The Winter Before

by Karen Crompton

  “Do I have a choice?”

  Olivia shook her head, and Isaac smirked, only a faint tick under his eye. He checked both ways for oncoming traffic when they came to a crossroad, and then he turned left toward a small group of buildings that couldn’t have been more than a mile or two down the road.

  “Fine, go ahead then.”

  “When I was about ten years old, we went on a trip to Yellowstone. My parents had been planning for it for ages. They had been saving money and organizing time away from the bakery for months on end. They couldn’t stop talking about it. ‘The Parker Family Extravaganza’ they called it.”

  Isaac’s eyes glistened again. “And was it?”

  “What?”

  “An extravaganza.”

  “No. It was shit. All four of us were cramped into an RV that was made for two—being that my dad’s a tight-ass and didn’t want to fork out the money for a bigger van—but anyway, that’s totally not the point of my story. I digress.”

  Olivia waved her hand around in front of her face like she was brushing away mosquitoes.

  “The point of my story is, this one day we were all set to visit Old Faithful, and I really, really, really didn’t want to go. What little girl would want to watch stinky hot mud and slime that’s been buried in the ground for years, explode all over the place?”

  “Sounds disgusting.”

  “In theory,” Olivia mocked, throwing Isaac’s words from earlier right back at him. “You see, despite all the grumbling and groaning we finally made it there, and we were sitting on those hard timber seats with everyone else for what felt like an eternity. I didn’t think anything was going to happen. But then it finally did, and…” Olivia reached across the seat and laid her hand on Isaac’s wide forearm. “And I swear to God, Isaac, it was the most spectacular thing I’d ever seen. Holy crap, that thing goes so high in the air. I was completely star struck. It was so imperfect, so raw and rough and ugly. So messy. So broken. So stinky. But it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”

  Olivia swung her knees back around again toward the front, not pushing Isaac for more than he was willing to give but satisfied she’d made her point.

  She released a quick breath, and then looked out the window beside her, taking in the changing scenery as they headed down the road.

  “And in case you were wondering,” she added as an afterthought. “No… I don’t have anyone special in my life either. Thanks for asking.”

  Isaac had been silent up to that point, simply listening. He liked the way Olivia’s voice sounded and he enjoyed her story, but he still wasn’t entirely convinced.

  There was beauty. And then there was him.

  The urge to scratch at his neck, to pick away at the pain and humiliation pushing up inside his skin like shrapnel trying to work its way out of the deepest wound was overwhelming.

  He didn’t want to talk about himself anymore. He didn’t like where the conversation was headed, and he certainly didn’t want Olivia’s pity. He tried to come across as nonchalant, but he felt anything but.

  “Why not?”

  “Why not, what?”

  “Why don’t you have anyone special in your life?”

  Olivia raked her hand over her ponytail, letting her hair slide easily through her fingers. “I thought I could trust someone, once. A boy. Turns out I couldn’t. It takes a while to come back from that sort of thing.”

  Isaac nodded slowly. He got the feeling there was a story buried there in unspoken chapters, but he could tell Olivia wasn’t going to elaborate. His voice barely vibrated with a whisper of words not meant for anyone else’s ears. “What an idiot.”

  But Olivia heard them.

  And they were her new favorite words.

  What and An and Idiot.

  She knew it didn’t make any sense but she relished in the way Isaac apparently thought less of anyone letting her go, or hurting her.

  A draft swept through the car, making her tremble. She tried to swallow, but that didn’t work. She tried to speak, but her words came out sounding choked. She raised her eyes to his. They said so many things, but they also told her nothing at all.

  And strangest of all, she had an overwhelming desire to touch his face, to feel his skin, to take away the pain that was hidden there between every line and crevice.

  Her head suddenly jerked to the side when the wheels of the truck rattled over a cattle grate, and the truck rolled to a slow crawl and then came to a complete stop at a gas station just off the main road.

