The Trinity Sisters

by Kristin Coley

  “I understand.” I replied, knowing she needed to hear it. “We’re together and we’ll stay that way.”

  “Good.” Relief saturated her voice, the earlier intensity gone, but not forgotten. She felt the key to our survival was staying together, but the idea that my existence endangered the lives of everyone I loved was a bitter pill to swallow.

  “Margaret?”

  “Yes, Quinn?”

  “I love you too.”

  “Thank you. Stay safe, my children.”

  The line went dead and with it came the thought that I would never speak to her again. I shook the horrifying thought away, but it didn’t help the cold chill I felt.

  “Thank you.” Dane’s quiet voice broke through the icy chill encasing me and I gave him a questioning look. He tossed the phone on the bed and said, “For insisting I call her. I needed to hear her voice.” The words, ‘one last time’ seemed to echo at the end of his sentence, but we refused to acknowledge them. Neither of us could predict the future, at least I hoped we couldn’t. Margaret’s warnings were the reason for my current thoughts, not some ability to predict death. I hadn’t seen my own parents’ death coming after all.

  “We should go.” I said, trying to shake off the gloom that had come over us. I stood up from the bed and almost collapsed. Dane’s quick action was the only thing that kept me from hitting the hotel room floor. Sharp pain radiated from my midsection, hunger suddenly clawing at me like a monster. “Oh.” I groaned, curling in on myself from the pain.

  “Here.” An opened bag of chips was thrust in front of me and I devoured them in seconds. Three bags later, I looked up to see Dane inhaling a pack of crackers. He’d used magic to heal me the night before and had to be as hungry as I was. “I doubt it.” He replied to my inner thought. “You moved your entire body last night. I worked some healing magic. I don’t think the two compare, but I’m feeling hunger pains. Nothing like you though. I should have got some food in you last night.”

  “We were otherwise occupied.” I joked, ripping open the last pack of crackers to share. Memories from the night before caught us both off guard as our eyes met, and heat crackled around us. Need consumed me and touching him felt as necessary as air to me in that second. I crawled into his lap wearing only the t-shirt I’d dragged on when I woke up.

  “We can’t.” He whispered before his mouth devoured mine. His hands roved over my body, staying outside the t-shirt and making me ache with frustration. Our mouths moved against one another roughly, his stubble reddening the skin of my face and neck as he tried to cover every square inch of me. I arched my neck as he buried his face in the curve of it, his hands coming up to cup my breasts. I could feel the hardness of him against me and shifted. “No.” He said, pulling back.

  “Yes.” I demanded, reaching down between us to position him.

  “Quinn.” He growled, hardening even more at my touch. “Protection?”

  “I’m still on the pill.” I answered rocking against him. “And a little late now. We didn’t use any last night.”

  “A mistake I’m trying not to repeat.” He replied, his hips thrusting against me unconsciously.

  “You’re failing.” I whispered against his ear, biting it hard as he slid inside of me.

  “Then let’s see if we can last longer than last night.”

  I gasped as he flipped me over, his hand tangled in my hair as he yanked hard on it and thrust simultaneously. The sensations sent pleasure shooting through me and I wrapped my legs around him to anchor myself as he drove into me. Every thrust pushed the outside world further away, leaving only the two of us in a bubble of pleasure that all to quickly burst.

  “Dane!” I cried out, arching my back as my orgasm hit the breaking point. A couple harder thrusts kept the waves crashing over me before I felt him tighten against me in his own release.

  He chuckled against my neck and I rubbed my foot over his calf, feeling the hair tickle me.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked, feeling too boneless and satisfied to be bothered by anything.

  “You’re still wearing my t-shirt and I don’t think that lasted any longer than the first time.” He answered, his hand sliding under the shirt to cup my butt.

  “You don’t hear me complaining.” I arched, the muscles tightening and stretching to my pleasure. “And if you keep that up we’ll never get out of bed.”

  “You were the one who started it.” He replied, slapping my butt lightly.

  “I was also the one to finish it.” I told him tartly, lunging up to kiss him on the lips before jumping out of the bed. This time I managed to stay on my feet as I swayed slightly.

  “Food is our first order of business.” He said, rolling out of the bed and grabbing his duffel bag. A glance at me had him amending his statement. “Clothes first.”

  I laughed and grabbed the pants he held out before going to the bathroom to clean up.

  We passed through a fast food joint on the way out of town and this time he ordered triple what he’d ordered the day before. We were silent as we demolished the food, but as I shoved our wrappers back into the bag I said, “So, Gloria’s house?”

  “Yep.” He gave me a sideways glance. “Are you okay with that?”

  I thought about it for a moment, wondering how to ask the question that had been bothering me. Margaret had apologized for the past and I didn’t know when I’d get a chance to talk to Victoria, but it was Gloria who was the unknown in all of it.

  “What is she going to say to me showing up at her house with you?” I finally asked.

  “I have a feeling it’ll be along the lines of, “About damn time you came to your senses.”

  “What?” I practically gave myself whiplash I jerked my head around so fast to see if he was joking.

  “Grandma never agreed with my breaking up with you. In fact, she was the only one that supported me, but it wasn’t enough. I still managed to mess everything up.”

