Soft Wild Ache (Crown Creek)

by Theresa Leigh

  Same dark hair. Same pale skin. Same heart-shaped face, but her lips were different.

  "Is that your sister?" I whispered, needlessly.

  The girl she had called Rebecca was white as a ghost, but as she stared at Rachel, and then me, and then back to Rachel, her face went as red as a beet.

  "Hi." I didn't like how small Rachel's voice sounded.

  "What are you doing?" her sister hissed.

  "What do you care?"

  "You're right. I shouldn't care. Because obviously, you don't!"

  "Rebecca!" Rachel's voice broke in a sob.

  With a swish of long skirts, Rebecca turned her back and started to stomp the rest of the way to their booth. A few of the women looked back at Rachel. Some looked sympathetic, but most looked downright titillated. Whispers and shocked giggles carried all the way over to where we were standing.

  I looked back at my angel and blinked. "Are you okay?" Another needless question, because she was clearly not. When I was a little boy, I was briefly into survivalism and studied up on all the various ways you could get into trouble in the wilderness. There had been a whole chapter in my favorite book regarding snakebites, with vivid illustrations of what to look for in the victim.

  Rachel could have been the illustration for shock.

  "Hey." I slung my arm around her again, trying not to wince at how stiff she was. "Can I help you? Tell me what you need."

  She stepped a little to the side, effectively sidestepping my embrace. She flipped her long braid back over her shoulder and lifted her chin. "It's okay."

  "Clearly it isn't."

  The robotic way she turned her head chilled me right down to my shoes. "I'm fine, Beau. I mean, I left, right?" She shook her head. "It doesn't matter." Color was rising back up into her face. "I left for a reason," she said with her voice getting tighter, angrier. "I'm out in the real world now." She reached down and grabbed my hand and squeezed, hard. "And I'm doing just fine."

  "Yes, you are." I wanted to argue, but it seemed foolhardy to argue in the face of such determination.

  "Although," she faltered. "I could actually really use a drink."

  "Well, we're right here, so that works out well." My lame attempt at a joke was completely ignored. She wasn't even looking at me. She was looking across the road, staring even.

  I looked where she was looking and spotted the drab, flapping skirts of the Chosen women as they set out their wares at their booth. Rachel didn't move until the one in pale blue - her sister - stopped setting out the wrapped packets of bread and looked back out across the street.

  It was only when Rachel was sure that her sister was watching her that she turned and went right into the bar.

  I followed her. Of course. And I tried like hell to ignore how the ground suddenly felt so uneven under my feet. Like a rift had popped up where none had been before.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Beau

  "How many is that?" I asked Rachel, even though I knew damn well it had been too much already. "Definitely time for some water, right?"

  "I'm fine." It was all she'd been saying the past hour. Variations on a litany that I knew wasn't true.

  The festival had dumped a load of strangers into the bar. We were pressed in at all sides and my worry about Rachel had me on edge enough to actually snap at a guy who got too close. "Hey, you mind?" For the first time, I was starting to understand Finn's longing for the woods. Being alone - only surrounded by the people I cared about - sounded pretty appealing right now.

  Rachel tried to take another deep swallow of her mixed drink, but I gently tugged the glass from her hand. She looked at me, shocked, and more than a little pissed then sighed heavily when I shoved the water glass into her hand. "Drink. Remember what I told you? You're going to feel like shit in the morning if you don't stay hydrated, especially since it's so damn hot in here." I shot a significant look at Taylor who went on wiping his glass aggressively.

  I nodded when she sighed and took a long swallow. When she let it fall back down to the bar, I took it back before she spilled. "Do you want to go see the rest of the booths now?" We'd been inside this dark bar for way too long.

  She bit her lip and shook her head.

  "Because your sister is out there?"

  "That doesn't matter."

  "It clearly does," I said, as gently as I could. "Do you miss your family?"

  She looked at me like I'd asked her if she showered naked. It was obvious. "Of course."

