by Jaycee Clark
* * * *
For a man who didn’t think he could coddle, Brayden was doing a damn good job.
In the last week, she’d become more relaxed, or maybe it was her revelation and the decision she’d made. Either way, the days here were becoming a warm comforting dream. During the day they toured the city and at night they would either sit and talk about work and the shop, about Tori, or just watch the nightlife from their balcony while sipping wine.
She breathed deeply and leaned her forehead against the cool pane of glass.
They’d been here for weeks, though the first was still a blur to her, either because of the shock or the pain medication or both. The bruises were fading and with them some of the terror, but not the resolve.
Yesterday she talked to Kaitlyn and Tori on the computer. She missed Tori, horribly. And she was ashamed to admit she felt as if she’d somehow failed the little girl. Not that Tori said or acted that way.
Conversations with Tori Kinncaid were always the same, like a burst of rainbowed sunshine through a cloudy day.
The thought made her smile.
And sly child that Tori was, she asked if Christian and Daddy were having fun yet. Christian hadn’t answered, but instead asked what Tori wanted for Christmas. Tori informed her that since they were away together maybe they could just get married and come home and be a family. That was what she wanted for Christmas.
Kid didn’t ask for much.
Once upon a time...
Christian sighed. Ironic, when she’d dreamed of him, wanted him and would have done anything for the man, Brayden hadn’t seen her, at least not like he did now.
And now that her life was chaotic, to put a nice neat term on it, Brayden was all she ever dreamed he would be.
The times when he reached for her hand, the way he held her when she was scared and lost. The way something in her sighed when he kissed her hair.
She picked up her coffee cup. Time to get ready. She wanted to visit a church today. One with a priest.
Now she just had to inform Brayden.
* * * *
The church was quiet and dark. Out of the way. Why she’d chosen this one to visit was beyond him.
She told him she liked these forgotten chapels on dead end streets. They’d toured dozens yesterday, but she’d wanted to see them again. So they stopped at this one. Christian even told him he could go take a walk.
The woman went into a confessional.
Brayden stood at the back of the chapel. What the hell did she have to confess?
He knew something was up as soon as she wanted him to take a walk. She never said anything, but he was aware of the way she was always within hand’s reach of him. The only time they were really apart was at night when she slept on that stupid little couch and he in the bed. But if it worked for her, he wasn’t about to make an issue of it. He’d noticed the ease in her the last few days, the genuine smile and occasional laughter. All of it loosened the noose that had been ready to hang his heart.
Brayden sat in one of the back pews. A woman to his left lit a candle and crossed herself.
He realized then, he hadn’t been to mass since last Christmas. Gammie would be so disappointed, strong Irish Catholic that she was. He’d known Christian was Catholic, one of the few things he actually knew about her. She’d told him once when he’d asked her.
The woman who had lit the candle was gone, an old man taking her place.
Why did people do that? Did it really help them? Christian had lit one. He turned and looked at the front of the chapel, the large crucifix hanging from the ceiling.
The pew creaked as the old man sat beside him. He looked at the stooped man out of the corner of his eye as he heard a chuckle.
That was odd.
"So serious, Brayden," the man said.
Brayden looked at him, but his face was hidden behind a weathered and tattered fedora.
"Excuse me?" he asked.
The man turned to him then, a wooden cane in his hand, but Brayden didn’t know him. No, wait something ... something about the man was familiar. White scraggled hair stuck out under the hat, his weathered face creased with deep wrinkles.
"I don’t have all damn day here. Who knows how long she’ll be confessing whatever sins she thinks she has." The man nodded to the confessional.
Brayden knew that voice.
"Ian?" he whispered.
His brother shook his head. "And I always thought you were the smart twin."
"Good God," he muttered. He’d looked directly at the man, watched as he’d lit the candle, sat right, right beside him and had not recognized his own brother.
Even now, if he hadn’t spoken so clearly, there was no way Brayden would have known who it was.
"That’s downright creepy," he told Ian.
A gravelly chuckle answered him. "I told you I was meeting you sometime today."
"I was thinking more along the lines of the hotel, the Rialto, Piazza San Marco."
It was incredible. Brayden reached out and touched a weathered hand.
"How ... why ... what did..."
"Still so articulate, too." Ian shook his head. "Don’t. It’s not important, but it is necessary. That’s all you need to know."
Brayden sighed and sat back, still looking at this brother of his he could have passed ten times on the street and not even known it. Passed? Hell, he could have shaken his disguised old hand and not known he was touching related flesh.
"If you keep staring someone could notice." Though the smile softened the features, the words were hardly misted with amusement.
"Sorry," Brayden muttered and looked back to the little door Christian had gone into.
"How is she doing?" Ian asked quietly.
"Better." He clasped his hands between his knees, leaning forwards. "Better."
Ian also leaned forward so that the pew in front of them shielded them somewhat.
"What have you found out?" Ian asked him.
"Not much more than what I’ve already emailed you."
Ian gave some incoherent guttural reply. "Nothing else?"
