“You really think she has reason to be that vindictive?”
“I’m not sure she’s vindictive, Jack. I think part of it’s the rejection, from you and her family, but I think a lot of it is just her wanting to stir the pot. I mean, there’s no telling what my parents have put out there—what if they’re offering a reward for any information on where I’m at?”
Knowing Lincoln and Sharla the way I do, I can’t imagine they’d make their search for Natalie as public as she imagines. I wouldn’t put it past them to hire an entire team of private investigators, but they’d do anything they could to keep their daughter’s disappearance out of the public eye.
“Why don’t we look you up when we get home? We can do an Internet search.” It’s an offer I make being more sure than not that we won’t find anything. “At least then we’ll know what we’re up against.”
“Okay,” she says, worry still etched on her face.
I keep hold of her hand the entire drive back. It’s mostly a quiet ride where Natalie looks out the window, her concerns about Barbara and Camille evidently still with her. It’s not until we drive up to the cabin that she sighs audibly, her smile telling me she’s relieved to be back home.
Before I can open her door for her, she’s out of the truck, but she at least waits for me so I can put an arm around her waist as we make our way back to the cabin. When we reach the porch, Blue comes out of nowhere, zigzagging between our legs and threatening to topple us both over.
“Hey little man, what’s your rush?”
“He’s just hungry,” Natalie says, slipping through the front door. “I’ll go get him his dinner.”
“And I’ll go grab my laptop.” I need to be able to prove to her that we’re safe here in Meadow Brook, that Camille can do all the threatening she wants, but the only person who’s going to expose Natalie’s whereabouts is Natalie and not until she’s good and ready.
Blue meows loudly from the kitchen, and I can tell that Natalie must be giving him his favorite meal, sardines. That brings a smile to my lips as I power up the laptop in the living room, the same one we’d used when we set up the proxy server so Natalie could contact her family without telling them where she was.
I type her name into the search engine, sure the only things that will come up will be flattering, notable achievements from her private school or Stanford. And when I hit enter, that’s mostly what populates the screen. There are profile pictures of her, several with friends, one of her holding a lamb of all things close to her face—she did mention volunteering for an animal rescue in California, so that makes sense. There is another of her volunteering at an elder care conference at Stanford and one of her with her parents, attached to an article about the clinic and Sharla’s past work as an interior designer. While Natalie is all smiles in that picture, there’s something hollow in her eyes, a blank look that reappears in another picture, one that really makes me take note.
In it, Natalie is wearing a cream colored dress that beautifully accentuates every single one of her curves. She appears to be standing between rows of grapes in a vineyard, the sun setting behind her. And while I’ve got no real complaints about her hair and makeup, I still like the more natural version of her, the Natalie where I can still make out the dusting of freckles over her nose, freckles I’ve planted my lips on more than once.
She’s not alone in the picture. Michael Eldridge stands next to her, holding her hand, and that one small thing makes me angry enough to ball my hand into a fist.
It’s their engagement photo.
He doesn’t fucking deserve her.
He never did.
He had to have taken her for granted, and I wonder if he realizes now how much he’s lost.
Marjorie knew they weren’t right for one another. It’s crazy how clear it is now, the memory of her saying in passing how she didn’t think they were really in love, how she wasn’t buying them as high school sweethearts.
My wife had a sense for things like that, which I attributed to the fact she was an artist and could really see people. Michael looks good on paper, on the basic bullet points provided about him in the announcement. His father is an accomplished lawyer and his mother a world-renowned cardiologist. Michael himself is following in the success of his parents’ footsteps with the goal of running for public office someday.
I sneer at the idea.
He looks the type, blond, decent looking, conservative haircut and clothes, a white smile and eyes that beg you to trust him.
But I don’t.
He isn’t fucking good enough for her, not for Natalie.
But am I?
“Is that all there is?” I’m startled when she touches my shoulder, and I turn to see her eyeing the announcement.
“That’s the worst of it,” I say, hoping she doesn’t see the jealousy I’m sure is evident in my eyes. “Nothing about you missing. No rewards for your safe return.”
She bites at her lip. She doesn’t exactly look disappointed, more confused. “That doesn’t seem like them. I thought they’d have already plastered the entire I-5 corridor with missing person photos.”
“But you contacted them,” I assure her. “They know you’re safe.”
“It’s not about that. It’s about their need to control me.”
“They want to keep this private then,” I tell her. “Maybe they figure they’ll wait it out. They probably assume you’ll cave, that you’ll need to go to them for help before your senior year at college.”
She covers her mouth with her fingers, probably realizing that’s a very real possibility.
“I’ll pay for your college,” I say before she can start to wonder when she’ll need to turn to them. “It’s no problem at all. Whatever you need.”
She drops her fingers from her mouth. “Jack… no.”
I stand up and pull her body close to mine. “Why not? What’s so wrong with me wanting to help you? Maybe you can even finish up school here in Oregon, somewhere close to the cabin.”
“Close to you?” She lifts her eyes to mine.
