Loving Tessa (January Cove) (8 page)

***

Tessa couldn't believe that she had agreed to allow Aaron’s mother to watch Tyler for a few hours. Never in her wildest dreams a few days ago would she have believed that she’d go along with something like that. But, for whatever reason, she had grown to trust Aaron immensely in the short time that she'd known him.

She figured that anyone who raised a man like him must be a great person. In all reality, she was kind of interested in meeting this Adele Parker and finding out more about her. She hoped that she could be a mother as good as Mrs. Parker was.

Lately, though, she wasn't so sure. She knew that she made the right decision getting herself and Tyler out of the situation with her ex, but she wasn't sure what she was going to do from now on. She really hadn't thought the plan out in advance, just jumping and running as soon as she had the chance. Sure, she’d saved her money, but she hadn't been sure exactly when she’d be able to leave.

And now she had to tell Aaron the whole story. It was going to be one of the most difficult things she’d done because she would have to relive it all over again. She knew that she couldn't ever get it out of her mind or forget what happened, but she was hoping to be able to move forward without ever having to speak of it.

After finishing lunch that they picked up in a drive through , Aaron headed toward his mother's house. He called her from the beach to make sure that it was okay to bring Tyler by, and Tessa hoped that Tyler would go along with the plan. He was usually pretty good at welcoming new people. He never really had grandparents, so he hadn’t been around older people. Of course, Tessa wasn't sure how old Adele was, but she was certainly older than anyone Tyler had probably ever met before.

The fact that their lives had been so sheltered didn't help when it came to teaching Tyler about the world. He was almost like a blank canvas having never really been out and around a lot of other children and people. The thought of it made her sad inside because she didn't grow up that way. She had friends and relatives and lots of fun times, but Tyler hadn't experienced any of that. His life had been closed off from the moment he was born and Tessa was determined to make sure that the rest of his life was an open book full of friends and family and love and new experiences. But Aaron was right. She couldn't give him that kind of life if she was always on the run.

"Everything okay over there?" Aaron asked as they drove down Main Street toward his mother's house. She’d been awfully quiet since they left the beach, full of thought and full of angst. She wanted to tell him everything, but she wanted to say nothing. It was an internal fight that she was having with herself that could never be solved. One side of her was going to get hurt today no matter what. He’d taken her to a small, out of the way sandwich shop and gotten take out so that they could eat it in the car. She felt like a first class loser.

"Yeah. I'm just tired and full. Lunch was great." She knew that he wasn't going to believe that everything was okay, but he also knew that Tyler was in the backseat listening to every word they said. For a three year old, he was very smart and able to pick up on all kinds of emotional nuances.

"We're almost there. My mom lives just down here on the corner. She's very well-known in town, and I know she's going to love you and Tyler. She loves little kids, and it’s been awhile since she’s had some around. Of course, she wants grandchildren as soon as possible, but my brother Kyle has given her one already by getting back together with Jenna."

"I'm sure she does love children if she raised five kids alone."

"Well, she didn't do that on purpose. When my father died, she was left to take care of everything by herself. She started in real estate under another company and supported us all those years on one hundred percent commission. When she started her company, she finally got some financial stability but we were older by then."

"Well, I admire her already for a couple of reasons."

"You do?"

"Yes. For one thing, she took care of the five of you on her own. For another, she raised a good man in you." Aaron smiled and winked at her before returning his eyes to the road.

***

As they came around the last corner, Tessa could see Adele's house. She started to get nervous in the pit of her stomach, but she knew this was something she had to do. It was amazing the turn that her life had taken just in the last few days. Meeting Aaron had been a wonderful thing for her and Tyler, but the thought of opening up to him was starting to sound like it might be too much. At the same time, she knew that she had to or else Tyler's life would be forever ruined. He’d be stuck in the same shell he was stuck in when she lived with her ex.

"Here we are."

"Wow! This is a big house!" Tyler exclaimed.

"Well, it kind of had to be because I have three brothers and one sister."

"I wish I had a brother or sister. It gets lonely being the only kid in our family."
 

"You never know, you might have a brother or sister one day. Until then, you have to keep your mommy entertained all by yourself." Aaron winked at Tyler and pulled the car into the driveway.

Tessa sat still, saying nothing and staring straight ahead.

"Ready?"

"I think so." She turned and looked at him, and as if sensing her anxiety, he reached over and squeezed her hand once before opening his door and stepping out. He walked around and opened her door, a chivalrous, Southern gentleman move that she had never experienced before first hand. She’d seen it in movies and heard about it, but no man had ever walked around and opened up her door before today. She slowly stood up and stared at him closely, face-to-face.
 

