Eddie’s Prize

by Maddy Barone

  Taye turned toward the den. “It’s about suppertime. Let’s all go in.”

  Lisa didn’t feel like crying anymore. The horrific story of Darlene’s heartbreaking childhood still touched her with melancholy, but another part of her felt energized. She was taking control of her life. She was making decisions based on what she wanted. Her agent wasn’t here to tell her what would be best for her career, her personal assistant wasn’t here to tell her which engagements she absolutely couldn’t miss this week, and there were no photographers here to tell her which direction to look, or which expression to wear, or how to angle her head for the next shot. For the first time in her life she would choose what she would do for herself!

  The next morning she took her time waking up. It wasn’t as cold in her room as it could be since she had a little stove there, but the bed was still cold. She had dreamt in pleasurable detail of Eddie last night, and she admitted to herself she missed his strong body moving over her and inside her. Soon, when the quarantine was done, she would make love with him again.

  But for now, she brushed her teeth and washed her face before getting dressed and going to the dining hall for breakfast. Snake was on the kitchen crew this morning. He chose the best slice of ham and put it on her plate.

  “Are you going to talk to Madison today?”

  “Yes. After breakfast.” There were things she needed to tell him too. “Why?”

  Snake shrugged burly, bare shoulders. He was wearing a cook’s white canvas apron over low slung jeans and nothing else. Lisa shook her head at the ridiculous sight of a werewolf wearing an apron. “Last night someone from Kearney came looking for him. Snow was on guard last night. He told the guy from Kearney Eddie climbed the fence and had to stay because of the quarantine. The Chief said not to mention Madison is a cat. Let Madison know about that, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  At the head table, Taye was speaking earnestly with Tracker, while Tami nodded from time to time at what the Alpha was saying. Lisa didn’t catch it all, but something about Tracker needing some room and privacy to make the change.

  “How about the sweat lodge?” Carla suggested.

  Tracker shook his head. His long hand reached to cover Tami’s. “Need Tami there,” he said in his light, terse voice. “Only men go into the sweat lodge.”

  “In back, behind the stable?” Taye proposed.

  Tracker shook his head again. “I want privacy for this. With the quarantine, there’s too many bored wolves looking for any excitement.”

  Tami smiled encouragingly. “We can wait until the quarantine is over.”

  “Naw. I want to try it today.”

  Lisa cut her ham into dainty portions. “If you could wait for afternoon, you could use the stable, right? Eddie would probably like to get out for some exercise.”

  Tracker nodded. “That’d work.”

  “Why wait for this afternoon?” asked Tami.

  Lisa could feel a flush creep up her cheeks. “I need to talk to Eddie alone first.”

  Taye nodded. “Sounds good. You could take him breakfast.”

  * * * *

  The rich scent of ham and eggs brought Eddie to the door of what he was coming to think of as “his stall”. Lisa was carrying a heaping plate covered by a napkin. He backed away as she balanced the plate on the lip of the door and set a fork and knife down beside it. Only after she had gone to the chair and taken out some bright mishmash of a blanket did he come and get the plate. As he ate they spoke only of superficial things like how they had slept. Eddie wanted desperately to kiss her.

  He had spent the long cold hours of the night remembering the times they made love in the past three months. After that he made himself relive each time he had lost control of his cat. He strained to remember exactly what he had said and done at those times. Those memories were lost in the haze of feline emotion, but he remembered the first time he’d lost control after Lisa came into his life. The visit to the library started everything. Even alone in the dark some of those memories made him cringe. Had he really slammed her into the wall while he struggled to control the cat? He lifted his gaze from his food to stare at her. How many times in the past three months had she winced or said “Ouch!”

  He set the empty plate down and noticed she had a stack of folded, white clothes perched on her knee. Handkerchiefs? With unease, he remembered her sniffing yesterday while she cried. Was she planning to cry again today? He hated it when she cried.

  “Lisa?” he asked cautiously. “Are you okay?”