  “Are we going to do this now?”

  He glanced over at me.

  “Got hours ahead of us to fill, darling. I’m not sure we’ll find a better time.”

  I nodded slowly, not sure I was ready to go back to that time, not so soon after witnessing my parents’ death.

  “I know.” I shook my head at his reply, wanting to ask how he could read my thoughts but also not wanting to distract from the topic at hand. We needed to deal with the elephant in the room so we could move forward. We’d promised his mom we’d stay together and I’d meant it. I knew what life was like without Dane and whatever magical thing was between us didn’t change the fact that I’d rather be with him than without him. But going back to that time, one of the darkest of my life when I felt like I’d lost everything was not something I relished.

  “I didn’t want to take a break from you.”

  Those words shattered though the pain from the last year as easily as a wrecking ball through a glass window.

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. It was like I was a fish out of water gasping for air but unable to breath. He hurried on seeing my distress.

  “Your father asked me to break it off with you after the miscarriage.” More words that slashed like knives through me. I’d known my father had issues with my relationship with Dane, but never to the point of asking him to leave me. And the miscarriage…. images of blood and pain and a fear unlike any I’d ever felt rushed through me. I shoved my fist against my stomach trying to ignore the phantom pain that lingered there. “He was worried about you. He blamed me for it and a part of me thought he was right.”

  “What?” I gasped, the idea that Dane blamed himself for the miscarriage never having crossed my mind before. “You had nothing to do with it. Neither did I. The doctor said as much. It could happen to anyone.”

  “Yes, but you were pregnant because of me, because of us. We were careless and reckless, and it resulted in you almost dying.”

  A slow breath turned into two, then three before I could speak.
/>   “We. That’s the operative word. We. The two of us. Dane, I was just as responsible as you. You can’t take that blame on yourself. I was a willing participant. Did I think we’d get pregnant? No, but it was a risk I was aware of. We took precautions. You are not at fault.”

  “I’m also not the one that almost died.”

  And that was the crux of it. The miscarriage had triggered hemorrhaging and I’d almost died before they could stop the bleeding. Dane had been the one to find me and bring me to the hospital. I didn’t remember a whole lot about that day, only the mind-numbing fear that our baby was dead and there was nothing I could do about it. I don’t remember what I said or done in the days that followed. It was weeks before I came out of fog and months before I noticed day to day life. The only thing that had stood out was the day he left me.

  “You were so unhappy after. It worried all of us. You could only sleep if I was next to you, but I hated myself.” He paused to take a breath, keeping his focus on the road so he could get through what he needed to say. “I was the reason you were so unhappy. If I’d gotten home sooner that day, maybe I could have gotten you to the hospital faster, if I wasn’t so careless to get you pregnant, if we weren’t so close, if we didn’t need each other so much.”

  “If, if, if, Dane! There are no guarantees in life. But that doesn’t explain why my father wanted us apart and why you agreed.”

  “He thought like I did. If we weren’t always with each other, then maybe it wouldn’t have happened and he wouldn’t have almost lost you. The thing is part of me agreed with him, but not enough to actually leave you.” He rubbed his face, his eyes suspiciously red as he blinked. “You needed me more than ever and I needed you. We were probably too young to be parents, but it didn’t matter to me. Together we could do anything, including raising our child. But I almost lost you and that was harder for me to accept. When I told my mom what your dad wanted, she agreed.”

  The rush of pain that accompanied that revelation was almost worse than finding out my dad had said it in the first place. It explained Margaret’s apology though.

  “I was stunned. I thought she’d agree with me, that you needed me more now than ever before. But she thought separation would be good for us. Like your dad, our connection seemed too intense, our intentions too serious for our age. She thought my going off to college would be a good time for us to be apart.”

  It seemed like betrayal had come from every corner but the one I’d thought it had. I’d blamed Dane when he’d said he wanted a break, the agony from the thought blinding me to everything else, up to and including our parent’s participation in the break. I’d still been reeling from the loss of our baby and when he’d mentioned taking a break from one another I hadn’t been able to handle one more loss.

  “I argued it, and Gloria came to my defense, said I had the right of it. Our relationship wasn’t like anything she’d ever seen before. While it might seem unhealthy to other people it suited us perfectly. We fought about it for weeks, but when your dad threatened to ship you off to another school far away from me, I gave in.”

  “He what?” I twisted in my seat, needing to see his face, as he told me.

  “I don’t know if he was serious. Looking back, he probably just used it as a threat but at the time I couldn’t chance it. So, I compromised. Told them I wouldn’t break things off completely, but only suggest we take some time apart. You didn’t take it that way though and I was afraid to tell you the truth, the reason why. I didn’t want you to blame your parents or my mom, but after…” He took a deep breath as tears seeped down my cheeks at the pain on his face. “I’ve never regretted anything more. When you told me you never wanted to see me again…. I thought…well, I know what a shattered heart feels like.”

