Turn Me Loose (Paradise, Idaho)

by Rosalind James

  When they’d finished, he rolled to his back, and she lay beside him. Nothing touching but the hand he held, his fingers threaded through hers. And the connection running strong all the same. Peace stealing over him, warm as the blankets that covered them, quiet as the wind sighing through the trees.

  He was letting himself drift off to sleep when she spoke and jolted him awake again.

  “It’s hard to jump in with both feet,” she said, her voice quiet in the darkness, “when you’ve got one foot out the door.”

  He’d been running his thumb over her knuckles. Now, everything in him stilled. “What?”

  “The way I felt tonight . . . out there. I knew you were there for me. I knew you were never going to run. I knew you’d . . .” She stopped again. “I knew you’d die trying.”

  “Yeah,” he said, the relief swamping him, making him weak. “Yeah. You were right. I would have.”

  He’d told her dad that he didn’t like killing things, not unless they were trying to kill him. He’d have to amend that now, because he’d been willing to do it tonight. He’d known it down in some dark place at the very bottom of his soul. And it hadn’t been to save himself.

  It wasn’t just who he was willing to kill for, either. It was who he was willing to die for.

  When they’d had their backs turned . . . he’d been rehearsing it. The second he’d heard that engine roar, he’d have been shoving her to the left with all his might, pushing her out of the truck’s path. There’d been no doubt. No hesitation. No second thoughts. He’d known.

  He was still trying to work out how to say all that when she spoke. “So I’m thinking,” she said, “if you’ve got that kind of guts? If you were ready to put it on the line for me? What I am doing being such a wuss? Here I’ve got what I always wanted, and I’m scared to reach out and go for it.”

  She’d rolled to face him now, and he was barely breathing. “And in case you haven’t figured it out,” she said, “that’s you. So I’m going to cowboy up and tell you. You haven’t said the words. You might not be where I am. But I’m going to say it anyway. I’m going to jump in with both feet, with my arms and my eyes wide open. I’m going to grab my good thing. I’m going to tell you . . .” She took a breath, and he heard it. The fear, and the certainty. Both right there, no holds barred. Nothing but pure, shining courage. Nothing but Rochelle. “I’m going to tell you,” she said again, “that I’m in. I’m going to love you, and it doesn’t matter what you do about it. I’m going to die trying.”

  “Oh, baby,” he said over the lump in his throat. “Rochelle. I—” Now he was the one who was floundering. “If somebody here hasn’t got guts, that somebody isn’t you.” He had to hold her then. He had to kiss her, and stroke his hand over her hair.

  “Not an . . . answer,” she said against his shoulder.

  “No. So how about this.” He took a breath, and he did it. He jumped. “How about if I tell you that I’m crazy in love with you. That I would’ve done anything to keep you safe tonight, because it was all that mattered to me. That deciding to take this job is looking like the best choice I ever made, and being with you is the best I’ve ever felt. Does that work?”

  He was choking up. He was free-falling. He smoothed a hand over her hair again, down her back, and felt her heart beating against his chest, strong and steady and sure. “I love you so much,” he told her. “I just wish I had better words to tell you.”

  “Well,” she said, with a laugh that didn’t sound much steadier than he was feeling, “I’d say that was pretty good. I’d say, I’ll take it.”

  WHAT’S WORTH IT

  Rochelle woke slowly the next morning. No nightmares to trouble her, because when she’d rolled over in the night, Travis had been there to touch, and that had been pure comfort.

  And he loved her, too. He’d told her so. He’d told her, and kissed her, and fallen asleep holding her. And she could believe it, because if there was one thing Travis was, it was solid.

  She got up, now, moving quietly so as not to wake him. He was sleeping on his stomach, one arm flung out across her pillow, his hand around it like he was still hanging on to her. He might not have slept as easily as she had, she suspected. He might have been feeling protective. And as somebody who’d taken care of herself and everyone around her for just about forever, that didn’t feel bad at all.