  "So why did you leave?" Again, I said it as gently as I could. "Believe me, I know how obnoxious family can get, I'm like the poster child for it. But something is obviously bothering you." I handed her the water again and prodded her to take another drink, which she did begrudgingly. "And it's killing me," I said truthfully.

  Her eyes went bright for a second before she collected herself and set the water glass back down again, a bit more steadily this time. "I told you. I left because there was no place for me there."

  "Right, but I don't know what that means."

  She opened her mouth as if she was about to explain and I held my breath.

  Then she grinned and leaned forward. "It's okay." She nuzzled my neck and then slid off the bar stool and into my lap. "I'm okay, especially because I have you." She wiggled a little and started kissing me. Hard.

  Instantly I was hard for her, just like I'd been since the day I met her. But her kiss was wrong. Desperate. As she shoved her tongue into my mouth, I could taste the alcohol that clung to her lips. "Jesus, Rachel," I panted because she was really getting me worked up. "Angel, you know I want you, but not like this. You're too drunk."

  "I am not," she slurred.

  "Right. That's it." I scooped her up. "Thanks, Taylor!" I sang out sunnily to the glowering bartender.

  Rachel burst into tears.

  "Okay," I promised as I hurriedly ducked out of the back entrance to the Crown Tavern, and around the parking lot, out of sight of the Chosen tent. My car was on the other side of the bridge, and there was no helping how many people saw me hustling my sodden drunk girlfriend through the crowds. If Rachel were in any shape to notice, she would hate this, I felt that acutely.

  I finally bundled her into my car, where she slumped in a teary pile. Her quiet crying was far more disturbing than the angry front she'd put up for me and even more worrisome than the faux seduction she'd tried to spin out to distract me.

  When I finally had her home and in bed, I stood there for a moment. Part of me wanted desperately to climb back in there with her. But it wouldn't be right.

  I yanked the grubby bar receipt out of my pocket and scrawled a quick note to her. Call me when you wake up. Then I paused with the nub of pencil hovering in the air, unsure as to how to sign my name. XO Beau? From, Beau...

  Love, Beau?

  I glanced at her one more time, feeling a strange ache in my chest. If I thought it would do her any good at all, I wouldn't hesitate to march right into the Chosen compound and demand to know what the hell they were playing at. But I knew that would do nothing for Rachel, and what's more, she would probably end up pissed at me for interfering.

  I hated not being able to help.

  I hated not even knowing how to help.

  I scrawled my first initial on the piece of receipt with no sign-off. Just 'B.' Then left her house, locking the door behind me.

  Claire's Jeep wasn't in the driveway. She was probably out with her trio of best friends and for that I was grateful. I couldn't deal with my sister's penetrating questions tonight. Not when I had no answers.

  "You okay?" my mom asked immediately upon seeing me.

  "Sure."

  "Well, you sure don't look it."

  "I'm just tired." That wasn't a complete lie. Wedging my six foot three frame into Rachel's bed hadn't made for a very restful night's sleep.

  My mother narrowed her librarian-eyes, looking like she'd like to pick up her glasses just so she could peer over the top of them at me. "Rachel seems like
a nice girl," she finally said.

  "Yup."

  "You're not spending the night over there again tonight?"

  "You don't miss anything, do you?"

  "Not where my kids are concerned. Which is why I wanted to ask you." She lowered her voice and glanced toward the stairs. "Any idea what's up with Finn?"

  I pressed my lips together. I'd been spending so much time wrapped up in Rachel that I was forgetting to keep an eye on my brother. "Not sure, exactly."

  "You're keeping close watch on him, right?"

  The anxious note in her voice jolted me right out of my Rachel reverie. "Yeah, of course." This was a lie, as of this moment. But it didn't need to be. "That's why I came home, to spend some time with him," I decided suddenly.

  "Good." My mom sat back down and picked up the thick book she'd had in front of her when I arrived back home. I watched her a moment and couldn't help but notice that her eyes weren't moving across the page at all. She was just sitting there. Worried.

