His Brown-Eyed Girl

by Liz Talley

  “I have no motives, Ben. Your wife called me and I said I would help. It was past time for me to know your children.”

  A snort. “Yeah, past time. Well, we’ve gone this long without your presence, so…”

  “Where’s Courtney?”

  “None of your goddamned business,” Ben said, anger roaring into his voice, shaded by something uglier. “And you better keep your goddamn hands off her and my family. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you can forget about it. You are dead to me, you are dead to my family. You hear?”

  In the background Lucas heard Courtney and then his father. Courtney yelled at Ben and the line clicked, losing the connection.

  Lucas pressed the end button, feeling blindsided. What the hell? Ben should be grateful he’d come when Courtney called. His brother had been the one to screw up, and that he tried to paint Lucas as some kind of homewrecker pissed him off. Lucas wasn’t sloppy seconds even if Ben had made him feel that way all those years ago.

  So his brother could kiss his ass.

  The phone rang, interrupting his thoughts. “Yeah?”

  “Sorry about that,” Courtney said, her voice steeped in aggravation. “I had to fill out paperwork and left my phone behind.”

  Lucas didn’t respond.

  “He’s just dealing with a lot of anger right now. We both owe you, and I’m sorry he acted like an asshole.”

  Yeah, anger and jealously could eat a hole in a man—or it could find a home, knotting up, implanting in the lining of the soul. “He needs someone to blame for the shit life has handed him…and an older brother with questionable motives is handy.”

  “Are your motives questionable?” He couldn’t read her voice, no longer knew her, so he couldn’t tell the intent behind the question. Maybe she thought Lucas helped her in order to insinuate himself into her life. Maybe she wondered if Lucas still loved her.

  But he didn’t love Courtney any longer. “I don’t have motives, but a man hurt by life imagines every shadow a threat.”

  Courtney didn’t respond to him. Silence squatted on the line between them. Easier to change the subject. “I talked to Mom last night. She said they had him up and moving yesterday.”

  “Yeah, they’d started physical therapy before he got so sick with the infection and he’s doing well. Physically, he tires easily, but considering how sick he was days ago, it’s a miraculous recovery.”

  The doctors called it a miracle.

  Lucas’s mother called it merely Ben being Ben. Lucas’s younger brother always had a flair for drama, even when at death’s door. Sort of like Chris.

  Though Lucas had been relieved to hear his brother had made such a quick recovery, the thought of facing Ben created a storm of emotion inside him. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about the man who had stolen the life he’d built in his head and lived it out with the woman Lucas had loved. And he wasn’t sure how he felt about leaving Addy.

  Never had he contemplated a life anywhere but Texas. The open, rambling life had suited him, so why did it feel so empty to think about returning? What had changed him here in the place where he’d grown into a man? He had no answers.

  “Any idea when you’ll come home?”

  “Unbelievably we’re coming home on Saturday afternoon—a flight into the air station in Belle Chasse.”

  “Do I need to pick you up?”

  “No, your parents are flying down Thursday or Friday, so they’ll be there to help with the kids. You’re pretty much off the hook.”

  Lucas leaned on the truck, nodding at an older gentleman walking by, his motley dog snuffing through the lanky weeds at the wall of a corner bar. “I’m inferring you don’t want me around?”

  “That’s not what I meant. I assumed you needed to get back to your life.”

  He could tell it was indeed what she meant. Something hot and bitter flooded him. They no longer needed him. Both Courtney and Ben wanted him to slink away, fade into the horizon never to be seen or heard from again. Just like before.

  But it wasn’t just like before.

  Courtney had changed everything when she’d called him and begged him to come to New Orleans and stay with the kids. Sending him back to his relegated place in their lives would be like putting toothpaste back inside a tube. Wasn’t going to happen…and trying would make one hell of a mess.

  Deep down Lucas knew he’d been changed by Michael, Chris and Charlotte. He’d wiped their tears, scrubbed their faces and caught their laughter in his hand, creating a place in his heart for them. He wasn’t going to leave their lives and never come back. He wasn’t going to resume invisible uncle status again.

