by Anne Calhoun
But the words rent asunder, heard so often in her previous life, took on new meaning. Her heart was rent asunder when she walked out of that hotel room.
• • •
He was falling. Tipping. Skidding. The floor trembled under his feet like the edge of Rachel’s lip when she looked around the room. He had been from the moment Rachel surrendered. She should have looked a little bit ruined, cheap and awkward with her jeans around her thighs and no way to keep her hair out of her face.
Instead, she looked powerful. Like a comic book action heroine, the kind who could call down fire or summon the ocean to do her bidding. The kind who blasted through steel plates without blinking an eye. She took his breath away.
This isn’t even your apartment.
He’d gone from the bare minimum of intimacy—conversation over a shared meal and sex—to a twisted, warped game, or tried to. The only reason a third man, a total fucking stranger, wasn’t leaving this room with Rachel’s scent on his skin was her innate, true, unbreakable sense of self.
At least she had one.
He’d known this was coming. All he’d wanted to do was the right thing, get her up to speed on how the world worked.
The thought sliced dull and deep, and he winced, shook his head once. Get her up to speed. Like she’d come late to a briefing for a tactical operation. Like the most important thing he could offer her was a crash course in how to separate sex and emotions.
Like because I can defined him, and therefore should define her.
That’s all you have to offer her.
Now that it was here he didn’t feel relieved. He was shattered because he’d purposefully ignored every cue, every shudder, every plea for greater intimacy, for—admit it, he thought to himself—what they both wanted.
Oh God.
When he’d come out of the bathroom she was fully dressed. Her hair spilled like a dark waterfall against her cheeks and over her shoulders. Even thoroughly fucked, she was beautiful.
Then she’d called him on everything. Every fucking thing he did and every fucking thing he was and every fucking thing he lived for. She was so goddamn beautiful, the way things that could end you were. Guns. Knives. The tawny bird of prey she resembled.
Unnameable emotions reached into his chest and gripped his heart and lungs, trapping them against his ribs. With his back to the door Rachel had just walked out of, he laced his fingers behind his head, slid to his heels, and hunkered over. Trying to breathe. Failing.
But he knew this. He’d done this before, survived this before, hoped to never survive it again, and here it was. Familiar in its pain, sitting comfortably inside his rib cage, crushing his lungs, knocking away at his heart.
Eventually his body succumbed to the need for oxygen. Eventually it would demand food, water, rest. So, eventually he pushed to his feet and opened the door. Across the street a typical Saturday night at No Limits roared on, laughter and music and high-pitched chatter spilling out of the open door. Steve and the cop Ben got to replace him tonight stood by the entrance to the parking lot, glancing between cell phones and the line waiting to get into the club.
Ben scanned the parking lot. Rachel’s hail-dented Focus was gone.
Walking came back to him just before he navigated the stairs, thank Christ. Hearing returned just before he walked in front of a bus, and the driver’s startled honk brought back the armor that allowed him to walk up to Steve.
“Your girl just left,” Steve observed.
“How’d she seem?”
“Better than you do, to be honest. Head held high. Went to her car, put her hair up, got in, and drove away.” He looked at Ben, but Ben stared straight ahead. “You okay?”
He didn’t even know what that meant. Okay. What did it mean?
“Fine,” Ben said shortly. “Everything’s fine.”
He wondered how long it would take the cold black mass inside to recede again. He wondered if Rachel would make it home okay.
Mostly he wondered how long it would take Rob Strong to give her what she really needed.
• • •
Once again Rachel drove back to Silent Circle Farm in a daze, but this time she knew exactly what had happened. She’d had passionate, intense, boundary-pushing sex with Ben Harris, but the why eluded her. Complicated, tempestuous, emotional despite his best effort to keep it meaningless. Once again she’d left someone she cared about.
Her watch read shortly after midnight when she parked in the bunkhouse lot, so she decided to check on the does a little early. Using the full moon’s silvery light to guide her, Rachel made her way down the path to the goat shed and found Irene in the birthing stall. She’d shown no interest in food for the last day or so and hung off by herself, away from the other does. But when Rachel quietly opened the door, Irene looked at her, a distant, unfocused cast to her liquid brown eyes. Humming quietly, Rachel stood in the darker end of the shed and studied the doe. The bones in Irene’s hips and tail protruded more prominently and her tail jutted out from her spine.
“Okay, sweetie,” Rachel said. “It’s time.”
She hurried through the wildflowers to Rob’s small house and knocked on his bedroom window. Almost immediately his face appeared in the window, his hair a tousled halo around his head. “Irene’s kidding.”
Without a word he let the curtain fall back over the window. Moments later he opened the front door, jeans on but not buttoned, his shirt in his hand. “I checked her at ten and she wasn’t in labor,” Rob said as he followed her back up the path.
“She is now,” Rachel said.
