by Anne Jolin
She pulled a hand from her back and handed him something small. “It’s my nightlight,” Ryley said proudly.
“It’s very pretty,” Rhys told her, and it was. The little nightlight had a screen made up of yellow daisies. “But I can’t keep this, it’s yours.” He shook his head.
She reached for his hand and placed the nightlight in his palm. “It’s so you don’t forget how pretty the light can be.”
Tears stung the backs of my eyes, and I shifted Christopher to one arm. I rested a hand on Rhys’s shoulder, giving it a small squeeze.
“Thank you, Ryley,” he choked out. “But what will you use?”
Stepping forward, she placed a small kiss on his cheek. “It’s okay, Mr. Rhys. I’m not scared of the dark.”
My heart felt too big for my chest.
“Why are you crying, Auntie Aurora?” Ryley frowned when she saw me.
I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand. “Just allergies,” I lied. “Why don’t we all go inside and have something to eat?”
“I could eat,” Owen grumbled, and I laughed.
They’ll come around, I thought to myself, and even if this was as good as it got, then I would be good to go.
BLISS.
I had never known it. Not until now.
It’s a brilliant emotion, wild with desire and steady like the hand of a painter.
That is what loving Aurora was like, utterly blissful.
There were years, nearly eight entire years, that I spent in a barrel of regret. Not regret for what I had done, but regret for what I had not accomplished.
I was a man so fixated on the dark that it never once occurred to me that I’d be blessed enough to ever see the light again. Let alone the light through the love of a woman whose heart I was sure would cure a thousand wounds in her lifetime alone.
There was not a single reason I could think of as to why God had made a girl like her for a guy like me, not a single one. I made him a promise, though. I made him a promise for each night he let me fall asleep loving her.
I promised him that I would spend eternity trying to be worthy of her love.
Not for the rest of her life, but for the rest of mine.
It would be on the day they laid me in the ground that I stopped loving her, and even then, I wasn’t entirely certain because if there was something after all this, then I was sure I’d love her there, too.
“Rhys!” She clasped a hand over her mouth. “You scared me.” She shook her head in hushed tones as I pulled her into the stall.
My hands found their way to the small of her back, and I buried my face in her neck.
That was where my entire world began and ended.
It was the safest I’d ever felt, holding her this way. It was as if my heart sighed and rhythmically wove its way around her soul.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“I just needed to hold you.” I smiled against her skin.
Her body relaxed and her hands wrapped around my waist.
“Thirteen months,” she said.
I groaned. “Thirteen months seems like a lifetime.”
Thirteen months meant the official end of my parole.
It was not that I had the intentions of leaving this place or her. It was that, when that time finally arrived, there would be no restrictions on the way that I could love her.
It meant that I could fall asleep with her in my arms and not have to set an alarm so I didn’t miss curfew.
It meant that I could take her into town for dinner without first needing permission.
It meant that I would finally be able to go home with her, to see the place where she’d grown up and shake hands with her father on his front porch.
It meant the world to us. Thirteen months meant the start to our second beginning.
I would, without any strings, in thirteen months be a free man. A free man who wanted only one thing and that was to love her in every way that she deserved.
“It’ll be here before you know it.” She blew hope across my heartache, the way she always did.
I lifted my head and ran my fingers up into her hair. “Yah.”
She smiled and my world lit on fire.
“I have to go.” She shook her head.
Tilting her chin back with a small tug on the ends of her angel wings, I dropped a dozen kisses on her lips.
“Stay,” I breathed between the last two.
Her body betrayed her as I felt the weight of her frame lean into me. “I really do have to go.”
“Once more, angel,” I teased. “Just one more kiss.
“I have to go pick up the feed with Glitch.” She laughed trying to pull away from me.
I didn’t let her go.
Instead my lips found hers, harder this time, and the love I’d so recently learned I possessed dove into her heart and took ownership there.
Every kiss with her felt like the first, and as a man robbed of so many kisses, I knew the value of that.
“Wow,” she mouthed when our lips parted.
I laughed.
“I love you,” I promised her.
She stood on her tiptoes and kissed the underside of my jaw. “I love you, too.”
Each time she said it, I felt her initials carved into another piece of bone around my heart.
Marked for all eternity.
“I’ll see you later.” She winked as she started back toward the stall door.
I nodded.
And then she was gone.
My eyes checked the clock on the wall again. Almost four.
Dropping the pitchfork, I headed for Grant’s office.
“Are Aurora and Glitch back yet?” I asked a volunteer on the way. “With the hay.”
The older woman practically tripped over her own feet. I never spoke to anyone if I didn’t have to, that included the volunteers. Mostly, I just listened from the shadows, and no one really paid any mind to me at all.
“Are they?” I urged, and her eyes got wider.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
A growl rumbled up from my throat.
The length of my stride was already long given my height, but somehow I managed to walk even faster.
Reaching the door to Grant’s office, I pushed it open.