  “That will depend on you, Eddie.” Her voice was composed, but Eddie knew her well enough to recognize the tension in her slender frame. “You see, you have a few more things to explain to me.” Her eyes stayed firmly on the wooden hook flashing in and out of the yarn around her fingers. “At the Gala you said a horrible thing to me. It hurt me very badly. If that’s what you really think of me, then our marriage cannot work.”

  Eddie searched his memory for what he’d said to her. That night was a confused blur. “When? What did I say?”

  Her eyes flicked up at him for a second before going back to her work. “You don’t even remember,” she murmured, so low only his excellent hearing allowed him to catch it.

  Damn cat, Eddie snarled inwardly. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember that night very well. In fact, there’s a lot I don’t remember well.”

  Lisa put her afghan down and looked directly at him. Eddie thought, She is so beautiful. “I was dancing with Dane. You jerked me away, and you called me a slut.”

  The top edge of the stall door cut into his palms when he clenched his hands on it. “No … what? I couldn’t have said that!”

  “That’s pretty much what you said. And plenty of people heard you.”

  Breakfast sat in his stomach like lead. For the first time, the cat spoke to him outside of a dream. “I said it,” the cat confessed in a quiet, shamed voice inside Eddie’s head. He didn’t sound nearly so prissy now. “Her hair was different, and her face had colors on it. She didn’t look like my Lisa. I was angry she was pretty for that other man.”

  Eddie groaned out loud. No wonder she left him if he said something like that.

  “Show her your belly,” the cat urged him. “Tell her I’m sorry.”

  “Lisa.” Eddie paused. How could he apologize for something like that? “There isn’t anything I can say that will make that better. The cat … he said he’s sorry. Really, really sorry.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Are you going to blame all of this on the cat? You need to take some responsibility too, you know.” She went back to her work. “Words aren’t enough. It really hurt me, Eddie. You also said…” Her lips pressed together again for a long moment while she appeared to be struggling with something internally. “You said you didn’t know how you could stand to endure me for the rest of your life.”

  Dizzy horror stole his voice. “I was talking about the cat!” he choked. “Not you, Lisa. The cat.”

  She focused on her afghan, but Eddie could see the gleam of tears in her eyes. “And when you grabbed me so hard you left bruises, was that meant for the cat too?”

  “What bruises?”

  With slow deliberate hands Lisa put down the afghan, unbuttoned her coat, and opened her shirt to slide it down one arm. “This one, Eddie. It doesn’t look as bad now as it did. Take a look at what your stupid jealousy did to me.”

  Horror clawed at Eddie’s belly. On the pale skin of her arm the dark marks in the shape of a large hand were stark. He stared at his hands, clutching the top of the door as if they were evil objects belonging to someone else.

  Lisa calmly pulled her shirt back up and buttoned her coat. “You want me to come back to you.”

  “Yes!”

  “But why should I come back if that’s how you—or your cat—are going to treat me?” She looked at him with steady eyes, her mouth tight. “I won’t put up with it. I’m sick of being abused. One minute I believe you truly love me. The next you’re snarling
at me for something totally innocent. You’ve given me bruises more than once.”

  Eddie’s mind scrambled for a way to reassure her. Fear of her rejection raked spurs of desperation through his guts. He searched inside himself for the cat and found him easily. “You see what you’ve done?” he spat at the cat. Lisa’s wide eyes told him he was speaking aloud, but he ignored that.

  “I won’t ever do that again,” the cat promised. “If you accept me, I won’t have to fight you to take control. I’ll be happier, and happy people don’t do stupid things like that. Tell Lisa that for me.”

  Eddie lifted his head to look at Lisa. “The cat says…”

  “I heard him,” she cut him off, her eyes wide. “It was your voice, but different, and it was inside my head.” She poked her crochet hook sharply into her thigh. “Not dreaming,” she muttered before looking at him. Her gaze roved from his forehead to his chest and back, as if looking for something. “Hey, uh, cat. What is your name?”

  “Eddie,” said the cat. “I’m Eddie too.”

