by Kishan Paul
After a while, Gabe ran his fingers up and down her arm and again the mountain ranges exploded across his path. “Next question.”
“You don’t have to answer them. You’re allowed to tell me to mind my own business.”
His mouth pressed against her head. “No, I want you to trust me, so go ahead.”
She closed her eyes and savored the contact. If he only knew how much she wanted the same. “Why’d you stay married to her?”
He blew out a breath. “She needed me. I figured she’d tell me when she was ready to move on.”
“And what about you? When you were ready to move on would you have divorced her?”
“Don’t know. She died before I got to there.”
His words stung, but she understood. The day Autumn died was their first night together. Sometime after her death was when Evan probably met Gabe. “Evan grew up without a father. Why’d you stay away from him?”
“I figured she’d find someone to marry and he would step in. Why confuse the kid?”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s a cop-out. By not being in his life, you made things harder for him.”
“I know. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”
Lauren’s chest tightened as she thought of the scared little boy from her backyard. “Evan didn’t agree to any of this.”
Gabe let out a breath. “I made a lot of mistakes. Not being around for the little guy and not being able to protect Autumn are top on the list. Now I need to figure out how to fix it and I need your help to do it.”
She pulled away and turned to face him. “Me?”
“Evan knows something about Autumn’s murder but is too scared to speak up. I’m hoping with you, Jack and now my mom in the picture, maybe he’ll finally tell us what he knows.”
“Speaking of your mom. She’s currently doing laundry at my place.”
He laughed. “I know. She showed up today. Said she’s been sober for eight years. She seems to be good for him.”
Gabe picked some leaves out of her hair and smoothed it down. “You’re okay with Jack hanging out with Evan as much as he’s been doing?”
Lauren closed her eyes and found herself hoping he’d keep touching her. She worked on keeping her voice calm when she responded. “Someone killed his mom. The little guy’s scared. Anything I can do to help him get through this, I’ll do.”
Both of them sat in silence until Gabe finally spoke. “And your ex-husband?”
Her stomach twisted at the thought of Ben. He wouldn’t be happy about any of this. “I’ll have to explain the situation to him.”
“I don’t want to create problems between the two of you.”
“There’s nothing going on with me and Ben.”
“You sure about that?”
It was pitch black now and Lauren had successfully turned the branch she fiddled with into mulch. She wiped the dust off her hands and pulled herself up. Her ankle protested, but it was bearable.
“Ben and I can’t go back to what we had before. Too much time’s passed and too much has happened.” As she said the words, she knew it was true. “His only goal right now is to keep me safe from a murder suspect. Who by the way, I am currently wandering around a dark forest with.”
He chuckled and a few seconds later, she was off the ground, in his arms, and he was walking. When Jack’s barking broke through the silence of the forest, they stopped to listen. The thought of almost being home made her sad. “Thank you for telling me about you and Autumn. You didn’t have to.”
Instead of responding, he pressed his lips to hers. Lauren’s grip around Gabe’s neck tightened as the kiss deepened. When they finally pulled away, she rested her forehead against his. Her feelings confused her. As attracted as she was to him, he scared her.
“Like I said, I want you to trust me,” he whispered against her mouth.
She closed her eyes and fought the urge to kiss him again. “I still don’t.”
Gabe laughed and continued toward the noisy dog. “Yeah, you do. You might not want to, but you do.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Blind-Sided
A smile tugged at the corners of Ben’s mouth as he pressed the remote control to open Lauren’s garage. Being able to roll into bed half an hour after clocking out from a twelve-hour night shift was a luxury. One he hadn’t experienced in months. His apartment in Colorado Springs was an hour drive to work, but ten minutes from Chloe and her mom. The perfect location for when he spent time with his daughter. But not the perfect location any other time, nor was it a home, just an empty space for him to sleep.
It wasn’t the only reason he was smiling. He got to see Cat. Not only see her, talk to her, and sometimes even touch her. It was like coming home to American soil after years of being in a foreign country. Things just felt right, familiar. Even the arguments they’d had in the past few days reminded him of their lives together. The only difference was there was no make-up sex. Damn. That was even more explosive than the fights. His smile turned to a full-fledged laugh. Sometimes he’d push her buttons so he could push her sexier ones afterward. God, those were good times.
After parking his car in her garage, his mind drifted to the dozen or so ugly flannel pajamas with feet she used to wear. They were her staple every winter and whenever she was sad. As much as he’d hated them, they made for an easier access to her naked assets underneath. Since their marriage fell apart, he found himself taking notice of them more in circulars and wondering if she had the same one.
Ben pressed the button on the remote to close the garage. His stomach twisted, but it was different than the usual burn. He was nervous and if he was honest, excited as hell about going in and seeing her. Things might never be the way they once were, but having her in his life in some way was better than not at all. At least that’s what he kept saying to himself.
Ben walked into the kitchen and heard her voice.
“Thank you for understanding, Sarah.”
His chest tightened. It was like someone had set a swarm of bats loose in his gut. He shook off the effect and worked on making himself a cup of coffee while he scanned the place.
