This Wandering Heart

by Janine Rosche

  Robbie’s blood bubbled to the surface of his skin. He sunk his fingers into the man’s shoulder and yanked him back.

  The man slammed into the wall.

  Bits and pieces of something rained down on Robbie’s head and shoulders. “Did he hurt you?” Robbie’s voice came out in a yell, and Keira shriveled further into the space. He turned his attention to the man, who was straggling down the hall toward the dining room. “Did you hurt her?”

  The guy, apparently scared of what Robbie might do, looked back over his shoulder. His foot hooked on the doorframe of the men’s bathroom. He sprawled out on the dirt in front of the crowd, then rolled and covered his head.

  Robbie stood over the man, volts of electricity radiating through his clenched fists. He was sure that if he touched the guy, he would shock him dead.

  The fabric of Keira’s skirt breezed against him as she passed. She marched straight to the exit. Didn’t bother to hug him for saving her or anything.

  * * *

  * * *

  The only sound during the drive back to their hotel was Anabelle’s soft weeping. Having five men restrain her father so he doesn’t attack some college guy making nine dollars an hour can do that to a child. Her cry plunged deep into Keira’s chest. It ached, and as far as Keira could tell, the pain could only be soothed with anger at the one who’d turned an uncomfortable moment into a big scene.

  While Robbie held Anabelle in his arms, singing to her softly, Keira unlocked the door to his suite and held it open for him. “We need to talk.”

  “Let me tuck her in first. Take a seat.” He nodded to the fancy settee that looked as comfortable as the desk in her classroom.

  “I’m fine standing.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Ten minutes later he returned to the main room and pulled the bedroom door shut.

  “I never asked you to be my bodyguard. That’s not why I hired you,” she said.

  “I didn’t think I’d have to be. What was that guy trying to do to you?” He kept his voice so low it may as well have been a growl.

  “He only wanted a picture.”

  “Then what?”

  Keira clenched her teeth. If she looked straight through Robbie to the curtain behind him, she should be able to dull her eyes enough. He didn’t need to know how scared she’d been when the man approached her outside the bathroom and backed her up into that dark corner. Nor the way his filthy words slithered into her ear and coiled around her windpipe, suffocating her voice and draining all the strength from her body.

  Robbie scrubbed his hands through his hair. Even the muscles in his neck were strained. As he paced, she expected his boots to shatter the old wood floor like ice over a pond. “Do you have any idea how it feels to see men look at you as if they want to devour you? Or to read the things they say about you on that dumb app?”

  “That dumb app is paying for the bed your daughter is sleeping in right now. And how do you even know what they’re saying? I thought you weren’t on Momentso?”

  Robbie stammered, his lips tangling over his next words. “Your posts are public, and I did a search. Don’t change the subject. Doesn’t it bother you what they say about you?”

  “Yes, of course it bothers me, but it’s part of the job. You don’t have to read the comments.”

  “I wish I never had. They’re seared on my brain.”

  “It shouldn’t bother you. I’m not yours to protect. I’m not the weak little girl you dated before.”

  “You have all these followers salivating over you, and yet you post exactly where you are so they can come find you. That’s not brave. It’s dangerous. I’m all for the female empowerment that EndeavHerMore stands for, but you need to be realistic about threats.”

  “It isn’t only women that have to worry about harm. I saw the way that waitress was throwing herself at you. I’m surprised she didn’t follow you out of there and drag you back to her house.”

  “That’s different. I’m pretty sure I won’t be attacked by a woman wearing a gift shop bonnet.”

  “I can protect myself. If you hadn’t come barging in like a rhinoceros, I would have shoved him off me.”

  “You honestly believe you could’ve overpowered him? Unlikely. What happens if next time the guy looks like me? You have to be more careful, Keira.” He moved closer to her, bending his face toward hers. “Please.”

