***
“You look so beautiful tonight,” Nate was saying, and Bryce couldn’t so much as force a smile; her lips felt like marble. It was already 10:30, and she needed to leave this minute if she planned to make the bus. She felt as though she were watching a movie, once again apart from everything, moving as though choreographed. The pain was waiting to ambush her, she knew, but she would make it through these last moments…
And if Matthew doesn’t show?
My heart is already fucking broken, slashed, ripped apart. Please just let me see him one last time. That’s all. I just need to see his eyes one last time, know that he’ll be all right.
I can’t do this. I can’t bear it. Matthew. Oh, God. Matthew. Where are you?
Her knees buckled, causing her to droop; Nate, thinking she was slightly drunk, laughed and hauled her closer, bent his dark head to whisper in her ear, “How about the next one, too?”
She tried to shake her head, a buzzing in her ears. Her back was to the front entrance at that moment, as a stranger came swinging through the doors then, a tall sandy-haired guy, built, wearing jeans and a green button-down shirt. Amid curious glances he scanned the crowd, his eyes glittering…and suddenly locked on Bryce and Nate. Without a word he stalked forward.
Bryce saw a hand swoop around her right arm and clamp down on Nate’s shoulder. She gasped, thinking it was Matthew, but in the next second, and the horrible next, she realized, one nightmare on top of another, that it was Wade, that somehow Wade Thompson was standing here on the parquet dance floor at Rose Lake Lodge.
“Oh, Jesus, Wade,” she uttered, floored by his sudden appearance. He unceremoniously ignored her and instead gripped a large handful of Nate’s shirtfront, then backpedaled him furiously, creating a huge rift in the crowd and a surge of surprised, excited voices in his wake. Without stopping to analyze the situation, knowing Wade’s temper, unable even to imagine how blood-curdlingly angry he was right now, Bryce tried frantically to run after the two of them, elbowing her way through the babbling, shifting mass of people who all tried to follow Nate Ryan and some crazy stranger. The music stopped with a squeal and a twang as Bailey Ryan yelled, “Hey!” and jumped off the stage.
Outside under the stars in the Lodge parking lot, Wade was breathing hard and wasted not one second. Bryce arrived outside, breathless, in time to hear, “That’s my woman, you stupid son of a bitch!” and Nate’s reply, “Hey, you got this all wrong, bud—” before Wade’s curled right fist snapped Nate’s head back and Nate roared, surging back up and leaping for Wade. Someone screamed. Time seemed to freeze, Bryce along with it, pressing both fists to her gut. But then there was a small break in the crowd and she dashed through.
Wade and Nate grappled with arms locked around each other’s torsos. Bryce reached them, her heart clubbing, and screeched, “WADE! STOP IT!”
She didn’t think and made a leap onto Wade’s back, got her right arm around his thick neck. He sagged backward, trying to shake her off, but she clung like a monkey. He was breathing hard, his body tensile with anger. Nate had managed to free his arms and caught Wade in the chest with a sharp blow.
Matthew, just pulling up, stared out his windshield at the crowd in the parking lot, killed his engine and climbed down, straining to see why everyone was gathered in a huge cluster; in the next moment, he heard a name that sent fire zinging all through his blood.
“Bryce, goddamn it!” Wade bellowed, hampered by her from defending himself, and he flung an elbow, catching her against the side of the head and knocking her flat to the pavement. There was a collective gasp and from where he had managed to shove his way through the crowd, frantic, Matthew’s eyes went black. He didn’t remember later exactly what happened, though everyone who witnessed it told a version of how he moved like some kind of demon. The next thing he was conscious of through the red haze was being dragged by four men, one of them Nate, off the prostrate form of the man who’d hurt Bryce, and the next, the fact that his both his hands felt broken.
Voices swarmed like a hive of alternately shocked and furious bees. Matthew flung his arms and yelled, “Get the hell off me!” He looked wildly around for Bryce.
Riley was suddenly iron-fisting his best friend’s shoulders, his face clenched with anxiety.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Sternhagen, get ahold of yourself!” Riley hissed at him, shaking Matthew as only he dared to do. Behind them, Bryce was sobbing, kneeling on the ground near Wade.
