Mountain Man's Miracle Baby Daughters

by Lia Lee

  “That’s enough,” I said to Jim. “We’re done here.”

  “Come on, babes,” Jim said again and he motioned to reach for Farrah. She glanced at me, pleading with me. Her eyes were lifeless and their dullness floored me, spurring me into action. She needed me and it was time to step up and do what I needed to do.

  “Listen, motherfucker,” I said, and jumped up, grabbing Jim by the collar. “Leave my girlfriend the fuck alone.”

  I punched him in the fact so hard he spun around and crashed to the ground. I towered over him, but I wasn’t one to kick a man when he was down.

  “If I ever see your face again, I’m reporting you for harassment. This town may be small but we’re all friends here and you’re not welcome. Get the fuck out of town.”

  I turned around and took Farrah by the hand. She was fragile and her hand was freezing when I touched her. I helped her up and walked to the car with her. She looked over her shoulder where Jim lay on the floor, blood pissing out of his nose. He cursed and shouted but he stayed down.

  Good boy.

  When we were in the truck, I backed out of the parking bay and drove away from the motel. Farrah had to tell me what was going on. She hadn’t told me anything about Jim, but by the looks of things, she was going to have to. Her reaction to Jim was a problem. She had been on the verge of a mental breakdown back there and something like that didn’t just happen without a good reason.

  Now wasn’t the time to push her for information. I had to get her far away from that asshole, get her somewhere safe and warm where she could relax, and I had to get her to come back to me. I’d never seen her so shut down and it was scary. I didn’t know what he had done to her but if she went with him again, if she was ever subjected to that man again, it would be the end of her. I was convinced of it.

  I could see it. How long had she said she’d dated him? I couldn’t remember. But a couple of years with a man like that could break someone, and I was seeing the evidence.

  We drove in silence to the cabin. I fuming, trying to calm down after hitting Jim. I had wanted to do so much more but Farrah was a lady and I wouldn’t fight anyone in front of her, even if she’d been perfectly fine. It just wasn’t right.

  Finally, we parked in front of the cabin and I walked around the truck, opening the door for Farrah. She moved like she was on autopilot. I helped her down and we walked into the cabin.

  “Do you need something to eat or drink?” I asked.

  Farrah shook her head. “I think I just need to lie down.”

  “Can we talk, first?” I asked.

  Farrah looked at me and her blue eyes had lost the edge of fear they’d had since Jim had walked toward the table at the motel. She was already starting to come back to me now that we were away from him.

  “I don’t really want to talk about it,” Farrah said.

  “Please,” I said. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

  Farrah shook her head. “Everything is okay, now. I think I just want to sleep a bit.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I wanted to know what was going on. She was shutting me out and I felt helpless, but I wasn’t going to force her. I had a feeling she had been forced to do things for a long time. I nodded and Farrah walked into the bedroom.

  When she was settled, I walked outside and phoned Hannah.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I said, after I told her what had happened. “She’s completely shut down. She won’t even talk to me more than saying a few short words to tell me she’s fine. Which is obviously a lie.”

  “Just give her time,” Hannah said. “She’ll open up again given a bit of time. The guy looks like a menace.”

  “He is,” I said.

  “I’m glad you hit him.”

  “I wanted to do more.”

  We ended the conversation. It was almost time for me to leave to go to the bar to work, but I was worried about Farrah.

  I walked back into the cabin. Farrah was still lying on the bed. Her eyes were open, staring into nothing. When I walked to the bed, she looked at me. It was an improvement, since I’d half expected her to keep staring at the wall.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked.

  Farrah nodded. “I’m okay.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed her, but I didn’t argue.

  “It’s almost time to go to the pub,” I said.

  Farrah shook her head. “I don’t think I’ll come with you tonight. I’m so tired.”

  She looked exhausted. The whole thing had to have been emotionally draining.

  “I don’t want to leave you here alone,” I said. I was worried about her.

  “I’ll be okay,” Farrah said. “I think I’m just going to sleep.”

  I nodded. I really didn’t want to leave her alone, but maybe it was better for her to stay here at the cabin and get some rest. I couldn’t take the night off, Hannah really needed me. But at the pub, Jim would be able to find Farrah. Here at the cabin, hidden in the forest up against the mountain, I knew he wouldn’t find her. He had found her here in Packwood, but unless he had followed my truck closely—which I would have noticed—he wouldn’t find the cabin. Very few people in town knew how to navigate their way to the cabins up here.

  I made sure Farrah had everything she needed. I left a sandwich and glass of water on the nightstand in case she was hungry or thirsty, and I put her phone close by too, so she could call if she needed me. I had to go to the pub, but the moment Farrah called I could come running.

  Finally, still reluctant, I left.

  Chapter 26

  Farrah

  I drifted in and out of sleep. The first weeks after Jim had left me, sleeping was all I had done. It was an escape. When I slept, I could run away from everything that had gone wrong.

  Now, I was right back where I’d started and I hated myself for it. I’d spent a year and a half away from Jim. I had gone to therapy for what he’d done to me and I thought I’d come such a long way from the broken woman Jim had walked out on.