  The cool air nipped at Olivia’s skin when Isaac threw open his door and jumped down from the driver’s side, causing a burning sensation in her cheeks.

  Her heart sank like an anchor, pinning her to the seat as she watched him round the vehicle to the side with the gas tank. He popped the cap, tapped his card, and credit appeared on the display.

  Isaac frowned as he removed the nozzle and started pumping, and Olivia wondered if he regretted saying what he’d just said. Her blood felt thick inside her veins, as if it was struggling to chase itself around her body. She liked Isaac. There was no point denying it. And she wondered if perhaps, just maybe, under all that calloused bravado, if maybe he liked her just a little bit too.

  She opened the door. “I’ll get us drinks?”

  Isaac nodded, but didn’t look up.

  The wind blew hard now, barreling straight through her and she shivered as she grabbed her handbag from the floor beneath the seat, then closed the truck door and headed toward the store.

  Isaac rummaged around in his pocket, searching for some loose change. “Let me pay.”

  But Olivia waved him off. “Forget it,” she said over her shoulder. She turned and walked backward a few steps. “What do you want?”

  “Not coffee.”

  Olivia grinned, in spite of herself. “Duly noted.”

  And Isaac watched her go.

  He enjoyed the way she moved so effortlessly, so unaware of her pretty face and her supple body. He liked the gentle sway of her hips and the way her breasts bounced ever so slightly when she walked. It made him think things… things he had no business thinking.

  And that made him feel sick.

  What right did someone like him have to be looking at someone like Olivia Parker? He was still Isaac Stone. He still looked the way he did. And she deserved more than he could ever offer.

  He wasn’t an invalid though, he wasn’t a pity case, and he certainly didn’t need some girl paying for his drink.

  Some girl.

  The thought sat awkwardly within him.

  And as he deliberated over that fact, wasting time over-thinking things, the way he so often did, a rusty hatchback screeched to a stop on the opposite side of the gas pump.

  Isaac almost missed the two teenage boys who climbed out of the car, lost as he was in deep thought, his hair pushed back from his face so that he could clearly watch the numbers tick over on the screen.

  And that was the moment he realized he’d just committed his number one rule. He’d let his guard down. And he was about to pay the ultimate price.

  “God, damn,” one of the boys hollered, and Isaac turned reluctantly. The pimply faced jock caught sight of Isaac’s scars before he could rectify things, and for a split second Isaac thought he’d got away with it. But he couldn’t have been more wrong.

  “Don’t look now, but we just pulled up next to Frankenstein!” The other boy craned his neck to see over the top of the car, but by that time Isaac had turned his back completely, letting his hair surround his face, a shield that was meant to shelter him.

  The kids laughed loudly at Isaac’s obvious attempts to hide from them.

  “Where’s the fancy dress party, freak?”

  Isaac stood frozen in place. He wanted to turn and run, every muscle in his body begged him to. Every nerve, every reflex demanded he jump back into the truck and head straight for home. Without stopping. Without consideration of anyone or anything else.

  But
the nozzle was still pumping, the numbers clicking over at a torturously slow pace, and he couldn’t very well leave Olivia stranded out there on the highway all by herself.

  The first boy stepped forward, and when Isaac didn’t immediately answer him he lashed out, kicking the back of Isaac’s leg, making him buckle slightly at the knee and he grabbed the side of the truck with his free hand to stop himself from falling.

  Isaac was three times the size of this boy—taller by a foot, wider by a good six inches, and he had strong muscles where the kid had nothing but skin and bone—but Isaac’s fight, flight, or freeze instincts had always been off, and despite the fact that he wanted nothing more than to rip the prick’s head off and spit in the hole, his body stood completely motionless.

  Frozen.

  And there wasn’t a single thing he could do about it.

  Olivia jogged back to the truck from inside the store, not wanting to keep Isaac waiting in the cold any longer than necessary.

