Moonstruck

by Heather Young-Nichols

  Yet it was.

  I shivered again almost violently from the breeze and the all-encompassing nature of his presence.

  “You’re freezing,” he said with eyes wide as he realized how wet my clothes were.

  “I-I-I… ” My teeth smacked together. “Am.”

  “Come on.” He pulled me by the arm through the back door, the kitchen, and into the front room. He didn’t have an overly large house but still more like a home than the one I’d grown up in. Warm even if the air actually wasn’t. “You need to get out of those wet clothes.”

  My eyes grew wide at the suggestion. No way he meant that the way it sounded.

  The thought scared me to death but it also intrigued me. He watched al the thoughts and scenarios go through my head and chuckled.

  “You’re soaking wet and going to get sick. I’ll get something for you to put on.” He climbed the stairs at the back of the room, moved around above me and tumbled back down with a shirt in his hand. It’d be much too large for me but the idea of having something of his against my skin warmed me in more ways than one.

  Orin turned his back to me, stacking wood in the fireplace, then lit it filling the room with warmth while I removed my clothes and put his shirt on. I pulled the fabric to my nose inhaling his scent. Clean and all man. Nothing artificial among the soapy scent. All Orin.

  “All set,” I said so he’d turn back around. Which he did with a thick blanket in hand. He wrapped it around me before setting me gently on the couch. Orin held me tightly to him, my head on his shoulder as if we did this all the time.

  I wanted to pretend that we did.

  “You didn’t peak,” I said quietly.

  “No.”

  “Why?” Apparently, in a matter of weeks, I’d turned into a harlot that said whatever came to mind, which included being nude under the blanket in a room with a man I wasn’t married to.

  Who had I become?

  “Wouldn’t be right.” He paused. “But you did.”

  I dropped my hand to his chest. “You are so warm.” Again he said nothing. “Why were you in the woods without clothing?” Again nothing. “More things you can’t tell me about?”

  “Yes.”

  We fell quiet while he stroked my hair and removed the pin that had been holding a nice summer style but now my hair laid in clumps all over after being caught in the rain. I moved away to the edge of the couch, frustrated by him more than anything.

  “I don’t understand any of this, Orin.”

  “I know.” He sighed. It sounded more like a growl. “It would be easier if we didn’t see each other anymore.”

  I couldn’t sit there another second doing nothing. I forced myself further away from him and paced the floor in front of the fire. It was me wearing his shirt letting the heat from the flames licked my bare legs both relaxing me and egging my internal fire on.

  “Yes, it would.” I didn’t want that. He remained still like, waiting for me because I had more to say. “That’s not what I want but Orin you say things to me acting as if you care and then pull away. Is this all in my head?” Tears formed in my eyes as I make my voice bolder and louder. I wanted answers from him even if I already knew he wouldn’t give them. “Here I am half naked in front of you and nothing. No reaction.” I popped the top two buttons open having no idea what I was doing. “Nothing.”

  Orin leaped from his seat, pulling me against his body firmly as he backed me into the wall at the same time. His lips pressed against mine touch mine like he couldn’t get close enough. His mouth devoured mine and when his tongue licked at me, I allowed him in.

  I wrapped my left leg wrapped around his waist at the same time his hand slid up that thigh but stopped short of where I wanted him to be.

  Something about Orin made me want to throw caution to the wind and be the type of girl my father wouldn’t even let me speak to. The kind of girl who might let a boy go further than she should without being married.

  What I wanted didn’t matter because he pulled back, putting enough space between us to catch our breaths. My heartbeat erratically in my ears drowning out everything else.

  Orin groaned as he slammed his balled up hand into the wall beside us.

  Hard.

  “Not no reaction,” he growled, his breath feathering against my cheek and he sounded like he’d swallowed a handful of gravel.

  “Orin, please. Take me away from here. Somewhere we can be together. Please!”

  “I don’t think you understand how difficult this entire situation is.” He moved away from me back to the couch. “You couldn’t possibly.”

  “Answer one question. Please.” I sat back beside him. “Is it all my imagination? Between us?”

  Orin mulled over his answer before giving it. I was getting better at reading him, at least a little. He looked like a man trying to figure out what he should say instead of the truth and I wanted the truth.

  “No,” he finally answered.

  “So you… ”

  “I love you, Elizabeth. I love you enough to want a normal life for you.”

  Whatever that meant.

  “I wouldn’t get that from you?”

  “No.”

  Spurred on with a newfound boldness due to his admission, I leaned in to initiate a kiss for the very first time in my life. A soft, quick kiss that meant the entire world to me.

  “One day, Orin Vilkatas, you will tell me what’s going on.”

  “You are confident of that?” He smirked.

  “Yes.” I climbed onto his lap. “Because I will marry you but I will not willingly spend the rest of my life with someone who keeps secrets.”

  Chapter Six

  Orin laughed loudly at my declaration and said, “It’s late.”

  “My father is in the city until Thursday. He’ll never know when I get home.”

