Murder

by Ella James

  I loosen my grip on his hand, waiting for him to pull away. Instead, I feel his arm relax, even as his eyes shut and his face tenses.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you think that?” he rasps.

  I kiss the callous again. “This is where I think most of your memories come from. The dreams.” I press his palm against my mouth, drag his hand up so it’s curved around my brow. I kiss his wrist.

  “Maybe it’s a mark from another Barrett…one I’m never going to know. But it’s on your hand, and I love your hand.”

  He sits up, hugs me close, and presses my cheek to his neck. “Why are you so good?”

  “Why are you?”

  “I’m not.” His body goes tense and still. I bite his neck.

  “You are so. Come to Thanksgiving at my mom’s with me?”

  He frowns down at me. “When’s Thanksgiving?”

  “Two days from now.” I giggle.

  “Damn.”

  “So that’s a yes?”

  “Who all’s coming?”

  I shove his chest. “You, me, and some other people. Jerk.”

  He shuts his eyes and shakes his head. “I’ll go.” A faint smile touches his lips. “You know I’ll go, Piglet.”

  TWELVE

  GWENNA

  Thanksgiving starts off freaking amazing. Like, amazing. Mom opens her front door wearing an apron and sporting an oven mitt, the smell of macaroni wafting out around her. Barrett smiles roguishly and holds his hand out, but the second my mom’s eyes hit his face, she freezes up—completely obvious—and just stands there gawking, finally blurting out, “So you’re my daughter’s hero!”

  Mom knows just the basics about Bear, so she can’t know how perfect those words are. How they’re exactly what he needs to feel welcome and wanted at my family’s Thanksgiving.

  Mom hugs him with warm, maternal affection, and I watch Bear’s face from the side. He looks surprisingly relaxed, maybe even peaceful.

  “It’s so nice to meet you, Barrett.” Mom reaches for his hair, her fingertips not quite touching it. “Look at those beautiful curls. Gwenna didn’t tell me you’re a model, too.”

  Barrett’s face blanches. My mom falters. “I’m just teasing you. Come on inside, you two.” We step into the foyer, and Mom hugs me to her flower-speckled apron. “You look beautiful, sweetheart.”

  “So do you, Mom.”

  When she pulls away, I note the red “Hers” on the black apron, and I try not to let it throw me.

  Holidays without my dad feel strange, wrong even. But this is the new normal. Just like old Barrett is gone, life before my dad died is not the life I have now. And I can be sad about it, and miss him, but I can’t let it ruin what I have in this moment.

  “Come into the kitchen. Rett and Laura beat you here, and Mee-Maw will be pulling up any time now.”

  I watch Barrett look around my mother’s glossy, high-end home. It’s not as casual as my cabin. Mom has good taste, and she loves to decorate. I don’t think someone who didn’t know him would be able to tell that he is checking out the details, but I can tell because his eyes aren’t on me, and as we walk down the hallway toward the kitchen, he’s not focused on my mom either.

  I make a mental note to ask him later if he’s mapping an escape route, and then we’re in the kitchen. Rett and Laura are both coming off the bar stools, ready to hug us.

  Laura is Rett’s newish girlfriend. She’s only twenty-four, a fellow teacher at his school, and I think she’s adorable. Pink hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and a little pixie face. She’s sweet and energetic, and she seems to adore Rett.

  Turns out, Barrett is a decently ardent baseball fan, so when Rett starts chattering about obscure baseball stuff, Bear can bat the ball right back. They hit it off better than I could have dreamed, and Laura, Mom, and I work on the food until my Mee-Maw shows up from the assisted living complex she’s been in since she broke her hip last year.

  We have a peaceful afternoon, and I feel so thankful. Barrett holds my hand under the table, and instead of being awkward about his combat the way I had worried he might be, he seems to enjoy regaling the table with tales of his exploits. He tells a story about feeding an injured owl food from his MRE, and then another one about him and some people from his “unit” going skiing with the president.

  “Oh my goodness! Which one?” my grandma asks.

  “President Obama,” Barrett says between chewing his turkey.

