Stranger

by Robin Lovett

  Layla twirls her fork in her food, and shyly says, “Blake told me about your mother and how he . . .” She falters.

  “How as a child Blake knew my father abused her?” I’m hardening to the truth and understand better what Logan said. It shouldn’t be hidden or tiptoed around. What she suffered should be public, out of respect for what she survived.

  She cringes and shakes her head. “I’m sorry. It’s terrible.”

  “It is.”

  “Does it matter?” She looks up, braver, the hesitation gone.

  “What?”

  “Whether he did it.” She sits forward. “If Logan killed your father, isn’t it a good thing your father is dead?”

  I’ve been afraid to really think it. A piece of me still clinging to the fact that, no matter how vile, he was still my father. The only parent I knew. Yes, he did those terrible things, but he’s still the man who raised me.

  I shift in my chair. “It’s not that simple. Because he was a criminal doesn’t mean that’s all he was. It doesn’t mean Logan had the right to deal out his fate.”

  “No, I suppose not. But if you’re still okay with having sex with him, that means . . .”

  I don’t have the courage to answer. I still don’t know what that was last night. How I could need him so much I’d give in to him. But she’s right. Maybe I already have forgiven him. Maybe I just don’t know how to say it to him.

  “Ask him,” she says.

  “I will.” I don’t know how I’ll convince him to tell me, but I need to know. I can’t bear this separation between us. I need it gone. With a fierceness I can’t define. Maybe I’ll know when I talk to him. Really talk. Not talk during sex.

  I get home before it’s fully dark so I can look for him. His truck isn’t parked by the beach, but he’ll probably be there soon. I park in my driveway and walk onto the beach. The camping spot is a little copse between the brush and the sand.

  He’s not there. But I sit and wait for him.

  With my heart in my hands. And hope on my lips.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I’m surprised to see her car already in her driveway when I park in my usual spot. I’m disappointed that the lights in her condo are dark. She’s already gone to bed.

  No invitation to join her tonight.

  It’s good. I shouldn’t even be here, but I can’t bring myself to give up on her yet. On us. It may hurt in the moment—the emotions that run so high when I’m inside her—but it doesn’t keep me from wanting more. More of her. More of myself that she gives me.

  I don’t see her sitting on the sand until after I’ve dropped and unrolled my tent.

  “What are you doing here?” I say.

  “What do you think?”

  She’s here for sex. I don’t care that she’s still in her work clothes and she’s got her legs pulled into her chest and it’s too dark for me to see her eyes. If there was light, I would see desire there. And for some reason she came to the beach tonight to get it.

  She’s only here for sex. I turn to my tent. “Go home.”

  “I’m not here for that. I’m here for the other thing you’re best at.”

  “What, scaring you?” I crawl toward her and let loose in my voice as much bitterness and anger as I feel at having her here. “Get away from me. Get off my beach. You don’t want to find out what happens if you stay.”

  She breathes faster. A light turns on in the house behind us and her face is half lit. She’s not afraid. She doesn’t back away and doesn’t respond to my threat. “That’s not it either.”

  “Must be something desperate for you to grace my campsite with your presence.” I unfold the tent poles from my bag and piece them together.

  “It’s nice down here. I’ve never spent the night on the beach before.” Her voice travels toward the water.

  “In two hours, you’ll be cold. Go back to your bed.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Well, I want you to,” I snap at her.

  “You can’t intimidate me anymore.”

  “I scared you plenty last night.” I shouldn’t have brought it up, now I remember her catching breaths and tensing body as I fucked her over and over. Damn it. I turn back to my tent.

  “You only scare me when I let you. When I want you to.”

  I don’t argue. It’s true. I’ve known that since the first time she bit me for grabbing her when she didn’t want me to. From the first time, when with fear in her eyes she walked toward me instead of running away.

  I think I knew even then she’d be able to handle the truth of my world, even if she was resistant. Except the possibility that I killed her father. She may get off on how it scares her, but she can’t handle that possibility.

  I always knew I’d reach an end to what she could accept of me. Too much divides us for that not to happen. Our worlds are too different. Our only thing in common is our sexual preferences.

  I raise the tent, one pole diagonal to the other, and ignore her. Maybe she’ll leave. She’s so quiet, I think she may have left, but when the tent is set she’s still there.

  I stare, not caring to ask any more questions, intimidating her so she’ll go away before she asks them.

  She takes a deep breath. “Did you do it?”

  “You think I did.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you believed it when they told you. Without even asking me.”

  Her legs fall from her chest. “I’m asking now.”

  “Why didn’t you ask the first day?”

  “I did ask!” Her voice cuts through my bullshit. “You didn’t answer!”

  “You didn’t want to know the answer.”

  “I wanted the same thing I always wanted from you. The truth.”

  I sit in front of her. “You didn’t always want it.”

  “That time is done. I want it. All of it. I don’t want to hide anymore.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to tell it.”

  She’s scornful. “Fuck off and grow some balls.”

  I growl back. “You want me to confess?”

  “So you did do it?”