Lauren sat on the sofa, her laptop in her lap, a Bluetooth in her ear, and her ponytail bobbed as she nodded. “Yes, next week same time would work for me as well. I’m sorry again about the last-minute change.”
He leaned against the counter as the machine brewed and looked out the large windows on this side of the house. The cowboy, his kid, and Jack played catch in the backyard. As much as he didn’t trust the guy, Lauren had a point. Jack would have bitten the man’s head off by now if he sensed anything dangerous. But it didn’t mean Ben had to like him. Regardless, he was a suspect in a murder investigation and she needed to start closing the damn blinds.
“Good morning, Officer Dawson,” Lauren said, her back still to him.
He grinned. It always blew his mind how she sensed him. Ben headed over to the window and started closing the blinds. The cowboy looked over at him. They continued their staring match until the wooden shutters blocked their view.
“How was work last night?”
Cup in hand, he walked over to the sofa. “Long, but not too bad.” He froze in his tracks when the abrasions on her cheek and forehead came into view. The smile he carried dropped and his protective instincts spiked. Ben scanned the length of her. Thanks to her sleeveless shirt, the fresh scabs covering the back of her arm were clearly visible. Similar marks covered the part of her knee poking out from the base of her skirt and more were scattered down her calf. His eyes narrowed when he got to her ankle. The area was purple tinged with blue and the size of a grapefruit.
He clenched and unclenched his fist and cracked his neck a couple of times. Interrogating her would only get his ass thrown out. Ben sat on the other side of her to see if he’d find more of the same and was relieve
d he didn’t.
“So, how was your evening?” he asked, forcing as pleasant a tone as possible.
She pulled out her ear buds and smiled. “No questions? Look at that. Our Ben’s growing up.”
He chuckled. “Will you tell me why you look like someone dragged you across a concrete road? Or am I going to have to keep making small talk first?”
She scrunched her face. “That bad?”
“It’s a sight,” he said dryly.
She closed her computer and shook her head. “I put some medicine on, hoping it’ll get better by the morning.”
“Probably has, which means it was really bad last night.”
Lauren laughed, “You’re doing a good job. You haven’t even asked one of your normal two hundred questions.”
“It’s hard. Trust me, it’s really, really, hard.”
She shook her head and packed away her laptop into the bag on the floor by the sofa. “I went jogging, saw a skunk and fell. Speaking of which, you guys should probably keep an eye out in the woods. I think teenagers are smoking pot back there.”
Lauren grabbed the coffee Ben put on the table and took a sip. “Yum, espresso.”
He had a lot more questions to ask about her incident but decided against it. “I take it you were rescheduling your appointment so you can get to a doctor and have your ankle looked at?”
“Smart man. I have one in an hour.”
“Need a ride?”
She got up from the sofa with the cup and limped to the kitchen. “No, my parents will be here in ten minutes. Coffee’s not a good idea when you’re about to go to sleep, by the way.”
Red flags waved in his head. “Your parents? Where’s Sunny?”
“At home packing. She’s flying out later today for a writers’ conference.”
Something didn’t make sense. Telling her parents about her fall would only give them more reasons to take control. She’d walk her scratched-up self to the doctor’s office before ever considering them an option. “What’s wrong?”
She turned her back to him and searched through drawers. “Nothing.”
There was only one reason she’d ever call her parents. Ben rose and followed her into the kitchen. He grabbed her hand. “You’re lying.”
Lauren kept her focus on the floor. Her eyes glistened and she blinked them back. With each second she was silent, the acid in his stomach burned a degree hotter.
“It’s happening,” she whispered.
Every muscle in his body tightened. “How bad is it?”
Lauren shrugged. “I woke up this morning and thought I was looking through a telescope. The edges are black but everything in the center is the same as always.”
“Both eyes?”
“No, the right one for now. But eventually the other eye will follow and by the end, everything will be black,” her voice cracked.
Ben would have done anything in his power to make this better for her and the fact he couldn’t fix it was killing him. He pulled her into his arms. “It’s going to be okay. You’ve already beaten the odds this long.”
She rested her head on his shoulder, the way she used to do. “True, or it might all be gone by the end of the day. It’s only a matter of time, right?”
“This doesn’t change anything in your life.”
When she pulled away, Ben didn’t stop her. Lauren slid herself onto the top of the island and clasped her hands together in her lap. He put his palms on the counter as his mind raced. She was shutting down. Somehow, he needed to help her see she wasn’t alone.
“That’s not true. Everything will change. My world is turning black. I had this crazy hope I’d prove the doctors wrong. Waking up today’s been a reality check that I won’t.”
Ben squeezed her hand. “You’re the strongest woman I know. If anyone can survive this, it’s you.”
She smiled a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “And that’s the thing. I’m tired of surviving everything. Why do I always have to be strong?”
A tear streaked down Lauren’s face. Ben wiped the moisture away and trailed the back of his hand up and down her cheek as she spoke. “Losing my vision, our divorce, each time, I got up and handled it. I don’t want to do it anymore.”