  She was in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee and looking out the window at Carol’s fruit trees, when he came in. Blue jeans and bare feet, buttoning a flannel shirt over a sleeveless white undershirt. Looking good.

  “Morning,” he said, bending down to give her a quick kiss. “You made coffee.”

  “Yep. Called Stacy again, too, but she didn’t answer again. Still asleep, probably.”

  “Hmm.” He pulled out a mug and poured his own.

  “Carol has cherries,” she remarked absently.

  “Huh?”

  She gestured out the window with her mug. “Plum tree, and sour cherry tree.” Their branches barer, now, in the aftermath of the storm. “They can make a mess for sure if you don’t keep up with them, but you get pie.”

  “That so? That come with the tree?”

  She smiled. “You have to make them. And to pit the fruit, too, which is a job. But it’s worth it. Real’s always worth it.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Trees. But when you plant trees, you’ll have hung it up.”

  “Kind of pessimistic. Maybe I should have said that when I plant trees, I’ll be putting down my roots. Sounds better, huh? It’s my life, and nobody else’s.” She finished off her coffee and stood up. “How about breakfast?”

  And later that morning, after they’d eaten breakfast and gone back to bed again, because it was chilly outside and so warm under the blankets, Travis offered to help her plant her bulbs.

  “It’s the least I can do,” he said, one slow thumb running down her spine, “seeing as how I didn’t dig fast enough to get all of them for you.”

  “You just want me to fix you lunch,” she said lazily. She stretched in satisfaction, nearly purring at the sensation of his hand barely grazing her back, his fingernails scraping so lightly over her skin. She stayed sprawled on her stomach, the sheet all the way down to her thighs, not worrying one bit about how she looked in the full light of morning. She knew she looked just fine to him. She knew it because he’d told her, and he’d showed her. Because he loved to watch, whether he was over her, or whether, like this morning, she was over him, riding him slow and easy while he caressed her everywhere he could reach. And Travis had a very good reach.

  “You’ve got some kind of magic in your fingers, you know that?” she told him. His palm was smoothing over the curves of her behind, now, sliding down her thighs, and she shivered. “You sure know how to touch me.”

  “Maybe it’s not just lunch I want,” he said, coming up over her and pressing a kiss between her shoulder blades, which felt fine, too. “It gets lonesome in this bed at night, you know? You help me sleep.”

  She smiled. “Nice one. Come on. Bulbs.”

  He gave her a good slap on the butt. “Then you’d better get dressed and quit tempting me.”

  She didn’t, though. Instead, she smiled wickedly at him and said, “Is that a hint of what you want in exchange?”

  He laughed, and he didn’t look shocked, either. He looked nothing but thrilled. “Is that an offer?”

  She rolled over, pulled him on top of her, kissed him until she could swear his eyes crossed, and said, “Nope. That’s a promise.”

  Love was good. And love with Travis was the best.

  Dell was out front cleaning up her yard when Travis pulled up in front of Rochelle’s house. Rochelle led him up the walk, so damn happy to have him behind her. Charlie pattered over to say hello, and Rochelle bent down to give him a scratch behind a fluffy white ear, then said, “Morning.”

  “Good morning,” Dell said, leaning on her rake. All in yellow today, as cheerful as the blue sky, the puffy clou
ds, the shining clarity of the air. “You two look pretty happy.”

  Travis laughed. “Yep. Going to help Rochelle with her gardening today, and that’s a guaranteed good time. And if you’ve got some man jobs yourself, you let me know. Rochelle says she loves a man who can do man jobs, and you know I want that.”

  “Watch out,” Dell said. “I might take you up on that. And you might want to check on Stacy,” she told Rochelle. “She had the music cranked up last night.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Rochelle said. Dell never complained. It must have been extreme.

  Dell made an impatient gesture. “I’m not worried about that. Hell, I’m old. I don’t sleep anyway. But it was that breakup sound, where you play those sad, wailing, somebody-done-me-wrong songs until you find the best one, then you play it over and over. Get it good and loud and sing along, start drinking the wine from the bottle because you spilled the last time you tried to pour.”