  She carried in her hands two enormous cups of soda. Isaac hadn’t said anything about not liking soda, so she’d taken a gamble and hoped for the best.

  “Please tell me you don’t have an aversion to cherry-cola?”

  She looked up when Isaac didn’t answer her, then stopped suddenly, the small smile she’d worn on her face as she’d left the store instantly wiped clean when she noticed two boys circling Isaac, like sharks.

  She hesitated, mid-step.

  What was going on? Was he being robbed?

  Should she run back inside and report it to the attendant, or…

  “Oh, look who we have here! It’s the bride of Frankenstein!”

  The teenage boy howled with laughter when his eyes swooped up and down Olivia’s jean-clad thighs. Her sweater was sitting slightly askew with the way she was carrying the drinks, and she realized in that moment that the thin white lace of her bra strap was showing. Ice ran through her and over her, and her skin broke out in goose bumps, which had nothing to do with the cold blast of air that had just pushed its way through the gas station.

  “No, way!” He hooted. “There’s no way this is yours, freak show.”

  Olivia gaped, slightly dumbstruck. She glanced at Isaac, but he was staring at the ground and gave her no clue as to what was happening.

  “Tell me you’re not his girlfriend. You can’t be. Not possible.”

  The other one asked, “Are you his caregiver?”

  Olivia felt the weight of her frown pull her brows together. She had no idea what this kid was talking about, but the sharp stab at her chest told her otherwise.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Are you his caregiver?” The boy spoke slowly and loudly, as if Olivia was incapable of understanding. “Does he pay you to wipe his ass for him? Or better still, does he just drag it behind him on the grass like a dog?” The boy hunched over then, pulling a lame leg behind him, his tongue half hanging out his mouth as he hobbled around in circles. “I am not an animal!”

  Olivia couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  Her mouth fell open and she dropped both sodas without thought, cherry-cola flooding the concrete in a pool of dark ink as she lunged forward.

  Her face was blank, but the blood pulsing through her veins was no longer thick and concentrated. It was boiling hot and it coursed throughout her entire body like it was lapping itself, trying to win some kind of race.

  Olivia swore and then cursed again at the same volume as she reached for the back of the boy’s letterman jacket. And then she vaguely heard the click of the gas pump somewhere behind her.

  Strong arms wrapped around her waist, a vise pulling her backward toward the truck.

  Isaac’s touch was in no way gentle, it was forceful in fact, demanding her attention, and she lost focus of where she was or what she was doing. His fingers dug firmly into her sides, and then, as if she weighed no more than air and feathers, he lifted her up into the front seat of the truck and slammed the door firmly behind her.

  They hit the road again within seconds, black tires making traction with black tar, the icy afternoon air rushing through the window so hard and fast now that it made it almost impossible for Olivia to hear herself think.

  She wound up the window, and when the truck was warm and silent, she looked across at Isaac. But Isaac didn’t look back at her. Not this time. He simply stared straight ahead. The one eye she could see was wide, wild, focused on the road.

  And in that moment, his silence told her more than any words ever could.

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  “Don’t.”

  One word.

  Cold.

  Hard.

  Isaac spoke in a thin voice that shook, and shards of glass scratched at Olivia’s eyes, making them swell with unspoken emotion.

  He sat stiffly in the seat as he drove, the tension in the air suddenly so thick she thought she could almost feel it sodden and heavy in the palm of her hand.

  “Isaac, look at me.”

  “Just forget it.”

  “No. That was—”

  “Stop!” Isaac’s response was instantaneous. “It was nothing. I’m fine.”

  Olivia reached over, touched Isaac’s shoulder. “You’re not fine. You’re shaking. And that’s okay. I completely understand.”

  “You,” he said in a hard voice that sounded broken. “Understand nothing. You have no idea how this feels, or what I go through. And I definitely don’t need you to defend me.” Isaac’s voice was hoarse, his expression somber.

