The Alcove (Lavender Shores Book 7)

by Rosalind Abel

  Jasper’s eyes were huge, and they blinked slowly.

  “Exactly.” I nodded as if agreeing with his thinking, knowing he’d never thought of it in such a way. “You chose to be who you were, to be who you are, and to never have your dad’s approval. So tell me again how you weren’t strong and brave.”

  His tears fell so hot and fast that he had to choke out a few quick breaths to be able to breathe, and at that sight, I finally lost my own control and my tears began to fall.

  And when he finally managed words, he gave me wings. “I love you too, Russell. Pretty sure you’ve known that from the beginning.”

  Yeah, I sure had. That scared the motherfucking shit out of me. And that was okay. I grinned at Jasper. “So, what you’re telling me… is that I get a love story after all?”

  He laughed, a wet and disgustingly beautiful sound. “Seems that way. Yeah. It seems that way.”

  Twenty-One

  Jasper

  Carefully sliding over from my place on Russell’s chest, I studied him as the soft light of dawn caressed his sleeping features. Even at rest, Russell emanated power. The man simply took up space, all muscle, tanned skin, and masculine hair. Anyone just looking at him would never suspect the tenderness residing within. It was the way he held me, even more than his strength or brawn, that helped me feel safe, grounded. Russell’s gentleness and genuine care did more to help me sleep through the night than knowing he would, without question, step in front of a bullet for me.

  That’s what I’d wanted after all, even if I hadn’t been aware of it. That tenderness, that understanding and love. The whole Superman stepping in front of a speeding bullet thing… that was what my older brother wanted for me, which was all well and good, but Russell was so much more than that.

  In his relaxed state, I was able to study him more than I had, or at least more intently. Though he’d be fifty in a few years, I forgot most of the time that he was nearly two decades my senior. Russell was simply a life force; it glowed out of him. Even when he simply stood like a soldier by the window, he was ageless. But I could see hints of it as he slept. There was gray beginning in his hair, less than what he should have, considering his age. Less than what even Harrison had. There were flecks of it in his dark hair, especially the lower part of his sideburns that transitioned into beard. With the morning light shining the way it was, a few silver strands sparkled over his chest. There were crow’s feet around his eyes, where mine were still smooth. Deeper grooves along his forehead, and the veins that crisscrossed his hands were more pronounced.

  For some reason, those little signs of his aging made me love him more. He seemed so indestructible, so powerful, but these little glimpses said otherwise.

  Made me love him. How strange and wonderful. And scary. Nearly as strange and wonderful and scary as hearing him admit he loved me.

  What the hell were we going to do about that?

  I wanted to reach out, lovingly stroke the flecks of silver, the lines that told the story of his struggles over the years. Wanted to kiss him awake so I could look into his beautiful warm brown eyes and hear him tell me that he loved me again. So I could tell him.

  Even if I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant.

  There were a million ways he and I were distinctive, and age was the least of them. Physically, we couldn’t be any more different. Our upbringings, the way we’d approached our lives—the roads we’d traveled had been so foreign to each other yet had intersected at just the right times.

  How strange that this man, so different from me, could understand me more than anyone. Even more than my brother, though that didn’t seem possible.

  I slid out of bed before I could give in to the temptation of kissing him. He deserved some sleep. Silently, I padded out to the main room and shut the bedroom door behind me. After a deep breath, I walked over and stood in front of the alcove. Harrison and Russell had both attempted to clean it up the night before, but I hadn’t allowed it, even though the impulse felt irrational.

  I had to do it myself.

  Now that the shock had passed, the damage wasn’t really as bad as I’d thought. The shelves weren’t actually broken, Neal had simply torn them from the bookcases. He hadn’t taken a baseball bat to them or anything, though that’s how it had looked. Maybe if he had, someone would’ve heard, called the police, and stopped him. Structurally the space was sound. He’d used the knife to make deep gouges in the back of the bookcases, over the trim and on the board underneath the cushion of the bench, which he’d utterly destroyed, ripped to shreds like the mattress.

  Though I had never done any sort of woodwork, I assumed all the alcove required would be a good sanding and staining, and things would be back to normal.

  The relief I felt at that was short-lived. As I sifted through the rubble, some of the devastation I’d felt the night before returned. If only Neal had taken a bat to the shelves and the windows.

  The ripped pages scattered across the floor were like my mother’s second death. Seeing the books she’d loved so much, words she’d read and reread, pages her fingers had touched, now in tatters and destroyed, was nearly more than I could handle.

  The broken picture frames and ripped photos weren’t a big deal. Harrison had copies of all of them; they’d be easy enough to replace. But the books, those were different.

  As were the mementos. The porcelain iris bookend was broken, some pieces nearly dust. Harrison had taken one and I the other. There was some comfort in knowing its mate was safe. The glass from Mom’s metal candleholder was shattered, but the curling wrought iron scrolls were intact, though bent.

  The rock I’d taken from the beach below the palisades on my first day in Lavender Shores lay among the rubble. Maybe it had been used to smash the other memories.