For a moment, she could feel butterflies in her stomach and heat rising through her core, but she assumed that it must just be extra adrenaline or leftover anxiety about meeting his mother. That's what she wanted to tell herself, but her heart and mind said differently.

"Thanks."

"For what?" he said in a whisper.

"For opening my door."

"You shouldn't ever have to say thank you when a man opens your door. Any man who's with you should open your door for you, Tessa. A real man is willing to do anything for a woman he cares about." She halfheartedly smiled and nodded her head as he closed her door and pointed towards the front steps.

They walked up the stairs and into the house, Aaron calling his mom's name. She came down the stairs with a big bright smile on her face. Adele Parker was beautiful with blond hair and a petite frame. Tessa hoped that she would look that good when she was her age, although she didn't feel that way right now. She felt like she was one hundred years old after all the stress that had come along with her life in the last few years.

"Well, hey there! You must be Dawn, and you must be Tyler. My name is Mrs. Parker." She was full of energy, and Tessa couldn't believe that she had recently been in the hospital. Aaron had told her all about that on the drive over, although she didn't have much to say since she was lost in her own thoughts most of the time.

"Hi. So nice to meet you," Tessa said shooting a glance at Aaron. He had told her that her name was Dawn, and she wondered why he did that.

"Welcome to my home. Tyler, I hear that we're going to spend some time together this afternoon. Let me ask you something. Do you know how to bake chocolate chip cookies?" she asked him kneeling down and smiling.

Tyler grinned from ear to ear and started jumping up and down while clapping his hands. "I sure do!" he said.

"Well good ‘cause I'm going to need some extra hands in the kitchen. I’ve already got my friend, Kaitlyn, in there up to her elbows in cookie dough,” she said smiling at Tessa. “I love to bake dozens and dozens of chocolate chip cookies and take them around to the local fire stations. Do you think you might want to help me do that today?"

"Yes, ma'am!" he said as he grabbed her hand and followed her into the kitchen. Aaron stood there grinning and threw his hands up in the air.

"Did you see how she just completely ignored me? She loves little kids more than anything, but it was like I wasn't even standing here!" Aaron said laughing.

"Tyler just took right to her. That makes me feel so much better. But why did you tell her my name is Dawn?"

"I figured it was the best thing to do just in case your ex come sniffing around. My mom won't know who Tessa is, so she won't be of any assistance to him. I’m just trying to protect you and her at the same time. I hope that's okay."

"It's more than okay, Aaron. I'm so thankful that you thought about that because I didn't. I really need someone with a level head helping me with this because I'm not thinking clearly about everything I need to do to make sure that Tyler is safe."

"Yes, you need for Tyler to be safe but you also need to be safe yourself. And that's what I'm here for. That's what friends are for, right?”

Tessa nodded her head, but she wasn't sure why she felt a little sad inside when he said the word friend. Was that all they could ever be? What was she thinking? She just gotten out of a tumultuous, violent relationship and here she was starting to develop feelings of attraction to her new friend. She needed a friend more than she needed a boyfriend, so she was determined to push those feelings aside and think of Aaron as nothing more than someone who was helping her.

"So where are we going today?" Tessa asked.

"I have a place in mind where we won't be interrupted and we won't have to worry about anybody finding us. Do you trust me?"

"Of course I do, but why can't we just go back to your cabin?"

"Because I run that place, and my guests and employees won’t leave us alone if they see my car there for long. If we’re going to go somewhere and talk and really think out the logical steps to getting the situation resolved, we need to make sure that we’re uninterrupted and no one will find us. I have the perfect place."

"Okay, if you say so."

"Let's go tell Tyler goodbye and get on the road."

As they drove down the road toward Aaron’s mystery destination, Tessa couldn't believe that she’d left her son in the care of someone she'd only just met. It shocked her as much as it probably shocked Aaron, but she was desperate. It scared her a little bit because any other time that she’d been desperate in her life, she'd made some very poor decisions. She hoped that she was making the right decision now by telling Aaron everything and allowing Tyler to stay with Adele. She sighed lightly, thinking of how she was so sick of second guessing every decision in her life. Why couldn’t she just be a normal twenty-something woman with normal twenty-something problems?

The one good thing she had going for her was that Adele Parker was very known in January Cove. Her signs were everywhere, and she raised five children on her own. She had to be a pretty good woman to create children who were doing so well in their lives.

"So, no clues as to where we’re going?" she asked with a sly smile.

"You even know this area?" Aaron responded with a laugh.