  “I didn’t say that.” My palms sweat. The truth about my sister, I’ve tried to tell many people through the years, to make them believe it. This part—I’ve told no one, and I can feel my resolve to keep it a secret, to never tell anyone, slipping.

  This girl. What she does to me.

  “Why are you afraid to tell me?” she asks.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Living in the dark is no way to live. And you’re the one person in my life who tells me how it is.”

  “News flash: I’m not in your life, so go find someone else to cry to about it.”

  “You’re my husband. And you don’t have to be an asshole.”

  “I am an asshole. Don’t like it? Go.”

  She groans. “I knew you would make this hard, but I didn’t think you’d be a child about it.”

  “I’m not stupid. I know who your brother is. And I don’t trust him.”

  “But you trust me.”

  “Trusted. Past tense. Not anymore.”

  “Why?” She drums her fingers on her knee, growing frustrated.

  Good, she’ll stop soon. “I trust no one.”

  “Because you couldn’t. For a long time. But that’s over. You can trust me.”

  Maybe I need to test her trust in me. To find out if she can handle my full darkness and the completeness of the evil she’s suspected me of from the beginning.

  Maybe I am afraid of her. Afraid she’ll turn her back on me.

  “What are you afraid of?” she whispers. “That I won’t love you anymore if you’ve done it? Because nothing is changing that. No matter what you’re guilty of.”

  There’s something wrong with my ears. I did not just hear that.

  She leans on her elbows. “You heard me.”

  I shift nervously—this is the last thing I wanted. Or thought I wanted.

&nbs
p; “Do you want me to say it again?” she taunts, and it is the most frightening thing I’ve ever heard her say.

  It’s my turn to be afraid.

  She leans toward me. “I’ll say it again. And again. Until you believe it.”

  I would back away, except that would give her more power, and I’m not a coward. I will not be scared by her words.

  She touches me, her hand on my cheek, her fingers stroking my temple. Her lips hover over mine, and I feel her breath on my mouth. “I love you.”

  My eyes fall closed and breathing becomes optional. I don’t understand. There’s nothing of me to love. I am only bad things. Only the worst sort of human being devotes his life to vengeance. But I can’t help whispering, “Why?”

  Her lips ghost over mine and I can almost feel it, I can almost taste it. She means it. “You are more than you believe yourself to be. In your crusade for truth and justice, there is a genuineness to you.”

  I groan and try to disengage from her.

  She clasps her fingers in my hair, tightening her hold on me. “Listen. You’re more real than anyone I’ve ever known. And you understand things about me and this world I thought no one ever could. And you made me believe.”

  Her hands drop to my chest, and she presses both her palms to my heart. “And there is more to you in here than I could ever touch. That’s what you’re made of. What do you think fuels your anger and your thirst for vengeance? What causes the desperation you feel in needing to tell Louisa’s story?”

  My jaw opens a little. I think I know what she’s going to say, but I’m not sure I can take it.

  “You’re made of so much more than all those things.” She kisses my cheek and whispers in my ear. “You’re made of love.”

  Her words break something in me. I’d only ever allowed myself to feel the anger and the hatred. Sometimes I’d glimpse the pain but shut it away. But I never saw what was fueling all of it before. Until now.

  I wrap my arms around her and hold her flush to me. My breath catches in my throat. This woman. This precious woman. How is it that she is here, not running from me but believing in me? More than believing in me, she’s loving me and telling me I am lovable. Telling me how.

  Telling me the things I never thought possible.

  I wouldn’t believe it, but for the welling of exactly what she says so full in my chest. There is no denying it. “I love you too.”

  She crawls in my lap and squeezes her arms around my neck. “I know.”

  My mouth is on hers and I draw on her lips, on her tongue, like I could take her inside me. Like I could put me inside her. Like there is nothing in this world but her lips and there is nothing I will ever want more in my life than her like this—me holding her, her holding me.

  My confession gushes from me. Like she hoped it would. Like I hoped it would when I believed she could take it. And if she loves me—because she does love me—it’ll be okay.

  “I didn’t do it.” I rest my forehead against hers.

  She kisses my nose. “Tell me.”

  “I wanted to. Fuck, I wanted to. I wish I had.” I grit my teeth and say it with all the desire and force I still feel. “I stood in the doorway to his hospital room and stared at him, unconscious, pathetic. So vulnerable, like a little child. It was late and no one was around. It would’ve been so easy to walk over there, turn off the monitor and cut off his oxygen. I could’ve done it.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “You have to understand.” I hold her shoulders. “I may not have done the deed but when I heard he was dead, I wished it had been me.” I clear my throat. “And you know why I didn’t do it?”

  “Why?”

  “Because it was too painless. I wanted something worse for him. I decided to make other plans.”

  She sits back from me, her face in shadow, masking her expression.

  I clasp her hands, fearful I’ve lost her. “Can you still . . .”

  “Shh.” She kisses me. “I meant what I said. It’s still true.”

  But I need more of it. I want to feed on her heart and fill myself with her. I am a bottomless well of need for everything she has to give me.

  I ease away from her and move to stand. “Let’s go back inside.”