“Rhys, good afternoon—” He started talking, but I interrupted him.
“Are Aurora and Glitch back from the feed store?” I demanded.
His eyebrows pulled together and he leaned back in his chair. “I would assume so.” He looked at the clock on his desk. “It’s been almost four hours.”
“They should be back by now.” My voice was urgent and my anxiety was heightened at her absence.
Grant removed the reading glasses from his face and lifted a hand up, palm facing toward me. “Slow down, son. I’m sure everything’s just fine,” he assured me.
My feet paced the floorboards of his office, certain the heel of my motorcycle boots would be driven into the wood in a matter of minutes.
Seeming to assess my growing unease, Grant stood from his chair. “Why don’t we just go take a look and see if the one-ton is back yet?”
I nodded, lunging for the doorway.
Something dark lurked around the light in my heart.
It didn’t feel right.
Grant was quicker behind me than I gave him credit for and followed me around back where the company vehicles were stored.
I scanned the lot.
Nothing. No one-ton. They weren’t back.
“That’s odd.” Grant squinted as if somehow the motion would help the truck appear.
My lungs constricted, and I battled the break down in my chest. It was a habit of mine, the tendency to overreact, but this felt different.
“Call her,” I growled.
Grant seemed to arrive at the same conclusion as me. That there was no way it took two people four hours to pick up feed, not on a Thursday afternoon.
He pulled the cellphone from his poc
ket, dialed a number and then put it on speakerphone. It rang six times before her voicemail picked up.
“Hi, you’ve reached Aurora. Please leave me a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks, bye.”
“Aurora, dear. It’s Grant.” He spoke into the receiver. “We’re just a bit worried. If you could give us a call and let us know you’re all right, that would be great.”
He pressed end call and punched in another number.
It rang and a woman answered on the third ring. “Good afternoon. Westwood Feed and Tack, this is Tanya speaking. How—”
Grant cut her off. “Tanya, hi. It’s Grant over at Equine for Hearts. We had a pick up with you guys today.”
“Yes, the grain. We’ve got it ready out back anytime you want to send someone over to get it,” she said.
My heart roared in my chest.
“No one has come in to pick it up already?” he asked for clarification.
“Uhh. I don’t think so,” Tanya said. “Let me put you on hold and check real quick.”
Before either of us could stop her, the hold music came over the line.
“Nope.” Tanya smacked her lips together like she was chewing gum, and the sound rattled around in my skull. “The order’s still here. You need to add something to it?”
“No, thank you,” Grant told her. “Listen, Tanya. Someone from over here, a girl, comes in to grab it, will you call me?”
“Uhh. Sure,” she said, and Grant rattled his cellphone number off to her before the call went dead.
My vision was hazy and yet crystal clear at the same time. It was unlike her to be so evasive, and my soul was a thundering storm without her here to calm it.
“Maybe they had car trouble.” Grant jerked his head. “Get in the truck, we’ll check the route.”
I jogged after him, heaving myself up into the passenger seat of his white pickup.
“Dirt hasn’t serviced that one-ton yet.” Grant spoke to himself, and my nerves calmed just a fraction. “Aurora’s always leavin’ that damn phone in some stall. I’m sure they’re just fine.”
I was unsure if he was reassuring me or himself, but honestly, I didn’t give a shit. My heart was dancing dangerously close to the edge of hysteria, and I didn’t want someone, anyone to pull me back.
The afternoon light suddenly seemed so black. It was like my nerves had clouded over the sun.
I hated it.
I hated that without her here, I somehow had ended up back in the dark.
My hands fisted in my lap as Grant’s truck roared down the highway. If they’d driven too far and broken down, they wouldn’t have been able to walk back in time.
“There!” I pounded on the dashboard.
We’d pulled off the highway and onto the back road that led into town. There was a truck about four hundred yards ahead pulled over on the shoulder.
“What did I tell you?” Grant laughed and my heart rate stuttered. “Glitch probably wanted to wait for someone to drive by rather than walk his lazy behind all the way back.”
It was still too far away to know for sure if it was them, but that would have made sense. We hadn’t passed anyone walking on any of the roads between here and the property.
As we got closer, I could tell the truck was white but my ease ended there.
The driver’s side door was ajar, and from what I could tell, the engine was still running.
Grant slowed down, pulling up behind the one-ton and I threw myself out of the pickup before it even had time to stop.
“Aurora!” I screamed, and my voice broke with the panic.
No response.
“Glitch!” I tried his name, reaching the back of the truck.
No response.
My hands slammed against the paneling of the truck, and by the time I reached the open door, I could barely breath at all.
“Aurora.” I swung my head into the cab and could have cried at the sight.
Empty.
The cab was fucking empty.
My body shook violently. Grant yanked open the passenger door, and his face appeared in my line of vision.
I hadn’t stopped looking inside the cab. I looked and looked, praying somehow I’d made a mistake and she was actually there.
