Ties That Bind

by Neeny Boucher

  **********

  Riley woke up alone around 8:30 a.m. and went to stretch, but that was a bad idea. He grimaced as the wounds gave notice of their presence. Gingerly reaching for his clothes, he got dressed as slowly as he could. He was sitting on the edge of the bed when he found a note on the bedside table with some antiseptic cream.

  Dear Riley,

  I’ve gone to work. I hope you slept well. I’m so sorry. I’ve left the cream for you and made a doctor’s appointment for 10:00 a.m. I’ll see you later.

  Love Dina xoxox

  Okay, he smiled. He got a “Dina”, “love” and some kisses. Things might turn out not so bad after all.

  Making his way down the stairs, he was met by a loud: “HEY STRANGER!” From Gabby Martin. Riley bounded toward Gabby, enveloping her in a hug, and kissing the top of her head. She had a tennis ball in her hand and when she hugged him, it slammed into his back, making him groan.

  “Sorry,” Gabby said. “What the hell happened last night? You two woke the whole house up. Again.”

  “The cat attacked me,” Riley said, making Gabby burst out laughing.

  “Nooooo,” Gabby giggled. “Riot? Oh my god! Are you okay?”

  “I’m a bit cut up, but I’ll live,” he laughed.

  Speaking of Riot, the damn thing was sitting on the couch like he owned the place and glaring at Riley. Riley’s eyes narrowed. You are toast, fur-ball, he thought, with menace.

  Gabby said, “Oh, he’s a real character. He’s bonded to Dina and really thinks she’s his.”

  “Does he?” Riley smiled, but even he knew it was a fake one. The beast from hell could think again. He wasn’t about to let some cat come lately make moves on his woman. “How you doing, short stuff?” Riley asked.

  Gabby Martin was the closest to a little sister Riley had and he loved her. Out of all the Martins, she was the most manipulative and he fell for her act on too many occasions to count. She could con him out of anything and although he always put up a fight, both knew she would win in the end.

  She was tiny and at first glance, could be easily mistaken for a child, but her political interests were adult. Gabby was recovering from an environmental protest that had gone wrong and she’d nearly been killed. She’d spent six months in and out of the hospital. Christina’s law firm was suing the company responsible for Gabby’s injuries.

  It was Gabby’s near death experience that had brought Riley and Christina back together. She was one of the main reasons Riley had maneuvered Christina back to Shanwick. The other was to get Christina more involved in his life and business, but he accepted he hadn’t really communicated that very well.

  Gabby shrugged. “I’m doing okay. I’m walking easier now, but I’m working on my arm. I don’t have as much dexterity in it as I’d like, so I’m focusing on that.”

  “Getting thrown out of a tree in protest and breaking all your bones will do that to you,” Riley nodded in mock severity.

  “Shut up, you,” laughed Gabby. They were still laughing when Tessa Marsh, first grade elementary teacher and current girlfriend of Jack Martin, came into the room.

  “Riley,” Tessa beamed. “How are you?” He grinned back at Tessa like a first grader because she had that effect on everyone that she’d taught. She’d always been his favorite teacher and had the ability to make you feel special, when others made you feel like an unwelcome stepchild.

  Tessa was a short, petite, fifty-something divorcee with brown hair and golden highlights. Her eyes were dark and warm. Riley had always been a softie for women with dark brown eyes and Tessa was no exception.

  Jack Martin had been a widower and alone with his personal grief for a long time. He’d been in mourning for his late wife and Riley thought he was never going to heal from the loss. He was pleased Jack had met someone as awesome as Tessa.

  Smiling back, Riley nodded. “I’m really good, Tessa. I’m sorry for waking you up last night. I, agh, got attacked by Riot.”

  Tessa frowned. “Jack told me. Are you okay?”

  Riley shrugged. “I’m okay, but I’m off to the doctor’s to have my war wounds checked out.”

  Looking concerned, Tessa smiled. “Here, let me make you a cup of coffee and get you something to eat.”