  Lucas wasn’t going to be sidelined. “I’m not going home without talking to you and Ben about what happened between us.”

  Again silence sat heavy for a few seconds.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. It’s time we dealt with what happened years ago, Courtney. Surely you didn’t think I would come to your house, build a relationship with your children and then slip away like some stranger in the night. How fair is that to Michael or Chris? Even Charlotte likes me now.”

  “You intentionally forgot about us, Lucas, or had you forgotten the silence between us was your choice?” Courtney’s voice rose in aggravation. “You wouldn’t forgive us and you built that wall. Not us. But I don’t think now is a good time to deal with what stands between us. Ben is going through a lot of emotional baggage with the loss of his leg. He’s angry, grieving and still recuperating. Maybe later in the summer…when he’s better.”

  Lucas understood her need to protect his brother, but every instinct in his gut told him now was the time. “No, I’m not waiting any longer to settle things between me and him. His injury has proved people can’t continue to put off words that need to be spoken, thinking there will be a tomorrow. So, I will be here when Ben comes home…and then I’ll go back to Texas. But things will be different.”

  Courtney took a deep breath. “Please, Lucas. Don’t rock this boat. Not now.”

  “It’s past time.”

  “We’ve waited over thirteen years. Surely, we can—”

  “—stop being idiots,” Lucas finished her sentence. Until that moment he didn’t know what he wanted, but suddenly the windshield wipers to his soul kicked in, clearing off the gunk preventing him from seeing who he was. He didn’t know if the change in him was because of what he’d faced with children who’d never seen him before or seeing how bravely Addy had stepped out of her own sheltered world to be with him…but something had changed. “Let Ben be angry. Let him hate me. But I’m choosing to let the past go.”

  “Fine. You do what you must, but please remember that he’s fragile.”

  “But he’s not broken and maybe if his anger burns out, if he and I can find a better place with each other, he can heal from the past and focus his energies on his future. I know I will feel a hell of a lot better saying what I need to say to you both.”

  “Shit,” she breathed. “Closure is overrated, Lucas.”

  “I’d like to find out,” he said.

  “Fine. See you this weekend.”

  Lucas hung up, swung his camera forward and walked purposefully toward a small apostolic church across the street from Mabel’s Jazz Club. The light streamed through the elaborate iron cross affixed to the top, making a long shadow along the street. The name of the street was written on chipped tiles at the top of the shot. It would make a nice print…and he knew what he’d call it. Redemption.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ADDY WATCHED THE CLOCK on the wall of her shop tick and tried to remember how to breathe. Ten minutes until noon and her father still hadn’t called.

  “You’re making me jump out of my skin,” Shelia said, glancing at the clock Addy kept watching. “That hour hand isn’t going to magically move.”

  Addy looked at her friend. “What?”

  “I know it’s a bad day, sugar, but you’ve got to work throug
h this. You knew Robbie would get out. Think about what we talk about in group therapy. Handle what you can handle. Control what you can control. Be smart. Be aware. But live your life.”

  “I know, but saying it and feeling it are two different things. Robbie will come after me, Shelia, and I don’t know when it will be. Maybe tonight or next week or next year. But he won’t forget about me. Oh, my God.” Addy sank onto a stool, trying to beat back the panic, but failing. She gasped, sucking in the smell of sphagnum moss and funeral parlor.

  Shelia rushed over, wrapping an arm around Addy’s shoulders. “Come on now, Addy. Deep breath, clear your mind, and remember you are stronger now than you were before.”

  Addy pushed against her friend. “You don’t understand. All that crap I’d been convinced would save me—that inner awareness of danger—it isn’t true. Listening to yourself doesn’t work.”

  “Yes, it does, honey. Being aware and heeding your intuition is part of your natural protection.”

  “He sent someone to take pictures of me, and I never knew. I never felt unsafe or had any prickling of awareness. Don’t you get it? I failed myself.”

  “What do you mean ‘took pictures’?”

