Broken Pasts

by Stunich, C. M.

  When we got to the office, Nathaniel went into bodyguard mode almost instantly, sliding on his shades and plastering a professional frown across his perfect face. That was fine by me considering Brenda was wearing a pink blouse with way too much cleavage, a skirt that threatened to flash me at every turn and a pair of thigh highs with a very visible garter belt. I'd rather Nathaniel blended into the wall instead of getting caught on her radar. If I had to hear the baby talk voice she often used on men, I was going to puke.

  “He can't speak,” I told my crew as I wove my way through a sea of questions and pointing fingers. “He's a statue for all that you're concerned.” I flung open the door to my office and prepared to face Satan. Contrary to popular belief, Satan is a she.

  ***

  “No, thank you, Ms. Brown,” I said as I escorted the world's prickliest client out of my office and closed the door with an audible sigh of relief. “Demon bitch,” I said and noticed that Nathaniel was smiling at me. If the back wall of my office hadn't been made entirely of windows, I might have cleared off my desk and had a repeat session of yesterday's fun. Or at least I could entertain that thought. Truth was, I was a bit of a coward. Nathaniel was probably going to have to make the next move if we wanted to scoot this thing along.

  “I should've become a mortician,” I told him as I moved around my desk and plopped down in the oversized leather swivel chair that I'd just had to have. In all honesty, it was about as comfortable as a cactus.

  “Why's that?” Nathaniel asked with a smile, slipping his glasses down just enough that I could catch a glimpse of his green eyes.

  “Then I wouldn't have had to listen to my clients bitch.” Nathaniel opened his mouth as if to speak when my assistant/apprentice/resident hooker opened the door.

  “Good news,” Brenda said coming in without knocking. I'd only told her a hundred times, silly me. She flashed a manila envelope at me, and I couldn't help but notice that her breasts went along for the ride, bulging out of her top like muffins. I glanced over at Nathaniel, but he was in bodyguard perfect position and wasn't looking. Or at least I hoped he wasn't.

  “What is it?” I asked as I looked at the four digit number next to my inbox and died a little inside. It's going to take all day just to get through these.

  “It's from Gary,” she chirped and tossed the file dangerously close to my now cold cup of coffee. The liquid jiggled and danced, but didn't manage to go over the edge. Lucky her. “Divorce papers maybe?” she asked with a wiggle of her eyebrows. It took me a whole minute to process.

  “Divorce papers?” I whispered as Nathaniel came striding across the room, a perfect column of darkness in his suit. He put his fingers on the envelope and looked at me as if to ask permission. I glanced around him and noticed that Brenda was checking out his ass. I cleared my throat, but that didn't work. Instead she just asked me if I needed any water, all the while scoping out Nathaniel with an unabashed sense of glee. “Thank you, Brenda,” I said finally, using my best boss voice. She blinked several times, like she was coming out of a coma or something, and finally disappeared out the door, closing it loudly behind her.

  “May I?” Nathaniel asked as he removed his glasses and stuffed them in the front pocket of his suit. I held out my hand as if to say, Go right ahead. I still had that other creepy package on my mind, the one with the stuffed animals, video games, and books of porn. If Nathaniel wanted to check this first, all the better for me. If there were naked pictures of Gary or weird letters or whatever the hell else, he could take them for evidence and I wouldn't have to look at them.

  I closed my eyes and tried to practice some deep breathing techniques while Nathaniel slid his thumb under the top of the envelope and tore it open.

  Several moments of silence passed before he spoke.

  “Theresa,” he said as my eyes snapped open and I looked up at him. His voice told me that I didn't want to know, that Gary had somehow crossed another line. Nathaniel's eyes were on fire, like two round pits of hate, burning like hot oil, shimmering with rage. I had a feeling that had Gary been in the immediate vicinity that he might've been dead. “I need you to look at these, but I want you to remain calm. I'm here now, and he can't hurt you.”

  “Nathaniel … ”

  “I need you to understand that I will not let him hurt you,” he repeated as he dropped the packet of files to the desk and reached out, taking my face in his hands. Nathaniel locked eyes with me and would not let me go. “Do you understand?”

