Orion Cross My Sky (7 page)

O
n the way
out of the restaurant, Tammy waited while Orion chatted with the owner of the place, Tony O’Connor. He was middle-aged, bald, and had a thin mustache. He and Orion joked around for a few minutes, Tammy was introduced, and then they left.

“You come here a lot, huh?” she said as they stepped outside. It was beginning to darken.

“Yeah.” He slipped his hand around hers, and she shivered, but not from the cold. “My house isn’t exactly pleasant.”

“Why’s that?”

“My parents are wacky.”

For a moment, he seemed as if he wanted to say something else, but he was refraining.

In an effort to make him feel more comfortable, she said, “Mine, too.”

She’d noticed he had a long, soft black scarf wrapped around his neck, but she hadn’t really thought about it until now. He let go of her hand to pull it up, wrapping it around his head so it covered the right side of his face. She stepped around to his left side, tilting her head questioningly.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Sorry, I just have to do this.”

“Why? It’s not that cold out.”

For a fleeting moment, there was a glare in his eye, a look of annoyance. But it disappeared as he took her hand again. “Come on, let’s go for a walk.”

“It’s getting dark.”

“That’s okay, you’re safe. You’ve got me.” He squeezed her hand, and her heart fluttered. “Besides, tonight’s a new moon. The stars will be really clear, and there’re supposed to be shooters.”

“Oh, really? You like astronomy?”

He smirked under the yellow light of the antiqued streetlamps. “I don’t know. I just like lookin’ at stars.”

“I’ve read a lot about astronomy.”

“Maybe you can teach me.”

“Sure.” She was excited at the prospect, and this seemed to please Orion. “Did your parents name you for the constellation?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Mom always said she just liked the name.”

“Hm. I’m not sure why my parents named me Tammy. I think there was another Tammy in my family at some point, but I don’t know much about my family history.”

When history came to mind, she thought of Alex at the library, and wondered if she could help her investigate. For some reason, she was morbidly curious about her family’s past. Maybe because she hoped to find a reason for the pain her father had put her through.

“I gotta admit I’m a little intimidated by your family.” Orion let go of her hand to tighten his scarf as they walked.

“Why’s that?”

“You know your father is one of the most influential men in the area, right?”

She pursed her lips in contemplation, stepping carefully over each crack in the sidewalk as they strolled along. “I know that’s true, but it’s not something I think about much. To me, he was just my father.”

“You say ‘was’ as if he’s not anymore.”

“Things with…I mean, things with my father and I…they aren’t good right now.”

“What’s wrong?”

“He has a brain tumor. I just found out.”

A desperate sensation passed through her, and she resisted the urge to disconnect and drift out of her body. She hadn’t done that since her father had last touched her, and she didn’t want to do it with Orion beside her. She didn’t want to forget a single moment with him, and if she left her body for even a second, there was a chance she wouldn’t remember tonight.

Her memory was foggy. Sometimes memories seemed like distant dreams, and she wasn’t sure how to differentiate nightmare from reality.

“Tammy, did you hear me?”

She turned and looked at him, realizing they were across the street from Clearwater Park. He took her hand again and led her across the street to her favorite place.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “How’d you know?”

“How’d I know what?”

“This is my favorite spot.” She sat down beside him on a park bench overlooking the dark lake. The nighttime chill settled over them.

“I didn’t know that,” he said. “Did you hear what I asked you?”

“No. I’m sorry.” Had she drifted away? It occurred to her she didn’t trust her own mind to remain within her body.

“It’s okay.” He slid close to her, putting his arm around her.

The gesture made her tremble and her mouth went dry.

He continued, “I said I was sorry about your dad, and I asked what happened between you two.”

“What?” she squeaked, gasping.

“I mean, did you have a fight or something? You told me things weren’t good between you. Tammy, you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I don’t…I don’t know if I can talk about this, okay?” If he knew what had happened to her, how she’d been touched, he would surely hate her. She hated herself, so what was left to love?

They were quiet for a long time. As the world darkened around them, they leaned back and looked up. Orion kept the scarf around the right side of his face. On his left, she could see the fabric over his nose lift slightly as he breathed, his eyes wide as he looked up at the stars.

“You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?” He kept his gaze trained on the sky.

She held her breath, the familiar urge to slip away overcoming her. She wanted to drift from this place, become a part of those cold stars. She remembered what she’d read, that many of them were ancient, and the light she was seeing was coming from light years away—so far away, her small human brain couldn’t possibly comprehend the distance.

“Tammy?” He moved his gaze away from the sky, put his arm around her, and pulled her close. He was looking at her, waiting for an answer to his unspoken question, which she knew was something along the lines of,
‘what happened to you?’

