by Abby Brooks
The longer we’re out here, the more Ethan worries that Joe is going to tell the people back in LA that he’s here in Wistful. That by hiding out here in the woods, we’re just delaying the inevitable. But as each day passes with a whole lot of no drama at all, he relaxes a little more. His smiles come quicker. He doesn’t sigh quite as frequently. In fact, I keep catching him smiling at me when he thinks I’m not looking, this faraway look dancing in his eyes. I make him happy, which is good because he makes me happy, too.
He finishes up with the wood and comes sauntering into the cabin just as I get breakfast on the table.
“I sure could get used to this,” he says, looking from me to the plate I set down at his place at the table.
I eye him hungrily, his bare chest still glistening with sweat. “And I could get used to you.” I pause and tap my chin like I’m thinking. “Except maybe you should go get your axe and eat with it all slung over your shoulder like you had it out there.”
Ethan sits and gives me a devilish look. “You have a thing for lumberjacks?”
“I didn’t.” I pull out my chair. “But I do now,” I say as I take a seat.
We plan our day as we eat, listing our chores and the things we need done before the sun sets. I find myself more and more distracted by this man across from me. It’s one thing that he’s sexy as sin with his shirt off, it’s another thing all together that he knows how to do almost everything.
Need a fence? Ethan can build one. Need to build a barn? He can do that, too. Hungry? Just give him a second and he’ll go hunt up some dinner. But it doesn’t stop there, oh no. Of course it doesn’t stop there.
His conversation is thoughtful and eloquent. He’s educated and philosophical in a way that surprises me. Ethan doesn’t see the world in black and white. Everything is a shade of gray for him and he’s just as able to argue on one side of a topic as he is the other. He has depth. Maybe more than anyone I’ve ever known. He challenges the way I look at life.
“That was delicious, sweet stuff,” he says as he finishes his breakfast.
“Why, thank you.”
Ethan gathers our plates and then plugs the sink and turns on the faucet, pouring dish soap on the sponge. “So, I’m curious. Are you the last remaining LaRue?”
“That I am.” I try to hide just how devastated I am by that fact.
“No brothers or sisters? Aunts? Uncles?”
“Well, I might have a brother or sister out there, but there’s no way of knowing. My mom left me and my dad when I was just a few months old. Couldn’t handle the stress of being a mom, I guess.”
Ethan pauses and looks at me, his hands still submerged in the soapy water. “Did you ever want to go look for her?”
I wrinkle my nose and shake my head. “Not really. I always had Nana, and I couldn’t ask for a better mother figure than that. Besides, why should I worry about knowing my mom if she wasn’t willing to stick around and get to know me? You either want me or you don’t, you know?” I never, not once, considered looking for my mother. Nana always suggested that she had her fair share of problems. Drugs. Alcohol. I never felt a need to invite her problems into my life.
“That’s a good point.” He goes back to washing the dishes. “What about your dad?”
“He died when I was still really young. I don’t even have real memories of him. My Nana always made him out to sound like a hero. Like somebody she’d read about in her romance books. Strong and good looking. Smart and funny. Able to fix a thing that’s broken just as easily as he could sit down and read me a bedtime story. Of course, he was her only son, so who knows how true any of it was.”
I lean my chin in my hands and smile, lost in the daydreams and stories Nana always told me about my father. Ethan dries his hands on a dishtowel and I realize that he fits Nana’s description of my father perfectly. Ethan is all the things I ever thought a man should be.
He catches me staring and quirks his head towards his shoulder. “What’re you thinking, sweet stuff?”
What I’m thinking is that I’ve found the kind of man my Nana would approve of. The kind of man I can see raising children with, watching them play in the yard at the homestead that’s been in my family for generations. The kind of man who could live up to the image I’ve built of my father. The kind of man I could fall in love with. The kind of man I am falling in love with.
But I can’t say any of that. Not now. Not yet. “You make me happy,” I say instead.