  “I … ” I think he was trying to prepare me, so I wouldn't panic. Instead, his behavior was having the opposite effect, convincing me that the worst was about to happen. My mind started spinning completely unbelievable and utterly ridiculous stories. He got custody of Rhea somehow or He killed my mother and photographed it or He's summoned demons from hell to come and take me away. That's how bad it was. “Let me see,” I whispered as Nathaniel released me with a massive sigh and pushed the papers across the desk. No, wait, not papers, photographs. Nice, big, glossy 8 x 10's. Dozens of them. Of me and Rhea. Sleeping.

  I stood up suddenly and sent my chair flying against the glass, wheels spinning as it toppled over in my frenzy.

  “No,” I said because I didn't know what else to say. “No, those are staged. They're not real.”

  Nathaniel watched me tensely, and I could tell he was trying to decide between bodyguard and … that 'b' word, if he even was one. We still hadn't figured that out. At that point in time, I couldn't have cared less. Bodyguard won out.

  “Theresa, they very well could be. I need you to calm down and take a look at them with me. Maybe they're from before, when you were married?”

  “No,” I whispered as tears of rage sprung to my eyes and I felt adrenaline coursing through my blood like fire. If Gary had been within range in that moment, I would've strangled him to death. “They're not. The blankets … when I moved out, I didn't take them with me. I bought new comforter sets.” I pointed at the photos. “Those are them.” I swallowed hard and forced myself to take one of the photos between my fingers. I couldn't bear to look at the ones of Rhea, so I stared at my sleeping face. There I was at my most vulnerable and he was lording over me, taking photos like he didn't have a care in the world. He could've hurt me, raped me, killed me. And Rhea … I closed my eyes and held back a howl of rage. It wouldn't do me any good, not yet.

  Nathaniel checked the envelope and then thumbed through the pictures again. That's all there was, no note, just the disgusting photographs in all of their horrendous glory.

  “This was postmarked on Thursday,” he said as he examined the stamps. “So he sent them the day after I showed up, but he must've taken them sooner.”

  “Why?” I asked as I picked up the pictures and shook them. Honestly, I wanted to tear them apart, turn them into confetti, but I couldn't, I had to keep them if only to nail the fucker. “Why take them and just keep them? Why send them now? I don't understand.” Nathaniel examined the pictures with a practiced eye. The most fucked up part about all of this was that he didn't seem entirely surprised by it, like he'd seen this kind of thing before. I didn't ask, didn't want to know. It was hard enough trying to deal with my own problems.

  “Stalkers crave power. That's what this is about. He's showing you that he can come and go as he pleases, that he could hurt you if he wanted. My guess is that he feels threatened by me. A lot of stalkers have a hard time watching their exes move on to someone else. It's often a trigger for escalated behavior.”

  “Nathaniel,” I said, eyes wide, hands shaking. I didn't know what else to say, what else to do. “Help me.” In an instant, the flip was switched and he was there, sweeping me into his arms, holding me against his chest and pressing his lips to the forehead.

  “Theresa McMaster, you have nothing to worry about. I won't leave you, not until this is over, not unless you want me to.”

  “But how,” I said, trying to keep my voice from sounding frantic. “You said the law's a joke. Don't we just
add this crap to the pile and move on, let him get away with it?”

  “Not this time,” Nathaniel told me with a slight smile in his voice. “These pictures are proof of breaking and entering, a crime that's a bit more black and white than stalking. If we take these down to the police station with our report, they'll be able to get you an order of protection and hopefully a search warrant for Gary's house.”

  “Thank god,” I whispered, thinking that the horrors of Gary Harper had just hit their peak, that this was the tip of the iceberg and it was all downhill from here.

  It was a nice thought anyway.

  CHAPTER 20

  Nathaniel and I stopped by my house, but I didn't go in. I couldn't. I needed a little more time to adjust to the idea that a psychopath had been standing over me while I slept for God only knows how many days, watching me while I was helpless to stop him, waiting there like a predator stalking prey. I had this horrible feeling in my gut that I had been days away from death. If I hadn't called PPSD, would I be lying in a puddle of blood on my bathroom floor like the late Mrs. Sutherland? It was a very real possibility.

