Arrested Heart

by Yvette Hines

  He stepped toward her, where she still stood by the door. “Have I been drinking? Yes. I’m not drunk. I wish I was, then maybe I wouldn’t have to think about it.”

  Placing a hand on his arm, she tried to reassure him. “Look, Robert, this is hard for both of us. But, we have to admit we knew it was coming.” As she spoke, Robert closed the gap between them. Danielle moved backwards and came up against the door. Around him, she always found herself in a constant state of arousal. If he touched her, they would end up having sex and that would just muddle everything all over again.

  “Danielle.” He said her name as if he were unsure of who she was.

  The soft, hollow sound of his voice made her nervous. It wasn’t sexual in nature, but different. “Ro-bert?”

  His hands massaged her shoulders, then moved down to her breast and squeezed.

  She trembled at the warmth of his strong touch through her silk gown. “Robert, what are you doing?”

  “Why’d you do it?” His hands continued on past her stomach and stopped at her lower abdomen. With circular motions, his thumbs caressed her there, not moving any further.

  “Do what?” She gazed at his face, dark with emotion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I know you had to be scared and confused, sweetheart.”

  Setting her hands over his, she stilled his touch. “Scared. Confused. I’m I supposed to know what this conversation is about?” The feeling of foreboding crept into her heart.

  “I went to see your mother today.”

  Her lungs contracted, making it hard for her to breath. “What?” she whispered. “Why in the hell would you do that?” She knew it was a mistake to tell him her real name. Needing some space, she pushed away from him and the door.

  “I wanted to prove to you I didn’t care where you came from or what your name was. I care about you regardless.”

  She bet her mother had given him an earful. Marlena Harvey and she had never gotten along. They were too different just like her parents. Her father loved her mother, but her mother would never marry him because he wanted to leave Valdosta and her mother was afraid she’d have to follow her husband wherever he wanted to take her. Shortly after she was born, her father left and only came to visit her and her siblings for birthdays.

  Keeping her back to him, she stood in the center of her small apartment. “What did she tell you?” Her voice was low, not really wanting him to hear the question.

  “That you were pregnant during your senior year.”

  No such luck. Closing her eyes, she bowed her head and wrapped her arms around her stomach feeling sick. “What else?” She had to ask even though she knew what would come next.

  “You aborted your baby. Our baby.”

  Danielle whipped around, facing him, not expecting those words. “What?”

  Approaching her, he said, “I don’t fault you for it, sweetheart. I know you were young. We were young. I just wish you would’ve told me.”

  Recognizing the hurt she saw in Robert’s face mirrored the pain in her heart she was experiencing. She shook her head, not believing what was happening. “Robert, I wanted to tell you.”

  He moved closer, but didn’t touch her. “Why didn’t you? You at least knew my name. But to abort our ba—” he voice broke.

  Tears welled up in her eyes. “Those long hours in the hospital waiting for my mother and feeling as if I’d lost everything that mattered to me in the world…” First one tear spilled over, then another. “I would have never…” her voice faded away as the tears came rushing out, “even when I was offered the money to do it.”

  Face scrunched, Robert asked, “By who? Your mother? I’ve seen her house and she can’t even afford new furniture.”

  With bleary vision, she made her way to the door. “You’re right, Robert, my mother is poor. But, she would’ve accepted my child no matter how or with whom I conceived it. Blood is more precious than money.”

  Steps away, Robert gazed at her, still looking perplexed. “Who then?”

  Pulling the door open, letting him know it was time to leave, she brushed a tear away with the back of her hand and snorted. “The next time you’re at your family home for Sunday dinner talk to your father. See how happy he would’ve been to have you bring home a poor black girl and a baby.”

  “My father? What does he have to do with this?”

  “Either you leave or I will.” Danielle looked past his shoulder, staring at the wall.

  Touching her hand on the door, he said, “This isn’t over, Danielle.”

  Seeing the beautiful contrast of their skin colors, she swallowed down the thump in her throat. Staring into his hazel eyes for what possibly could be the last time, she said, “It is now.”

  Moving her hand from under his, she watched him shake his head as he left her apartment.

  Closing the door behind him, she pressed her back against it, slid to the floor and cried. Feeling the pain of the loss of their baby from years ago was bad, but the overwhelming ache of losing Robert for good devastated her. Curling into a fetal position on the floor, she rocked her body against the cold tile in front of her door. She didn’t attempt to console herself or convince herself that she was going to be all right. Instead, she laid there and waited for the numb feeling to set in so she could pick herself up off the floor and go to bed, praying for morning to come so she could drown herself in work. Something that didn’t ask anything of her. Something that left her soul untouched. Something that wasn’t connected to Robert.

  * * * *

  Fuck, I messed up. Robert could hear the murmuring of Danielle’s sobs through the door. He’d handled this situation all wrong with her. When he drove from her mother’s house and stopped at the country club, waiting for her to get off work, he had a drink. He’d wanted to use vodka to drench the hurt of finding out he was almost a father, then discover the opportunity had been taken away from him, but he was too miserable to even get drunk. He’d never thought about having kids anytime soon, but the image of Danielle swollen with his child caused his heart to leap and beat hard against his chest.

