared about under the same roof, all of my family spilling out into the lawn and calling out to each other.

  The only thing that could make this better would be if there were some kids running around.

  I stiffened a little and felt my grip on Rachel tighten. I could picture them. Right now. A boy and a girl, maybe twins. One that looked like Finn and one that looked like Rachel. In between my family's shouted questions and whoops of discovery, I could almost hear their giggles as they chased each other around the yard.

  "You happy or something?" Rachel tipped her head to beam up at me. "You always hold me tighter when you're happy."

  "Yeah." Emotion choked out the rest of what I wanted to tell her, but it didn't matter. With her background, coming from a huge family like she did, she'd understand, right? "I'm just thinking."

  "Hey, Beau? You gonna maybe help?" Claire was standing in the doorway with her hand planted on her hip. She rolled her eyes and stomped away.

  I sighed and grinned at Rachel, then moved to follow, but she stopped me with a tug on my hand. "Hey. what were you thinking about? Just then?"

  I took a deep breath. "This is going to sound random, but, do you ever think about what it'd be like to have kids?"

  All the color drained from Rachel's face. She glanced over at the spot where Claire had been and dropped my hand.

  "Oh shit. Sorry." I shot her a sheepish grin. Rachel was a pretty private person. She definitely didn't want to have this discussion with my parents and my siblings within earshot. "Bad timing. Come on."

  She was quiet as she went through the door first and I cursed my carelessness. Rachel was right, this was definitely not the right time to be discussing this. But I needed to hear from her exactly how she felt about it. I'd always wanted to be a dad. It was important to me.

  Maybe some time this week, when the stress of moving had died down, I'd take her out to dinner and we could have a real talk about it. It was okay to take our time. After all, I planned on spending a lot more time with Rachel Walker.

  Chapter Thirty

  Rachel

  "I don't think I have ever been more tired," I complained as I flopped onto Beau's bed.

  All around us, stacks of boxes loomed in corners. Wadded paper towels littered the floor and the clashing smells of different cleansers hung in the air. Beau hadn't figured out all of the light switches, so his north facing bedroom was succumbing to the gloom. I closed my eyes and listened to the unfamiliar creaks and clangs of the house settling. I hadn't noticed them my first night here. My attention had been... elsewhere. But tonight I knew there was no chance in hell of us succumbing to the same kinds of distraction. For one thing, I was exhausted. For another, I was sweaty and in need of a shower. The shower would have been a priority a week ago, but I was becoming very comfortable with Beau, and that meant I was more concerned with closing my eyes than with how I smelled.

  The house was quiet. Finn was down by the pond with a beer, watching the sunset. Yesterday was the solstice and red still clung to the clouds even though it was close to ten pm. "It's still light out and you're ready for bed?" Beau teased as he flopped down next to me.

  My head was buzzing with the day and being in the middle of Beau's wild family. I hadn't laughed like that in years, and Mrs. King had thanked me profusely for helping and made me feel like I was part of the family.

  It had all been so nice that I was able to push the hurt of Beau's question way back down inside. It was innocent, after all. Just one of those random things. I was pretty sure he wasn't serious. Chosen men got married almost as young as Chosen women, but out here in the secular world, I rarely saw men his age actually want children. Especially not men his age who were talking to their old label about restarting their rock and roll career.

  No, it had been a fluke, so I ignored the raw ache inside of me that his question had re-opened and lifted my chin at him. "Today wore me out," I told him.

  He raised an eyebrow. "I'd like to wear you out too."

  His eyes darkened for a moment, and then he was overcome with a cheek-splitting yawn that made me burst out laughing. "Ha! You're tired too."

  "This is pathetic," he grumbled, rolling onto his back and yawning again. "I'm getting old."

  I leaned up on my elbow. "Yes, you are." I poked him in the chest with my finger. He snatched it up and brought it to his lips. I gasped when he kissed and then bit at it. "Hey!" I protested. "How would you like it if I bit you like that?" I bent over and nipped him in the neck.

  He groaned. "I'd like it very much," he confessed, turning to catch my lips with his. At the touch of his lips, I felt sparks in my bloodstream and my thudding heart sped faster as he rolled over, crushing me beneath his weight.

  We moved slowly, and languidly, stripping each other out of our clothes and kissing the salt-kissed skin underneath. He used his fingers and lips to bring me to a lazy orgasm, and then unrolled the condom along his length.

  And then swore. "Shit."

  "What's wrong?" I blinked up at him, feeling like my head was stuffed with clouds. My body was still singing with what he'd done to me, but my grin faded when I saw his expression as he looked down.