  He was obviously embarrassed by what had just happened back at the gas station, and while she’d not wanted their day together to end this way, she didn’t regret reacting the way she had, for that would have gone against everything she stood for in life.

  “They shouldn’t have said those horrible things to you.”

  “No. They shouldn’t have. But I don’t need you to take care of me. I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it for a long time. I’ll be doing it for a long time to come. Stay out of my business, and I’ll stay out of yours.”

  Olivia balked slightly, offended.

  “I… I don’t think you need taking care of. Nor was I trying to get up in your business, but… but those boys were being jerks.” Olivia’s voice cracked, the promise of tears threatening. “You weren’t doing anything. You were just standing there. You were just standing there, letting those jerks… be jerks!”

  Isaac failed to disguise the sarcastic scoff that slipped through his lips. “Oh, that’s what I was doing, was I?” His voice was deceptively low. It lacked warmth, lacked emotion, and Olivia could tell he was trying to hold it together. “I’m sorry, Miss Parker, but I didn’t realize you were such an expert on the matter. You can’t judge a man until you’ve walked a day in his shoes. You don’t know what it’s like, so don’t sit there and tell me how to handle something that I’ve been handling since I was six years old.”

  Olivia blinked, her jaw jutted forward, and a reluctant tear rolled down her cheek.

  She wanted to shout at Isaac that he was wrong, that he had no claim to be talking to her that way when all she’d done was try and help him.

  But ultimately, he was right.

  She didn’t know what it was like to be him. She didn’t live with the scars, or the pain. She didn’t live with a daily reminder of such dreadful horror and heartbreak. She cringed in shame, desperate to make things right again.

  “I’m sor—” she began, but Isaac cut her off with a look that begged her not to bother with what she was about to say.

  “They aren’t the first people to ever tease me, Olivia,” he muttered, and the sound of her name falling from his lips took considerable restraint not to melt into it. “But the reality of the situation is, they won’t be the last.” He shook his head, one hand clutching huge handfuls of his hair between his fingers, pulling it slightly as if he was intentionally trying to cause himself discomfort. “This is my life, the only life I know, so…so…” Isaac suddenl
y stopped, and took a deep breath, releasing it slowly with defeat. His eyes lost the intensity they held just moments before. They glossed over slightly and he shook his head as if he had something else to add but had suddenly changed his mind. “Nothing. Let’s just go home.”

  Olivia sat frozen in place.

  And that was that. They headed toward Woodlake.

  And neither one of them spoke another word the entire trip.

  Words, like knives, slice deep if you let them. Though strangely, after Isaac’s earlier outburst, Olivia didn’t have the energy left to feel much of anything.

  She sat back in the seat and stared out the window, wondering so many things about the man sitting beside her. What kind of life had he led that had made him this way? What kind of life had he lived to bring him to this point?

  He was a recluse for a reason, shut off from everyone by circumstance, or by choice.

  She wasn’t sure?

  Her chest pinched and her fingers flexed with the thought. Isaac had lived a life she might never comprehend, but life was about living, at least that’s the way she saw it, and not so much about hiding in fear.

  Though what did she know?

  Isaac steered the truck back toward town, then took a turn just before the Briar’s Creek Bridge. Crunching over the pebble-strewn driveway, he drove the truck in the direction of Mrs. Ackerman’s property so that he could drop Olivia off right out front of her house.

  The late afternoon sky rumbled with rolling clouds and thunder, and it looked like it might start raining at any moment. Olivia knew it would be dark soon, and the gathering storm threatened as the first fat drops plopped heavily against the windshield.

  When Isaac stopped and the engine cut, he yanked the handbrake on and then jumped out without waiting, without looking at her, and disappeared around the back of the truck.

  Olivia heard the tailgate drop heavily and then she watched as Isaac carried three cans of paint, and the box full of supplies up onto the porch for her, stacking them all neatly beside the front door.