by Eve Gaddy
“How did you know it was me?”
Cole hunched a shoulder. “I knew you’d figure out where I’d gone. I mean, it’s Aransas City. It’s not like there are too many places to hide. But I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.”
“It must have taken you a while to get here. It’s five miles or more to our house.”
“I ran most of it.”
“Does that mean you’re going to run track again, like you did in Galveston?”
Cole looked at him. “How can I if you send me to military school?”
“About that… You don’t have to go to military school,” Jack said. “That was just talk.”
Cole’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really? You were so mad, I thought you meant it.”
“I wanted to get your attention. But I didn’t want you to run away.” They both watched the dolphin for a minute, then Jack said, “I’ve never told you about my college roommate. My first roommate.”
“I thought you only went to college for a year.”
“Two years. Then I got interested in fishing and I never finished. But I’m talking about my freshman roommate, a friend of mine from high school. He got into drugs, big time. I’m not sure how he got through the first semester without failing but by the second—when I’d moved in with someone else—he wasn’t even pretending to go to class. He ruined his life, Cole. Destroyed it. I heard he’d been in and out of rehab, but I lost track of him after I quit college. I don’t want that for you, son. It terrifies me that I might lose you to drugs.”
“Dad, I’m not doing drugs. It really was just that one time that I tried anything. I swear, I didn’t even really want to do it. They brought it over and— I should have told them to forget it, but I didn’t.”
Studying his son, Jack said, “I believe you. But even if I didn’t, I realized something after you took off tonight. I can’t be your conscience. I can’t always be around to make sure you’re not doing something you’ll regret. I have to trust you to make the right choices. But if you’re going to make the right choice, you have to be informed. So I decided to tell you about my friend. I should have done it before, the first time I caught you. I don’t know why I didn’t.”
“I made a mistake one time, Dad. I’m not going to screw up again. Tonight wasn’t my fault.”
Jack raised an eyebrow.
Cole grinned sheepishly. “Well, okay, going to the party was my fault. But not the cops and everything.”
“You’re lucky they didn’t throw you all in jail.”
“Yeah, I figured that out. I’m sorry, Dad.”
“Me, too.” He put his hand on Cole’s head and ruffled his hair, as he’d done since Cole was small. “Don’t run off again, okay? I’m too old to be that scared. Next time, we’ll talk it through.” He got to his feet and, reaching out a hand, he helped Cole up.
“Dad, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Am I still grounded?”
He laughed. “Afraid so, son.”
“I kinda thought that would be your answer.” But he didn’t look too dejected about it.
“We’d better go get Ava. She’s probably fallen asleep at her desk.”
“Are you two back together? I mean, she came with you and all, so I just wondered.”
She’d come through for him tonight when he’d needed her most. But he couldn’t pretend there weren’t still problems and a story she intended to tell him. A story he thought might finally explain why she wouldn’t marry him. Regretfully, he shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Dad?” He looked at his son. “I wish you were.”
“Yeah. I wish we were, too.”
THE NIGHT BEFORE, when they had finally returned to Jack’s house, they’d all been exhausted. Ava had suggested they postpone their talk until the following day and had told Jack to come to her place after lunch. He left Cole cleaning the garage. Jack figured since he was grounded he might as well be useful, too.
Ava let him in and offered him iced tea. “I’ll have tea if you’re having it.” She didn’t look like she’d slept well, but she probably hadn’t got back to bed until after four, so that was no surprise.
Before she could leave the room he caught her hand. “Ava, wait. Last night Cole asked me if we were getting back together.”
“What did—what did you tell him?”
“I told him I didn’t think so. But Ava, if there’s a chance for us, I want it.”
Her eyes met his. “I know you think you do. Ask me that again, after you’ve heard what I have to say. If you still want to.” Pulling her hand out of his, she left the room.
He looked around her house. It was spotless, not a thing out of place. She was usually fairly neat, but not this neat. The place looked like she’d been cleaning for hours. He wondered if she’d even been to bed or had spent the rest of the night cleaning. To keep her mind off what was to come?
She took so long to bring the drinks he started to wonder if she’d left, but a few minutes later she brought them in and sat on the couch beside him.
He hated that she looked so distressed, so exhausted. He wanted to make it better, not worse. He didn’t want her to talk if it would only cause her pain. “You don’t have to tell me this unless you want to.”
“Yes, I do.” She picked up her tea and drank some before speaking again. “You deserve to know the truth. To know what kind of woman you think you’ve fallen in love with.”
“I know the kind of woman I’ve fallen in love with.”
“No, you don’t, Jack.” She hesitated, as if she wasn’t sure how to begin. “I’ve never told anyone this story, except Jim and Jeri Vincent. I didn’t tell my ex-husband, and that was part of our problem. I couldn’t be honest with him. I can’t be honest with anyone about my past.”
He took a sip of tea and set down the glass. “You haven’t been dishonest. You said there were things that you couldn’t—wouldn’t talk about. That’s not the same at all as being dishonest.”