"I think something...." He looked back to the confessional and lowered his voice. "She’s been looking up stuff on the computer for the last week. Usually when I’m in the shower or after I’ve gone to bed."
"Very inconspicuous, isn’t she?"
"Anyway, I wanted to know what was so important," he admitted.
"For shame, brother dear," Ian retorted.
"There’s a bunch of Justice Department websites. One in Louisiana and the other in Oregon."
"Oregon?" Ian asked, his eyes lost behind make up and fake lenses.
Even after he’d taken the hat off and gray nuzzled hair stood up on a bald head, Brayden still couldn’t discern the color of Ian’s eyes. Realizing he was staring, he glanced away.
"Yeah, Oregon." He raked a hand over his hair. "It was a Statute of Limitations website."
"What all was on it?"
"Sexual assault and murder. For the most part."
Ian scratched his deceptively wrinkled throat and wiped the makeup from his nails, off with his thumb.
"That was the Oregon site?" Ian whispered.
"Yes."
"What about Louisiana?"
"I have no idea, that one is all over the place."
"What else has she been browsing?"
Brayden rolled his neck and bit down, the constant taste of anger filling his mouth. "Rape and sexual assault websites. Women help groups."
Ian grunted. "I hope they help."
They both looked to the confessional.
"Hire her a personal trainer to teach her some self-defense moves," Ian advised.
Brayden immediately thought it was the best idea he’d heard in awhile and could all but hear the silence that would greet him if he told her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ian watched his brother, the black of Brayden’s hair glinting in the dim lights of the chapel.
"How are you?" h
e ventured.
Brayden smiled, rather self-deprecating, and only raised a brow. "Great, just great. And you?"
Ian stared into those dark blue eyes. He asked again, "How are you?"
Brayden looked away, stared at the large crucifix above the altar. Ian thought he might have cursed, but wasn’t sure.
Himself? Well, God would be sending him to Purgatory for more than just a slip of the tongue on holy ground.
"I can’t get it out of my mind, Ian."
Ian sighed and thought about his words. "No one’s asked you to."
"When I close my eyes ... I can’t help but think.... I just wish I could do something, anything! I feel useless and not worth a damn." Brayden’s chest rose and fell and Ian caught the tell tale glisten in the corner of his brother’s eye even though Brayden still stared straight ahead.
Ian didn’t say anything, just sat still and quiet. Brayden had always been one to hide his feelings. In that they were very much alike.
Brayden’s voice pulled him back from his comparison of genetics. "I didn’t protect her. First Tori, and now Christian." Finally, Brayden turned to look at him and Ian’s breath caught at the raw emotion on his brother’s face. "What kind of father am I that I let my daughter get hurt? What kind of husband am I that I let Christian...." He stopped and quickly looked away.
Ian hid his smile. Husband was it? "Is there an elopement I don’t know about?"
Silence greeted him and he saw Brayden’s hand swipe viciously under his chin before Brayden turned back to him.
"I was stupid enough to let her walk away from me before. She offered everything and I was...."
Brayden sighed. "Never again. I won’t ever make the same mistake again. Christian is mine. I don’t care what this bas--monster, thinks of her."
Ian did smile at his brother’s thought to their location.
"Christian is mine."
Ian wasn’t about to let on what he already knew. Well, not for certain. He suspected his brother didn’t know Miss Bills as well as Brayden thought, not facts. Most of the information Ian was finding out through Aiden, that the family knew, was useless or false.
He’d run checks on missing person’s files and had a few still left to sort through. There were several possibilities. No, Ian knew Brayden only needed to know facts that were solid, not what ifs. And with his brother’s current frame of mind, it was probably safer. Christian didn’t need her ‘fiancé’ locked in jail for going after someone that ‘might’ have had something to do with it.
Ian shifted, the padding under the gabardine pants scratching his waist. Disguises often were very uncomfortable.
"If I find out who...." He let the sentence hang.
When he finally locked eyes with his brother, Brayden said, "I want him."
Ian wondered if Brayden knew exactly what he wanted or if it was just emotions talking. He would take nothing away from his brother, not if he was certain.
Time would tell.
"Well, that can be arranged," Ian said, and noticed not so much as a flicker in Brayden’s eyes.
After a moment, Ian asked his brother other questions, moving to other topics.
Ian glanced at his watch and noticed he’d been here for almost an hour. If Christian took that long asking for forgiveness he’d be in one of those little boxes for several years. On that thought, the deep red velvet confessional curtain ripped back and Christian tore down the side aisle.
As she passed them, Ian saw the tears trailing down her face, her complexion pale in the dim church.
The priest came right behind her but she was already hurrying away. The black-robed man, older than Ian’s disguise was to seem, shook his head and genuflected, but Ian saw the tears in the old man’s eyes.
Muttering, the priest said, "L’OH, Dio. Che un bambino dovrebbe soffrire cosi...." Then he started in on a prayer to some saint.
L’OH, Dio. Oh, God, that child should suffer so....
