His Little Lanie

by Keri Ford

  His stomach dropped, and denial raced to his lips. There’s no way she could have been there.

  “They’d just shot your fireworks and brought out cake. Gosh, I could smell it all the way across the deck. White cake, frosting smelling so sweet I could nearly taste it. For some reason that confection sugar hung with me. I just about can’t eat cake now because of it.”

  He didn’t know what she was getting at, but she most certainly was not there that night. Sure, he’d had white cake at his birthday. Everyone there had known, and it wasn’t a secret, but who would have told her a detail like that? How would that even come up in conversation? “You weren’t there. Not that night.”

  “I was there.”

  He didn’t know what she was trying to get at, but no. “I would have seen you.”

  “Not if I was hiding behind the railing off the back of the boat, you wouldn’t have. Everyone got excited. They were pointing to something off the side. I had just crab walked to that end, had time to see the speedboat coming right at us. We flew. I remember your face. It was all I could remember when we hit the water.”

  His mouth was thick. He remembered the cake. Then just so much dizziness. A buzz that had surrounded a cloudy mind.

  She rested her chin on his shoulder. “You landed not far from me. You were close to drowning.”

  The doctors said he’d hit his head. If not for Tish, he would have sunk, unconscious, or been too delirious to save himself. “I should have drowned that night, but Tish—”

  “No. Me.”

  He stilled. “She—”

  “She is a liar, but that’s my fault.” She slipped her hand along his side again and brought her arm under his and crossed it over his chest. “I got you like this.” She pounded her fist there. “I dragged you to a cushion. It was part of a chair off the boat, and I shoved it under you here.” She pressed the palm of her hand to his lower back. “You were panicked and going to drown us both if I didn’t do something.”

  Instantly, he reached to his lower back. He had bruises in three places in the days after the hospital. His head, his shoulder where she just smacked him, and his lower back where she touched.

  “You were not yourself. You had moments of unconsciousness, then alertness. Over and over on the trip to shore, you would wake enough to freak out again. I’d have to stop. You would calm down when I talked to you. I’m trying to help you. Hold still. You’re okay.”

  “I have you.” The words echoed through his mind as clear as that night. The images, they were distorted, but the sounds, the voice. In the background there was so much screaming and terror, but those words had been a salve and he had held tight. Just a whisper of words if he was nervous or unsure about anything that, even to this day, they would echo through his mind and he could focus. They were just words.

  She breathed deep and sniffled. “Yes. I have you.”

  She held on to his head, her other arm tightened over his chest, and he floated, completely numbed, as the truth unlocked and all the pieces finally came together. She dragged him to shore.

  For a second time in his life.

  Chapter Seven

  Time had put weight on him, but Lanie was stronger now too than she was at sixteen. Her heels hit bottom, and she pulled him to the bank. Physically, he was alive and breathing. Mentally, she had no idea where he was, and she all but sat back and wound her hands. She could do yelling, appreciation, accusations, anything. Not this never-ending silence where she didn’t know where she stood with him. She gave another tug, getting him farther from the water. The light off the back of the house cast enough down so than anyone who happened by would know that he was naked.

  She didn’t move him farther.

  The cold air ripped off the water, and it took her right back to that night. Suddenly she found herself breathless as she lowered at his side and cupped his cheek. It was as natural now as then while she repeated the motions. “I touched you here and turned your head to face me. You trembled.”

  His eyes were focused beyond her shoulder. He could be reliving the night or just trying to process. Did he believe her at all? She needed him to know without a doubt it was her. After all this time, the anguish and frustration of wanting him to know, but fearing he wouldn’t. The moment was here, and she was desperate. The only point he was conscious during that night where he may actually remember her required one more thing.

