He laughed. “Don’t worry, big brother, you’ll always be the one I look up to.”
It was past midnight, and I’d left Lena alone for too long. If she fell asleep, and I didn’t wake her, and if she did have a concussion, she could lapse into a coma; though I honestly didn’t think that would happen. She seemed too alert for one thing. Secondly, she didn’t have any other symptoms like vomiting, which usually accompanied a concussion. I liked the idea of checking on her every couple of hours anyway.
The lights were off inside the rental so I figured she was asleep. I didn’t want to scare her awake by knocking on the door, so I used my key and let myself inside. I felt as if I were trespassing or invading her privacy, but I figured she knew I’d be coming up again to check on her. She lay on the daybed on her side; her bruised eye hidden against the pillow. Her other eye was closed, and she looked very much like an angel. She was beautiful. As I approached her side, she stirred a little, then sprang up and screamed. Pulling a hammer out from under her pillow, she raised it in the air ready to strike at me. I thought she was going to kill me.
“It’s just me! Don’t hit me,” I said, grabbing her arm, holding it steady as I coaxed the hammer out of her hand and into mine.
“Oh, Jackson, I’m sorry. I thought you were … I didn’t realize it was you.”
“I guess I don’t have to worry about you defending yourself.”
“I found the hammer on the floor over by the window. I felt more secure with it under my pillow.”
“I must have left the hammer there after I fixed some loose floorboards last week. I should have known I’d frighten the living daylights out of you, coming into a dark room to wake you up that way. I’m sorry.”
“No, please. No need to apologize.”
I set the hammer down on the table in front of her, in case she wanted to put it back under her pillow after I left. If that’s what made her feel secure, then it was fine by me, as long as she didn’t use it on my head.
The next day went a bit smoother since I didn’t need to wake Lena up every couple of hours. I didn’t have many excuses to visit her up there, other than bringing her food, though. I decided not to go back up during that first night when she almost bashed my head in. I knew she didn’t have a concussion, and I’d only been using it as an excuse to spend time with her.
I brought her breakfast again, the same as I had the past couple of days. I knocked on the door, and a couple of seconds later the latch clicked. She inched the door open holding the robe I gave her closed tightly in her fist.
“Breakfast is served.” I smiled the best classy grin I could muster, and she smiled back, taking a step to the side as she opened the door wide enough for me to enter.
“You didn’t mention that the room included room service every day. I might have to start figuring out some way to give you a tip.”
I paused and shot her a quick glance, trying not to look so shocked at her statement, figuring she didn’t realize the implications of what she’d just said. I cleared my throat. “No tipping is necessary,” I said, but secretly wished I could take her up on her offer. Maybe someday, if she ever recovered from the horrible experience she’d been through.
I sat with her as she ate, and she insisted on sharing it with me again. “I should have just brought up two plates,” I said. “Maybe if we can get you some better clothes, you could come down to the house and have a proper meal with us.”
“That would be nice.” She smiled and popped the last of the toast into her mouth.
“I’ll work on that today. I’m sure Brodie can come up with some clothes.”
I wanted her to tell me what had happened, who had hurt her. I couldn’t help her if she didn’t confide in me, so I took a chance and brought up the subject.
“The other day, after your nightmare, you mentioned the guy that hurt you. You made a statement about him not being a real man. Let’s get back to this not-a-real-man that made mincemeat of your face—not to mention your body—who is he?”
Lena sighed and pulled her legs up on the sofa beside her. “I’m afraid to tell you.”
“Please, tell me. I promise you can trust me.” I leaned back against the sofa at the other end. Her legs were curled up so that the balls of her feet rested slightly against my thigh. I wanted to pick her feet up and massage them, but it was probably too soon for something as intimate as rubbing her feet.
She reached for the cup of coffee from the table and took a sip, then stared into the black liquid as if the words she needed would somehow pop up to the surface like in some alphabet soup. Then she finally said, “This is hard, but you've been so nice I feel I owe you some explanation. I just need a minute.”
“Okay,” I said. “Take your time.”
Silence hummed in the air for several seconds, then the words I’d most feared flowed from her lips in almost a whisper.
“My husband.”
Chapter 16
Lena
Jackson didn’t get up. He didn’t walk out. He didn’t yell at me and tell me I was stupid. He just sat at the other end of the sofa, allowing my feet to stay warm against his thigh. I wondered if he realized that. His body stiffened a little when I said “my husband”, but other than that and a small twitch in his jaw, he made no other movement. I wanted to tell him. I needed to tell somebody. So far, Jackson had done nothing to make me believe I couldn’t trust him. But I trusted Troy at one time, too. Was Jackson the right person? Would he turn me in to the cops if I told him the rest of my secret? That was a chance I decided I needed to take, only because I did trust him.
When Jackson didn’t say anything, I thought he might be getting ready to leave after all. I could have been mistaken about his reaction. His silence made all sorts of things run through my mind, and I was suddenly sorry I’d told him who it was. But then Jackson did something. He stroked his thumb and finger along the edge of his jaw and glanced at me, giving me a brief but caring smile, still not saying anything, but the movement and the smile gave me encouragement to go on.