* * * *
Christian ran blindly out the doors and tripped going down the steps. She sat, not caring who saw her, the ancient stones cold through her pants. Sickness rolled through her, the truth, black and greasy. She leaned over and retched up the coffee she’d had that morning.
She’d thought she could do it, just tell it and get it over with. But she couldn’t. She’d gotten through most of it, all the hard, degrading details--the murder, the molestation, the beatings and rapes, the choking silence--all of it. All of it. But for some reason when she started in on how Susan’s father had helped her escape, she’d just choked up. Just started crying and couldn’t seem to stop.
The confessional had been warm and stuffy and she needed air, needed to breathe.
The priest....
He’d never given her absolution, but then maybe she didn’t deserve it.
"Here." Brayden stood on the step above her.
Christian wiped her mouth and looked up through the cold, foggy morning to him as he squatted, holding out a handkerchief that he wet from his bottled water.
She took them, wiped her face and rinsed the bitter taste of sickness from her mouth.
When she handed the bottle back to him, her hand trembled. His covered hers on the bottle and he helped her stand up and face him.
She stared at the wide expanse of his chest, covered in a cream pullover.
It would be so nice just to lean, just to be held, to know someone was there for her, no matter what.
She took one deep trembling breath, then another and wrapped her arms around his waist.
"Hold me, please, Brayden. Just hold me," she whispered.
His arms came up around her, tight and strong--protective. Here she was safe, here nothing could harm her. Here, Richard couldn’t touch her.
Brayden’s cologne, sandalwood and spice, held her as surely as his arms did. His lips pressed against the top of her head and his arms tightened even more.
"It’s okay, Christian. Whatever it is, you’re okay." The words were warm against her head.
She finally, leaned back and brushed absently at the makeup stain now marring his shirt. A sigh huffed out before she looked up at him.
"I’m sorry. I’m sorry."
The corners of his eyes narrowed. "For?"
She shrugged. "Everything."
It was hard to tell if the sound he made was a growl or a grunt. "Why is it, you can piss me off as easily as flipping a switch?" he softly asked.
"I’m--"
He put his finger to her mouth. "Don’t apologize again."
Christian studied him, really, really studied him. For the first time, she noticed he looked tired, worried, confused. And just shimmering beneath those was anger. How it must be for him, not to be able to do anything.
Her boots creaked as she leaned up on her toes and cupped his cheek. "I--Thank you. Thank you for being here, for always being here."
He tucked his chin down and pulled back a bit.
"I don’t know what I did to deserve you," she said, watching his brows rise. Her teeth clicked as she ran them together. "I love you. I love you."
The muscles in his jaw moved and bunched even as his chest rose on his inhalation. His arms tightened and pulled her to him again. "God, I’ve been so... I didn’t think... I’d wondered if I’d ever hear you say that to me again." His chest fell as his breath huffed warm against her hair.
"I love you, too." He pulled back, cupped her face in both his hands and bent his knees so that they were eye level. "I love you, don’t forget that. I’m here. Right here."
And she was being so unfair to him by not telling him what she knew.
She looked away. "I know you’re disappointed in me," she whispered.
"Why do you think that?"
"I don’t think it, I know it. You want me to be honest with you, and ... I want to tell you," she said. Then shook her head. "No, that’s not right, I don’t want to tell anybody. I don’t want anyone to know," her words caught on the knot in her throat as more tears spilled do
wn her cheeks.
His thumbs brushed them away. "Want and need are often two different things."
He was right.
"I know. And I will, I’ll tell you." She would. One day. "Just not now, not today."
"You will?" His ebony brows arched.
Could she? Look what happened with the priest, who was an unseen stranger.
"You will?" he asked again.
She nodded.
The corner of his mouth pulled, but not really into a grin. "That’s all I ask. I’ll try not to push you. I know I’m impatient, and with something like this...." He trailed off. "When you’re ready, baby. When you’re ready."
He leaned forward, and kissed her forehead.
As he pulled back, she grabbed his face and held it still. Looking into his eyes, she leaned forwards and chastely placed a kiss at the corner of his mouth.
This time, he did grin.
And she felt her spirits lift at the sight of it.
"Can we go to the spa?" she asked him, clearly catching him by surprise.
"The spa?" he asked.
"Yes, the spa." She hated this hair color. It wasn’t a bad color, but it was a mark Richard had put on her and she wanted it off.
"The spa?" He sighed. Shaking his head, he held the expression every male must when a woman says any of those mysterious words like; salon, spa, manicure, or makeup. Why it was such an anomaly to them, she would never know.
His head shook again, catching the light in the dark strands. "I can hardly wait."
"I just...." Christian took a deep breath. Her eyes locked with his. "I want my hair back." Her voice caught. "I want his mark off me."
Whatever humor had been on his face was immediately slain by rage, but even then as his hand came up and ran through her discolored strands, it was a gentle touch.
"I think that’s a great idea," he told her.
She caught the look he threw over his shoulder to an elderly gentleman at the top of the steps.
Hand in hand, they walked down to the dock and waited for the vaporatto. She looked back to tell Brayden something and noticed the same old man stood a bit behind them.
