Ruined With You

by J. Kenner

  “I never doubted it,” I say honestly. “I was just curious.”

  “What else are you curious about?”

  “Where you’re taking me, for one thing. We’ve been walking for miles.” That’s only a slight exaggeration. We’ve traversed so many hallways I regret not wearing sneakers.

  “Almost there,” he says as we turn yet another corner and end up in what appears to be a different wing of the house. It’s as well appointed, but seems less lived-in. My perception surprises me, and I realize that even though the main part of the house is stunning and expensive and a bit like walking through a museum, it also feels real and homey. This section feels a bit like a hotel. Nice enough, but transient.

  I don’t think too much about it until he says, “This is it.”

  I frown. “What?”

  “This is where I grew up.”

  “Really?” I don’t mean to sound surprised or, worse, insensitive, but he must hear something in my voice, because he laughs.

  “Trust me, it wasn’t like this back then. Dallas gave Mom one of the cottages on the property and she moved out of the main house about the time I went into the service. The cottage is nice, don’t get me wrong, but this place is home. Although it felt more homey before it was converted to a guest wing.”

  He gestures to the tiled expanse of hallway. “I rode my bike along here. Jane and Dallas and I built incredible forts down here. And this,” he adds, opening the door to a medium-sized room dominated by a four-poster bed, “used to be mine.” He shrugs. “Of course, the furniture’s changed quite a bit. Originally, I had a bed shaped as a sports car. My mom’s Christmas splurge when I turned eight. Later I got a bunk bed, although the only ones who ever slept over were Dallas or Jane. And the walls were covered with movie posters and bookshelves.”

  I try to imagine his childhood room, and it slowly comes to life. “What did you look like back then? In elementary school? High school?”

  “Elementary school? I was scrawny. Seriously, a skinny thing like you could take me.” He grins to show he’s kidding.

  I roll my eyes. “Let me guess, you were picked on and decided to start working out, and that’s how you became this incredible specimen of maleness.” I move my hand up and down, indicating his entire body, which as far as I’m concerned is about as perfect as they come.

  “Not exactly,” he says, and his voice is so heavy that I realize I’ve struck a nerve.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “It was the kidnapping.”

  I frown, momentarily confused, and then it hits me. “Dallas and Jane,” I say. “You felt helpless.”

  He nods. “And scared. If I’d been there, I would have been no help at all, and probably taken, too. Or killed. So I made myself strong.”

  I look at him for a moment, my heart breaking for the little boy he used to be. I think of everything he endured, and I think about the choices he made to protect himself and his friends. And I think about what he’s now doing to protect me.

  “No,” I say. “You were already strong. You just worked out so that your muscles could catch up to the man you already were.”

  I hear his soft inhalation of breath and see a muscle move in his cheek. He swallows, then takes a step toward me. Slowly, he bends to kiss me, as sweet and gentle as butterfly wings. “And that’s why I adore you. After everything you’ve been through, you still see the world with such sweet optimism.”

  “I see the truth,” I say simply. But as I speak, my heart is dancing. Maybe he hasn’t said he loves me, but his words come awfully close.

  “There you are!” Liam’s mother stands in the middle of the aromatic kitchen beside a huge work island, her arms held out to welcome Liam’s hug. I smile at the way he dwarfs his mother, at least two heads shorter than him, then automatically straighten my posture when she releases him and turns to me. “You must be Xena.”

  She’s got the brightest smile I’ve ever seen, wide and warm and genuine, and I smile back automatically, then let her pull me into an embrace without even thinking about it, something I rarely do.

  She steps back to break the hug but keeps her hands on my upper arms, as if holding me out for inspection. Which, I realize, is exactly what she’s doing when she says, “Let’s have a look at you.”