I moved my legs off the sofa and sat up straight, needing to be in a less vulnerable position. “Jackson?”
“Yes?”
“I think I killed him.”
The twitch in his jaw became stronger as his body flinched again. He stood, walked to the window and stared out. Neither of us said anything for what felt like a full two minutes, when Jackson finally spoke.
“How?” he whispered, keeping his eyes outside. I wondered if he was watching the baby birds or thinking about what I’d said.
“I stabbed him in the stomach.”
He turned and gave me a shocked look. “During his attack?” I wanted to crawl under the rug and hide from his sight. This was all too demoralizing. I am a murderer, and now Jackson surely must think the worst of me.
“Yes,” I said and left it at that. I couldn’t go on with the rest of the horrible story.
Jackson nodded, came back to the couch, and sat beside me, his hands in his lap. “That must have been very scary.” A grim, contemplating frown marred his features, and he stared straight ahead. I thought he would be horrified, but Jackson seemed to possess a quality that made me almost feel okay about what I’d done.
“Would you like to tell me about it? I mean, it might help to talk about it.”
I closed my eyes, remembering how it all happened. I was about to tell him everything, and I wanted to make sure I had all the facts straight. For the first time in a very long time, I really did feel safe. I thought about the horrible man Troy had become, not the man I married. I thought about the difference between him and Jackson, or even Doc, and I knew I’d made a good decision to run. Jackson sat close to me, but not close enough to touch me or make me feel uncomfortable.
“He came home drunk,” I began. “He started beating on me because he couldn’t ... you know,” I made an up and down gesture with my hands, a little embarrassed to say the words, but finally managed a barely audible, “Get it up.”
Jackson gave me a short smile, but quickly became serious again, so I continued. “After he’d punched me, thrown me against the wall, and kicked me a few times in the side, he stopped. I'm sure it was more of a pause in the punishment, which is what he called it because I knew he'd be back to complete the job. He left me on the floor in the bedroom, and when he went to the toilet, I somehow managed to get up and drag myself downstairs to the kitchen. I grabbed a small steak knife out of the drawer. God, if he knew I had that knife in my hand—”
Tears stung my eyes as I wiped at them with the heel of my hand and continued. “He told me he was sorry and stood real close to me. I remember my fingers sweating around the knife, and I was afraid I would drop it. I was so scared. He put his hands on my shoulders, then moved them to my neck and started choking me. I couldn’t breathe, Jackson. I couldn’t get any air in. I didn’t know what else to do, so I stabbed him.”
Jackson’s arms were around me, rubbing my arm, my back. “I’m so sorry, Lena.” That was all Jackson said for the longest time while I sobbed against his chest. When I picked my head up, he titled up my chin and said, “That must have been very hard to do. I’m glad you were so brave.”
Brave? He was calling me brave after I just told him I’d killed Troy. “How does murder equate to bravery?” I managed to ask.
“That wasn’t murder. That was self-defense. Are you sure he was dead?”
“Yes … no. I think so.”
“Well, given the state you were in when you walked into my bar, and the way you were dressed, I can only assume that you left there quickly. Did you check to see if he was actually dead? Check for a pulse?
“I was afraid to touch him, in case he wasn’t. I didn’t want him to grab me.”
“Okay. I can understand that. Did you call the police?”
“I couldn’t call the cops, he’d made sure of that.”
“And how would that be?” His voice still sounded soft, still steady, and I took comfort in it. It gave me the courage to go on with the tale.
“Earlier this year he had me arrested for assault and battery.”
“What? How?”
“I hit him with a bat and broke his jaw.”
“Good for you.”
“Yeah, well it was an accident, at least on my part. He walked into it on purpose. He was showing me how to hit a ball, and when I swung the bat he stepped into it. Then he accused me of doing it on purpose, and had me arrested so I would have an assault and battery record, and would never be able to accuse him of hurting me.”
I expected Jackson to tell me how stupid I’d been to believe him. I still don’t know if it was true or not, but I didn’t want to take any chances with the law. I suppose I could have looked it up or asked someone, but I didn’t want to raise any suspicions. When Jackson didn’t argue or tell me I was stupid, I still felt the need to defend myself, regardless.
“We didn’t have a computer. I couldn’t look up any information about that. Troy had forbidden computers in the house. He said he didn’t want one of those wives that sat around all day chit chatting with her friends on Facebook.”
“No doubt to keep you from telling anyone about how he was treating you,” Jackson added.
“Not that I would have. He would have found out, and probably killed me. There wasn’t much I could keep from him, and from what I know about computers it’s difficult to hide things from one another, even with passwords. Look, Jackson, I don’t pretend to think that I wasn’t stupid to let him run my life the way he did. It just happened so quickly. I thought we were happy. He was … everything. Until right after we were married. He completely changed. I never saw it coming.”
“I don’t think you were stupid, Lena, not at all. I do believe you were scared though, and I hate that you had to go through that.”
