by Lee Winter
Her words were lost when Catherine pulled her into a tight hug. “Shut up,” she murmured into her ear, then kissed it softly. “That was perfect.”
“It was?”
“Yes. Now would you mind if we tracked down all your linebackers and headed home?”
Lauren reseated the panda firmly on her hip with the look of a woman set for a mission. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 12 –
Little by Little
They pulled up into the drive, and Lauren virtually fell out. She was emotionally drained, beyond her usual physical flatline after a day trudging all over a fair in the hot sun. She could only imagine how wiped out Catherine was feeling. Her brothers all tumbled out and headed inside.
Catherine climbed out slowly and leaned against the truck. She made no move toward the house. She simply stared at it.
“Come on,” Lauren said. “You look like you need some space away from the rabble. Let’s go sit under the tree until dinner.”
Catherine nodded, pushed off the truck, and started to walk in that direction. Flipping a folded blanket from the back of the truck over her shoulder, Lauren caught up with her.
After a few strides, Catherine glanced at her. “Would your brothers have really used Stephanie…Michelle… as a piñata if you asked?”
“Well, not literally, but sure, they’d have rattled her a little. And they’d do it if you asked, too. You do get some rights to go with the pains in your ass.”
Catherine said nothing more, and they walked on in silence.
Sliding an arm around her waist, Lauren said, after a few minutes, “Want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
After a moment, Catherine suddenly exploded. “What is there to say? She was my worst-case scenario after all. I was a pawn. God, I should have known better. I’m a veteran journalist, and I trusted my source because I…” She stopped talking.
“Loved her?” Lauren wasn’t too sure she wanted to know the answer.
“I… No. Well, it could have developed into that. She’d turned herself into what she’d determined was my perfect match. Hell! How easy must I have been to manipulate? How easy would it have been to make me love her?”
“You think she was your perfect match?” Lauren tried to push down the faint, curling tendril of jealousy.
“She certainly tried to be. I don’t want to think about even liking her right now, though. Or what any of it means. I don’t want to think about any of this.”
“All right, topic change ahead.” Lauren gave her a reassuring smile.
They reached the tree, but instead of stopping, Lauren took Catherine’s hand and pulled her closer to the end of the property. She pointed to a favorite spot of grass. “If you sit just here and look between those two trees, you get a pretty spectacular view of the sunset.”
She laid out the blanket. After dropping to the ground, Lauren patted a spot next to her. Catherine settled beside her.
“Going to be a beautiful one tonight. I can tell.” Lauren slipped her hand back into Catherine’s.
They sat in silence and watched as the skies changed from rich blue to red, then pink. Colors streaked across the horizon like an Impressionist artist’s brush, bold and passionate.
Leaning against her fiancée, Lauren willed her to feel the warmth and love she felt for her.
Dusk shifted into night. Twilight stars had just come out. Lauren knew they should probably go in, but she didn’t want to move when Catherine seemed so lost in thought. She had a lot to untangle, and Lauren would stay beside her for as long as it took.
Catherine finally shifted and said something soft and faint.
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear.” Lauren turned to her.
“I said you don’t know what it’s like to be me. You don’t know what it’s been like.”
That was very true. She’d never been able to fully understand all the complexity that was Catherine Ayers. She’d tried many, many times to break through and see everything that lay beyond her walls. Occasionally, Lauren would get abbreviated accounts of Catherine’s past, stripped of everything but facts. Never a word containing an emotional resonance. Then Catherine would immediately change topics. It was frustrating, but Lauren was always hopeful that one day she’d find out what made her complicated lover tick.
“No, I don’t know,” Lauren agreed quietly. “But I wish you’d tell me.”
