“How’d your ride go?”
“How’s the head?”
“Shut up, man. I’m fine. How’d the ride go?”
I shrug. “You told me to get on the bull. Tess told me to ride like hell, so I did.”
“Score?”
“I did all right. You scared the living shit out of me, asshole.”
“Scared the shit out of myself.”
“Keeping you here overnight. Need me to stay?”
“And interrupt my time with the beautiful Dr. Harper? No, thank you, sir.”
“You realize when you leave the ER, she stays here, right?”
Garrison’s eyebrows barely waggle with the swelling. “Garrison always finds a way.”
I laugh at my friend, damn glad he’s okay.
29
The Ladybugs
At Mabe’s dining room table, Patty sips her tea and stares out the window. “I wasn’t always an alcoholic drinker,” she says quietly.
“I don’t think the majority of us start out drinking alcoholically,” Mabe says.
“When did you realize you were an alcoholic?”
If Mabe’s’ being honest, it took some time.
In meetings, in the beginning, she used to say, “I’m Mabe, and I want to quit drinking.”
Betty leaned over one day and whispered, “Mabe Muldoon, there’s no in-between, just like with pregnancy. You either are or you aren’t. You’re either an alcoholic or not. Now, shit or get off the pot.”
Mabe smiles at this memory.
So, what did Mabe do after that?
She started to say, “I’m Mabe, and I sure as hell don’t want to drink again.”
And that suited the group just fine for a time.
And then, one day, Mabe couldn’t deny it anymore. She was absolutely an alcoholic.
But she gives Patty the truth. “After my husband and my daughter died. That is when I knew I couldn’t stop.”
Patty watches a sparrow out the window take a bath in the birdbath.
Patty turns her head and looks to Mabe. She goes to speak but quickly dismisses the words that lie against her tongue and takes another sip of tea. Another moment goes by. “Have you ever experienced something that you’d rather not remember?”
Mabe nods, sips her tea, and realizes there isn’t enough sweetener, so she adds another packet and pushes all the awful memories away from that night eight years ago. Pushes thoughts of her husband’s last breath, the call she received from Francine’s partner when she died. Those are memories she’d rather not have.
A single tear slides down Patty’s face. “Do you ever wish so badly that you could take away one single decision, one bad choice, that sits with you day and night and the despair of that choice every single day?”
Mabe’s eyes fill with tears this time. “Yes.”
Patty meets her gaze and nods, as if taking Mabe’s yes as a confession.
Patty runs her finger along the ceramic mug, weighing what she’ll say next.
“What’s holding you down, Patty?”
“Every night, I wish I hadn’t made a choice to leave. I wish I had called my parents instead.” Another tear slides down Patty’s cheek. “I still remember their loud cries that only got softer and softer as each minute went by.” Tears are streaming down Patty’s face. “Somehow, I escaped alive. A few bumps and bruises. I wore an old safety harness I’d found between the seat cushions.
“I saw headlights coming down the road. I panicked. I didn’t know what to do, so I left the scene. Through the field, I followed Eel River home and up to town. I made it home that night. I left two lives in the field to die that night.”
The pain in Patty’s face from years of unwanted memories and sadness are met in this moment. She begins to cry and cry and cry, and so does Mabe.
“I was driving, Mabe. I wasn’t drinking. But Tripp and Conroy had been. Tripp and I had been seeing each other at the time. The headlights went out, and I couldn’t see. Everything was dark, and the speed accelerated under my foot,” she pants. Fearful if she doesn’t tell everything to someone now, she’ll never tell the story.
Mabe comes over to Patty’s side of the table, and she buries herself into Mabe’s chest.
“I’m so sorry I left, Mabe. I’m so sorry I left.”
In all the ideas that Betty has had, Mabe knows now that it isn’t Betty who put this pair together; it was God’s divine work.
Mabe needed Patty, and Patty needed Mabe.
“Can I tell you a story?” Mabe whispers, attempting to wipe her own tears.
Patty whimpers a weak, “Yes.”
“Once, there was an old woman with not-so-great eyesight. She knew she wasn’t supposed to drive at night.” Before Mabe says the next sentence, she takes a big breath in and releases it. “She’d been drinking. She took Waddington that night because she didn’t want to go through town. She saw the Jeep ahead of her, but it sped up. Then … there was an explosion of sorts, fire, and then everything fell silent.”
Patty lifts her head and stares at Mabe. “You were the headlights?”
Mabe’s eyes fill with tears. “And I left too, Patty. I left the scene because I’d been drinking and I didn’t want to get caught.”
Mabe knows the right thing to do. She knows they both need to go to Chief McBride and tell him what happened. Even if it costs her everything, the families need to know, and in order for them both to stay sober, they need to clear away the wreckage of their past. But she won’t bring this up with Patty yet. She’s still trying to get off the booze. All of it would be too much for Patty to face right now, so she holds Patty the way she held Francine when she was just a young girl.
30
Tess
I watch the ride and panic as I see Casey is hung up.
Two bull riders in a row?
Too much rosin?
Fear tickles the back of my throat and my insides.