  My skin was crawling with the need to fix something - anything. I hadn't figured out how to fix things for Rachel yet, but I was pretty sure I knew how to fix my brother.

  I took the stairs up to Finn's room two at a time.

  His light was on, a good or bad sign, depending on how you looked at it. On one hand, it was good that he wasn't spending all of his time sleeping like he used to. But on the other hand, that meant he was sitting alone in his room and had been for hours. I knocked. "Can I come in?"

  There was a shuffle and the sound of blankets falling. "Yeah," Finn grunted.

  I opened the door and tried not to wince at the smell of stale air. Purposefully leaving the door open behind me, I went over and settled on the bed next to him, kicking away the pile of blankets that lay knotted on the floor. "You been downstairs at all today?"

  "Yeah." Finn was flicking through his phone without looking at me. He'd probably been doing that for hours now, but I didn't want to ask.

  "Hey, uh, so about the house."

  His eyes flickered with interest.

  "I really want to make a move on it." The smell of stale air and my brother stagnating with it put some urgency in my voice. I tried to slow down, not rush him, but it was hard. "I think you're really going to like it."

  Finn rolled over onto his back. "Yeah?" If there was interest in his voice, it was buried under a layer of sadness.

  "It's exactly what you want. I mean, cabins in the middle of state parks don't come up for sale every so often."

  "I just want to be away from everybody." Finn finally let his phone fall to the side. "You say it's good?"

  "I haven't toured inside yet but yeah." I clapped my hand on his knee. "It's pretty perfect."

  I held my breath as I waited for him to respond. My heart was pounding with the need for him to get excited. Be happy. Look forward to this.

  Finally, he let out a sigh. "I trust you." He let out a breath that could have been a laugh but didn't sound much like one. "I trust you more than I trust myself, honestly."

  Those words were like an icy knife slipping just under my ribs. "What do you mean?"

  "Not like that, Beau."

  I tried to rearrange my face into neutral lines, but it was too late. The panic had already set in. "Not like that?" I asked, my throat dry.

  Finn sighed and sat up straighter and I hated that I needed him to be the one to reassure me. That wasn't how this was supposed to work. "How many times do I have to promise that I won't do that again?"

  I tried like hell to smile. "Maybe one more time."

  "I'm not going to try to off myself again, Beau." I winced at the flippant tone he used.

  "You know I hate it when you use that phrase."

  He spread his hands. "Fine. Kill myself. Commit suicide. Whatever. I'm not going to do it, Beau."

  He reached out. That was what convinced me. Not his words but the fact that he clapped his hand on my shoulder. I wanted to believe that if Finn was really unreachable again, then he wouldn't reach out to me. "Those were bad days, Beau."

  "I know." Twelve years wasn't long enough to dull the pain of remembering that day. I was ten years old and scared like hell as I watched the ambulance doors shut with my twin brother unconscious inside. I wanted to go with him, we'd never been separated before. I wanted to pitch a fit, to throw the mother of all tantrums until they allowed me to go with him. But then I saw my mother's grim, tear-streaked face and my childish indignation fell away. And right then, at ten years old, I understood perfectly that it was more important that I take care of others than it was to be taken care of myself. I went to my mother and put my hand on her shoulder much the same way Finn had his hand on mine now. "I'll take care of him, Mom," I'd promised. "I'll watch out for him."

  And that's what I'd always done, ever since. Take care of him. "What would you say about playing music together again?" I asked him.

  Finn let his hand fall back. A spark of interest flared in his eyes and then died away. "The band broke up."

  "The label wants the band together again." I shifted, feeling the excitement bubbling inside of me. With any luck, that weird twin-connection meant that he'd feel it too. "Just one performance, but it'll be enough to buy the house outright." Finn was tilting his head with interest, so I put the cherry on top of the sundae with a promise I hoped like hell I could keep. "Just one performance and then you can have all the seclusion you want."

  It worked. He was chuckling. "All I want, huh? But won't you still be there?"

