Love Bound

by Rebecca Ryan

  Warm and flushed from head to toe and almost too hot, I try to ease myself out from under his arm, scoot to the edge of the bed, and climb out. He's still asleep, and although his face is terribly pale, his breathing is even. I check the bandages. The skin around them is not hot or pink, which means so far there's no infection. Moving to the window, I take a peek at the sea, the coastline, and try to decipher the weather.

  Icicles hang one story up from the roof, like clear, six-inch teeth. Chloe used to call them dragon's teeth when we were little. She'd make up stories of gods and goddesses who could talk to dragons—or were part dragon—and when I lost my first tooth, it was during an ice storm just like this one. She went out and collected a dozen or so icicles after knocking them down with a broom from her window. She carried them into the kitchen to show me that even dragons lost their teeth. Humans lost one or maybe two at a time, she explained to each of us, but dragons lost them in batches. She got so good at telling the story, it became family lore. When Travis lost five teeth at once, he thought for a whole month he was part dragon. Even at fourteen, so did I, and for a few moments, I thought my baby brother had dragon DNA.

  The ground outside is coated in ice, and the icy rain has turned to snow. Big heavy flakes are fluttering down and have already layered every surface with a good three inches of snow. Underneath, I’m sure the roads are slick with black ice, making it impossible to travel now. I need to get to my emergency weather alert radio or at least the coast guard scanner to figure out when I can call for help.

  We must have slept twelve hours and the room is chilly, the fire reduced to embers. There's little wood left. Turning my attention to the fireplace, I poke at it and throw in the last two remaining sticks. I try to make some air pockets underneath, so they catch quickly.

  As flames flicker to life I know they're not going to last longer than half an hour, and we're going to have to move to the clinic. The generator will have kicked in last night when the power went out and my place will be warm. He can have Devon and Laurel's old room. The Inn will take forever to heat up.

  I glance at him. In the silver light of a muted morning, he lies in a deep sleep. I hate to wake him, but he'll need to get dressed. With a layer of snow over ice, it'll be a slippery walk back to my place and we need to get moving.

  Hunting down his clothes proves difficult. I start with the dresser—makes sense. When I pull out the bottom drawer, there's nothing except some manila folder with the name "Steven Miller" printed in black ink. I move to the next set of drawers, but there's nothing but socks and underwear. I grab several sets of both and set them in the rocker.

  It's the top drawer that makes me pause. No clothes again, but there's a frame, turned upside down. I know I shouldn't, but I can't help myself. I turn it over and take a step back.

  There, set in a beautiful teak frame, is the picture of a petite woman with straight brown hair curing over one shoulder, a wide smile to match her eyes, and a summer dress kissing her knees. She’s clearly about six months pregnant.

  I glance at him then turn it back over and shut the drawer.

  A sister?

  Who has a picture of their pregnant sister?

  Past lover, pregnant with his child?

  Did he dump them and move here? Then why keep a picture?

  I can feel that wall coming down, the one that always slams shut, separating me from what I’m capable of giving.

  He must have abandoned them.

  He abandoned them and doesn’t even have it in him to display their picture. If the photo was taken this summer, that baby would be a few months old.

  I open the drawer again to scan for a date on the back. There, in curving script—probably hers—is June twenty-third, two thousand seventeen. Two years ago. So, the kid's two. Give or take a few months.

  Then I catch myself. Laurel always says I expect the worst from people, that I don't give everyone a chance, and I know she's right. I've learned to trust my intuition, but sometimes that gets clouded with suspicion. I adjust my thinking slightly and arrive at another scenario.

  I shiver, but not from the cold.

  Maybe they lost the baby.

  Focus. Just stay focused.

  You don't know anything.

  I rummage around in his closet, the old shelves my dad used for paperwork repurposed for clothing. I find two pairs of jeans and several wool sweaters neatly folded. After tossing them to the ground, I finally find a dark green turtleneck and soft bomber jacket lined with shearling. A real bomber jacket, with a heavy zipper—weathered and scarred.

  But having to push back my confusion over who he is and who that woman is makes me unable to care why he has it and why it looks like it's been through a war.