“You understand how difficult it is for me to share. That…that came from my childhood. I had only a few girlfriends after I left home, but I never let any of them in. I…couldn’t. My family is powerful, controlling, and larger than life, and I didn’t feel safe enough to explain myself or my parents. I learned well at their knee—vulnerability will get you shredded. It took a long time to feel safe with anyone. Stephanie would gently ask, and I’d put her off. And finally…” She made a pained sound. “I decided to trust her. I told her all about my family. My life. My childhood. Some of my secret fears. My hopes. My doubts. What it was like to be me.”
Lauren inhaled sharply. The gift that the woman had been given was staggering. Lauren would have cherished such a gift to her dying breath. And now Michelle had ruined everything. The realization that because of that betrayal, Catherine might never share her whole self with Lauren felt like a kick in the gut. She had never hated someone quite so much as Michelle as she did at that minute.
“I trusted her with who I am,” Catherine continued. “Do you grasp how hard that was for me?”
“Yeah. I do. I know.”
Catherine pursed her lips. “Afterward, she took my hand and looked me in the eye. And she thanked me and said my secrets were safe with her.” Her laugh was bitter. “That night, she made love to me like she really meant it. Like I was the most precious thing she knew. It was beautiful. Releasing. And the next day I woke up feeling loved. Special. Worthy. I was overjoyed. It felt like life had finally begun. Like I finally had what everyone else did. I felt whole. Free of my past at last.”
Catherine turned, tears in her eyes as she met Lauren’s gaze. “And it was all a disgusting lie. Every touch. Every look. Every promise. Was. A. Lie.”
The tears spilled and slid down her cheeks. “I gave up everything…shared who I was, all of it…for nothing. I was nothing to her.” Her hands balled into fists. “The day she left me, three weeks later, I learned a new lesson about trust—that it’s an empty fantasy. Oh, I learned that lesson very well.”
Her breath shuddered. “But even in the middle of my rage and hurt after she left me, every day I relived her expression when she thanked me.” Catherine wiped her eyes. “She seemed so genuine. I believed her completely. Oh, she was a masterful actress. I tortured myself over the fact that I had not detected her true face. I was deeply ashamed I’d been so gullible. I…still am.”
“Oh, Catherine.”
“She broke me. I was so exposed and it was frightening.” She glanced at Lauren. “The truth is, it still is.” She lowered her eyes. “A part of me, larger than I care to admit, is terrified of having it happen to me again.”
“I understand,” Lauren whispered. “I really do. But it’s just me here. Me. Nothing twisty about this kid from Iowa, I promise. But I know telling you that you’re safe with me, that I don’t ever want to hurt you, aren’t things you trust anymore. So, let me say something else: you don’t have to tell me anything about your past until you feel comfortable. Even then, maybe only tell me little by little. Or never. It’s up to you. Only when you’re ready. We have a lot of years ahead to discuss all this. I won’t push if you don’t want me to. Okay?” She reached over and wiped a tear from Catherine’s cheek. “But for the record, there will never be anywhere safer for you than with me. Never doubt that.”
Catherine’s gaze held so much naked emotion—fear and hope warring—that it made Lauren’s heart ache.
“And it’s okay you didn’t know the truth about your girlfriend,” Lauren continued. “It doesn’t mean you’re gullible. It means she’s extra tricky. That’s on her. But also remember one thing: she’s nothing to you anymore. Okay? You have all the facts now, and today you can draw a line under this and put her behind you. We’re going to look forward. We’re going to have a full and awesome life and not give that manipulative bitch another thought.”
“What if…I can’t?” Catherine asked softly.
“Can’t what?”
Her expression filled with doubt. “Trust again?”
“But you already have. Look at us. We’re getting married soon. I’m so grateful you let me in as much as you already have. I feel honored by the confidences you share just with me. Don’t you know how special it feels that you chose me to share your life with?”
“Smartest thing I ever did.”
Lauren smiled and lifted her eyebrows. “Let me guess—but if I quote you on that, you’ll deny it?”
Instead of laughing, Catherine held her gaze with a solemn look. “No, Lauren. It is the smartest thing I ever did.”
