by Natalie Dean
He didn’t like that she did that, and back then he had been the one to comfort her. But now he was…
No one.
The thought soured his mood, and he made sure Chastity got in before crossing over to his side.
It was a shame, really. During their conversation in the waiting room, it had almost felt like old times. It was far too easy to feel pulled to her, and after only a few lines of banter, he almost forgot about their bitter breakup that seemed to have left both of them scarred.
After all these years, he had been blaming everything on Chastity, but could it be that he was the one in the wrong? Had he blocked out those memories of his promise to ease his broken heart, or was it just an accident from too much time passing?
Who knew? Certainly not him. And all it took was another glance at Chastity’s troubled face to realize there was even more going on that he wasn’t privy too.
For the first part of the drive, Mrs. Parker kept the truck from being an uncomfortable silence by chatting away. She really was a lovely woman. It was a shame that she was possibly sick with something. Maybe that was what made her so confused earlier?
But after a while, she nodded off, resting her gray head against the cushioned head of the seat and breathing steadily. He was tempted to ask Chastity what was going on, but her full lips were pressed into a thin line and that told him that she wasn’t in the mood for much talk.
And so the moments passed, with Ben not even willing to turn on the radio, lest he wake the woman. No doubt Mrs. Parker needed her sleep, even if it meant an hour or so of discomfort on his part.
Still, it seemed to be an eternity before he finally pulled up to the Parker’s house. As he stopped the car, the woman beside him stayed sleeping, and Chastity looked from her mother to the front door of their house with concern.
“Don’t worry,” Ben said, reading the look on her face. “I’ll get her for you.”
She heaved a sigh of relief, and to Ben’s surprise, it made him feel good. He needed to get home and clear his head before his emotions did anything else strange.
But first, he needed to help.
Throwing the car into park, he crossed around to Mrs. Parker’s side and carefully opened the door. The woman didn’t stir, even as he slid his muscled arms behind her back and under her legs.
Slowly, he pulled her to his chest until she was snugly in his grasp. The older woman was far too light for his tastes. He would have to see that his ma made her some fatty food to help her bulk up.
His eyes flitted to Chastity, who was looking to him with an apprehensive sort of gratitude. Against his better judgment, his gaze slid along her soft curves. As long as he could remember, both women had been beautifully feminine in their full-figured silhouettes, so feeling Mrs. Parker so slender was troubling.
“Lead the way,” he said to Chastity, stepping to the side.
Of course, he knew his way around her old house. He had spent hours there after all. But the polite thing to do seemed to be to let her show him the way like they weren’t familiar.
Yet even with those extra steps, déjà vu settled over him like a warm blanket. How many memories were made in the house he was stepping into? Hours studying, eating warm meals. Laughing and planning their future. While he had never been allowed in her room with the door closed, he could still recall perfectly what it looked like, as if they had just parted yesterday.
What was happening to him? He’d never been the sentimental type, and yet he felt like he was drowning in emotion. He didn’t like it. It was cloying and stuck to the roof of his mouth like a bad taste. He wanted to go back to the ranch where everything made sense and where he wasn’t feeling thrown into chaos by the beautiful woman that his heart ached for.
“I’ll take her up to her room,” he said, banishing those longing thoughts from his head and directing himself to the stairs.
It was all too easy to get her up the stairs, and then to her bed, where he gently set Chasity’s fragile mother down. It seemed a bit strange to tuck Mrs. Parker in, but he didn’t want to just leave her curled on top of her comforter. Sitting beside her, he offered a quick prayer for her health, or just a little lucidity. He knew that God had a plan for everything, but goodness, that path was plenty obscured at the moment. Surely, she and Chastity had been through enough already, hadn’t they?
He didn’t get an answer, but he knew that was how prayer worked, and he trusted God had a plan for them. Bidding the unconscious woman good night, he headed back downstairs.
Chastity was still standing at the foot of the stairs, her face toward the wall. At first Ben thought that perhaps she had been waiting for him, but then he noticed that her gaze was affixed to the many portraits that lined the staircase.
Ben remembered several of the moments depicted. When Chastity had won Battle of the Books, and when she had been cast as the lead in the school play. When her father had been promoted at work. When they had gone to the high school prom.
So many happy memories, yet they seemed so melancholy. Like dozens of slices of everything she was losing instead of treasured snapshots of a life well-lived.
Ben wasn’t quite sure what to do, so he cleared his throat before speaking. “Hey, are you okay?”
She didn’t budge at first, and for a moment, he thought she hadn’t heard him. But then her head slowly turned toward him, as if she was made of stone and had just come to life.
Those eyes.
Once more he was caught up in those swirling pools of almost-black eyes. Bottomless and filled with swirling emotion, he felt like her gaze was swallowing him whole. Pain, worry, concern, all of it whirled in that expression, stealing his breath away.
“Chastity…”
He wasn’t sure what he was going to say, but apparently that simple word was all that she needed. Suddenly, she was closing the space between them until her arms were around him and her head was against his chest.
