Broken Wings (A Romantic Suspense) (8 page)

“I don’t want anybody else, I want you.”

I round on him. “Do you? Do you? How long can you keep it up, Jack?” I point at my face. “If this doesn’t turn your stomach, maybe this will.”

I yank the glove off my left hand and hold it up. Jack winces but immediately takes my wrist in his hand, pressing his fingertips into my skin. He leans in and touches the tip of my smallest finger, the most gnarled and burnt, to his lip.

I blink a few times.

“I can’t feel that. No nerve endings.”

“Oh, so I should kiss you where you can feel it?”

I suck in a breath as my stomach does a back flip. He can see the look on my face, damn him. For the first time I can ever remember, I turn away from someone to my right. I should laugh. I’m hiding behind my scars.

Jack’s hand rests against my cheek and he turns my head. His thumb caresses lightly along my cheekbone.

“You can feel that, right?”

“Yes.”

I can feel it. It tickles, and his palm is warm. I lean into his hand, rubbing my skin against his. It’s been so long since I felt someone else’s skin on mine. I think I’ve been touched by doctors more than by family or friends.

I sniff his wrist. He smells like Jack. All this time and he smells the same.

“Give me a chance. Please.”

I put my hand on his arm, and then the other. The shakes start in my legs and climb up as tension builds in my muscles. Every rational fiber of my being is screaming that this is wrong, he does not deserve another chance, I should not listen to him, but if that’s true, why does it feel so right?

Jack is not one to wait and contemplate. He throws his arms around me and his face fills my vision as his hands push into my back and press me against him. Without thinking I embrace him in return, digging my fingers into his side as I rub my useless claw of a hand against his back.

Fitzgerald half steps into the room. His eyes go wide and he steps back out, and I hear him shuffle down the hall.

“He’s not going to watch, is he?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. You’re not forgiven.”

“Then what’s this?”

“I don’t know, just don’t stop doing it.”

I bury my face against his chest and breathe in. I can’t choose a word to describe his scent. It’s just an aura of Jack-ness that flows into my lungs and warms me from the inside when I’m close to him. I press my eye shut and lean on him a little.

Oh my, what’s that?

“
Jack
!”

“What? I’m not a robot.”

I push out of his arms and step back to the counter, breathing hard. I’m still shaking. I snatch my glove from the edge of the sink and tug it back into place.

He moves closer. “Hey. I’m not going to make you do anything you’re not ready for.”

“Does that mean if I’m ready you’ll make me do it?”

“Wait, what?”

“Nothing, never mind. I need a drink.”

I pour myself a glass of orange juice from the fridge and sip it, trying to wet my dry throat. I feel a twitch and realize that Jack has stepped up behind me and started playing with my hair.

I shake loose from him and scowl. “Stop that.”

“I missed it,” he says, twirling a lock of hair around his finger. “Remember how I used to do it in class? That one time you smacked my hand. You were so embarrassed when the teacher…”

“I remember,” I say softly.

Truth was, I’d forgotten. Or, maybe, I just put it away, shoved it out of my head. I can feel the weight of it now, all the memory. It’s been so long. It’s like standing with my back to a bookcase full of dusty tomes, screaming at me to pull them down and read them.

“I think about that stuff all the time. I guess I’m a little obsessed. Do you?”

I turn around and face him. The glass taps lightly on the counter as I set it down.

“I try not to.”

He flinches, hurt.

“Why—”

“Because I wasn’t always like this. Thinking about it hurts as much as the scars. I just want to let it go.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“Who asked you?” I snap.

“The person I remember is still in there.”

He puts his palm on the scarred side of my face.

“This is not you.”

“Yes it is. It’s not going away. I’m not going to sing a song and turn pretty again because you say you love me.”

“You’re not hearing me,” he snaps, biting the words. “I don’t care about the scars.”

“I do.”

I tug away from him and step out of his grasp.

“Sometimes, I’d wish I’d never met you.”

I blink and round on him. Anger and fear churn like hot water and cold, the steam from it bubbling up my throat to wet my eye.