  “I found several photos in a box on my porch. At first I thought the box was FedEx, so I didn’t open it immediately because Lucas and I were having lunch together. But last night I remembered. No postage and no prints. I called Andre and he came over to procure the evidence. He’s as frustrated as I am because we can’t do anything with it. All circumstantial and we can’t prove Robbie’s behind this.”

  “Wait. Pictures of what?”

  “Of me. Here at the shop, in my car…at home in my nightgown when I went out to check on Michael one night.”

  “How’s he doing these things?”

  “One of his friends on the outside?” Addy shrugged, tucking her trembling fingers into her pockets.

  “You know he’s just trying to get in your head.”

  “It’s working.”

  “What did Lucas say?”

  Addy turned away. “I haven’t told him, and frankly it’s none of his business.”

  “You haven’t told him about Robbie?”

  “I told him about the attack. Not about the gifts he sends. Or that Robbie might be granted parole today.”

  “You got a big hunky cowboy living next door, one who cares about you I might add, and you don’t tell him about this scum trying to scare you? Are you plain stupid?” Shelia never minced words—it was something Addy loved and hated about her.

  “No, but I didn’t want to throw my issues at him when we first met. For one thing he was a stranger.”

  Shelia harrumphed.

  “Okay, fine, I didn’t want him to know I come with that kind of baggage. Acknowledging the sicko in my life who never really went away makes it too real. Not being able to stop Robbie from sending me this shit, for crippling me with fear, makes me feel weak. Makes me feel less than what I should be. I didn’t want to be that woman to Lucas.”

  “And telling him would have sent Lucas running the other way?”

  “Maybe.” But even she wasn’t convinced.

  “Well, then, he ain’t the man for you, is he?”

  “You ask too many questions.” Addy inhaled a deep breath and blew it out. “I’m tired of people seeing me as a victim. I didn’t want Lucas to look at me that way. I wanted to be the woman who’d healed and grown stronger…even if I’m not.”

  “Now, that’s a lie.” Shelia tossed down the wire cutters. “You can handle anything. I did, didn’t I?”

  “But you don’t have to worry anymore. Your cross to bear is rotting in the cemetery—”

  “And good riddance.” Shelia eased her girth onto a stool. She wore monochromatic red with jangling silver bracelets. Her curls had red woven within the ebony depths, a very edgy, hip look, but Shelia’s eyes were those of an old soul. “Baby, tell your man.”

  “He’s not my man. He’s—” Addy snapped her mouth closed because she didn’t know what in the hell to call Lucas. “Why mix him up in my misery?”

  “Because you got a thang for him. Because he has a thang for you. What? You just gonna let him saddle his horse and ride away?”

  “Yeah, I am. He lives twelve hours away. I’ve always known that whatever we shared—friendship, sex, whatever—was a blip on the radar of my life. Neither one of us can do forever. We each have our own lives to live, lives far away from one another.”

  “So love don’t matter to you?” Shelia folded her arms and raised her painted-on eyebrows.

  “Love?” Addy tried to snort like that word didn’t make her knees weak. She couldn’t go there with Lucas…or could she? They hadn’t talked about a future, only a present. But what if… “I don’t want to be in love with Lucas.”

  Shelia’s crack of laughter made Addy jump. “Heh, you think you can control love? You can’t. Love is a sneaky son of a bitch. He’ll tap you on the shoulder and when you spin around, punch you right in the face. You can’t run from it, sugar.”

  “I’m not in love with Lucas.” Addy knew she lied like a dog…which really didn’t make sense because dogs couldn’t even speak much less lie.

  Shelia’s answering smile said it all—Addy’s words weren’t believed.

  “Go over there and tell him tonight. Let him into your life, Addy. Stop running. Stand and fight.”

  “I’m not running. From him or Robbie.” And as she said those words, she straightened. Last night she hadn’t slept a wink. She’d woken this morning haggard and worn. After an afternoon basking in Lucas’s arms, she should have faced Monday strong and content. Instead, she’d crawled into her existence, reverting into something she’d never wanted to be—a shadow, a scurrying bunny darting away, fearing the unknown. She’d become a victim all over again.

  Addy lifted her chin. “I’m not running.”