  “That man… I’m a big fan,” my Mee-Maw says. “I’ve got the bumper sticker.”

  Barrett and I haven’t really gotten too much into politics. I say a silent prayer he’s not a Tea Party conservative, and if he is, he won’t mention it to Mee-Maw. She’s got a pacemaker, after all.

  As it turns out, he and Mee-Maw get drawn into a long political discussion. Mom and I exchange nervous glances at first, but Barrett takes things issue by issue and point by point, so careful even I can’t tell exactly what his politics are. By the time that portion of our discussion ends, everyone is still happy. I stroke his leg under the table, veering up to brush between his legs. He hooks his foot behind my ankle and rubs his leg against mine.

  “Who wants dessert?” my mom asks.

  Things roll on at such a cosmically wonderful pace, the conversation good, the spirits bright, I can’t help thinking that Dad is watching over us today. After the food, Mom shows us her newest sculpture. At this stage, it’s just a woman hunched over. Mom tells us her plans for it, and Barrett watches her with what looks like awe.

  He asks several insightful questions before I remember, belatedly, his own mother was an artist. And Barrett carves, or whittles. So of course he would care.

  I take his hand as we go back inside, and he and I drift upstairs to the study.

  We kiss and touch each other gently.

  “Doing okay?” I murmur.

  “More than okay. This has been…nice.”

  “Mom likes you. I think they all do.”

  “I like you,” he says. “And them.”

  I relish the warmth of his skin under my hands as I trail up and down his sides under his shirt.

  “You better not try that here.”

  I giggle. “Not game at my mom’s house?”

  “Fuck, no.” He chuckles and stands up. He casts his eyes downward and sighs, and I laugh.

  “Down boy.”

  He rubs his big hand over it, and I groan.

  “I’ve got something that will help.” I pull him over to a portrait of my dad, and we spend the next half-hour talking all about him. Barrett stands close to me the whole time and takes my hand when we move from the library into the guest room that I use as mine.

  After a while we go back downstairs, say bye to Mee-Maw, who’s trying to get back home early to spend some time with her new boyfriend, Herbert.

  I find home videos in the DVD player, and so begins an hour of personal torture, with Mom and Rett exposing all my most embarrassing moments. At the end of the video, there’s static, followed by a view of a pink room—wait, a white room. Just looks pink to me. A hospital room.

  My stomach nosedives.

  “Mom,” I whisper.

  The room goes silent as the TV beeps the sound of monitors and puffs the awful ventilator noise and Barrett’s eyes cling to the screen, where I lie swollen, bruised, and stained. Even as he holds the camera, Dad’s breathing is heavy and emotional.

  I watch the blood drain out of Barrett’s cheeks and feel my own head spin.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize…” Mom jumps up.

  I stalk out of the room, fly out the back door, and dash around to the side of my mom’s sculpting shed. I wrap my arms around myself and lean my head against the wall. A few seconds later, I hear Barrett coming through the grass and feel his hands on my back.

  “Gwen.” He clasps my shoulders and turns me toward him, enfolding me against his hard chest.

  One arm wraps around my head as if he�
��s trying to protect my mind from its own lousy memories. I feel his body stiffen, then he lets a long breath out. He just breathes for a minute, and my eyes sting.

  I can hear his heart pound through his chest. I think I feel a little twitch of his muscles, but—

  “Bear?” I rub his shoulder. I don’t know if it’s his rigid posture or some other nonverbal SOS he’s sending out, but I can feel his distress. I realize: his nightmares. If he dreams of me being hurt, I wonder if the video was triggering. God, it must have been.

  “Baby. Hey…” I wrap my arms around him, stroke his sides and arms, and still he doesn’t move.

  “Bear.” I touch his neck. “Are you okay?”

  He lifts his head. His face is pale. His eyes are red.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He stares at the wall behind me. “Nothing,” he rasps.

  “C’mon now… We can’t go with that: nothing.” I smile a little, trying to tease.

  His face grows even more anguished. His mouth goes soft and fluid. “Seeing you like that…” He shakes his head. He rubs his forehead. He lets go of me and turns away, facing the fence-line at the back of my mom’s yard. I can see one hand is raised to his face.

