by Anne Calhoun
He didn’t say anything about the incident in the parking lot, just smiled. “Let’s walk.”
They followed the path through the fields and into the cottonwoods lining the river. George prowled through the tall grass to their left, weaving back and forth, black nose to the ground, always checking in with Rob. After a while Rob stopped at a spot where the path sloped down to a sandbank. Rachel slid down sideways after him. A bleached-out log made a nice spot to rest their backs against while Rachel spread honey on thick slices of homemade bread and Rob opened the yogurt tub.
“What do you think of it?” Rob asked as he bit into bread and honey. He’d added beehives to the farm this year in the hopes of selling honey and wax next season.
She thought it reminded her of sex. “It’s really good,” she said.
Rob wore silence like most people wore the armor of iPods and cell phones, sitting easily in the dappled shade, watching the river trickle by, as restless as the emotions jostling inside her.
“It’s all so confusing,” she finally said.
Rob accepted this non sequitur as a vocalized component of a continuing, silent conversation. “It sure is,” he replied easily. “Everything’s confusing, but what are we talking about in particular?”
“Sex.”
He didn’t flinch or blink or look at her, just finished a handful of grapes. “You’re sleeping with Ben.”
“I am,” she said.
“Your first?” he asked, meeting her gaze.
She nodded. Something flickered behind his eyes, something she couldn’t identify. Instead he turned back to the river and tossed the grape stems into the sluggish current.
“And it’s confusing,” he said.
“Sex is thrilling and amazing and astonishing and exhausting,” she said. “I’m confused about how I feel about it. About him.”
“What happened today?”
“He wasn’t there. I think . . . last week I think I made him do something he didn’t want to do.”
Rob’s laugh held the slightest hint of disbelief. “A man like that? A big symbol of power and authority, and you? Not possible.”
Why was Ben the only person who saw her as dangerous? “So what is possible?”
He dug in the backpack and withdrew the bag of cookies. “For him . . . I don’t know. For you . . . it’s possible to have really amazing sex with someone you don’t like or respect, and to love someone with all your heart and have lukewarm sex at best,” he said. “Getting the heart and body aligned isn’t easy.”
“And you’re speaking from experience?”
He zipped up the backpack and resumed watching the river flow past. “I am.”
She returned the courtesy of not pestering him about his past. “What happens if your body wants someone who isn’t good for you?”
He shrugged. “Eventually you have to choose. One thing will bring you alive, and the other won’t. I’m not saying sex without love is the thing that deadens you. For some people that’s all they need, or want.” He paused for a second. “Or are able to take from someone else. Others choose love without great sex, because an hour or two a week doesn’t outweigh the rest of their lives together. Most people muck around in the middle, trying for both. Only you know what’s right for you.”
They sat for a length of time, Rob lost in memory, George sprawled beside him on the sandbar, Rachel mulling over her time with Ben Harris. Getting to know Ben depended on studying body language, not what he said, and he was really good at not giving much away.
“You have anywhere to be anytime soon?” Rob asked.
“No,” she said, and looked around. The water flowed by, the surface of the river nearly smooth, revealing the current when a stick or a log or piece of debris drifted along. “It’s nice here.”
Rob shifted lower on the sandbar, so only his shoulders and head were supported by the bleached log. He folded his arms across his chest and closed his eyes. George rested his head on Rob’s hip and gave a grunt and sigh before closing his eyes. Rachel stretched out on the blanket and stared up into the irregular edge where the green cottonwoods met the cloudless sky. Shade and a breeze held back the heat of the day, but she still found herself drifting languidly, her brain meandering through her current life.
This was nice. A picnic, a slow Sunday afternoon. A friend, and a really great dog. It should be enough. It wasn’t.
Beside her, Rob jerked in his sleep, hard enough to startle Rachel out of her thoughts and make George raise his head and study his master. When he didn’t awaken, George settled again, leaving Rachel alone with one man, and longing for a completely different one. Ben had taught her body well, but Rob was mere inches away. His mouth was soft and full, and so very tempting surrounded by glinting blond stubble. Under the denim lay a work-hardened body, long legs stretched out nearly to the water.
Heat blended with the taste of honey in her mouth and dreamy drifting. In that dream she picked up his hand and kissed the palm, then kissed her way up the tendons running along his forearm to the soft skin inside his elbow. In that dream she pushed up his shirt and licked his abdomen, then unzipped his jeans—
“We can do that, Rachel,” Rob said without opening his eyes. “Anytime.”
She froze. “Do what?”
He turned his head, opened his eyes, and called her bluff without saying a word. All of the restraint he normally showed was gone. He wanted her, and if she said yes, he would take her.
An entire universe of longing opened up before her. It was possible to evaluate a new lover before leaving your old one. It was possible for your body to respond to chemistry your brain tried to counteract. It was possible to feel desire and not be able to assuage it. No wonder the leadership at Elysian Fields spoke out so shrilly about the dangers of sex. That way lay madness.
As nice as he was, as good and honest and giving, Rob wasn’t Ben. That truth settled into her awareness. So far there was everyone else, and then there was Ben.