  Naked or not, she swallowed the hard knot in her throat and laid across him. Awareness ripped all over her. In her bikini, there was just so much skin contact. He was hard where she was soft. Hairy where she was smooth. Their only similarity was cold on cold. She settled over him more, relaxing against his masculine hardness, and shielded him from the night air. She cupped his face again and turned him toward her. His eyes were still gazed beyond her. “I held you, like this. You were shaking. I was going to try to find help, but boats were arriving in the lake. I knew help was already coming, so I just stayed like this and was trying to keep you warm.”

  He caught her waist, and she stilled. The anticipation of what he believed lay sickly in her gut. A myriad of options flew through her head, primarily that he was trying to figure out the best way to explain he didn’t believe a word she said. He seemed lost to the depths of his memories, and she couldn’t get a single thing on his thoughts. All he did was lay there and hold her at the waist.

  So she stayed that way with him, holding him too. Covered by the night, atop him as the fear grew and left her chilled. He gripped her hips. Muscles tensed along his entire body, then at once released. Then again and again, occasionally swiping up to her ribs, nearly tickling her by the roughness of his fingertips, before resting intimately low on her waist again. Her leg extended between his in a wholly foreign sensation. Every twitch and move he created dragged her along him. His breath increased and slowed while she could only guess at pieces clicking together to create some sense of the situation. She started to get off him to begin facing the fact that he would never believe her when a heavy and tired breath left him.

  “How did Tish get mixed in this?”

  “She swam to shore shortly after us. She said there was alcohol on board. The police were coming. I could see blue lights. My dad would have killed me. He thought I was at the movies or with Cindy. When Tish told me to run and she wouldn’t say anything, I freaked out. Instantly I wanted to go back, but it was too late. The police were already with you, and Tish told them she pulled you from the water. There’s no way they would have believed a sixteen-year-old girl who just stumbled out of the bushes.”

  “It never made sense. Tish never gave me details. I always wondered how she had the strength to get me to shore. Physically she was fit, but she wasn’t strong or that good of a swimmer.” He at least sounded like he wanted to believe her.

  It was enough, and she blinked off tears. “A lot of people would say that about me. She’s taller than me, looks stronger. I wanted to tell so bad. I wanted to march in that hospital and say it, but by then everyone was talking about what a heroic rescue Tish had done to save you. It wasn’t about the TV interviews and all that she was doing. I just…” She sighed. “I just wanted you to know. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. I don’t care about anyone else, the truth being widespread or not. None of that matters. Just you.”

  “What about your dad?”

  There was a subtle accusation in his tone, but she didn’t hesitate with her honest answer. “That doesn’t even matter anymore. He could know or not know. I don’t care. Then it seemed like everything. Now I realize Dad would have been angry out of fear, but also very proud.”

  “What do you want now?”

  It was the cold way he said it. Something about how his words were clipped that she finally pulled off him. A breeze moved through the air and left a chill on her skin that didn’t even touch the sudden coldness from him. She reached for the towels, tossing one to him. “That’s it. I just wanted you to know.”

  “Nothing in exchange from me?”<
br />
  “I don’t understand what you’re asking.” Her towel wasn’t big enough to wrap up and disappear in, but she didn’t like this turn in him. He’d gone from processing to something blocked off.

  “For my entire adult life, I have been morally obligated and bound to Tish because she rescued me. Nobody let me forget it, least of all her. Every argument came down to her throwing it in my face that if not for her, I wouldn’t even be here. So now that you’re coming out of the woodwork, what do you want?”

  Sickness rolled through Lanie’s gut so hard and fast she was forced to hold still and breathe it off. “Nothing. I want nothing.”

  He didn’t respond, so she backed away and retreated inside. She left the door unlocked, but she didn’t know if he’d be there when she got out of the shower or not. She’d been completely cut in half by the hardness of his tone and moved on autopilot into the hot shower. After a swim, this should have been a relaxing stream to be under until she was boneless and leaning against the wall to stand.