“Yes. Yes, it is. Just listen.” She clasped her hands together and started. “I was fifteen when I ran away. I told you my father found me with my boyfriend and beat me.” Jack nodded. “I didn’t tell you what he called me, the whole time he was beating me. Whore. He called me a whore, over and over, and other words, worse words, words I didn’t even know the meaning of.”
Jack clenched his fist, wishing he could confront the man. “He was a sick bastard. You know that, don’t you? No father should do that to a child.” How could anyone beat a child they were supposed to love and protect? He thought of his own son and couldn’t imagine it.
“But he did,” Ava said. “I was afraid he’d kill me the next time, so I left.” She sucked in a breath and added, “And I left my brothers at his mercy.”
“There was nothing you could have done for them. You couldn’t have protected them.”
“That doesn’t make it right that I left them. When I knew…what he might do to them.”
Jack could think of nothing to say to that, but he reached for her hand.
Drawing back, she shook her head. “No, don’t touch me. It’s hard enough without that.”
He withdrew his hand, wishing she would let him help her, comfort her. But she seemed determined to do this all alone. She acted as if…as if she were confessing to a crime. Maybe she was. From her behavior, he suspected it was bad, but he didn’t know how bad.
“I stole money from my mother and took a bus out of town. To Memphis. I never made it there. I ended up in Pensacola. I’d been robbed of what little I had, so I was flat broke and scared to death I’d have to go home. I was afraid to try to get a job. They would know I was a runaway and they’d put me in the system. The system would send me home, and I couldn’t risk that.
“For days I scrounged food out of garbage cans and at night I hid in the alleys. Finally, I met…someone. He caught me when I tried to pick his pocket. I thought he was drunk, and I could grab his wallet and get away.�
�� She smiled, briefly, bitterly. “Wrong. But instead of calling the cops, he took me to his apartment and fed me. A real meal, a sandwich and a soft drink. Even…potato chips. He said his name was Tyrone. Tyrone Presley,” she said softly.
Jack was getting a sick feeling. He was afraid he knew what was coming and if it was what he thought— Oh, God, what had happened to her?
“He said I could shower and he’d get me some clothes. That he’d find me a place to stay. He knew of one not far from there.” She cast her eyes toward the ceiling, gathering herself together, then continued. “I wasn’t stupid. Oh, I was, but I thought I was so smart. Not naive at all.” She laughed humorlessly. “But I was so hungry, and Tyrone was the first person to be nice to me since I’d been on my own. I decided I didn’t care what he wanted from me. Even if he wanted sex, I didn’t care. I asked him why he was being so nice to me. He just smiled.” She shuddered. “I really grew to hate that smile.”
Jack wanted to stop her. He didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to hear the horror in her voice, to hear about something that he couldn’t change, couldn’t fix, couldn’t help. But he didn’t say a word. As bad as it would be, he only had to hear it. Ava had been forced to live through it.
“He had sex with me that night. He wanted to make sure I wouldn’t disappoint his clients.”
Jack’s stomach clenched, rolled. He didn’t speak. He couldn’t.
Totally expressionless, she looked at him. “That’s how I became a prostitute. A whore, just like my father had called me. Only now I really was. Tyrone explained it to me. I’d get forty percent, he took the rest. Except it was really more like seventy-thirty. But you didn’t argue with Tyrone. He made you sorry if you did.”
She stopped, seemingly lost in thought. Jack had no idea what to say or how he was supposed to handle this. Finally he found his voice. “You were a child. You should have been protected from people like him.”
She shrugged. “That’s what happens when you live on the streets. Not a pretty story, is it?”
It was a brutal story. And terrifying, to think she’d lived that life. To know she had believed she had no other alternative. “This is why you won’t marry me? Because of a mistake you made when you were a child? A desperate child? Why would you punish yourself for something you did out of desperation?”
“Because as sordid as it is, that’s not the end of the story. It gets worse.”
How could it get worse? Wasn’t it already as bad as it could possibly get? He looked at her, and waited.
“After a couple of months, I got pregnant,” she said flatly. “Father unknown. I pretended Brad, my boyfriend from home, was the father. Dreamed he’d come and rescue me. Marry me. Needless to say, that didn’t happen.”
Her laugh was the saddest sound Jack had ever heard. He couldn’t stop from reaching for her hand and holding it. He didn’t think she was aware of it. She was too lost in the pain of the past.
“Tyrone wanted me to get rid of it. I didn’t want to. Realistically, I knew Brad wasn’t coming. He didn’t know where I was, and I couldn’t—I couldn’t call him. I don’t know what I thought I’d do with a baby, how I thought I’d take care of it, but…I wanted it.” She pressed her lips together. “Tyrone and I argued. I stood up to him, told him he couldn’t make me. He could and he did. He took me to a friend of his who he said would fix me right up. Then I could go back to earning my keep like a good little whore.”
“Oh, Ava. No.” His heart twisted.
Her voice grew stronger, colder, her eyes more desolate, like a winter sky. “He fixed me, all right. I remember screaming, but no one cared. If they heard, they ignored it. Nobody crossed Tyrone. I was so scared, scared I would die. I almost did. I wanted to. It hurt… God, it hurt so bad.” She bit her lip, took a breath. “I got sick. Infection set in. Tyrone dumped me by the E.R. Just drove by and shoved me out of the car, like trash. Jim Vincent was the doctor who took care of me. He saved my life.”