She almost took the coward’s way out and closed her eyes on the fire in Rob’s. Almost. “I can’t,” she said quietly.
“Because of Ben?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know that he’d care, or even say we’re together in any meaningful way,” she said honestly. “I meant me. I hardly know who I am now. I don’t know who I’ll be if I sleep with two men at the same time.”
His eyelids drifted down, the lashes brushed with gold by the sun. “You know who you are, Rachel. Whatever else you choose to do, you know who you are.”
This time when Rachel closed her eyes, her brain mercifully shut down entirely. The sun poured through the cottonwood trunks, not the leaves, by the time she awoke to find Rob a few feet away, pitching bits of bark and leaves into the river. Uncertain of her footing with him, she watched him until he became aware of her gaze on him. The smile he gave her was slow and sweet, patient, without a hint of the human male desire she’d seen in his eyes earlier. Relief called an answering smile from her. He walked over and extended his hand to pull her to her feet. They shook out the blanket and packed up the leftovers and trash, then Rob shouldered the backpack. As they made their way back to the farm, Rachel felt rested, as if the nap in nature reset everything inside her.
She detoured through the goat yard, where all appeared well, then hurried up the path to the bunkhouse. Jess and the A&M boys sat on the sofa together, watching something on a laptop.
“Where were you?” one of the interchangeable A&M boys asked.
“Down by the river,” Rachel said, purposefully not meeting Jess’s eyes as she carried the backpack into the kitchen. A white envelope propped against the red silo salt and pepper shakers on the farmhouse table stopped her. She set the backpack on the counter and cleaned it out, sorting recycling, stacking containers by the sink for the person assigned to dish duty ton
ight. She wiped out the bag and returned it to the closet by the fridge.
Only then did she pick up the envelope and study it, holding it braced between thumbs and pinky fingers. PLEASE RETURN, SENDER UNKNOWN, written in her father’s neat hand. Tears stung her eyes. She wiped the back of her hand along her forehead and tried to get her breathing under control.
“Were you alone?”
Jess stood on the opposite side of the table, her arms folded across her chest. Rachel slid the envelope into her back pocket and gave the other woman a smile. “I was with Rob,” she said.
Jess followed her into their shared room. “For four hours?”
“We fell asleep,” Rachel said, trying to make it sound like nothing more than two friends spending the afternoon together.
“Liar.” She tossed the word at Rachel, her gaze skimming over Rachel’s hair.
Rachel blinked, her hand automatically reached up to check the braid. Her fingers found bits of dried leaf. “I’m not lying,” she said evenly. “I came home early. Rob was in the barn. He asked me if I wanted to take a picnic down to the river. We ate. We fell asleep. We came home.”
“How could you do that to me?”
“Do what?” Rachel demanded. “Have a picnic with a friend?”
“Distract him. He can’t stop watching you. When you’re around, you’re the only person he pays any attention to.”
The back of her neck prickled hot and then cold, same as it had when she realized Ben was nowhere to be found. Hard on its heels came anger, searing her veins hot and clean.
“If you want him so badly, why don’t you go after him?”
Jess’s gaze flickered to the chambray curtains covering the window, then back. “Because unlike you, I’ve done this before,” she snapped. “It’s not always sunshine and roses. It’s great in the beginning, but then you get hurt. They always hurt you.” Her eyes narrowed. Rachel could see her processing what she knew about Ben, what she now knew about Rachel. “Did the cop stand you up? Did you think he wouldn’t hurt you?”
It was Rachel’s turn to look away.
Jess mistook her silence for assent, and hooted. “Did you think he’d fall in love with you, that your purity would somehow reform him?”
“Shut up.”
Never in her life had she told another person to shut up. The words lashed out like a whip, and to her utter shock, Jess’s mouth snapped closed.
“Not one more word,” she added. “Take responsibility for your own life. If you want Rob, ask him out. He doesn’t play games. He’ll say yes, or he’ll say no. Either way, stop blaming me for your situation.”
She hauled the door open and stormed through the front room, where the Texas A&M boys were studiously pretending they’d heard none of this. With the heel of her hand she slammed open the screen door, heading somewhere, anywhere, away from Jess. She was wrong about what was going on between Rachel and Rob, but she was right about one thing.
Ben would hurt her. He already had, and whatever happened between them later on, it would hurt when it ended for good. She hadn’t confused what she and Ben were doing with love. She knew love. Perhaps not all the nuances, the dark, passionate, dangerous ones, but she knew it, and knew it well. She didn’t love Ben Harris, but she was falling for him, for the man who absorbed everyone else’s emotions like a black hole, seemingly untouched by them. Falling for the vulnerability inside he wouldn’t acknowledge. Falling hard.
“You wanted to feel,” she said to herself as she paced in the parking lot, circling in her own dust, smoothing back her hair from her temples into the perfect French braid. “You wanted to feel everything. Here you go.”
They weren’t done. If he was going to end things with her because of last week, he’d have to tell her what she’d done wrong, then end things in person. She took the steps to the bunkhouse in one leap, hauled open the door, grabbed her purse from the row of hooks hanging beside it, and hurried to her car.
