by Rachel Lee
Everything about him looked shrunken, she realized. He was no longer the huge, threatening menace of her childhood, but a shrunken, ordinary old man.
Taking heart from the fact that he wasn’t much bigger than she, she dared to halt him. “Why should I listen to you?”
“No reason, I guess.” He hesitated. “Except that maybe you’ll be able to sleep better knowing I don’t intend to hurt you.”
She felt another uncomfortable jolt. How had he known? Then she remembered that Sheriff Tate had spoken to him just yesterday. Maybe the sheriff had let him know how terrified she was. She felt a sudden burst of hot anger at that, fury that Tate had told Richard about her fear, fury that Richard was able to scare her so much.
“I’m just supposed to take your word for that?” she heard herself demand hotly. “Why the hell should I do that, Richard? Every time you came crawling back after you beat up Mom or me you said it would never happen again. Every time you came back you said you were sorry, that you’d never meant to hurt us. But I’m still crippled and Mom is still dead!”
He kept his face averted, but she could see the way his hands clenched and his jaw worked as she shouted at him. A long time passed before he spoke, a time in which the only sound was the wind in the grass and Guin’s warning growl. Finally he said, “Yes, you are.”
It was as if he punched her. All the air rushed out of her lungs, making her feel dizzy and weak. Her voice deserted her, leaving her helpless to lash out. She couldn’t believe he’d admitted that. Couldn’t believe he’d admitted it so easily. So calmly. What was this? A sham?
But he turned then, and she doubted he could have manufactured the terrible look in his eyes.
“I killed her, Essie,” he said simply. “I killed her and I have to live with that. I crippled you and I have to live with that. I have to live with the memory of every blow or nasty word I hurled at you. Do you know what I dream of at night? Your face when you were little, looking so god-awful scared and hurt. The way you skittered away from me as fast as you could if I came into a room. I have to remember what I did to you and your mother.”
“So do I,” she said defiantly. Was she supposed to feel pity or sympathy for this man?
He nodded. “I’m not asking for your forgiveness. I don’t have a right to that. But I want you to know I learned. I had fifteen years in a prison cell to give me time to think without alcohol getting in the way and I figured a few things out.”
“So?”
He looked down, as if hoping he could find answers on the plank floor in front of his loafered feet. When he lifted his head he looked even more shrunken. “This isn’t for you, I guess.” His voice cracked on the words. “I can’t take back what I did to you. I know that. There’s not one damn thing I can do to make it any better. I guess I gave you nightmares you’ll have for the rest of your life. I sure as hell gave you that leg.” He indicated her leg with a jerk of his chin.
Esther compressed her lips and folded her arms tightly around herself, wishing the earth would just open and swallow the man. But the earth didn’t open, and she kept hearing Craig’s urging to face the demon. Somehow that gave her courage to keep standing there looking at this nightmare monster from her youth.
“I’m here for me,” he said abruptly. “It’s something I need to do. To tell you to your face that I’m sorry as hell about the kind of creep I was and about how bad I hurt you and your mother. I know you aren’t going to believe it, but I always loved you.”
“You sure had a strange way of showing it!”
He nodded. “I guess so. I wish…I wish I could fix it, Essie. Really. But I can’t. So I just gotta stand here and tell you how god-awful sorry I am. I had a weakness for alcohol and I was too weak to fight it. I was a weak man.”
“And you’re not now?”
“No. Not like I was.” He looked at her from those haunted eyes. “I don’t drink anymore. I don’t go anywhere near the stuff. And I’ll never hit anyone again, ever.”
He averted his face for a moment, then looked at her again. Before speaking, he drew a long, shaky breath. “I loved your mom. I loved her too damn much. I got…too possessive. She loved to flirt with guys and dance with guys and…I used to get so mad I couldn’t even see straight because of the way she was looking at some guy. I know it’s no excuse but…I don’t know why, but I kinda figured that if I hit her she’d stop fooling around. She never did, and I shoulda just had the sense to leave, y’know? But I was stupid, and she was mine, and I was going to fight for her. Only problem was it was her I was fighting.”
He drew a ragged breath and Esther felt an uncomfortable tug. She didn’t like the image he was painting of her mother. She had known that her mother drank, too, and got violent sometimes when she did, but she hadn’t thought of her as being cheap. “Are you blaming her for what you did?”
“No.” He shook his head. “No, I’m not. Nothing she ever did deserved being beaten up. It sure as hell didn’t deserve getting killed. I’m just trying to…” He hesitated. “I guess I’m trying to explain. It ain’t no excuse, Essie. There isn’t any excuse for what I did. I was just a bastard. I was too quick to hit. Too quick to get mad. They had me take some counseling about that when I was in prison. Anger control counseling. I think it helped because I don’t get near as angry as I used to.”
God, he was pathetic, she found herself thinking. As he stood there and exposed more of his weakness he was resembling the monster of her nightmares less and becoming more just a poor excuse for a human being.
He shifted from one foot to the other and shoved a hand into his slacks pocket. “Anyway, your mom made me mad a lot, but there was really no reason for me to get mad at you except…I was jealous.”