  Tears began as I started gathering up the pages to throw them away, feeling like I was discarding what little I had left of my mom. Only a few drops fell before anger dried them away.

  Neal had done this. He was the one responsible.

  Talk about obvious realizations, but for some reason, it hadn’t really hit me. Not really. At least not in a way that truly made me angry. Stepping into the midst of it the night before had felt like entering the aftermath of a tornado or earthquake. But it wasn’t some natural disaster or act of God. This was intentional, the choice of one man.

  Up until that moment, even the scene in the parking lot, even knowing that he was more dangerous than he’d ever been and that I wasn’t safe, that had all simply been Neal, or the newest version of him. Somewhere in the core of me I’d simply accepted it for what it had always been. Neal did his thing, and I picked up the pieces. Somewhere along the line, early in our relationship, his actions had been nothing more than a natural disaster. One that I caused. He raged, and it was my fault. I held the world steady, for both of us. If he lost his mind, then it was my fault. I’d failed. I’d brought on the tornado, the earthquake.

  But with my mother’s pages in my hands, and shattered mementos of the good moments of my life around me, I was done. I thought I had been before, but I’d been wrong. It finally clicked.

  I was finished with allowing Neal to take things from my life. I’d given him five years. In a lot of ways, it stopped being his fault. I was the one who’d given it to him. I was the one who’d allowed it after a time. Somehow, even during the last week or so of constantly looking over my shoulder, something about it had just felt normal. As if by choosing to stay in that situation with him for so long, I somehow committed to doing it forever.

  But he wasn’t some fucking natural disaster. He was a man. One who had chosen to destroy things I loved. Maybe I’d allowed him to encompass five years of my life, but I’d not given permission for this. I’d not brought on the tornado.

  Well, that was over. I didn’t know how it would end, and I didn’t know what power I had to make it stop, but… I was going to make it stop. At least use every bit of the power I had or die trying.

  I’d just
slid the first pile of papers into the trash bag by my side when a wave of loss crashed over me so strong that I nearly quit breathing. A renewed flash of anger drove the wave back. Just like I couldn’t erase those years with Neal, their bruised and broken memories stayed with me, making me stronger.

  Russell was right. Maybe fate had intervened in the form of the police, and taken Neal away, but I hadn’t stopped there. I hadn’t allowed him to take the rest of my life. I wasn’t going to allow him to take the memories and what I had left of my mother either. I couldn’t change the fact that he’d touched them, left his mark, but they were still mine.

  I was so caught up in my task that I didn’t hear the bedroom door open over an hour later. Didn’t even sense I wasn’t alone until Russell knelt beside me and slid a hand over my back. “Hey, how you doing?”

  I paused just long enough to look up into his eyes and smile. “Good. I’m really good.”

  He flinched a bit, and as he searched my gaze, the confusion faded from his expression, and his smile grew. “I can see that. And you’ve got quite the process going.”

  The entire floor was covered in paper, like a thousand-piece puzzle. Gradually each page came back together. Seeing it from his perspective, I was nearly overwhelmed at the task, but I shoved that aside. I simply had to do it. Even if I looked like a madman attempting the devil’s errand.

  “Do you have another roll of tape? I bet this would go quicker with the two of us.”

  I’d just fit in the final piece of page one seventy-four of Montana Sky, and paused with a section of tape held above it in midair as I looked up at Russell. “Really?”

  He glanced around the living room, which I imagined looked more destroyed to him than it had the night before. “Well, yeah. Unless you need to do it by yourself.”

  I sat back on my heels, completely blown away. Harrison would’ve understood what I was doing, but I figured anyone else would say I was insane. “You’re not going to simply tell me to buy new books, to replace them?”

  The smile he gave almost looked sad. “I wouldn’t love you like I do if I didn’t understand who you are.”

  Another wave crashed over me, this time taking my breath and words in the most wonderful way.

  Russell continued, “I know what these books mean to you. They’ve helped you escape when you needed to. And I know when you need to visit with your mom, when you need to be near her again, you find her in these. Not just in the words of the story, but in the actual pages of these books.”

  Emotion tightened my throat, making me sound hoarse. “Yeah. Exactly.”

  We studied each other for a few moments before Russell spoke again. “I’d like to help, if you’d let me. Unless that would make you feel like I was part of the pages and intruding.”

  Wow. He even understood that. “I want you to be part of the pages.” It didn’t matter if I wasn’t sure what came next for us, if anything. It was enough to simply have the love we shared infused into the books.

  He smiled. “Me too.”

  Even so, I wanted to ask if that meant we were no longer simply living in the now. If he was going to stay when Neal was no longer an issue. I couldn’t bring myself to ask. I wasn’t sure if it was fear of the answer, or that I didn’t want to break the spell of the moment. “There’s more tape in the kitchen, in the narrow drawer to the right of the refrigerator. It’s where I keep all the random stuff.”