This was not over.
• • •
Whether out of a solid sense of self-protection or a genuine “family obligation” Steve was missing from the No Limits off-duty crew after the Juliette incident. A cop Ben knew only by reputation filled in for him, and between them they said less than ten words not related to work both Friday and Saturday nights. He’d been torn between finding Steve the second he got back to Galveston and beating the ever-loving fuck out of him, and acting like none of it was a big deal. Not Juliette in his bed two weeks earlier, not Steve’s frat-boy stupidity, not Rachel and what she’d done to him the following Sunday.
Especially not Rachel.
The hiatus dialed Ben’s fury back to a simmer, but the heat turned up when Steve joined him.
“Hey,” Steve said when he joined Ben at the parking lot entrance.
Ben capped his water bottle and slid it into his cargo pants pocket, then folded his arms across his chest and looked at Steve. “Hey? That’s how you start this conversation?”
“I said I was sorry,” Steve said. He braced up and glared at Ben. “Jesus, give me a fucking hint, a clue, that you’re with someone else, and none of this happens.”
Ben shot him a look. “It better not happen again.”
“Trust me, I lost my taste for surprises,” Steve said. “Despite the fact that it was totally her idea, Juliette ripped me a new one on the way back to her car. I guess it’s all fun and games until the shit hits the fan.”
“You should have said no.”
Steve ignored this. “Juliette said you two were about ten seconds away from hitting it when you came through the bedroom door.”
“That surprises you?”
“No, but it surprised Juliette,” Steve said. “Said she was actually nice to her. Brought her your coat. I think Ju expected a screaming match.”
“That’s not Rachel.”
Steve studied the line meditatively. “Maybe I’ll take a turn when you’re done with her.”
Fury flared in his brain, bright, white-hot. Before he knew it, he was talking. “Shut your mouth.”
Steve must have seen something, because he actually took a step back. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Rachel was wrong with him. Rachel and her dark hair and golden eyes and her ability to shine a light on the protective shield he held up between himself and the world. Just showing him it was there, let alone what it meant, or how thin it really was. Making him feel things he didn’t want to feel.
That little nugget of awareness sat hot and heavy right behind his breastbone. “She’s not like Juliette.”
Steve stared at him, connecting the dots. “Is that the girl from Elysian Fields? The one from the auction? Oh man,” he said, not waiting for an answer. “What the hell are you doing?”
Genuine concern infused Steve’s voice, which made Ben laugh. Everyone worried about Rachel, because they had no idea what she was capable of. He had no idea what he was doing with her, and after she tied him to his chair and took him apart, he wondered why he kept letting her come back. She didn’t need him to teach her anything.
So end it.
“Leave it,” he said. “Just fucking leave it.”
The rest of the night passed in stony silence. Steve did his job. Ben did his. Juliette and her girl-posse were conspicuously absent, but his temper didn’t improve as the night went on. That was the thing about being awake and aware. You couldn’t unlearn something once you learned it.
He went home and went to bed, alone.
Sunday morning, he was showered, dressed by 10:20. He called Sam on his way down the stairs. “Tell me they’re not coming today,” he said when his brother answered his cell.
“By they I assume you mean Mom and Dad.”
“Yeah.”
A pause, then, “No. Spring barbeque at church. Why?”
“I’m on my way,” he said, tossed his phone on the passenger seat, and pulled out of the parking lot at 10:22. Thirty-eight minutes before Rachel.
Why are you doing this?
Because . . . ?
Because I can. Because it’s what I do.
He stopped at the liquor store for beer, then drove to Sam and Chris’s house. The street on both sides was already lined with cars, so he parked four doors down and got out. He snagged the beer from the back seat, but left his cell phone in the glove box.
He took the steps to the front porch and hauled open the screen door, automatically noting the double-takes from Sam and Chris’s friends who knew Sam had a twin brother but never saw Ben at brunch, then took a sharp left into the kitchen, where Chris was frying peppers and onions for fajitas. “Hello, stranger,” Chris said affably, pausing his conversation with a woman Ben recognized as their next-door neighbor.
“Hi,” Ben returned, then hefted the beer. The clock on the microwave read 10:52. She’d be turning the corner onto his street right about now. “Where do you want this?”
“Fridge in the garage,” Chris said. His brother’s partner was his opposite in every way: shorter, blond, blue-eyed, even-keeled. Ben liked him because he was a good guy and because he treated Sam well, but under their friendly surface simmered the fact that Chris knew things about Sam that Ben never would. He gave Chris a nod and made his way through the crowd gathered around the mimosas, out the back door and down the path to the detached garage. Sam had made good progress on the rewiring project since he’d seen him last. Ben slid the beer into the fridge, snagged a cold one from the shelf, and headed back out into the yard to look for his brother.
And stopped. It wasn’t too late to get his phone and send Rachel a text, but the scene playing out by the sandbox caught his attention. His nieces, their blond hair pulled up in pink-ribboned pigtails on top of their heads, were playing in the red race car sandbox Sam and Chris built for Jonathan. That meant his sister Katy was somewhere in the crowd.