He stiffened for a moment, surprised, but softened after a breath. Bending slightly, he wrapped his arms around her as well, holding her as she sobbed against his chest.
It pained him to hear her hurting so terribly. He wanted her to be happy, even if he resented her for leaving him. But then again, hadn’t he found out that he was the one who had broken his promise to her? Did that mean that he was the one in the wrong all these years?
Perhaps. But it didn’t really matter. The only thing that was important was the woman sobbing in his arms and the connection he could feel tying her to him.
He stroked her dark hair, slowly rocking her a bit. How many times had he wished to run his fingers through the black strands again? Too many to count. She had always been a bit vain about her long tresses, and he couldn’t quite blame her.
While Chastity and her mother had never lived on the reservation, their Native American features were still distinct. She had taught him the value her culture placed on their hair, even if she and her mother were only part Native, and many other things that he might not have heard of otherwise. It wasn’t like they were actually taught about Native American culture in school.
The minutes passed, punctuated by her tears and sobs, but he let her take as much time as she needed. He felt as if he could hold her forever. Her fortress in the storm. Someone that she could cling to in the whirlwind that she was swept up in.
“Honey! Honey, where are you?”
Mrs. Parker’s frantic voice cut through the moment, and Chastity shuttered, pulling her soft, warm body away from Ben. He wanted to reach out and continue to hold her to his side, but he refrained.
“Sorry,” she said faintly, wiping the tears from her face. He wanted to tell her that she had nothing to apologize for at all, but then she was clearing her throat and turning away. “I better go check on her. Thank you. For… everything, I guess.”
“It was nothing. Really.”
She looked like she wanted to say something more, but then her mother called out again, and she hurried up the stairs, then out of
sight.
Ben stood there for several moments, blinking and trying to order his thoughts. He felt like he was torn somewhere between the teenage him that had been so foolhardily in love and his grown self, who didn’t have time for silly relationship shenanigans or gold diggers.
Somehow his feet led him toward the door, and he wandered out to his truck, where he got in. Mind whirling, he turned the engine on and headed home.
He wasn’t sure what was happening, but the twisting in the pit of his stomach told him that it wasn’t anything good.
12
Chastity
The wind kicked up, throwing the fine dirt of the small town into Chastity’s face as she walked down the street. It did nothing to improve her mood, which was already quite sour.
But didn’t she have enough reason to feel sour? Lately, it seemed like she was busy either shoving away emotions she didn’t want to deal with or drowning in stress and fear. It wasn’t a pleasant sort of sensation, but she didn’t see a way out.
It had been a week since that fateful doctor’s appointment, and she’d been waiting by the phone and with her cell on full volume the entire time. Most of the days her mother seemed perfectly fine—aside from grieving the love of her life. But sometimes it was very clear that something was wrong with her. Either she would talk like a child, or mistake Chastity for a friend, or wonder when her dead husband was getting back. Chastity made sure to write it down dutifully in the journal she was using, but she was filling up the pages far too quickly for her liking.
It was those reasons that she was loath to leave her mother alone, but she had realized that she had to. Her cell phone bill was coming up, and they were almost out of meals that people had given them at her father’s funeral. Chastity had assumed that her mother was a bit more financially set in her older years, but a quick look into her parents’ checking account had told her that it was almost empty.
She hadn’t meant to snoop, but the gas bill had come in, and her mother had asked her to take care of it since it used to be Chastity’s dad’s job and her mother just couldn’t bring herself to do it. Naturally, Chastity had agreed, but she hadn’t expected to be faced with the fact that both she and her mother were very, very broke.
Actually, it was worse than that.
Her parents had been in debt.
The gas bill was the only thing that was current. But their electric and mortgage were both two months behind. Why had they let it get so bad? Why hadn’t they told Chastity? She wasn’t sure what she would have done if they had told her, but she would have done something. She would have fought tooth and nail to make sure it didn’t get to that point.
And so, it was while lying in bed, realizing that she was stuck in town for another three weeks at minimum, that she knew she had to get a job.
Easier said than done.
Unlike the city, where she could just hop on the internet and see what was available, she had to visit all the shops in town in person with a resume in hand. It was like living in the Stone Age, and she put a check in the column for one of the bad things about living in a small town.
She’d visited the bookstore, the library, the clinic, and the only fast food joint in town yesterday and was now on her way to the local grocery store. Although it had started off as a Ma-and-Pa shop when her mother was a kid, it had expanded into an almost castle-like building—complete with a clocktower that dwarfed everything except the church in town.
As Chastity strode up to the building, she saw it was just like she remembered. Stopping in front of the glass doors, she made sure to straighten herself up before heading in.
Being a weekday during the school year, there weren’t a whole lot of people milling around. Chastity managed to spot a cashier, who was waiting on the only customer in his line.
She strode over and waited until he was done. Something about his face rang a bell in the back of her mind. She couldn’t quite place it, however, so she kept the nostalgia to herself as she greeted him.
“Hey there,” she said with a broad smile. “Do you know if you guys are hiring at all?”
