Buckled

by Pam Godwin

  There’s no verbal conversation, but he communicates. With his eyes resting on the side of my face. With his breath pacing the erratic rush of mine. With his company intruding on my life and invading my every thought.

  He still loves me. He wants me back, and he won’t give up.

  I’m fully aware I’ve fallen into a passive-aggressive pattern with him, and as the months wear on, Jarret remains silently aggressive, waiting for me all up in my personal space.

  Then one night, a year after I left him, his aggressiveness reaches new levels.

  I’ve been pursuing the local paper since I arrived in this town, damn-near begging for an opportunity to write for them. Fashion, entertainment, community news… I’ve offered to cover any column, full-time or part-time.

  The owner, Keegan Mitchell, finally agrees to meet with me at a fancy steakhouse in town. It’s a strange venue for an interview, and not because I’m a vegetarian. I prefer to talk in his office, but he insists on dinner.

  Over a course of wine and salad, Keegan asks about my education and experience. He has my resume, so the questions feel a little redundant. Maybe he didn’t have time to look over it?

  I answer enthusiastically, and he smiles and bobs his head.

  He’s a nice-looking man. Black hair, energetic eyes, shorter than average, a tad too skinny, and a few years my elder—he reminds me of Tom Cruise with that overstretched smile.

  “I noticed there’s no ring.” He cocks his chin at my hand. “Not married?”

  “Not married.”

  “No boyfriend?”

  I fight the impulse to squirm. I’m not sure how this line of questioning applies to the job, but I push back my shoulders and keep my professional face in place. “I assure you my personal life won’t interfere with work.”

  “Very good.” He nods, and his gaze dips to my chest before he catches himself. “Why do you want this job?”

  My brow furrows.

  I went to college to be a journalist. Writing about fashion was the only job I could land after school. Given my mom’s love for makeup and glitter, I had a solid background on the subject. But after working on the ranch and soaking in the outdoors, I lost my passion for office work.

  I want this job because I want to move on with my life. Waiting tables isn’t moving on. It feels more like I’m just… Waiting.

  Since I can’t say any of this, I open my mouth to deliver a canned response.

  “Stand up.” The low, deep voice reverberates against my back, shooting a shiver down my spine.

  I twist in the chair, my heart in my stomach, and meet the blazing, feral eyes of the one man who scares me more than any other. “What are you doing here?”

  He steps to my side and turns that menacing gaze on Keegan. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Jarret,” I whisper harshly.

  “I’m Keegan Mitchell, and you’re making the lady uncomfortable. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  It’s the absolute wrong thing to say. The cords go taut in Jarret’s neck, and his hands clench and release at his sides.

  “The lady,” he spits past grinding teeth, “belongs to me. And if you look at her chest one more time, I’ll tear you limb from limb, starting with your dick.”

  My face heats. My vision clouds, and every inch of me stiffens.

  Any chance I had at this job is gone.

  I turn my attention to Keegan and try to keep the fury out of my voice. “I’m so sorry. If you’ll excuse us for just a minute—”

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I can deal with this.” He rises from the chair and stands in a face-off with Jarret.

  Six inches shorter and a fraction of the muscle mass, Keegan must be suffering from Napoleon syndrome. Or stupidity.

  “Time for you to leave.” He scowls at Jarret and reaches for me.

  His fingers curl around my wrist, and he tries to pull me over some imaginary line, as if he has a claim on me.

  I yank my arm free as Jarret grips Keegan’s collar and neck with both hands, lifts him, and tosses him across an open table.

  Place settings and flower arrangements crash to the floor. Gasps shudder from surrounding patrons, and two suit-clad servers rush toward us and stop.

  My eyes burn. My throat constricts, my heartbeat sluggish and loud in my ears.

  Keegan pulls himself to his feet and stumbles back, dazed and unsure.

  “Stay away from her.” Jarret puts his huge body in front of me, facing Keegan with his hands folded behind him.

  The back of the Stetson tips upward with the dip of his chin. Muscles twitch across his shoulder blades and biceps, his neck a column of golden skin and strength. Whatever look he gives Keegan causes the man to take another step back.

  “I don’t want to fight you.” Keegan tosses up his hands and bumps into a table. Then he fumbles for his coat and casts me a worried look.

  “You better go.” I slide on my own coat and snatch my purse, humiliated and seething. “I’ll settle things with the restaurant.”

  I just want to get the fuck out of here. I’ve spent the last year avoiding attention and trying not to become the target of small town gossip.

  Keegan pushes out the door without a backward look, and I lift my wallet from my purse. I don’t have much money, barely enough to pay the rent on my studio apartment. But there are broken dishes and flower vases and a dinner tab. Do I have the cash to cover that?

  Jarret tosses a few large bills on the table, more than enough to pay for the expenses.

  His fingers rest possessively on my lower back, his mouth at my ear. “Let’s go.”

  A voracious shiver weakens my knees, and I mentally slap myself. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “Fine.” He sets his hands on his hips. “We’ll do this here.”

  A fever spreads up my neck. “We’re not doing anything, anywhere.”