  Since fair is fair, I take the opportunity to study her more closely. She looks to be in her early sixties, with skin slightly darker than Liam’s and eyes that are just as expressive. She wears her hair cut short to her scalp, and it’s dappled with silver-gray that makes me unexpectedly melancholy when I realize that neither of my parents will ever age in my memory. They will always be young, but in those circumstances, youth isn’t a blessing at all.

  She wears a pale blue work dress and a white apron, and she’s dressed so much like Alice from The Brady Bunch that I really do almost cry. Because that was the show that Ella sat me down to watch after I told her my Susan Morgan runaway story. She decided that I hadn’t had a normal childhood and that the remedy was a hefty dose of seventies television.

  I’m not sure it helped, but it definitely didn’t hurt.

  Liam had actually told me about the uniform ahead of time. “Dallas and Jane have told her to wear whatever she wants,” he’d said. “And Mom says she’s doing exactly that. A little old-fashioned, my mother.”

  So I’d been prepared for the uniform, color and all. Just not for the effect it would have on me.

  “You are just as pretty as Liam said you were,” Mrs. Foster says, and I glance at Liam, my brows raised.

  He lifts his hands in surrender. “Hey, I’m an honest man. I call them as I see them.”

  “Well, thank you, then,” I tell him. “And you, too, Mrs. Foster.”

  “You call me Helen, sweetie. And you two are just in time. I made a batch of cookies and was about to take some to Jane, but I’ll make a tray with enough for the four of you, and you can take it up,” she adds to Liam. She turns her attention back to me. “Chocolate chip okay?”

  “More than okay.” My mouth is already watering.

  “Good.” She turns to Liam. “One question and then I will say no more. Are you keeping safe?”

  “Safer than when I was in combat.”

  She snorts. “I think that answer should earn me another question, but I’ll give you a pass because I love you. You tell Mr. Hunter to make sure you watch your back.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She nods, as if that’s the end of that, then focuses on me. “Now you tell me about yourself while I make the tray.”

  “Can I help?”

  She shoos me away with a “sit, sit,” and I climb onto one of the stools by the island while Liam comes to stand beside me, his hand on my shoulder.

  “Xena’s the personal assistant to a pop star,” Liam says. “Ever heard of Ellie Love?”

  I’m certain the answer will be no, so I’m surprised when she says, “Of course. Take Time For Me is a lovely ballad. I confess the faster numbers just aren’t my style.”

  “We were surprised it did so well, but thrilled. It was kind of a breakout for her. Put her on the serious performer map.”

  She moves about the kitchen as I talk, then pulls a tray out of a rack beneath a cupboard. The cookies are already cooling, and I look around the kitchen as she moves the cookies onto a plate.

  The room is spotless and comfortable. It’s huge, but still smaller than I would expect for a house this size, and I wonder if some of the connecting rooms are additional prep or staging areas for the inevitable fancy soirees that must have taken place in this house over the years.

  On the whole, though, it’s a pretty typical kitchen with one prominent exception. One interior wall is covered by shelving that holds cookbooks, spices, a few small appliances, and some dishes. But one section of the shelving is completely missing, replaced instead by an odd cubbyhole.

  I’m so curious that I walk over to take a closer look, only to realize that the space isn’t “cubby”
at all. It’s quite large, really. If I were better at yoga, I could fit quite comfortably in what seems to be a large box stuck inside a wall. As it is, I could still fit, I’d just be squeezed a bit. When I notice the gate-style door that is folded into one side, I turn to Helen. “What on earth is this?”

  “A dumbwaiter. Haven’t you seen one before?”

  I have a vague memory of a dumbwaiter featuring in one of my favorite books as a kid, Harriet the Spy. “An elevator for stuff, right? That lets you send things upstairs without having to carry them yourself.” I think about the door. “Like a freight elevator for small things.”

  “That’s it exactly.”

  “There are several in the house,” Liam adds. “We used to play in them. Great for hide-and-go-seek. Whoever’s It checks out a room, after they leave you use the dumbwaiter to go hide in that room.” He grins. “Thank goodness I wasn’t claustrophobic.”