“I don’t want you to leave.” I’ve known for a while how much I need her to stay. “Whatever is going on with your parents or Michael or Camille… I don’t want to lose this.”
“I don’t either,” she admits.
Words fail me at this point, and all I can do is bring my lips to hers, then move the hand I’ve got on the small of her back down the rounded curve of her beautiful ass until I’m at the hem of her dress. I pull the material up, holding it in place between our bodies, then take the same hand and pull at her panties.
Breathing her in, I’m so fucking hard beneath my jeans and boxers that it physically hurts. I look down, and her fingers are at my waist, undoing the top button of my jeans and then pulling on the zipper. I push those and my boxers down enough to free myself, and now all I want is to be buried in her.
I slide a hand between her legs, wanting to be sure she’s ready for me, and she is, so damn wet that I know she’s as turned on as I am.
“God, you’re beautiful,” I tell her as I slide my arms under her thighs and lift her, her grabbing onto my shoulders and then holding around my neck as I lift her body up, holding her close.
“I want you, Jack,” she whimpers out, her head now above mine.
And damn, I want her too, so much that it hurts. I hold her weight up with one arm, even pulling her up higher as I take my other hand, grab it around my cock and then guide it up and into her, letting her body slide back down once I’m well rooted inside of her.
She cries out, and my eyes roll back into my fucking head. She’s dripping with sex, and I’m overcome by my need for her, by the pulsing, hotness of my blood flowing right into my dick, my brain focused only on her, on pleasing her, on making her more mine than she already is.
At some point, I end up pushing her up against the wall, something crashing to the floor from the vibration of our bodies against it. I don’t take my eyes away from hers. She’s with
me with every thrust, every moment our bodies are locked together, and I know I’ll never let her go, won’t allow some little shit like Michael to come and try to take her away from me. I want her to forever look back at me the way she looks at me now, with the same kind of yearning and desire and need she must see in my own eyes.
I come hard and fast, spasming and releasing torrents of myself into her as she holds onto me for what feels like dear life.
“Natalie…” I call out as the last of my seed erupts and pushes its way into her. Bracing her body, I hold tight to her and rest my exhausted face against those perfect breasts, her heartbeat galloping beneath.
She kisses my forehead and then my ear, tracing a finger along my jaw line until I lift my head back up.
“I didn’t make you come, did I?” I’d just wanted her so badly that I hadn’t lasted as long as I’d have liked.
“You did,” she says with assurance. “I came right when you did.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “You sure about that?”
She raises a smile. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Jack. Now let me down before you want to do this all over again.”
“And what would be so wrong with that?” I ask, gripping her body close.
She shakes her head. “Nothing, but I don’t want you to hurt your back.”
I look at her with mock outrage. “That some kind of slam against my age?”
“Just let me down, Jack,” she teases. “I want to go upstairs with you.”
“Okay then,” I say, easing her off of me until her feet touch the ground.
She fully undresses me once we’re in our room, and I do the same for her, kneeling down and kissing every inch of her before she raises me back up and pulls me into bed with her.
I’m as hard as a rock again, and I cradle Natalie against me so that I can take her from behind, wrapping my arm around her and sliding my fingers between her legs in hopes of making her orgasm on two fronts. She comes with a sudden shudder, and I love every second of it.
“I want to see you,” she moans, sliding her body back toward mine and dragging her hands through the hair of my chest before she’s pretty much ordering me to get on top of her and make love to her in missionary.
I keep plunging into her, drunk on every single thing about her from her perfectly formed breasts and pebbled nipples to the freckles on her nose and her dark, fluttering eyelashes. And being inside of her is the icing on the cake. After she orgasms again, I come hard, my orgasm otherworldly. She grabs onto me during every second of it, our bodies melding into one.
When I finally pull out, I keep her close, wrapping my arm around her shoulder as her head rests on my chest. As amazing as sex is with her, holding her close to me is just as good.
“I can’t get enough of you,” I say, just the thought of it making me harden up again.
She kisses the bare skin just below my shoulder. “The feeling’s mutual. I’m so glad I waited for you, Jack. You make me feel like a woman.”
“Michael didn’t make you feel that way?” It’s a fucking dumb question to ask, an insecure one. I apparently hadn’t let go of the picture I’d seen of her with him, and as soon as I ask, I’m thinking about Will, the mechanic and how he’d slid across from her at the diner this morning, how I wasn’t the only man who wanted to keep Natalie just for himself.
“God, no!” she says like I’d just asked her to eat a live insect. “Michael treated me like an accessory. That’s all he wanted.”
“I can’t see you settling for being a trophy wife.”
“Not a trophy wife exactly. No, he wanted us compartmentalized, him with his own life and me with mine, the illusion of a perfect family on the outside without much holding it together on the inside.” Her face tightens when she says, “My parents supported it every step of the way because that’s just what our own family was like.” I can see her anger prickling from right below the surface.