Saved her life, and cost her… “That’s why you had to have a hysterectomy, isn’t it?”
Her smile was brief and bitter. “You guessed it. Appropriate, don’t you think?”
Anger hit, swift and sudden. Not at Ava, but at everything that had conspired to make her live through that hell. “No, I don’t. Why do you think you should be punished any more than you already have been? Isn’t what you went through enough?”
“Haven’t you heard anything I’ve said?” She got up and paced across the room before turning and facing him again. “Damn it, Jack, listen to me. This isn’t a movie. It’s real and it’s ugly, uglier than you can imagine. I was a whore! A prostitute! I slept with men for money! And then I did worse. Don’t tell me you’re just fine with that, I won’t believe you.”
He got up and crossed the room to her. Gathered her hands in his. “You were a child. A desperate child who was preyed on by a monster. You were a victim, not someone who deserves to be punished.”
She stared at him, her eyes wide with confusion. “You must…hate me. How can you not?”
“Nothing you’ve said, nothing you’ve done could make me hate you. I love you, I told you that. What you’ve just told me doesn’t change my feelings.”
“How can you love me? How can you, when you know the truth? You’re not even shocked.”
“I am shocked. And appalled that the lost child we’ve been talking about ever had to go through what you went through. It’s horrible and, yes, shocking. But what you did doesn’t put you beyond the pale, Ava. It shouldn’t mean that you have to spend the rest of your life paying for a mistake you made when you were fifteen years old.” He stroked her hair, pushed it back from where it fell in her face. “You deserve to be happy. Forgive yourself, Ava.”
“I can’t,” she said, and turned away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“YOU CAN’T FORGIVE YOURSELF?” Jack said. “Or you won’t?”
Ava turned to look at him. She’d just told him her dirty, sordid secret and he was looking at her not with disgust, but with…love.
“What’s wrong with you? How can you even look at me now and not be disgusted?” And how could she forgive herself when what she’d done was unforgivable?
“Come sit down, Ava. We need to talk and there’s no sense doing it standing here.”
Still confused, she did as he said.
Once again, he gathered her hands in his, but this time he brought them to his lips and kissed them. “Did you think telling me this would drive me away?”
“Yes.”
“It didn’t drive the Vincents away. They knew everything and yet they adopted you.”
“Y-yes. But they— That was different. They loved me. I don’t know why.”
He smiled. “Because you’re very lovable. You just don’t believe it.” His thumb rubbed her knuckles, soothing, comforting. “It’s a horrifying story, and it hurts me that you had to go through it. But it’s over. It was over more than twenty years ago. I think you need to focus on what you’ve done since then.”
“What I’ve done…since?” she asked blankly.
“You didn’t let what happened, what you went through, destroy you, Ava. Not everyone could have gone on and accomplished what you’ve accomplished since the Vincents took you in. You finished school. You have a Ph.D., for crying out loud. That’s something to be proud of along with the fact that you’re well-respected in your field.”
“I am proud of that, but—”
“I’m not finished. You’ve also reconciled with your brothers. You’ve forgiven your mother and are making a new relationship with her.”
“None of that negates what I did. Nothing ever will.”
“You made a mistake. What purpose does it serve to continue to punish yourself? When you have so much right here, right now that could make you happy. You could make me happy, too. And Cole.” He squeezed her hands, looked into her eyes. “I love you, Ava. Cole loves you. We want to be a family with you. All you have to do is let us.”
“You—you still want to marry me?” He did. She could see it in his eyes.
He put his arms around her, kept his eyes on hers as he lowered his head and kissed her. His mouth moved slowly over hers, his tongue slipped through her parted lips, flicked inside and withdrew.
He pulled away and his smile held everything she’d thought was finished forever. Happiness. Most of all, love.
“I love you, Ava. Marry me.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. But if you need more convincing, I’m willing.”
She laughed. Her heart was bursting. “I feel…free. For the first time since I was fifteen, I feel free.”
“Does that mean you’ll marry me? Be my wife and let me love you?”
“Yes. I’ll marry you, Jack.” She kissed him to seal it.
THREE WEEKS LATER, she and Jack exchanged vows in the living room of his house. Cole stood up for him and Cat was her matron of honor. Their families had all made it, even her mysterious brother Brian. They’d asked Jared Long as well, who had generously given them both a week off so they could go on their honeymoon. Jack’s parents had come from Colorado and were going to stay with Cole.
The house was overflowing with adults, children and two excited dogs who’d somehow managed to come inside and were currently under the dining room table searching for stray scraps of food.
“Happy?” Jack asked her. He had one hand on her waist and was feeding her bites of cake with the other.
“Delirious.” She kissed him, then took a sip of champagne. “This is a perfect day.”
“It will be even better once we start the honeymoon.”
“Patience is a virtue,” she told him, laughing. “Everyone went to so much trouble, we can’t leave yet.”
“They’ll never notice,” Jack said. “Everyone’s eaten so much they’re comatose.” He looked around. “Except your brother Brian and my dad. They’re out throwing the football with Cole.”