  I laugh, picturing his large frame crammed into a box.

  “They are very handy,” Helen says, “though we don’t use them anymore. I don’t think I’ve used that one since, oh … since Mr. Eli was in the master bedroom.”

  “Dallas’s father?”

  “That’s right. He and Ms. Lisa live in the city now, and Dallas and Jane have the master. That’s time, always moving forward.”

  “That’s my mom,” Liam says with affection. “Always saying profound things.”

  “Don’t you tease your mother, you hear me?”

  “Never. I mean every word I say.”

  He comes over to kiss her cheek, and she gives him a friendly swat with a hot pad.

  Helen goes to the windowsill and takes a fresh daisy from a vase full of wildflowers. She trims the stem, opens a cabinet to retrieve a small glass bud vase, then adds it to the tray. “Now, what was I going to ask you? Oh, yes.” Her attention is on me. “How did you get a job like that? An assistant to a singer, I mean. Do you need special training? How did you meet her?”

  I glance to Liam out of reflex, and he must see panic in my eyes, because he starts to answer. I don’t know what he intends to say, but I’m sure it’s not either version of the real truth. Not the she escaped from the life of a sex slave truth or the she was a runaway working as a streetwalker version of the truth.

  But I suddenly realize that I don’t want to lie to this woman. And I don’t think she will judge me harshly for it.

  “Ellie rescued me,” I blurt before Liam can speak. I see surprise on his face at first, but then I think it’s pride.

  “Did she? Well, good for her. And for you. What did she rescue you from?”

  “Hell,” I say simply. And then I tell her my story. All of it. She doesn’t move until I’m finished, just watches me with those kind eyes, and once again, I desperately miss my mother.

  When I’m finished, she nods and says to Liam. “You take this tray up to Dallas and Jane. I’ll send Xena along in a moment.”

  “Mom…”

  “It’s alright,” I say, and though he studies me for a moment, he doesn’t argue.

  “Okay,” he says, then winks at me. “Don’t let her pry out all your secrets.”

  “I think I just spilled all the secrets I have.”

  He brushes a kiss on my cheek before going to pick up the tray. “I’ll see you upstairs in a few.”

  As soon as he’s gone, Helen tilts her head, studying me. “Now, why on earth would you tell me all of that?”

  It’s not the question I expected. I anticipated sympathy. A maternal pat on the back. And I stammer a bit as I say, “I don’t know.”

  That gentle smile is back. “Oh, I think you do.”

  She’s right, of course, and it’s all about Liam. I wanted her to know the real truth because I wanted her to see the real me. The woman who’s fallen in love with her son. Because no matter what happens between me and Liam, I want his mother to like me. To know me.

  She sits on the stool next to me, her back straight and her hands on her polyester-covered knees. “Folks say you can look at someone’s palm and tell about their life. Or read their future in tea leaves. Now, I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that there’s one surefire way to see a person’s heart and future. Do you know what that is?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You look at how much they’ve overcome and the people they keep close in their lives. What they’ve overcome shows their strength. And that strength is what paves their path. And what lights the path? That’s the people they surround themselves with.”

  I blink, my eyes damp.

  “You’ve overcome a lot, my girl. And you’ve got good people beside you. That singer. My boy.” She reaches over and pats my hand. “I’ve lived in this house a long time, and I’ve seen a lot of horrible things. Great things, too. All that shit life throws at you. You know what to make of it?”

  “Fertilizer?” I ask, and she bursts out laughing.

  “Actually, yes. Not very original, I’ll admit. But true.” She’s quiet for a moment, and I have the feeling she’s searching for something in my face. “You love my boy.”

  My back straightens, the result of shock-induced good posture.

  I start to answer, but she puts a finger over her lips. “You don’t need to tell me,” she says. “I have eyes, don’t I?”

  “I guess you do,” I say.