“You’d be better off without me. We’d never have been in that car. There’d never have been an accident. Your dad would be here, your face would be fine, and you’d have somebody else, somebody better than me.”

“How dare you,” I choke out. “How
dare you
.”

“Ellie, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

There’s a knock at the front door.

A moment later Fitzgerald pops his head into the kitchen. He spots the tears burning on my cheeks and gives Jack a hard look, but then sighs.

“Your cousin Laetitia is here, Miss Ellie.”

“Goddamn it,” Jack snaps. “Ellie, do you trust her?”

I tamp down my fury. “No. I hate her.”

“Will she tell your mom I’m here? Or my father?”

“If she thinks she can get something out of it.”

Jack looks around. There’s another knock at the door.

“Should I let her in?”

“Wait thirty seconds and then let her in, yeah. Tell her Ellie’s in her room and doesn’t want to be bothered today.”

“Wait. I’m not in my room—”

“No, you’re not. You’re coming with me.”

“
What
?”

“I’m kidnapping you.”

Fitzgerald tenses.

“Jack, for Christ’s sake—”

“You never saw me. Ellie snuck out and told you she didn’t want to be disturbed, get me?”

“I can’t just let you leave with her—”

“Fitz,” I say, my voice trembling. “I’m going with him. We’re going out the back.”

Jack

“Wait, what?”

“I’m coming with you. Let’s go.”

I stare at her in disbelief. I don’t really have a plan past this point, because I didn’t think she’d actually agree to come with me.

Ellie tugs her hood up over her head, pulls it forward and around her face, and grabs my hand. I squeeze hard, and she squeezes back, digging her fingers into my palm.

“The back door.”

There’s a mudroom off the kitchen. We walk through and out into the shallow backyard. A gate opens to the alley between the houses. I hold Ellie’s hand and she walks behind me, close to my back as we creep around toward the front.

Her cousin must already be inside. I look both ways and pull Ellie with me across the street, throw open the Camaro’s door, and almost dump her inside. I jump in behind the wheel, start it up, and pull out, my heart pounding. This is actually happening.

“So now I have kidnapped you, and you are at my mercy.”

She punches my arm.

When we stop at the corner we both just look at each other. Ellie looks from me to her hand and back again, then tucks it in the pocket of her sweatshirt.

“So what now?”

“Um,” I say. “I don’t know. I hadn’t planned it this far.”

“Your dad is going to be angry with you, right?”

“Yeah. I don’t want to be around when he hears this.”

I sit in the seat, staring straight ahead. Somebody behind me blows their horn. For no real reason I turn left, circle around, and drive back down Third toward Market Street. Ellie stares out the window, though she hunches down in the seat and peers over the door like she expects someone to recognize her.

“This is nuts. Take me back.”

“We should circle a bit until your cousin leaves.”

“She won’t be there long. I wonder what the hell she wanted?”

I turn right onto Market and drive to the end, where it stops at a big concrete abutment at the river, then swing over into the on ramp for 95 South.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m kidnapping you. To, um…my mom’s house.”

“Where’s that?”

“Arizona.”

“
What
? Are you
insane
?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

I rev up the engine as I pull out onto the highway and then stop myself and slow to a sedate cruising speed five miles under the speed limit. I’m probably lucky I wasn’t pulled over and dragged back to work already.

“Take me back,” Ellie says.

“Why, so you can go sit in your room and brood?”

“How do you know that’s what I do? You don’t know anything about me. We haven’t seen each other for ten years. I have hobbies.”

“Like what?”

“I like to color.”

I snort. “What, like a coloring book?”

Exasperated, she folds her arms over her chest. “Yes. It’s soothing. It’s called art therapy.”

“Oh. Some of the vets do that in therapy sessions. Like color in mandalas and stuff. I’ve never tried it.”

“That’s right, you were in the army.”

“Yeah. I resigned my commission not long ago. Dad wanted me to stay in the reserves until I’m old enough to run for Senate, but fuck that.”

“Senate? For real?”

