“Oh, of course, I should’ve thought of that.” Norah set the casserole on a hot pad in the middle of the table and began taking out dishes and cutlery. “I don’t own the Star Wars movies so I will have to rent them. There’s a movie kiosk at the market nearest The Pit. I’ll check and see if they have it. If not, maybe I can make a trip to Boulder or Denver. What can I get you to drink? I have beer, wine, water, milk, or juice.”
“Water is fine,” Caine said, watching as she filled two glasses with ice and water from the dispensers on the refrigerator. Norah set the glasses on the table and sat down. When she was seated, Caine took his own seat before continuing. “If you can’t find the movie here, let me know and I will look in Denver. There’s no need for you to make an extra trip when I live there.”
“Okay,” Norah agreed. “I will check tomorrow and let you know.”
That decided, they settled down to eat and conversation came to a halt. The casserole was simple but very good, and once he started eating, Caine realized he was starving. “This is great,” he told Norah.
Norah smiled and her cheeks flushed pink with pleasure. “Thank you. I’m glad you like it.”
“Next time, I’ll return the favor and cook for you.”
Norah’s smile broadened, reaching all the way into her eyes. “I’d like that.”
From there, the conversation delved into favorite recipes, favorite foods, and the kind of things they had grown up eating. Not surprisingly, the kind of things Norah was used to were a world away from the things he had grown up with, and many of the things he was used to, particularly the wilder things, like venison, frog legs, and turtle soup were completely foreign to Norah. When she squealed and shuddered over the idea of eating things like frog and turtle, he laughed. She wasn’t the first person he had seen have that kind of reaction, not by a long shot, but with her it was amusing rather than offensive. He rather liked the idea of introducing her to some new foods.
“I’ll start you off slowly,” he promised, grinning. “No frogs, turtles, or squirrels for a while yet, just normal seafood.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” she replied, eyeing him seriously. “For now though, we have a movie waiting on us.” She stood and started gathering their empty plates.
“I can do that,” Caine protested, getting to his feet. “You cooked. The least I can do is clean.”
“I’m only going to rinse these off and stick them in the dishwasher,” Norah told him. “If you want to help, put the leftover casserole in the refrigerator. There are storage containers in the upper cabinet to the right of the stove.”
It took two tries but Caine found them, He selected a suitable container, and stowed the leftovers in the refrigerator. When he handed Norah the empty casserole dish to wash, his hand brushed against hers, sending an electric tingle up his arm. He drew back, stuffing his hand into his pocket and rubbing his fingertips against the cotton of the lining to soothe the sensation before he could act on the temptation to touch her in a much more intimate way. Norah stepped away. If it had affected her in the way it had him, she didn’t show it. She calmly ran the dish under the water to rinse it and then stacked it in the dishwasher.
“Now, it’s movie time,” Norah pronounced, bouncing from foot to foot like an excited child. She dried her hands and hurried into the living room to set up the DVD. He followed her and took a seat in a corner of the sofa, expecting that if he took one corner, Norah would probably take the other. Norah, however, surprised him by flopping down in the middle. She wasn’t next to him exactly, but she was close enough that he could feel the residual heat of her body. It wasn’t that he minded. If anything, he would have liked to draw her closer, but he didn’t dare. Even sitting this close was flirting with disaster. Hopefully the movie would provide a distraction.
Norah was right. The movie was entertaining. Far from being a traditional chick flick, it was more like a comedy, a funny, campy sort of comedy. He found himself laughing out loud more than once. Even so, it wasn’t enough to distract him from Norah’s presence. He was constantly aware of her. He tried folding his arms in his lap to stifle the urge to put his arm around her, but it wasn’t particularly effective. Rather than stifling the impulse, it seemed to make it worse. Finally, he draped his arm over the back of the sofa. He wasn’t actually touching her, after all. He was only getting comfortable.
