Saving Thomas

by A. L. Moore

  Thomas bent the hose, his lips forming a firm line that ran into his five o’clock shadow and stepped back. Yes, it was childish to bring that up, but it was childish of him to run in here without consulting me first. He knew how I felt about my horses just as much as anyone. I hated that he had the ability to make me resort to such childish antics. It was like he held some mystical power in his eyes that sent my brain backwards four years. Before he’d come, I’d been one of the top student’s in my class, graduated with the highest honors and been excepted to college. Besides the wash out spring we’d had this year, I’d also taken on more duties from Daddy when dealing with the farm. Last summer, I’d done all the Feed and Seed orders, made sure we had enough hired help to keep up with odd jobs and to get the crop in, and done my regular chores. I’d practically taken over Mama’s duties after Jenny’d been born. Mama and Daddy had only started pulling the reigns on me because college was starting up in the fall. Tending the horses was one of the few things that was still mine.

  “Go ahead and give him a good rinse,” I said, my eyes zeroing in on the bent hose in his curled fingers. I took a step back, just inside of the next stall. Allendale shook worse than a dog when he was wet. If the soap didn’t bring it on, the hose surely would. Thomas let it go just as I knew he would, with utter disregard of all things around him. At least everything hadn’t changed. Water sprayed nearly to the barn rafters and came down on the horse’s head. Allendale shook his head back and forth, kicking up a storm. I stifled a laugh into my hand, listening to the slew of profanities coming out of Thomas’s mouth. When he finally got the water under control, I took the sugared cereal from my pocket and stepped to Allendale’s head, giving him a sweet mouthful. He immediately calmed, and I did my best to salvage his bath, scattering hay over the muddied ground. When I looked up, the smirk on Thomas’s face was more pronounced, water dripping from his hair as he gave me a heady look.

  “Thanks for your help,” I said as condescendingly as I could manage, brushing Allendale and closing his gate. “I couldn’t have made a bigger mess without you.” His shirt was soaked through. He gave his hat a good shake and stuck it back on his head. “Do you want to wash the next one and I’ll rinse? Or were you planning another shower?” I asked, reaching for the hose. “It has a kick to it when you let the water build up like that, but somehow, I think you knew that.”

  “No, I think I’ve got a handle on it now,” he said, fighting a grin.

  Thomas washed the places I couldn’t reach, so I wouldn’t have to climb on the cracked stepladder. Addy was always fun to bathe. She didn’t like it, and she didn’t mind letting you know it either. She twitched her ear away from the water, knocking the sponge from my hand with her head. It was like washing Jenny in a lot of ways, except less squealing with the splashing. I tried not to focus on Thomas, who I’d noticed smiling as he watched me argue with Addy. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was enjoying being with me. Addy clearly didn’t agree that she needed to be cleaned. Still, with both of us washing, we were done in no time. It usually took me twice as long, but I’d never admit it.

  “How was your date last night?” Thomas asked, the smile gone as we started to clean up. I startled a bit, still not used to him speaking to me without an agenda. He continued winding the hose while I cleaned out the brushes.

  “He was nice enough,” I said, my eyes following him across the barn as he put the saddles and riding equipment away. Apparently, he’d given them a good washing too.

  “Do you think you’ll go out with him again?”

  Why did he care? “You heard me tell Daddy, no.”

  He looked at me knowingly, quirking a brow. He knew better than anyone that when it came to boys, I sometimes stretched the truth for Daddy.

  I sighed, closing Allendale’s gate and dusting my hands on my damp, cotton shorts. “If he asks, I suppose I would.” It wasn’t a complete lie. If Lucas was going bowling with Katy and Drew again, I would probably go. I started adding fresh hay to the other stalls. “The first date was kind of a favor to Katy, but I had a better time than I thought I would.” He paused, seeming to mull over my answer as he leaned against the counter holding the riding equipment.

  “It doesn’t bother you that he has a girlfriend?” he asked, bringing me up short.

  He had been listening last night.