When they entered the goat shed Irene stood exactly where Rachel left her, in the corner of the pen, head down. Rachel gathered the kidding tote from the supply room and shrugged into the old flannel shirt Rob left there as protection against messier jobs. When she came back out, Irene stood head down, her sides rigid with the effort of pushing. When the contraction eased she looked at Rachel and nickered, as if to say What’s going on? Rachel looked over the young goat, her hand sliding along her side, fingertips searching for clues to the kid’s position. Rob scratched gently behind Irene’s ears. But with each contraction a nose and one hoof presented, only to slip back inside when the taut muscles eased. She quickly washed her hands and pulled on the gloves, then slid her hand inside. “I found an ear,” she said. “I can feel the rest of the skull, but the head’s definitely twisted.”
“Okay,” Rob said.
“Grab some gloves,” she said.
“Your hands are smaller than mine,” Rob protested.
His hesitancy made her smile. “But next season I won’t be here,” she said. “You’ll be fine.” When Rob wore gloves and was up to his knuckles in the birth canal, she held Irene’s head and said, “Fold one foot back and guide the head over that foot.”
He took his time and with the next contraction the kid presented perfectly, one tiny black nose resting on two equally tiny black hooves.
“Pull,” she said.
Again gentle but firm, Rob pulled as Irene pushed, and just like that, the kid slid from the doe’s body, into the straw. Rachel and Rob got rags and a box lined with soft cloths, drying the kid off as best they could. After a moment Irene turned around and nosed the kid, licking the amniotic sac from its neck as Rachel used a clean rag to clear the nose and mouth. Eventually the kid scrambled to its feet, wobbling as she nosed at Irene’s udders.
“Good job, new mama,” she said. She disposed of the gloves, then offered Irene a treat of raisins and peanuts. The goat lipped the sweets from her hand and stood under Rachel’s gentle petting while Rob washed up. Then Rachel washed her hands and arms, and came to stand by Rob outside the pen.
“I really hate to lose you,” Rob said quietly.
“You might not. I didn’t get into school,” she replied. Was that only a few hou
rs ago that she’d gotten that news?
He looked at her, and Rachel was grateful for the crescent moon and lack of light. The muscles of her face twisted into unfamiliar positions as she struggled to hold back tears and the onslaught of emotions. She blinked hard, cleared her throat.
“I’m sorry,” he said with the same gentleness. “What did they say?”
“My essay was great, but I don’t have enough science.”
“That’s fixable,” Rob said.
It was. Totally fixable. She’d done the hard stuff. She’d left, lost her virginity. She could take high school science. At twenty-five.
“Are you worried about how you’ll do in the classes? Because you’ll do just fine. You’re smart, and you work harder than anyone else I know. It’s just a question of time.”
What knotted her throat unbearably wasn’t his kind words. She wanted to hear them from Ben. Not Rob. But Ben would never be there for her like that. Oh, if she needed to work off steam in a man’s bed, Ben would be there for her, waiting just inside his door, all sleep rumpled and stone-faced. She wanted him to share the good times and the bad, not lock them away.
You foolish girl. You fell in love with him. You were warned, but you gave your body away and where exactly did you think your heart was?
She loved him, loved his strength and the wounded, damaged soul inside.
A sob escaped her. Rob turned to look at her. “Hey,” he said, clearly a little alarmed, and reached for her.
Rachel turned her face into his shoulder, sobs wracking her body. Rob held her while she cried, both arms around her to keep her close, giving her strength while she had none. When her tears subsided she relaxed into his torso.
“Why do I think that wasn’t just about the miracle of birth and vet tech school?” he asked wryly.
She let out a rough laugh and looked up at him. His gaze remained focused on the night sky. “Because you see more than you say? I broke up with Ben,” she said, and swiped her sleeve across her face. “My first breakup, except . . . I don’t think we were even together. Either way, it’s harder than I thought it would be.”
“I’m sorry. You seemed to really care for him.”
“I did,” she said, then tipped her face to the starry sky. “I fell in love with the first man I slept with. I wanted something passionate and intense and real. I knew it would hurt . . . just not this much. Now I understand why Jess is the way she is.”
A low laugh huffed from Rob’s nostrils, and he looked down at her.
“No virgins here,” she said.
“Not anymore,” he conceded.
They stood by the pen for a while before the day’s events caught up with Rachel. She yawned, then used the stretch to step out of Rob’s sheltering arms. “I should get to bed.”
“You’ve got a knack for this,” he said, nodding at the pen. “Things are going well this season. I’m going to branch out, add alpacas and sheep. I could use permanent help. The job’s yours if you want it. I’ll work around your class schedule.”
She hesitated. This was the safe thing to do, stay at the farm. She wished it felt right, but it didn’t. Maybe it was the events of the day. Maybe she’d feel differently after some sleep and some distance.
As if sensing her indecision, Rob said, “You don’t have to tell me now. We’ve got the summer ahead of us. Let me know when you make up your mind.”
Chapter Twenty-one
An entire week had come and gone without Rachel, without even the promise of Rachel. The pain permeated Ben’s entire gut, like an infection he couldn’t cure. He stood outside No Limits, watching the bouncer usher stragglers out the front door. Closing time on yet another night of wild, sexy fun. A carload of young women idled near the exit, waiting for Steve. “Go on,” Ben said. “I’ll finish up here.”
“I can wait,” Steve said. “Or you want to meet us later?”
