His Frozen Heart

by Nancy Straight

  Mark was the first one down the stairs, his face all smiles when he grabbed me in a hug. Mark whispered directly into my ear. “Thank you. I needed this meeting as much as he did.”

  Mark let go of me and took Dave in a bone-crushing hug, “I’ll call you in a couple days, little brother.”

  Dave held onto Mark, but looking over Mark’s shoulder, his eyes rested on me. When the two of them let go, Mark turned to me, “You want that ride to your car now?”

  My eyes darted to Dave, not sure where things were between us. He answered for me, “I’ll take her to it. I’m pretty sure I made you late for whatever you had planned.” I didn’t want to go to my car. I wanted for him to hold me the way he had the last time I was here. I wanted him to tell me how important I was to him, and most of all, I wanted him to tell me he wasn’t angry with me anymore.

  Mark tipped his head in a wordless good-bye, then let himself out.

  It was just Dave and I standing in his garage. He walked up to me and leaned down as his lips softly whispered against mine. As he eased away from me, his eyes widened, he took a step away and reached for a hanging pedestal light above a work bench and angled it in my direction. Perplexed, he asked, “What happened to your neck?”

  My hands slid to my throat as the sting on my neck registered under my fingertips. Grey had hit me hard in the throat behind the restaurant, and I had been able to ignore the pain until Dave’s eyes stared at it. Before I could answer, he instructed, “Wait here.”

  He ran up the steps to his apartment and returned holding a plastic bag of ice cubes. As Dave gently pressed the cold bag to my neck, his eyes darted to my hands covered in cuts and scrapes. His deep brown eyes looked sadly into mine. “What happened to you?”

  “That Grey guy kidnapped me from the restaurant today. I woke up in a shack in Pioneers’ Park with him talking on the phone telling someone that he was going to gut me. I bolted.”

  Dave’s nostrils flared. “I’ll kill him.”

  I shook my head, “He’s gone. Mark told him he had until Monday to get out of town.”

  Dave answered menacingly, “That gives me two days to find him.”

  Dave carefully repositioned the ice on my neck. I didn’t want Dave to go looking for Grey. I didn’t want him to leave for any reason. The last two days had been unbearable – I needed him to stay with me. “No. Don’t. Mark scared him. He’s going to pay Libby’s medical bills, yours, too. Just let him go.”

  Dave eased his hand to the small of my back to pull me toward him. I winced. Instead of asking me, he took a step to my side, removed the too large jacket I was wearing and lifted the back of my t-shirt. “What the. . .?” His fingers ever-so-slightly pressed the spot where Grey had kidney punched me. “Grey did this?”

  I felt tears welling up in my eyes. I pressed my lips together and nodded my response. Dave took the ice bag which he had been holding against my neck and pressed it to the bruise on my back. In a calm voice, absent any emotion, Dave asked, “What else did he do?”

  If I tried to speak, I knew I’d break down before I could get a full sentence out. I pulled my hair back with one hand and touched my temple with my other. It, too, felt sore. Dave’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t move the bag of ice from my back.

  Dave confessed, “This is my fault. I’m sorry, Candy. I wasn’t there to take care of you.” His expression was earnest and his voice sorrowful.

  “This didn’t have anything to do with you. He’s a psycho. I was working when he kidnapped me. There were at least twenty people around. He didn’t care who saw him.”

  Dave’s gaze held mine. “I knew I should have stayed. I came by when you were busy. I told a waitress I’d be back after your shift.” He paused as his voice lowered, “When I came back, she told me you saw a rat in the storage room and left early. I thought I’d blown it and you didn’t want to see me. I should have grabbed a table to begin with. None of this would have happened if I’d stayed.”

  “You don’t know that. He shot at you before; if you’d have been there, he might have killed you.”

  He shook his head as if dismissing the possibility. “Have you reported this to the police?”

  “No. Mark took care of it. Both of them are leaving town. But a police report isn’t a bad idea – it might keep the manager from firing me.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Fired? You can’t go back there.”