  “They aren’t exclusive,” I hedged. “Besides, he starts college in the fall, and she’s not going to the same place.” That bit of information seemed to draw his attention more than anything else I’d said. He came over to where I’d just emptied the last bucket of muddy water.

  “Don’t get involved with someone who won't be around, Bree.” No. I certainly didn’t want to do that, again.

  “Would you really want to have a long-distance relationship?”

  This question bothered me on a whole other level. Was that why he hadn’t called in years? He hadn’t wanted a long-distance relationship.

  “I’m sure it would be okay,” I said, hoping my answer hurt him, but doubting it would. I’d have given anything to have been able to maintain a relationship with him, even if it meant one phone call a month. Anything would’ve been better than nothing at all. “The dorms are only a forty-five-minute drive,” I continued, my mouth running on its own accord. Drying out the metal pail and placing them back on the hooks by the door, I did a clean sweep of the barn to be sure we hadn’t missed anything. “Lucas mapped it out,” I chattered away. If mapping it out meant pointing in the general direction of the college.

  Thomas cocked a brow, his strong arms crossing his broad chest. “Already thinking that far ahead, is he? I don’t know, Bree. It might be time for a restraining order.”

  “It was thoughtful,” I countered, meeting him at the double doors.

  “All I’m saying is you shouldn’t put all your trust in someone who won’t be around in a few months.” Yeah, I knew exactly how that felt. What was with all the questions? Was there more to his inquisition than simply keeping up polite conversation?

  His hand brushed my back when he reached for the light. I shook off the chill that started and stepped in front of the doors. “Does it bother you,” I asked, gauging his face in the last rays of afternoon sun that filtered in. “Seeing me with someone else?” If he could ask questions, so could I.

  He shrugged indifferently. “Just trying to watch out for you. I guess it isn’t my business anymore, is it?”

  “Have you dated a lot?” I asked, leaning against the inside of the door, so he couldn’t lock it.

  “There were a few girls,” he sniffed, sticking his hands in his back pockets. “Nothing serious.”

  “So, there’s no one waiting back home?”

  He chuckled darkly, his eyes leveling me with a cold glare. “Look who you’re talking to, Bree. It wasn’t like I was taking girls to sock hops and bringing them home to meet the parents. Hell, I was lucky to have a room to bring a girl back to at all.”

  I could’ve done without that last part. I didn’t like where this conversation was headed. I didn’t want to know the details, not really, but there was a morbid curiosity keeping my mouth shut when he continued.

  “Since I left here,” he started, “I’ve lived in one shitty hotel after another, and those were the good nights.” His face was hard, his eyes searching mine. “So, yes, I was with women. That was the one thing easy to come by on the streets. You’d be surprised how many lonely people there are in the world, people who don’t have a place to sleep at night.”

  I felt like an idiot and hoped the growing evening shadows hid the disappointment from my face. Of course, he hadn’t waited for me. I was stupid to have entertained the thought at all. I moved then, reaching for the lock myself only to have Thomas’s hand grasp my arm and turn my body against the wall. With anyone else, I would’ve screamed, and though there was an edge to his eyes I didn’t recognize, I knew, deep down, he’d never hurt me.

  “Not so fast,” he challenged, the fir
e in his dark hazel eyes blazing a little brighter. “What about you?” he asked. “I find it hard to believe that you joined a convent after I left.”

  I thought seriously about lying, but Thomas would’ve seen right through it. “Then you would have been wrong,” I answered truthfully, feeling angry tears well in my eyes, but I refused to let them drop. He’d had enough of my tears to last a lifetime. “There was no one else.”

  “You mean no one serious,” he corrected, the lines on his forehead more pronounced as he tilted his head to the side waiting for a clarification that wasn’t coming.

  I shook my head, biting my lip painfully to keep the tears at bay. “No one at all.”

  He grasped my arm, his voice alarmingly angry. “Why would you do that, Breelynn?” What was going on here? Had he wanted me to be with someone else? Of course, he had. Help ease his conscious about all of his liaisons. Well, tough luck, cowboy.