  Lisa jumped a little. Her eyes met Eddie’s for a split second before roaming again, as if looking for a way to see the cat. Eddie’s head felt light with the surreal fact that his wife was communicating with the creature he had hated for most of his life.

  Lisa’s voice was tentative. “Okay. Um. You won’t be jealous? You won’t throw a fit when I smile at a man?” Her voice hardened as she stabbed her crochet hook toward Eddie. “Because I’m not putting up with it anymore. If you and Eddie can’t treat me the way I deserve to be treated, I won’t come back.”

  Eddie hoped Lisa could feel the cat’s anguish as clearly as he could. “I’ll try to not be jealous,” the cat said honestly. “I promise. I’m sorry I hurt you. I didn’t mean to. Now that you know me, we can be friends.”

  Lisa’s throat worked as she swallowed. “Sure.” Her smile was a little wobbly, but it strengthened. “This afternoon we can play outside, like Carla and Taye do. I mean, you could come out … like, in cat form. We could play fetch.”

  The cat was offended. “I’m not a dog,” he said with feline contempt.

  “Oh. Well, I could scratch your ears,” Lisa offered. “Or rub your tummy?”

  Rub my tummy? Eddie could feel the utter disbelief the cat tried to hide. Inwardly, he hissed at the cat to behave. Out loud he said, “After the quarantine is lifted, that would be fun.”

  “Yes,” the cat agreed. Could Lisa hear the sardonic note in that voice? Eddie could feel the cat preening somewhere inside him. “Today I will just run so you can see how beautiful I am.”

  Stupid cat, your feline vanity is showing, Eddie fumed silently inside himself.

  Lisa’s lips quivered for a moment. Was she about to laugh or cry? Eddie wasn’t sure. She dipped her head. “Okay.”

  The cat nodded Eddie’s head. “This is good. Since we can talk to each other, I can tell you how I feel instead of having to hide inside Eddie and make him do cruel, stupid things to you. I’m sorry, mate. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I love you. Please come back.”

  “I need to talk to Eddie about that now,” Lisa said firmly. “Can you leave us alone for a while?”

  The cat faded to the very edge of Eddie’s awareness. “He’s gone,” he told Lisa. He felt like shouting with joy. Lisa must truly love him. She was willing to play with the beast that had hurt her so much. She accepted in the space of a day what Eddie had spent a lifetime denying. “I should have told you about him. I should have trusted you.” He stared at her and willed her to see his desperate sincerity. “I promise I’ll do everything I can to make it up to you.”

  Lisa nodded. “It’s not that easy. You’ve made the cat your scapegoat. You have to take responsibility. You, Eddie.”

  She was right. Shame writhed down his back. “I should have made peace with him years ago. I should have realized how he—I mean, we were hurting you.”

  “The bruises are bad enough, but you held me at arm’s length. You didn’t trust me.” She fingered one of the handkerchiefs still balanced on her knee. “I’ve always thought that without trust there can’t be true love. That almost destroyed me. I don’t know if you can understand how much that hurt until you know more about me. I don’t usually talk about this. In fact, I’ve never told anybody the whole thing.” She took a deep breath. “But what it boils down to is I’ve never felt loved. No one has ever truly loved me.”

  He let go of the stall door to back up a step. That was ridiculous! “Mr. Gray said half the men in the world were in love with you in the Times Before. And I read the magazine myself.” He pushed the jealousy away with a vicious shove. The cat remained a shadow in his mind, listening and watching. “You had a dozen boyfriends. There were many men who loved you.”

  “Eddie.” Her voice was weary. “That’s not love. Those men were in love with my pictures, like the men I dated were in love with my money or my fame or my looks. They didn’t love me. No one loved me.”

  “Your family—” he began, but she cut him off.

  “My family?” The acid in her voice made Eddie want to hold her. Her voice smoothed, but shards of broken glass hid in its depths. “My mother began dragging me to auditions when I was four. When I would get a part, I was her little angel. When I didn’t, I was a little bitch.”

