by Debi Matlack
Several weeks went by, and it was Christopher’s birthday. We gathered at Poppy’s for the celebration and the old house shook to the thunder of a herd of green-broke boys galloping around, and the shrieks of my niece, trying to keep up.
Karen had embraced Barrett wholeheartedly, but Mike was reserved. It figured. My whole life he’d protected me and since my early teenage years he’d been kept busy trying to keep me out of trouble, defending my person and my honor, though often both were sullied by the time he got involved. None of what I did was ever his fault or responsibility, but he took every scrape I got into personally, as if he’d unwittingly orchestrated the continual train wreck that were my young adult years. He was civil enough to Barrett, but I felt the distance he placed between them, with me at the center of this little boxing ring, refereeing the standoff, and it rankled me. For once I was keeping company with an upstanding gentleman, and my brother held him at arm’s length like a dirty diaper.
And for once I hadn’t thrown myself at the object of my interest almost before knowing his name. Granted, those past incidents were often committed in the grip of copious quantities of poor judgment and alcohol, among other things, and I like to think that I had grown and learned since then. It didn’t mean that I didn’t want to commit lewd acts with the man. Oh, I did, all the time. All. The. Time. But we had discussed it and were taking our time. Actually, a large portion of the discussion had been done in between groping and kissing on my sofa one night and Ernie had put a stop to the festivities by puking out a hairball at my feet. We were appalled, grossed out, then laughed hysterically as I cleaned it up. It was good to be able to laugh that hard over something as potentially ticklish as being cock-blocked by a cat.
We planned to stay at Poppy’s house after the balance of my family went back to theirs that night. The kids ran wild, the sight conjuring glimpses of a deliberately buried memory in me. I remembered a similar situation, only I was one of the children. The surge of reluctant nostalgia got stronger after we ferried the kids to the lake and watched as they splashed and tried to drown each other in good fun. I tried not to think about my annual birthday much, let alone the fifth one, considering it was the day our lives had shattered.
Back at the house for barbecue and bonfire, I went into the kitchen for a drink and found Mike standing there, looking out the window at the group around the fire. He turned to see me and went back to staring. I could feel censure radiating from him and I fell into my usual defensive mode.
“Why aren’t you out there burning hot dogs on the grill? I thought men loved to cook when fire and danger were involved.”
“Karen’s got it covered.”
The silence expanded into a five-hundred-pound gorilla that he steadfastly refused to acknowledge, so I confronted him. “What?”
“What, what?” He spared a glance back at me. Just like friggin’ Poppy. When it was something he didn’t want to talk about he’d turn away and talk to the damned wall. Drove me right up that wall. I poked him in the ribs.
“What’s with the cold shoulder and the evil eye all day?”
“I noticed you two brought overnight bags.” He twitched away from me, anticipating another stiff finger in his flank.
“And?”
“And I don’t think you should be so quick to jump in bed with him.”
So, that’s how it was going to be. I grabbed his arm and wedged myself between him and the window to make him look at me. He stepped back, surprised.
“First of all, I’m not being quick, we’ve had ample opportunity without your dampening disapproval and haven’t done anything yet. Secondly, he’s the nicest guy I’ve ever met and he likes me, maybe you should be questioning his judgment,” Mike rolled his eyes and sighed, “and three, it’s none of your goddamn business.”
“Maeve, you know I’m just trying—”
“I know you’re about to say you’re just looking out for me, but stop it right there. I’m a big girl and I have abandoned my wanton ways of the past, so you should be happy for that and for the fact that Barrett, that’s his name by the way, since you rarely use it, that Barrett is a good man and I care about him and him about me and you should be happy for me instead of being an asshole about it.” I stopped, mostly because I was out of breath.
He had been drawing himself up to be indignant and defensive when he abruptly deflated and shook his head. “I know, I should. And you’re right, he is a nice guy and I should be thrilled. Hell, I might want to marry him myself if Karen would let me. But the fact remains that your track record with men sucks ass and someone tried to kill you and I worry about you. I always will so you’re just going to have to suck it up and accept that about me.”