  He grabbed my hips with his large hands when I moved in to do the one thing I wished I could do for the rest of my life, the one thing I loved doing more than anything else—kissing Orin slow and hard until he lifted me off him into the seat beside him. When I looked over at him with a raised eyebrow, I didn’t get the chance to ask why he did it before he answered.

  “To keep you marriable and me out of jail, I think you should stay there.”

  His words made me smile slowly. The idea that he might have to use some control over his more natural urges around me hadn’t been something I ever dreamed of. Secrets aside, and Orin seemed to have more than his share, I wanted to be with him.

  We sat there listening to the burning wood snap and pop with no burning need to talk or fill the silence. Us together was enough.

  The house had a more comfortable feel to it when Father went away on business. I almost wished he’d spend more time away but in the summer we hosted Sunday lunch with his friends and he wouldn’t miss it. Sunday service where I listened to a sermon that I’d forget the moment we left the building was as mandatory as the lunch.

  I wasn’t sure I believed in God.

  A kind, loving God wouldn’t have taken my mother from me, leaving me alone in a world dominated by men. That God wouldn’t want a person to waste their life because they’d been born a woman.

  At least I didn’t think He would.

  Orin came to Sunday lunch again this week.

  Struck me as odd that Father hadn’t said a word about Orin being there. I figured it was to keep up appearances.

  I knew nothing about Orin’s family. Nobody seemed to know anything. Even Olivia’s grandmother, who usually had all the information on everyone, didn’t have any on them.

  Finally, lunch ended as had cleanup so I could join Olivia and the other girls.

  Whispers followed my footsteps. Something in the pit of my stomach told me to turn the other way and ignore them.

  I just couldn’t.

  “What’s everyone talking about?” I asked as soon as I was close enough to the girls standing in the shade of our largest tree. No one answered me. Actually, they a
voided making eye contact. “Olivia?”

  She sighed then looked me in the eye. “Lizzie, no one has seen him in almost a week.”

  “Who?” I glanced at Orin as if to reassure myself it wasn’t him.

  “Noah. Hadn’t you noticed? The last person to see him said he was leaving Harper’s but now he hasn’t been home and his father can’t find him.” She leaned in closer. “I overheard Mr. Underwood and your father talking.”

  This was exactly the kind of stress I didn’t need. Father’s anger never meant anything good for me.

  Nodding, I said, “That sounds like Noah. I’m sure he’s somewhere sleeping off one hangover after another.”

  “He’s probably hung up in a whorehouse,” Jane said. Her face dropped immediately after the words were out and she saw me. She didn’t know I was there before. I could only shrug. Both because she was probably right and because I couldn’t bring myself to care. “Sorry.”

  “Come on, Lizzie.” Olivia took my arm leading her away from the group. I needed to make her understand that she didn’t have to protect me from the truth. “Now you have to tell me what is going on?”

  “What do you mean?” I turned my focus on the grass swaying in the breeze rather than her face. Olivia could read me like no one else I knew and I truly didn’t want her to see that I knew exactly what she was talking about.

  “You know perfectly well to what I am referring. Or whom to be more precise.”

  “Orin?” The corners of my mouth flirted with a smile. It felt good to think I could talk to my best friend about him. Like I was revealing a surprise Christmas present but knew I couldn’t reveal too much even to her. She may have been my best friend but she was also pretty weak under the pressure of her parents and would crack like a walnut if they started asking questions.

  “Yes.” We both glanced his way as if afraid he might overhear though he was all the way across the yard from us. “Well, isn’t that a silly grin he has.”

  “I know,” I whispered. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he can hear us.”

  “Stop avoiding my question. What is going on?” Olivia nudged me with her elbow.

  “Nothing specific.”

  Olivia tugged my arm so I’d walk with her. No one could overhear our entire conversation that way. It was a tactic we’d used many times in the past. “Do you like him?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he you?”

  “He seems to.”

  “But?”

  “My father has already decided that I’m marrying Noah. It’s not like I can do anything about it.”

  “You know, there is a whole group of women, who live their lives how they want. They don’t marry someone just because their father says.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a dream?”

  Four men raced across the yard in between Olivia and me. The previously lazy afternoon was replaced with a hurried frenzy where I couldn’t make out what any of them were saying even though they were basically yelling.

  Olivia and I looked at each other when those men stopped in front of my father and Mr. Underwood. Their frenzied whispers cause Olivia and I to hurry toward them. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t good.

  I just wanted to be close enough to eavesdrop.

  “Colin, any news?” Mr. Underwood asked one of the younger men. Colin Stone was three years ahead of me in school and close friends with Noah’s older brother.

  “Sir, we’ve tracked him to,” Colin glanced around taking note of us women. “Some rather less than pleasant establishments.”

  “That decides it,” my father cut him off and began walking away.

  “Henry, I will fix this. My son will be ready to marry your daughter.” Mr. Underwood wasn’t the type to beg but I’m pretty sure this was the closest he’d ever come.

