“You’re right. I have stuck by you. I fell in love with you at your lowest point, and have loved you fiercely ever since. I’ve drive three hours every weekend for two years to come visit you. I haven’t been able to touch you, to kiss you, or to even be alone with you in all of that time either. And still I love you. I love you more than I love myself. So no, Tucker, I’m not just going to move on. To find some other guy. Because you are my whole world, and there isn’t a way to separate that part of myself.”
I take a breath through my tirade and hear his heavy breathing coming through the phone.
“Now, I’m going to say goodbye and I love you before either one of us says something else that we’ll regret. I’ll be up at visitation next weekend, and I better be on that goddamn list. Goodbye. I love you.”
I hang up with a pained moan and bury my face in my hands.
Seven days later, I showed up to visitation hours and was let in.
Tucker and I cried quietly as we made up at our regular corner table. Even though I wasn’t allowed to comfort him and he wasn’t allowed to comfort me.
Chapter 33
Tucker
The drive through the woods looks the same as it did over three years ago. The winding gravel trail, the mass of brush and trees. The only thing different about this journey was that the leaves are a leafy green in the middle of summer.
And the fact that I’m alone.
The wooden Camp Marsh sign comes up on my right and is followed by a fit of laughter and spray of water. I slow my car and roll down the window, only to get shot in the arm with another blast of water.
“Whoops! Sorry mister!”
Two little boys run down the hill, shooting each other with water guns and laughing the entire way.
My car crests the hill and then there it is, the entire camp in the valley down below. And this is another difference. It’s not barren and cold. It’s not just Char and I out here in the frozen wilderness.
There are kids everywhere. And counselors in their hunter green shirts, chasing them around. There are row boats on the lake and tug of war matches going on in the quad. Kids sit at the picnic tables strewn about outside, coloring or reading or just licking ice cream cones.
I pull into a lot off the main quad and get out to stretch my legs. My body is tired from the travel, and the fresh mountain air I suck into my lungs is refreshing and delicious. It’s been two days since I left Lancaster, and I stayed in a hotel last night. Even though I intended to come here, to come see William Marsh, I needed a night alone. I needed to think. I needed to sit on the floor of that dingy hotel room and mope and try not to open one of the mini-bottles of alcohol in the fridge.
My heart still aches like a cut that’s been sliced too deep and won’t clot. It throbs in my chest, the beat chanting Charlotte’s name. I miss her smile and her eyes, her hair. I miss her voice, the way she threw her arm over my hip in the middle of the night. I miss everything.
And it’s only been two days. I have no idea how the fuck I’m going to live without her.
“Well, no shit.”
I turn around and there he is. William Marsh. The owner of this camp, the man who forgave me for what I did. And then proceeded to visit me in prison for three years and basically become like a father figure to me.
He’s tan and leathery from the sun, with a shock of white hair and arms that are probably more muscular than mine. Even though he is about sixty-five years old, he still runs each morning at five before playing and executing activities with the kids each day. And he’s been married to the same woman for forty years. He’s the man I want to become.
Well, if I hadn’t just left my wife to give her a better life.
“Willy. It’s so good to see you.” I shrug and step towards him as he embraces me in a gruff, manly hug.
“Tuck, what’re you doing here? I didn’t think you’d come since you told me no at the beginning of the summer.”
I look off into the distance at the lake. “Yeah well, I needed a break. I had to get away. It seemed like the right place to come to.”
Willy is quiet for a second, assessing my mood as kids scream and run all around us. “Ah, I get it. Something happened.”
I don’t confirm or deny it to him.
“Well, we don’t have to talk now. It’s Tuesday, which means it’s Taco Night. Melody is fixing up some real tasty meats in the mess hall. Why don’t you drive out to one of the empty counselor cabins and put your stuff away? Then walk down and join us for dinner.”
He turns without my answer, knowing I’ll follow his word because on this land it’s golden. And he’s also the only man I’ve really ever respected besides my high school and college football coaches.
I start the car and drive the service road down to the cabins out farther in the woods. Out here is where the counselors stay, and hook up with each other all summer. They have a drama all to themselves. There are also a few small guest cabins to visiting friends or the occasional local celebrity who comes to entertain the kids for a night. And then way further out is Willy and Melody’s house.
Now that I see the big log cabin, stark and tall above the trees, I wonder why Char and I never just came back here and stayed in their house when we were hiding out. Probably because we knew we were already trespassing, and that would have just felt like too big a line to cross.
I let myself into one of the guest cabins, which seems empty. I put my duffel on the floor and survey the small hut. This cabin is probably only the size of a normal living room, with a twin bed against each wall and a door on the back wall that I can only assume leads to a shower.
I know I should get down to the mess hall, but the idea of scrubbing away the dirt from the hotel and the regret of leaving Char is too tempting to pass up. I slip into the stall, that barely contains my body, and think of the time I walked in on Char in this same exact kind of shower when we were in camp. Or how we used to lay the skinny mattresses on the floor to build ourselves a bed. And then we’d get as close as we possibly could …
It only takes me as long as squeezing the shampoo into my hands to realize that coming here might be a bad idea. I see Char in every nook of this place, smell her in every corner. And we didn’t even stay in this cabin. But it’s no shit that every single thing reminds me of her. This is where we found each other again, it’s where we fell in love.