  “I have to go back there. Tips from the restaurant are how I keep gas in my car.”

  Dave kissed my temple softly, “We’ll talk about it later. For now, call the police. Hopefully I don’t still have a warrant for my arrest.”

  I smiled. “You don’t. I talked to Officer Brown this morning.”

  When the police arrived, I told them everything that happened from the moment I tossed a package of napkins to Grey in the storage room until I saw Mark on Windham Street. Dave’s anger wasn’t masked as he listened to everything that Grey had done to me. I left out the part about Mark telling Grey to get out of town, but ended with a truthful statement about Mark intervening and giving me a ride to Dave’s house. After my statement was complete, the policeman who took it departed. Dave had called to check in with Mr. Kravitz then offered to take me to the hospital. I wanted to go see Libby, but I felt awful and looked worse – I didn’t want her to see me before I got cleaned up.

  Dave was remarkably quiet as we slowly climbed the steps to his apartment. Dave was massive and there wasn’t room for both of us on the same step, but he gently guided me up the steps from behind, at the ready to catch me if I lost my footing.

  As I started for the sofa, Dave walked past me to a beautifully carved wooden box on his coffee table. He opened it, then removed a handgun, sliding it into the waistband of his jeans. He saw me staring in disbelief, as he walked up to me and kissed my forehead, “I’ll be back soon.”

  “Where are you going? And why are you taking a gun?”

  “I’ll find him. Get some rest. I’ll be back in a couple hours.”

  My scratched up hands gripped his shirt before he could walk past me. “No. Dave. Don’t go.” I wanted to shout at him and tell him he was being reckless. I wanted to tell him I didn’t want a murderer for a boyfriend. But neither of these things would stop the rage I saw in his eyes. Instead, I was unable to pretend to be brave for one more second. I confessed, “I’m scared to be alone.”

  His eyes softened. Dave made a loose fist and caressed my cheek with his knuckles. “I can’t let him get away with this.”

  “Please. Don’t leave me.” Tears streaked my cheeks. “I need you.”

  Dave gathered me in his arms gently. I turned my head, resting it against his chest as his arms completely encircled me. My voice pleaded again, “Mark already took care of both of them. Stay with me.”

  Barely above a whisper, Dave answered, “I’m here.” He kissed my forehead a second time, “I’m here. I won’t leave.” Dave gestured for me to take a seat on the couch. He removed the handgun from the waistband of his jeans, returning it to the carved wooden box. Dave alternated pressing the ice to each of my injuries. When I didn’t think I could take another second with the ice, he took the bag to the sink and returned with a pan of warm water. Dave cleaned each of the scrapes and cuts on my skin, put Neosporin and Band-Aids on several of the bigger scratches, then glued two gashes shut.

  Neither of us spoke as he took care of my injuries. His touch was feather light. When he was done, I wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and whispered into his ear. “Thanks.”

  He spoke against the back of my neck, “You’re welcome. Are you okay?”

  “As long as I’m with you, yes. Promise you won’t leave?”

  “I promise.”

  “When I wake up tomorrow, will you still be in bed?”

  Dave grinned. “I’ll be wherever you need me to be.”

  “I want to see you when I wake up.”

  His breath was minty and warm; I felt his kiss resonate through my enti
re body. Not in a tingly sexual way, but the warm glow like stepping into the sunshine from a dark cave. Dave’s lips travelled down my neck and back to my ear. His invitation, “Come to bed.”

  I tried to stand, but when I did, my legs were wobbly. Dave leaned down and gathered me in his arms. I wrapped my arms around his neck as he carried me across the little room and gently lowered me on to his bed.

  Chapter 27

  The next morning I woke up with Dave’s enormous arms holding me against him as his fingers lightly caressed my arm. He was warm, his touch inviting. We had survived, to hell and back for sure. My body ached after the adrenalin from last night had worn off completely. Without looking in a mirror, I knew the horrific bruise around my neck would be there for a while, and my temple was sore from Grey’s fist. The tiny cuts on my hand from my escape weren’t that noticeable since Dave had taken care of them last night.