  “He loves you, too,” she adds, tapping a finger under an eye.

  “He hasn’t said it.” The words escape before I can stop them, and I hate how insecure and needy I must sound to this woman.

  “Does he have to?”

  I start to reply, then close my mouth, unsure what to say.

  “Love’s a rare thing, my girl. And believe it or not, saying it aloud doesn’t make it any more true. The words are just reassurance. And I think you already know he loves you.”

  “I think he’s afraid that love isn’t enough,” I admit, wondering how much she knows about Dion and Franklin.

  “Well, he had a hard time of it. But he’s overcome it, hasn’t he? He’s got a well-paved, well-lit path. All he has to do is walk it.”

  With me, I think. I want him to walk it with me after he slays my demons, but I’m terribly afraid that he won’t follow that path.

  “And what about you,” she asks. “Do you think love is enough?”

  “Honestly? I don’t know.” If Liam loves me but leaves, then isn’t it by definition not enough? And don’t I already know that love is hardly a miracle cure?

  “Don’t you?”

  A sharp stab of irritation gets me in the gut. “Well, I know that love can’t save anybody,” I snap, then immediately feel contrite. “I’m sorry. But love isn’t a magic pill. My father loved me like everything, and it didn’t save me.”

  “Didn’t it? Maybe without that love you wouldn’t have had the gumption to survive after you escaped. You might be like the real Susan Morgan now—dead in some unmarked grave—instead of a girl who fought her way free.”

  The damn tears are back. “I love a lot of qualities in your son,” I say, sniffling a little. “Now, I think I know where he gets them.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Liam set the tray down on one of the accent tables in the great room as Dallas came down the stairs.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Frustrated that she’s stuck in bed,” Dallas said. “Also happy to stay there if that’s best for the baby, and eager to see you and meet Xena.” He nodded at the tray of cookies and milk. “I can take that up, why don’t you wait for Xena, then bring her upstairs with you.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Dallas took a step toward the table, then hesitated before picking up the tray. “I like her, by the way. A girl who’s been through that much shit should be pretty fucked up. But she doesn’t seem fucked up at all.”

  “She’s not.”

  Dallas watched Liam’s face, as if his friend was seeing more than Liam’s simple denial was meant to show. “So you’re heading to your apart
ment tomorrow?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Why don’t we have breakfast together before you go. The four of us. I’ll cook. And Jane can play hostess from her throne.”

  “I’m game,” Liam said. “Although my mother might have something to say about it. She’s very proprietary about her kitchen.”

  “Tomorrow’s the farmers market. She’s out by six and doesn’t usually get back until at least eleven-thirty.”

  “Right. I forget. Well, I guess that’s one perk of bed rest. You’ll be doing the cooking, and not Jane.”

  Liam watched as Dallas stifled a chuckle. “Now you officially owe me one. Because I imagine you don’t want me to tell Jane about that remark.”

  “I owe you for more than that,” Liam admitted. “I owe you for pulling together this team. I couldn’t bring anyone from the SSA—if any of Noyce’s men were paying attention, they’d know we were here for more than research.”

  “Happy to help.”

  “How many have you lined up, and how many do I know?”

  “Several, actually. I pulled from our support crew for Deliverance. I set up a video call for today, too. We’ll head down to the basement when it’s time.”

  Liam nodded. The basement used to be Deliverance’s headquarters. Now it was home base for those times that Dallas—as he’d said—kept his hand in it.

  “And, of course, I’m on deck, too.”

  “No,” Liam said. “You’re not.”

  Dallas’s brows rose.

  “I mean it.” Liam was prepared to double-down on this. “These people are dangerous. And you’re about to become a father. If you insist on coming with your team, then I just won’t use your team.”

  “That would be a damn foolish decision. One that might get you killed.”

  “Maybe, but I’m not putting you in the hot zone. Not when Jane needs you. Not when your baby needs a father.”