“I have to get you cleaned up, get that gook off you, and start closing those wounds,” she told him. “Is there a wash basin or a bucket I can use?”
“Under the kitchen sink,” he said, his words slurring. He was losing too much blood. She needed to work fast.
Locating the wash bucket under the sink, she returned with what she assumed was a dishcloth and towel and washed his face and around the head wound. Her hands having been washed in the sink, she gloved up and began stitching the head wound closed. He barely whimpered as the needled went through his skin repeatedly, sealing the gash. After so many tattoos on his head, sewing it up wouldn’t necessarily register on his pain threshold with so much happening to his body.
“At one point I would love to hear the story behind all the tattoos on your head and forearms,” she said, moving to his shirt.
When she unbuttoned his shirt, he attempted to help, but the sore shoulder prevented him from being much assistance. Next, she worked off his pants and underwear, taking note of his body as she worked both down his hairy legs and over his feet. Removing the bandage on the broken leg, she retrieved fresh water and a new pair of gloves and set to work cleaning the skin and impacted areas. After pulling the casting material from her bag, she used a small bowl to create the material, making a solid cast for the broken leg. Satisfied, after dumping the dirty water down the commode, she filled the basin again to wash his body.
“Do you realize this is the first time I have seen you, completely nude?” She said, thinking of when he’d undressed them both, but she was so turned on, Khloe never bothered to truly look at his naked form.
Beau didn’t answer as she took her time, washing him as if he were a child, cleaning him from nose to stern. Pleased with the results, she informed him she needed to get him to the couch after she located clothes for him to wear.
“Master bedroom is down the hall to the right,” he said, watching her disappear and return with undergarments. “Thank you.”
“No need for that,” she said, touching the side of his face. Leaning down, she planted a feathery light kiss on his lips. “Let’s get you to the couch, but you have to stay awake, okay?”
“Okay,” he told her getting to his feet, careful on the newly formed cast. Hobbling to the couch, he leaned back, placing his foot on the coffee table.
“I need a shower,” she said.
“Yeah you do,” he offered with a crooked smile.
“Be back in a jiffy,” she told him.
The master bedroom was large, with giant windows overlooking the Great Smoky Mountain range. The windows had tinted glass, cutting down the amount of sunlight allowed to enter the privacy of the room. Stripping to her bare skin, she turned on the taps in the enclosure, stepping inside and letting the water cascade over her as chunks of brown mud hit the base of the shower. Her hair, also caked with mud, received a thorough scrubbing, using his shampoo and conditioner. Next, she moved on to her body. As she washed her skin, the stinging sensation of the soap informed her that she too was riddled with cuts and scrapes. Her body finally clean, she toweled dry and located one of Beau’s tees and slipped it over her head. She looked like a kid wearing her daddy’s tee shirt as she made her way to check on her man.
In the living room, Beau was on the phone. He ended the call as she walked in, giving her a faint smile. “I’m sorry you lost all of your stuff again,” he said to her.
“It’s just stuff. I can buy more,” she said.
“You have lost so much, yet you came for me − risked your life for me,” he said nearly overcome by emotion.
“You’re my mate,” she said with a wink.
“Yeah, but if I didn’t make it, you’d be set for life. Jethro made sure of that when you signed the marriage license. Khloe, if anything were to happen to me, you would be provided for,” he said.
“Funny thing is, Erica did the same thing,” she said, offering a half smile. “She left me set up for the rest of my days. Even though she was a drunk, she took care of her personal affairs. The lady was even smart enough to keep me on all of her accounts so there were no inheritance taxes.”
“Her china meant a great deal to you,” he said softly.
“Yes, it did,” she told him. “But again, we can get more and now I have an excuse to go shopping. This house is gorgeous, but it could use some rugs and a lady’s touch.”
“Just as long as you don’t hang any more bear shitting paw printed paintings,” he said chuckling.
“You loved those paintings, go ahead and admit it like a real man,” she said, poking him in the arm.
“I will admit to loving you,” he said, staring at her.
“Oh really?” she said, giving him a toothy grin. “I bet you say that to all the girls who winch you out suffocating mud and water.”
“I’m only saying it to my woman. I love you in a way I never thought possible,” he said. “Love hasn’t been kind to me. The hurt I’ve been through at the hands of women I believed I loved nearly crippled me. Now, I sit actually crippled and feeling grateful for taking a chance with you. Khloe, I’m not sure when it happened, or how for that matter, since we really haven’t had a whole lot of time spent as man and wife, but I’m so in love with you.”
“That’s good to know because when I pulled you out and you weren’t breathing, I didn’t...couldn’t see my life without you,” she said, blinking through tear filled eyes.
“Is that why you were crying over me?”
“Yes, because for the first time in my pitiful life, I actually understand what love is, not what I think it should be or how I believe it should treat me,” she said. “You and I aren’t about the sex, but a deeper connection. At first, I didn’t get it. That night when I kind of forced you, all I could think about was getting what I needed. The intimacy of it all was foreign to my life. We have an intimate relationship as man and wife. I love you for showing me the difference and helping me find my smile.”
