Liberty (3 page)

Lexy eased herself away from him, her resolve renewed. He reacted immediately, grabbing her hand. The touch made her slightly shaky. His grip was stronger than before. His large thick fingers covered her hand. He was definitely stronger, but not strong enough to keep her there. She could get away if she needed to.

“Relax, champ,” she soothed, even though she was nowhere near feeling soothed herself. “I just need to shave you. Your mother will be here soon and she’ll probably want to kiss you silly.”

That seemed to appease him and he let go of her, closing his eyes. Last night after he had fallen asleep she snuck out to Wal-Mart and bought a few supplies that they would need. Soap. Deodorant. A shave kit. She also picked up a manlier-flavored Chapstick, but left it in the bag.

Smearing cherry-flavored lip balm on his now soft lips was more appealing. She found herself applying it again even though his lips were no longer dry and cracked. They looked kissable. So much so that she puckered up and set a soft peck upon his mouth. It had been a long time since she had kissed him like that and the urge took her by surprise. She hadn’t wanted to kiss him in years. She couldn’t remember the last time she had done so.

It must not have been like this, even though this kiss was simple. Just two pairs of lips brushing each other. But it caused Lexy to feel a tingle in a place she long ago thought was dead.

Ryan must have felt the power of it, too. He must have noted the difference between this kiss and the others they had shared so long ago because his eyes fluttered open and he gazed at her before he slipped back to sleep.

She stepped away from him, turned her back to him when that wasn’t enough. What the hell had she just done? Why had she kissed him? Why had she wanted to? She would never let herself forget what he had done to her. She would not let the passage of time dull her memories. She counted her scars every day. He was bad to her. She hated him. What on earth possessed her to do that?

And why did she like it? The strange reaction by her body alarmed her. She wouldn’t do that again. She wouldn’t kiss him. His kisses were what got her in trouble in the first place. But it had been a long time since she’d had gentle human contact. For the past ten years she’d felt empty. Maybe she would start to date again after they divorced. Maybe she would find a nice man to spend time with. Not to marry.

She would never marry again.

She filled a basin with water and draped a towel over Ryan, determined to not let the kiss bother her too much. This must be a test, she thought. God was just seeing how strong she had become. He was wondering if she really took those Sunday school lessons to heart. Yes, she reassured herself, that must be it.

She lathered him up with the spice-scented shave gel. If he were in his right mind he would have objected to this, too. As long as she had known him he had been shaving with that old-fashioned canned foam that cost less than a dollar.

Taking care to avoid his recent scars she began to shave his face. At some point he opened her eyes and studied her.

“Jesus, you’re gorgeous,” she muttered as she revealed a portion of his wide, chiseled jaw. “I guess I forgot how good-looking you were. I married you because you were handsome, but now I kinda wish God would have gave you more brains than beauty. Maybe we wouldn’t hate each other so much.” She swirled the razor around in the water to clear it. “I guess that’s why you joined the marines.” She looked at him more seriously. “Why did you enlist?” Her shave finished, she wiped his face with a towel. His eyes were barely open at this point. He was lost again in that state of near slumber. “Did you do it to make your mama proud, or did you want to get away from me that bad?”

She knew she had wanted him to go.

“No,” she heard a sweet Southern voice say. “He wanted to make you proud.”

She found her mother-in-law standing there. Mary was an adorable, fluffy-ash-blonde-haired lady. A real lady who wore pink cardigans and pearls. A lady with a soul as gentle as her son’s was brutal.

She was crying.

Just as Lexy had when she had seen him for the first time. He looked much better now and she was glad that Mary hadn’t seen him at his worst.

“My baby,” she whispered as she walked over to him. She looked unsure, afraid that he might break.

“It’s okay, Mama. He’s sleeping. He’ll be okay. I’m sure.”

She believed her words. Only the good die young.

The older woman hugged her fiercely.

“I asked him to turn his life around,” she sobbed. “I asked him to do it for you. I know he wasn’t a good husband. You have every right to leave him, but please don’t leave him like this. I can’t take care of him alone and he loves you, Lexy. He always has. Give him a chance.”