  “No.” She pulls me down to the sand. “Let’s stay here. I want to sleep where you sleep tonight.”

  I smile. “It’s a tent and an air mattress. Not a real bed.”

  “Is there room for me?”

  “I’ll make room for you.”

  “Then you can’t get rid of me.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  He promised he’d be home an hour ago.

  I’m getting him a cell phone tomorrow.

  The landline rings, and I jump from the terrace into the kitchen to answer it. “Hello?”

  “Penny, I’m coming home now.”

  “What are you doing? I thought you were going for groceries.”

  “There was . . . another errand I had to run.” His voice has a stiffness to it.

  “You’re hiding something.” I can’t keep the anger from my voice. “We have to tell each other the truth or—”

  “Penny. I’m hiding nothing. I’ll tell you about it as soon as I’m home, but not over the phone. Okay?” The authority, the sureness in his voice calms my nerves.

  “Okay.”

  He says more gently, “I’ll be home in ten. Is anyone else there yet?”

  “Layla and Amisha are late. Blake isn’t off work for another hour. I’ll text the girls to wait.”

  “Tell them I need another hour.”

  “I thought you said ten minutes?”

  “Tell them one hour,” he says, unexpectedly, almost nervously.

  “Fine, bossy pants.”

  He groans an almost-laugh. I like the sound, a lighter sound, a new kind of sound he started making in the last two days, now that things have calmed down. Now that we’re together and the secrets are all out. Or at least I think they are. Now that I’ve told Blake my husband is here to stay.

  I don’t think I can handle the stress of waiting to find out what he’s hiding. “Get home soon.”

  “I love you,” he reassures me. “I’ll see you in ten minutes. Go chop vegetables until I get back. I still have to make the salad.”

  I laugh. “I’m terrible at chopping. It’ll take forever.”

  “I know. That’s the point.” He hangs up.

  I don’t get much chopping done. True to his word, he’s home in seven minutes.

  He’s wearing new clothes, not the designer kind I bought him. They’re casual clothes, a new T-shirt, a new pair of jeans that fit nice and snug in all the right places. He’s still wearing flip-flops, but they’re leather and rubber now instead of plastic and foam.

  “You went shopping?”

  He kisses me but looks away abruptly to put two shopping bags on the couch. “Yeah.”

  “What else did you buy?”

  His hands move too quickly, anxious. “I got something for you.”

  “You bought me something?” I’m giddy hearing him say that. I love when he cooks for me, which he likes doing. Him getting me something while shopping—something he hates doing—is a whole other level. A new surge of warmth fills my chest.

  He clears his throat. “I noticed you stopped wearing your ring.”

  I look at my bare left hand. “It’s too extravagant.”

  “That’s what I thought. But you should still have a ring, so . . .” He pulls a ring box out of the bag and opens it. “I got you one to match mine.” He slips a gold and silver band, identical to his but my size, around my finger.

  I’m still stuck on the fact he got me a gift. Let alone a wedding band. “Wow.”

  He twists the band. “Is it okay?”

  I can’t stop smiling. “I love it.”

  “Now we have to make sure Blake didn’t file those divorce papers.”

  “Divorce papers?”

  “Didn’t he give them to you to s
ign? He had me sign them as soon as the police finished questioning me.”

  My mouth gapes and disappointment blocks my thoughts. “You signed divorce papers?”

  He brushes my shoulders. “Only because I thought you wanted me to.”

  “I never signed divorce papers.”

  “Good.” He smiles gently and brushes my cheek. “Then we’re still married.”

  He hugs me and my breathing returns to normal. I didn’t realize how much reassurance I was getting from us being married. Things have been unorthodox, but I can’t imagine losing him now. Ever. “Thank you for my ring.”

  He kisses the top of my head. “You’re welcome.”

  Lunch on the terrace with my friends and my brother is interesting. There are awkward silences, like when Amisha tries to ask Logan what he does for a living and he says, “Stalking.” I thought her eyes were going to bug out.

  I take it as the perfect opportunity for my new announcement. “He’s going to have a new job soon.”

  “I am?” He glares at me with the stern expression that now makes me smile but scares everyone else.

  “Yes, you are. And you too, Blake. It’s for both of you.” I clear my throat. “I’ve been very busy this week with a new, exciting idea of mine, and I’m ready to share it with all of you.”

  “Are you going to finally tell me what you’re using the money for?” Blake asks sarcastically. He agreed to turn over control of my trust fund to me. He agreed because I promised him I’d be using it for a charitable venture, not to give to Logan.

  Which is halfway true. It’s still a gift to Logan.

  “He gave you the money and you didn’t tell me?” Logan’s stern expression turns glacial.

  “Shut up, guys. She’s telling you now,” Layla defends me.

  “Thank you.” I sit forward, and I have to focus on the ocean for a moment while I gather the nerve. “It’s been a rough couple of weeks, or few months rather.” I glance at my brother. “Or in some cases a really hard life.” I glance at Logan.

  They both give me skeptical stares, but I keep talking. “I decided, thanks to someone’s advice, that I should do something about it. And I decided that since the women in our lives, in this world, need more support than they’re getting, I should help.”