Something inside Lauren broke a little, in a sweet, soft way. A warmth welled up in her, and Lauren found her own tears leaking. “Now we’re both crying. What a pair.”
“A good pair, though,” Catherine said quietly. “We might be faintly ridiculous right now, but generally we’re the definition of everything that I think is good and solid and right.”
“We are.” Lauren hesitated. “Do you mind if I ask one last thing about…her? When we were in LA, you said she gave you hope. I just…I don’t see it. She’s so cynical. She’s not a nice person.”
“You met Michelle today. The woman I knew, Stephanie, had so much hope,” she said after a few moments. “She was warm and interesting and had big dreams. It was all a fiction, of course. Michelle was the real woman.” She grimaced. “It’s hard for me to grasp even now that she was acting the whole time. I don’t know what to think. It’s so confusing.”
Lauren wrapped her arm around her in a sideways embrace. “Well, here’s what we do know about her: She’s A) morally bankrupt. She’s B) a complete idiot, ’cause anyone who’d give you up for any reason has rocks in their head. And C) for some reason, she wants us to follow up our stories.”
“She does, doesn’t she? Why?” Catherine frowned. “And who on earth does she work for?”
“Got me. But I can’t work out her angle because I don’t know her.”
“I don’t, either. I just thought I did, once upon a delusion.” She glowered and scuffed the ground with the heel of her boot.
“Yeah. That really is the hard part, isn’t it?” Lauren exhaled. “Feeling you don’t know what’s real anymore.”
“Truly, I don’t. It’s…difficult to ground myself. Some days are harder than others. But it’s been a lot better since I met you.”
Lauren smiled. “Lauren King, life-sized anchor. You’re welcome.”
“Mmm. By the way, your defense of my honor today is duly noted. And most appreciated.” She dusted a kiss against Lauren’s cheek. “The look of her scuttling away like a twitchy squirrel… It went a long way to healing something inside. I’ll have something different to remember when I think of her now.”
“Good. And for the record, I plan to make it my mission that you don’t remember her at all in the future. It’ll just be thoughts of you and me filling your head. And then, in three months’ time, we’re gonna kick marriage’s ass and people will say, ‘There goes Lauren King, luckiest woman in the world.’”
Catherine laughed for a brief moment before her face crumpled. She turned away.
“Hey, don’t,” Lauren whispered. “Don’t be embarrassed. It’s just me. And I might be a tough Iowan kid, but you know how often I cry. Kitten videos, burnt toast, stubbed toes—you name it. Please never be afraid to be emotional around me.”
“It’s so muddled. I don’t…” Catherine wiped her eyes and glanced at her. “I really don’t understand why I am reacting like this. It happened four years ago. I didn’t cry when my parents disowned me. I didn’t cry when Phoebe didn’t stand up for me to them. I was furious when I lost my job and my friends deserted me, but I didn’t shed a single damned tear. And yet now, here, far from everything I’ve ever known, suddenly I can’t stop.” She lifted her hand to display the wetness glinting on her fingers.
“It’s simple.” Lauren grasped those trembling fingers. “Someone who meant a lot to you has dredged up a lot of painful old stuff, unresolved feelings and memories, and maybe right now, right here, is the first time you feel safe enough to let down your guard and really process it.”
“Maybe so.” Catherine’s gaze drifted to the emerging stars. “You know, my parents always used to mock the Midwest as ‘less than.’ But I’m finding I appreciate its lack of artifice the longer I’m here. It’s earthy, uncomplicated, decent, and honest.” She glanced back at Lauren. “Much like you.”
“Iowa grows on people.” Lauren grinned. “You know, speaking of your parents—all this time I thought they were running some stuffy old company, the way you spoke of your family business. And you also said they’d be having vapors over the idea of you marrying me. Now I find out your dad’s some sort of futuristic visionary? How does that fit?”
“My father is not a visionary. He’s a good manager. His father was visionary. And the Ansom team they surround themselves with are spectacular. They’re the stars.”