Guilt shot through him. He swallowed it and tried to stay focused on her words.
“Do you know what it’s like to walk around knowing you’re broken? Trying to hide it so no one realizes? How much of my life have I wasted doing that?”
Ben’s throat tightened at her description. “There’s nothing broken about you. You’re unbendable. Nothing has ever taken you down.”
Lauren dropped her head and played with her fingers. She was tuning him out. A gnawing sense of fear that maybe she was giving up started to grow in him. “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
She shook her head. “Nothing. There’s nothing anyone can do. My parents will be here soon. We’ll see what the retina specialist has to say and go from there.”
There was something she wasn’t telling him, he could feel it. “You’re running away again, aren’t you?”
Her silence told him everything he needed to know. “In high school, when your first eye got blurry, you started skipping class and doing crazy things.”
Lauren grinned and nudged him. “Like taking away your virginity?”
He chuckled. “You stripped me naked and fondled me. I think they call that sexual assault.”
“Hey, you said you wanted me to see what a real man looked like, and I don’t remember you complaining.”
Ben cupped Lauren’s chin and tipped her head up. “I don’t regret any of it. Now, tell me what you’re planning.”
“I’m thinking about going with them to their summer house in Hawaii. Getting away from everything and figuring stuff out.”
He stared at her for a moment, trying to read between the lines. “For how long and when?”
She bit her lip. “I haven’t decided.”
Anger brewed in him. Ben tried to rein it in. “No matter how beautiful of a place it is, they’ll drive you crazy. You can’t run away from this.”
“I’m not,” Lauren snapped. “When my eye got blurry, what did I do? I watched a lot of movies. Figured out what tattoo I’d get when I was old enough to get one. Saw as much as possible before the left eye blurred out too. It’s the same thing,” she said. “I want to experience as much as I can before everything goes black and as far as my parents are concerned, I need to accept I need them.”
“I don’t like this plan,” he said.
“First, I wasn’t looking for your permission. Second, it’s time I accept my limitations. I’ve walked around in denial way too long.” She waved her injured arm around. “Denial is why I’m scratched up. Blindness is who I am and I can’t do it all by myself.”
Her words sucked the air out of him. She didn’t need to do it alone. Ever. Not if he had anything to say about it. Ben leaned forward and did the only thing he could think of to let her know what she meant to him. He kissed her.
His body temperature spiked from the contact. How often had he fantasized about doing this? Every time she made a wise-ass comment or crossed her arms, his mouth had watered. None of it compared to the actual act. He kept a hand on her chin and deepened the kiss, hoping she’d let him in. When she didn’t, he pulled away and placed a soft peck on her mouth.
“You have people right here willing to take care of you. You don’t need your parents,” he whispered.
Lauren’s eyes were closed. “It’s not your job anymore.”
Ben wiped away her tear. “I think I’ve made it clear I want it to be my job again.”
She turned her head and let out a breath. “Ben, you need to let the past go.”
Before he could respond, loud growls and barking from the backyard shut him up. They both listened
as Jack got louder and louder.
Instinctively, Ben’s hand went to his holster.
“He doesn’t bark like this unless there’s a reason. The last time he did, a rattlesnake was in the yard,” Lauren said.
He started to walk to the door but stopped and looked over at her. “If I ask you to stay inside and let me handle it…”
“I’ll ignore you and go anyway.”
Ben shook his head and put an arm around her waist, helping her from the island.
When they made it outside, he found the cowboy, his kid and the grandmother standing by their door watching Jack. The dog faced the farthest part of the fence. He was crouched and sounding like an animal in attack mode. Ben left Lauren by her entrance and walked over to the German shepherd.
“Hey buddy. What’s going on?”
Jack barked at the spot on the fence and ran to the gate, looking back at Ben.
He opened the entrance and followed the dog out. To his annoyance, Gabe trailed close behind. The three exited the fenced area, and sprinted into the narrow path between the houses and the woods. Jack ran off with them on his tail.
The leaves from large elm and walnut trees shaded the area. The shepherd jumped around thick brush and over low-lying branches as he ran.
“Do you smell that?” Gabe asked a few minutes in.
Ben took a deep breath and nodded. Lauren’s comment about teenagers smoking weed in the area came back to him. It was exactly what he smelled.
Jack stopped at an elm tree and sniffed around its thick trunk. Ben looked back toward the house. A wave of unease encased him. The spot gave a clear view into Lauren and Gabe’s backyard. With a good set of binoculars and with how she left her blinds open and lights on all day, someone could easily see into her home.
Both the men scanned the grounds for footprints, snakes, any clue of what got the dog riled up but found nothing, just a lingering smell.
Damn teenagers.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Tunnel Vision
Lauren sat silent in the back of her parents’ Mercedes while they chattered about the upcoming vacation. A blanket of sadness had wrapped itself around her the moment she woke up this morning. Considering the reason behind it, this heaviness would take a long time to shake off.