  Sitting down at the kitchen table; Riley wolfed into the food. He had his mouth full when he heard Gabby start chatting. “Have you been following all the media stuff? We’re famous now, or infamous, I mean Johnny’s always been famous, but now Dina and I are too. Well, sort of. There’s a blog devoted to our life in Shanwick and it’s linked to some of the bigger ones. Have you seen it?”

  Riley shifted in his seat. Christina didn’t like being the subject of discussion or center of attention. It made her paranoid and defensive. “No, I haven’t seen it,” he said cautiously.

  Gabby beamed and her dark eyes glittered mischievously. “Ever since Dina was filmed singing with Johnny and put on YouTube, the media has been trying to get in touch with her, but she refuses to engage with them. Lana Hamilton, you know the presenter from Entertain You? She keeps calling, but Dina ignores her. You’re on there, too.”

  Riley’s eyebrows shot up. “Am I?” He feigned surprise, but he didn’t like the way Gabby was looking at him. It was predatory: a cross between a shark and a cobra.

  He was used to being in the media in carefully constructed parameters of his choosing: the band and being seen on a few society pages promoting his business interests. All of it staged and designed to create a particular image that he had control of. He had the horrible feeling that this was going to be a different experience.

  Riley stared warily at Gabby as she opened her laptop, beckoning him over. She accessed some blog called Wild in Shanwick and random pictures flashed across the screen of Johnny, the band, Gabby, and Christina. He’d seen hundreds of similar shots before, so he wasn’t as impressed as Gabby until he saw the next set.

  Moving forward, he grimaced at the computer screen, trying to keep his face impassive. There were pictures of him and Christina fighting on the front lawn of the Martin house. There she was in her robe, with her chin stuck out, and him laughing at her.

  Riley remembered that morning well. He and Christina had hooked up and then he’d spoiled it by baiting her. They’d got into a major fight that carried into the front yard and in full view of the neighbors.

  “Mmmmm,” he mumbled. He hadn’t considered that someone could be filming them. He accepted that was an oversight and his mind started working on damage control strategies. He’d just buy the damn blog and have it shut down.

  Gabby’s giggle interrupted him, indicating there was more to come. “Uh huh,” she laughed and then her eyes glittered wickedly. “But this… This is the pièce de resistance.”

  She hit an audio clip that sounded like a porn movie with muffled voices. Riley didn’t want to hear that, especially with Tessa in the room. He was about to tell Gabby to turn it off, but froze as Dina’s voice came through the speakers loud and clear.

  “RILEY! RILEY! OH GOD! OH GOD! DON’T STOP! DON’T STOP!”

  Riley could feel Gabby’s eyes on him so he tried not to react, keeping a straight face. He shrugged, “That could be anyone…” but he knew it wasn’t. He’d recognize Dina’s voice in the throes of passion anywhere. She was a singer and her vocal range was quite impressive.

  Straightening himself up and glaring at Gabby, he protested over zealously. “This is… bullshit,” pointing his finger at the computer to underscore his faux vehemence. “Where did you get this? Are they saying this is Dina? Because if they are, I’m going to sue.”

  Riley was just getting into the groove of his rant when he was interrupted by his own voice coming through the computer. “Aaaaagh,” he heard himself cry out. “Dina… Dina, I’m going to come. It’s all for you baby… all for yooooooou!”

  He stood there speechless. His mouth opening and closing, accompanied by his fists. Be cool, be calm, he kept telling himself, but the sounds coming throu
gh the computer made him want to put his fist through it.

  “I think we’ve heard enough, Gabby,” Tessa said firmly. Riley turned to thank Tessa and saw her eyes had gone wide. She was clutching a hand to her throat and avoiding eye contact with him.

  He saw Tessa gulp and blink, focusing her attention on Gabby. “I agree with Riley,” Tessa said in a high-pitched voice. “It could be anyone. I think people have made it up to get publicity. People would do anything these days.”

  Riley rubbed a hand over his head and clasped the back of his neck. “Um, does Dina know about this?”