  I stand there frozen, not sure what to do or say. Thank goodness, he turns back around a second later.

  “Sorry.” He shakes his head, rubbing his hand over his eyes. “You want to go back in?” He tries to smile, and it’s a total smile fail.

  “Sure.” I step to him and wrap my arms around his waist. My sweet Bear. “You know I’m okay now, yeah? And so are you? And we’re together?”

  He hugs me tightly against him. “Yeah.” The words are soft. “It’s just…hard to see you like that.” His hand strokes my hair.

  “It wasn’t easy for me to see that, either. And if I had seen you like that, I would feel the same way, too.”

  We stand there hugging for a few more breaths, and then, hands clasped, we head into the house.

  My mom is pouring wine. She looks from me to Barrett, back to me. “I’m so sorry, both of you.”

  “It’s okay, Mom. No big deal.”

  Bear and I both take a glass of pinot. Several hours and a bunch of card games later, we head home. I fall asleep with his big jacket tucked around me like a blanket, his scent sweet in my nose, and a vision of him skiing with the president in my dreams, which turn to nightmares as the snow falls.

  Beep…beep….BEEEEPPPPPPPPP.

  THIRTEEN

  BARRETT

  I’m not the only one thrown off by that footage of Gwenna in the ICU. Right before we get home, she starts moving all around in her seat, making small, sad sounds. Her chest starts heaving and her eyes fly open, arms flailing to grab onto something. I have the Mini Cooper pulled onto the shoulder before she gets herself upright, my arms around her before she lets out the first whimper. As I rub her back and hair, she settles down.

  “I dreamed about you skiing,” she whispers.

  “What?”

  “You were skiing…” Her shoulders tremble. She shakes her head. “I dreamed about the wreck,” she rasps.

  I press my lips against her hairline and just wait. For her to tell me something. For all I’ve told her about my shitty past, Gwen hasn’t told me much about her accident. I would never push her, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a need to know about it. Seeing her in that bed…

  I kiss her forehead and the bridge of her nose and squeeze her, praying to be better than I am. “I’ve got you, Pig. I won’t let go.”

  “Thank you.” Her voice is small and strained. It makes my own throat ache.

  I smooth her hair against the back of her head. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.” She squeezes me tightly, and then she pulls away. “Wow, you pulled over. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. You okay now? Want to talk about it?”

  She gives me a funny little smile.

  I smirk. “Talking helps, that’s what I’m told.”

  She smiles wanly.

  I give her one last kiss before we start back home. We play music loud and Gwenna holds my hand, and I try not to think of what she said.

  “You were skiing…”

  The next morning, I’ve got a meeting with a vendor to measure for cubbies on one wall of the studio. Gwen’s still sleeping when it’s time to go. I kiss her head and leave a Reese’s Peanut Butter Christmas tree thing on her nightstand. Her mom passed me a bag of them on our way out the door and told me that they’re Gwen’s favorite.

  I intentionally make a little noise as I get dressed, because, pathetic as it is, I want her to go with me. But she’s sleeping pretty hard, and her sleep doesn’t seem troubled, so I can’t justify waking her up. As I walk out the door, I get a call from Dove and hit the ‘fuck you’ button.

  I’ll find time to call him soon. I haven’t been able to track Blue anymore. I think he ditched his car. But Dove will have told him I’m not planning to do it, so there’s no reason for Bluebell to try to interfere.

  I feel peaceful as I ride my motorcycle toward town. Tomorrow, I have an appointment with Sean. I’m supposed to go over my notebook. I had a nightmare last night—Gwen, of course—and wrote it down for him. I wrote it in Italian because I don’t want Gwen herself to read it. But I can be open, or almost open, with Sean. So I guess I will be.

  I think of what Gwen said about adding some more rocks to the enclosure. I’ve been thinking of buying a truck. Maybe if she’s still sleeping when I leave the studio, I’ll swing by a dealership. I’d love to drive her around in something safer than that little Mini Cooper…

  GWENNA

  I think there’s something wrong with Papa. All my other bear babies are tucked into hollowed trees, thick underbrush, or little coves spread over the 300-plus acreage, and Papa was, too—for a while.