I snorted and punched him in the arm. “As long as you’re willing to accept that I am going to be with Barrett until one of us decides otherwise. Not you, not Karen, not the Postmaster General. Me and Barrett. Got it?”
He gave me a long look, rubbing his arm. I may not be very big, but I’ve got a good right hook. With a quirk of a smile, he favored me with a grudging nod. “I got it.” Then he hooked me around the head and dragged me close in a half-grapple, half-hug. “I love you, dumbass. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t care who you shacked up with.”
I returned the embrace for a moment before elbowing him in the belly and worming loose. “I know, dipshit. I love you too. Only reason I haven’t killed you yet.”
He shook his head with a rueful chuckle, picked up his beer and went out.
The celebrants were picked up by their parents in dribs and drabs until it was just the Kavanaugh clan remaining. We sat around the fire, staring into the flames and shooting the breeze. A quiet snore rose from my niece, sprawled in my lap, crushing my bladder.
“We should be getting home.” Karen rose and stretched. Mike quickly followed suit, gathering an empty cooler from beside his chair.
A surge of memory reminded me of another birthday, and another set of parents and children, headed home after a long day. “You don’t have to go yet. The fire is still nice.” I tried to keep the note of concern out of my voice. Deanna weighed a ton, though. I wouldn’t mind someone at least relieving me of that burden. My legs were asleep and probably necrotic from lack of circulation.
“You two enjoy it. Love you.” Mike handed the cooler to Karen and bent to lift Dee into his arms, planting a kiss on my forehead as he did. Pins and needles attacked my legs at the relief of pressure.
“Love you too. Please be careful and text me when you get home.” Karen gave Mike a quizzical look as they shook Chris into some sleepy semblance of ambulation and aimed him toward the car.
“We will. Goodnight you two.” Karen managed not to look too smug as she passed my chair, squeezing my hand as she went.
“Goodnight, drive carefully,” Barrett called. Their mini-van awoke with soft rumble which soon faded down the drive. He got to his feet and dragged his lawn chair closer to mine. “You okay?”
“The circulation is finally coming back to my legs.” I didn’t elaborate further as I extended one leg and curled my toes to help things along. He reached out and took my hand. I squeezed his fingers and sank into the chair, leaning back as my feet stopped tingling. “Much better.” I’d feel even better when I heard the chime from the text’s arrival. He lifted my hand and kissed the back of it, his eyes smiling at me over our clasped fingers. I smiled back, turned my face to the fire and closed my eyes.
The night around us echoed with the past. This land had been occupied by our family for generations and some impression of the inhabitants still carried on with their daily business. Nearby, a phantom axe rang in the steady workaday rhythm of chopping stove wood. I cocked my head to focus on the distant jingle of harness and the whispering glide of a plow through well-cultivated earth.
“What is it?” Barrett’s voice was soft.
Eyes still closed, I pointed. “Near the pump house, somebody’s chopping wood. He misses every once in a while, so it’s probably one of the boy
s, maybe even Poppy when he was young. And there,” I swung my hand a quarter turn to the left, “somebody else is plowing with a horse or a mule.” I opened my eyes to see his, wide with wonder mixed with caution. “Don’t worry, they’re not ghosts or spirits, more like a groove cut over many repetitions of the same activity. They don’t know we’re here.”
“Good.” He leaned over and touched his lips to mine before rising and drawing me to my feet. There, he bent and kissed me again, taking his time about it. When he drew back, he met my eyes for a long moment. “Well?”
“Deep subject.”
“Smartass.”
“Guilty as charged.”
The fire burned low, collapsing into coals. We could safely leave it now. I drew his arm across my shoulder and we walked back to the house. My pocket rang softly and I extracted my phone to read ‘Home safe, worrywart.’ I replied with a thumbs-up emoji and dropped the device back in my pocket.
In the cloud of fragrance from the honeysuckle sprawled over the trellis and porch railing, Barrett pulled me close and kissed me a third time.