“How are you so perceptive?” Squashing the urge to cry, she rebuilt the wall around her heart, her intent gaze projecting a dare. Try as he might, how could he possibly break down that wall, and what would be the point in attempting it?

“Maybe instead of asking you what’s wrong, I should tell you about me,” he said.

“Sure.” That was easier. She wouldn’t have to divulge the truth about herself, that her heart had long since been shattered by her own father, leaving no hope for repair.

Orion’s heat provided a comforting buffer from the chill of the night, and he held her close as they looked up at the sky. “You asked me why I wear a scarf when it’s not really that cold, at least to you.”

“Yeah.”

“I have trigeminal neuralgia. It’s supposed to be some of the worst pain known to medical science. There’s some kinda signal malfunction between my brain and my nerves, so pain signals are sent to my face.”

His voice broke, and she almost thought he was going to cry. It shocked her, and she held her breath for a moment. Instead of shedding tears, he kept talking, but it seemed as if he were forcing himself.

“Some people call it the suicide disease, and they’re right. I mean, I don’t want to scare you, Tam, but I do want to be honest with you.”

“Keep going,” she urged, though she wasn’t sure she wanted him to.

“I’ve had it my whole life and it just keeps gettin’ worse. I was diagnosed two years ago, so my entire childhood, I just dealt with it, I don’t know how. They didn’t know what was wrong with me all those years. When the worst of it hits, I think of all the different ways I could kill myself, because this pain…this pain is completely pointless. It usually happens in the morning, which means wakin’ up is terrifying. I’m
afraid
of waking up in the morning.”

He sounded defeated, but Tammy knew he wasn’t. Not yet.

“You wouldn’t, would you?” She needed to hear the words.

“No. No, I won’t. Tried once, though.”

“You did?”

“When I was fourteen. But…Tam, I swear, I wouldn’t try it again. Even though my life ain’t too great, I just don’t think I could end it.”

“
Why
isn’t your life that great?”

He tightened his hold on her as if worried she would slip away. “You don’t need to hear about how shitty my home life is, do you?”

“Tell me.”

They stared toward the lake, which they couldn’t see in the darkness. Tammy feared there was a lot they couldn’t see. She hoped it wouldn’t mean the destruction of something that had yet to begin.

“It’s never been that great,” Orion said. “I don’t really get along with either of my parents, but Mom’s a drinker, and Dad’s just…I don’t know. He thinks I should be able to get over this pain, like my neuralgia can just go away if I stop thinkin’ about it.”

She scoffed. “It sounds terrifying, your condition. I don’t see how it could just go away without treatment or something.”

“Well, he thinks otherwise. He’s tried to throw my medication away more than once.”

She shook her head in disbelief as she dug her hands deeper into the pockets of her jacket. “Is there anything you can do? I mean, to feel better?”

He snuggled against her. “I take gabapentin. It’s an anti-convulsant. Sometimes, I imagine a little person inside my head, a smaller version of myself, having a seizure. The neuralgia is kind of like that. To me, anyway. Only it doesn’t show on the outside.”

“Does the medication help?”

“I think so, but when I have a flare-up like I’ve been having, nothin’ seems to help. All I can do is wait out the pain. Sometimes, I punch the damn furniture. Near broke my hand last year. I’m out of pain medication, had some problems with my health insurance…which means I have to hurry up and wait until I can get more pain pills. Pain pills don’t even work, anyway, not with what I’ve got. Most of the time, I just ride it out.” He paused, releasing a deep breath as if he were exhausted. “I’m sorry. I hate to dump all this on you. I’m amazed you haven’t walked away yet, Tam.”

“I don’t want to walk away.” She took his hand, feeling the callouses from the hard work he did.

“Only a couple more weeks.”

“Until what?”

“My neurologist recommended Botox treatments. It’s kind of new with TN, and they use it with migraines, too.”

“Um, isn’t that what all the stars do to get rid of their wrinkles?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, but it has more uses than that. The neurologist says it can get rid of my pain. We’ll see.”

“I hope it does.” She was afraid to say what she was thinking, that she didn’t want to lose him. She didn’t know him that well yet, but she enjoyed his companionship. A sensation she didn’t recognize tugged at her heart. More than anything, she didn’t want to get hurt. Not again. Not by another man.

She couldn’t handle it after what her father had done to her. She didn’t want to admit to Orion that she often wished she were dead. That sometimes, killing herself seemed a viable route to escape the hate and disgust she felt for her defiled body.

They were silent for a long time, just tucking close against each other and watching the stars.

Finally, she asked, “What’s your mom like?”