  Steadying her breath wasn’t so easy with him standing close. Her skin seemed to remember the feel of his embrace beneath the clouds yesterday. The way his shoulder had bumped against hers again and again on the train ride that morning. The warmth of his body at dinner. She cursed the weakness of her flesh. She did not need him. Not his protection. Not his companionship. Certainly not his affection. “I need to go.”

  “For once in your life, fight. Stop running and fight. I don’t care what you do to me or what kind of pain you cause me, but do it here, right in front of me. Don’t do it when you’re too far away to see the damage you’ve done.” His eyes shone pain.

  She told herself that running kept her safe. But now, with his presence awakening her every longing, she wondered what running might have made her miss out on. Now, more than ever, she needed to leave.

  “I know what you’re doing. You’re pushing me away because you’re afraid. I’m a threat to your world. John? Now, that guy was safe. He was easy to keep at arm’s length, wasn’t he? Then on Momentso, you form friendships—” He paused and chewed his bottom lip. “Those people are safe because they can’t see what you aren’t willing to show them. None of them can get through your barricade.”

  “You don’t know me at all.”

  “Keira, I know the rhythm your heart makes. You know how? Because I was already inside it when you built the fortress walls. I can get you to laugh despite a childhood of pain. I make you feel emotions you tried to bury. That’s what makes me dangerous. I’m right here. You can see me, hear me, touch me. I make you want more than you’ve dared to imagine, don’t I?”

  He was right. Heaven knows Robbie was right about all those things. And she hated him for it.

  Robbie smirked. “Are we about to fight-kiss?”

  Her train of thought came to a screeching halt. “Ficus? Like the tree?”

  “No. Fight-kiss.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know that scene in movies when the man and woman are yelling at each other and stuff, and then they kiss? We should do that.”

  “You’ve lost it. Why would I kiss you? I’m still angry at you.”

  “Because you haven’t kissed me in five years. And because your anger might get confused with the passion you feel for me.”

  No words. She had no words with which to respond to this absurdity. The nerve he had to assume she’d want to kiss him right now.

  “Go ahead. Yell in my ear. Slap my face. Then kiss me. And hey, if you want to hit me again afterward, that’s okay, too. Just so long as there’s a kiss somewhere in there.” He grinned and rubbed his hands together.

  “Don’t do that thing.”

  “What thing?”

  “That thing where you use charm to sweep the big issue under the rug. Don’t lessen this.”

  “I’m not trying to lessen it. I’m trying to . . . uh, more it.” That smirk again. Couldn’t he take anything seriously?

  Keira tried to channel all her frustration—and none of her attraction—into her expression.

  “What’s that?”

  “What’s what?”

  He wagged his finger between her brows. “That cute thing you’re doing with your face. Wait. Are you trying to glare at me?”

  She turned away from him. “Working together was a mistake. I think we’ve proved that. We’ll drive home tomorrow, I’ll pay you for your time, and we’ll part ways.” She pushed past him and headed to the exi
t of the suite. Once she was alone, she could think about her next steps She’d find a way not to need him, or anyone, for that matter.

  “Come on, Kat. I’ll be serious,” he said from behind her.

  “You don’t know how.”

  “You’re running.”

  Her satchel. Where had she put her satchel? “I’m walking.”

  “Same thing.” As she circled the room, the floor groaning with each step, he followed her with his eyes. “Will you please stop letting fear rule your life?”

  “That’s not what I’m doing. Ugh, where is that stupid thing?”

  Robbie lifted her bag off the dinette chair nearest to him. He held it out, and she snatched it. “Instead of facing this head-on and working through it, you’re taking off. Except instead of just me, this time you’re leaving Anabelle, too.”

  A million words tumbled around in her mouth. No matter what came out, she knew she couldn’t look him in the eye when she said it. Instead, she stared at the back of the hotel room door, at the framed map highlighting the emergency escape plan. “Anabelle was never my daughter to leave.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The next night, Robbie idled the truck in front of Keira’s apartment. Why wasn’t she getting out? Other than a few short conversations with Anabelle, she’d been silent for the entire nine-hour car trip back home. She hadn’t even thanked him for grabbing her a bottle of water and a pack of gum at the gas station. If her goal was to completely shut him out, she’d done so marvelously. She was locked up tighter than a bank vault. He’d tried to turn on some music and crack some jokes, but she stared through the windshield or fiddled on her phone.