“Yeah,” I sigh. “He has my whole life planned out. Do this, do that, go here, cross off this mark on your résumé so I can buy you a political office. He can’t run himself.”

“Why not?”

I sigh. “Well, all the divorces, for one thing. I mean, he’s him. Remember that
Murphy Brown
show that was on when we were kids?”

“Not really, no.”

I sigh. “Well, in my house it was required watching so Dad could rage when they made a joke about him. He’s been bankrupt six times. He’s rumored to have ties to organized crime. Guy like that can’t run for office unless it’s to sell books.”

“Does he?”

“What, sell books?”

She sighs. “No, have ties to organized crime.”

“I don’t know.”

We’re both silent for a moment. The only sound is road noise and the throaty hum of the engine. I squeeze the wheel harder.

“Do you remember what happened that night?”

“No. Last thing I remember is going to the restaurant. I blacked out then I woke up weeks later in the burn ward. They’d already done the skin grafts.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know. Everyone is.”

“I mean I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

Ellie looks at me in the rearview mirror. With her in the passenger’s seat to my right, I can’t see her face. She has her hood pulled over the scars.

“You can put your hood back. You don’t need to hide your face from me.”

“Yeah, whatever. I need to hide it from everyone else.”

“Ellie—”

“Somebody might recognize me. If they don’t recognize you first.”

I keep driving.

“Do you even have any idea how to get where we’re going?”

“I could put it in my GPS, but where’s the fun in that?”

When the exit comes up to head west on the interstate, I take it.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Ellie mutters.

“Me either. I didn’t think you’d come. Why did you?”

She slinks down in the seat, lowers her hood, and fiddles with her hair, like she doesn’t know whether to pull it back or drape it over her face.

“I don’t know. I…” She looks out the window.

“We’re going to get caught.”

“Yeah, but I want my father to have time to cool down before he catches me. I’m less likely to end up in a ditch that way.”

“You really think he’d hurt you?”

I choke the wheel in my hands again. “He ripped my heart out. I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

“What do you mean, he ripped your heart out?”

I glance at her quickly.

“Oh.”

“I didn’t want to go. They literally carried me onto the plane.”

I grip the wheel harder. “He said to me, ‘I’m not going to let you fuck up your life over your first pussy.’ I didn’t say anything, so he just kept talking. ‘A congressman or a senator can’t have a wife with a fucked-up face. If you make it to the White House, your wife has to be on the cover of
Mom’s Magazine
or some shit. The scars will earn you some sympathy points at first, but people will get disgusted with her quick. Last thing anybody needs to see is you making out with Frankenstein.’ I tried to argue with him but he just said half your face was fucked up and if you even lived, you’d be a freak show.”

It just pours out of me all at once. I scrub at my eyes and force myself to slow my breathing. Christ, Jack. Get it together.

Ellie just sits there.

“He said that about me?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you say?”

I drive for a while and squirm in the seat. I scrub my hand over my chin and scratch at my cheek.

“I told him I didn’t care how you looked, I love you.”

“Ten years, Jack.”

“Eight. I wasn’t even an adult for two of them.”

“You had summers off from college.”

“Actually,” I sigh, “I didn’t. I did a double major in business and economics. I had to take summer courses to graduate on time. All three summer interims.”

“Okay, fine, but—”

“I was in the Army, Ellie. You can’t just go bopping halfway around the world for the weekend. They kinda tell you when you’re allowed to leave.”

“You could have tried calling me, or…”

“If I tried calling, my father would know. He pays for my phones. Or one of his assistants would know.”

“So—”

I sigh, exasperated. “I wrote letters.”

“You did?”

“Yes. I sent one every week at first, then once a month when you weren’t answering. When I was in combat it was tough getting them out, but I did. Once every six weeks or so. You never got any?”

She sits up and shakes her head. “No. Are you telling me the truth?”

“Yes. I swear on my—”

“Your mom isn’t dead, Jack. We’re driving to see her. Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

“Would you have listened?”

She looks at me and sinks back into her seat, sulking.

“I’m not sure I believe you.”

“Why not?”

“You could have made that up to make it sound like you were trying to reach me.”