01 Untouchable - Untouchable (33 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

When I opened my eyes, it was daylight
outside. My head throbbed and my mouth was dry. I could feel
something heavy over my waist. I looked down it was his arm—and I
was completely bare.

I don’t remember screaming as much as I
remember the sound of it. I scrambled, stumbled, tripped and
tumbled away from the bed in a panic. He sat up, telling me to calm
down, but I ran for the bathroom and slammed the door.

Thank God my robe was hanging there. I
slipped it on shaking violently, trying to remember what
happened.

“
Leese, open the door,
please.”

“
N-n-no,” I shuddered. Then
I was screaming and crying again.

“
Please, Baby,
please
open the
door.”

“
What did you—(I choked on a
sob)—what did you do to me?”

“
Please believe me; I didn’t
do anything to you. You’ve got to believe me. David gave you a lot
of ecstasy in your coke last night. Please, open the
door.”

It was becoming clearer: the
restaurant, his family, dinner, singing, talking about my
step-father. The memories rushed back into my mind and the
throbbing increased. I remembered him making me throw
up.

“
Please, open the door,” he
pleaded once more.

My fingers turned the lock and opened
it slightly.

“
Leese,” he called to me
softly, pushing the door further open.

“
I feel sick,” I mumbled. My
empty stomach was rolling, but there was only acrid air coming up.
I gagged and crawled toward the edge of the tub. I felt his warm
hands supporting my waist, holding me until my stomach
calmed.

“
I’m okay now. Help me to
the sink.” My legs were wobbly as he lifted me to my feet. I was a
wreck and I didn’t want to look in the mirror. I swished mouthwash
and spit it out, feeling the fresh burn in my mouth and sinuses.
When I grabbed my brush, I finally looked at my
reflection.

He was standing there watching me. He
looked about as rough as I felt. His chest was bare and there were
scratches on his skin. I saw what looked like bruises along his
neckline, and then I remembered seeing something like that before
on a friend that had made-out. They were hickies. His slacks from
the night before were deeply crumpled from having been worn to bed
wet. Yet, it was his face that disturbed me the most, the way he
was looking at me. Just knowing what I’d done, remembering that I
begged him to stay with me… More memories were rushing back and I
knew I’d said the wrong things to him last night. His was the face
of knowledge and that knowledge had crushed him.

The tears were coming; I couldn’t hold
them back. I tried to brush my hair. Doing something normal I
hoped, would stop the emotions from taking over, but I couldn’t do
it. I dropped the brush to the counter and turned. I looked into
that face and begged him to forgive me. I felt the wonderful arms
as he cradled me and then swept me off the floor and returned me to
the bed.

He was wiping away the tears from my
cheeks and forcing back my lowered chin so that I had to look at
him and see the pain I caused.

“
You told me some things
last night, Leese. We’ve got to talk.”

“
I’m so sorry. I never meant
to hurt you.”

“
Stop apologizing, it wasn’t
your fault and, in a way, I’m glad it happened.”

“
Glad? How could you
be…”

“
Or I’d never known until it
was too late. I want to hear you say it—sober and in the light of
day, I want you to tell me what you told me last night.”

“
I can’t. Please, don’t make
me do this. There’s no reason to go through all this pain. It won’t
matter…”

“
It matters to me,” his
voice becoming urgent.

“
It’s sadistic to go through
this. It’s bad enough what has to happen, but do we have to make it
hurt this much?

“
Tell me. I have to hear
it.” He wouldn’t let me turn my face away.

I studied those eyes for a long moment
and I could see the need, the deep longing and the pain to hear
what he already knew. “I—I love you, Micah Gavarreen. I love you
with all my heart.” I had told him I wasn’t going to call him by
his real name, but he had to know that I loved him no matter who he
was or what he’d done.

We simply held each other. I’d never
felt anything so good as wrapping my arms around him, feeling his
arms around me and finally getting to admit the truth that had been
aching inside my heart for too long.

He relaxed his hold and pulled away,
brushing the hair from my face as he did. “Go ahead and get
dressed.” He rose up and pulled the bedroom doors closed, leaving
me alone.

I took my cotton gym shorts from the
dresser, slipped on a tank and went out of the room to look for
him. He was still upstairs. I noticed the alarm panel hadn’t been
set in all the commotion last night so I went out the back door
onto the patio. There was something dark lying by one of the lounge
chairs, and, as I approached, I realized it was the pile of my
clothes from last night. I sat down, picking up the items and
folding them slowly, placing them on the small table beside me. I
couldn’t believe it was all there right down to my undergarments. I
had stripped outdoors.

I recalled the look when I turned and
saw his face, the expression when he saw what I’d done. The look
had been so gentle that I could almost reach out my fingers and
touch the memory.

I felt the lounger sink down, and I
knew he was beside me. My eyes were closed. The shirt I had worn
last night folded tightly in my hands and pressed to my face. I
could still smell the scents of the restaurant.

“
You told me a lot of things
last night,” came his tender words. “You didn’t hold anything back
so I believe they were all true.” He paused, his hand reaching over
and rubbing softly between my shoulder blades. “Do you remember
much of what you said?”

I nodded, still clutching the fabric
tightly.

“
You told me you were going
to make this all easier for me—at the end.” It sounded as if his
throat had caught on the last words. “I don’t want you to do
anything. Do you understand me? Don’t…”

“
I didn’t want you to have
that memory,” I whispered.

“
Promise me—swear to me, by
God, that you won’t do anything like that.” He was removing the
shirt from my grasp, turning my shoulders toward him. “I can live
with whatever I have to do, but I couldn’t—I couldn’t handle that.
Innocence doesn’t destroy innocence. Swear it to me, Leese. Make me
the most honest promise you’ve ever made.”