“Well good,” Ethan says with a smile. “You make me happy, too. I could almost say that I’m glad Joe Sylvio showed up and forced us into hiding together. These last few weeks have been pretty damn amazing.”
My blood runs cold at the mention of Joe Sylvio. And then Ethan pivots to put the now dry breakfast plates back in the cabinet and my gaze falls on the gun tucked into his waistband. The scars arching around his torso, just below his ribs.
Ethan Masters is a killer. Even though I tried to joke about it the day he told me about his past, he’s not Batman. He’s not some super hero wrapped up in vigilante justice. People hired him to kill other people. There are mothers and fathers, wives and children, all crying out to the empty space in their lives. A space a person used to occupy. A space created when Ethan pulled the trigger on that gun tucked so neatly into his jeans.
And just like that, the image of us together on the porch at the homestead watching our children play in the yard disappears, like an old photograph catching fire, curling up around the edges, blackening and then crumbling into nothing. Ethan Masters is not the kind of man I want as a father to my children. He’s not the kind of man I can trust with my heart. Not when he has the blood of so many people on his hands.
Smiling weakly, I stand, gripping the edge of the table in order to keep myself from falling over. My heart races. My hands shake. My thoughts speed through my mind. How could I let myself be fooled by this man? How could I let his warm smile and able body trick me into seeing him for anything other than what he is?
Or maybe, just maybe, I have been seeing him for what he is. Maybe out here in the woods, working his hands to the bone each day and taking care of me each night, maybe that is the truth of Ethan Masters. Maybe the man he became in LA was nothing more than what he said, a wrong turn down a bad path that he took the necessary steps to change the moment he realized things had gone wrong.
“Skye.” Ethan’s voice is tight. Worried. “What’s wrong?”
What do I say? Should I be honest with him? Tell him that I’m falling in love with him and that I’m scared of what that might mean because of who he used to be?
He crosses the kitchen and cups my cheek with his hand, searching my eyes as if he could just pluck whatever it is that has me upset right out of my head. I want to pull away and lean in all at the same time. Images of him that night in LA, that gun pointed right at the running man’s back, they dance with the Ethan I’ve gotten to know here at the cabin. The man who works tirelessly and laughs easily. The man who knows how to provide for us. The man who makes me feel like I am all there is for him. Like he is the answer to my questions and the reason for my life. The man who has shown his devotion to me in the details of our days. The coffee waiting for me on the counter. The dishes drying next to the sink.
He’s just standing there, waiting on a response and I don’t know what to say. Finally, after what feels like an eternity of silence, I lower my eyes. “How many people did you kill?”
Ethan pulls his hand from my face like my skin burns him. His eyes narrow and his brows draw together. “Why?”
I shake my head and turn away. “Because I’m sitting here, thinking about how happy you make me, and then you turn and I see the gun. And I can’t help but wonder if this life with you is an illusion. This version of you, is it the real Ethan Masters? Or are you really the man I met in LA?”
“You didn’t meet me in LA. But if you did, you’d see that I am who I am. Nothing’s changed.”
I flinch. That is so not
what I wanted to hear. “So you’re the same man who held a gun pointed at a man’s back?”
“I am. I’m also the man who pulled the trigger on a murderer, a rapist, and a man selling bad drugs to kids.” Ethan folds his arms across his chest. “And I’m also the man who drew a line and put down the gun. The man who stood up to one of the baddest men in LA and walked away from it all.”
“Except you didn’t put down the gun. It’s right there.” I point to his back.
“This?” Ethan pulls the thing out of his waistband, careful to keep it aimed at the floor. “You mean the gun I carry because of the asshole who followed me here? The asshole who will put a gun to your head and pull the trigger without flinching?”
“Yes, Ethan. That gun.” My hands are shaking now. The last thing I want to do is anything that will ruin what we’ve been building here. But at the same time, I need to know what kind of man I’m giving my heart to. My hopes and dreams to.