  “Yep,” Gabby laughed. “She says the same thing as you, but she’s a terrible liar. She does this thing with her eyes and mouth. Andy says that it’s from when we were bugged and they were trying to get information on me.”

  Riley tuned her out. He agreed with Gabby. Christina was a terrible liar and had a tendency to burble nonsense under pressure. Two things he imagined would be detrimental to a law career, but truth was sometimes stranger than fiction.

  He tried to smile at Tessa and Gabby, but everyone knew it was false. “I’ve got to go,” he said making his way out the front door. Riley felt two things he was unaccustomed to: embarrassment and being defiled. Now, he had to go see the doctor and face Christina. Neither prospect was comforting.

  **********

  Christina

  Christina sat in her temporary office at the only law firm in Shanwick, staring at the pictures on the screen. Rubbing the heel of her hand against her forehead in frustration, she wondered who the hell was doing this? Why? And how could she stop them?

  Her public face was to rise above it, but her private one wanted to unleash the flying monkeys. She had gone through every scenario from using the law to the local motorcycle club to stop the blog. The problem was any action on her part would be viewed as a confirmation.

  The clip had been shared more times than she cared to count. Andy James, her friend, colleague, now the partner of her sister, and trusted computer Ninja, was investigating. It was going to take some time, however, to eradicate the damn thing from the web – if ever.

  It was the waiting that Christina hated, because it felt like an eternity and being resident in this godforsaken hole compounded the problem. Anywhere else, she could have conveniently put this behind her, but here? It was cringe inducing and if one more person snickered when they saw her, she was going to go Regan from The Exorcist on them.

  The primary suspect was the company her sister was suing for bulldozing her out of a tree when she was protesting. Unbeknownst to the Martins, someone had illegally bugged the family home to collect evidence against Gabby. Christina and Riley had been inadvertently caught on ‘tape’ and somehow, it had been released to the general public.

  It made Christina furious that some dirty perverts had been listening while she and Riley got down and dirty. In the aftermath of the adverse publicity, Christina had quietly removed herself from her sister’s ongoing legal case because her presence was a distraction. She still cringed at the nauseatingly polite email she’d received from her boss, Debbie Bindman, suggesting that perhaps distance between the personal and professional was needed now in settling Gabby’s case.

  Now, her role was to advise Gabby and watch from the sidelines as the battle for justice was waged without her. The irony of her firm representing reprobates like Mason Glenn, without compunction, didn’t escape her. They’d sent her to purgatory without a second thought to secure Mason’s business, but apparently, being the “Don’t stop!” audio clip moaner was a bridge too far.

  Currently, her ‘performance’ had garnered more attention than she was comfortable with. She had quietly closed all her social media accounts after being inundated with requests, graphic pictures, and offers, some of which were quite unsavory. Sex, it seemed was a shortcut to fame or infamy.

  Christina had never wanted to be famous, but infamous, especially in Shanwick, was familiar territory. Unfortunately, this story played into her already tarnished hometown reputation as the psycho-slut girl. With today’s technology and the ability to invade someone’s privacy, it had just become a whole lot worse.

  The attention made her paranoid and she’d taken to wearing hats and scarves to disguise herself. Whenever she saw someone with a cell-phone, she would hide, but somehow they were still getting candid shots. She needed out of Shanwick and fast; to go somewhere bigger where she could be more anonymous and the only way she could get out of this was through Riley - the same person who had brought her here in the first place.

  Hearing footsteps on the stairs, Christina began mentally preparing for the confrontation that was about to come. She would recognize Riley’s tread anywhere, and under normal circumstances, she’d be running to throw herself into his arms. Now, she had to resist the urge of throwing things at his head.

  Although she never backed down from a confrontation, she didn’t welcome them either. The thought made her nervous and fidgety. No matter how she tried to anticipate the outcome of this meeting, she was still unsure as to how it would go.

  She knew she had to tread carefully with him or they would fall into old, destructive patterns. Carefully constructed speeches with Riley never went well either. Usually, they would bait each other until one of them broke and it descended into the type of behavior that wound up on Wild in Shanwick.

