Candace Carrabus - Dreamhorse 01 - On the Buckle (41 page)

He picked at his broccoli, had a few quick bites of steak, and set his plate aside. “Will you stay here with me tonight, Viola Parker? In my bed?”

I hadn’t finished either, but tossed the T-bone to Noire, took my plate from where it balanced on my knee and put it next to his. Even in the deepening twilight, he must have been able to see the thousand-million questions on my face.

“I’ll just hold you, if that’s all you want.” He rested his elbows on his thighs and looked at his hands. “I can’t really guarantee that’s all that will happen if you do come as far as the bed.” He half smiled, but he wasn’t sure, I could tell.

When I didn’t respond, he continued. “It’s a new bed. I’m the only one who’s used it.”

That rising ache in my chest returned. I knew what it was, now. Joy, and fear—my heart trying to feel, my head fighting to contain it. Answers could wait. I told my head to shut up.

“Just tonight,” he said. “Tomorrow, we can discuss tomorrow night. And the next day—”

“That’s not all I want, Robert Malcolm.”

He stopped and looked at me, and the smile started. Then, he grabbed my hand, and we ran up the stairs, quiet like, so as not to wake Nicky. We slid on the polished wood floor in front of his bedroom and skidded through the doorway. The door, an old and solid one, closed too loudly, and we both froze and listened. When all we heard was our own breathing, laughter burbled up and sloshed over. He put his finger to my lips, and I nipped him.
 

“Is that how it is?” he teased.
 

I nodded very slowly. “Um-hm.”

He leaned in for the kiss, and I closed my eyes, then found myself in his arms, across the room and bounced on the bed. I stifled a shriek.

He climbed over me and said, “Hush,” on a breath. After kissing me senseless, he levered himself up, reached into the drawer in his nightstand, and brandished an unopened box of condoms. He looked both sheepish and uncertain.

His concern and forethought sent a pang of tenderness through me. “Good idea,” I said.

He looked reassured, then paused, and there it was, the expression he got when his brain’s gears were in overdrive. “I haven’t done this in a while.”

I took the box from him and squinted at it. “They’re not expired, are they?”

He snatched it from me, tore it open, and pulled one out. “No, they’re new, like the bed.”

I laid my palm against his cheek. “I haven’t done this in a while either. But I bet we remember how.”

And then our clothes were off, and we were between the cool sheets and his skin, all of his smooth, delicious skin was finally against mine, and I lost track of where I ended and he began.

When he entered me, he buried himself deep with one thrust, and we both went still. I rocked my hips to take him farther inside, and a strained groan escaped his throat.

“I can’t—”

My mind went blank. “You can’t—?”
 

“If either of us moves, I’ll come.”
 

Oh
.
 

I started to laugh. “There’ll be a next time, won’t there?”
 

I’d never thought about it before, but it’s impossible to laugh without moving.

He swore and dug his fingers into my flesh, and his teeth sank into my shoulder, but he couldn’t stop himself.
 

Fortunately, there was a next time.
 

And a next. And, well…the man is in good shape, lots of stamina.

I don’t remember falling asleep. I do remember not dreaming.

- 45 -

I awoke to darkness and that brief disorientation that goes with waking in a strange room with my head on someone else’s pillow. I stretched and felt raw soreness in places that hadn’t known soreness for some time, and I smiled and rolled, and…he wasn’t there.

I hate that.

I got up, found his discarded tee-shirt, pulled it over my head, and tiptoed out. I was almost past Nicky’s open door when I heard a sleepy little voice.

“Daddy?”
 

I thought of continuing, pretending I didn’t hear, but I couldn’t. I went to her bedside.
 

“It’s me, sweetie. You okay? You want me to get your daddy or a glass of water or something?”
 

She shook her head.
 

I sat my hip on the edge of the mattress. “Bad dream?”
 

She shook her head again. “You sleeping in Daddy’s room?”
 

Oh, great. “Yeah. Right next door.”
 

She nodded as if that fit with her expectations.
 

“What happened to JJ?”
 

Crap. Where the hell was her father?

“Well…”
 

“Is he in heaven?”
 

Oh, boy. “Something like that.”
 

“My friend Samantha had a turtle that died. Her mommy said he went to heaven, but Sammi said her brother flushed him down the toilet.”
 

Heaven via the sewer. Sounded about right.
 

Malcolm’s earlier explanation about Brooke came to mind. “JJ was kind of naughty, though, he made some bad choices.”
 

“Oh,” she said. “So, maybe he’s in that other place. I’m not allowed to say it.”
 

I nodded and hoped like the-word-she-couldn’t-say we were finished. She darted her eyes to the window, then back at me. Nope, her little brain was still clicking.

“What did Mommy mean when she said that stuff to JJ?”
 