“It’s my deepest desire to help you continue to smile every day, Khloe,” he said, taking her hand. His face showed his pain, and she checked her watch. Enough time had passed that if he needed to lie down and nap.
“I believe you, Beau,” she said, offering him a pillow, as she swatted away her tears of joy. He was alive. He was here. That’s all that mattered right now.
He placed one pillow under his leg and another behind his head and he lay back, exhaling softly, wanting to sleep, but needing to be awake to interact with his wife. She showed no fear in coming for him when he was supposed to be the one rescuing her. In his mind, she had rescued him in more ways than one.
When she said she could do a thing, she could do a thing. A true soldier. His soldier.
THE SOUND OF TRUCKS coming up the hill woke Khloe, and she sat up in the bed, feeling the other side for her husband, who wasn’t there. Slipping on a sports bra and a pair of leggings from her backpack, she dressed quickly and headed into the living room to see who was coming for a visit.
Albus, Honey, Katy Mae, and Lil Bro arrived in a battered pickup truck. She found Beau on the front porch, ready to greet his family. They brought enough food to feed an Army, and they came through the front door passing out hugs and overly wet kisses to jaws, and they set the table for breakfast. An egg crate held a set of dishes.
“We recovered as much of your Ma’s china set as we could, but some of the larger pieces were smashed to smithereens,” Lil Bo said. “I even cleaned off two of the paintings.”
“You would clean those up, wouldn’t you?” Beau said sarcastically.
“The rugs and curtains were ruined, Khloe. We’re sorry, but we did find this little strongbox in the back of the closet. It’s still locked,” Katy Mae said. “You want us to try and open it?”
“Yes, please,” Khloe said, feeling strong enough to withstand the force of the ramifications of the contents inside. After all the years Erica had kept it locked away and hidden from sight, now it was time to face the one secret she never wa
nted anyone to know. In her heart, Khloe knew the contents of the box contained the source of blackness which encouraged her mother’s continuous hiding in the myriad of bottles of rotgut. Her hands trembled as she watched her brother-in-law pull back the hammer.
The lock only required one good whack from the tool wielded by Lil Bo, and it snapped clean off. Khloe could feel Beau’s hand on her shoulder as she slowly opened the box, peering inside at the two items within. She picked up the two Ziplock bags that held yellowed items of clothing. Smudges of old blood were on the ripped underwear and the second bag held a dress. The bags had tape around them, sealed tightly and showing a date penned in her mother’s bold handwriting. Khloe did the math on the date and knew exactly what the items represented.
“What’s that? A pair of dirty panties and an old dress?” Albus asked.
“No,” Khloe said softly. “This is evidence of a crime.”
Chapter Eighteen – Khloe, are you okay?
She wasn’t okay, not in the least. Understanding flashed through her mind as to what the items in the bags meant as silent tears ran down her cheeks. The date written in permanent marker was thirty-eight weeks from the date of her birth. It explained so much. Erica’s drinking. Her father’s departure. His lack of desire to be a part of her life but to take Dorian in instead. She wasn’t his child.
I’m the product of rape.
Lost in her own head, she didn’t hear the Montgomery’s leave or remember saying goodbye to them. She didn’t remember joining Beau on the couch. He held her in his arms as she cried. His large hand rubbed her back, offering her consolation through the pain.
Now he understood why she’d lacked the inability to smile. This is what she meant by life not being fair and robbing her of joy. He prepared a hot toddy for her to drink, encouraging her to go back to bed where she slept all day. After placing the Montgomery chip in her phone, he scrolled through the numbers and found her brother. Placing the call, he gave him a GPS location.
“Your sister needs you,” he said in the phone to the masculine voice.
“On my way,” Dorian said, not questioning, only worrying and taking a paid car to the airport for the next plane to Tennessee.
BY THE TIME SHE AWOKE, she heard voices in the living room, and the sun had set. Her stomach grumbled loudly as if she hadn’t eaten in a fortnight. Washing her face and hands, she brushed her teeth and made her way towards the voices. She gasped in shock when she saw her brother in the living room.
It had been years since they’d seen each other, and he looked good. Khloe offered him a smile as he stood up and opened his arms to her. Beau expected her to run into them, but she didn’t. Leisurely, she strolled over as if the pastor was asking for candidates for baptism in a dirty pool of water.
Calmly, she gave him a half hug, asking, “Dorian, what are you doing here?”
“I got a call from the husband I didn’t know you had to get here as soon as possible,” he said. “Beau said you needed me.”
“I’m fine,” she said, actually meaning it. She offered him a seat, not taking one herself.
“Khloe, are you okay?” Dorian asked, his eyes warmed with concern.
Instead of answering him, she went to the strongbox, removed the contents and handed them to him. He eyed the two bags in his hand, his eyes tearing up when he looked up at her. “I didn’t know,” he said.
“I questioned so many things Dorian about her pain. I tried to get her counseling and when she refused, I went myself. Years of therapy, psychoanalysis, conversations on why my mother hated me and one day, a soldier asked me if I was the product of rape. The seed was planted, but I didn’t water or feed it. When I returned home from the Army, she had changed so much. The liquor had muddled her brain and she was even more distant and different than I remembered. I wanted to cry for her, for me, but what happened to her was nearly 40 years ago,” she told him. “I accepted the limited amounts of love she gave me and went on about my life. She was the best mother to me that she could be, all things considered.”