“What would you have me do, Skye? Just walk around unarmed? Just shrug my shoulders and go about my day, knowing that Joe is out there and not have any way to protect either one of us?” Ethan’s angry. His voice raising, his eyes flashing. “And if not Joe, then what about the wolves and mountain lions that wander around the woods out here? Does having this gun make me a bad person?”
“My Nana carried a gun every single day. That didn’t make her a bad person.”
Ethan’s eyes narrow. “So what’s the difference? Because I’m not sure I see one, but it certainly sounds like you do. You don’t feel safe with me?”
“I do. I feel safer with you than I ever have in all my life.” I wish I could just go back and start this morning over. I want to rewind to the point where I stepped outside and found him splitting logs in the sunshine. I’d walk up to him, drop to my knees, and suck his cock right then and there. Then we wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t be fighting. It wouldn’t feel like my insides are falling out and my life is shattering in front of my very eyes.
“Then please, Skye. Enlighten me. Just what is it that makes you think you can’t trust me?”
“How about the stories you told me about your past? The fact that you’ve killed people, Ethan?
“Yep. And I regret it every day. They were bad people, Skye. But their faces are the last things I see each night.” He blows a long puff of air out of his nose, eyes burning into mine.
I don’t know what to say. Everything in my head is a jumble. “I just want to know what kind of man you are. Because my instinct is telling me that you’re the kind of man I need. The kind of man I want to spend my life with. But the stories of your past…”
I try to find the words to say what I mean, the words that will explain how much I love him, how good I feel around him, and the utter fear I have that this is all just an illusion. That the man I know is a mask hiding the real Ethan Masters underneath.
“What about the stories of my past?”
“They scare me,” I whisper.
“And all the things I’ve done for you? All the ways we’ve laughed? All the times we’ve sat in this very room and shared depth of the soul kinds of stuff? Were you scared then?”
I shake my head.
“My past is my past, Skye. I can’t change it or I would. Believe me, I would. I’ve been out here for three years, living off the goddamn land in an attempt to outrun my past. What do you want from me? Do you want to leave?”
“No, that’s not at all what I want.”
“Then what, Skye?”
“I want to know who you are.”
Ethan stares me down, inhales deeply, nostrils flaring. “If you don’t know who I am by now, then I’ve got nothing to say to you.” And with that, he grabs his shirt off the back of the chair, tucks his gun back in his waistband, and walks out the door with Bay trotting behind him.
Chapter Twelve
I cry. A lot. And just as I get myself under control, I realize that Ethan isn’t home yet, that he walked out the door hours ago and I haven’t seen him since, and then I cry some more. Was I wrong to be so honest with him? Should I have just taken the last few weeks at face value and trusted that he really is the man I’ve fallen in love with? That despite what he told me about his life in LA he’s a good man?
But how—knowing what I do about his past—could I just sit by and let myself fall more and more in love with him without talking about my fears? Shouldn’t I be allowed—hell, shouldn’t he encourage me—to ask questions about that kind of stuff? Aren’t serious relationships supposed to be about breaking down barriers?
How can I think about a lifetime with Ethan when there might be a monster hiding underneath that handsome exterior? How could I consider children when I’m not sure if he’s the angel he seems to be or if he’s the devil in disguise? I stare at the empty cabin, wander through each room and I just don’t know what to do with myself. This isn’t my house. It’s Ethan’s. Even though every room makes me think of us, I don’t really belong here. Not without him. And so I cry until my head hurts and then I just cry some more as the hour hand wanders around the clock on the wall.
When my tears finally dry up, I decide that all I can do is keep myself busy until he gets home. After washing my face and pulling back my hair, I head out to the makeshift pen we made for the goats and the chickens. I make sure they’ve got fresh food and water and then work in the garden, busy myself pulling weeds. But even though my hands are busy, my thoughts are free to run wild and they circle around Ethan. I shed a few more tears and find my gaze keeps lingering on the driveway, hoping to hear the crunch of gravel under tires and Bay barking in excitement as they round the curve up to the house.