This kiss was different. Over the years, I had almost forgotten that soaring, almost dangerous feeling of kissing a new man. The unfamiliarity of the body, a tinge of awkwardness, the breathless exhilaration, wondering what was going to happen next. Despite the static I got from Mike, the long and winding road that finally got us to this moment, I heartily approved of this new development. I twined my hands around his waist, shoved them into his back pockets and kissed him right back. He drew away and looked at me with a smile.
“That was nice.”
“Oh good, I still know how to do it right.”
That earned me a genuine laugh. “Oh yes, yes you do.” He stood, regarding me in the shadows for a long moment. This was the point where we’d parted company in our previous explorations, by mutual consent or by means of a vomiting cat. The intensity of this kiss had far outweighed those prior and was full of promise. I gave him a lazy smile.
“There’s more where that came from.” I goosed him through his back pockets and his eyes crinkled almost closed with a lazy smile.
“Oh?”
I turned to the door and let us into the old house. “Oh yes. We need to get inside before I embarrass myself.” We slipped through the door and I fumbled the lock into place before turning to him.
He pressed me against the wall, pinning me while he kissed me, slowly and thoroughly. I swear, the soles of my feet were tingling before he let me up for air. I took his hand and led him to my old bedroom. White cotton eyelet curtains stirred under the current generated by the ceiling fan. Impatient urgency goaded me into haste and I plucked at his shirt, trying to pull it out of his waistband to unbutton it. He caught my wrists with one hand and slowly pushed them over my head against the wall, his eyes glued to mine. His other hand cupped my chin as he leaned in and touched my lips with his. That subtle, fleeting touch set me ablaze as much or more than the searing kisses we’d shared so far. I was however, still pinned to the wall and squirmed, trying to gain my freedom. Barrett held me fast, his eyes locked to mine and whispered, “Shhh…”
I sighed and relaxed against him, tipping my head forward to rest it against his shoulder. He pressed a kiss into my hair and let go of my arms, letting his hands trail down before wrapping me up in his embrace again. I breathed out a tiny frustrated sigh and he chuckled.
“We have all the time in the world, Maeve.”
“And it’s been all the time in the world since I’ve done this.” I already felt like I was going to explode. “Forgive my impatience.”
“You gave me another chance after I made an ass of myself and insulted you.” He bent his head to mine, touching his lips to my forehead. “Forgive my ignorance.” His hands slid down along my sides to rest on my hips. With a grin, I tugged him closer to the bed.
“Miss Kavanaugh, what do you want?”
“You have to ask?”
He caught me in his arms, pivoted and fell to the bed with me on top. “Nah, I was just checking.”
I awoke to moonlight pouring through the linen curtains to pool among the bedclothes like cream. Barrett’s sleeping form was warm beside me, the covers pushed off to bare his torso to the waist. The light picked out the contours of an old round scar just below his collarbone and the pattern of the hair that covered his chest. Air swirled around us from the vent and the fan above and I shivered, but there was more to the sensation than the draft. At first I was ready to get up and confront Poppy for spying on us, but this was not the familiar cold of his presence. This was something much, much older, a malignant chill that seemed to emanate from a single direction. I sat up and went to the window, orienting myself in my mind. The window faced east, when I turned myself more northward, the sensation intensified.
The pond.
What had happened there to make it such an evil place? What lurked beneath the placid, unassuming surface? I wished I knew and at the same time, wished I never knew it existed. Then the feeling changed. It sharpened, focused, like the Eye of Sauron.
On me.
It was somehow now aware of my presence. A shudder ran through me and I stepped back, bumping the chair. The bedclothes rustled and I felt a warm embrace engulf me from behind.
“You okay?” he whispered in my ear.
I wasn’t, but I nodded and turned in his arms. They tightened around me and I felt his head lift, looking out the window, trying to identify what spooked me. He couldn’t see it, couldn’t protect me from this threat, but he did have something to offer me. A reminder of what side of the barrier between the worlds I stood on. I ran my hands up his back and dragged them back down, my nails lightly scoring his skin. He shivered and returned the gesture. Still holding my hand, he sat in the slipper chair in the corner and drew me to sit astride his knees, facing him, and wrapped me in his embrace. I felt the chill from the pond narrow its focus, seeking to unsettle me again, but Barrett’s warmth and caring surrounded me. He was my shield. Relief flooded me and I opened my eyes to look at him, dappled with the moonlight and shadows from the lace curtain’s pattern. Then I slid closer, took him inside and forgot about the cold.