Matthew was too overwrought, too keyed up, and he said, low and dangerous, “Let me go, Riley, I fucking mean it.”
The two were nearly eye to eye. Riley pleaded quietly, “Don’t do this to yourself, Matthew.”
But it was already done. Matthew ducked out of the grip and as instinctively as a magnet to true north moved to Bryce, dropping to a crouch 12 inches from her.
“Did he hurt you?” he demanded harshly, his heart constricting to see her tears. It took all his strength not to turn and finish the guy off for good. Bryce’s eyes, wide with real fear, met his and she thought, Oh, God, this is it, isn’t it…it’s so unfair…Matthew, oh Matthew…
There was no hiding anything anymore.
“This man needs an ambulance!” someone yelled then.
“Sternhagen, you’re in for it,” someone else added. The buzzing crescendoed; people were bending down and clustering around Wade, who moaned a little and rolled his head to the left.
Matthew said, “Bryce.” Agony ripped though her as she stared back into his dark, tortured eyes, with Wilder, Erica, and nearly every last person in town looking on.
She said, “Oh, God, your hands…”
He looked down and saw bright blood, realized afresh how much pain was coursing through his forearms and fingers.
“Somebody call the cops!”
“I already did! They’re on the way!”
“Get Randy out here!”
Matthew looked at her lips, her eyes, affixing it all to his memory as a toxic pain spilled from his heart and coursed through his blood. Despite everything she’d said on the dock last night, he whispered, “I love you, Bryce. I’ll never stop.”
And she damned it all, damned the eyes all around, the voices and the accusations. She flung herself into his arms and clung, sobbing again, and he wrapped her close, closed his eyes against her neck, his hands searing with pain as he held her as tight as he could. “Oh, Matthew, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she choked through her tears, fiercely. “Oh, God.”
In the next second they were ripped apart.
Matthew was cuffed and hauled into the back of Randy Strickland’s cop car amid a gaggle of wide eyes and stunned voices, the people he’d known his entire life witnessing this incredible turn of events. Bryce pressed her fists to her mouth as he was taken from her, the starch going completely out of her bones; when Angie Strickland reached down and hauled her to her feet, she didn’t even try to resist.
“You little slut!” Angie cried, her voice shrill. “You were fucking him, weren’t you? You were fucking him!”
Bryce, abject, did not even respond; she was staring at the cop car in which Matthew had been shoved. She couldn’t see into the tinted windows of the car that was going to take him away from her. Panic clawed her throat. She didn’t notice Angie’s arm tense up; Angie was blind with rage and shock, and she reared back with her right hand and smacked Bryce across the face with all of her strength. Bryce reeled in pain, almost going to her knees.
Inside the cop car Matthew saw everything and slammed his shoulder against the unmoving door. He raged, “Goddamn you, Angela!”
“Keep it down!” Randy warned, tapping the window. But he strode over to his little sister and with none-too-gentle movements caught her upper arm and ordered, “Angela, get a grip.”
Angie twisted out of his grasp and stalked away, giving Matthew a venomous smile as she passed the car. Matthew was out of his head with anger as he watched helplessly. Erica was kneeling over Bryce, and as others clu
stered around, he lost sight of her. Randy made the car lunge as he climbed in with all of his bulk and slammed the door.
“Goddamn it, is she okay?” Matthew growled at him, tears stinging in his eyes.
Randy grunted, put the car in gear, and didn’t say another word as he turned right towards Rose Lake.
Chapter Sixteen
Rose Lake, Minnesota – Friday, June 30, 1995
Half an hour later, on their own front porch and blessedly alone, Wilder and Erica stood in their finery in the warm orange glow of the light, around which moths were beating as fast and uncontrollably as both of their hearts. Wilder moved in slow motion and sank to the swing as though his knees had suddenly turned to cottonseed. Erica pressed one hand to her throat and could hardly even look him in the eye. The car ride home had been the most silent and tense of their entire marriage.