  “I thought you’d come back.”

  His eyes shut tightly as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “You wasted nearly four years of your life.”

  I tried to pull away, but his grip was too strong. “I didn’t waste anything. Now let go of me, Thomas.”

  “Yes, you did. You should have dated, Bree. That’s what you do in high school. You date. You go out.”

  His fingers were bordering on painful now, his face so close, his eyes still closed. My head spun as memories collided with reality. His intoxicatingly familiar scent filled my senses. I was so sick missing him, seeing him, and still missing him. I couldn’t take it anymore. Stretching to the tips of my toes, I kissed him like I’d wanted to do since the day I’d found his room empty. Like I’d wanted to do since I’d heard his familiar voice drift back into my living room, into my life. I wasn’t prepared for his reaction, nearly losing my footing when he kissed me back. I never expected him to, but the moment he did, the tension I’d felt since he arrived melted away. He crushed me to his chest, holding me firmly with one arm around my waist. He turned us further away from the opened doors. This corner of the barn was darker. I couldn’t see his face in my hands, but I didn’t need to. I knew Thomas and he knew me. Light was for strangers. There was nothing unfamiliar here in the dark, not with him. The scent, the feel…even the sweet taste was the same. His fingers grasped my hips, supporting my weight effortlessly in his strong, steady hands. They were no longer urgent and fumbling. No longer the hands of a boy. I relished in and hated the change in equal measures. It was all I could do to keep the feelings he stirred at bay. I hadn’t felt them in so long.

  Then, he let me go, leaving me breathless and staggered, my body aching for more, aching for his touch. “Bree, we’re not doing this.”

  I could only imagine what he saw in my eyes with the fire he’d stirred still coursing through my veins. Whatever it was, he didn’t appear to like it. With a painful groan, he turned from me before I could question him. “Because it’s wrong,” he said, answering my unspoken question. I took a step toward him, grasping his hands from his hips and pulling them back to me. His pained eyes flashed in an instant and suddenly he wasn’t my Thomas anymore. The mask was back in place. “I won’t jeopardize a good job for meaningless sex.”

  My mouth dropped as the air left my body. It couldn’t have hurt worse if he’d slapped me. I would’ve preferred it. “No... I,” I choked, starting to argue but unable to form the words. How could he even say that?

  “It would be for me,” he said coldly, pulling out of my grasp. My heart thundered for a different reason than it had just moments ago as I watched him turn away from me, sliding the first door into place.

  “You’re lying,” I insisted softly to the ground. He didn’t stop. Watching him leave me, again, I suddenly found my voice. “It would mean more to you, and you know it!”

  “You coming out?” he asked calmly, waiting until I huffed past before closing the other door.

  “If it were just sex to you, you wouldn’t have stopped,” I insisted, before turning back to him as a light rain started to fall. “You know what I think?”

  His eyes were vacant of all emotion. “I don’t really care what you think, Bree,” he said, carefully reaching around me for the lock as a warm drizzle began to darken his green t-shirt and stream down the defined curve of his forearms.

  “I think you know it would be different for us and that scares you to death. You've been running so long, you're afraid to stop.”

  He paused now, hearing the challenge in my voice. He was already halfway to the back steps, but he turned around. I knew he would, just like I knew I was right. The look he gave me was even more chilling than the one in the barn and for a second, I wished I’d kept my mouth shut. Coming back to me in large strides, rain dripping from his face, he planted his hands firmly on my shoulders, daring me to look away.

  “Get this straight. This,” he said, looking across the fields and then back to me, “Is. A. Job.” His eyes were blazing. “Believe me, if there had been any other way, I’d never have come back here.” His cold eyes closed as rain dripped from his full, dark lashes. “It was a place to sleep, a way to put enough money in my pocket to hold me over until something better comes along. I can see now that it was a mistake.

  “Is that clear enough for you?” he demanded, his hands on my shoulders practically shaking.