I’d had my disagreements with Lincoln, but I never actually disliked him as a partner in our medical practice. But it had been obvious to me how much he and Sharla coveted their image and how anxious they were to convey what seemed like perfection.
“They didn’t want you to choose for yourself,” I say, then add, “But now you are, and that takes a lot of strength. You can choose whatever life you want for yourself, and I hope... ” I struggle for just the right words. “I hope that life will include me.”
She turns more toward me, resting one of her hands on my sternum. “How could it possibly not include you?”
Her conviction eases my insecurity. “Just making sure.”
She looks down suddenly, then back up at me. “We’ve never used a condom, Jack.”
I feel my body stiffen and my mind freeze. That’s not at all the place I expected our conversation to turn to. After a moment or two of hesitation, I find my words and say, “No, we haven’t.”
She bites at her lip. “Are you… are you not able to be a father? I mean, I know…” She looks down, her cheeks reddening. “Well, I know you could in the past, but… well, what I’m asking is whether or not you’re trying to get me pregnant.”
I’m unable to look her in the eyes as shame overwhelms me. Every time we’d been together, of course I’d known the risk I was taking, knew that it was more likely than not that I’d get her pregnant as long as she wasn’t on any kind of birth control, a question I hadn’t bothered to ask and, deep down, didn’t want to know the answer to. I knew I should bring it up, knew I should buy some condoms next time I was at the store. With the two women I’d been with after Marjorie’s death, I’d used them religiously, not able to imagine producing a child with anyone but the wife I’d lost, the woman I’d never have the chance to father a child with.
But Natalie is different, so very different. I can deny it all I want, but the truth is that maybe I’ve been trying to get her pregnant all along. Maybe I’ve been trying to trap her and give her one more reason to stay with me. Or maybe it’s just that I’m desperate to be a father. In the moment, it never feels wrong to come inside of her, but now that she’s asking me, I feel like the worst kind of asshole.
“Jack,” she taps on my sternum. “You can tell me what you really feel. It’s okay.”
I turn to her and try to produce a smile. “We can use condoms if you want. If you’re not already on it, I wouldn’t expect you to go on birth control just for me. That wouldn’t be fair.”
She doesn’t say anything, and I’m worried I’ve said exactly the wrong thing.
“Natalie?”
Her voice is quiet when she says, “I’m not sure if I’m ready to be a mom. I’m not opposed to being on birth control, so maybe I can make an appointment at least. We’d have to use condoms until it was effective though.”
“Sure. I’ll do whatever you want.” And I will, even if I feel her detaching from me with her words, like I could lose her because she isn’t as committed as I am to us.
And then I realize what an immature jerk I’m being, how I’m draping all of my insecurities around her. And what a fucking selfish thing for me to do, to want a twenty-one-year-old girl to be pregnant with my baby when she has so much more living to do and a career to start before she should even think of wanting to be a mother.
“We’ll be okay,” she tells me, laying her head back on my chest, her soft hair draping across my skin.
“Yeah, we will be.” I pull the sheet up and over us and then turn off the light, needing to believe just that.
Chapter Eighteen
NATALIE
“You saved me from absolute and total hell, you know?”
I’m sitting next to Barbara on the couch when she tells me this, her casted leg stretched up on an ottoman while we watch old sitcoms from the 1960s on TV.
“Yeah, but it’s still kind of my fault,” I tell her, having forgiven myself for her falling while under my care but still feeling partially responsible. It’s part of the reason I’d insisted on staying with Barbara once she was di
scharged from the hospital and providing the extra care she needed, including any extra hours, so that she didn’t have to go to one of the local nursing homes while she was in the cast.
And she wasn’t too far off in describing those places as hell.
“I’m not sure I can pay out of pocket for the extra hours,” Melissa had said when I’d made the offer. “Maybe you can sign up to become a home health care worker. That way it will be covered by Medicare.”
That hadn’t been the first time she’d mentioned it since she was paying me to take care of Barbara from her own funds. It was surely an expense she’d have liked to get rid of.
“You could just pay me half,” I’d said in response, “until her leg is healed, and then maybe I’ll sign up for that course.”
But signing up for the program meant there’d be a paper trail, just one more way my parents and Michael could find me.
Would they really though?
Do my parents or Michael or anyone else actually want to find me?
When Jack did that Internet search, he’d found no evidence of it. And even if they had done something, like maybe hire a private investigator, what did I really have to fear from them? The worst they could do would be to withhold funds for school, which I’d find a way to cover on my own. While Jack had offered to pick up that slack, I’d already been checking into student loans and scholarships.
With each passing day, I’m growing stronger and more independent.
And yet, there remains a part of me that’s afraid, a part of me that can’t let go of the fear that it could all be erased. I’d tested my parents from time to time in hopes of spreading my wings, but they’d always drawn me back to their plans, always managing to trigger something deep within me that kept me going back, kept me following the blueprint they had for me.
It would be foolish to totally dismiss them the way you do the big baddies that appear on TV shows at the beginning of the season, seemingly defeated until they return in the finale to royally fuck things up.
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