“Jealous?” She couldn’t fathom it. Jealous of a small child?
“Jealous.” One corner of his mouth twitched. “You took so much of her time and she was so crazy about you. I resented it, Essie. Pretty dumb, huh? I mean, you were my kid. I still don’t understand why I was so jealous. I can remember…” His voice broke. “I can remember when you used to…crawl into my lap and call me daddy. I remember that and…” His voice broke again and his breathing grew ragged. “I can’t explain it, what happened. I can’t explain why I started to see you as a nuisance. You weren’t a bad kid. Hell, you didn’t even cry very much. And that time that I…that I…”
He broke off and turned away, visibly fighting for control. Several minutes passed before he spoke again. “I don’t know why I threw you down the stairs. Your mom and I had been fighting, I remember that. I was pretty angry, and I put away a couple of six-packs, and then you started screaming and it was like something exploded in my head. I remember picking you up, but I honest to God don’t remember throwing you down the stairs.”
She spoke, her voice dripping ice. “I remember every detail.”
He swore and walked a few steps away, as if he wanted to escape. “I’m sorry,” he said finally, turning to look directly at her. “I’m sorrier than I can ever tell you.”
She simply looked at him, wondering if his apology was somehow supposed to make it better for her. It didn’t feel like anything at all. How could saying you’re sorry ever make up for anything? “I’m not sure you have any right to apologize,” she said finally. “You knew you were causing harm.”
He nodded. “I surely did. I just didn’t admit it to myself. I had some red-hot teeth biting my tail and driving me on like I was some kind of madman. I don’t know what the hell it was that kept pushing me, but I should’ve had better control. I shouldn’ta let myself get out of hand the way I did. And I’m sorry for it, Essie. I truly am sorry. I know it doesn’t make a damn thing any better for you, but I had to tell you. I know I did wrong and I’m sorry.”
She looked at him with a detached, cold sort of curiosity. “Did it make you feel better to tell me that?”
He shook his head. “No. Nothing’s ever going to make me feel better. That isn’t why I did this.”
“Then why did you?”
“Because I had to own up to what I did. And I had to face up to you.” He shrugged. “So, okay, I did it. Maybe someday you can even see your way to…letting me back into your life.”
She was horrified. “Never!”
He nodded sadly. “I kind of figured you’d feel that way. You have every right to.”
“Well, how wonderfully generous of you to admit that!” Her voice curled with scorn. Her fear of him was beginning to evaporate like a puddle on a hot summer day. “I’d have been happy if I’d never seen you again period.”
He nodded, not even flinching, acting as if he were accepting just punishment.
“I’ve had nightmares every night of my life because of you! I never knew the simple safety a child is supposed to know from its parents. I had no childhood to speak of, and I suffer pain every single day of my life because of you. How can you possibly think an apology would make any of that easier to take?”
“I don’t. I never did. I’m not a fool, Essie.”
“Stop calling me that! My name is Esther.”
“I called you Essie when you were a baby.”
She knew that. What she hated was the skin-crawling feeling she got when she heard him say it now. “Well, you’ve apologized so now you can go.”
But he hesitated and she found herself wanting to scream with frustration and a billion other emotions that seemed to have been building for so long. This man had made a wreck out of her life and now he stood there as if he had a right to be on her front porch. As if he had any right to anything at all.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, and turned to walk away.
It was watching him walk away that at last broke the shackles of her prison of fear. She had faced him, she had stood up to him, and now he was walking away. She had triumphed in the most elemental way possible—she had faced the demon, and he was a demon no more.
Instead, she suddenly saw him as a pathetic excuse for a man who had ruined his entire life for lack of simple self-control. He could neither control his rage, nor control his drinking, and so he had killed his wife and permanently alienated his daughter.
And suddenly she knew she wasn’t going to let it end this way.
Craig was about a half mile from Esther’s driveway when he saw the battered metallic blue car turn into it. Even at that distance he recognized the vehicle and felt his heart slam into overdrive.
My God, Richard Jackson was going to see Esther! A multitude of horrible images crossed his mind, and he found himself clinging desperately to the hope that Jo’s presence would be enough protection. Or that Richard Jackson really was harmless, that all he had wanted to do was apologize.
None of that helped ease his anxiety. Esther had needed him and he wasn’t there and there wasn’t an excuse good enough on the entire planet.
He was already burning some huge blisters into his heels, but now he ignored them, spurring himself to a run. Two miles. He could do two and a half miles even in these damn cowboy boots in maybe fifteen minutes. Damn! He was going to scrape together the money and get himself a decent pair of jogging shoes so he didn’t have to wear these damn cowboy boots except when he was planning to ride.
Esther. Fear for her raced up from the pit of his stomach and burned his throat. God, how could he have been asinine enough to think he could safely leave her alone for a couple of hours…a couple of hours which had turned into over three what with one thing and another.
He swore under his breath and spurred himself to an even faster pace. She had to be all right. She absolutely, positively had to be all right.
Because he couldn’t live without her.