  "Hey," I say, not wanting to startle him. I rub his shoulder slightly and at my touch, his eyes snap open and simultaneously, he tries to sit up. "Woah! Finn, stop." I wrestle with him a bit, trying to get him to lie back.

  "Shit," he hisses between clenched teeth, and I'm immediately sorry I had to bring him back into his world of pain.

  "Yeah, take a breath."

  Leaning into the pillows, he flicks a series of quick glances in my direction, his grimace slowly dissolving into a small smile. "I love your hair," he says.

  I catch my reflection in the dresser mirror. Going to bed with your hair wet, when it's thick and curly with a tendency to frizz, is not a good idea. "Oh." I grab it into a tight hand-held ponytail and step into the bathroom for my hairband. "Listen, we've got to move to my place,” I call. “The power's still out and I've got a generator. You think you can walk over there with my help?"

  I'm worried about him slipping, about me unable to hold him upright and pulling on the clots. But in the time I'm back out, he's standing, with his fly open and the top of his jeans unbuttoned.

  "Shirt," he commands, pointing to a gray T-shirt on the dresser.

  I grab it and he pulls it over himself, worming his way into it. Next, I hand him the lighter sweater and try not to stare as he pulls that one on. I slip on my boots and shove the bomber jacket under my arm. Then I walk to the foot of the stairs and toss it to the bottom. I'll pick it up again on our way out.

  "Let's go," I say. By now the fire has little life left and we really need to get going.

  The walk across the two hundred yards to my side door doesn’t take too long, but that's mostly because he doesn’t need me.

  When we get to the bottom of the stairs, he doesn't even pause. I hand him the jacket, help him shrug it on, and though we walk slowly—mostly to check our footing—he moves under his own steam. Only once, on the little culvert heading up to my yard, near the corral, does he slip slightly. I hear that sharp intake of breath and I know he's torqued himself. He reaches for my arm to steady himself just as Salty nickers from the stall.

  Reaching for the clinic door, a blast of warm air greets us as I pull it open.

  Inside, Finn leans against the wall by the coat hooks as I try to tug his massive boots off. Other than not being able to lean over too far, he seems able to negotiate space well. Even my staircase doesn’t seem to daunt him. We take it one step at a time.

  We decide on coffee for me, water for him, cheese omelets, muffins, and grapefruit. I start to bang around in the kitchen before I see him trying to extricate himself from the jacket.

  Then he needs the sweater off too. It really is almost too warm up here. Heat rises, and just like at The Inn, I had set the thermostat to high before I fled, thinking we might lose power.

  He lists suddenly on his feet. His color is terrible and there's a fine sheen of sweat on his face and neck. Sweat soaks his T-shirt.

  "Hey, let's get you back into a bed," I tell him.

  But he doesn’t want to and settles on the sofa. "The kitchen table shrank," he says, trying for humor I think, but his eyes are closed.

  "It's because all four leaves are taken out." My answer is perfunctory, informative. I don’t want to encourage more conversation—he needs to r
est.

  I think he dozes off while I putter in the kitchen, but when I deliver food and turn around to pour coffee, he’s settling in a chair. We don’t say much aside from agreeing that the food tastes great. I realize I haven’t eaten since early evening, and he, probably even earlier. He's not looking at me and it makes me nervous, but I guess if he were to stare at me I'd be more rattled.

  He doesn’t finish his food. Instead, he moves to rise and I try to help him, but he's already up and heading to the bathroom. This makes me feel weird, and I hover outside the door.

  What if he falls?

  Ten minutes roll by and twice I scoot fast out of the hall because I swear he's coming out and I don't want him to think I'm loitering. Then, the bathroom sink water runs for a long time.

  I decide to go out and check on Salty, deliver some grain, lift out some muck, and offer fresh hay. It’s cold and gray, but at least the wind has stopped. I still have to watch every step I take and twice I nearly fall flat on my ass. There's a thick casing of ice on everything. The horse seems genuinely pleased to see me and as I break off the two flakes of hay, he nuzzles my arm, finishing up by snorting in my jacket pocket for apple bits.