  "This is my last one too," he grumbled and pointed.

  There was a tiny tear at the tip. I held my breath, not entirely sure what this meant, but Beau cleared it up for me immediately. "Shit, we need a back-up, angel. I know you're not on the pill or anything right?"

  My blood turned to ice. "No."

  Beau shook his head, glowering at the to
rn condom as he ripped it free. He hurled it to the trashcan and then took a deep, steadying breath. "Would you mind going on it? I'd totally pay for it, I know it's expensive." He turned with a pleading look on his face. "I hate asking you to take it all on yourself, but we don't want you getting pregnant before we're ready, you know?"

  My heart thudded sickeningly in my chest. One beat. Two beats. The tears were stinging my eyes, but if I just concentrated on my heartbeat, I could keep them from falling.

  "Rach?" Beau sat down next to me and put his arm around me, pulling me close. "Angel, I know. It sucks. I know that's not how you were brought up, I just don't know any other way."

  He was being kind. If he had been callous or dismissive, I might have had a prayer of keeping myself together. But the gentle hum of his concern sent me over the edge. The first tear splashed down onto his bare leg. He looked at it and then back up at me, then let out a shocked gasp. "Baby, why are you crying?"

  I clenched my fists and pressed my lips together, but I couldn't hold it back anymore. I looked at Beau and knew I needed to tell him the truth.

  "I don't need to go on the pill."

  He narrowed his eyes, still not understanding. "I'll definitely keep wearing condoms, of course. But I don't want another scare like that—"

  "It won't be a problem," I said dully.

  He stared at me.

  "Beau. I had a complete hysterectomy three years ago. It saved my life." I swallowed past the lump in my throat. Looking at him was too hard, so I looked down. "But I'll never be able to have kids."

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Beau

  Rachel was in pain and all I wanted to do was reach out and hold her, but I couldn't move. I was frozen in place, horror turning my blood into ice water as I listened to her slowly, haltingly, tell her story.

  "I used to faint with every period." She twisted the sheet in her hands as she stared fixedly at a point on the wall. "Every month it got worse. They told me - they told me it was the curse of womanhood and I needed to pray harder, to lift my burden up. But the bleeding only got heavier, and then I started to bleed even when it wasn't my period." She looked down at her hands, her cheeks red with anger and shame. "I used to stuff old undergarments under my skirts to catch the blood before going out into the fields to work, but they'd be soaked by midmorning."

  An involuntary growl escaped my throat. She glanced at me and then pressed her lips together. "Since God wasn't answering my prayers, it was clear to the rest of the community that I was an unredeemable sinner. I started losing my friends. My parents lost their friends. We were isolated, but my mother," her voice caught. "My mother was brave. She defied the Elders and snuck me out of the community. I'd never been to a hospital before. From the way the Chosen kids all gossiped, I was sure it had to be either the gateway to hell or some kind of mystical fairyland. I almost wish I'd been conscious enough to see it."

  She fell silent. I unfroze enough to be able to reach out and take her long braid into my hands. I twisted the curl at the end around my finger twice before trailing it up to rub her scalp. She hummed quietly and closed her eyes, ducking to let me knead the tension away around her temples and smooth the wrinkles in her brow. I focused solely on that, letting my sight go all tunnel vision because I was afraid that if I turned my head, I would see the two perfect children - the boy with my brother's face and the girl with hers - running far off and out of my reach.

  "Come here," I grated out. I pulled her to me and wrapped her in my arms. The sob she'd been holding back broke loose and she started to cry against my chest. Great, heaving sobs, the sound of the pain she'd been through. My stomach twisted. She was in so much pain. I loved her so much and there was nothing I could do to help it and that was like a knife to the gut.

  "I - I lived." She laughed ruefully and pulled back from me, wiping her eyes. "I mean, obviously. But the fibroids were throughout my uterus." She didn't even color at the frank word. "The only way to stop the hemorrhaging was to take the whole thing."

  "How old were you?" My voice was little more than a croak.

  "Twenty. I went back to the Chosen afterward. I mean, of course I did, it was all that I had ever known but...” Her voice caught again, and I pulled her to me until she could catch her breath enough to continue. "Word got out. And, and the men I'd grown up with, the ones I expected to be matched with and marry, they - they didn't want me. What good is a wife who can't bear children?" Anger crept into her voice. "Who would want such damaged goods?"

  "No."

  "They didn't say it to my face," she spat. "But they didn't need to. I knew when the Elders came to me and told me I had a new calling in life. 'Go out and make my way in the wide world and bring the message to the secular.’" She snorted. "Right. That's not how it works. No one has ever been given that kind of task. I wasn't being sent forth," her voice rose into hysteria. "I was being discarded!"