  Shelia searched her face. “Good. I decided long ago I could be knocked down, but I’m gonna get up and fight for myself. That’s what you have to do…on both accounts. Fight for love. And if the time comes you have to face your past, fight that no good piece of scum. He may come for you, but you’ll be ready. ’Cause you ain’t no victim, Addy Toussant. You remember that. We ain’t rats, and we ain’t hiding.”

  Addy smiled…the first one she’d tried on since she’d opened that damn box. “Hell, no, I’m not.”

  And then the phone rang.

  “Fleur de Lis,” Addy said into the receiver.

  “He’s out,” her father said, disgust heavy in his voice.

  Fear sneaked inside her resolve and sucker punched it. But Addy refused to give in and she choked it down, smothering it with determination. “Did you see him?”

  “Of course. He came in and I said my piece. The jackass sneered at me the entire time, and when they announced he’d been rehabilitated and was paroled, he winked at me. Can you believe the nerve?”

  “Good. He’s feeling confident, isn’t he?” Addy said, anger building inside her at the cocksure manner of the man who’d given her both physical and mental scars. “Well, I’m not a girl anymore. I’m a grown woman who understands better the sickness in his mind, and I’m a grown woman who knows how to defend herself. I’m not afraid of him anymore.”

  “Baby, you don’t have to go all Rambo on me. I want you to be careful. Talk to Flora about her being on guard. The security guys will be there today, and I’ll go out and meet with them. They’ll finish by this afternoon, so tonight you will have an alarm. I also talked to Andre about having a few patrol cars drive by a couple times, especially at night.”

  “I’ll be fine, Dad. At some point, he’ll show up in my world so I’ll be prepared. Hopefully, he’ll see he doesn’t scare me and all his crazy fantasies of me cowering in fear will pop like a balloon. He has delusions of power, and I won’t let them persist.”

  “Baby, if he comes anywhere near you, you call 911 and find safety. You understand?” Her father’s voice sounded
near panic. She’d scared him by talking about facing her demons. She wouldn’t provoke Robbie or try to fight him. She wasn’t stupid. But she also wouldn’t let him think he had power over her. That was what Robbie craved…her fear. She wasn’t hiding from him, for that would be giving him the gift of herself.

  “I’m not dumb, Daddy. If I see him, I’m calling for backup. I have no delusions of being an ass-kicker. But I’m not giving him my fear.”

  “Good girl. I’ll be there when you get home.”

  “I love you, Dad.”

  “You, too, angel face.”

  Addy placed the phone back on the receiver and turned to Shelia. “Robbie’s out.”

  “Time to use all the tools you’ve prepared with over these past few years. I’m calling Sharon and Rochelle. We’ll all be there for you.”

  Addy nodded. It was what Survivors of Violence did. Constant support system. They had each other’s back and Addy had spent many a night worrying about her friends in her therapy group. She’d made casseroles, held hands and watched children all to alleviate her friends’ minds. They were a sisterhood of survivors and had gotten Addy through some hard times.

  “I’m a little scared,” Addy admitted.

  “Good. Being a little scared will aid you, honey. Being a lot scared will cripple you.” Shelia wrapped her arms around Addy and squeezed tight.

  “Thank you, Shelia.”

  “You don’t have to thank me. If it wasn’t for you, this job and all you’ve done for me, I don’t know where I’d be.”

  “You know the offer you made a few months ago?”

  Shelia lifted her eyebrows. “About buying into the business?”

  “We should talk about it.”

  “I still wanna do it, but let’s visit that topic when we’re less emotional. Today is not the day.”

  “Okay,” Addy said, stepping back toward her workstation and the arrangement she’d been trying to put together for a person having bypass surgery. She hadn’t been able to concentrate well, but things looked a little clearer for her. Resolve was a funny beast. It settled in the bones and made her breathing steadier, her vision crisp and her intent sincere. Months ago she’d cringed when Shelia had approached her about buying into the floral shop. She hadn’t wanted to let any piece of Fleur de Lis go. It was her identity, the world she clung to with tight fists. But at the moment she faced her demons, her life emerged from the fog, startling in its clarity.