“I don’t know anymore. She’s got her own issues, she doesn’t talk much about them. She was raped when I was five, by a friend of the family she thought she could trust. Ever since then, she don’t talk much. Just drinks. I stay away from home as much as I can. You okay?”

Tammy was aware she had stiffened on the bench and was staring intently at a bright star on the horizon, wishing it would show her the way. She knew something about what Orion’s mother had gone through. She hadn’t lost her virginity, but she’d been touched, abused, fondled by her own father. She knew what hell was like, and it was a wonder she hadn’t picked up a bottle yet. Clara had been bringing alcohol home lately, even though she wasn’t old enough to acquire it legally. A few times, Tammy had almost partaken.

As she thought of the shell of a woman Orion’s mother had probably become, Tammy knew what she could lose—her sanity. She wanted to disconnect from her body, but she didn’t want to lose herself, either. It was her body she hated, not her mind. Her body was a vessel, something her father had destroyed. But she still had her mind, and she didn’t want to lose that. It was all she had left.

“What?”

“I said, are you okay?”

Orion ran his hand through her hair, and she shivered.

“Sure.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“That’s all right.”

“Want to tell me something about you?”

“Okay. My dad drinks too much.” She didn’t want to go further. She didn’t want to divulge her father’s drunken rages, the horrible things he did, the way he never seemed to remember in the morning.

“We have a lot in common.” Orion tugged her close, and they cuddled, peeking up at the sky.

“Your namesake is out tonight,” she said, nodding toward Orion and his bow. “I always look for his belt first, then I see the rest of him.”

“Is that how you look for me, too?”

“No.” She jabbed him playfully in the side, then froze as he gently ran his hand along her chin, tilting her head up.

Before she knew what was happening, his lips were pressing against hers. His skin was cool like the night, but they each shared their warmth, and the safety she felt in his embrace was something she’d never experienced before. His lips were dry, his kisses firm. She didn’t trust this sensation, or the emotions he compelled within her, but she allowed it to linger—for now.

He placed soft kisses along her jaw, then returned to her lips as if to make sure they were still there, slipping his tongue into her mouth. It was something she’d read about, but never done. A strange new thing, yet titillating.

She realized she was regarding it in a logical, scientific manner, and she knew something was wrong.

She couldn’t put her finger on it at first.

Then she realized it was because she was numb. The numbness remained, but Orion was breaking through it. She wasn’t certain she should let him, but for now, she kept kissing him, hoping that somehow, everything would make sense in the morning.

S
heriff Ryan Ryder
languished over paperwork all morning. He thought of when he’d first entered the force, and his grandiose ideas of becoming a champion of justice were dashed to the floor when he worked through his first stack of paperwork. He’d heard about other cops who loved to give tickets, but he wasn’t one of those guys. He didn’t want to think about all the paperwork involved.

With the door to his office shut and the blinds closed, he finished the last sheet and then slumped forward, placing his forehead squarely on his ink blotter.

“Thank God,” he mumbled.

But he knew there would be more paperwork coming. There always was.

He stood from his desk and pushed his chair in, deciding to begin his evening patrol. He and his deputy, Jordan Sheppard, often worked opposite shifts. Today, Ryan had taken the evening and night shift even though he disliked it. Jordan would relieve him sometime in the early morning.

He pulled on his khaki-colored coat and zipped it over his button-up shirt, then slipped his new suede cowboy hat over his shortly cropped brown hair.

It usually got pretty cold in Wyoming as soon as summer ended, but lately, the chill felt minimal. He climbed into the new patrol car the department had purchased after the wreck. He thought back to that day, hoping tonight was uneventful. The driver of the truck that hit him had been drunk, and the man was paying dearly for what had happened. As Ryan pulled out of the tiny parking lot by the police station, he glanced in the review mirror at his SUV.

“Don’t worry, baby,” he whispered to the sleek black machine. “I won’t let anybody total you.”

The best way to avoid that was to drive the town-owned vehicle and leave his SUV in the lot. As uncomfortable as he felt behind the wheel of this thing, at least it wasn’t on him if some drunk crashed into it.

It was after dark, and the streets of the quaint little town were empty. Around here, excitement was rare, though he had seen his share of secrets unearthed in Clearwater since his arrival. He was glad to be here, as opposed to the big city he’d once worked in.

He kept his past away from the townsfolk. He’d started his career in Chicago, which most people knew. But he didn’t talk about his stint on the force in Las Vegas. Nobody needed to know what had happened there, although Harris Pendleton had threatened to tell the entire town the truth when Ryan started poking around, trying to protect Clara Pendleton and her cousin.

He hoped to God nobody ever found out what a
wuss
he’d been, how he’d bent to the man’s will. Most of all, he hoped nobody found out the truth. If they did, he’d lose the town’s respect, and Harris Pendleton knew that. He knew it, and he was willing to exploit it if he had to.