"Nope. Not a bit. I sort of ended up here by default. We rolled into town on fumes, and I saw a sign for your campground before it was too late. In fact, I'm not sure how I'll ever move the camper off your land."

"Well, I can always push it up to the road," Aaron joked. “Of course, I’m not even sure a homeless raccoon would want to live there.”

"Gee, thanks," she said, lightly punching him in the arm.

"So, tell me a little something about yourself, Tessa. First of all, what's your last name?"

"Why does that matter?" Her guard immediately went back up like a fortress around a castle.

"Because if I'm going to help you, I'm probably going to need your name. Tessa isn't exactly enough information to go on," he said.

"My last name is Reeves.

"Good to know. Tessa Reeves. I like that. It's nice."

"I'm glad it meets with your approval," she said smiling. "So you tell me something about yourself then."

"What do you want to know?"

"Tell me about the relationship that went sour."

"I've already told you everything there is to know.

"I don't think so. You gave me the Cliff Notes version, but there has to be more to it than that. Were you really in love with her?"

"I thought I was. When all was said and done, I think I was more in love with the idea of being in love with her. I'd really like to settle down and have a family, and I thought we had that kind of relationship. I'm glad that I know now that she wasn't the kind of woman I've want to spend the rest of my life with, but it didn’t make it any easier to go through all of that."

"Does she ever try to contact you?"

"You know that's two questions. I get to ask you another one," he said with a wicked smile.

"Fine. Ask away. I can't promise that I'll answer, but you can ask," she said with her own sly smile.

"You have family?"

"You mean like a mom and a dad?"

"Yeah."

"My mother passed away when I was ten years old, so I was raised by my father. Unfortunately, my father got into some trouble when I was a teenager and ended up in prison. He died there when I was nineteen years old. That's when I met my ex, at my lowest point in life."

"I don't hear from her anymore."

"Who?" she asked.

"I assumed that you wanted the answer to your previous question. Her name is Natalie, and I don't hear from her anymore. I see her around town with different guys, but I don't care to hear from her."

"You shouldn't want to talk to someone like that. Anyone who could hurt you must not be a very good person," she said offhandedly.

Aaron looked at her with a grateful smile and then returned his eyes to the road. "Thanks."

"It must've been hard to grow up without your father."
 

"Yeah, but I never really got a chance to know him. I was only two years old when he died, so I only know him through the stories that my mother tells and pictures. I assume it was a lot harder for you because you got to spend the first ten years of your life with your mother."

"It's never easy to lose a parent, but it was especially hard to lose my mother. I was an only child and I felt like I lost my way after that. A girl needs her mother, and my father just went downhill after she died. It was like he lost his will to live and started doing all kinds of stupid things that messed up both of our lives."

"So that's how you ended up with your ex?"

"Partially, I guess. I didn't have a good sense of direction when I was a teenager or in my early twenties. I didn't have a mother to teach me what to look for in a man, and I didn't have a good father to show me the kind of man that I should be looking for. I guess I was just lost, and I didn't have a lot of self-esteem. I suppose I don't have a lot of self-esteem right now either, but at least I realize it."

"Here we are," Aaron said as he pulled onto a long gravel driveway.

"What is this place?" she asked as they went around the big curve and faced a large, white antebellum house.

"This is a place that my mother owns. It's actually an investment property that used to be a bed-and-breakfast. Right now it's empty, with the real estate market being what it is. I thought we could come here and spend some time talking without being interrupted. There are few people who even know this place is back here these days," he said.

"It's beautiful. I've never seen an antebellum house up close like this. It's very majestic," she said.

"I've always dreamed of living here, but that would require me to move away from the campground which I really can't do right now."

"Why can't you move away?

"Well, first of all I have no one there that I trust to run it by themselves. And secondly, I don't feel like I need a house this big unless I'm going to have a family of my own. Now I seem to be further away from that goal than I ever was, so I really don't need all this space."

"Maybe things will change. I hope they do, Aaron, because you deserve all good things."

"Thank you," he said as he reached over and squeezed her leg lightly. The touch of his hand sent shock waves up and down her body. She’d never felt such a spark from a man's touch before, and it almost made her shake.
 

"Shall we go in?" she asked trying to break the tension in the car that was building. How was she so attracted to this man that she'd only just met, and how could she ever be sure that her ability to choose a man was correct?

Aaron unlocked the front door and waved Tessa inside. The home was beautiful and ornate, and a bit sad from being empty. The winding staircase in the foyer reminded her of Gone With The Wind, and she could imagine the regal parties that were hosted in this house during the Civil War era.

“Let’s go into the parlor. We still have some furniture in there,” he said pointing to a room on the right.