Grant leaned in and turned off the ignition.
He pulled out his cellphone, punched in a few numbers and put it to his ear.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
My eyes searched around the cab.
Ring.
Ring.
Grant leaned forward and stuck his head under the seat.
The ringing stopped.
When he stood back up, he held Aurora’s phone in his hand.
My knees buckled and bile rose in my throat.
I sunk to the ground beside the truck and ran my fingers through my hair.
No.
No.
No.
My mind was locking me out. I couldn’t feel anything but panic.
Slamming my fist onto the ground in agony, I felt something soft on my knuckles where gravel should have been. My fingers curled around it.
“Her backpack,” I whispered.
The door was open.
The truck was running.
Her phone was here.
Her purse was here.
No.
No.
No.
My muscles were a rage of outcry as I shot up from the ground.
“What?” Grant’s face appeared before me.
I tossed him the backpack and ran out to the road. My eyes couldn’t move fast enough, but when I saw it, I almost blacked out in pain.
There, just nearly ten feet ahead, were motorcycle tracks on the shoulder.
Not one or two but almost half a dozen.
My fear morphed into a more crippling emotion, one that had ruined me once before.
I closed my eyes.
“I love you.”
There she was, an angel, I could see her so vividly in my mind.
“Rhys.”
Her voice whispered.
I could barely hear the sound of Grant’s voice over the pounding of blood between my ears.
How could I have been so foolish?
The war they had waged and had not yet ended.
I didn’t even bother shutting the door when my foot slammed down on the accelerator.
“BABY GIRL?”
My eyelids felt heavy, so heavy.
“Aurora.”
Someone was calling my name but I couldn’t see them.
Everything was dark, so dark.
“I’m so sorry.”
I tried to blink, once and then twice, but I couldn’t see any light.
It was so dark.
My heartbeat pounded in my temples and my stomach turned.
I thought I might be sick.
“I’m so sorry, baby girl.”
Some of the fog in my head cleared, and my senses flooded with recognition. The voice in the dark belonged to Glitch.
He was here.
Why was he here in the dark with me?
My throat tried to call for him, but the words died on my lips, muffled by something shoved between my teeth. There was something in my mouth. It tasted dirty and every time I tried to speak through the cloth, I was assaulted by a strange nagging feeling.
I couldn’t call out to him.
He was here in the dark with me, but I couldn’t speak to him.
Why was he here in the dark with me?
I shook my head just a little to try and clear some of the clutter there, but it only made me dizzy and sharp pained stabbed my temple. Maybe, if I could just rub my eyes they would feel themselves so inclined to see again.
Sending a request to my arms, I tried to pull them into the air, but nothing happened.
They didn’t move.
Nothing could move.
They felt stretched out in front of me, the way it did when you sat on a fancy dining ro
om chair, and I clutched the wood beneath me.
It was a chair, but it was too hard to be a fancy one. It was cold, and my fingernails dug into the front of the arm rests.
“Are you okay, baby girl?”
Glitch’s voice seemed to have gotten closer, and my heart roared.
I can’t see you, I thought. I can’t come to you.
I blinked again, this time my eyes opened but still, it was dark.
Not in the natural way of darkness, the kind with shadows lit by the moon or a light in the corner. This was complete and utterly devastating blackness.
“Please, relax,” Glitch begged, his voice getting closer again.
I tried to call out to him, but again I choked on the gag in my mouth.
Why were we here in the dark?
Fingers curled around my shoulder, squeezing affectionately, and then, like the reel of an old movie, the memories came flooding back to me in jagged sequence.
We were driving. My lips had still been warm from Rhys’s kisses.
God, I loved him so much. Why wasn’t he here with me? I missed him.
It was so cold here.
Glitch was behind the wheel, he’d asked to drive and I’d loved the idea of being able to daydream, so I’d said yes.
It seemed that’s how I spent every waking moment when I was away from Rhys. I spent it daydreaming about him, daydreaming about thirteen months from now and what that would look like.
I couldn’t wait to wake up to the morning sun with him.
The next flashback hit me harder. Glitch’s face was twisted up, and the one-ton jerked back and forth repeatedly.
“I think there’s something wrong with the engine.” Glitch shook his head.
I leaned forward and pointed to the side of the back road into town. “Pull off on the shoulder,” I told him. “It might just be overheating.”
He did as I suggested and guided the truck onto the gravel. “I don’t know anything about car engines.”
His voice seemed panicked, and I tried to soothe him with a smile.
“It’s okay,” I promised. “I’ll take a look.” His face seemed so worried. “It’ll be okay.”
Pushing open the passenger side door, I slammed it shut behind me and wandered to the front of the truck. My hands fiddled around under the hood until I felt the latch to release it.
I lifted it up in the air and scanned the engine. I wasn’t great with mechanics but from what I could tell, there was no smoke and that was probably a good thing.