  None of those injuries concerned me when Dave’s arms held me. The warmth of his body was intoxicating. I looked at the tiny apartment: it was still so orderly. Dave’s voice whispered, “What do you want to do today?”

  I stretched against him, allowing my whole body to press against his. “Libby should be awake by now. Will you go with me?”

  “Yeah.” He pressed his lips to the back of my head while he pulled me tighter to him. “Shower?”

  Neither of us moved. It could have been an offer to let me go first, or it could have been an invitation for me to join him. I decided I wanted for it to be the latter. My hand slid up his arm to his shoulder, then all the way back down to his fingertips. An audible sigh sounded behind me as I asked, “You know I’m a conservationist?”

  “Mmmm,” his response.

  “It would be a waste of water for us to take separate showers.”

  He kissed the back of my neck as he chuckled. “You’re right. Let’s make a pact to stop wasting water.”

  I rolled over so I faced him. His eyes were heavy and he had never looked sexier. I kissed the sensitive skin under his chin as he sighed into me and murmured, “I could get used to this.”

  My eyes roved to his chest where the happy heart smiled back at me, holding the red and white striped candy cane. My index finger traced the lines as I considered what all had happened in the last five days. I had nearly lost my best friend, several years were likely shaved off an elderly neighbor’s life, but I had found Dave.

  It wasn’t a reconnection, because the Dave I thought I knew was nothing like the man who I now knew. It was difficult to reconcile in my mind that had all the awful things that had happened to me this week not happened, I would likely never have known the real Dave. I wouldn’t have known he had feelings for me or how deep they ran. I wouldn’t have understood why he was so unwilling to let people into his life.

  Had that creepy Teddy not have set everything in motion, not only would I not be wrapped up with Dave, he would still not have seen a brother he had been looking for for over a decade, and that brother would still think Dave had died. Some amazingly cool things had happened as a result of actions which made no sense.

  Is this how life was supposed to be? Good things could come from bad things if you looked for the good hard enough? I thought of Libby’s body in the hospital, clinging to life this week. She wouldn’t have wished for one moment of the brutality and neither would Larry, but the result of the action brought two people together who had sort of given up on each other.

  I tried to think of something positive that had come from Grey’s home invasion on Mrs. Bavcock. She was old and set in her ways, but thank goodness for her concern. I’d always been friendly to her, but I now owed her my life – a debt I would never fully repay. If I had to find something good that had happened as a result, I would have to say that I would never again think of her as just a crazy old cat lady; she was brave. I hoped to live as long as she has, and I hoped to be just as strong as she was when I got there.

  I hadn’t asked Dave much about his reunion with Mark. One thing still didn’t make sense to me, “Did Mark tell you why he thought you were dead?”

  Dave stiffened. I didn’t think he intended to answer at first, but just as I was about to sit up in bed and cover my awkward comment with something funny, he answered, “When my foster parents petitioned Missouri for me to move with them to Nebraska, a notification was made to my next-of-kin that I was no longer under the care of the State of Missouri. When he got the notification, he called his case worker to ask her what was going on. She must have gotten her signals crossed because she told him I had been in an accident.”

  “An accident? What kind of an accident?”

  “He could never get a straight answer. She showed up with a grief counselor and told him I was in a better place.”

  “His case worker told him you were dead?”

  Dave shook his head, “She never came out and said the words, but Mark said he sort of shut down after that. He had been in a group home at the time and stayed there until he was fifteen.”

  “A group home? So he didn’t stay with Margaret and Dewey after you left?”

  “No, that’s the jacked-up part. When I was placed with another foster family, I did everything I could to be good and be placed back with him. He did the opposite. He turned into a hellion trying to get moved to wherever the state had put me.”

  “Why wouldn’t your case worker have seen that and put the two of you together again?”