  The heaviness slid from my shoulders. "Well yeah, idiot. You're never actually going to be rid of me." I gaped at him, rolling my eyes comically.

  "Really?" Some of the sourness crept back into his voice. "Not even when it comes to this chick?"

  My blood heated. "She's not just 'some chick.'"

  "I didn't say she was."

  "Don't, Finn."

  "What? You're gonna go be with her at some point though, right? That's where you're headed, I can tell." He tapped the side of his temple. "I know things."

  I opened my mouth to tell him he was wrong, then shut it because I'd be lying. I did want to see where things were going with Rachel. But I also knew I'd made a promise to my mother. "Nah, man." I clapped him on the shoulder a little harder than I meant to, making him wince and stare at me. My throat felt tight, but I forced the words around the lump that was forming. "We're a team for life.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Rachel

  The clouds were gathering on the horizon. Huge, thunderheads boiling upward in the west, black with the promise of ranges and tinged with the greenish threat of hail too. It was up to me to get the cows in from the pasture. I slid off the fence rail with sudden purpose but was distracted by the swish of my skirts around my ankles.

  My skirts. How strange that I should notice them like this? They were a part of me, and yet they felt so heavy around my hips, like the hems were weighted down. I glanced down to find that the reason was I had dragged them through the mud. I did not remember this, but that didn't concern me now.

  A gusting wind picked up, sharp enough to send my braid swinging. The clouds were closer now - much closer than they should have been. Time seemed to be speeding up, but when I tried to move, it was as if I was knee deep in heavy snow. I could barely move my feet.

  It was my skirts. My mud-caked skirts were dragging me down, so heavy I had to sink to my knees. Panic choked my throat closed as the first boom of thunder sounded over my head and I looked up in horror as the spooked cows started racing to the barn for safety. Their sharp hooves bit the earth, I could feel the vibrations under my hands. I pushed up. I tried to move. I needed to get out of the way before they trampled me, but my skirts - my skirts were so heavy. I couldn't move out of the way of the stampede bearing down on me. I was going to be crushed and the thunder was so loud that no matter how loud I cried out, no one could hear me scream. But I screamed anyway. I screamed, and I screamed as the thunder boomed overhead and -

&n
bsp; I screamed and suddenly I was no longer there in the pastures that ringed the Chosen compound anymore. I was in my bed, with the sheets twisted tightly around my legs.

  I kicked them free in a blind panic and that's when I heard the rumble of thunder that had made its way into my dreams.

  My nightmare.

  I kicked the blankets straight onto the floor and only then - with my legs free and unencumbered - did my heart rate start to slow. "Beau?" My voice was sleep-thickened, and my throat was raw. "Are you here?"

  The house was silent and the space next to me was cold. I rolled over to look for his shoes by the bed but was halted by a slice of pain knifing through my head. I blinked and dug the heel of my hand into my eyeball. "What the hell?"

  And that's when I saw the glass of water and three white aspirin on my bedside table.

  So he had been here. I reached for the water and guzzled it, suddenly parched, then remembered at the last moment to save a few sips to swallow down with the pills. Then I let my head flop back down onto the pillow.

  I had gotten drunk yesterday. Why? Because I had seen Rebecca - the memory came back with such clarity that doubled over, curling into the fetal position as I clutched my belly. My sister had seen me with Beau. I blinked at the empty water glass. Anger was heating my blood, anger at Rebecca and the rest of the Chosen. My family. Who'd cut me off. What did they care if I was acting secular now? I was happy, happier than I'd been in a long time. Happy because I had a man who took me home and tucked me in and left me water and aspirin for when I woke up hurting after seeing the people who, once upon a time, had warned me not to trust people like him. Musicians were evil, rock musicians were Satan's envoys to earth, but when I was with Beau, I felt closer to heaven than I'd ever felt wearing the skirts of a Chosen woman. He was nothing like I had been taught he was. He was wholly himself and what he was, was a wonderful man. I didn't belong to the Chosen anymore.