What he hadn’t expected was that Norah’s version of getting comfortable would involve inching closer and closer to him as the movie went on until she was practically snuggled into his side. It played hell with his restraint, but he couldn’t bring himself to discourage her. He was enjoying the feel of her curling next to him entirely too much. If it meant that he had to take a cold shower when he got home so be it. It wasn’t like it would be the first time, even if it hadn’t happened in quite a while. He was a grown man. He could handle being friends with a woman without taking it any further. He might fantasize about it going further when he was alone in the dark of the night, but if he did, who could blame him. He was a grown man after all.
When the movie eventually came to an end, Norah cheered as if she were seeing it for the first time. Watching her, Caine couldn’t help but laugh.
She sat up and twisted around to look at him, “Well, what do you think? Did you like it?” There was such an air of excited anticipation about her that even if he had hated it, he wouldn’t have dared disappointed her by admitting it. Fortunately, he didn’t have to worry about that.
“I did,” he told her. “It might be a chick flick, but it’s a really funny chick flick.”
“It’s not a chick flick.” Norah shoved at his shoulder but didn’t succeed in so much as budging him.
“So you say,” he teased, enjoying the way Norah’s eyes were dancing with laughter.
“Fine,” she huffed. “Next time we’ll do Star Wars. There’s no way you can call that a chick flick.”
“Maybe not,” he conceded, “but I bet I can find something else to harass you about.” He stood up and stretched, his legs had gone stiff from sitting. “I’d better go,” he said, clicking his fingers at Maverick.
Mav got up from where he had been at the foot of the bookcase and trotted over to him. Norah followed them to the door. At the door, he turned back to look at her. Caine swallowed against a throat suddenly gone dry. The tip of Norah’s tongue darted out, licking her lips. He rocked back on his heels, battling against a nearly overwhelming urge to kiss her. “I enjoyed tonight,” he said finally and fled down the stairs before she had a chance to reply.
Chapter 7
True to her word, Norah found Star Wars the following week, and they spent an enjoyable night watching it. As he had promised, Caine took over the cooking duties and made gumbo. After that, it became a near weekly occurrence. Norah seemed to have made it her mission to educate him on all the movies he had missed that she considered classics. They had finished the Star Wars trilogy and moved on through the Never Ending Story and Labyrinth. He never knew what she was going to come up with from week to week, but he enjoyed it. Lately he had been wondering if she would be amenable to trying a few things besides movies.
Caine considered the options as he walked back from the dog park. He had taken Maverick for a play break, but Mav had been so engrossed in playing with Jerry’s lab that he hadn’t wanted to leave. Finally, Elly had agreed to keep him with her for the afternoon so that the dogs could continue to play. He had been grateful for her suggestion. Mav love being outdoors even more than he did. He had hoped Norah would be willing to try some outdoor activities. Maybe they could go hiking. Yes, that would be fun to do. Summer had faded firmly into fall, but so far the snow had held off. Heaven knew they needed to take advantage of that while it lasted. Before much longer, they’d be up to their necks in snow. Walking, hiking, or doing anything else outdoors would be challenging to say the least.
Suddenly, the distinctive and all too familiar sound of leather meeting flesh, followed by a sharp, pained cry, full of
tears floated onto the street from an open window and stopped him in his tracks. A second later, the world fell away around him. The brisk cool of autumn was gone, replaced by the humid swampy heat of a Louisiana summer. He was no more than eight or ten. Ruben shoved him through the door of his tiny bedroom with a gnarled and calloused hand fisted in the back of his threadbare T-shirt. The stink of liquor was heavy around them. Ruben was drunk and en colère, raging over some imagined sin of his, which might’ve been anything from breaking a cup to looking at him with a disrespectful expression. Another shove sent him sprawling facedown on the bed. Behind him, Ruben was taking off his belt. The rattle of the buckle sent a jolt of pure fear through him and he reacted on instinct, scrambling away. It was useless. Ruben caught him by a leg and dragged him back then stripped him of his shirt and jeans as punishment for the defiance.