  He was back within moments, on his hands and knees, helping me reassemble the puzzle pieces of my past.

  I wasn’t sure what the next days or weeks or years held, if the stories of our lives would cross paths again as they had before, or fill the same book. Either way, I wanted Russell Wallace to be a constant presence in my life. That would be accomplished just by him helping me repair the books, but I thought I’d push for more. “Do you… have any woodworking experience?”

  Pausing midcrawl through the pages laid out on the floor, he looked over at me, then at the alcove, clearly understanding. “Enough.” He sat back on his knees, studying me. “You want help repairing the alcove instead of Harrison’s guy repairing it?”

  “Yeah.” Even that he understood without explanation, knowing that I needed to fix the rubble Neal had made myself, even if I didn’t do as good a job as a handyman.

  “Tell you what.” Russell grinned as he stood. “How about I get our drinks from Lavender Leaves, give us our caffeine boost. After that, we’ll spend however long it takes to fix these, and then we’ll get started on making your alcove exactly how you want it.”

  Twenty-Two

  Russell

  Despite knowing we were in the middle of Lavender Shores, eating in a restaurant owned by a lesbian, I kept glancing around, even over my shoulder. Maybe a smarter plan would’ve been to have my first date with a man somewhere dim and secluded. A place privately romantic. Not at a table in a brightly lit restaurant in the middle of town, with two other gay couples.

  It was a lot.

  The burly, bearded, tattooed man, who was even bigger than me, reached across the table and smacked my arm in a teasing manner. “Dude. Take the night off. I know you’re a bodyguard and everything, but it would actually be a good thing if Neal showed up right now. Between the six of us, we’d rip him to shreds.”

  “If Neal—” I got myself just in time. “You’re right. That would be good timing.” Shit. I really was off my game. Neal hadn’t even been a thought. Not one solitary thought the entire dinner.

  “Oh please, Connor.” The man’s pretty blond husband nudged him with his shoulder. “Everyone here knows you’re more of a lover than a fighter.”

  “Seriously! What do you need all those muscles for anyway? Your tattoo gun can’t be that heavy.” Adrian paused in his teasing to take a swig of beer. “You should join Harrison and me on the farm for a couple of days, put those superhero muscles of yours to good use.”

  As Harrison joined in on the ribbing, Jasper nudged my knee under the table, drawing my attention to him. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” I attempted a reassuring smile. “We’re not in any danger of Neal showing up, I’m sure. Not in this crowd.”

  He narrowed his eyes, not fooled. “It’s Lavender Shores. Nobody cares. And outside of small-town gossip, nobody will even notice.”

  A moment of guilt nibbled at me. I hated for Jasper to think that I was embarrassed to be seen with him. I wasn’t. Not in the slightest.

  As if able to read that thought as well, though he kept it under the table, Jasper slid his hand into mine.

  No, not embarrassed by Jasper at all. But a little by myself still.

  It was one thing to hook up with men whenever I wanted to, and quite another to put it all on display. But regardless of what people thought, Lavender Shores or anywhere else, I didn’t want to hide it. Not my feelings for Jasper, not even myself. Not anymore.

  With a gentle tug, I moved our entwined hands to the tabletop. And sure enough, besides the quick glance from Harrison, no one even noticed.

  I realized Connor and Micah were both looking at me in expectation. Clearly I’d missed something. “Sorry, what did you say?”

  “We were just talking about your guys’ shenanigans at the book club the other night.” Micah motioned toward Connor with his head. “Miss Brighton came into Connor’s tattoo parlor the other day. She wanted to extend her tramp stamp all the way around her waist, like a belt or something.”

  “Isn’t it derogatory, calling it a tramp stamp?” Harrison lowered his voice like he was whispering in church. “Plus, Marion Brighton is like a hundred and ten years old. Surely there’s a better word for that.”

  “Oh no, she’s very clear that it’s a tramp stamp. In fact, that was the deciding factor of why she didn’t extend the work.” Connor shook his head, laughing. “Ultimately, I’ll do what a client wants, but that kind of tattoo is never a good idea, and it wasn’t until I pointed out that she could no longer call it a tramp stamp if it went all the way around that she opt
ed for a simple design on her foot.”

  “Plus”—Micah leaned forward and around Adrian to address Harrison—“from what Mom says, Miss Brighton is the older, straight, female version of Seth Marino. There is not one available man in town she hasn’t sampled. And apparently a few of the unavailable ones as well.”

  Connor laughed louder at that. “She made it very clear to let us know that Miss Brighton hadn’t ever gotten her claws into Dad, however.” Something about the way Connor worded his statement threw me off, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was before he turned back to me. “Anyway, she was telling us all about the book club, and how your man here”—he gestured toward Jasper—“totally rocks revealing lingerie.”

  “Oh God.” Jasper attempted to cover his face with his free hand. “I’m never going to live that down.” He cast a quick glance my way. “I forgot to tell you. Apparently someone videotaped it on their phone, and it’s floating around town. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before it gets on YouTube.”