Reality came crashing down around her all too quickly. No longer was it just her and her wounded patient in their own little world. Now there was truth and obligations and the past to relive. They would have to go home eventually. Be together as man and wife or caretaker and patient until he was well enough to be on his own. Once again her resolve took a hit. Every day she spent in his presence she would be haunted by their past.

Her insides felt like they were being ripped out. She knew she couldn’t stay. She wouldn’t give him another chance. She couldn’t forget what he had done to her.

“Mary, don’t do this to me. I’ll stay until he can take care of himself, but I’ve got to move on.”

She nodded solemnly. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to guilt you.”

The final straw had come nearly two years ago when he had smacked her. One night in a drunken stupor he had hit her for asking him not to drink. He had tried to keep her under his thumb for years but Lexy never could neatly fit. She hit him back like she had done each time he dared to raise a hand to her. She knew how bad he could be when his drinking grew out of control. But that night her fear of him was forgotten. And she paid for it with the rage he flew into. She looked like she had been the one who went to war, her face unrecognizable, too. Black-and-purple eyes, lips that were split and a bruise that covered the entire right side of her face.

Ryan hadn’t looked much better. She had fought back hard that night. She kicked and punched and scratched until she had no energy left. There could be no denying what took place that night. There weren’t sunglasses big enough to cover her bruises. Amazingly no one in their small town found out about their final battle. Only Mary. Ryan had taken a broken Lexy there, cradled in his arms.

“What did you do?” his mother hissed. “You could have killed her.”

“I need help, Mama,” he slurred and then swayed on his feet, showing her how truly drunk he was.

“You are my son, Ryan, and I will always love you, but you can’t beat your wife,” she yelled at him. “You need to be locked up. You are not a man. No man beats his wife senseless. Your daddy use to hit me! Remember how you use to cry? Remember how we felt?” she raged at him. “I knew you shouldn’t have seen that. I knew it wasn’t a good lesson for you to learn, but this is beyond what your daddy did. You are a monster.”

She frantically began attending to Lexy, taking stock of her injuries. “You are no son of mine.” She caught a whiff of his stench. “You stink of whiskey. Get out of my house right now. Get out! I should call the sheriff. You’ll go to prison for this, Ryan. You deserve to go. Get out right now,” she screamed. “And don’t come back here unless you’re sober. You better think hard about your life. You need to choose to be a man.”

Ryan disappeared for three days afterward, nursing his extreme hangover, but he did come back. He came back and saw the damage he had done when he was drunk. It was then he admitted his drinking had gotten out of control. He only hit her when he was drunk, but he was drunk more than he ever had been. Lexy had known that Ryan had demons from his childhood, but that was no excuse to beat her. She wouldn’t take it anymore.

“I’ll kill him if he hits me again.”

Mary’s eyes widened. She knew Lexy spoke the truth. “He won’t. He’s changed.”

She doubted it. But maybe he had. Ryan checked himself into rehab and from there he went directly into the marines. He hadn’t hit her since that day. He also had never really talked to her again, either. It didn’t matter. She would not forgive or forget. And Ryan had never asked her to. He probably knew that what he did was unpardonable.

Suddenly Lexy’s emotions started to choke her. She couldn’t breathe. It was too much. Memories and Mary and Ryan. Tears ran out of her quickly, as if her past was trying to cry itself out of her body.

“I can’t,” she managed, and took off before she suffocated.

* * *

Ryan awoke to see his wife rushing away from him. Instincts kicked in immediately and he shot out of bed to go after her.

He had forgotten that his body was useless.

He remembered when pain shot through his arm, and his leg gave out as soon as it hit the cold hospital floor.

“Ryan!” some blonde woman screamed. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Need her,” he managed to get out.

“Help!” the blonde woman screamed. “Help me!”

“Need her.” He struggled to get up. If he couldn’t he would crawl.

“Relax, honey. Relax. She needed some air.” The woman gazed at him with warm blue eyes. “Mama can take care of you.”

Something in her voice told him that she might not be coming back.