He should, for the simple reason that there’d been no one since Rachel. Every night he’d gone home alone to sit in silence. He didn’t want what he usually sought out, mindlessness. He wanted Rachel. Slow and passionate and deep as the ocean. But Rachel asked more of him than he could give.
Fuck dilemmas. Fuck rocks and hard places. The razor-sharp edge of who she was hovered over his paper-thin excuse for a soul. He didn’t want that blade to fall. He couldn’t bear to push it away, either.
“Not tonight,” Ben said.
“How’s your brother?” Steve asked.
“Home.” Sam was sixteen pounds lighter, but he was alive, out of the hospital, expected to fully recover. The doctors said the headaches would taper off, and for God’s sake, stay off the ladders.
“Glad to hear it,” Steve said, then left.
The bouncer signaled Ben, pointing at two guys meandering through the nearly empty parking lot.
“Hey,” Ben called, then whistled sharply when they ignored him. “Don’t even think about it.”
After some grumbling the guys sat on the curb, phones in hand, presumably texting sober friends or a cab company. Ben bounced on the balls of his sore feet, waiting for the bouncer to shoot the bolts, signaling the end of his night. Same shit, different day . . . except he was different, too.
The last person out the door was Juliette.
Her tight microskirt and heels highlighted her long legs as she crossed the lot in his direction. He watched her walk because he could. The skirt stopped at her upper thighs, and before Rachel he would have said this was what he wanted. Long blond hair, carefully applied makeup, clothes chosen to highlight breasts, legs, her flat stomach, and toned legs. A surface. A pretty one, sure, but a surface. Like the plastic cover on an iPhone. He had no idea who was underneath that surface, what she loved, what she dreamed about. Maybe nothing. Maybe something that would surprise him.
Like Rachel.
The bouncer tossed him a wave, then stepped inside and closed the doors. The bolts shot home just as Juliette stepped up onto the sidewalk. “Hey,” she said quietly.
He gave her a nod.
“I wanted to apologize in person,” she said. “What Steve and I did was stupid, and wrong. I’m sorry. Even if Rachel hadn’t been there—”
“If Rachel hadn’t been there, things would have turned out very differently and we both know it,” Ben said. He flashed her the smile, the one he used to hide everything, the one that never fooled Rachel.
Juliette smoothed her hair away from her cheek with that familiar palm-out movement. Rachel’s hair flashed into his mind, the matter-of-fact way she dealt with it, not using it to signal interest or availability.
Who the fuck have you become?
Get her out of your head, or you’re going to go out of your head.
“How are things with Rachel?” she asked, only a slight artfulness to the question.
He gave her a look, because they weren’t the kind of friends who inquired into personal relationships. He didn’t even know her last name. “Over.”
Juliette’s eyes widened slightly. “Really,” she said, as if he’d surprised her. He was struggling through what that single word in that tone meant when she shrugged, her bare shoulders lifting above her strapless top. “How ’bout we do that different ending tonight?”
It was the offer he expected, the perfect opportunity to pick up right where he left off, mark the last few months as a blip on the radar of his life. As if Rachel hadn’t changed the way he looked at the world. But something told him Juliette wasn’t any more into this than he was, and because I can made his stomach lurch like it had in the hotel room.
“I’ve got to be up early tomorrow,” he said, letting her down as gently as he could. “Are you okay to drive?”
“Water only for the last couple of hours,” she said. “But thanks for checking. I’m sorry you and Rachel are over,” she added a
s she walked away. “From what I saw, it was something special.”
She saw them thirty seconds away from fucking. What came through that made it special? Was it some kind of girl-radar that turned everything into the big moment, the happily ever after, like sounds only dogs and dolphins could hear, leaving the average man standing around, bewildered?
His phone buzzed. The text from Sam read, i’m awake come over.
Might as well. Ben climbed into his truck and drove to Sam’s house. He found him in the garage cleaning up his workbench.
“Hey,” Sam said when he opened the door. He nodded at the now-finished garage walls. “Thanks.”
“I wasn’t taking any chances you’d come back and try to finish the job,” Ben said pointedly. He’d called in a favor from a contractor friend. She’d finished the job while Sam and Chris were living at the hospital. “How’re you feeling?”
“No headaches for the last couple of days. You coming over tomorrow?” Sam asked.
“Probably not.”
“Still got the thing with the virgin?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“She ended it a couple of weeks ago.”
“She did or you did?”
He flashed Sam his battle-tested smile, the one that was all teeth and no eyes, then looked down at his phone. “She did. It was getting boring anyway.”
Even as the lie left his mouth a fist came out of nowhere, landing hard enough against Ben’s cheekbone to explode a supernova behind his eye and rock him off balance. He stumbled backward into the workbench, then scrabbled at the edge of the shelving unit, automatically trying to right himself when Sam slammed into him full bore. The air knocked from his lungs, Ben grappled with him, pushing his forearms in his face, just trying to keep Sam from hurting himself. Glass jars of screws and nails tipped over. One spun to the edge of the bench, rolled to the ground, and shattered, sending sharp metal and glass all over the floor.