I don't argue. Instead I nod in understanding. I get it. There have been things I've needed to do too.
“I—are you busy? I mean, do you have plans tonight?” she asks.
“No. You want to get out of here?”
“Yeah, actually. Is there somewhere we can talk?”
“Yeah. I can drive.”
“Okay.”
“Come on.” I lightly take her arm. I almost pull away as she falls into step beside me, but I don’t. Instead my hand slides to the small of her back as I open the door for her.
I flip Kaleb the finger as the door closes behind me.
The sound of the bell mixes with his laugh.
The Peak is full with its usual Thursday night football crowd. And by full, I mean four of the regulars are crowded around the bar, grumbling at the old mounted TV. I greet the boys and ignore the double and triple takes they all shoot in Claudia’s direction. I tap on the counter and tell Rich to send two beers back to our table. Then I lead Claudia to a booth in the back of the worn-down watering hole. I watch her as she strips off her coat and almost choke. The shirt she’s wearing is a simple black tee, but it’s low cut and her tits are almost spilling out. They look so good, even if she were mine I wouldn’t tell her to cover up.
“I didn’t order for you out of some weird misogynistic shit. Blue Moon is the fanciest thing they have here.”
She smiles again as she scans my face. “It’s okay. A beer will loosen me up. Now that I’m looking at you I can see how crazy this is.”
“What, you being here in Quinten?”
“Yeah. I told myself I thought this through, but thinking and doing are different things.”
I feel the nervous energy rolling off her, but she keeps her eyes on my face. She's cataloging my features. She's not the only one. I want to reach across the table to see if the golden brown skin that covers the expanse from her forearm to her elbow is as soft as it looks.
“I don't think it's crazy.” Crazy is the amount of time I’ve spent thinking about her in the last several months. “I wouldn't have come down here if I was bothered by you being here.”
“Someone narced on me, huh?” Another smile. Fuck, her lips.
“See those guys at the bar and the bartender? Known them all since I was five years old. Kaleb back at the Lodges? He's my drinking buddy, when I come down to drink. It's a small town. Someone is always narcing on you.”
“That must be weird.” She sighs and plucks a napkin out of the holder. “I still shouldn’t have shown up like this and I cannot even pretend that I just happened to be driving by.”
“I’m sorry about back at the motel. You don’t—” I stop myself from saying what almost comes out of my mouth.
“I don’t have to explain why I flew three thousand miles to give you thank-you flowers?”
I shake my head. “I think there’s something to be said about boundaries, but I don’t think you showing up is out of bounds. I wanted to see you again.”
“You did?”
“I tried to come right back to the hospital, and the feds wouldn’t let me. They told me to stay away from you until their investigation was done. And then you were gone.”
Her face goes blank.
“They didn’t tell you,” I say.
“No. They—the cops and the staff at the hospital were pretty insistent about me resting and healing enough to travel and then they were discharging me. An agent picked me up and drove me straight to the airport.”
“They seemed to have an unnecessary flair for the dramatic. I got your note.”
Rich comes over before she can respond and hands us our beers. He stares a moment too long at Claudia when she thanks him.
“Uh, yeah. I wrote that note in sort of a panic. They weren't—they didn't handle things very well.”
“We don't have to talk about it,” I say. She's stops looking at me and starts to frantically destroy the label on her bottle of beer.
“Do you have nightmares?” she asks.
“Yes,” I answer.
She looks up at me. “I quit my job. And I dumped my boyfriend.”
“Because of the nightmares?”
“Because neither was making me feel better when I was awake.”
“What do you do, for work?” I ask. This is something I’ve wondered for a while. One of the many things I wondered about her.
“I was a buyer for Kleinman’s flagship store. What do you do?”
“I'm a photographer for the forest service and I do some digital design work.”
She says nothing again at first. She's going to town on that label. Someone scores and there's a bit of commotion to fill the silence. I wait.
“What do you have nightmares about?” she asks.
“Shit that makes me think I should probably talk to a shrink.”
“But?”
“But I know I won't.”
“I saw a shrink.”
“How did that work out?”
“Dumped her too. And now I'm here.” Claudia takes a long swig of her beer. She avoids my eyes, but she's still very pointedly looking at my chest.
“I was worried about you, but then I realized it was more like I was worried about my own psyche if I didn't get some kind of closure about this whole shit,” I tell her.
“What kind of closure did you need?”
You. Seeing you, touching you, claiming you in a very specific way, I want to say, but I can't. I know the tricks my mind is playing on me. The months of thinking about her molded her into someone I know she isn't. A figment of my imagination. If I can just dominate that person one time, the person in my mind, bring her to the peak, break her and bring her back down safely I know we’ll both exorcise the demons that keep me up at night. That keep me from setting foot in the woods on the east side of my property.
“Just to know I did the right thing.”
“You did,” she says.
I feel my jaw tensing. You're a good boy, I hear my grandfather say. Too good. You've got to stick up for yourself.