  Now he wanted to bang his head against the wall for jumping to conclusions as her mother had done. He had become someone else who didn’t believe in Danielle and thought her guilty of aborting their baby.

  Sitting on the other side of her door, he didn’t think about how ridiculous he might look resting there, he just waited. Listened and waited. He didn’t fool himself into believing that if he knocked she would open the door and allow him to hold her.

  Almost an hour passed before he realized there was a quiet stillness on the other side. It was time for him to leave. Tomorrow he was going to close the gaps of all the missing information, but he needed to get himself together before he approached his father. Otherwise, he was liable to say things he would regret.

  Chapter Six

  Robert stood at his father’s office door and watched retired Major General Wright as he spoke on the phone. Glancing up, his father smiled and waved him inside. Entering, Robert closed the door behind him, then crossed the room and took the single chair opposite his dad.

  “All right, Mayor Benson, I’ll see what I can throw together.” His father made a few more agreements, then hung up the phone. “That Benson boy, he’s always coming up with ideas.”

  “Is he?” Robert leaned back in his chair and observed his father, the man who’d taught him never to give up without a fight. The same man he called when he felt overwhelmed in law school. His dad always told him he believed in him. His father unwaveringly said he could do it. Robert highly respected the man across the desk, but he couldn’t deny the anger simmering in his veins. General Wright had secrets. Secrets that involved him, his son.

  “Ole’ Greg has decided that with my retirement and all earlier this summer I ought to give the Fourth of July speech.”

  His dad laughed, but Robert could see the pride in his face. “Nothing to it, Dad, someone in our family has always g
iven the speech before. You’ll be fine.”

  Tilting his head, his father eyed him for a moment. Then the astute man across the desk from him lowered his eyes and focused on Robert’s hand.

  Robert looked at his own hand, noticing his thumb was rubbing hard against the arm of the chair as if trying to remove the polish. Ceasing his agitated movement, Robert took note of the burning on the pad of his thumb.

  “So, you want to tell me what’s bugging you?” His father’s chair squeaked.

  “Yeah, I do, but I’m not sure where or how to start.” Folding his hands in his lap, Robert raised his gaze to meet his father’s.

  “You know I don’t like people to pussycat around a conversation, so just say it. We’ll handle whatever it is from there.” His father’s mouth angled up in a half smile. “Like always.”

  Like always, hell. “Dad, you always taught Liza and me to live up to our achievements and mistakes.”

  Taking a deep breath, he face looked at him with compassion filling his blue eyes. “Have you got yourself in a situation?”

  “Not now.” Forcing out a breath, he pushed his words out. “But, eight years ago I did.”

  The general’s eyebrows pinched together in the center of his forehead. “While you were in college? What could’ve happened back then that could cause you to be this stressed?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the baby, Dad?” Robert blurted out.

  His father’s head bounced up and down in understanding. “Now I see. She told you I offered her money for an abortion.”

  For the first time in his life, Robert saw red clouds obstructing his vision of his father. “Why in the hell—” Raking his hands through his hair, Robert stood. Moving to the back of the chair, he leaned over it, gripping the headrest. “Dad, I loved her.”

  Still calm, his father folded his hands on the desktop. “Robert, I would never belittle your feelings.”

  “Then why do it, Dad? The baby would’ve been your grandchild. You would’ve willingly killed your grandson or granddaughter and not even told me.” Robert’s words came out pressured. The tightness in his throat from the night before returned full force.

  His father’s features distorted. Robert couldn’t tell if it was from pain or embarrassment.

  “You were only a child yourself. Both of you were. I wasn’t telling her to have an abortion, I was giving her options. I saw the old used car she came pulling up in the driveway in.” His father threw his hands up, settling deeper in his chair. “That girl didn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. The last thing you all needed was for you to come charging down here from college and continue in the house game you shouldn’t have even started. No money and no jobs.” Pausing, his father sighed. Locking gazes with him, his father said, “But, so you know this. I would’ve made sure you knew, came home and had a job. I didn’t raise you and your sister to hide from your problems and I’ll be damned if it would’ve started then.”

  The truth of his father’s words popped the steam out of his balloon of indignation. “What happened, Dad? Do you know how she ended up in the hospital?”

  “I took her.”

  “What?” Robert folded his arms across his chest.

  A smile stretched across his father’s face, almost prideful. “That girl has spunk. She’s a fighter. She sat in that chair.” His father pointed at the chair Robert now stood behind, and said, “When I offered her money for an abortion, she called me a cold, rich white man who was afraid to blemish the family snow with a chocolate drop. I’ve had airmen who would never have had the balls to raise their voice at me. But, that girl didn’t care one whit about my two stars.” A dry chuckle came from his mouth. “Then before I could say anything she ran out the house. I went chasing after her, but by the time I got to the front door she was laying awkward at the bottom of the porch steps clutching her stomach and crying.” Sadness glazed his father’s eyes. “There wasn’t anything else for me to do but scoop her up and get her to Smith Northview Hospital in Valdosta. The bleeding started on the way.”

  Robert returned to the chair Danielle had fled so many years ago. “Her mother believes she had an abortion.”

