Freeze Frame

by Freya Barker

  “Isla...” he starts, his tone conciliatory, and I don’t want to hear it, but I do hear the rasp of Ben’s voice.

  “No, Pixie,” he says, boxing me in from behind. I didn’t hear him come in, but with his next words I can tell he’s heard enough. “Your blood, baby. The man who took you in and raised you to be the incredible woman you are. Don’t say what I fucking know you’re going to regret, the second the words leave your mouth.”

  How does he know? Get out. Those were the words burning on my tongue. Just like my anger was burning in my veins. But Ben...God, Ben...he douses the flames with a touch, and a few words.

  “What hurts, babe? It’s the knowledge that some of what he says is true. And you know it.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Ben

  “Need a hand?”

  Isla stands in the doorway to the Deville, her face swollen and blotchy, looking like she’s been crying for days.

  I left her to talk with her uncle after she lost her shit. I know she’s been carrying stuff around. Fuck, so have I. Things I’d like to be able to talk with her about, but can’t, because it’d be too painful for her. It’s just been easier for both of us to stay quiet.

  I knew it couldn’t last, that’s why I talked Al into coming earlier than planned. I was just shocked it took her less than an hour to detonate.

  I heard part of her tirade, and I can only guess at what Al said to validate such a response, but I’m pretty sure I know the gist. It wouldn’t be much different from what he already subjected me to on the two-hour drive home from the airport.

  Not much different from what I’ve been telling myself.

  “Always,” I tell her, holding out my hand. The moment I feel her fingers slide over my palm, I grab on and pull her further inside.

  It’s pretty cold in here, the space heaters doing only so much to warm up the uninsulated tuna can, but warm enough for what I’m doing. All the wood panels I could remove, I’ve brought up to the shed, where I have more room to sand and stain them. The rest I have to refinish in place.

  Isla runs her fingers over the patch I was just sanding.

  “Already looks so much better,” she says, looking everywhere but at me.

  “How was your talk with Al?”

  Her eyes flick at me before going back to studying the wood.

  “Hard,” she admits. “But this’ll be harder.” I watch as a tear tracks down her cheek.

  “No, it won’t. You know why?” She finally turns her full gaze on me. “Because you already know what I’m struggling with, just as I know what you’re thinking.”

  “But it’s different saying out loud how angry I am at you,” she finally blurts out. “And how guilty that makes me feel. You didn’t ask for this, any more than I did; yet I still blame you. How fucked up is that?” I reach out to sweep some stray hairs from her face, but she brushes my hand away. “I don’t want to feel this way. I love you, you know I do,” she says, and yet she turns her back to me. “Uncle Al...he just tore the lid off the can, you know? A baby? Christ, Ben...I’m still reeling from the news that chances are good I’ll never have kids of my own. I’m almost forty, six months ago, kids weren’t even on my radar, but dammit...”

  She sobs and leans her forehead against the bare wood. I want to touch her but I’m afraid if I do, she’ll stop bleeding the wound clean. It’s the only way it can heal without festering.

  “And now,” she continues. “Finding out there’s a possibility there’s kid out there somewhere, with your DNA—some other woman who has a piece of you I’ll never have—it hurts.”

  Fuck it. I turn her around and pull her into my arms. I rest my cheek on top of her hair and listen to her cry.

  “My turn,” I warn her, and I can feel her brace her body against my words. “I’m struggling. This whole situation is so fucked up; I don’t know what I’m supposed to be feeling. For all we know the bitch is yanking our chain, and if there even is a kid, it may not even be mine. Still, I can’t help wanting to know, which makes me feel guilty.” Isla’s suppressed sniffle tears at my heart but I can’t stop now. “So I’ll take your anger, but I’ll be damned if I let her make you think she’s got one over on you. The truth is, Pixie, you have a piece of me no one’s ever had before.”

  -

  “So good,” Isla mumbles with a mouthful, juices dripping down her chin.

  Fucking sloppy Joes.