  As much as she wanted to sink into the waters and forget everything for a minute, she couldn’t. She was too shocked and horrified. For all these years, Tish had held saving his life as a leash around his neck. Lanie’s flat hands against the cold tile of her shower curled to fists. Girl better pray they never end up in the same room together. Lanie finally understood the raw intensity of her protective brothers, because she would do anything to protect Eriksen from that woman.

  The anger twisted with an extra crushing blow because Lanie had been the one to put him in her path. If she hadn’t been such a coward. The first of what was sure to be many tears dripped over her cheeks. They spilled out for so many reasons. Her foolishness, his pain.

  Their loss. Just when all the parts between them finally began clicking together, and now it was worse than before. If she hadn’t said anything, they would be kissing right now. Everything she’d always dreamed of could be on the way to happening.

  Except the one of him knowing. Without the truth, she’d never be able to enjoy what they could have. She’d almost kissed him, but with it lying so heavily on her mind, she couldn’t do it. The truth sets you free. She didn’t feel very free. Or better about the situation.

  If nothing else, she could live knowing he would never again feel trapped under Tish’s thumb. No matter what, or what it would take, she would ensure he was never in a situation like that again because of this.

  She shut the water off and dressed in her sweats. She took her time and delayed in her room for as long as she possibly could. If she never came out, then she couldn’t go downstairs and discover he’d left.

  Cowardice got her in this situation to begin with, so she gripped the bedroom door and returned downstairs. It all looked exactly the same. She crept to the kitchen hoping for something, but found nothing. Her house was empty, like that hole in her heart. She returned outside to fetch their mugs and close the house up for the night. Or maybe she’d just stay here. She didn’t feel much like driving back into town. She plucked her phone from the coffee table and texted Cindy so she wouldn’t worry and then began cleaning up.

  She’d take today to lick her sore spots and have it all masked and under control by tomorrow. She walked out and froze. Eriksen was fully dressed and sitting in his chair. He stared at her, and she just looked back for a long moment and struggled for something to say. The moment ticked on, and she scrambled and stuck with honesty. “I thought you left.”

  “Not yet. I don’t know what to do. Or say.”

  “I am so sorry.” She lowered to her chair.

  “I’m not sure I want your apology.”

  Ouch. It took all she had not to crumble. She’d put him through enough. He didn’t deserve more, so she sucked it up, and as much as it sliced her inside, she kept her back straight. “I understand. I mostly ruined your life after I ran off. If I had stayed, Tish couldn’t have taken my place, and none of that would have happened.”

  He faced her then with his brows pulled together.

  She would not bow under his scrutiny. She’d caused these series of events to unfold in this way, and she deserved his scold and whatever else he wanted to fling her way. He did not deserve anything from her, least of all any guilt for hurting her feelings. All the effort she went into hiding what she was about with her family was child’s play compared to holding up under Eriksen’s gaze.

  “That’s not what I meant.” He drank his tea again, which was surely cold by now, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Tell me more about that night.”

  “There’s not much left. I slipped away to the shadows when police arrived there with you. Cindy’s stepsisters were on board, so I knew her stepmom would be called out. I ran to my car at the docks. My keys, thank goodness, stayed in my pockets. I went to Cindy’s to clean up.”

  “So Cindy knows what happened?”

  Those moments at Cindy’s house fired through her head like blinding light. The sitting. The stillness. Cindy moving quickly to clean up a stunned and barely functioning Lanie. Cripes, Lanie could have died on that boat and nobody would have known what happened to her. Nobody would have known to look for her on the bottom of the lake. She would have just disappeared. “She knows I was on the boat. That’s it.”

  “So all this time, this stuff with me, you were the only one who knew what really happened to me that night.”

  She nodded and wished she could find some footing in this conversation. Anything to give her direction of what he was thinking and feeling. “Tish, of course, knew I brought you to shore, but not the details.”

  “Why didn’t you tell Cindy? Y’all were close. I figure she’d believe you.”