I finish the rest of the shower with a lump in my throat and my eyes threatening to spill tears.
When I finally make it down to taco night, I can barely look at the food I’m so depressed.
* * *
A week into my stay at Camp Marsh and Willy has had enough of my brooding silence.
“Sit down, now.” He waves to a picnic table outside the canteen and I reluctantly sit down.
For a week I’ve been good. Or … I’ve been decent. Better than horrible. Which I guess isn’t really good. But … I’ve been getting through. I’ve been doing repairs on all of the buildings for Willy and Melody, eating dinner with them each night. I’ve helped out with some of the kids sports games during the day and even been having a drink or two with the counselors by the fire pit at night. And by drink, I mean Pepsi. While I watch the love triangles and ridiculous drama unfold. It’s actually pretty distracting.
And when I lay down in the guest cabin at night, all I think about is Char. I picture her lying on the floor of the cabin with me, touching her anywhere my hands can reach. I dream about her soft body beneath me, the expression she makes when I stroke all the way to the hilt. The noises that she makes and the way she breathes my name as she comes.
My bones and muscles ache from the loss of her. I miss her down to every last tendon, down to my soul.
I fold my hands under my chin and look off into the distance at the campers playing, getting in all the time that they can before the dinner bell rings in an hour.
“Tucker, look at me.”
I direct my eyes to him, if only out of respect. I have no interest in h
aving this conversation with him.
“I know what you’re doing now. And I don’t know why you’ve picked this place to do it. Maybe it makes you feel like a kid. Maybe it’s just all less complicated out here for you. You’re hiding. You’re running.”
I don’t confirm this for him, but I know he’s right. I realized that three days ago. That whenever it got to tough, whenever I felt suffocated in my own skin, I ran.
“Tuck, life has been easy for you.”
I scoff at his statement that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“It has though. Before your injury, you were a golden child. Sure, your dad was a prick. But other people, they put you high up on this pedestal. You never got told the word no. Life never threw you any challenge flags. Football came easy. I’ll bet that throughout high school and college, you didn’t have to work hard at anything you didn’t want to. Am I right?”
I think it over for a minute. He’s right. I wanted to work at football, but school? Classes? Girls? Anything else … it all came easy. Someone else worked it out for me, or the universe just handed me what I wanted at the moment.
“Yeah, I guess so.” I shrug, looking more like a sulking teenage boy than a fully grown man.
“After your injury, nothing came easy. You had to work at everything. And it just wasn’t something that you’re used to. So you started to run. You ran from your life by using drugs. And then you ran from your mistakes concerning that by coming here. And then you took the deal without going to trial. You never fought, you ran. And now, life is getting too hard. People are judging you. Your solution? To run away from the only woman who has ever loved you so completely that she has stuck by you through everything.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if my heart was laying beside us, bloodied and mangled, in the dirt. Willy’s words hit hard. But they’re also true.
“You don’t think I’ve already heard all of this in therapy? I get it. I’m a coward. Why are you doing this?”
Willy reaches out and lays his hand over mine. It’s intimate and fatherly, and while my insides warm, preen to make him happy … I’m also uncomfortable. I never had parental love like this, and I’m not sure what to do with it now.
“Because I’m not going to let you off easy like your shrink. I’m not going to analyze you and let you walk out the door thinking you’ve made some big strides today. Hell no. I’m going to tell you this. Get off your ass, stop being a little bitch, and call your wife. Beg her to forgive you and plead with her to take you back.”
A chuckle bursts from my throat before it’s replaced with a frown. “Willy … she’s too good for me. Our life, it will only bring her down. Drag her into the dirt where I reside. I don’t want it to be hard for her. Ever.”
Willy slaps a hand on his knee and starts laughing. Hard. “Son, do you think marriage is ever easy?! I’ve been married to Melody for over forty years and it’s a challenge every damn day we get up. The number of days that have gone absolutely perfect in our marriage … hell, I can probably count them on one hand. Life is messy. And marriage is the number one culprit.”
I lean in, listening to him.
“But does that mean I ever want to give up? Say goodbye and leave Melody? Hell no. I love that woman more than earth itself. More than anything I got, including my own body. I would die without her, and I sure as hell don’t know how I’d be able to do a damn thing if she wasn’t planning it all out. Marriage is worth it, love is worth it, because you work through all of the hard stuff. It’s like a diamond. There is always going to be coal and dirt on the surface, and it may take a long time to dig it out or rub it off. But in the end, you’re left with this thing that is solid, unbreakable, beautiful and perfect.”
He’s right of course, so absolutely right. And now I feel like the biggest moron who ever lived.
Willy must see the horrified shock on my face. “I’d say right about now, you’re realizing how big of an idiot you are.”
“I have to go …”
He calls after me as I sprint back to my cabin. “Tell Charlotte to come out for the weekend! We would love to see her!”