Suddenly a team of doctors and nurses rushed in the room. His dark angel had gone. His world went black.

His mother was the only person there when he woke up. Not the woman he had grown to depend on. She stood looking out the window, at the world outside the hospital. Seeming to sense his gaze, she turned around to look at him.

“My boy is awake,” she said in her sweet accent.

“Where?” He struggled to speak, his throat still on fire as he looked around the room.

“She might not come back, Ryan. I wouldn’t blame her if she never came back. You were a bad husband—a very bad husband. But God gave you a second chance and you better take it.”

A second chance? He didn’t remember the first. How could he have been bad to his wife? What exactly did he do?

“You’ve got to be sweet to her and not pretend sweet, either. You need to love her. God knows Lexy has spent most of her life under loved. That is your job, son. You need to love her, take care of her and support her, because if you don’t she’ll leave you. She’ll leave you and you won’t know which way is up. She’s a good woman and your only job for the rest of your life is to be a good man. A good husband. Do you understand me?”

He nodded. It was all he could do. What had he done to deserve this lecture?

“Good. Just because you’re thirty-two years old doesn’t mean I can’t spank you.” She gave him a gentle smile and patted his arm. “The doctor said you don’t have to wear the IV, especially if you’re going to insist on darting out of bed. He also said that if you think you can get out of bed then that’s a good sign. You’ve got your fight back. Just make sure you don’t fight with your wife.”

He frowned at her. He wasn’t a fighter by nature. Most of the time he just walked away. That’s what got him in trouble with... His head ached. He suddenly couldn’t remember who he avoided arguments with. He shut his eyes. His world spinning. Thinking had even become too much.

His mother stayed with him for hours. His wife still hadn’t returned, prompting him to think that everything his mother said was true. He tried to make the best out of a bad situation and listen to the woman who claimed to be his mama. He heard tales of his childhood of his family and the people of his small town. His listened carefully, trying to conjure up images from his life, trying to remember the things his mother spoke so fondly of, but nothing came to him.

He knew he was a person who had lived on earth for thirty-two years, who had seen and smelled and touched life, but right now he didn’t even know what state he was in. All the thinking was causing his head to spin and soon he slipped into a deep foggy sleep.

When he woke again a beautiful orange light was washing over his room. His mother was gone but his wife was there in a white tank top that looked pristine against her honey-colored skin. On her shoulder was an overnight bag and in her hands, plastic bags.

“Ryan Beecher, what the hell did you do to yourself?” she scolded as she sat all the bags down except one. “I leave for a few hours and you turn the whole place upside down.” She picked up his newly bandaged arm. “You’re such an idiot. We’re trying for less bandages not more.”

He grinned at her, just glad she was back.

“He smiles,” she said softly. “Are you happy to see me?”

“Yes,” he rasped.

“Don’t talk. Just nod.” She lowered the railing and sat close to him on his bed. He felt her soft body press into his side and he instinctively wrapped his arm around her waist to keep her beside him. She tensed a little as she always did when he touched her but relaxed within moments. There was a pull between them that he couldn’t describe.

“I bought you some food. Good stuff. You better have your behind out of this hospital in two weeks. This will help.” She pulled out a paper bag filled with little cartons. “Dr. Andreas said I could give you soft foods like squash or mashed cauliflower.” She frowned deeply. “But who likes mashed cauliflower? I got you mashed potatoes and gravy. Do you want some?”

He started to say no but as soon as the lid came off and the smell of fluffy potatoes hit his nose his stomach started to rumble with hunger.

“Take a few bites. If you’re good I have something special for dessert.”

She fed him. He didn’t tell her he was now strong enough to feed himself. He knew that if he did she would shy away from him. Their connection would be gone. He wished he could remember her or a shard of his former life. There were certain things he knew. He was a marine, he was in his thirties and he loved beautiful women. But that was it. He was like a broken piece of glass begging to be glued back together.

“Are you up for dessert? It will make your throat feel better.” She opened a foam container filled with soft red ice. “It’s Italian ice. I don’t think you’ve had it before. It’s not common in Texas. New Yorkers love this stuff.”