  “Well,” Rochelle said, “that might not be such bad news.”

  “I’d say you’re right.” The spidery webs beside Dell’s eyes and mouth creased with her smile. “The ones you get that messed up over—they’re always the ones you’re better off without, aren’t they? The ones that jerk you around like you’re on their string, where you think afterwards, should’ve sent him a thank-you note. Better she gets it over with now than when she’s thirty-five and got two kids with him, anyway. I came on over to tell her so, in fact. Thought we could sit on the couch and have that glass of wine together, talk about what sorry pieces of work men can be.” She glanced at Travis. “Present company excepted, of course.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’ve got the picture.”

  “Not that men have any exclusive on that,” she said. “I’ve known some men who could tell a tale or two along those lines. But anyway, I figured at least I could’ve poured. She wouldn’t let me come in, though.” She shook her head, then resumed her raking. “But a little heartbreak never killed anyone, and you know you gotta hit bottom before you can come up again.”

  “Well, thanks,” Rochelle said, her hand already on the doorknob. “She didn’t go out today?”

  “Nope,” Dell said. “Sleeping it off.”

  The house was quiet, murky-dark despite the brightness outside, when Rochelle stepped inside with Travis behind her. All the curtains still drawn, even though it was nearly ten.

  Well, if Stacy had been up half the night playing sad songs, she could easily still be sleeping. Sometimes you just wanted to escape, and drinking yourself into oblivion could seem like the best way. It might not help anything, but at least it stopped the hurting. It beat going to a bar and taking a stranger home, anyway.

  That was what Rochelle told herself as she knocked on the door of Stacy’s room. She didn’t start worrying until she knocked again more loudly, called her sister’s name, and got no answer. And until she tried the doorknob, and it was locked.

  “Travis,” she called, and he was there. Right there, like he’d been waiting for her to call.

  “Got a key?” he asked as she rattled the doorknob.

  “Uh . . .” She tried to think. “Stacy!” she called again, pounding with the heel of her hand. “No. I don’t.”

  “Stand back,” he said, and she stepped a couple paces away in the narrow hallway. Not enough room to get a run at it, but Travis didn’t need one. He hauled in a breath, and then his booted foot came up and smashed into the wood beside the doorknob, faster than she could blink. The door slammed open with a splintering crash, hit the wall, and bounced back, and Travis had the heel of his hand against it on the bounce, was shoving it open and heading inside. And Rochelle was right behind him.

  Stacy was on the bed. And she wasn’t moving.

  Rochelle didn’t even know how she made it to her sister’s side. She was just there, her hand on Stacy’s face. It wasn’t cold, it was warm, and Rochelle was barely breathing herself as she fumbled beneath Stacy’s chin, tried to still her own heart enough to focus, to feel for a pulse.

  Slow. But it was there, and Rochelle’s fingers were shaking against Stacy’s skin.

  She saw the wine bottle, then. Empty. Knocked over, a few drops having spilled on the gray carpeting beneath the bedside table. A prescription bottle with some pills inside. And an empty half-size Ziploc bag beside it.

  “Not just drunk,” she told Travis, because he was right there. “You don’t pass out this bad from one bottle of wine.”

  She had her hand in her purse, pulling out her phone, but Travis was handing her his keys and lifting Stacy in his arms. “We can get her there faster,” he said. “Let’s go. You drive. You’ll know where the emergency entrance is. And take the . . .” He gestured with his head. “The pills.”

  Stacy was limp when he put her in the truck, and limp when he lifted her out of it, once Rochelle had pulled the truck to a rocking stop in front of the emergency entrance of Hillman Hospital.

  “Go,” she said, but she didn’t have to tell him, because he was already out, Stacy in his arms, and she was parking and racing in after him.

  By the time she got inside, Stacy was gone, and Travis was standing at the admissions desk.

  Rochelle hauled up beside him and answered the question the nurse was asking, even though she was having trouble getting her breath. “Wine,” she told the woman. “And pills, I think. Some kind of pills.”