  And now that he was back, so was I. Despite all the work I’d done, I’d slipped right back to the mess I’d been. One afternoon face to face with Jim had proven to me that I hadn’t beaten anything at all.

  Lee wanted to know what was going on. I guess he deserved to know. If this was the woman he was choosing to be with he had the right to know what he was dealing with. But I was ashamed to tell him. I was scared that when he found out what had happened, what my past looked like, he would decide that I wasn’t the woman he wanted, after all. Who wanted someone with so much baggage? Who wanted to be with someone who was this broken?

  The night dragged on slowly. I knew that Jim wouldn’t find me here. The cabin was hidden in the forest and even though Jim had clearly been following me for the past year and a half, keeping tabs of my life when I had thought I was free of him, I knew he didn’t know where I was tonight.

  I couldn’t believe he’d found out I was pregnant and that the doctors had spoken to him about everything. I still didn’t know how he’d found out where I was. Maybe it wasn’t that hard to do. When someone really wanted to find something out, how hard could it be? All he had to do was to pose as a client and email me for me to tell him where I was.

  Maybe it was what had happened.

  Fear clutched at me and I breathed through it. I couldn’t stop living my life so that Jim wouldn’t find me. When I had been with him, nothing about my life had been my own. When Lee had punched Jim he had threatened to report him for harassment. Maybe that was something I had to do, anyway. There was something wrong with Jim and I was terrified that he wouldn’t ever stop trying to get to me. For as long as I had this baby, the baby Jim had wanted but had never gotten, I was scared he would try to get me to come back to him.

  There was no way I would be able to give him this child. I couldn’t raise a child in the life I would have with Jim. It would be wrong of me to subject an innocent child to the prison that would be.
/>   I heard a truck pull up and when I glanced at the clock, it was past two. I knew it was Lee. It was the time the pub usually closed. He wouldn’t have stayed to banter and have another drink like he would have if I had been there. He was back to be with me.

  Lee was the kindest and best of men. He cared of me in a way I had never been cared for, and he had let me believe I was worth loving again.

  When Lee came in, he stripped down to his boxers and climbed into bed with me. He glanced at the food I hadn’t eaten before he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me closer. I curled into him.

  Lee had been my safe space since that first night we had spent together in my motel room. He had been nothing but kind and caring toward me and he had made me feel like I was worth his time and affection. I had started being bold because Dr. Boyer had suggested it was a way I could defeat my demons. Being bold had driven me into Lee’s arms, but he was the one that had done the rest. Being bold had only allowed me to meet Lee. He had been the one to help me through the hardest times.

  If I told him about my past now, he would have to decide if I was still the woman he wanted to try for a relationship with. But Lee had been so great about everything else. He hadn’t turned me away when I had come to tell him I was pregnant. He hadn’t blamed me when he had learned about my medical history. He hadn’t made me feel like I had ruined his life. Instead, he had welcomed me with open arms and not only respected the responsibility of being a father but had chosen to be more than that. He had chosen to be with me because he had wanted to make it work.

  He still did.

  The least I could do was to try. I wanted to make it work, too. The only way we were going to do this was if I told him everything, so he could know what he was letting himself in for. If he still wanted to be with me after that, maybe we could really make something of it.

  I took a deep breath and let it out with a shudder. Lee held onto me, stroking my back. He didn’t push for anything. He didn’t ask a lot of questions. In fact, he didn’t say anything at all. He only held onto me as if he had known all along that this was exactly what I needed.

  And because he wasn’t saying anything, I did.

  “When you meet someone, you don’t dump your messy past on them right away,” I said. “I thought I had dealt with everything that happened with Jim enough to have moved on. I didn’t think I needed to talk to you about it because it was in the past and I had moved on. I never dreamed he would show up.”

  I took a deep breath. Lee stayed quiet, giving me the space and the time I needed to find the right words and verbalize them.

  “I met Jim when I was twenty-six. He was a great guy. He was charming and funny and interesting, and he liked me. It was a compliment. I was a different person back then, a person with a life. I was someone with a personality and interests.”

  It was hard to think back to those times. It was hard to look at the person I had been and to reflect on everything I had given up for someone who hadn’t deserved it.

  “At first, our relationship was great. Jim had been the model boyfriend and my friends all told me how lucky I was. But slowly, things started to change. Jim always said he wanted a family so badly. I was young and in love, and because I had been struggling since I was sixteen and had been told it would be hard to have kids, it was something I wanted to try. I wanted to give Jim a baby. I wanted to prove the doctors wrong. And with Jim being as great as he’d been, I believed we could have a happy family.”

  I paused but Lee only listened. We lay in the dark together and in the safety of Lee’s arms, I peeled the layers back one by one.

  “It was harder to get pregnant than I’d thought it would be. Jim had all kinds of ideas about how we could make it easier. It was better not to hang out with my friends when they went drinking or dancing, because we were trying for a baby. He wanted me to give up certain foods to prepare my body. Because I already had issues, it made sense to try harder than the average couple. I don’t know how he did it. At first, it was just a few small things that I had to give up, and I didn’t mind making the changes. You sacrifice things for the sake of your relationship and having a family, right? But over time, Jim started getting worse. He would follow me when I went out, challenge me on where I went and why. He would tell me what to eat and when, and when I didn’t do what he said, he would say it was my fault I wasn’t pregnant yet. After a while, he started controlling what I wore, too. I couldn’t be provocative for other men when he wanted me. When I was supposed to be only his.”