Then there was only the lash of leather striping him from shoulder to thigh. Lines of fire searing the skin of his back and ass and thighs, forming welts and bruises he would feel for days, until he could do nothing but sob and scream and plead and promise to do or not to do whatever it was that Ruben was on a tear about this time.
“Caine, hey, Caine, man, are you okay?”
That wasn’t right. Ruben rarely called him anything but boy. Something—no, someone—touched his shoulder. He spun around, hands coming instinctively up to protect his face, and the world tilted on its axis again.
He was back on the sidewalk, breathing heavily, heart racing, sweating like he’d suddenly run a marathon.
“Back with me now?” a familiar voice asked.
He turned towards it to see Ben standing on the sidewalk near him, looking very worried and decidedly grim, but surprisingly not at all shocked. He swallowed hard, wincing at the soreness in his throat that told him not all of the screaming had been in his head. “Oh, hey, I didn’t hear you come up,” he said lightly, trying desperately for some semblance of normalcy. He realized abruptly that at some point in the intervening minutes the crack of leather had disappeared, replaced by unmistakable sounds of sex.
“No kidding,” Ben said dryly. “How are you doing now?”
“I’m fine,” Caine insisted. He was, mostly. He was still more than a little shaky. His heart was racing, and there was a lingering sense of disorientation, like having been jolted abruptly out of a particularly horrible nightmare when you weren’t quite sure whether it was really over or not.
“Bullshit,” Ben said bluntly. “I know a flashback when I see one, and from the looks of things, that one was a doozy. You are anything but fine. Can you walk?”
“Of course,” Caine replied, caught between being confused and mortified. Everything was so damn twisted up right now anyway, he could barely tell up from down and left from right much less all the confusing mess of feelings and memories and emotions that seemed to be bombarding him from every direction.
“Good. Let’s go,” Ben told him, resting his hand very gently on Caine’s shoulder.
Ben was barely touching him at all, a fact for which Caine was extremely grateful, but somehow was still managing to gently bulldoze him in the direction he wanted him to go. Not that Caine could have really argued if he’d wanted to. It was taking a ridiculous amount of effort just to put one foot in front of the other.
“Where are we going?” he asked finally, grasping on to the first sensible thing that came to mind.
“We’re going to my place,” Benjamin told him. “You need to sit down before you fall down, and you need some water, at the very least, and possibly something to cushion the shock. Then, when you can see straight again, you’re going to tell me what the hell all this was about.”
Like hell he would, he’d never told another living soul the truth about the hell he had gone through with Ruben. As far as he was concerned, it was bad enough living with the memories in his own head without contaminating someone else’s reality with them. He liked Ben a lot. Hell, maybe he even owed him something for pulling him out of the nightmare inside his own head back there, but not that. If he had his way, he’d take that secret to his grave.
“There’s nothing to tell,” Caine said stubbornly.
“Don’t even try it,” Ben said, in a tone that reminded Caine forcefully that while Benjamin was generally extremely easy-going and even jovial at times, the man had a career in the military behind him. Damn. He wasn’t going to make this easy. The normal repertoire of excuses that he usually slid by on was probably not going to hold water. Damn. Damn. Damn. He knew better than to go down that street anyway. If he hadn’t had his head up his ass, he would’ve never gotten into the situation in the first place. Now what the hell was he going to do about it?
Before he could formulate an answer, Benjamin was unlocking the door and ushering him into the house. The house was empty but for the two of them. Jonathon was still at work and presumably would be for the remainder of the afternoon. Shit, he didn’t even have that as an out.
Ben led him into the kitchen, nodding him into a chair at the table. Caine sat down. He didn’t particularly like being told what to do, but frankly he was in no shape to argue at this point. Benjamin rooted around in the refrigerator, coming out with a sports drink that he sat in front of Caine. “Try that,” Ben said, with an undertone that left no doubt that it was an order.
Caine twisted the top off the bottle and brought it to his lips, grimacing at the taste. “I don’t actually like this stuff, you know?”