  I had never been angrier. My eyes stung, but I refused to cry. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I recognized this Thomas and that made it worse. He’d always pushed me away. Always felt the need to crush me to pieces whenever he’d thought it was for my own good. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was doing the same now, but it was childish to keep holding out hope, and it was time to stop letting him drag me to that place where time stands still. Where summer never ends. Where dreams are within reach and boys never leave. Afterall, this was hardly Neverland.

  “Crystal,” I said evenly. “My mistake. I mistook you for someone I used to know.” I took one last look at the eyes that had once loved me, but they were set in a menacing glare. “Clearly, I was wrong.”

  He let me go, his fists clinched tight by his sides. He never looked back, not even a glance. He went right to work. The fence had fallen again, but I could see it wasn’t from the rain this time. Something was digging in from the bottom. I finished locking the barn doors and headed inside.

  “Did you see Thomas out there,” Daddy called from the couch. “He said the chickens got out, again.”

  “Yes sir, I saw him. The fence was bent up from the bottom.”

  “That sounds like coyotes,” Daddy said thoughtful, pulling the blinds back far enough to see the barn, “and some pretty good-sized ones at that.” He was still rambling on about setting traps when I reached the top of the stairs. Thankfully, Mama was busy drying soap bubbles from the floor in the bathroom and didn’t see me walk by. She would have taken one look and known something was wrong. But there was nothing wrong with me. The problem was Thomas. He was lost and it was going to take more than a plate of hot food and room to escape to, to get him back this time. At this point, I wasn’t even sure I wanted him back.

  Chapter 17

  Soft shades of pink colored the sky as I crept into the hall. I had just enough time to grab some food before Mama got up to make breakfast. I didn’t bother turning lights on as I went, so it surprised me to see the kitchen table glowing in the refrigerator light.

  “Bree,” Thomas startled, standing erect and softly closing the refrigerator door. He was already dressed for the day in jeans, an old rock-n-roll band t-shirt, and a pair of worn black boots. “I didn’t expect anyone else to be up.” He examined my shorty pajamas in the soft light coming through the window before adding milk to his coffee.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not staying,” I said, turning back on my heels.

  “I’m headed out anyway." He stopped me in my tracks.

  “Look,” we both said at the same time.

  “We…I can’t keep doing this,” I started.

  “
I’m leaving,” he interrupted, placing the milk back in the frig.

  “What?” My chest constricted at his words. But wasn’t that what I wanted? Him leaving was going to be my suggestion but hearing it from his lips, sounded wrong. It suddenly struck me how much I didn’t want him to leave.

  Taking a sip of coffee as he leaned against the counter, he added, “I heard there’s a horse farm a few miles from here looking for help.”

  “Does Daddy know?”

  He nodded, taking another sip of coffee before pouring the rest down the sink. “Told him last night.” His voice was much calmer now, all the anger in his eyes appeared resolved. “He understood.”

  I didn’t know what to say. This was best. It had to be better than trying to avoid him for the next several weeks in my own house. I leaned against the counter across from him, no longer worried about food. Apparently, the kitchen would be all mine soon enough. He watched me intently another long minute before silently reaching for the doorknob. The back door shut quietly behind him. I had to grip the counter as the empty feeling, the one that had disappeared the moment I’d heard his voice at Jenny’s party, reared its ugly head again. Sitting at the table, I put my head in my hands, watching through my fingers as the sun continued to brighten the sunflowers on the curtains, sending light through the front rooms. I could picture Thomas here now, his laughter floating in from the living room and his face across from me at the table. These weren’t the faded memories I’d patched together from years past. These pictures were fresh and would hurt deeper when he left. Why did he have this effect on me? Why could he never leave me whole, the way he found me? Like that stupid fence, I was broken when he got here, and I’d be broken when he left.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin when the back door slammed loudly against the wall. Thomas’s face was beet red, his breath heavy from running. He started past me, his clothes leaving a wet trail, but I grabbed his arm. He shook out of my grasp and yelled up the stairs for Daddy.