A Far Gone Night (34 page)

In a tiny voice, she said, “Thank you, Thomas, but… ”

I kissed her so that she would stop talking and she did. I let go of her hand and opened the box and extended it to her, revealing a simple, one-carat diamond ring nestled in a white satin setting.

I said, “I love you, Liv, and I’m asking you to marry me and make me happier than an Iowa win in the Rose Bowl.
Much
happier than that.
A profound and enduring
happiness,
and I’ll do everything I can to make you even happier.”

Liv looked at me, tears streaming down her face, and then she reached out, slowly closed the lid to the box, and folded my fingers around the gift. The tiny red bow fell off. She pushed my hand away.

“Thomas, I love you, too. I do. More than you know. But the truth is
,
someone’s going to kill you someday, Thomas. They will. I’m a selfish person and I don’t think I have it in me to wake up alone in your bed in your lovely home, knowing that I have lost you to some evil, malignant, crazy person you’ve somehow brought into your life,
our
life. I can’t do that. I won’t. But I want to be with you and love you and kiss you and touch you as time permits, when we can steal away and love, knowing that it could end in an instant.

“Thomas, I want you to tell me now what happened with you and Moon and Clancy. I told you I would want to know, that I would ask. Please do not lie. There’s
a calm
, a stillness around Cindy’s death since Clancy left. Moon’s car was stolen, you’ve been shot twice. Tell me.”

I did, leaving nothing out. She was trembling when I finished.

“So,” she said, “you were on your way to
Chalaka
to kill those men when you met them on the road?”

“Yes, and they were on their way to kill us. They fired first.
Self-defense.”

“And that’s your justification for killing six men?”

 
“I only killed three.”

“You think that’s funny? My God, I doubt if you even knew their names.”

“It’s simpler that way.”

“Thank you for not lying to me, Thomas. That’s something to build on there, my love, my heart,” she said. And then she broke down, falling against me and sobbing. I stroked her golden hair and kissed the top of her head. When she stopped, she looked up and said, “Let’s just be as we are now, Thomas. We are good together, aren’t we?”

“Yes, of course. But,” I said, pausing, gathering my courage to say something that was harder than facing those killers at that deserted barn two weeks ago, “I don’t want to continue as we are. I do, but I want more. I want
deeper
. I want to be your husband. I want you to be my wife. I want to do the right thing.”

Silently, Liv’s tears came from deep within her as she lifted her tear-streaked face to me, mascara running and her nose dripping. She looked beautiful. “Thomas, you honor me, and I am so sorry that we can’t, that I can’t do what you want. I want to give my heart and soul to you, but you continue to frighten me. There is death around you, Thomas. There is murder, revenge, danger over and over and over again. It will never stop as long as you live.”

“Would you have me ignore Cindy murdered in the river? Would you have me let Moon try to bring justice all by himself? I can’t be like that.”

Liv sniffed and dabbed her free hand across her nose. “And there’s the rub, Thomas O’Shea, and I love you for it. You can’t stay away from trouble. This is done, the
Soderstrom
violence is done, but there will be more. It’s who you are.”

“All of those things were in self-defense, Liv. Understand that.”

“I do understand, but Thomas, everything in life is, really, self-defense one way or another, but you go
look
for opportunities to defend yourself. And one day it won’t work, and I’m not going to be there to bewail the loss of my one love in my life, my husband. I’ll weep at your funeral, Thomas, but not as your wife.
Lover?
Yes.
Wife?
I can’t.”

I rose to my feet, pulling her up with me. And I kissed her lips and she kissed me back and I left her, sobbing again, the ring in its box back in my pocket. I went outside and heard Liv’s door close softly behind me. I sat in the truck for a moment and nearly went back to the woman and the night and her body. Then I cursed principles, cursed myself, cursed the night. I started the engine and pulled away, turned around at the next corner, and drove.

As I crossed the bridge it began snowing again, hard. I stopped the truck and got out, leaving the engine running and the door open. It was cold. There was no traffic, so many people asleep in their beds on this Christmas
eve
, children hoping Christmas morning would hurry up so they could head for the gifts under the tree, which reminded me that I hadn’t collected Liv’s gift for
me
.
Darn.

I put my elbows on the parapet and looked down at the north side of the river rushing beneath the bridge, to the spillway, and beyond, where its waters would merge with the Mississippi and continue on south, past Clinton and Davenport, St. Louis and below to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico.

I stood up and took out the little black velvet box and removed the ring. I stared at it for a moment, admiring its pristine, simple setting. I held it out over the black water for a long moment,
then
put it back in the box and into my pocket again.

Someday I would place that ring on Olivia Olson’s finger. Someday I would marry her. In the meantime, I would go home, not so lonely when I thought about it. After all, Gotcha was waiting for me, and there was a refrigerator with multiple bottles of Three Philosophers,
Baileys
Irish Cream in the cabinet keeping the Myer’s Rum
company
. That wasn’t so bad.

I climbed back in the truck, suddenly weary. The snow picked up a bit, and I drove on home peering into beautiful flakes blowing about ahead of me, startlingly white in my headlights that would lead me to the house on the bluff overlooking two river valleys, deep and immutable in the dark of the storm.

Author’s Acknowledgements

I want to thank the kind, patient, and skilled people at
Neverland
Publishing for their help in this writing. That would be Maggie, Donna, and Joe. You're the best.

Also, with much acclaim, I would like to thank my Book Concierge, Rowe Copeland, for her dedication to help me get my stories out to readers everywhere and for promoting my work intelligently, effectively and professionally.

Furthermore, thanks to Melinda Walker, Melissa
Lovin
, Kevin Coyle, and Dara Ross in the
novelistas
writers' group; as well as those in another critique group, The Write Minds, for their careful reading and wise feedback on
A Far Gone Night
.

And thank you to my colleagues at Newberry College (especially fellow author Dr. Warren Moore III,
Broken Glass Waltzes
) for their enthusiasm for
Signs of Struggle
and desire to see the sequel.

Finally, on a family note, thanks and appreciation to my long-suffering wife, Lisa, for her faith in me and her daily encouragement.

J
ohn
Carenen
, a native of Clinton, Iowa, graduated with an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from the prestigious University of Iowa Writers Workshop and has been writing ever since. His work has appeared in numerous popular and literary magazines, and he has been a featured columnist in newspapers in North and South Carolina. A novel,
Son-up, Son-down
was published by the National Institute of Mental Health.

His debut Thomas O'Shea mystery novel,
Signs of Struggle
, was published in October of 2012.
A Far Gone Night
, the long-anticipated sequel, continues the exploits of the enigmatic protagonist and the quirky characters of
Rockbluff
, Iowa.

John is currently an English professor at Newberry College in Newberry, South Carolina. He and his wife live in their cozy cottage down a quiet lane in northern Greenville, South Carolina. He is a big fan of the Iowa Hawkeyes and Boston Red Sox.