  When Nathaniel returned with the file, I took it in my hands, glad that I was in the front seat next to his warmth, his strength, his certainty because I just felt cold and numb and empty. Until this report was filed and the police were on Gary's tail, I wouldn't be able to relax.

  “You … ” I didn't know how to put my thoughts into words. “You saved my life,” I said finally as I looked over at Nathaniel, at his chocolate hair and warm eyes, his perfect lips, the hard swell of muscle beneath his suit. “It was obviously a lot worse than I thought. He just, he didn't show it.” I put my hand over my belly and tried not to think about all of the alternative possibilities. I was living in a world where we had definitive proof against Gary, where Nathaniel had connections at the station. It was going to be okay, all of it. I was going to live and I was going to go to dinner with Nathaniel as planned. Rhea was safe with Glen, and Gary would soon be trapped behind bars.

  Nathaniel didn't speak for awhile, but when he did, his voice gave me goose bumps.

  “If you had died, I think my last chance at happiness might've died along with you.”

  “Don't say that,” I told him, feeling overly emotional and desperate for something solid, warm, something with emerald green eyes and a wicked-dirty smile. It wasn't a man-woman thing. I didn't want Nathaniel to grab me by the hair and drag me back to his cave. It's just … I wanted a partner, someone that I could count on, someone to take half of life's worries on their shoulders so I could strand straight and tall. Nathaniel fit the bill perfectly. I wasn't about to pick out wedding dresses or anything, I was way past that fairy tale crap, but I did want to give this a shot, a real shot. I wanted to date Nathaniel Sutherland.

  I looked over at him as we pulled into the police station, met his eyes and took a deep breathe.

  “Date me?” I said even though the sound of it made me cringe. I wasn't sixteen, I was thirty-two. Still, the principal was the same. Try it out, see if it worked. That was the way the world worked. At least this time, I had a feeling in my chest that Nathaniel Sutherland was a sure thing. I may have picked Glen with logic and Gary with loneliness, but I was picking Nathaniel with my heart. Maybe I didn't love him yet, but I could and that was all that mattered.

  “That's the plan,” he told me as he leaned over and kissed away my fears with the heat of his lips. “That's been the plan from the first moment I laid eyes on you.”

  ***

  We filed the police report and I was happy to see my case change hands rather quickly. Instead of disappearing into a desk, it made its way all the way up the ranks and I left that old brick building with a promise that before the sun set, Gary Harper's apartment would be searched and he'd be apprehended.

  “I don't know what I'd do without you,” I told Nathaniel as we got out at my house and paused on the driveway. “Now I know why you got into this business. You save peoples' lives. You're an underground saint, Mr. Sutherland.”

  “You're going to give me a swollen head,” he said with a wink. “Don't get my ego all riled up like that.”

  “Maybe I'd like to get your ego riled up?” I told him as I glanced over at my house and tried to pretend that I wasn't terrified to go in there. Nathaniel stopped our flirting with a gentle smile, reached out and took my hand.

  “I'll keep you safe,” he whispered as he pulled me up the front walk and inside.

  Nathaniel swept the house with me in tow, checking each door, window, cabinet, closet. Gary was nowhere to be seen, thankfully. Hopefully before the night was out, he'd be finding out what it was like to have someone watching you while you slept while he rotted away in a jail cell with another inmate, preferably a dangerous one.

  “The house is clear,” Nathaniel told me seconds before I grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him against me, pressed my mouth to his and let my emotions sweep over us both. I was hot with anger, mad with lust, shivering with fear. It was a medley of feelings that I was not used to, and I knew a surefire way to get rid of them. In Nathaniel's hands, I would melt and reform into something else, someone else, someone stronger, smarter, better.

  Nathaniel's hands grasped my hips as he pushed me into the wall, kissing my lips, my neck, my shoulders. The terror I had felt when I found the pictures was finally subsiding, fading into this heat and this energy that I had never experienced before with anyone. I reached down, unzipped his pants and cupped him with my hand while he moaned into my mouth and his fingers finally found their way under my shirt, burning a trail of fire up my side.