Oh, please. “What stuff was that?”
 

“She said I was his daughter. What does that mean? How could he be my daddy?”
 

I hoped Malcolm had a healthy savings account. I could just see the therapist bills piling up. For me.
 

I’ve never believed in lying to kids. For the first time, I understood the virtue in it. Or, at least the necessity. But I’d no experience with it. I took her hand.
 

“Your daddy…” I started. “Your daddy is—”
 

I stopped and swallowed hard and thought back to a time before I understood that Uncle Vick wasn’t my father, to the confusion I felt when they explained.

“Who hugs you when you get a boo-boo?”

She gave a little shrug and answered very matter-of-factly. “Daddy.”
 

“Who tucked you into bed tonight, and read you a story, and has always been there for you no matter what?”

“Daddy.”

“Who loves you more than anything in the whole world?”

“Daddy.”

She could answer so quickly. After they’d explained my situation to me, I’d never been sure again.

“That’s because he’s your Daddy, sweetheart.” I gave her hand a squeeze, hoping I was saying the right thing, considered adding, “and always will be,” but thought better of making promises that weren’t mine to keep.

“Vi, are you sad?”

“No, of course not.”

“But, you’re crying.” She sat up and hugged me and patted my back. “It’s okay. You were very brave today.”

I snorted a laugh through my tears. “You’d better get back to sleep, Missy, if you think you’re going to help Clara with that quilt tomorrow.” I laid her on her pillow, snugged a stuffed purple rabbit next to her cheek, and tucked the sheet around her.
 

She rolled onto her side and hugged the rabbit. “Okay,” she said.
 

I stood and backed out of the room.
 

“Vi?” she said before I could clear the doorway.
 

“Yes?”
 

“I’m glad you came home with us.”
 

“Me, too.”
 

I smiled and went downstairs to locate Malcolm. He was out on the back porch again, sitting in the dark on the swing, not swinging.
 

“Hey,” he said and held his hand out to me.

“Hey,” I answered and took his hand and joined him on the swing. He put his arm around my waist and pulled me tight to his side. I had a moment of panic, thinking he was out here regretting what had happened between us, but when I sat, I noticed the letter Helen had given him earlier lying on the cushion beside him.
 

“Everything okay?” I asked.

He handed me the letter. “Take it inside to read,” he said. “I don’t want to turn the light on out here. Too many bugs.”

I did as he said and went all the way to the kitchen where a florescent under-the-counter light burned. He’d opened the blue envelope carefully—it was neatly slit along a short side—then refolded the pages and slipped them back in about halfway. The two pages of pale-blue stationery showed wear, like the letter had been written long ago, then folded and unfolded and fingered many times before finally being sealed in a matching envelop. Behind the letter were a couple of documents of some kind, but I wanted to read, first.

The handwriting was Catholic-school neat. It was dated thirty-two years before.

My Darling Robert James,

I miss you so much. My body and my heart ache for
 

you. But I’m sure I have done the right thing. Your
 

father insists he will give you a better life, and his
 

wife will love you like her own. I have nothing.

But I want you to know that I will never stop thinking
 

about you. I’ve met a man who recently lost his wife
 

and has a little son and older daughter to raise. He’s
 

asked me to marry him, and I will. Your father
 

is selling him a bit of ground nearby, so I will never
 

be far away.

I hope you will forgive me.

Your loving mother.

The next page was dated ten years later.

Robert,

You are growing into such a fine young man. I am
 

so proud of you. I try to stay away because that is
 

what your father wants, but it is so hard. And now
 

there is trouble between him and my husband—John’s
 

been carrying on with your other mother. He does it
 

to punish me because I told him about you. I’m
 

afraid your father will do something if he finds out.
 

I don’t know what to do.

She didn’t sign it at that point. There was a break, then a date of a few months later. No salutation.

He’s gone. I’m relieved, may the Lord forgive me, but
 

I know your father had something to do with it. I
 

accused him to his face. He didn’t deny it, but he said
 

if I told anyone, he would send you away. I would
 

never see you again. I couldn’t bear that. He has
 

already sent his wife to stay in the city for a while.
 

And John Junior—no, no one must know. Please
 

forgive me. I never stopped loving
 
you.

Your mother, Helen James

The first document was Malcolm’s birth certificate: Robert James Malcolm. It listed Robert Alfred Malcolm as father and Helen Elizabeth James as mother. She’d given him her last name as his middle, and evidently Malcolm senior had let her. A concession, under the circumstances. The second document was another birth certificate—clearly a copy, not an original. It listed the same father, but Susan Marie Malcolm as mother. I carefully refolded everything and returned to the porch. Malcolm stood out in the yard, looking up at the night sky. It was dense with stars like I’d never seen before.