  "Sorry, buddy. Too much going on," I tell him.

  I get the same kind of “sorry” when I climb the stairs back to the studio.

  "Sorry about taking so long." Finn's on the sofa looking rested and his color is better. "I had to check out the damage. You did a good job."

  Heat flares to my cheeks. "I'm a vet though, not a doctor."

  "You dressed me like a field medic," he says.

  I sit down across from him on one of the old overstuffed chairs. "I take training classes with Devon once in a while so I can learn all this stuff. I've used QwikClot twice and had some trouble with it."

  "Third time's the charm, then."

  If he's right, then I’m in danger—in danger of losing myself. I've only been in love twice before. I shift uncomfortably on the sofa. My wall is still up.

  I decide to plunge ahead so I can lower it. "So, do you have any kids?"

  His face hardens, but just before it does, I see something so unguarded, so tender I want to kiss him.

  "No." He sighs and shakes his head. "No, I don't." His gaze shifts directly to me. "I can’t really talk about it much, Claire, but I lost a child before he was born. A little boy."

  Blood rushes in my ears. I'm an asshole. "God, I'm sorry."

  He shakes his head again and looks out the window. "I can’t believe you haven't cyberstalked me."

  "What?"

  "You know, when I first moved in. I thought you'd look me up on the Internet and have me all figured out by now," he says.

  "No. I’d never do something like that."

  He clenches his jaw and for some reason, I think I'm about to get some kind of lecture about why I should always cyberstalk someone, but then he throws his left arm—the arm that won't pull his side—over the back of the sofa and tips his head back.

  The bones of his clavicle are right there, warm under that T-shirt, and his Adam's apple moves up and down when he talks—and I can’t concentrate at all. I cross my legs, but my panties are at once warm and wet.

  "Here's the thing," he says and tilts his head forward again, though he doesn’t look at me and stares out at middle distance somewhere. "My wife was murdered."

  He could have said anything else. Anything else is what I've imagined. Not this. "Oh my God. Finn."

  He sighs hard and keeps going. "She was drowned in our swimming pool in the backyard and—"

  "—and she was pregnant," I finish.

  His nod is slow, deliberate. Then he glances at me, rubs a hand over his eyes, and starts to weep.

  I'm up, moving, kneeling in front of him, and then my arms are around him. I try to hold him, try not to hurt him, rock him slightly as he cries. His chest is against mine, his breath with mine, and I stroke his hair. His tears are hot and wet on my neck, and his body, straining to release grief, can't.

  He shudders and stops after a few minutes and I reach up to wipe his face with my fingers. He's embarrassed, I think, or too exhausted to engage with anything but his own grief, his own pain.

  "I need to go lay down," he says and my heart breaks.

  I show him where Devon and Laurel's room is and crack open a new toothbrush for him from a diabolically constructed package of three, leaving one on the bathroom sink.

  It isn't until he's in the room and I've closed the door that I suit up—coat, gloves, knitted hat—and go back outside in the pressing cold. I climb into the manger and wrap my arms around my knees. This time when Salty comes and nuzzles around for apples and I realize I've let him down again, the hot sting of my own tears rock me, and I cry quietly for a long time. My own losses, our family's gaping hole—my mother, my father, and, in her own way, Chloe—churn together in a cycle of grief that will always be there.

  And I am alone. Always. I am always the one to pick up the pieces, do the right thing, carry on. Be the good example.

  But the price is, I'm alone.

  Chapter Twelve

  Finn

  "So, who did you say did this?" asks the emergency doctor, a guy in his fifties with "Dr. Peterson" on his plastic nametag, salt and pepper hair, and a blotchy face. He's peeled off the military dressing Claire placed on the entrance and exit wounds, and other than a massive shot of antibiotics, he hasn’t done much.

  He didn't even give me the shot. Some nervous intern with an overactive Adam's apple did. In my ass.

  "The veterinarian in Echo Bay. Claire Russo?" I say.

  "Oh, a veterinarian vet. I thought you meant a vet-vet," says Dr. Peterson.