  The general folded his hands in his lap. “I’m sure she does. The hospital told me they’d contacted her mother, so I waited outside the room to make sure she was going to be okay. Her mother didn’t even blink in my direction when she stormed into the room in front of me. The door hadn’t even shut before she said, ‘well you done fixed yo’ problem now. It’s time to go. I need to get back to work to pay for this new bill you done made’. In a flash, she had her daughter dressed and out of the hospital, never asking what happened or how the girl was doing.”

  Robert shook his head. Danielle’s mother wondered why her daughter left and only sends cards and money. When Danielle had needed Ms. Harvey emotionally, her mother hadn’t been there for her. Now he could understand why Danielle put up so many walls and refused to address their feelings for each other.

  “So, what’s your plan for you and this girl?”

  Staring at his father, he corrected him, “Danielle. Her name is Danielle.”

  “No, her name is LaQuesha. But, it was legally changed in Atlanta to Danielle.”

  Robert frowned. “She told you her real name.”

  “Hell, no,” he barked with laughter. “When she came to the house, she introduced herself as Danielle. I did some checking around and found out about her.”

  “I tried to do the same thing and got nowhere.”

  His father grinned. “Son, I was a general in the United States Air Force. There’s not much I can’t discover.”

  Nodding, Robert agreed with his father. “I’m sure. So, you figured out I’m dating her.”

  “That didn’t take much discovering. When she moved to town, I knew once you finished law school and came home it was a matter of time.”

  “Then why do you and all your buddies keep trying to set me up with all of the available girls in town?” He could start his own phone book with the numbers he’d been given.

  “Options, son. Life is filled with options,” his father threw his hands out to the side.

  “I love her, Dad,” he confirmed.

  “I figured as much.” Leaning his elbows on the desk, his father eyed him across the polished wood surface. “Do me a favor. Make an honest woman out of her before you all start on my grandbabies this time.”

  Lifting and dropping his hands with a loud slap on his thighs, Robert said, “I’d love to, Dad. But, Danielle won’t even answer my phone calls.”

  “Well, we know she’ll be at the Claremont County Independence Day fair.”

  For the first time that day, Robert smiled. “Thanks, Dad.”

  * * * *

  “Okay, Smith, you’re off candy apple patrol. Step back and let a professional handle this,” said Mandy Franklin, the other day shift female cop.

  Laughing, Danielle allowed the tall, lanky ebony-haired woman to hip bump her away from the bubbling caramel pot. “So, you’re trying to tell me you can do a better job than me?”

  Mandy looked over at the gooey blob-covered apples on the wax paper. “Uh, I think a two-year-old could have managed to make it still look like apples.”

  Biting on the side of her lip and wrinkling her nose, Danielle said, “I think you’re right, Franklin. I can cook, but I’m terrible with carnival candy.”

  “You got that right. So, stay away from the cotton candy bin as well, Smith. I still haven’t gotten all the sugar out of my hair,” Brantley warned.

  Danielle stuck her tongue out at the big burly redhead. “Whatever. I’ll just help Thompson with chocolate dipped banan—”

  “No!” Fred Thompson, the buzz cut blond of the force, threw his hands up to ward her off the simmering double boiler. The white gauze on his forearm a stark reminder of the last time she’d been there.

  Poking her lip out to hide her grin, she asked, “So, you don’t want my help?”

/>   Pulling a perfect brown covered apple out of the pot and placing it on the wax sheet, Franklin said, “Smith, you ran your ass off yesterday and raised a lot of money. You made it possible for us to provide so many free treats for the town folks. You did your part.”

  “Ran like something was chasing you,” Thompson chirped in.

  “Now get your tiny ass out of the booth.” Franklin ordered.

  “Fine.” Danielle waved at her friends, taking the hint that her service was no longer needed, and left the candy stand. She was finally feeling a part of the town and the force. Strolling through the fairgrounds, she loved how twice a year this place came together raising money and contributing things so that this event was free for everyone.

  Pausing by the Ferris wheel, Danielle spotted the only dark corner of her own personal cloud nine. Robert. He was standing in the conductor’s box at the carousel waiting for more kids to load up on the metal horses. His sister Liza and Officer Zeller were assisting smaller kids on the ride, while inside with him was Stephanie Maxwell, pressed close beside him. The woman’s fake boobs practically stroked Robert’s arm. Danielle could see Stephanie’s sharp nipples signaling attention from this far away. Shifting her gaze back to Robert and seeing is brown hair, strong jaw line and sexy mouth, Danielle’s body tensed in remembrance. His hands shifted the controls, starting the ride for the children, and heat rolled in her stomach and lowered between her legs, awakening her sex. She recalled every touch and caress of his hands on her body and his spicy male scent.

  She shook her head to clear it. The last thing she needed was to torture herself any more than she already was. Pulling her gaze away from him, Danielle turned and went to the picnic area. She would need to find a spot before it got too crowded. The fireworks would be starting soon.

  Plopping down on the grass, Danielle stared off in the distance. Thompson had been correct when he said she ran as if something was chasing her. Yesterday, she had tried to outrun all of the loneliness that was going to be her companion for many years to come.