  “I didn’t mean it. Well, I take that back. I did mean it. Mostly because I knew if I saw you I’d run to you and never let go.” I sniffed, trying to talk past the tears clogging my throat, knowing I needed to tell him. “It was pride. I thought you didn’t want me anymore and I couldn’t bear the thought of you knowing I couldn’t live without you when you didn’t feel the same.”

  “Ahhh, darling.” He cupped my cheek, his thumb rubbing the tears that kept tricking down my face. “We are a mess apart, but together, together we make perfect sense.”

  I choked back the rest of my tears, wrapping my fingers around his forearm as he cradled my face in his hand. The steady hum of the truck’s tires filled the cab as we settled into silence as I absorbed the revelations. I forced myself to come to terms with my dad’s role in everything that happened. As much as I wanted to be bitter and rage against the choices he’d made, I couldn’t. He was gone, dead because of me and I didn’t want to taint my memories of him with anger. It didn’t change the fact that I’d been equally responsible for the break up. Neither of us had given the other the opportunity to explain and instead managed to make both of us miserable. It was a lesson I wouldn’t soon forget.

  “So, to answer the question you never got to ask, Grandma Gloria will be ecstatic to see us together, no matter the circumstances behind it.” A smile escaped me then, glad to hear it. She was the only one I hadn’t seen over the past year and I’d missed her. “She’ll be glad I’m not moping around the house any longer.”

  “You moped?”

  “Her word, not mine.” He assured me quickly. “Probably appropriate though. There were a few weeks I didn’t shower or get out of bed.”

  “You stayed with her.” His complete absence from my life made sense now. Gloria lived on a farm an hour outside of the city. She was the reason Dane’s family had moved to Tennessee when he was eleven. His dad had died the year before and his mom wanted to be closer to family.

  “Yep, and trust me when I say she told me how big a fool she thought I was every single day.” He smiled ruefully. “I should have listened to her. She was right like usual. If I’d talked to you like she told me too, we might have avoided the past year apart.”

  “I don’t know. I’d like to think I would have listened, but there was a lot of hurt there.”

  “I’m sorry for hurting you.” He tightened his fingers around mine, our hands resting together on the armrest.

  “It wasn’t just you. That’s not what I meant. The miscarriage messed with me. I was lost for a long time after it happened. I don’t know if I was in the right state of mind to hear what you had to say.”

  “And that’s why I never should have said it to start with.” He groaned, his expression tormented.

  “But you didn’t have a choice. You thought my dad would send me away. You were trying to make the best of a bad deal and we both know you wouldn’t have thrown my father under the bus then.”

  “I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.”

  “You were dealing with guilt and sadness too. I couldn’t see that and I’m sorry. I wasn’t there for you either.” He shook his head, trying to deny my words so I squeezed his hand hard. “Just accept my apology, will you?”

  His eyes darted toward me and at my pointed expression he said, “Apology accepted.” A half smile lifted one cheek as he added, “But only if you accept mine.”

  “Deal.”

  Chapter Eight

  The farm seemed like a completely different world from the city even though it was barely an hour away. Rolling hills and pastureland replaced city streets and concrete and everything seemed to move a little slower.

  Including cars.

  “There must be a tractor up ahead.”

  “Might be a school bus.” I replied, familiar with the stop and go feel of a bus picking up kids.

  “True.”

  It was six thirty in the morning and we’d been driving nonstop since the morning before. It had taken us twenty-four hours to make it to Gloria’s house and these last few miles were making us anxious. We hadn’t heard from anyone and Margaret’s phone went straight to voicemail. Both of us were concerned about her, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to mention it.

  Dane
flipped his blinker on as we came to the turn off that would take us to Gloria’s house. The truck bumped off the highway and onto a gravel road, sending dust flying from the dry ground. He accelerated down the road, going faster than normal, both of us ready to be there and make sure everything was okay. A few minutes later we were at the turn for her driveway and I leaned forward, eager for the first glimpse of her house in more than a year.

  Gloria’s house had always felt more like a home to me than my own, somehow welcoming me whenever I stepped through the doors. The white frame house came into view sparking memories of two summers before when Gloria had conned us into painting the old house. She was good at that. It seemed like every summer she needed something done that required Dane and me to spend the entire summer with her working. I couldn’t complain though. Those summers were some of my best memories, and a part of me had dreamed that one day it would be the home Dane and I raised our own children in.

  As we got closer we could see her come running out the door waving her arm. Dane slammed to a stop, and I threw the door open and raced toward her. She wrapped me in her tightest hug, the familiar scent of White Diamonds filling my nostrils as I inhaled deeply.

  “Oh, sweetheart, I’ve missed you.”

  “Me too.” I murmured against her head since she was a good foot shorter than me. She used to tell me she shrank with age because she didn’t stand up straight usually right before she’d poke me in the back. I used to feel awkward because I was taller than the other girls and most of the guys, even Dane that one summer, and I’d hunch over. She would have none of that though and taught me to stand up straight, telling me the best way to fight one’s enemies was with a straight back so I could look them in the eye while I drove the knife in.

  “What am I? Chopped liver?”

  “You’d be so lucky, grandson of mine.” Gloria pushed me back to look me over and then told Dane, “About damn time you came to your senses.” He gave me a knowing look and slung his arm around her shoulders.