  He means a veteran.

  I wince slightly as Peterson takes forceps and pulls the QwikClot material from each side. It hurts like hell. I'm at the tail end of procedures that began with a sonogram and finishing with me having little patience. The lidocaine burned when that intern prepped me for stitches and now I can't feel my right side from the armpit down. About a third of my torso is numb as well. As I lie more or less on my back, he threads a needle.

  The intern was a little heavy-handed earlier with the anesthesia and I know it's going to sting when it all wears off. But at least I'll be tidy.

  Peterson whistles slightly through his teeth. "You are one really lucky man," he says. "Sonogram shows it just missed the intestine, nicked the liver, and bruised a kidney, but you're going to be fine." Within a few minutes he announces, "Stitches done on this side. You got a lot of them."

  I look down at my iodined side. "You could have glued me shut."

  Shrugging, he admits, "I did a visiting doctor thing in Boston as a plastic surgeon."

  "So, you try it out every chance you get?"

  "You won't even have a scar. You have enough of those," he says.

  I'm beginning to like this guy. He notices things. Motioning with gloved hands, he asks me silently to roll over a little. When I shift slightly to my left side, he stops me with a, "Perfect. Right there," and then he's quiet for a few seconds while he selects a new curved needle and a length of dissolving thread.

  I've learned it's better to talk in these kinds of situations. A distracted mind doesn't react to pain as much. "Do you know her?"

  "Who?"

  "Claire. Russo. The vet."

  "Not really. I knew her parents, Maggie and Tony Russo. We were in a Friend of the Library group that met monthly and did fundraising stuff. Sorry. You felt that?"

  I did.

  He's quiet for a minute or two and then he's done. A man with fast hands. "Okay, here," he says, snapping the gloves off, and I move to sit up. "Take it easy this week. Your urine may be bloody with that bruised kidney. Sometimes problems don't show for a couple of days."

  "I gotta close that hole in my roof."

  "Hire someone. You're not getting back up there. Ask Claire who can do that work. She knows everyone. You're lucky, too, that the roads thawed enough for her to drive you h
ere. Echo Bay can be a long, half-day drive in an ice storm."

  "How long ago were they killed?” I ask. “Her parents and her sister."

  "It's been about eight years. Claire was maybe nineteen or so. Quit school for a semester to take care of the younger kids. Geo made her go back and made sure she stayed there, but it was hard on all of them. A real tragedy."

  "Drunk driver?"

  "He should've had a suspended license, but instead he was out on the road." He helps me with my shirt. "The worst is that he got off."

  I move off the ER bed, and he helps me with a clean shirt that Claire had packed. I can feel my face grow hot. "What? What do you mean he 'got off'?’"

  Peterson shrugs. "He's a judge."

  "You mean he's still around here?" I ask.

  Peterson nods and jerks a finger to his left. "Right over in the county seat."

  I couldn't believe it. Camden. Claire and her family have to live here with this guy at their back door. "I don’t understand. He killed three people. Mom Dad and sister."

  "Listen, it was a long time ago. The chief of police went to school with the judge. This is the dirty underbelly of small-town politics. Lot's of people rallied behind him and it got nasty." Then he shifts back into doctor mode and starts giving me all the information some nurse printed off at the station that explains in fading toner about infection, dissolving sutures, and what to look for with internal injuries.

  It’s not until I'm up—one hand on the doorknob and on my way out the door—that he decides to correct a misconception.

  "One thing, though. Chloe Russo didn't die in that crash."

  ***

  Though Claire drove my truck to the ER, I insist on driving back, but we do it in fits and starts. Now that she's not driving, she's noticing things in the truck. The Red Sox sticker on the glove compartment. The round blue stone she found that first morning we met, wrapped in a strip of leather, hanging from the rearview mirror. I can tell she doesn’t know what to say, and she immediately turns her attention to the two-way radio mounted on the dash, the one that used to link me to my business. I used to use the truck for surveillance. It may look like a half-ton beater, but it's sweet and sleek and can do a hundred and ten miles an hour without a shimmy.