And yet the silence stretches out in front of me as if even the cabin and surrounding woods and all the little creatures that make their home here are ashamed of me.
I know Ethan isn’t a monster. I know he’s not really a cold-blooded killer. I know that he’s a good man who got caught up in a bad deal. And here we’ve been, living here in this cabin in the woods, playing house. We’ve worked side by side over the course of the last few days, building the foundation of a life together. And it’s been hard work and I’ve never been happier in all my life because of the way Ethan makes me feel when we’re together.
Nana always said that projects were the true test of a relationship. That no LaRue ever considered their marriage safe until they’d survived working together on the homestead. And after all these projects here at the cabin, Ethan and I have only gotten closer. He teaches me the things I don’t know with such gentle patience, I’m not ashamed to ask for help.
And what did I do to repay him? He trusted me with his darkest secret, his deepest shame, the point in his life that made him turn around and walk away from everything he was, and what do I do? Instead of trusting that he’s the good man I know he is, I go ahead and question the very stuff he’s made of.
Instead of supporting him, I fear him.
Instead of encouraging him, I doubt him.
I look him in the eyes and tell him I believe he could be a monster.
What kind of fool am I?
I hurt him. I took the trust he placed in me and showed him just how much I don’t trust him in return, even after he has gone out of his way to protect me and take care of me.
But on the other hand, shouldn’t I be free to voice my fears and concerns? Isn’t that part of what it means to be in a relationship? Communication is important, right? Was I just supposed to sit quietly on my doubt because the topic might be an uncomfortable one? Is it right that I’m stuck here, sad and alone, feeling bad for being honest because Ethan didn’t have the balls to face the ramifications of his truths?
I oscillate between hurt and angry for hours and begin a cleaning rampage. I muck out the chicken coop. I dust the house. I sweep the floors and clean the windows. And when I run out of stuff to clean, I start organizing. And when I run out of stuff to organize, I go out to gather flowers and put them in the iced tea pitcher and center it on
the dinner table. And when all that’s done and there’s nothing left for me to do, when the cabin is as clean as it possibly could be and Ethan still hasn’t come home yet, I take a shower.
The water pressure is terrible—some gravity-fed system Ethan devised using a spring a little further up the mountain—and it doesn’t stay hot long enough to be worth a damn. Standing there under the cold, weak water, I crave my Nana more than anything in the world. She’d sit there in her chair on the porch, sipping her whiskey and sucking on her cigarette. She’d nod as I tell her what happened, what I said and what he said, and she’d reach her hand out into the space between us to pat me on the knee. She’d let me cry and then, in that low voice of hers, weathered by age and experience, she’d tell me exactly what she thought of the situation.
And the honest truth is, she’d never, ever say what I expect her to say. Because to her, just like Ethan, the world was never black or white. It was always shades of gray.
She’d ask me if Ethan made me happy and I’d say yes.
She’d ask me if I felt safe with him and I’d say yes.
She’d ask me if he ever hit me or threatened me or made me feel like my life was in danger and I’d say no.
Hell, she’d even ask me if the sex was good. I’d blush and fiddle with the hem of my shirt and that would be all the answer she needed. She’d take a long drag on her cigarette and stare deep into my eyes.
“You know, sweet Skye, for a girl who is so smart and works so hard to do the right thing, you can be real thick-headed sometimes.”
Standing in the shower in Ethan’s cabin, I can hear her voice as if she were standing right next to me. For the briefest of moments, we’re no longer separated by that thin and devastating line between life and death. She’s right here with me, whispering her truths in my ear. I can feel her parchment-like skin on my hand and smell her floral perfume and her low and smoky voice reaches deep down inside me and pulls out all the doubt I planted deep inside.