  I breeze past him and make a beeline for the door. He chases me out and through the parking lot. The chilly night air bites my skin, but my blood, my muscles, everything inside me cooks with anger.

  A few feet from my car, he catches me around the waist and twists me to face him. “Were you going to fuck that weaselly motherfucker?”

  “What?” My eyes bulge. “I was on a job interview!”

  His expression blanches for a fleeting second before his gaze narrows ruthlessly. “He intended to be deep inside your cunt before the night was over.”

  “You’re so fucking sick and twisted.” I shove at his chest, causing his arms to constrict tighter. “Not everything is about sex.”

  “A man doesn’t take you to dinner without making it about sex. He couldn’t keep his eyes off you. Every second he sat at that table, he imagined your tight pussy squeezing around his dick.” His voice rises to a shout. “The napkin on his lap couldn’t hide his fucking hard-on!”

  My stomach sinks. My teeth slam together, and I push harder against him, breaking free from his grip. “Fuck you!”

  “You know I’m right, Maybe.”

  Hard to argue when I picked up on those unsettling vibes during dinner.

  I spin toward my car, sliding on the icy pavement in my heels. He sticks to my side, ready to catch my fall but doesn’t touch me as I hurry to the driver’s side door.

  “Even if that’s true…” I dig out my keys and unlock the car. “You had no right to step in.”

  “You’re mine.” He crowds me against the door, the force of his breaths forming stony clouds between us. “I protect what’s mine.”

  My heart skips. Oh, how I ache to be his.

  But I’m not.

  Regardless, I won’t let him or any other man make me feel like I can’t take care of myself.

  “By storming in there and ruining my meeting, you basically told me you think I’m weak and incapable of surviving without your manly interference. You think so little of me you have to save me from a job interview, because my judgment’s so poor and my willpower’s so pathetic I don�
�t know how to walk away from a bad situation.”

  “I don’t think any of that.” His face turns to granite. “You walked away from me.”

  A sharp twinge cuts through my chest. “You don’t love me, Jarret. If you did, you would let me struggle, let me work through my trials, and step in only to guide me toward independence instead of insecurity.”

  “I’m not built that way. I can’t bear to see you struggle, and you’re already so powerfully independent I could never take that away from you.” His eyes harden in the glow of the streetlight. “I love you so goddamn much I can’t function without you. I can’t sleep. I can’t work. I can’t fucking breathe when you’re four fucking hours away.”

  I love him, too. More than he can possibly know.

  I have to let him go.

  If I had any doubts before tonight, I don’t now. We’re a combustible vortex of acid and corrosion, gunpowder and sparks. One lit match and we’ll go up in flames.

  “Go home.” I open the car door.

  He shoves it closed. “You’re going home with me.”

  “No.” I advance on him and stab a finger against his chest. “We’re over. No more standing under my window, stalking me in the park, or lurking around my diner. Go home and do not come back.” I suck down the pain in my throat and turn back to the car. “If I see you again, I’ll slap you with a restraining order.”

  “Threaten me all you want.” He clasps a yank of my hair and drags my face to his. “I will never let you go.”

  “Stop.” The word falls from my lips and hangs between us.

  His eyes widen, and his hand loosens but doesn’t release.

  “Stop,” I say louder, firmer.

  In the year and a half I’ve known him, I’ve never used that word.

  The grip in my hair vanishes, and he lowers his arms, his chin, his voice. “You’ve always held all the power. You don’t even realize how much control you have.”

  He cups the back of my head and touches his lips to my brow.

  As he turns away, the barbed wire around us unravels and snaps. As he crosses the parking lot and steps onto the street, my throat burns, and my hands shake to reach for him.

  I stand there long after he fades into the darkness.

  I wait for him to return.

  I wait for months.

  This time, he’s gone for good.

  Love hurts.

  It’s an emotional abuser, insidious and manipulative, charming its way into unsuspecting hearts before beating the ever-loving shit out of the defenseless insides.

  Love is as invisible as the wounds it inflicts and as lethal as a knife. When it’s taken away, all that remains is pain.

  Unlearning that pain is impossible. It’s a road with no exit ramps or turnoffs. Once it carves its way through the soul, there’s no choice but to hold on and ride it to the dark, bitter, lonely end.

  Love heals.

  It’s a universal balm that repairs fractures, soothes pain, and stitches the heart into wholeness again.

  Love is meant to buckle the strongest and fiercest person. It’s the very thing the soul cries for. To recoil from that is to reject the most powerful medicine, the greatest cure for loneliness.

  With love, even the darkest season of guilt and betrayal can be defeated.

  SIX MONTHS LATER…

  Today is the same as every other day. I wake. I wait tables. I run in the park. I go home.

  At night, I write boring fashion articles for a small print magazine in Dallas. It doesn’t pay much, but it utilizes my degree.

  It keeps my mind occupied.

  While my mundane routine hasn’t changed, today is a six-month milestone in a string of milestones marking Jarret-related changes in my life.

  I met him six months after Rogan disappeared.

  I lived with him for six months.

  I didn’t see him for six months, until he appeared beneath my window.

  He stalked me for six months, until I told him to stop.

  Today marks six months since the last time I saw him.