“I know,” I say. “Seeing you helps.”
“Does it?”
“Yes.”
“Seeing you helps me too. I don't remember you being this tall.”
“I don't remember you being this sexy,” I say truthfully.
A hint of red crawls across her skin and she takes another sip of her beer. Then she clears her throat. “Don't say stuff like that.”
“I apologize. I won't do it again.”
“I just wanted to see you, but we’re practically strangers still. I don't think fucking you would be a good idea. You…nevermind. I can't say that.”
“Can't say what?” I push.
“I can't make a certain comparison. You and I don't have a before.”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn't know me before.”
“Have you changed?”
“Yes and no, but enough about me. Tell me about this gorgeous little mountain town. I thought it would be weird to be back, but it’s been okay. Everyone is so nice it's distracted me from any mounting anxiety.”
I almost laugh at the thought of Kaleb’s customer service voice and how Rich typically would have told me I could pick up my own damn beers at the bar.
“It's pretty much what you get is what you see. Permanent number of residents is pretty small. There are seasonal folks that come in the spring and the summer, but we all know each other pretty well for the most part.”
“And you have family here?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“It was me and my grandfather until he passed away about five years back,” I explain.
“So you're an orphan like me.”
“Not exactly. My parents are still alive. They split their time between Colorado and D.C.”
“Oh.”
“My father is a blue blood senator from Colorado, been in the public eye his whole life. My mom was his mistress. When his wife died, my mom dropped
me here with my grandfather so she could marry him.”
Her mouth is sort of hanging open.
“Without this,” I scrub my beard with my fingers, “he and I could be twins. It wouldn't make sense if his new girlfriend already had a five year old that looked exactly like him. He thought it was better if I didn't exist.”
“Oh. Wow. Yeah. My whole family's just dead.”
“I think both are pretty fucked up.”
“True.”
I finally take a sip of my beer and decide it's best if we keep the conversation focused on her. I can't say anything else that won't scare her off.
“Not sure this makes sense considering what you’ve already told me, but are you okay?”
“Little of column A, little of column B.”
I sit back. The alternative involves taking her hand.
“The therapy helped with the survivor’s guilt. So in that respect I just really miss my brother.” A single huge tear rolls out of her eye and then another, but her voice doesn't waver. She grabs some napkins and wipes her cheeks. “Sometimes I even feel good about being alive. Like I don't wish I was dead, I just wish he was here with me.”
“That makes sense. What's going on with column B?”
She sighs and sits back too. “It involves being angry pretty much all the time.”
“Ah. I can see that.”
“Yeah?”
I lean forward and show her the healed cuts on my knuckles. “Punched a tree a few months back.”
She leans forward and runs her fingers over my hand. I ignore the heat and focus on the noticeable scars that cover her own skin.
“I was walking with a limp for so long that I thought I'd done permanent damage to my hip,” she says.
“How's the hip now?”
“Fine. But sometimes when I have a shitty dream and I wake up, I fall back into the limp for a few minutes.” She laughs, then chugs the rest of her beer. “I feel like we’re Army buddies sharing our old war stories.”
She’s not wrong. A lot happened that night and neither of us have recovered from it. “Tell me what you need,” I say.
She shakes her head and then tips the bottle back to claim the last few drops. “I can't.”
“Why not?”
“Because it's delusional and selfish. So I settled for flowers. I wanted to thank you and the nurses who took care of me. And even Sheriff Bingham who actually tried to keep me informed.”
“Tell me what you need,” I say again.
“I can't.”
I give up and move on. Pressuring her is useless. And a dick move. “When do you head home?”
She shrugs. “Whenever I want, I guess. I planned to see my brother’s girlfriend in San Francisco before I head back, but ya know. No job, no rush.”
And no boyfriend to get back to, I think.
“I don't know. I want to get to know you better,” she says. “I want us to be close.”
“I think we are close.”
“But it's weird. I don't know you.”
I nod. Clearly I'm not the only one struggling with this.
“I looked for you online. You're hard to find.”
“I'm not on social media and my photography is under S. Olsen.”
“Did you look for me?”
“No.”
Pain flashes in her eyes for just a second.
“It was for the best, I think.”
“I should go,” she says suddenly. She stands and grabs her jacket. “Do you mind giving me a lift back?”
“Claudia.”
“Really. I just wanted to see you and say thank you. I’m not sure if you’re a vase guy or even a flower guy, but a mug or even a tall glass will work just fine if you cut down the stems enough.”
I look at her for a few more seconds, but she’s avoiding my eyes. She’s done. I stand and grab her empty and what’s left of my beer, then nod for her to lead the way. I ignore the look on Rich’s face when I leave the empties and a twenty on the bar.
On the short ride back to the Lodges, Claudia looks out the window of my truck and comments on the quaintness of the town. I think of how there’s no way I can salvage this night. There is nothing to salvage. It’s all in my head. She points me to the car that’s parked in front of her cabin and I pull up next to it. I get out and walk her to her door.