  Worst was when they’d taken a break for lunch. He and Anabelle grabbed some hamburgers at a travel stop, while Keira had gone to the convenience store to find a cup of fruit to eat. Logging on to Momentso, being sure to avoid all comment threads, he opened a message from her.

  KAT WANDERFULL: @MRCustom, I’m sure you’ve seen that picture of me with that man. I wanted to tell you he means nothing to me. Not that you care. I wouldn’t want to lose your friendship. Sometimes it feels like all I have. Talk to you soon.

  At least now he knew. He meant nothing to her. Which was great. He could finally move on. Focus on Anabelle. Focus on building a life for the two of them. Keira Knudsen . . . Kat Wanderfull . . . was broken beyond repair. He’d tried to break into her shell. It hadn’t worked. So why wasn’t she getting out of the truck?

  She turned and looked in the back seat where Anabelle was sound asleep.

  Keira chewed her lip.

  Was that moisture in her eyes? Couldn’t be. Keira didn’t cry. She was incapable.

  She blinked it away. “Anabelle.” One word. Her voice cracked between the second and third syllable.

  Robbie waited for her to continue.

  “That was supposed to be the name for our daughter,” Keira said.

  “Huh?”

  “It was the beginning of freshman year. I was sitting in your dorm room, and we’d finished not watching some lame movie. The one part we did pay attention to had this kid in it with a horrible name. We decided that our little girl would be named Anabelle. Don’t you remember?”

  Vaguely. “Didn’t I say something like, ‘Our boy would be named Ryan, just to make my sister mad’?”

  “Yes, you did. But we’d decided Charles officially. Anabelle, and Charlie, for short.” Keira’s soft smile slid into a frown.

  “I didn’t remember. I mean, I must’ve had it ingrained in my brain somehow. But if I had remembered, I never would have—”

  She stopped him with a flinch and a hand up. “That day Anabelle was born was the hardest day of my life. Even harder than when I left you . . . what? Eleven months before? Ryann called me to break the news. When she told me that you’d given our name to the daughter you had with Vivian, I completely fell apart. It was so . . . cold. How little I must have mattered to you. You had everything. I was utterly alone. Keira, the unloved.”

  Robbie wanted to tell her how wrong she was about not being loved, about his “everything” with Vivian, but Anabelle was stirring. He couldn’t risk her hearing the truth.

  As quietly as his old truck would allow, Keira opened the door, then stepped out.

  Robbie retrieved her bags from the truck bed and carried them to her front door.

  She refused to let him carry them any farther.

  Right there on the doorstep of her condo, she wrote him a check, nearly shoving it in his pocket when he refused to accept it.

  Her bags separated them. The wind was pulling a strand of hair across her cheek and lips.

  She didn’t smile.

  Neither did he.

  “You’re wrong about my life after you left. How could I have everything if I didn’t have you?” He sighed. “Keira, I don’t want to say goodbye to you.”

  Wringing her fingers at her waist, she said nothing for a long minute. Then she grabbed the handle of the biggest suitcase. “The next trip is Tuesday. I’m heading down through Idaho to Nevada, then California. You promised Anabelle that you’d take her to the beach, so . . . I guess I’ll pick you up at nine a.m.?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I wanna catch a great big brown, Daddy. It’ll be this big.” Anabelle spread her arms as wide as she could, then looked back over her shoulder, catching Robbie’s eye.

  “I think we’d better let the Trout King stay in the river today, Kitty Kat.” Robbie lifted his face to the sky. Clouds stretched thin across the blue sky. They hardly moved in the still Saturday afternoon air. As Robbie reclined on the grass a few yards from the river, he appealed for God’s protection over Anabelle’s heart.