All that hogwash he’d been dishing out about being a wanderer, about being Indian, about having nothing to offer her…well, maybe it was true, but he could damn well change all of it except his being Indian, and that apparently didn’t strike her as any kind of a big deal. Hell, she hadn’t even asked the usual curious questions. Nope, Esther Jackson saw him as a man, plain and simple, and something about that was like a balm to his soul.
Because never before in a relationship had his heritage seemed so insignificant. Among his own kind it had dictated whom he could date, and in the white man’s world it had either acted as an attractant or a repellant. With Esther it seemed to have no effect at all.
And he liked that. He liked not being continually faced with a whole set of preconceptions that he either fulfilled or failed to fulfill, like some kind of script he’d never been allowed to study before the play began. He liked the feeling that anything he happened to be at a given moment was good enough because it was him.
Nobody in his whole damn life had made him feel that way except his sister, God bless her.
And his fear that Esther wouldn’t be able to put up with the disapproval…well, she’d shown her stuff pretty clearly when they went out to dinner and she told that jackass off. In fact, everything about her life said she wasn’t the kind to wimp out when the going got tough.
On the other hand…he wasn’t sure she felt anything for him, even though she’d trusted him last night.
The memory was like a jolt of adrenaline, spurring him to an even quicker pace. The blisters on his heels were hurting like hell and he felt some new ones growing on the side of his foot. So much for the protection socks were supposed to offer.
He said prayer after prayer for Esther’s safety, all the while trying to convince himself that she was going to be just fine because all Richard Jackson wanted to do was apologize to her. He didn’t want to hurt her. He wasn’t crazy enough to hurt her. Hell, the man had just gotten out of prison. Why on earth would he want to put himself right back in?
But arguing for sense was grasping at straws and he knew it. The man had been capable of grievous harm to Esther and her mother in the past, and there was no good reason now to believe he was any different.
Craig cursed himself for all the times he had tried to tell Esther that she probably had nothing to fear from the man. He’d meant it at the time, but now he could only think what an optimistic fool he’d been. Of course she had something to fear from this man. She’d helped put him behind bars for murder, and it was entirely within the realm of possibility that he wanted revenge.
But no, he reminded himself. He’d come to her door, then left when she didn’t answer. If he’d wanted to hurt her, he could have broken in. No, he didn’t want to hurt her. He couldn’t want to hurt her.
His thoughts were revolving like an out-of-control Ferris wheel, round and round over the same ground. He tried to stop them, but they wouldn’t let go of the single-minded insistence that Richard Jackson couldn’t possibly hurt Esther.
His feet seemed to become numb, the pain from the blisters receding until he felt it only as if from a great distance. Intellectually he knew he was getting closer to her house with each step, but emotionally he felt as if he were getting nowhere at all, even when he recognized a landmark and it confirmed that he had covered a quarter mile, a half mile, then a mile.
And then he saw Richard Jackson’s car coming back up the drive. He considered trying to stop the man, then realized it would do no good. If Jackson had hurt Esther, he would probably just run Craig down. If he hadn’t…then it made no difference.
Their eyes connected, just briefly as Jackson drove by and Craig stepped to the side to give him room. Jackson nodded, and in some odd way Craig found that reassuring.
Then he hit the road again, running for dear life, needing to get to Esther the way he needed to breathe.
As he rounded the last corner, he knew that everything was all right, because Esther stood there on her porch, looking out over the prairie. She was okay. Scared, maybe, but unharmed.
He stopped running, giving himself a desperately needed chance to catch his breath. Now with each step he could feel the blisters like fiery brands on his feet. Muscles he’d almost forgotten about were shrieking a protest.
Esther, who had been looking toward the m
ountains turned and spotted him. The smile that spread across her face was like a ray of sunshine after a rainy week. It reached across the distance separating them and touched him deep inside, making a connection that he knew would never be severed.
All this time, he thought as he walked toward her, he hadn’t even realized what was happening to him. Now, please God, she would someday come to feel the same.
“Where’s your truck?” she called as he crossed the hard earth and walked up the path between the flower gardens.
“I had a blowout and ran into the ditch.”
“Are you all right?” Concern creased her face as she hurried toward the steps, limping visibly but ignoring it in her haste to reach him. “Craig? Were you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” he assured her, wincing as his blisters sent up a shriek of pain. “Except for some blisters. Damn cowboy boots weren’t meant for walking.”
She reached him and caught his hand. Did she have any idea, he wondered, of how that felt to him? The touch of her skin, so seductive and warm, the feeling that she cared even more seductive and warm, the concern in her beautiful hazel eyes drawing him to her until he was filled with yearning.
“How far did you have to walk?” she asked, gently tugging him up the steps and into the house.
“Oh, maybe five miles.”
“Your feet must be a wreck.”
“They do feel like it.”
In the kitchen she pushed him gently into a chair and then helped him get his boots off. Her help with his boots was so cute he didn’t have the heart to do it himself. She turned her backside to him, giving him a fine view even if she was wearing a skirt, and wobbled a little until she found her balance.
When she pulled his boots off, it was obvious he’d gone past the blister stage. His socks were soaked with blood.