  “Was she on any prescription medication?” the nurse asked calmly.

  “I think so.” Rochelle handed over the pill bottle, and then, after some hesitation, the plastic bag as well. “I think there could have been something in here, too. I think . . .” She swallowed. “It could have been more than one thing. Plus a bottle of wine.”

  “When did she take these?” the nurse asked.

  “I don’t know,” Rochelle said. “Hours ago, I’d guess. Sometime in the night.” When Rochelle should have been home. She’d known Stacy was having trouble. She should have been home.

  She was shaking on the thought, and Travis had seen it, had his arm around her. The nurse nodded, handed Rochelle a clipboard with forms attached, and said, “Please fill these out.”

  “Can I talk to a doctor?” Rochelle asked.

  “They’ll be working on her,” the nurse said. “What’s your relation?”

  “Sister.”

  “Name?”

  Rochelle gave it to her, and the nurse said, “When there’s something to tell you, they’ll let you know. Now, please.” She gestured to the clipboard. “Take a seat and fill those out. That’s how you can help.”

  FIXABLE

  Travis held her hand, once she was finished with the forms and had made the call she should have made weeks ago, the one to her parents. He waited beside her, and when she muttered, “I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have,” he said, “Of course you should have. This isn’t your fault.”

  “Then whose is it?” she asked.

  “It’s his,” he said. “That guy who hurt her because he could. That’s what I’m betting. And it’s life. It’s hard times, and looking for an out, a way to feel better any way there is.”

  “If she’d told me,” Rochelle said wretchedly. “If she’d said.”

  “She’s telling you now. She’s telling all of you. She’s saying she can’t do it alone anymore.”

  That was when the doctor appeared and called her name, and Rochelle went to him. And Travis held her hand for that, too.

  It was a younger man this time, his face not as impatient, not as judgmental as the doctor from Stacy’s first trip here. And Rochelle held her breath.

  “We’ve put her in intensive care,” he said, and when Rochelle stiffened, he added, “to monitor her. She’ll be there some hours, I’d guess.”

  “Is she . . .” Rochelle swallowed. “Going to get better?”

  “If she’d taken enough to kill her straight out,” he said, “she’d be dead already. She’s coming around now. What we’re doing is supportive care, and so
me decontamination, too. Activated charcoal and intravenous sodium bicarbonate. And, yes,” he said with a bit of a smile, “that’s baking soda. Otherwise—checking her, that’s all. Supportive care means supporting all her systems until her body flushes the toxins out.”

  “What did she take?” Travis asked.

  “A few extra antidepressants, looks like,” the doctor said. “The toxic dose of tricyclics—the kind she was prescribed—isn’t too far from the clinical one. Which means a person can feel extra depressed and think, if one’s good, three or four must be better. And if you combine them with a bottle of wine and a few Vicodin, it’s not good. Where did she get pain medication?”

  “I . . .” Rochelle said. “I don’t . . .”

  “She take it from you? An old prescription, maybe?”

  “No. I’ve never taken pain medication.”

  “Hmm. Has she?”

  “Yes.” Rochelle breathed out. “Yes. She broke her ankle last spring. She was taking it then, I know, for quite a while. She had to have a second surgery. But that was a long time ago. Uh . . .” She tried to think. “She must have been all done with that by April, I’d have thought. May at the latest.”

  “Hmm,” he said again, making a note on the clipboard he held. “You have any reason to think she could have a problem?”

  “I . . .” she started to say, and then she looked him in the eye and said, “Yes. I do. What do I do about that?”

  He flipped the papers over on his clipboard. “Get her help.”

  He left, then, and she and Travis moved to the waiting room for the intensive care unit. She got to hold Stacy’s hand for fifteen minutes in there, while her sister blinked groggily at her from above an oxygen mask, an IV running into her arm and a blood pressure monitor on her finger, an array of screens behind her, and Rochelle kept it together because there was no choice. Until she had to leave again.