Chapter 34
Charlotte
Being at home on this Friday night was not my original plan. I wanted to go to Hunger N Thirst with Jackie, drown my sorrows in a couple glasses of wine.
But the party pooper has to go home for the weekend, leaving me friendless. And lonely. So, I guess I’ll just need to eat this pint of Ben & Jerry’s by myself and sulk into a bottle of white wine.
I’m halfway through my pint and a One Tree Hill marathon when my cellphone rings, and I quickly hope it’s Jackie calling to say she’ll come over.
But I’m completely surprised when I see an unfamiliar number flash across the screen. My heart kicks up a notch, beating into my throat. I’ve been waiting two weeks to see a number, any number, that I don’t know flash across my screen. My hands start to shake as I set down the cardboard tub of Cookies & Cream goodness.
Sending up a small prayer that this will be him, I pick it up. “Hello?”
A small cough, and then, “Charlotte?”
Relief pours through my system, so sweet and sharp that I double over as tears spring to my eyes. “Tucker, thank god. Oh god, thank you for calling.”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I never should have left. I just … Char, I’ve been going through some shit in my head. And I’m a fucking idiot.”
My heart might burst out of my chest with all of the emotions rushing through it right now. But mostly, I just want Tucker right now.
“Come home. We can talk this over, please, Tucker. I just want to see you.”
“That’s all I want right now, baby. I know I don’t deserve it, but actually, I was hoping maybe you’d come to me.”
* * *
It takes me nearly two hours in the downpour that’s started, but around ten p.m. I finally pull my Jeep onto the familiar gravel drive.
The land is soft and squishy with mud under my tires, my windshield getting pelted by the late night summer storm. Lightning strikes against the mountains in the background, and despite all of nature’s beasts, I’m somewhat at peace to be back at Camp Marsh. Passing the wooden sign, it feels like I’m shedding my skin. And along with it, all my pressures and problems.
I swivel the Jeep out towards the counselor and guest cabins to the one Tucker told me he was staying in. I should have guessed that he came here; it seems to be his natural hiding spot apparently. But I’m glad he came to visit with William Marsh, who I’m sure screwed his head on straight. I would have to thank him for that in the morning.
The rain must have caused everyone to stay inside, because although I see lights on in the cabins, there is not a single sole roaming the camp grounds. Rolling through the misty, dark grounds, it looks so different than when I was here more than three years ago.
I spot Tucker’s pickup and pull up beside it, running out of my car and around to the other side to pull out my overnight bag. Who the hell knows what I threw into the duffel I’d packed it so fast. It was a miracle I had matching shoes on. Tucker had wanted me to wait to come until tomorrow morning, but no way was I being separated from him for another minute.
A door slams and I look up to the porch where Tucker now stands. The rain is pouring down on him, his T-shirt and jeans getting soaked. The lightning illuminates him and he looks like an Adonis, standing there looking down at me with this expression full of relief and love.
I’m rooted to the spot, uncaring that I’m getting soaked. “I found you.” I shrug with my bag in my hand.
“Not that hard to do when I wanted you to find me.” He yells out, the rain muffling his voice.
I’m not sure who moves first, but all of a sudden we’re sprinting towards each other. My bag drops, I’m kicking up mud and crying and reaching out for Tucker, who catches me in his arms as we meet in the middle between my car and his cabin door.
“I’m sorry,” he yells over the rain at the same
time I tell him, “I love you.”
And then it’s nothing but his mouth on mine, erasing all of the grief and sadness I’ve gone through over the past few weeks. His kiss is an apology, a balm for the pain he put me through. We’re soaking wet, clinging to each other as he hikes me up and I wrap my legs around his waist. A clap of thunder booms overhead as Tucker turns us, our lips never leaving each other as he throws open the door to the cabin.
I cling to him as he brings us to the floor, where my back is greeted by a flimsy construction of mattresses. I break our kiss and grin goofily up at him.
“Our mattress and sleeping bag bed.”
He pushes the wet strands from my forehead. “I wanted to remind us how we were at the beginning. How in love and against the world we were. I’m ready to be that way with you forever. I was scared Char, but now I’m ready.”
He strips his shirt over his head and sends it flying behind us onto the floor with a thud. I mean to answer him, to tell him I love him and will follow him to the ends of the earth, but the words get stuck in my throat. There is six-foot-five-inches of gorgeous, soaking wet man muscles before me, and all I want to do is get naked with my husband and make up with him the only way I know will make us both feel incredible.
We grab at each other, peeling off wet layers and kissing damp skin as we go. Everything is sticky, and each time I lay my lips on Tucker, or he on me, the nibbling or sucking is met with steam against our drenched skin. It’s heady and erotic, and making everything in the cabin hot and heavy. Each stroke of his tongue on my body is like a flame licking up my spine, turning me into a ball of burning need.
Every piece of clothing we peel from each other’s limbs is like another problem gone, another stress forgotten about. All of it forgotten when we’re finally naked, all of the outside pressure and expectation no longer exists. It’s just Tucker and I, body to body, baring our soul and our flesh to each other.
The Complete Captive Heart Duet: Lost and Found Page 29