Sitting here telling Jackson the story made it all seem so surreal, like some movie on the Lifetime channel. “Troy convinced me to run off to Las Vegas with him and get married. I’d only known him about a month. Everyone said I should wait, but I thought I knew him. Then, two weeks after the wedding he struck me for the first time. We’d been out partying with my friends from the band, celebrating our marriage, drinking and dancing, having a great time. I thought. Troy liked my friends; at least he always seemed to. Anyway, I’d danced with my friend Weezer that night. It was a slow dance. He wanted to talk to me privately, to make sure I was doing okay since Troy and I ran off and got married without letting anyone know. He was concerned, said he hadn’t trusted Troy in the beginning, but I reassured him I was fine. That satisfied him, I guess, and he said if I was happy that’s all that mattered.
Troy drank a lot, and later that night after we’d gotten home we argued about me dancing with Weezer. He accused me of wanting to be with Weezer, and slapped me across the face. Then he yanked his wedding ring off and chucked it across the room. He said he didn’t want to be married to me anymore if I was going to act like a slut and a whore every time we went out with my friends. I’d been horrified, and afraid he’d hit me again, but relieved when he’d stumbled into the bed and promptly fell asleep. I was heartbroken, and ended up crying myself to sleep that night. In the morning, he’d apologized, saying how sorry he was, begging me to forgive him and saying that he didn’t know what came over him. We spent the morning searching the room for his wedding ring. When we found it, he kissed me and promised never to take it off again. He also promised that he would never hit me again.” False promises. I should have known, just like my stepfather. I kept that last part to myself, not wanting to get into a conversation about my awesome childhood.
“You say they were your friends, but how did you meet Troy?”
“One of the guys in the band, Phil, introduced us. Phil said he’d known Troy in high school. They’d been in the same English class as juniors. I don’t think he really knew Troy, or remembered much about him from high school, though. I think they happened to run into each other one night after one of our gigs. I remember seeing Troy approach Phil, and they started talking like long lost buddies, reminiscing about school and stuff. I thought Troy was handsome and sweet at the time. He swept me off my feet.”
“That sounds fairly familiar. You shouldn’t feel bad about trusting the guy if you had a friend who’d known him. I’ve had that happen—the long lost friend from high school making a sudden appearance back in my life. Of course, the guy didn’t turn out to be some psycho nut-job.”
I forced a smile at what Jackson said, appreciating his understanding.
“So, it was bad from the beginning?” he asked.
“Not really. Everything was fine for a few weeks. I thought that night he’d slapped me was a one-time occurrence, and he’d only hit me because he’d been drunk and jealous. About a month after that he came home from work one night, grumpy and swearing about something that had happened at the job site. He worked in construction, and he’d been replaced as foreman on the project. I knew he was upset, so I stayed quiet and listened with great interest, wanting to support him as much as possible. He ranted about how unfair the whole thing had been, and how he deserved to be foreman; that the new one didn’t know jack shit. The awful day he’d had at work must have set him off. The blow to my cheek had been completely unexpected, came out of nowhere. I’d set dinner on the table and was getting ready to sit down, when he got up from his chair and backhanded me across the face. He said his meat was too tough, and I needed to learn how to cook. That night he told me each time I made him something he didn’t like, he would reward me with a slap until I learned to do it right. That’s when he made me quit the band and all my friends. He blamed them for my lack of attention to detail. He said I needed to stay home and take care of him like a good wife. The next day he gave me a new cell phone and programmed it so he could see everywhere I went. If I didn’t take it with me when I went out, he’d have known. He called me every hour, sometimes, twice. He was never consistent, so it was difficult to know when he would check up on me.�
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I lowered my face into my hands. “God, I don’t know how I let it all happen. I’d always thought of myself as being smarter than that. I wanted to leave him when I figured out the life I’d gotten myself into. I would have left him sooner, but he threatened to hunt me down and kill me if I ever tried to leave him. I was pathetic, scared.”
I stopped talking and sucked in a sob. I thought of my mom. Was that what had happened to her?
“Had you ever given any thought to a shelter for battered women?”
“Of course. Except, he’d find me at one of those. He knew all about them, in fact, reminded me often that I should never try to go to one because a shelter would be the first place he would check. He also told me they’d never believe me anyway considering it was his nose that hit the bat I had held. He would have found me, stalked me, and terrorized me until I came home. He told me he would.
“The first time Troy hit me I thought maybe I deserved it for making him jealous. But the second time, I told myself I would never let him do that again. I would have left then, but I didn’t have any money, and I had nowhere to go. If I’d gone to a friend’s he would have found me. Everything was in his name, credit cards, even bank accounts, and shortly after that was when he had me arrested. I knew if I ran he would come after me. I had to get away from him, but I also knew he would never let me go.”
“You were more of a prisoner than a wife,” Jackson said in a quiet,thoughtful voice. “But in a shelter you would receive safety, support, and get a fresh start on life. Maybe even make a few friends there with women who are in the same boat as you.”
“No!” I shouted the word, and instantly regretted the way it came out. “No, I can’t go to a shelter. I won’t go. I’d rather stay running for the rest of my life than take a chance that he would find me.”
“Well, I know shelters are safer than what he told you. You would be very safe, but I can respect your desire not to go to one.”
Beautifully Wounded (The Beaumont Brothers) Page 7