  “I don’t know. It wasn’t long after I moved from Margaret and Dewey’s house that a new case worker was assigned to me. I’d like to think that she just didn’t know, rather than she purposely tried to keep us apart.”

  I hugged Dave again, “I really am sorry for everything the two of you went through.”

  “We both made it through. If it weren’t for you, I’d still be looking for him, and he would still think I was dead.” I guess I wasn’t the only one trying to find the bright side. Dave eased off the bed and held out both of his hands for me to get up, too. As he helped pull me to my feet, his eyes looked toward the little bathroom door off in the corner.

  I took his hand leading him toward the door. The room was barely large enough for one person. I qualified as one person, and Dave was easily the size of two. He reached behind the vinyl shower curtain and turned on the water. Not looking the least bit tense about sharing a shower with me, he slid off the short nylon shorts he had been wearing and stepped behind the curtain.

  My eye muscles flexed at the brief glimpse they had seen. My heart raced so fast it could have kept time with Jeff Gordon’s Chevrolet. I looked at myself in the mirror, the ugly purple just under my chin, the scrapes that peppered my hands, and my hair all but knotted. I didn’t feel very attractive, and I wasn’t sure this was the image I wanted burned into his memory of our first time together.

  Just as I was beginning to lose my nerve, the shower curtain gapped and Dave warned, “I’m giving you to the count of three, then I’m reporting you to the Water Company.” His enormous arm jetted through the opening between the wall and the curtain, as his finger beckoned me to join him.

  “Be brave,” I thought to myself. Dave had opened himself up to me: it was time for me to do the same. My exterior wasn’t as formidable as Dave’s, but before him, there had never been another man I let into my heart. For the first time, I would let a man see my darkest secrets, the insecurities I hid from everyone, and the flaws I hoped nobody noticed. Beyond sharing my body, Dave was the first guy I had ever wanted to share my heart.

  I slid the shower curtain to the side and stepped into the welcoming arms of the man who not only displayed his heart for the world to see, but as of this moment, owned mine.

  *****

  We left his place and decided to stop at a little diner on our way to the hospital. I was conflicted, my emotions were on overload and running in different directions. One minute I was excited and full of joy over Dave, the next I was nervous and scared to find out what Libby’s condition was. Dave must have sensed the conf
lict because he was driving and he chose a detour. When I tried to argue that I needed to get to the hospital, his response was, “An hour’s delay won’t make a difference to Libby, but you need to eat.”

  I hadn’t told Dave that my fit over food was what had set all of these events in motion. As much as I wanted to argue with him, I remembered I had eaten almost nothing Saturday and it was now approaching lunch time on Sunday.

  He pulled into the parking lot of a diner close to his garage. I had never been there before, but the waitress who took our order was friendly. As I looked across the table at Dave, he was still all smiles. He reached over and took both my hands in his, “You are beautiful.”

  I wanted to laugh, knowing full well that the gnarly bruise on my neck was less than attractive, but the sincerity in his voice touched me tenderly. Blushing, I answered, “You’re pretty sexy yourself.”

  “Is the chair okay on your back? We could switch to a booth if that would be better.”

  I hadn’t even thought about the bruise back there; it didn’t bother me much at all. “No, this is okay. So, tell me about Mark. What’s he do? Where’s he live?”

  “He’s still in Missouri. He moved to Kansas City when he was fifteen. He was a little vague about what he does.”

  “Fifteen? That’s pretty late to be moved to a foster family, isn’t it?”

  “He wasn’t with a foster family. He just left.”

  “At fifteen? How did he survive? He wasn’t even old enough to get a job.”

  “He didn’t say, but I’m guessing he wasn’t bagging groceries.” Dave’s hands began playing with the salt shaker on the table. As terrible as the woman had been that the state placed Dave with in high school, he hadn’t lived on the streets.

  “What happened to your mom? Does he know?”

  Dave pressed his lips together as I saw the sadness turn to anger before my eyes. “She’s alive, at least she was seven years ago.”