“Khloe, trust me when I say that Daddy never mentioned this, any of this to me, and every time I brought up the subject of either of you, he changed the topic to something else,” Dorian said.
“Dorian, there is really nothing to discuss here either,” she offered. “I’m sure Beau called you so you could offer me emotional support, but honestly, I don’t need it. To sit and worry if it was a stranger or someone she knew is not worth my energy. I am here. My husband loves me and I have a pretty decent job taking care of the residents of these communities. This, these bags she saved like it would be the answer to all my questions, which it isn’t, will not slow me down.”
“Have you considered maybe getting some more counseling, after this discovery, to help you sort through all of this, sis?” Dorian reached for his sister, but she stepped away from his grasp.
“As I said, I’ve had counseling for years to help me sift through my family’s issues. Including your failure to come back and see about our mother. Including Erica’s excessive drinking and a man who never could look me in the eye as if I was something dirty to him, is in my past,” she said. “Fuck counseling and you too for that matter. If I need to reimburse you for the plane ticket, let me know. However, feel free to stay the night or you can roll out now if you choose.”
“You are being unfair, Khloe,” Dorian said to her.
“Again, fuck fair, you, and the rented car you drove up in,” she said. “Fair has done nothing but shit on me my entire life. I don’t know who is my father or how I was conceived. And no, I’m not going to take those nasty panties for DNA testing against the national database of sex offenders. Who my father is at this point is irrelevant. I am here. I am Khloe Burgess Montgomery, a Nurse Practitioner. This is my husband, my mate, and my friend. My life is just fine.”
Dorian rose from his seat, but gathered his things and made his way to the door. She didn’t bother to walk him out, say farewell and even watch him drive away. Instead, she looked at her husband, who stared at her in shock.
“Damn! That felt good as hell,” she said, grinning. “I’m hungry. What do we have for dinner?”
“Khloe, are you sure you’re okay?” Beau asked.
“I have never been better in whole gosh dang life. It felt good to tell that fucker to kiss my ass. Him and his self-righteous daddy,” she said in a Tennessee accent. “All of his life he was embarrassed by Erica, ashamed to call her his mother. Never once did he stop to ask the reason behind her drinking nor care enough to come see about her when she and I needed him most.”
She shook her head as if a chill ran down her back.
“Whew, I feel like new money,” she said, bouncing off to the kitchen in almost a skip.
“Woman, I called him because I thought you needed him...,” Beau said.
“Beauregard Montgomery, all this woman needs is you,” she said, offering him a giant smile. “Oooh, biscuits! I am going to get fat as hell on your Mama’s biscuits.”
“You’re scaring me,” he said, watching her shovel biscuits into her mouth. “You just received horrific news, you cursed out your brother and sent him packing and you’re standing here eating biscuits.”
“Beau, you act as if I should be shocked by the news, I’m not. The evidence only confirmed what I already suspected; that I wasn’t his child,” she said. “Those baggies are going to be burned and I’m getting on with my life. There is nothing I can or am willing to do about it. As I said before, Erica did the best that she could by me. I turned out okay.”
“How did...as a child...you suspect such an ugly thing?”
“That man never looked me in my eyes. You saw my brother, he has his eyes. I don’t. My eyes aren’t even like Erica’s. Going to school in Chicago with kids from families with different baby daddy’s I added two and two,” she said. “I carried Ricky Burgess’ name, but that was all. He never owned me as his daughter, and I never truly claimed him as my father.”
; “This must have been tough on you,” he told her.
“It made me distrust men,” she replied. “For years I felt less than. My mother drank to deal with her failure to get rid of me, you know, abort me. The more I was around her the more she drank. She wasn’t affectionate to me, but never mean. For a while, I thought that maybe Erica blamed me for Ricky leaving, then I thought the liquor made him leave. This is why I didn’t cry over her death. How could I? We were finally rid of each other.”
“That’s kind of horrible,” Beau said, turning down his lips.
“No, my husband, it’s fucking liberating,” she said. “I have no need to ever feel ashamed again for who I am.”
Beau was quiet as he watched her open the foil-wrapped pans until she found the sausage, which she nibbled on as she watched him.
“Does this change anything for us?” she asked. “Are you okay being married to me now that you are aware of my conception?”
“You had no control over any of that, Khloe,” he said.
“My exact point,” she replied. “So why worry over shit that happened before I was born and let it ooze into my marriage and turn me into my mother. The Devil is a liar and I’m calling him out. If I may quote you, ‘I want no part of this chicanery!’”
She started to laugh, suddenly stopping and looking around the new home. The high ceilings with recessed lighting gave provided a softness to the room. Wood floors shone as if little men in elf costumes polished them on knobby hands and knees. The walls were bare and in need of paintings. Wide windows allowed in tons of light and the kitchen was a cook’s dream.
“Hey, I love this house. Can you explain one more time why we were living in a hexagon versus here?”
The Tennessee Mountain Man Page 17