Chapter 19
The bell over the front door rang and I sighed, looking up from my sweeping. It was almost closing time and I had actually meant to lock the door sooner. Tons of trick-or-treaters had absconded with tons of candy the night before. Since Halloween fell on a Sunday this time, the Bible thumpers who ran the town council felt a pagan celebration on the Lord’s Day might be the inciting incident that sparked the Apocalypse. Sunday would likely be, if you’ll pardon the pun, dead as a doornail. How appropriate for Halloween. Consequently, there was little traffic in the store that day; for the most part I was bored and occupied myself with rearranging furniture, displays and cleaning. Now I was looking forward to my supper and my bed. Ernie had already abandoned me for his kibble upstairs.
I headed to the front to greet my annoying late customer and saw HIM. My pulse tripled in seconds. Dark hair, stocky build, he turned the deadbolt on the front door and lowered the blinds with a casual stealth. I froze and felt my body go cold, this time from terror, not any supernatural presence. Idiot, idiot, idiot… Why I never thought that he would attempt to finish me off in exactly the same place, I don’t know. He turned to scan the displays in the shop and I saw his blue eyes, blazing like a gas flame. I was in the shadows by the storeroom door and I looked for anything I could use as a weapon. The broom I held wouldn’t last a second. My hand grazed my pocket and I felt the edge of my phone. Praying I had remembered to silence the thing, I brushed my fingers over the screen to activate my address book and swiped right on Scott Jenkins name. The device was left in a dark crevice between a set of shelves as I scuttled away into the darkened storeroom.
My safe room beckoned but I didn’t want to risk being trapped. I did snag a fireplace poker from a shelf and cast about for where to go. Out, out, out!!! my reptile brain urged, every prey animal i
nstinct screeching like a car alarm. But this was my place, my home, and an overpowering urge to protect what was mine rushed through me, standing every hair on end and making my skin tingle. I prayed to whatever gods might be listening that Scott didn’t think I’d butt-dialed him and ignore the call.
“I know you’re here.”
His voice was… normal. Conversational. An icy spike of terror speared my heart, stuttering it to a halt for a second before it roared back to life in sheer animal panic. The poker was slippery in my sweating hand and I backed toward the door and the alley beyond. Territorialism be damned. I wanted to live.
All the surrounding businesses were closed, traffic was light on these downtown streets after the sun went down. Pinehaven pretty much rolled up the sidewalks after dark. Barrett was on campus, teaching a class, my brother miles away in his own home, Scott probably rolling his eyes at his phone. I was absolutely, one hundred percent, completely alone.
A clatter in the alley outside the door made me freeze again. Did the bastard have accomplices? Paranoia made me doubt every possible avenue of escape, panic prevented me from acting. The lid on a nearby Dumpster banged shut and I heard voices. I’d forgotten, The Yellow Submarine stayed open regular hours on Sundays to accommodate the church crowd and was only just closing! I darted for the back door, fumbling with the lock in my haste. A scramble from the front of the store closed in, the sound I’d made alerting my stalker to my location. I choked on my own heart as I made one last scrabbling attempt to turn the lock before I turned at bay. The deadbolt released with a soft click but he was on me. I ducked aside, flailing with the poker. A hand seized mine and squeezed, grinding the bones of my hand together over the handle. Terror brought rage and I shrieked and lunged toward him. We stumbled back into the center of the room and crashed to the floor among the dismantled furniture pieces. An iron hand fumbled across my face, zeroed in on my throat and squeezed. I bucked and kicked, dropped the poker in favor of trying to pry the fingers from my throat. Another hand covered my mouth and I bit it as hard as I could. A taste of copper and iron, a muffled curse and I was free, coughing and spluttering. I rolled away, was smashed to the floor again, something hard and heavy in the center of my back, pressing the air out of me. I let my last breath go with a scream fit to wake the dead.