  “Her knowing didn’t matter.” It wouldn’t change anything or bring it back. By the time she got to Cindy’s, the cold stillness of near death hung around Lanie’s neck so tight that she could barely talk.

  Another one of his long stares. “Why were you even there?”

  She gestured at the bank. “I already told you. Hank’s boat would drift by close enough I could hear the music. I was curious. I was sixteen and going out for my first time. It’s a Lange tradition. You turn sixteen, and you get to explore the world for the night. I wanted to see what everyone else got to see. For two years, I’d watched that boat go by.”

  He sat back in the chair, still sipping that cold tea.

  She pointed at it. “I can get you a fresh cup.”

  He shook his head. “It’s fine. It’s wet.”

  “I am sorry though. I put you through a lot because I was afraid.”

  “I’m not angry with you.”

  “I’m glad.” She resisted saying it felt that way.

  He set the mug on the deck with a heavy thud and then crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m angry with Tish.”

  Well, she had a good bit of anger built up there too.

  He drummed his fingers on the arm of the wooden chair. “She lied to you.”

  “We barely spoke. She didn’t have time to lie to me.”

  Eriksen gave Lanie a long look. “There was no alcohol on that boat.”

  That seemed like a naive thought, and that was a lot coming from Lanie. Doing what they weren’t supposed to do was just kind of what teenagers did. They did really stupid things they shouldn’t like sneak into a party on a houseboat with people two grades ahead of her. “Maybe it hadn’t come out yet?”

  He shook his head. “It was Mr. Rault’s one rule about the boat. He allowed Hank to take it out, let whoever he wanted on board and stay out as long as we wanted. He didn’t care. But there better not be one drop of alcohol on board. It’s why parents even allowed their kids to go. If we were on that houseboat, we were in a safe, alcohol-free location. I had personally helped remove four kids who thought they were going to sneak on in the past. Everyone knew Hank would not put up with it, and if found, we dumped every drop in the lake and kicked off whoever brought it. We all knew if anyone broke that rule Hank’s dad would take the boat away. There were a n
umber of people who would tell on anyone who tried it.”

  Lanie was blank. “I don’t know why she told me that. We talked for seconds. She knew I was afraid, so maybe she was trying to give me a nudge to go. I don’t know.”

  A subtle twitch marked his jaw before he shook his head. “Something has been haunting me about you since I moved here. This was it, wasn’t it? I’ve had this gut feeling about you. There was something that kept telling me I knew you. There’s nothing else about us that you’re hiding, is there?”

  A smile curled through her. “This is it. I avoided you because I wanted to tell you so bad. I didn’t think you would believe me, to be honest with you.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “If we hadn’t been in the water like that, I don’t know that I would have.” He shook his head and stood suddenly. “Are you ready to go?”

  “Where are we going?” But she was following him. Would follow him anywhere, at any time.

  “To Mom’s to tail her. Did you not want to go anymore?”

  She blinked and then recovered with a rushed breath that tasted a lot like relief. “Yes. I didn’t expect you wanted to.”

  He gazed at the lake and turned away from it. “It’s either get on with this or sit in that chair longer, thinking about this situation. If I sit there any longer, I’m liable to call Tish with questions.”

  Nope. Lanie meant it. Whatever Tish had on her mind back then or whatever her motives, Lanie didn’t care so long as it couldn’t reach Eriksen anymore. Let the woman sit wherever she was. “Let’s go then.”

  “Want to ride in my truck?” He paused and seemed to look everywhere but at her. “Unless you’re not coming back here.”

  Ride with him, then get to come back here, with him. She already told Cindy her plans to stay at the cabin anyway. “If we take one truck, we’ll be less conspicuous.”

  He pulled keys from his pocket. “Let’s go.”

  She locked up quickly behind her and practically skipped across the front. This had been the wildest turn of events. She didn’t know what else to do besides just take cues from him and go with it. If he didn’t want to sit idly by in thought, then she was ready to go.