I looked at him and threw my arms
around his neck, clinging against the rock solid frame. “I’m sorry,
I didn’t know you felt that way about it—I promise.”

I held on a little longer, then let him
go. “My head is about to split apart. Do you have some aspirin,
Tylenol, anything that might help?”

He left for a few minutes and returned
with a glass of cranberry and a couple aspirin. I forced them down,
my stomach still trying to roll. “How did you know? Who called
you?”

“
Gwen. After we left, I
guess David got to bragging that he had solved my problem. All he
figured he had to do was turn you on and I’d never be able to say
no. She was in a panic and she told me to make you throw
up.”

“
But, I remember, you did
get me to throw up. Why didn’t it work?”

“
My God, Leese, he must have
given you enough to kill a horse.”

“
Would I have—I mean would
an over-dose have been…”

“
I think if Gwen hadn’t
called, you’d be dead or at least in a coma.” Then I could see the
anger flashing in his eyes, “I’d kill him right now if it hadn’t
ended up making you tell me what was going on. You told me
something else last night.”

I didn’t know what else could have been
more revealing than what we’d just been through so I could only
look at him expectantly and wait to cringe.

“
You broke the rules, Leese.
You know I meant
no
contact, not just no phone calls.”

Oh—yeah, that was a big cringe. “I’m—I
was just afraid she would be going crazy by now…” My hands went up
to rub my temples, “Why would anyone do this to themselves on
purpose? I feel like a piece of crap!”

“
Come on, let’s get you back
inside and out of the sun. He wrapped his arm around me and helped
me navigate indoors. Instead of feeling better after the aspirin, I
was feeling dizzier and weaker by the minute.

“
Do you want to go to your
room?”

“
No, my sheets are damp. How
about the couch for a little while?”

We went into the family room and I lay
down, pulling the cushion securely under my aching head. I woke
about two hours later, took a couple more aspirins and went back to
sleep. It was one in the afternoon when he woke me up to get me to
eat some lunch. I sat up slowly, taking the warm cup of soup from
his hands. I sipped it, letting the salted broth trickle down my
throat.

“
Starting to feel
better?”

“
Yeah, just a
little.”

“
Eat some bread with the
soup,” he said, offering some slices he had brought with him.
“Something solid in your stomach is bound to help.”

“
Thank you,” I said, setting
the items down on the coffee table.

“
You’re wel…”

“
No, not about lunch, but
thank you for not—last night would have been an easy excuse for you
to abandon your promise.”

“
You have no idea how… Well,
let’s just say I found strength that I didn’t think existed. You
are,” he paused. “You are a very, very beautiful woman—and really
insistent when you want something badly enough.”

I felt the blush cover me so
completely, it was like a second wave of the drug was releasing in
my system.

We sat there together for a little
while listening to the sound of thunder in the distance. The sky
had begun to cloud and I was certain that the rain would be here
soon. He turned on the television, flipping it to a local news
channel that played the weather report every ten minutes. We had
just missed the report and would have to wait before we could see
it.

My heart jumped to my throat as visions
on the screen of something familiar began to play. It was a
helicopter shot of a huge house on the water. I snatched the remote
from his hand and hit the volume.

“…
heiress to the Joseph
Parkerson fortune was found this morning…”

Oh dear God, no! I was on my feet, my
hand clamped over my gapping mouth, stifling a scream.

“
...by her husband, after
slitting her wrists in an attempted suicide. Mrs. Winslett has been
distraught over the disappearance of her seventeen year old
daughter, Annalisa. She was taken by ambulance to Columbia
Hospital’s psychiatric ward and has been listed as being in
serious, but stable condition.”

“
I’ve gotta go home!” I
cried, trying to push him out of my way. “I’ve gotta…”

“
No, Leese, it’s too
dangerous.”

“
I DON’T CARE!” I screamed
at him, “Mom needs me. I’ve got to go! You’ve got to let me go!” I
was pushing, hitting and shoving as he struggled to get a handle on
me. “MOVE!”

“
NO!” He yelled it back so
loud that he scared me. “You can’t go there. You’ll be walking
right into a trap. Sharon Norton’s man is going to find you and
shoot you, run you off the road, or blow you up. It won’t matter to
him as long as you’re dead!”

“
I have to go. I’m as good
as dead anyway. I’m just waiting here for my time to be up! I’d
rather die in Palm Beach trying to help my mom than to wait here
and torture both of us!”

“
Please, Leese, I don’t know
enough about the other man. I’ve got to know more about what you’re
up against.”

“
I’m up against the wall,
that’s where I’m at. You’ve got for however long it takes to get
from here to Palm Beach to learn what you can about him. I have to
go to her. Please understand;
I have to
go.
”

“
I’ve got to pack,” he
relented with a sigh. “Get your things together. We’ll take the
Trans Am because I can’t fit everything we need in the
Vet.”

I was ready in five minutes after
having stuffed my items into a duffle bag that he had given me. It
seemed that he was taking an eternity to get ready, and then I saw
him coming down the stairs. He carried the long gray case, the
black case and a single duffle. He set the alarm and locked the
house as I stood impatiently by the car. I helped him load the
trunk and was ready to go, but he told me I’d have to give him a
minute. He opened the garage and parked the Vet inside and then
immerged carrying my holster, Glock and jacket. The gun was secured
in the trunk, and he tossed me the jacket and climbed into the
driver’s side as the familiar sound of a heavy metal machine filled
my ears.