  Something should’ve happened. I searched my surroundings from dawn to dusk, trying to pick him out in a crowd, scanning streets for his truck, fully expecting him to show, as if he knows the significance of the date.

  But he’s not here. It’s eleven at night, and I’m just as alone as I was yesterday.

  I’ve known Jarret for two years now, exceeding the longest relationship I’ve ever had with anyone besides my mom. Not that I’m in a relationship with him. But my heart is. I left the battered, bleeding thing at Julep Ranch a year and a half ago, knowing I would never get it back.

  Conor and I stopped texting shortly after Jarret walked away. It was too painful to respond to her questions with assurances I didn’t feel.

  The good news is I finally figured myself out. The bad news?

  I’m a miserable fucking wreck.

  I’ve given a lot of thought to the guilt I’ve been carrying. I shouldn’t have married Rogan without getting to know him first. I should’ve reported him missing. I shouldn’t have fallen in love with one man while married to another. Clinging to all these should have’s and shouldn’t have’s was just a way for me to feel sorry for myself.

  Rather than continuing down that self-destructive path, I’ve decided to treat it as a gift. It’s taken me eighteen months to come to one crucial conclusion.

  I can’t and won’t regret what happened.

  If I hadn’t made all those mistakes, I wouldn’t have met Jarret. I wouldn’t have experienced what it is to truly love someone and feel that love reciprocated. The best six months of my life were on that ranch, working side by side with a man who refused to walk away from me.

  That’s the detrimental part. In the end, I forced him to leave. I used my safe word like a brandished weapon, cut him at his knees, and removed his power. He left because I gave him no choice.

  He loved me, and he risked that love to tell me he killed Rogan. He could’ve easily lied and prevented me from running. But he didn’t. He did the honorable thing and told me the truth. In return, I hurt him.

  After eighteen months of searching, self-analyzing, and introspection, I now realize what I experienced in my relationships before Jarret wasn’t love. I replaced each lover with a new lover, but true love can’t be replaced.

  True love is finding my soulmate when I wasn’t searching for him. It was the depth of my smile when I worked beside him. It was putting his happiness over mine.

  True love isn’t about being inseparable. It’s being separated for over a year, and feeling even stronger, deeper in love.

  I love him.

  Distance didn’t erase it. Time didn’t expunge it. Losing him didn’t make it go away.

  I love him. I miss him, and I’m a wretched, disgusting mess without him. I make myself sick wondering how he’s doing, what he’s thinking, and if he’s happy. But I can’t go back. Not after the way I ended things.

  He’s strong enough to have healed himself by now. It’s been six months since I’ve seen him. Six months is plenty of time for him to move on and find someone else. I won’t sabotage his happiness in any way.

  But what if he’s not happy?

  If he’s still alone, if he’s suffering even a fraction of the misery I am, I want to know.

  I need to know.

  Anyone can say, I love you. But if he didn’t move on, if he waited all this time, that’s more proof than words can ever express.

  Lying on the mattress in a studio apartment I’ve never furnished, I roll to my side and reach for my phone on the floor.

  Radio silence with Conor means I’m in the dark with regard to the entire family. She should be finished with school now, and Lorne is coming up on eight years served in prison. He could be up for parole any time.

  I clutch the phone tightly and stare at the screen. I miss them so much and want to know everything that’s going on with them.

  I’ll just send a short text to Conor, a fr
iendly greeting, and go from there.

  As I pull up the messaging screen, the phone buzzes with an incoming call, making me jump.

  Private Number

  Who would be ringing this late? Probably a misdial or drunken attempt to call someone else.

  I accept the call. “Hello?”

  “Maybe Quinn?” A woman whispers.

  “Who’s calling?”

  “It’s Raina Benally. I’m…” Her voice rasps through the phone. “We met at John Holsten’s house.”

  “Yes, I remember.” My pulse speeds up. “I gave you my number. Is everything okay?”

  Silence.

  It lasts so long I check the screen. We’re still connected.

  “Raina? Are you there?”

  “I need help.” Her words are strained, as if she’s forcing them out.

  “What happened?”

  “I… I have to go.” A rustling sound scratches through the line. “I’ll call you back.”

  “Wait. I’m about three hours away. Are you still at John’s house?”

  “You can’t come here. Promise me.”

  A chill crawls over my scalp. “If you’re in trouble, I’m calling the cops.”

  “No!” A cry chokes her voice. “No cops. Please. I’ll call you back.”

  The line disconnects.

  Fucking shit, what the hell was that?

  Is she hurt? In danger? Why did she have to call me back? She was whispering and sounded really fucking scared.

  My breathing accelerates. I don’t know what to do.

  I throw on jeans, a t-shirt, and shove my feet into Jarret’s boots. Then I wait.

  Thirty minutes later, she hasn’t called back.

  I try redialing the private number. It’s blocked.

  Grabbing my keys and purse, I race to my car and start the drive toward northern Texas. I still have John’s address, and I still carry the small knife under the driver’s seat. Not that I intend on using the latter, but she said, No cops.

  Does that mean she’s involved in something criminal? The whole fucking family is covered in blood. I should turn around and stay the fuck out of it.