“Is there some reason you can’t drink it? An allergy or something?” Ben asked.
Caine shook his head, still drinking steadily despite his distaste. He set the bottle back down on the table. “I can drink it. I just don’t like it.”
“In that case, it won’t kill you,” Ben told him. “It’s the quickest way I know of to rehydrate you, and the sugar will cushion the shock.”
He was right about that. These things did usually work. Caine just didn’t particularly like resorting to them. More to the point, he didn’t like having to. He almost never did except in case of a panic attack or flashback, and until today, he hadn’t had one of those in more than a year. The nightmares were more frequent. He’d been having those for so long he almost didn’t remember a time without them, but they didn’t interfere with his ability to function like the flashbacks did. Flashbacks rarely happened anymore. Over the years he had learned his triggers and how to avoid them. If he had only been paying attention to where he was going...
Realizing belatedly that his hands were still shaking, he laid them flat on the table, deliberately relaxing the muscles and willing them to stop. It took a long moment and several deep breaths, but he managed it finally. Benjamin took a seat across from him, wrapping his hands around his own drink. “Is there anything else you need? Anything that will help you settle?”
Caine shook his head. “I’m fine, really. It’s over now.”
“In that case, why don’t you tell me what this was about?” Ben told him.
“I’d rather not,” Caine said grimly.
“That’s understandable,” Ben said, “but given that I just found you standing in the middle of the street caught up in one hell of a flashback – and don’t insult either one of us by trying to deny that it was a flashback – I think I’m entitled to some sort of explanation.”
That was probably true, Caine conceded. Dammit, he hated talking about this. He never talked about this anymore. It was just too damn hard. Instinctively, he wanted to refuse, to just get up and walk out, but Benjamin was his friend. He didn’t want to cause a rift between them over this. Besides, it was clear that Ben knew exactly what was going on. He had done everything right. This clearly wasn’t his first encounter with this sort of thing. Caine supposed that that was logical enough. If anyone ought to know about the horrors and demons that follow you around and haunt you from the inside out, it was a soldier. Not that that made this any easier.
“It’s the sound that gets me,” he said quietly, mentally throwing up his hands and b
lurting out the first thing that came to mind. “I know better than to walk down that street in good weather.”
“Let me guess,” Ben broke in, “the Corbin’s Bend orchestra strikes again.”
“The what?” Caine blurted.
“That’s what Jonathon and I call some of our neighbors’ unfortunate tendency to leave their windows open in good weather. Some nights in the spring and summer you can hear seven or eight spankings going on at once,” Benjamin explained. “I’m guessing somebody got an early start today.”
Caine nodded miserably. “It’s not like I don’t know what goes on around here, but knowing it and hearing it are two different things.”
“You said the sound bothers you?” Ben asked.
“Yeah,” Caine agreed, “although if it hadn’t been a belt, I probably wouldn’t have flipped quite so spectacularly. That sound is the worst.”
Ben didn’t speak but made an inarticulate humming sound of comprehension, encouraging him to go on. Only he didn’t want to go on. To call a demon by name is to invite it into your presence, and he never ever wanted to tangle with Ruben again. Still, it was rapidly becoming obvious that Ben wasn’t going to let this go. Caine could either tell the story voluntarily or he could endure Benjamin prying it out of him bit by bit, a thought that was about as appealing as having his teeth extracted one by one with pliers. No, if he was going to endure the telling, it would be at his pace and on his terms.
He picked up the god-awful sports drink and downed the last of it, gathering himself. “My mother was something of a gypsy,” he began. “If she knew who my father was, she never said. As far as I can tell, he was one of her string of one night stands. For all I know, he may have never even known she was pregnant. When I was a little kid, she trooped me around with her on the road, drifting from town to town, wherever the wind took her. But kids grow up, and eventually I needed to be in one place where I could go to school. She sent me to live with her parents in south Louisiana, and from then on, they raised me.”
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