“Come on, Case. Come on,” I shout to myself in the stillness of the old house. “Please.” My hands begin to sweat, and my stomach grows into a fit of nerves.
The bullfighters step in while Casey struggles with his own rope.
“Please, God, take care of Casey.” I sit forward on the sofa and bite my lip. “Someone, help him!”
Finally, he releases himself, and with one last buck, Casey lands nearly on his feet, but I can’t breathe. It isn’t until he looks at the bullfighter and then to the crowd and waves that tears gather in my eyes as a sob chokes my throat.
“Dammit, Casey.”
I don’t dare turn off the event from my phone because they might interview him. Or what if he passes out once they get him behind the chute? My cheek, now raw, puffs between my teeth.
My phone rings almost instantly.
“Hey,” I say breathlessly, trying not to allow my emotions to get the best of me.
“I’m okay.”
But I cover my mouth as the tears start to fall. Feeling the pressure in my chest, I try to speak, but I can’t.
“Hey, I’m fine, Tess. I just wanted you to know I’m fine, okay? And …” He grows silent. “I love you, Tess. I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember. You’re my first wet dream, my first boner—I’m certain. You’ve always been the one.” He lets out a breath. “Look, I’ve tried to move on, but I can’t. Not without you. No matter the cost, I’m willing to wait. Whatever you need.”
“When you got—” I pause, trying to contain my love and fear at the same time. “When you got hung up, I panicked, Case. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t do anything. I realize that now, I’d rather have you in my life than not have you.”
It’s quiet for a long moment.
“Well, Tess, I’d say we have a predicament then.”
“A predicament?”
“We can’t be business partners and lovers at the same time. But we can be lovers working on a house.”
I hear his smile through the phone. I know what his smile feels like when he kisses me, what it f
eels like against my backside, against my heart, my breasts.
“Come home?”
“Home is anywhere with you.”
A tear falls again.
“I need to check on Garrison real quick before I fly out.”
“Give him my best, will you? He’s okay, right?”
“I hope so. Gave me a thumbs-up and some words of advice before they hauled him off.”
“I love you, Casey,” comes out of my mouth so quickly. That could have been Casey, and if I hadn’t said it now, I’m afraid he never would have heard it.
“I love you too, Tess Morgan.”
“See you when you get here.”
“See you then.”
I hear the front door rattle.
Could be the wind, I think to myself, sitting straight up in bed.
Quickly, I creep from my bed and down the hallway just in time to see my cowboy come through the door.
I run to him, jump into his arms, wrap my legs around his middle, and hold him tighter than I’ve ever held anyone in my life. Emotion reaches my throat.
Casey’s arms wrap around my middle, and he sighs into my hair. “Hey, baby,” he says as if I am the most important thing in his life, and I feel it in every inch of my body.
Placing my hands on his face, I trace the outline of his facial features against the silhouette of the moon—a rare occurrence in Ketchikan. I think about the road he’s traveled to get here, that we’ve traveled to get here, many times alone. Both set out on paths in search of the easier, softer way, the road of less raw love, less feelings, less emotion—only to find each other again and know it is exactly what we needed the whole time.
He rests his head against mine and slowly puts his lips to my lips.
At first, it’s gentle.
And then I feel like I become a need so deep within Casey that I feel it in my toes. His mouth enraptures me, and I fall to pieces.
The walls come down.
The walls of sadness.
The walls of madness.
The walls of guilt and the walls of hurt.
I let them all fall down like toy soldiers.
His mouth moves to my chest, and I feel it in my heart.
I pull his mouth to mine again, not wanting to waste another minute.
We pull away only for a second so that we can both agree to steal the rest of the late-night hours from the moon, loving each other.
I feel his power between my legs.
“I know … I know I said we couldn’t do this anymore, Case,” I say breathlessly, “but I can’t not tell you how much I love you without my body.”
I can only make out pieces of Casey’s face because it’s so dark as he carries me down the hallway.
And when the light from the moon meets his face again as we enter my bedroom, the only thing he says is, “Show me.”
He lays me down on the bed in just his T-shirt that I grabbed from some clothes he’d left here before I went to bed tonight.
Casey smiles when he notices the design. “That’s mine,” he says as he crawls on top of me.
“Listen, I can’t sleep without you. I’ve spent the last eight years searching for a man just like you, but now that I’m with you, I never want to spend a single night without you.” I pull his mouth to mine and kiss him with recklessness and love.
I could have lost Casey for good tonight.
“Great ride, Mr. Atwood,” I whisper when I pull away and pull his T-shirt off my body.
“Your ride is always the best, Ms. Morgan.” He pushes off my body as I lie here with just my panties on.
He takes off his button-up shirt, exposing his scars—two on his left shoulder, one on his abdomen, and one just below his right pectoral muscle—the proven fight to do what he loves. Casey removes his jeans and socks and then his underwear.
My insides grow warm as I see all of him standing in front of me.
The most vulnerable we can be is when we allow others to see us just as we are. No makeup. No lies. Just nakedness and hearts and all the push in between.