  “Why can’t we go fishing?” Anabelle scooted back, leaning against his chest.

  “Because we’re going to have a picnic instead. With a special visitor.”

  “Keira?” Anabelle’s voice burst from her with joy.

  “Not Keira.” Robbie pressed his lips to the top of Anabelle’s head.

  “Who?” Her shoulders twisted as she turned to face him. Full of innocence, her eyes glimmered. She placed her hands on his cheeks and studied his face.

  “Her name is Vivian.” He gathered his breath. “She’s your mother.”

  Anabelle gently pushed against his right cheek, then his left, turning his face back and forth.

  “God grew you in Vivian’s belly. She’s your mom.”

  “Then she put me in your arms and went on a big ’venture?” When Anabelle squished his cheeks, his lips jutted forward, and she giggled.

  “Yes, she went on an adventure, but she missed you. So we’re having a picnic with her. You can show her how cute, funny, and smart you are. Would you like that?”

  “Can we go fishing?” Anabelle tugged on his earlobes.

  “I don’t think Vivian likes to fish.”

  “Maybe someday we can go fishing with Keira.” Her hands dropped. She slumped against Robbie’s chest, her legs and arms tangled in a knot. Soon her breathing deepened. Her light snore joined in the melody of the river sounds.

  Thank you, Lord, for these moments with her. Thank you for giving me the strength to be the daddy she needs. Help Vivian to be the mother she needs.

  Twenty minutes later, after his mother had delivered a basket of sandwiches, homemade potato chips, and chocolate chip cookies, Vivian arrived. She walked slowly toward them as if any moment she expected the ground to open and swallow her. The sun reflecting off her stark white blouse seared Robbie’s eyes. She wore khaki-colored capris that still had the crease from an iron down the front.

  She lowered herself onto the far edge of the blanket. Her legs disappeared, tucked neatly beneath her. Dark, oversize sunglasses covered her eyes. Pursed lips and clasped hands rounded out her untouchable appearance. And yet, the lock of hair that ended in a sharp angle at
her chin trembled slightly, and it couldn’t be blamed on a breeze.

  “Kitty Kat, wake up.” Robbie roused her by sweeping a hand down her cheek. “This is Vivian.”

  Anabelle squirmed. When she caught sight of Vivian, she sat up straighter but kept her hand on Robbie’s leg.

  “Hi,” Vivian said. A simple word, yet it had the sound of a gasp. She fumbled to remove her sunglasses.

  Anabelle stared hard for a long time. Finally, she relaxed back against Robbie. “Did you like the rainbow waterfall?”

  “What waterfall?” Confusion knit Vivian’s brow.

  “The one from your big ’venture. Daddy told me all about it.” Anabelle rubbed her eyes. “You were gone for a long, long time.”

  “I know I was.” Pain harnessed Vivian’s gaze. “That won’t happen again. I promise.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Sitting across the table from Claire Knudsen was like watching a silent film without the accompanying music. Soundlessly, she swirled her spoon in her chamomile, again and again, her focus diving to the depths of the teacup. Once the tea had been sufficiently infused, she scooped out the tea bag, then placed the spoon on the porcelain saucer without even a tap, much less a clink. In contrast to the stark white walls, cabinets, and tile, as well as her mother’s pale face and hair, the rich amber liquid seemed out of place. So was the bruised skin peeking out from her mother’s sleeve when she lifted the cup for a sip. As if someone had used Technicolor to tinge it for effect.

  Keira had to look away. Around her, nothing had changed. Her childhood home was a time capsule of the early 1990s. Her father didn’t like change. Or mess. Or noise. Or disobedience. And her mother didn’t like to upset him, because here . . . consequences hurt.

  “Mama, come with me. I can take care of you out there.” Keira waited until her mother had replaced the cup on the saucer, then covered her mother’s hand with hers. As gently as if she was detangling Anabelle’s curls, she turned her mother’s hand over. She pulled back the silk to reveal the splotch on her mother’s wrist. “This isn’t normal outside of these walls.”