  I don’t think I’ve had those since I was a kid, but it’s what was waiting for us when we got back to the house. Al’s version of comfort food, I’m guessing, based on Isla’s reaction. With emotions already running high, she immediately teared up, seeing her uncle in the kitchen.

  “She could eat four of those as a kid,” Al explains. “Easiest damn fix for a bad mark, or a broken heart, was a pan of meat sauce and a couple of buns.”

  “Whatever,” she interjects between bites.

  I don’t say much, happy to feel the ease slip back into the interaction between Isla and Al. He is still glaring at me from time to time, but I’ll take that, too. He’s entitled, and besides, he makes a mean sloppy Joe. I watch as Isla shovels down three in record time, while I eat my first two.

  “So good,” she says again, when she finally comes up for air, wiping sauce off her chin.

  That, right there, is what I love about her: the ability to lose herself in the enjoyment of even the most mundane things. This is not a woman who needs fancy shit or expensive dinners. She’s happy with her Ikea bed and meat on a bun.

  The smile she habitually wears—the one that had worn off this past week in particular—is back in its full glory as she banters with her uncle. Things may still be a little tender between us, but at least she’s got that back. The old man will look after her.

  I haven’t mentioned anything to her yet, but I’ll be leaving her in his hands tomorrow. I wish I could wait for things to settle a little, but I already lost time waiting for Al to get here. He knows, I told him everything. I don’t want to delay anymore. I want this shit sorted, sooner rather than later.

  -

  The old man opted to stay down below in his trailer.

  He threw that out there after dinner and Isla had a conniption fit, but Al stayed firm. Said it’d been a happy place for him to come home to for plenty of years. Isla wasn’t convinced until he added that he didn’t want to run the risk walking in to anything that might upset his fragile constitution—then she laughed, and helped him with his bags. I knew the more likely reason, he didn’t want to be anywhere near when I tell her what Neil found.

  I moved one of the space heaters into the trailer and made sure there was enough propane to run the built-in heating unit, for a couple of days.

  “Come on, boy,” Isla calls for Atsa, who’s rummaging around the campsite. She hooks her arm through mine as we walk up the road, leaving the four-wheeler for Al to use.

  Atsa, who seems completely recovered from his flinch-worthy surgical emasculation, is loping around us before running ahead. I watch as he stops at the top of the ridge, his head high, and one of his front legs lifted up.

  “What is it?” Isla whispers beside me, having noticed the dog stand to attention.

  “Not sure. Hold on to the back of my jacket,” I instruct her, pulling my gun at the same time.

  Just as we get to the top of the ridge, Atsa takes off around the back of the house and I hustle Isla to the porch.

  “Get inside.” I give her a little shove in the direction of the door.

  I start to follow Atsa’s path around the house. Keeping my gun trained on the ground in front of me, and with a sharp eye on the tree line, where shadows move with the breeze. I briefly consider alerting Al, but quickly decide against it.

  I’m about to slip into the trees when I stop to listen for any movement. I can’t hear anything, so when the dog comes trotting out of the woods, not fifty yards from me, he startles me. It’s the snow that sucks up any sound. The nights are so silent when it’s snowed.

&
nbsp; Atsa doesn’t look any the worse for wear. Doesn’t look alarmed at all anymore either, as he trots over to me and allows himself to be rubbed down.

  “What was that, buddy?”

  A rhetorical question, since I don’t expect an answer, but I wish he could give me one all the same.

  “What was that?” Isla echoes, just minutes later, as she pulls open the door just as I’m reaching for the knob.

  “Don’t know. Wildlife?” I shrug. “Maybe that mountain lion again.”

  -

  “I’ve got to head back to Durango tomorrow.”

  Isla stops in the doorway to the bathroom, looking at me suspiciously.

  “Why?”

  “Neil found a lead.” I watch her absorb the information, with a slight jerk of her body, before pushing away from the doorpost and walking over to the bed. She sets a knee in the mattress and crawls closer.

  “Tell me.”