“The parlor?” she said with a chuckle.

“Hey, that’s what my mother calls it. I don’t feel very manly saying it, but…” he said with a shrug. Tessa sat down on the red velvet sofa and Aaron sat down next to her, putting his leg up onto the couch so he could face her.

"Okay, I guess this is as easy as it's ever going to be for me to give you this information. My biggest concern is that you're going to think less of me, and I wouldn't blame you if you did. My story only shows what a weak woman I am."

"That can't be, Tessa. I've already learned so much about who you are, and your past doesn't matter to me. As far as I'm concerned, you have a clean slate with me."

"Thank you for saying that, but I'm not sure you'll feel that way once you hear the story," she said as she took in a deep breath, steeling herself for a moment. "I met Ethan when I was nineteen years old just after my father died in prison. He was ten years older than me at the time, so I guess I looked up to him. Ethan was a new officer on the police force in our town, and he had run ins with my dad on multiple occasions. My dad hated him, and I hated my dad at that time. I felt like he'd screwed our lives up and he made my name mud in our small town by all of his antics.

Right after my father passed away, I was living in this little efficiency apartment that I could afford while waitressing at the local diner. That's when Ethan came by one day to express his condolences, or at least that's what he was pretending to do. It wasn't long after that when he asked me out on our first date and we started being known as a couple around town.

Things moved really quickly for us, but the abuse didn't start immediately. Looking back now, I can see he was grooming me for what was to come. He always had a problem with anger, but it wasn't directed at me until much later. After we had dated for two years, he proposed to me. By that time, I knew he wasn’t who I wanted to spend my life with, but I was afraid to tell him. His anger was getting worse and worse, and he had this power trip thing going on.

I finally agreed to his proposal, but we never set a wedding date. Instead, I found out that I was pregnant and things went downhill quickly. The abuse actually started while I was pregnant with Tyler. He didn't care that I was pregnant, but he didn't really want us to have a baby. He pushed me down the stairs a couple of times in an effort to try to make me miscarry, but thankfully it didn't work."

Aaron’s face crinkled up as he listened her story. He didn't interrupt, but instead allowed her to keep talking no matter how hard it was for him not to reach over and comfort her or scream or yell about the idiot that she’d been with for all those years.

"When I was pregnant with Tyler, he started holding me captive. He told everyone that I left him and left town. But that wasn't true. I was actually locked in our basement. He'd set it up so that I couldn't get out, couldn't have access to the outside world and I didn't even have medical care for Tyler. He wanted me at his beck and call, and that included fulfilling any of his sexual needs at any time. He was very rough and violent with me, and because I didn't have any extended family left that I was in contact with, no one was ever looking for me.”

Aaron couldn’t hold back anymore. “Dear God, Tessa, I’m so sorry. Why on Earth would he have become so angry with you?”

“Around that time, an old friend from middle school, a guy, found me on Facebook. We were chatting about old times, nothing major. In fact, my friend is admittedly gay. Ethan still got jealous. He said I wasn’t going to make a fool out of him. He was very impressed with what he perceived as his ‘place’ in the community, and he was sure that I had slept with this old friend of mine and gotten myself knocked up. I offered a DNA test, but he said no way, he didn’t want his name dragged through the small town mud. So, instead, he concocted this plan to punish me and keep me locked away from being ‘social’ with other men.”

“This is just so unbelievable to me…” Aaron stammered. She kept talking for fear of chickening out.

“As I got closer to delivering Tyler, it became apparent that he was going to have to allow me to have the baby. But again, he didn't want any of his police buddies or anyone else knowing that I was still around and he certainly didn’t want anyone to know that I was having a baby. So, I gave birth in a bathtub in our basement and had to take care of Tyler by myself. I had a very difficult delivery, but he didn't even come downstairs. I felt like I was in some kind of a third world country where a woman is forced to give birth on her own. Thankfully, my body cooperated with me and I didn't bleed to death, but I never did get any medical care that I needed for Tyler.”

Unable to contain himself, Aaron spoke. “I can't believe what you're telling me. Why would this man want to hurt you so badly? Why wouldn't he love his child? Surely he knew it was his if you offered a DNA test…”

“Aaron, you're thinking like a normal man. He's not a normal man. In fact, I believe he’s sociopathic. He seemed to take great joy in keeping us captive there, and watching me go from an outgoing woman to a shell of my former self. It was awful, but I tried to get away so many times when I was pregnant. Once Tyler was born, my options were limited as I couldn't get both of us out of there easily without being noticed. He had us locked down like prisoners of war.”