The cashier looked to her, and his hazel eyes grew wide in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? Chastity Parker is that you?”
Chastity blinked at him, a bit shocked by his amazed tone. She still had no idea who he was and that was quickly growing embarrassing. “Uh… yes?”
“Dude, I haven’t seen you in years.” She must have still been staring at him in bewilderment because he laughed heartily and explained himself. “I don’t expect you to remember me. I was just some dumb underclassman and an understudy in our school’s play when you were a senior. But man, I had the biggest crush on you. When I heard that you’d left town for college, I was devastated.”
He laughed again and offered his hand. “Jeremy Comstock,” he said with a grin. “Nice to finally introduce myself. So, what brings you back home?”
“My father died.”
His jovial expression dimmed a bit. “Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry. I think I read about that in the paper. I just didn’t connect the dots that that Mr. Parker was your father. Are you all right?”
Well, if the cat was already out of the bag, why not be completely honest? “Actually, not really.” She took a deep breath. Normally, she was not this open. One of the complaints her few partners had was that she never opened up, so telling such intimate details to a stranger was wholly bizarre. “Turns out my parents’ finances weren’t exactly in order. My mom is in pretty bad shape now, so I was hoping to get a job while I figure things out.”
“Geez, yeah, that’s rough.” He shook his head, and to her dismay, his expression didn’t brighten to offer her a job or give her advice about how to get one. In fact, the next words out of his mouth were quite the opposite. “Man, if you’re looking here, I don’t think you’re gonna have a good time of it.”
Chastity’s stomach squeezed. “What do you mean?”
“Well, do you remember the owners? They’re super staunch about supporting the town and usually only hire people they’ve known for ages. No offense, but when you left for the Big Apple, everyone figured you thought the town wasn’t good enough for you. You can try, but I don’t think it’s likely that they’ll be interested in hiring you.”
“Oh.”
What could she say to that? That was years ago. Certainly, they wouldn’t hold a teenager’s enthusiasm for escaping her hometown against her, would they?
Jeremy must have seen her crestfallen expression because he scrambled to cheer her up. “But who knows? Maybe I’m wrong. I’ll talk to the owner and see if I can put in a good word for you. I think he was friends with your pops, so that certainly can’t hurt.”
“Thank you,” Chastity said softly, feeling like she was caught between gratitude and anger. Too much of her current situation wasn’t fair. “I would really appreciate it.”
“No problem. That’s what friends are for, right? Or in this case, underclassmen who you never knew existed in high school.”
“Yeah, you’re so funny,” she tried to joke. “Well, I’m going to head out. Here’s my resume if he bends at all.” She handed over the paper as calmly as she could before leaving, but once she was on the street, all of her emotions were threatening to well out of her.
It just wasn’t fair! She was a hard worker. And she would make sure that she did her best. Why would anyone hold the fact that she had escaped from the tiny town against her? Didn’t any of them ever want to spread their wings and live somewhere else? Where their destiny wasn’t already decided for them from the day they were born?
Ugh.
It wouldn’t help her employment chances to have a temper tantrum in the street, so she headed home. Maybe she could go on a run later at the high school. Students were rarely there after it got dark, and it was nice to jog around the track under the starlight.
Or at least that was what she had done back in high school. While she had never been very fast—thick thighs always protesting if too
much friction happened—she had enjoyed the endorphins. It also helped that Ben had often driven there to meet her. She could still feel how her heart rate would speed up at the site of him. Occasionally there were kisses and cuddles, but mostly he just watched to make sure she was safe from coyotes and stray ranch hands.
No, she didn’t need to think about those nights right now. Ever since the last time she had seen Ben, she had done her best to keep him solidly out of her mind. It was clear that, in her emotional state, she was getting confused from being around him, which was ridiculous. They weren’t in love. Not anymore. In fact, they were probably in hate. So, the best thing to do would be to forget that he existed. He seemed to have forgotten her just fine since the appointment at the doctor’s office.
Chastity kicked a rock, muttering to herself as she headed home. It didn’t take her long, but as she cut through a yard and saw the porch looming into view, she realized someone was standing there.
Her pace picked up, and she could see her mother standing in the doorway, hands on her hips and face flushed. The person on the porch was a man in a suit, and he towered over her mom’s frail form.
Chastity could tell by both of their body language that it wasn’t a pleasant conversation, and she sped toward them. As she got closer, she could hear her mother’s raised voice insisting that he leave. That was enough for her, and she cleared her throat.
“Excuse me,” she said, moving past him on the porch to insert herself between him and her mother. “Do you have business here?”
The man was a strange one, she realized now that she was standing close to him. His features were pleasant enough, but there was a cold sort of deadness behind his eyes and a viper’s kiss to his smile. He looked both stiff and sleezy at the same time, something Chastity hadn’t thought was possible until that moment. His light, blond hair was slicked back like a helmet, and his blue eyes were downright frigid.
“Yes, with Mrs. Parker. I work with several financial institutions and need to speak with her directly.”