  What mother would treat her daughter like that? Eddie curled his hands into fists that he hid behind the door. “Your father?”

  “My dad left when I was ten. He just packed up a suitcase and drove away. I ran down the driveway, crying and holding on to the door of the car, begging him to at least say good-bye. It’s a miracle I wasn’t hurt.”

  He knew what a car was, but he couldn’t imagine a man risking his child, a precious daughter, that way. “How long was he gone?”

  Lisa’s laugh didn’t sound like a laugh to Eddie. “I didn’t see him again until I was twenty-three years old. By then I was a household name because of my modeling. He came schmoozing up to me, wanting to be part of my life.” Her voice lifted to singsong sarcasm. “He said he was so proud of me. He had followed my career since the day he left. The only reason he left was because my mom threw him out. He would never have left if he’d had a choice.” She dropped back into her usual voice, tinged with self-disgust. “God, I was so desperate to have somebody love me I believed him! I gave him money, I bought him an apartment, I introduced him to important people. Stupid, stupid Lisa.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself, silent tears making shiny tracks down her face. Eddie felt helpless. He wanted to hold her, protect her from this pain. The cat wanted to claw her father into bloody ribbons.

  She plucked a square of white fabric from her knee and wiped her eyes. “And when I figured out he was using me, I cut him off. Then he threatened me, and I ended up getting a restraining order against him.”

  “Did your mother throw him out?”

  “Who knows? Neither one of them would know the truth if it bit them on the ass. The only thing my mom loved was my mom. No,” she corrected herself. “She loved whiskey and beer and scotch much more than she loved even herself.” She looked at him with tragic eyes in a calm face. “I left my mom’s house the day I turned eighteen. Thank God my agent was handling my money, or I wouldn’t have had a cent.” Her eyes somehow became even more tragic. “If even parents can’t love a girl, who can?”

  Eddie wondered if she knew she was crying silently, tears running down her face. “I can,” he said firmly. “I’ve been an ass, and I haven’t treated you the way you deserve, but I love you.”

  He couldn’t tell if she believed him. She didn’t look at him. After a silent moment, he asked, “You had a brother, didn’t you?”

  “Derek.” A tremulous smile. “My little brother. He really did love me. He never wanted money or to go fancy places where the paparazzi would take his picture. We didn’t get to see each other very much, but when we did, it was usually at his place by St. Cloud. And now he’s probably dead.”

  Her silent te
ars turned into little shudders. She groped for one of her handkerchiefs and blew her nose with an inelegant honk that almost cheered Eddie. She wouldn’t let him hear her make that noise if she didn’t trust him, would she?

  “We can send a message with the next traders that come through.” Eddie doubted her brother was still alive, but he would do anything to give her peace.

  “He’s probably dead,” she sobbed into her afghan. “And if he’s not, he’s as old as Mr. Gray.”

  “We can still send a message. Knowing would be good.” He dragged his hand through his hair since he couldn’t smooth hers. “Lisa, I love you. And I don’t care about your money or how famous you are or any of that.”

  She hiccupped. “I know. That’s why I love you. I don’t have any of that now, and you still picked me. You even risked your life in that Bride Fight to be able to marry me. I remember the day you told me you thought I was beautiful, but not because of how I looked. That’s the day I began to fall in love with you.”

  She set the crumpled handkerchief down and put her shoulders back. “I didn’t tell you all this to make you feel sorry for me. My life wasn’t as bad as I made it sound. I just want you to know why I’m so insecure sometimes.” She tapped her forehead. “I know up here that there are some people who really love me.” She paused, frowning. “Not very many, but a few. But in my heart, I doubt. That’s why your mistrust hurt me so badly.”

  A knife slashing back and forth over his heart couldn’t hurt this much. “I’m sorry,” he said helplessly. “So sorry that I don’t even have words to say it right. I love you, Lisa Madison. I love you, the true inside you, not your beauty or even your wonderful breakfasts, but you. Neither one of us is perfect, so our marriage isn’t perfect either, but can’t we work on it?”