Casey gets up, walks down the hallway, comes back with a condom.
He knows this simple act can ruin the mood for both of us, but he also knows it’s the right thing to do.
And in this moment, I know he’s thinking more of me than himself—the way he’s always done things. I just never saw it.
Casey slides the condom on and pushes into me with one shot.
He doesn’t take his time, nor is he slow about it.
He opens me up, and I call out.
Casey puts his mouth to my breast as he pumps into me. “I’m not going to be gentle with you tonight, Tess. I can’t.”
“I don’t want you to be gentle, Casey. Take what you need.”
He stares at me. Takes his hand and sweeps a strand of hair from my eyes. “I’m in love with you, Tess Morgan. I always have been.”
“I’m only sorry I didn’t see this sooner. I’ll take the rest of your tomorrows, if they’re available?”
Casey stops moving inside me. His stare twists and turns, and I can’t understand what he’s thinking.
“Case?”
He drops his head to my chest and sits at my side for a moment, unable to speak.
“Casey, did I say something wrong?”
Sharply, he looks up at me. “No. Because that’s exactly what I want.” He’s holding something back.
“Casey, what is it?”
“We … we need to talk about what happened, Tess, what set all of this shit in motion. And if we don’t, I’m terrified we won’t make it.”
The loneliness and every last bit of sadness meet in my gut.
Tears start to build in my eyes.
He pulls me to him, our naked bodies entwined and tangled, and it feels every bit of wonderful that I spent the last eight years dreaming about.
It’s just Casey, me, and the moon. There is no rain tonight; there is no wind.
It’s quiet for a long time before I say, “Do you think about his name? What … what they named him?” My voice grows uneven.
Casey kisses my head. “Every day.”
“I think about … I think about what his favorite cereal might be and what his teacher’s name is.” Tears start to stream from the corners of my eyes, meeting Casey’s chest. “Does he sleep well at night? Does he have your eyes? Does he know that he has two people who love him more than anything?”
My body begins to shake as Casey holds me and allows my tears, the anguish, and all the years of questions I’ve had.
“We can meet him, Tess. We … we don’t have to say who we are. I mean, the adopted parents can know, obviously.”
Meet him?
Fear and panic collide in my stomach. “Tripp Conroy Atwood is what I secretly named him in my head. TC for short. Because CT would have been weird as a nickname.” My eyes sting from the tears that fall. “I keep thinking about when he comes to a certain age, he’ll want to know us. If his parents tell him, right? He’ll want to know who we are and why we gave him up.”
“A wise man once said, ‘The truth is the only option.’ Tess, we did it for his sake. We were young, barely learning to care for ourselves.”
But I know this is Casey’s way of making me feel better. The moment Casey knew our baby was a boy was also the same moment that they took him away. Casey would have kept him if that was what I wanted, but I never knew how bad this choice would feel later. I can only imagine what our little boy will feel the day his parents decide to tell him—if they decide to tell him. And this is what breaks my heart into a million little pieces.
“I’ve felt a pit of despair for so long, Case. Maybe my choice to become a teacher was my way of giving back the love to other kids, but maybe it was for myself, for my own selfish reasons.”
Casey tips my chin up so that I’m looking him in the eyes. “You are not selfish, Tess. You made the decision for our son so that he could have a good life. Do you understand me?”
I try t
o will myself to believe Casey’s words. Swallow them, allow them into my heart so the sadness might just fade eventually.
“What do we do now, Case?”
“We walk through it, Tess. We feel through it all and allow all that shit to come in and go and let it move through us, so we can finally let go.”
“What if I can’t?” A sob escapes my throat as I try to hold back the tears.
In this moment, I realize I’m still holding back. It’s hard when we condition ourselves to live a certain way for so long, and when we try to do something other than what we’ve conditioned ourselves to do, we think we can’t.
“I-I feel guilt for only going to the doctor a few times while I was pregnant, too scared someone would find us out. That was selfish too. I put my ego above my own child’s welfare, Case.” For once, I let it out. “I feel guilt for giving up on our child. And his silent cries when they took him away, as if he needed his mother, and I couldn’t be that person for him.” I weep.
Casey holds me tighter and doesn’t say a word.
“I let him go, Casey. What kind of mother does that?”
“One who saw what was best for her child.”
31
Casey
Tell her, Casey. Tell her what you fucking know. Tell her what you did.
It’s been several minutes before anyone has said anything.
“Tess,” I whisper. “I need to tell you something. Tess?”
But she’s fast asleep on my chest.
I kiss her head and stare at the ceiling as I try to contemplate all the scenarios of what will come of Tess and me once I tell her.
One thing I’ve never been is a liar.
I feel her hand slide around my length, and it turns hard in her hand as she moves to my mouth.
“Tess,” I try to speak, “ I need to tell you something.”
She shakes her head in the darkness. “No, not right now. Just make love to me, Case. I need it. I need you. I need to not feel for just a little while.”
I pull her face toward me and take her mouth with mine.
Her hand grips tighter and she strokes my length.
Saving Tess Page 21