“There’s got to be some kind of mistake,” Wilder said a moment later, and his voice was nearly unrecognizable. Erica looked hard at him then; he sounded the way Daniel had the night of his heart attack…but it was just the shock. She forced herself to move closer and sat carefully on the swing beside him.
“Matty…and Bryce?” Wilder said, in a childlike tone of utter bewilderment. “How could…when did…”
Erica still had not spoken and Wilder felt a flash of anger, which burned some of the shock away. He said, “What the devil was he thinking? I’ll kill him.”
“Wilder, watch your mouth!” she said at last, letting the anger sweep into her blood too, far more welcome than the coldness of disbelief.
“Erica, Jesus Christ in heaven!” he half-yelled at her. “This was going on under our noses! How come you didn’t notice?” he demanded then, unreasonably.
Erica huffed out a laugh. “So this is my fault.”
Wilder hooked the fingers of both hands and shoved them hard through his loose blond hair, demanded, “What the hell do we do now?”
Erica said, “Well, we get changed and I’ll go bail out Matty.”
***
He was released to her 45 minutes later, and Erica bit down a gasp at the way he looked coming out from behind the security doors; she had never seen his eyes like this before, flat with despair. Both of his hands were enveloped in round, inhibiting casts, just the upper joints of his fingers showing. Erica rose slowly, wanting to verbally tear into him just as much as she felt the urge to hug him, hold him close to her like a little boy and tell him that everything would be all right. Though she hardly saw how.
“Where’s Bryce?” he demanded immediately, his voice hoarse.
Shit, shit, shit, she thought, her heart clubbing. Bryce was at the county hospital, waiting for word about Wade’s condition. Randy Strickland had told them that the man’s jaw was badly broken. And Matty had done that to him. Erica could hardly believe what was happening, knew she would never erase the picture of Matthew blasting through the crowd like an avenging angel, effortlessly vicious as he took Wade to the ground and smashed his face alternately with both fists. The fact that he had done so because he was in love with his half-niece, Michelle’s own daughter, was something she had carefully shelved until she felt she could even begin to comprehend it, to deal with it. Right now she would take things one at a time.
Relax, Erica, she thought, repressing a shudder, and drew herself together. She said quietly, “She’s at the hospital with him, with Wade.”
“Is she all right?” he demanded, and for the second time that night Erica felt that the men she’d known her entire life sounded like utter strangers to her.
“Yes, she’s just fine,” she told him, trying her best to look stern. But he appeared to have been crying his eyes out and Erica caved and said, “Oh, Matty…honey…”
He shook his head dismissively at the sentiment, jaw clenching. Erica could see the effort it took him not to let more tears fall.
“Come on,” she told him, and led the way outside into the cricket-pulsing night.
In the car she turned the key in the ignition, but before she could shift into gear, Matthew pressed his forehead against the passenger window and his chest was suddenly heaving, forcing out choking, heart-rending sobs. Erica felt as though a gallon of scalding water had been dumped over her head.
“Matthew, it’s okay,” she said, trying but failing to keep the fear out of her voice; in many ways he was like her oldest child, and she loved him dearly. She would get to the bottom of this, but it frightened her deeply to hear his anguish.
He rounded on her, eyes blazing. “IT WILL NEVER BE OKAY AGAIN!” he shouted at her, louder than he had ever spoken to her in his life, and shock flattened her back against the seat. In the next instant he said, “I’m sorry, Erica…oh Jesus Christ…” and he collapsed into sobs again, his huge frame shaking with the force.
Back at the house, Wilder had been frenetic, had Bryce’s duffle bag at his feet on the porch as though to leave it in the house was too much for him. Matthew jogged up the steps and shouldered past his older brother without a word; Erica came bounding up the steps in his wake, heart clubbing as Wilder said in a tone she could not argue with, “Take these things to the hospital. I already bought Bryce a ticket on a flight to Oklahoma City…I don’t think she should come back here.”
Things were moving far too quickly. Her stomach falling, Erica asked quietly, “Tonight, or ever?”
Wilder pressed his lips tightly together and studied the boards beneath their feet, his own eyes gleaming with tears.