  In the last week, though, he’s been unusually restless. Bears have social things they do before they hibernate, and even bears that live in climates too warm for “true hibernation” do these things. I’ve narcissistically wondered once or twice if Papa wanted to see me again, and for this reason, I’ve avoided the enclosure, even postponing a scheduled trip inside the day before yesterday, hoping Papa will settle down and get some rest. Instead, I wake to find his little green dot on my phone’s screen positioned right inside the gate of the enclosure.

  Weird.

  I move into my office, watching on the cams, but I can’t see anything out of the ordinary. Just Papa, moved from the gate over to the pond, where he is walking by the water. I check the temperature outside. With all this El Nino stuff, I wonder if maybe the warm days are messing up his hibernation or something. But the weather app on my phone says it’s 39 degrees. Cold.

  I have a flash of memory of my dream from the car: Barrett, racing down the slopes. At the bottom, he falls, and he and I are wrapped up in the snow they way we were on the rug at his house that night I brought the wine over. The weirdest thing about the dream is, the snow was white. Usually when I see or think of snow post-accident, I see it slightly pink, in keeping with my new reality. Wonder why it was white. Maybe longing for my life before the accident? Wishing I’d met Bear before it happened?

  I dress in thermal leggings, a pair of tall, gray Merrill snow boots, and a roomy, dark green fleece from Mountain Hardware. Then I braid my hair and toss it over my shoulder. Just to top it off, I pull on a cream-colored beanie. I can’t find the bear spray, and after a few minutes looking, I decide it doesn’t really matter. It’s just Papa. I trust him.

  I take my time walking along the fence line, enjoying the sunlight on my skin, getting lost in my own head as I watch my shadow drift over the planks. By the time I get to the enclosure gate, Papa’s dot has receded deeper into the woods. I go inside anyway, figuring I’ll wander a little ways past the pond to see if I encounter him.

  To my slight disappointment, I don’t. I daydream about Barrett, imagining unbuttoning his pants and rubbing my hand along his happy trai
l as I step out of the enclosure, into a burst of wind. With leaves swirling at my feet and golden sheets of sunlight slanting through the limbs, I think it’s beautiful here.

  Then the world goes dark.

  I’m pulled against a hard chest. Someone’s voice is in my ear—a voice I know but can’t place. “Shhhh, I’m not going to hurt you. You don’t fight and I won’t. I just want to talk.”

  I blink and try to touch my face. He’s got me by my wrists. They’re pulled behind me, bound together by his large hands.

  I hear a low keening noise. Somewhere far away, I know I need to curse and scream and fight and kick, but I’m just frozen. I stumble as he pushes me.

  “No—please!” It’s half scream, half sob. My pulse is racing so fast now, I can’t think straight. I can’t breathe. I feel my body fumbling through empty space. My feet land on the ground at odd angles. I’m moaning, my racing mind worried about hurting my ankle even as I know I’VE GOT TO DO SOMETHING, RIGHT NOW!

  “Help!” I shriek.

  His hand is on my face. I notice fabric flapping and realize it’s dark because he’s put something over my head.

  “Good girl,” I hear him say, and realize that the ground has slanted downward. The driveway!

  SHIT! HE HAS A CAR HERE!

  His hands find their way around my wrists again. My brain lights up. This is called a back arm lock, my brain regurgitates. All I have to do is stumble forward and throw one foot behind me, toward his crotch.

  I wait until we’re almost sprinting down the driveway. Then I feign tripping, and when he loosens his grip on me to keep from tripping, too, I kick behind me, toward his crotch, and feel my shoe connect.

  He grunts. I jerk away and fumble forward as I grab the hood off my head. I see in that second that he’s wearing one, too.

  I can run downhill toward the road, or cut back up toward my house. House! There’s a key in my shoe. My body jolts into motion, flying up the incline of the top part of my driveway, kicking rock and dirt behind me.

  “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!”