“So why all the uptightness? The social conservatism?”
“To be fair, it’s mainly from my mother’s side. She married into a family that was wealthy and well-known. She was only nineteen, so she might have overcompensated in trying to do what she thought she should. Everything was all about appearances and trying to fit in with the elite.”
“Well then, I can see why you marrying someone like me would give her hives.”
“Absolutely. Her daughter marrying a female, a reporter, and an Iowan? In Iowa? I think it couldn’t get much worse for her. Well…unless you were also a criminal.” Catherine suddenly looked greatly amused by that thought. Her eyebrows lifted. “Do tell, are you?”
“Hey? Why assume that?” Lauren tossed her an askance look.
“I’m not hearing a denial. What was it, ‘borrowing’ sports cars and doing donuts behind the high school?”
“I did have a brief life of petty crime, it’s true.” Lauren hid her smile.
“Here it comes.”
“When I was eight or nine, certain sweets found their way into my pocket at the local five-and-dime store.”
“My hardened felon. So, what happened?”
“Mom was horrified and dragged me down to the local police station for a stern talking to. They had this junior officer lecture me about how if I kept this up I’d be on the road to ruin.”
“Ahh. Did it work? Were your criminal inclinations curtailed?”
“And how.” Lauren gave an amused hum. “I was in such awe of the cop. She was beautiful. My first crush. Not sure I heard much of what she said. But her in that uniform…wow.”
“I don’t think that talk went quite how your mother envisioned it.”
“Nope, not even close. But it sure did clarify some things for me. I had a pretty clear idea after that as to why I never could see myself with a boyfriend.” Lauren turned, suddenly filled with curiosity. “What about you? When did you get a clue? I know I’ve asked a few times. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you keep dodging the question.” A tiny smile danced around her lips. “I mean, unless this is one of those things in your past you don’t want to talk about?”
A wary look crossed Catherine’s face, but she answered anyway. “I suppose my first inkling had to do with discovering that my boyfriend’s sister was far more interesting to kiss than he was. We were fifteen. He was so outra
ged when he found out that he told everyone. Mom made a big fuss and the poor girl—”
“They blamed her?”
“Well, no Ayers could possibly be one of those, so who else was there to blame? My mother accused her of corrupting me.” Sadness crossed her face. “In truth, I was the one who…” She pressed her lips together.
“What happened?”
“Her family suddenly had the funds to move to a different state. And my mother increased her vigilance on me. The rest of my teenage years became filled with homework, horse riding, and handpicked ‘friends.’” Her face closed. “Those are not times I wish to relive.”
“I’m sorry. But at least you’re free of all that now.”
“Yes. I thank the universe every day for that. I owe my parents nothing.”
“Exactly. They’re behind you; it’s what’s ahead that matters.”
“Very true. And what’s ahead is our wedding.” Catherine nodded. “That’s my focus now. Well, that and figuring out what Ansom’s up to in Iowa. I’m far too curious not to dig about in our downtime a little.”
“Well, I admit I am also a tiny bit curious about the August 10 date your ex gave us but, given she’s about as trustworthy as a fox guarding a henhouse, I probably shouldn’t be,” Lauren said.
“No. You really shouldn’t be.” Catherine rose and dusted herself down.
Lauren also stood and gave the rug a shake. “Oh, hey, I meant to say earlier, thanks for being such a good sport this morning, indulging my brothers when they dragged us off to the tractor pull.”
Catherine made a noncommittal noise and rubbed her temple. “It’s nothing denial and a hearing specialist can’t solve.”
Laughing, Lauren leaned over and kissed her soundly. “God, you’re funny.”
“Who’s joking?”
Chapter 13 –
Ansom Digital Dynamics
Breakfast the next day involved an enormous spread of toast, beans, bacon, and eggs. The sheer volume of artery-hardening edible matter the brothers were capable of mowing through was still hard to get used to for Catherine.