  I shuddered. It was hard to talk about it. The only person I had told about this was Dr. Boyer, my therapist.

  “As time passed, Jim had become so controlling I couldn’t live my life anymore. I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without him except work. Slowly, my friends stopped trying until I lost them altogether. I started believing that I was wrong, that I was lacking, that it was my fault for not being pregnant yet. His demands on my body were intense. The longer it took to get pregnant, the more often we had to have sex. Even if I didn’t want it.”

  I swallowed hard, trying to deal with the memories.

  “After almost four years of trying, Jim gave up. He told me he was sick and tired of wasting his time on me when I was just fucking up his life. He said if I wasn’t going to do my part, I didn’t deserve any of it and he kicked me out. Suddenly, after being completely controlled like that for years, I was out on the street with nowhere to go and no idea who I even was any more.”

  “He put you out?” Lee asked, speaking for the first time.

  I nodded. “It was already dark and it was raining. Luckily I had a little cash. Jim had controlled my income, too. He took all the money we had put aside to save for the baby. He took everything I’d earned with my photography. All I had was the money in my pocket. But was enough to pay for a shitty hotel room for a couple nights. I changed my payroll account at work and the next payday was close enough that I could get a bit of cash for a deposit. I got a new apartment and managed to get myself through those first few weeks. I’m not sure how I did it, looking back now. I had trouble making the smallest decision, he had second guessed and nitpicked me to the point that I was completely unsure of everything.”

  “You’re very strong,” Lee said.

  “Not strong enough,” I said. “After a couple of months, I was on the verge of a breakdown. The pressure of suddenly being afloat with no confidence, no tools, was too much. I found Dr. Boyer, a therapist that dealt with these things. I didn’t want to admit defeat, but Jim had gotten into my mind so much that I wasn’t able to shake him myself. Slowly, Dr. Boyer helped me, addressing one thing at a time. I started making changes like doing my own photography instead of working for the company, like finding hobbies again, like eating what I wanted. It’s harder than you think.”

  “I can’t begin to imagine what you must have been through,” Lee said.

  “One of the last steps Dr. Boyer had in her program was to be bold. To get out there, be bold and try things I’d never tried before. It was what brought me to you.”

  Lee smiled. “That was the best thing that ever could have happened.”

  I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. I had thought that after I told Lee everything, he wouldn’t want me anymore. Instead, he still said that being with me was the best thing that could have happened.

  I started crying. Fat tears rolled down my cheeks. All the pain and sorrow, all the anger and shame that I had been harboring for over a year spilled out. I sobbed uncontrollably. Lee pulled me against him, making soothing sounds, telling me it was going to be alright. Maybe it would be, one day. But right now, I was falling apart.

  But Lee was here to help me pick up the pieces. While he was holding me and I cried against his chest, I started to think that if he was still on my side, I could get through this.

  And if he still wanted me, maybe I wasn’t so bad, after all.

  Chapter 27

  Lee

  On Sunday morning I woke up ear
ly, even though I had worked until late last night, and then Farrah and I had stayed up talking for a while. My mind was full of what she had told me about her relationship with Jim.

  I couldn’t believe someone had the ability or the gall it took to control someone like that. I had seen Farrah quickly shut down when Jim had spoken to her, but I would never have guessed the extent of what he had done to her. I had seen how hard it was for her to talk about it, too. It had taken a lot of strength for her to be open with me about it.

  But I was so glad she had done it. She had seemed to think that after she told me, I wouldn’t want her anymore. I had no idea why she thought that way, but was so thankful she had trusted me enough to open up. None of that was Farrah’s fault, and that fucking Jim was the devil himself for doing something so terrible to her. And worse, to make her think everything was always her fault. So, naturally, she would think that I wouldn’t want her when she told me.

  This time she was actually wrong, and I wanted her more than ever. Farrah was one of the strongest people I had ever met. She had been through so much saw the fact that she’d needed to see a therapist for help to deal with her breakup and all that Jim had done to her as a weakness. But I was amazed that she had gotten through it all.

  I was liking her more, as I found out more about her. And her reaction to Jim made sense now that I knew what was going on. I hadn’t wanted to push her to talk to me, and I was really glad she had opened up.

  After carefully climbing out of bed so I wouldn’t wake Farrah, I walked to the kitchen and made myself a cup of coffee, then drank it outside on the porch. The sun was only a little above the horizon and the chill of the night was still hanging between the trees.

  I hoped we’d seen the last of Jim, but I had no problem reporting him for harassment if need be. After he’d confessed that he’d accessed Farrah’s private medical records, and sought her out and harassed her at the bar with witnesses present, I was sure we could get a restraining order without trying very hard. I wanted him to stay away from Farrah for good. She deserved to focus on our future and the baby in peace.