“Well, thank you for coming down to see me. I know it’s weird, me being here,” she says.
“It’s not weird. Let me see your phone. I’m going to give you my numbers this time,” I say. She peers up at me for a moment, but then she reaches into her pocket and pulls out her cellphone. She hands it to me. I type in my cell and my house phone numbers, label them appropriately. I give her back her phone.
“Call me before you leave.”
“I will.” She bites her lip, then looks at the part in the curtains that cover the cabin window. I watch as the orange glow from the porch light plays across her face. She looks back up at me. “It was nice to see you, Shep. I owe you my life.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
She huffs out a little laugh and looks down. She swallows. She closes her eyes for a moment and then she looks back up at me and holds out her hand. “Mr. Olsen.”
I pull her into my arms and kiss the top of her head. “Keep stretching out that hip,” I say. She sags against me and that’s when my brain decides it’s time to go. I grip her shoulders and stand away. I see the hurt play across her face again. I have to go. There’s no see ya. No goodbye. I turn and get in my truck. And leave.
I’m almost at the pass when my phone rings. It’s a 718 number. I slow down and pull over to the side of the road.
“Hello?”
“Why didn't you look for me?” She’s crying. “I could have died in your arms and then I vanish with this note that frankly reads like something my mom would have forced me to write to thank a tutor for their time and you don't look for me?”
“Because.”
“Because why? Tell me. I didn't imagine what happened in the hospital and I'm not saying it was anything sexual. And I appreciate that you came to check on me at all, but you didn't have to stay with me. You didn't have to hold me the way you did. How was it so easy for you to walk away after you got my note?”
I feel my forehead start to throb. “Don't do that.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend like that note had your address and phone number at the bottom and I was just too cold hearted to use them. That letter felt like a thank you and farewell to me. You had returned to your old life. Tell me where the line is between concern and stalking.”
She’s quiet for a while before she responds, but I know she’s still there.
“I'm sorry.” She lets out a watery breathe. “I'm sorry. I—I told you what I needed was selfish and delusional.”
“What would have happened if I just showed up in New York three months ago? Would you have been okay with that? Would your boyfriend have been okay with that?” It's low, but it's the truth.
“I know. I just—it hurts. You said you thought about me. Weren't you the least bit curious?”
“Claudia.”
“Just tell me please. Maybe I just need to hear what's actually going through your head. Maybe that’ll actually help more than giving you roses.”
I close my eyes and clench my free hand. My cock is already rising as I consider what I actually want.
“Shep.”
“Curious doesn't cover it,” I say. “Seeing you that hurt, it gutted me. I wanted to protect you and take care of you, but I knew that wasn't—”
“It wasn't what?”
“It was all about me. It was what I wanted and what I needed. I couldn't put that on you.”
“Can you come back to the motel? Please?”
I know I shouldn't. “Why?” I ask.
“Because I didn’t come here to see you for five minutes. I can admit that.”
“Why did you come here?”
“I don�
�t know.” She almost shouts. This is the part I didn’t want to deal with because it’s not cut and dried. It’s a fucking mess. But I can’t walk away from her.
“I can't stay. I left my dog up at my place.”
“Then let me come up.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“A lot happened up at my place, Claudia. I’m bringing you right back down if you can’t handle it.”
“I’m not—” she stops herself. She brings herself back to reality. My house, my yard, it’s a part of her war story. Neither of us know what demons she’ll find up there. “Okay,” she finally says.
I sigh. This isn’t about me. It’s about her. “Go to the front desk and wait for me.”
“Why?”
“So we can tell Kaleb you’re coming up to my place.”
“Why does the hotel clerk need to know our business?”
“Because when beautiful women come into towns like this and leave their cars at roadside motels it’s good for a few people to have an idea of what’s going on and where they actually went.”
“Oh. Okay, yeah. That’s not a bad idea.”
“I’ll be right there.” I end the call and make sure it’s clear for me to make a u-turn.
I’m making a huge fucking mistake.
Six
I take my time driving back up to my place, even when I hit the split to my private road. Claudia is quiet most of the time. She comments on the trees every now and then. I tell her it’s greener than usual thanks to all the rain we’ve been getting. It’s not raining now, but it’s due to start up again soon I tell her. Sticking to the weather and the terrain seems to be safe. When we pull up to my gate, I realize I didn’t close it when I left. I know why. I won’t beat myself up about it.
I watch Claudia out of the corner of my eye as the security lights around my property pop on. I pull my truck to a stop in its usual spot. I wait a minute, gauge her reaction.
“This is your place?”
“Yeah.”
She frowns. “I don’t remember this.”
“I’m not going to sit here and try to shock you into remembering.”
“Good call. Let’s go inside.”
I cut the engine, grab the roses out of the back seat, then meet her around the passenger side. I’m tempted to take her hand when she hops out of the cab, but I don’t. I don’t know where we are, but it’s not there.
HAVEN: Beards & Bondage Page 6