  Christina no longer wanted to be like that with Riley. She wanted to trust him implicitly, but the truth was, she didn’t. There had been too many games, too many times they’d burnt each other, and neither of them was above playing dirty to get what they wanted.

  Riley had far too many secrets for her liking, things that just didn’t add up. When she was with him, they disappeared into their own world, and she only got a clear perspective from a distance. She had a lot of information about Riley from the files she’d been given for the ‘god awful’ job she’d been entrusted with, but it didn’t explain everything.

  He had a diverse range of business interests, but if she was reading this right, his main role was as the music-manager for her brother’s band. How could a music manager-business person take three months of the year off and go live in some remote, isolated place doing “creative” projects? Most CEOs or managers worked themselves into an early grave, leaving their posts unattended.

  Christina wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but she was unsure why Riley did what he did, or exactly what he did. Her over-active imagination had gone to dark places, but she dismissed those thoughts as soon as they seeped into her consciousness. So far, she had discounted human trafficking, drug smuggling, and gun running. Riley might play fast and loose with what was acceptable, but she couldn’t imagine him doing anything overtly illegal.

  She didn’t doubt Riley loved her. It was the one thing she trusted implicitly, but every time she tried to broach the subject of his absence, he changed it or spoke in riddles. And Riley did work with Mason Glenn, a contender for world’s most reprehensible human being.

  The only other person more loathed in Shanwick than Christina was Mason Glenn and now she was being forced to associate with him. Because of Riley, the angry part of her growled. Her anger felt like a stone weighing her down, pulling her into the dark waters of despair, where her hope for happiness leeched away like air bubbles.

  She shook the dark thoughts away and reached for the safety of logic. There had to be a reasonable explanation and Riley would tell her when he was ready. Or tortured - whatever process worked.

  Christina had had to limit her daily interactions with Mason to keep some kind of equilibrium. For every professional email or text, there were at least seven others that constituted sexual harassment. She refused to engage with Mason, blocking his cell-phone number, sparking an irate exchange between them on the telephone. Steven Riley had come to her rescue, insisting he become the first point of contact and filtering all communications.

  Until Christina got answers from Riley, however, she would be shackled to this g
ossiping hellhole of a town. She had been fully prepared to resign and seek employment elsewhere to get out of this situation, but her job prospects were somewhat diminished as one of the ‘stars’ in the audio clip. Currently, this job and singing with her brother were the only employment options available to her, and she still had bills to pay.

  Christina heard a polite knock on the door before it opened revealing Riley, the love of her life. The love of my life, she reminded herself. She needed to remember that she had loved this man since she was a teenager and they’d been given a second chance. She didn’t want to squander it, but she wouldn’t be ground into subservient dust either.

  Riley stood on the threshold, with the door handle in his hand, staring at her with his gorgeous green eyes roaming her face. “Hey,” he grinned. “Happy belated birthday, beautiful.”

  The smile that followed the birthday wishes made her gulp. It was his panty-dropping killer smile that lit up the room. She had particular weaknesses where he was concerned and they both knew it.

  If he laughed or touched her, she was history, so she kept the desk between them, and made no move toward him. Now was the moment to be rational and strong. Sticking her chin out, she wanted to present as determined with a hint of annoyed and not desperate, reckless, or animalistic.

  Christina wanted to leave space where they could reach some kind of compromise, but she refused to allow him to charm or sex his way out of this one. Not this time. “Thanks,” she smiled coolly, watching his eyebrows lift into his hairline at her tone.

  Riley moved further into the room with his eyes locked on her, as if he was trying to see into her mind. She stood up, smoothing her skirt down, facing him. She didn’t get much of a look at him last night: what with the desperate reunion sex, killer cat, and her traumatized father.

  In this light, she noticed a few subtle changes in his appearance. Riley’s beard was impressive and he’d begun to grow his hair longer, the way she liked it. His gaze roamed from her eyes, to her mouth, lingering on her cleavage.