  “Charles, I will not have my daughter marry a man who wastes his family’s fortune. I have other arraignments. I believe I will now utilize that plan.”

  The look on Olivia’s face probably mirrored mine. Or at least her face showed what I felt. Eyes wide in surprise, mouth slightly open in disbelief. Noah was a lot of things but rebellious against his father wasn’t one of them.

  “You’re breaking our agreement?” Mr. Underwood asked. With these men, the masters of their own little universes, a rift wouldn’t be something either would take lightly.

  “She will marry Bradley Johnson. His family has made significant advancements in business and he isn’t out squandering it. They will be able to live up to their financial obligations.”

  It was me. I was a financial obligation.

  “Henry—”

  “It’s done, Charles.” Father stormed away leaving most of the crowd speechless and unsure of what they should each do.

  Me included.

  My future had changed before my very eyes without a word, agreement or anything else from me.

  “Bradley? Lizzie, Bradley?” Olivia asked as if I’d have any explanation. Her eyes filled with tears as she turned away and my stomach vaulted. This wasn’t going to be good.

  “I… I… didn’t know. Olivia, I would never—”

  “Doesn’t matter does it?” The look on her face had changed when she looked at me again. The sympathetic friend had disappeared even though her situation wasn’t much different than mine. Though, her father took her opinion into consideration whereas mine just wanted me gone.

  “It isn’t my choice,” I told her though she should’ve already known that. “I would never choose Bradley if for no other reason than how you feel about him.”

  Olivia’s tear-filled eyes overflowed and the one friend I ever had, the one person I actually trusted, stomped away angry for something I had no control over.

  I searched the crowd for Orin, the only other person who’d listen to me, but he, too, had disappeared.

  I was alone.

  Finally by mid-afternoon, the last stragglers left us. Whether they’d been hanging around because they lacked anything else to do or they hoped for more drama, I couldn’t say but incredible relief washed over me when they finally left.

  Faced with going inside to face my now changed path in life, I instead ran off in the other direction.

  My shoes smacked the pavement again and again as I pushed myself harder.

  I couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop even when my chest felt like it would explode.

  I’d known where I was going without thinking about it. I needed to talk to Orin.

  I gasped for air while pounding on his door. It got me nothing except oxygen in my body and relief from the stabbing pain in my side.

  “What is with this man?” I muttered when he didn’t answer after a second round of knocking.

  So I did what I did last time and walked around to the back of the house hoping to find him. I tried again on the back door but obviously, he wasn’t home.

  I could sit there and wait, again, or go back to my house.

  Since I had no idea where he’d gone or when he’d be back, I opted for the latter—begrudgingly.

  This time I walked much slower as I left. Even stopped long enough to look back at the house I silently promised I’d never return to. If I couldn’t be with him, there was no point in torturing myself. Desperation turned into resignation.

  I’d always been resigned to my fate and sometimes I wished I’d never met Orin Vilkatas because then I never would have even dreamed that my life could be different.

  I’d turned around the side of the house when the back door squeak open.

  Orin strode out, his normal confident self, and walked into the woods, disappearing into the massive trees.

  What? Had he been in the house ignoring me?

  Ignoring me didn’t sit well.

  I followed him, partly out of curiosity and partly out of anger. And not at all with the hope of catching him naked in the woods again.

  At all.

  When he stopped, I froze, hoping he wouldn’t turn and catch me.

  He bent over s
omething. Something I couldn’t entirely make out but a tuft of brown fur peeked out from the side. A dead animal.

  He ignored me to take care of a dead animal.

  I opened my mouth.

  His name caught in my throat—a hard lump unable to be swallowed.

  Everything came into focus.

  That dead animal had a face.

  Chapter Seven

  My brain didn’t fully process what I saw.

  But I did know I needed to get out of there, away from Orin and the body lying on the ground. Hopefully, before he realized I was there.

  I took the first step backward tentatively. Careful, purposeful, and slowly so as to not make a sound.

  Then another.

  And another.

  Then a twig snapped under my weight.

  Orin’s head snapped up. He spun around to face me.

  My heart thumped so hard I was sure he could hear it or even see it pound against my chest as we stood there, a moment of tension passing between us.

  I spun around and bolted, running at my fullest speed.

  He was faster and stronger but I didn’t want to die in the forest behind his house like the poor soul lying in the dirt.

  The muscled in my legs lengthened and snapped back as I pushed myself harder than ever in my life. I cursed the heels I wore as they caught on the underbrush and slowed me down.

  I’d gotten across the edge of the woods before Orin grabbed my arm and pulled the both of us to the ground.

  I punched and kicked with everything I had and broke away.

  But Orin yanked on my ankle to keep me on the ground.

  “Lizzie… stop… ”

  I didn’t stop.

  I kicked and flailed. He grunted when I landed a hit.

  Orin wrapped his strong arms around my body and lifted me off the ground so that my feet swung in the air and all chance of escape disappeared.

  “Lizzie, please. Stop.”

  “Let me go,” I begged. “Please let me go.”