  “Found an address in Tulsa listed to a Dorothy Wells—her mother. Took a while since apparently Dorothy got married in 2009, but he was able to trace her to Durango, where she’s been living the past six years with her new husband. I want to try and talk to her.”

  Isla is quiet, apparently lost in thought, until finally she looks up at me and nods. I can guess what’s going through her mind. She realizes what I might find out, what I might find.

  “Okay,” she whispers.

  “Okay?”

  “Yeah. You need to know.” I reach out and tag her behind the neck, pulling her down beside me, her head on my shoulder.

  “We need to know, but it’s not just that, Pixie. I need some answers about her daughter. Stacie and Mak are gonna be here next week...”

  Isla

  “...I’d like to get this shit resolved before then.”

  I focus on the comforting rumble of Ben’s voice under my ear, and not on the pinch of panic I feel. Part of me doesn’t want to find out, but he’s right, we need to know.

  “A sane person doesn’t do what she did in here, Pixie,” he says gesturing around the room. “Next time, she may escalate to harming someone. I don’t want anyone hurt.”

  The pinch becomes a steady throb at his words. She may have tried already. I’d convinced myself I was overreacting when I thought that white car was aiming straight for me. I didn’t want to look like a fool so I didn’t say anything. I’m not so sure now.

  “She may have tried already,” I voice what I was thinking just now.

  In a fraction of a second, I find myself flat on my back, with Ben looming over me, his nose almost touching mine.

  “I fucking knew it,” he growls. “I should’ve gone with my gut and drilled you for the truth when you tried to distract me.” He closes his eyes and drops his forehead to mine. “Fuck, woman, why didn’t you say something?” The words come out exasperated.

  “I wasn’t sure. I—”

  His mouth swallows my words as he kisses me forcefully. By rote, my hands slip around his neck and up in his hair, as my tongue tangles with his. By the time he releases my lips, I can’t remember what we were talking about.

  “Do you trust me?” His eyes burn into mine and I feel the weight of his question.

  “With my life.” My answer is firm and immediate.

  “Then don’t make it more difficult for me to prove that trust justified.”

  Right. That’s what we were talking about.

  “Okay, so in that case I should also probably mention that I think—I can’t be a hundred-percent sure—that the car Jen was pointing out, coming down the mountain that day? I think it may have been the same one.”

  Ben drops his face in the pillow beside my head and groans, “I fucking know.”

  I slip out from under him, leaving him flat on his stomach. Throwing a leg over his body, I end up sitting on his butt. I stroke up his back, feeling the muscles tense and knotted under my hands. Leaning down, I cover his back with my front, smiling a little when I hear him groan again, but this time in appreciation.

  “Just relax,” I whisper, my lips brushing the shell of his ear.

  With a strong touch, I start at his neck, massaging the taut muscles. I roll my thumbs over the knots with firm pressure, eliciting another groan from deep in his chest. Slowly I can feel his shoulders relax into the mattress, before I move my touch lower, pressing in along his spine and laving extra attention to his lower back.

  “Isla...” he moans when my hands start kneading the tight globes of his ass, pulling down his boxers as I go.

  “Shh,” I hush him, scooting down so I have better access to his body. “Let me.”

  All it takes is a slight tensing of my hands on his hips for him to flip over. His eyes peer at me from under heavy lids, as I deftly lift the elastic of his boxers away from that beautifully erect cock.

  His body presses down further into the mattress at the first touch of my tongue, and a light shiver runs down my spine at his taste.

  “Mmmm,” I hum, sliding my lips down on him, while my fist wraps around him at the root.

  With my hand and mouth working in tandem—firm pressure followed by the gentle suction—his hips involuntarily buck up, and his fingers grab hold of my short hair, guiding my movements.

  This is what I want—what I can give him.

  This is what makes my heart swell in my chest—when he can no longer control his need for me.

  CHAPTER 20

  Ben

  “Who are you?”