  "Rachel!" I cupped her face between my hands as her eyes darted wildly. "Rachel, look at me." Her chest hitched, but her eyes found mine somehow. "I'm right here, okay? You got through it and you're doing so—" My voice broke. "So well." Emotion welled up in my chest, robbing me of the rest of my words, so I tried to pour everything I was feeling into a kiss.

  She gasped, and then sighed, then sagged against me. I gently lowered her back down to the bed and touched her face, her tears were still flowing freely, but she was no longer sobbing. "I never cried about it," she whispered, sounding surprised. "This whole time, I never cried. I never... mourned what I lost. My family, they told me to be grateful that I had my life."

  I licked my lips. The little boy and girl who'd been running around in my brain, the ones that laughed and ran for me and called me Daddy, they had disappeared over a horizon and for a second, I mourned too. Then I pushed them to the side. "I'm grateful you're in my life," I told her, lying down and fitting myself around her. I leaned up and whispered into her ear. "I need you to know that."

  She made a small sound and then nodded. I wrapped my arms around her and held her until her tears subsided. I wound her braid into my hand and held it tightly, as much for me as for her. And when her breathing relaxed into the slow, careful sips of breath she took when she'd fallen asleep, I closed my eyes against my own tears, catching them before they could fall.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Rachel

  In the morning, Beau smiled at me like nothing had changed.

  He must have thought I didn't know him.

  But I knew him.

  His sadness was hidden in the slope of his shoulders as he waited for the coffee maker to finish brewing. Rather than let me see it, he went behind the door of the pantry and heaved a sigh that I felt right down to my toes. He didn't notice me behind him in the bathroom until he lifted his bowed head and his eyes refocused from whatever faraway place he'd gone to in his head and I could see the deep worry lines that marred his smooth forehead. Maybe he thought his beard hid his frown. It didn't.

  When he saw me there, he kissed me like I hadn't ruined everything last night.

  But I knew.

  "I wish you didn't have to work today," he told me as he grabbed his keys. I had only just tugged my shirt down over my head. Was he hurrying me out the door? "Hope it's not too rough of a day."

  "I hope I don't have to yell at too many people today," I said, trying on a smile.

  Beau blinked at me and then recognition flooded his eyes. "Yeah me too. Save your voice for tonight."

  He probably thought I didn't notice that, either. That he had forgotten tonight was the open mic night we had signed up for. That hurt settled into my stomach to join the other hurts that were crouching there. "But I don't need to be at work yet?" I came out as a question. Are you trying to get rid of me now? I didn't ask. Because I wasn't certain I'd like the answer.

  "I know." Beau was halfway out the door already. "But Gabe's calling the house in a few minutes."

  "Your parents' house?"

  "Right. It's tricky wit
h the time zones, so I need to be there right on time and..." He trailed off when he saw my skeptical expression and tried for a big grin. "You'll be bored."

  "I don't think I will." I was pushing hard. The same way I had when the Elders had come to me and told me my new mission. "But why?" I had demanded back then. I wanted to hear them say it. I wanted them to admit that I was damaged goods and that's why they were doing what they were doing. Because I had no future with the Chosen.

  Did I have no future with Beau, either?

  I lifted my chin and kept pressing. "I don't even think I have my keys on me," I said, patting my pants and then dramatically pawing through my purse. "We could stop by my house first."

  "Yeah, okay." Beau still seemed distracted. My shoulders slumped as the fight went out of me, and I silently followed him to the car.

  The ride back to my house was silent and awkward. My stomach felt heavy like I had eaten something that sat wrong with me. And when he kissed me goodbye, tears came unbidden to my eyes. It was a goodbye kiss, but I no longer felt the promise of 'see you soon.'

  Was he giving up? My family had discarded me for being damaged. Was Beau ready to do the same?

  I walked into my house, feeling like a zombie. I wandered through, picking up things that had always belonged to me and staring at them like I had no idea how they'd gotten there. I carried things from one room to another and back again, with no idea of what I was trying to accomplish. The windows had been shut the whole time I'd been at Beau's place, and the heat was sticky and oppressive. I yanked open the windows, proud of finding something that had actually needed to be done and then I cursed. "Fuck it."

  Being here, alone, was driving me nuts. I needed to go for a walk. I grabbed my keys out of my purse and went to the door.

  I locked the door behind me and was just stepping off the porch when I saw the figure, her skirts billowing around her ankles as she stomped toward me with her head down, eyes on her shoes. I squinted, unable to make what I was seeing make sense. My sister? Here?