  I grasped him behind the head with my other hand, tangling my fingers in his dark hair and pulling, moving his face just far enough back from mine that I could meet his eyes as I freed his cock and wrapped my right leg around his waist. I stared straight at him, trying to breathe through the electricity that was ripping through my body, pumping the blood to my head and squeezing the muscles in my thighs. He stared back at me, face flushed, mouth slightly parted and dropped his right hand to my ass. The other he used to position himself to push inside of me.

  “Theresa,” he said, but I touched my lips to his and silenced him with my tongue. Nathaniel thrust hard and fast, entering me with every inch until we were pressed together against the wall, moving with one another in this blissful tangle of flesh. I wrapped my arms around his neck, let my head drop back and fell into him. I forgot about everything else in that moment: there was only Nathaniel and me. His lips against my skin were hot and torturous, burning a hole into my soul while his body found pleasure in mine, taking me places I'd never been.

  When my orgasm started to build, I greeted it like an old friend, rode the waves of euphoria with Nathaniel and let him take me over the edge, plunge me into molten depths and break me into pieces. When I came up for air, he paused for a moment, slid out of me and stepped back. I stumbled slightly and he caught me, lifting me up until I found my feet.

  “You have to put me back together,” I told him as he reached for the door to my bedroom, opened it and carried us both to the bed. We fell together in a sweaty heap across my comforter and soon his arms were around me, holding me like we'd known each other forever. My past had been like a noose around my throat, choking the life out of me, denying my future. Now it was scattered across my soul like a broken mirror.

  “Only you can put you back together,” he told me as we lay there in silence for several moments. Our breathing was in tune with one another, whispering across the dark bedroom as I tried to make sense of what had just happened.

  The obvious, of course, was that I had just slept with my bodyguard. But there was also something beyond that, something deeper that had taken place that I was having trouble making sense of. Who knew sex could be such a powerful tool? I thought but immediately corrected myself. It wasn't just sex. I had let my emotions play against his and now I was hearing a chorus of voices that I'd never heard before. I was waking up. It had taken me t
hirty-two years to get there, but here I was.

  “You're right,” I said as Nathaniel adjusted himself. At first, I thought he was getting up to leave but instead he just sat up, kneeling between my legs as he stared down at me, eyes dark from the shadows of the moon that leaked through the window and cast their pale fingers across his jaw, his neck, his suit jacket.

  “I'm broken, too,” he told me. “That's why I know that you can't escape your past by running from it, and you sure as hell can't expect anyone else to fix it for you.” I propped myself up on my elbows and stared at him as he loosened his tie and tossed it to the floor along with his coat. “But it doesn't hurt to ask for support.”

  “When did you learn that?” I asked him, hoping things weren't going to take a horrible turn for the awkward. I needed Nathaniel here. What if the police didn't find Gary tonight? His obsession was escalating to the point where I was certain it was going to be me or him. And it had to be him. I wasn't going anywhere.

  “Today,” Nathaniel said with a dirty smile. He leaned down and kissed me gently and even though we'd just finished, my body responded with an exhilarating burst of adrenaline. “I hope I'm not too out of practice,” he said as he removed the holster with the gun and laid it out beside us. “I haven't had the opportunity to refine my skills.” Nathaniel tried to smile, but it was tinged with sadness. “Since Gillian died, I haven't … I didn't want to make love to a memory,” he said as he put his hands on either side of my body. “Does that make any sense?” I swallowed hard and nodded. Words were not an option right now. I think if I'd tried to speak, moans would've come out instead. I bit my tongue and stayed silent. “And I thought that when I met you, that something like this might never happen. That all I'd be doing was comparing.” He paused and my heart thumped painfully. There was anguish in his face now, haunting those green eyes, tensing the muscles in his arms and chest. “But I'm not. You looked like her and your situation reminded me so much of her, but you're not her. And I accept that. It's you that I want to make love with.”