  The older, rotund guy, opening the door, looks me up and down with a healthy dose of suspicion. I guess the sight of a rough-looking, leather-wearing, unkempt biker on his doorstep, is not one he’s met with on a daily basis. Not in this high-end neighborhood of Durango. Should’ve worn fucking gloves or something, since the guy can’t keep his eyes of the tattoos on the back of my hands.

  “I’m looking for Dorothy Wells,” I say, in my most polite voice. At least I think it is, but from the scowl on the guy’s face, I don’t think he notices.

  “Only Dorothy here is my wife, which make her Dorothy Banks, not Wells,” he snaps, and I feel my patience already waning. That didn’t take long.

  “It’s important I speak to her, it’s about her daughter.”

  “Geoffrey? What’s this about Jahnee?” The wobbly woman’s voice comes from somewhere behind the man, but instead of stepping aside, he leans right into my space.

  “You upset my wife, you’ve got problems,” he hisses, and I’ve got to give him props for having the balls to threaten me. I stand about a foot taller, and although he beats me out in mass, mine is of a muscular variety and I’d be surprised if this man has any of those left.

  A sweet, but gaunt-looking, gray-haired lady pokes her head around her husband.

  “You know where Jahnee is?” she says, deflating my hopes she might provide some answers. “Wait a minute!” She shoves at her husband, who rolls his eyes as he steps out of her way, and this time it’s the woman getting in my face. “You’re Brent!” she exclaims, clapping her hands together. “Oh my goodness—Jahnee’s going to be over the moon. She said she was off to meet you! When did you come back from overseas?”

  Something is seriously wrong here. Overseas?

  “I’m not sure I understand,” I start carefully, glancing at the man by her side, who is warning me with his eyes. “Could I perhaps come in and ask you a few questions about your daughter?”

  “Of course.” She hesitates, only for a second, before stepping back and letting me inside the house.

  “Would you care for some coffee?”

  The woman can barely stand on her feet, so I quickly but firmly decline, almost relieved when she takes a seat on the couch.

  “I apologize,” she says, smiling weakly. “I haven’t been well. Jahnee moved here to look after me, just the end of the summer. Then a few weeks ago, she said she had to go. That she’d received news you’d be back from your deployment and was meeting you when you arrived back stateside. I’ve been waiting to meet you for
years. Did you miss her? Have you talked to her?” I notice worry creeping into her voice as she starts realizing something is not computing.

  “Ma’am,” I carefully say, with a sideways glance to her husband, who looks ready to have a coronary with his wife getting upset. “I’m afraid, perhaps, there’s been a misunderstanding. I’m a retired agent for the Drug Enforcement Agency. I met your daughter ten or eleven years ago in Tulsa, while working on a case. My case concluded and I left. I haven’t seen your daughter since.”

  “But I don’t understand?” the poor woman mutters, grabbing the pendant hanging around her neck. “You were married right before you left for Afghanistan. She was devastated you would miss the birth of your baby. I remember she cried so hard when she found out you’d been captured.”

  Dorothy’s husband wraps his arm around his wife’s shoulders, rubbing her arm with brisk strokes. I see regret and genuine care on the man’s face, as he looks almost apologetic at Dorothy.

  “You warned me,” she suddenly whispers, turning to her husband. “You never believed her, did you?”

  “Sweetheart,” he mumbles soothingly. “I don’t want you upset. Why don’t I help you lie down and I’ll see if I can clear this up?”

  The last is said with a stern look in my direction and I nod my consent. I’d rather deal with the angry, protective husband than with his emotional, and obviously unwell, wife.

  As he gently leads her out of the room, I use the opportunity to have a look around. The mantel over the fireplace holds a large collection of photographs. I’m guessing children and grandchildren, but I only recognize the people in one picture. A large frame, behind a collection of smaller ones, which shows a newly married couple. Jahnee—much as I can recall her—in a wedding dress, holding onto a large bouquet of red roses in one arm, and a tall man in a Marine Corps uniform with the other. A much younger version of my face is sticking out of the high collar.

  It’s a bit surreal, looking at an image of yourself when you know for a fact that isn’t you.