“I think ever.”
But Matthew came striding back out, eyes purposeful, straight ahead. Without a word he marched down the porch steps. Wilder said, quietly but with undeniable force, “Matthew, get your ass back here.”
Matthew stopped, but he did not turn around. His huge shoulders were square and tense in a white t-shirt. Erica clutched her hands together, hating this so much. Goddamn it…it didn’t have to be like this.
“Where in the hell do you think you’re going, little brother?” Wilder asked him grimly. Matthew didn’t move, nor respond, and Erica’s heart seemed to freeze in her chest as she watched her husband’s full lips press into an angry white line above his chin. Everything was sickeningly silent for a long moment; when Wilder’s mouth opened, Erica started.
“I asked you a goddamn question!” Wilder roared at his younger brother.
Matthew whirled around and his eyes looked feral in the glow from the porch light, though he spoke quietly. “Wilder, you are my brother and I love you, I do, but you will not stop me, I am telling you that right now.”
“Give me those keys,” Wilder said, trying for calm.
Matthew’s chest rose and fell, sharply.
“No,” he said, low and dangerous.
Erica hardly dared to breathe.
“Matthew, bring the keys up here, or so help me, I will regret what I do next,” Wilder said.
Matthew didn’t move and Wilder’s shoulders shifted, his arms tensed, and Erica couldn’t stand it another second and raced between them, pleading her case to Matty. She was crying, and it hurt him to see that. He said, “Erica, please don’t…please don’t cry…”
“Matthew,” she cried, and caught his upper arms in her small hands. “Please don’t do this. The police will take you back into custody if you set so much as a foot in that hospital. You will hurt her if you do this!” She stared up at him, her face shiny with tears. “Please, please listen to me…”
He shook his head like someone trying to wake from a nightmare. “Bryce,” he said then, stricken. Tears streamed over his cheeks and he yelled her name over and over, his voice harsh and hoarse. At last he seemed to give up, sank to his knees in the grass, tipped forward, and Erica bent and collected him close, her heart quaking. She thanked heaven that the kids were not here, would not have this picture in their memories.
“I love her…so much,” he gasped, over and over, clinging to Erica the way he used to as a small child, sobbing with all the force of his fractured heart, helpless bef
ore the onslaught.
Wilder stood on the porch with his hands braced on the top railing, head and torso bent forward in the manner of someone who might be violently ill. Erica could hardly look up at her husband, too terrified by Matthew’s intensity, and instead held him tight against herself. But in the next moment he set her aside gently, rose and strode away, down the lake path, not looking back once.
***
Five miles away, Bryce sat on a vinyl chair near Wade’s hospital bed, her face set as stone as she tried again to wrap her mind around all that had happened tonight. Wade was sleeping, drugged up from the pain medication he had been given, his face swathed in strips of white gauze. He would make a physical recovery, the doctor had informed her, though she knew he would never forgive her, and would certainly want to kill Matthew the moment he was able, would never live it down. For the life of her, she could not believe that Wade had driven all the way here, had been ready to fight for her…
And Matthew…she would never be able to get the picture of him from her mind, the way he had taken Wade down as though Wade were a stick figure, had leaped onto him and beat his face like someone possessed, would have certainly killed him if not for the men who had dragged him away, all because Wade had hurt her. Despite the violence of the assault, she was touched to the resonant core of her being; Matthew protected her. He would do that and more to keep her safe. Her heart constricted at the thought of him, and she pressed her knuckles against her eyes for the countless time, determined not to give in to full-scale weeping again tonight. Her own head ached from the pain of two blows…Wade’s elbow had knocked a large purple bruise on her left temple, and Angie’s vicious slap had landed just below that spot.
And still that pain was nothing compared to the rending in her soul; tonight they had moved past the point of no return, of that she was sure. She felt dizzy with grief for a moment, certain she would crumple to the floor with the shifting, sickening weight of the feeling, and she thought, I have to see him tonight or I will die. Where is he right now? Are his hands all right? Is he in pain? Is someone taking care of him? Oh God, is he lying in a jail cell? Not knowing was driving her insane.
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