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” Ryan mumbled to himself, grunting at the truth of it as he piloted the car down Main Street.

The headlights illuminated the brick road and the sidewalks with their wrought-iron benches and antiqued street lamps.

He lost himself in thought as he drove around, killing time. He stopped at the hospital to check with the head of security. The guard was well past seventy, and even though his job involved a lot of walking, he cringed with every step as if afraid he was going to keel over. Ryan knew that anytime someone suggested retirement, Herschel Goldbrook would grumble and insist he was nowhere near ready.

He’d surprised them a few times. Like when a suspect Ryan arrested had needed medical treatment, and when he’d tried to escape, Herschel had clocked him right across the left side of his jaw.

Chuckling at the memory, Ryan pulled his car up to the hospital and rolled down the window, watching as Herschel toddled over from the entrance to the emergency room.

“Hello, Sheriff. How’re you this evening?”

“Good, Herschel. How about you?”

“Fine, fine.” Herschel’s hands were in the pockets of his dark blue coat, which hid part of his uniform. His hat was lopsided on his narrow, balding head. “Nothin’ new to report, Sheriff.”

“I’m glad, that’s the way I like it.”

Herschel leaned forward, narrowing a bushy eyebrow at Ryan. “How old are you, Sheriff?”

“Thirty-five.”

“Ain’t you too young to be so boring?”

Ryan laughed. “What’s the supposed to mean?”

“When I was your age, I enjoyed excitement. Heck, I thrived on it. If it hadn’t been for my wife forcing me to settle down, I might not even be here right now.”

“I like things calm and quiet.”

“Okay, suit yourself. I enjoy a bit of a thrill.” He nodded toward the hospital, which appeared very quiet at the moment. “That’s why I work here, keep the excitement in my life.”

“That’s one way of doing it,” Ryan said.

As he watched Herschel head back toward the lobby of ER, he wondered if the old man had been serious.

This place, exciting?
Clearwater was a tiny town with very little when it came to excitement. There’d been some bar brawls over at On the Rocks, and a few issues with the residents, but for the most part, everything remained fairly standard. Easy. That was the way he liked it.

If Herschel knew him better, he’d know Ryan was done with excitement. Done with danger. Once, he’d craved excitement, and when he’d gotten it, he’d realized it wasn’t worth it.

It had nearly cost him his career, and it filled his sleep with nightmares.

“Excitement,” he mumbled to himself. “I’ll pass.”

The radio in his car jarred him from his thoughts. Dispatch.
“Sheriff, I’ve got a disturbance call, over.”

“Cindy, Mrs. Grange’s cat gettin’ outta the house ain’t a disturbance call.”

“It’s not that, Sheriff.”

When Cindy rattled off the address on Grizzly Lane, Ryan already knew where the disturbance was coming from. The Bennett house.

The older woman who lived next door to the Bennetts had the biggest ears on Grizzly Lane, and was usually the first at the beauty parlor on Monday mornings to report anything that happened over the weekends. Most of the woman depended on her for their gossip. She was always calling the police on her neighbors. The Bennetts liked to argue.
More like scream at each other,
Ryan thought.

The Bennett kid, Orion, was nice enough. Ryan didn’t know him very well, but the young man had worked on his car at Pete’s Service Station, and Ryan hadn’t forgotten how he’d saved him money on one or two occasions by pointing out issues that other mechanics might’ve missed. The parents kept to themselves, but nighttime was usually when they went at each other’s throats. Ryan suspected alcohol was involved.

He knew what it was like to grow up in an alcoholic home. His parents had done their fair share of screaming until his father finally disappeared one day. He couldn’t do anything about a family fighting, but it did seem to be getting worse.

He pulled up to the Bennett house, his headlights brightening the front and side yard as he parked in the driveway behind Mr. Bennett’s rusty blue Cadillac. The yard was trimmed, but there was an old stove and a washing machine sitting in the front garden collecting dirt and rust as if the family was saving them for later. Weeds had sprung up around the derelict appliances, and an errant opossum toddled off into the shadows near the washer when it saw the patrol car.

Before he even opened the door, Ryan could hear the screaming. Light from the front room illuminated the rotting porch. He slammed his car door on purpose. If they saw him, or heard him, it might give them enough of a warning. He always gave them a moment before knocking on the door, as if hoping the issue might resolve itself. It never worked.

The only reason he came was because of curmudgeonly Magnolia Simmons, the Bennetts’ neighbor who had Clearwater Police on her speed dial. Glancing over, he saw her porch light was on, and she was watching from the window. She must have caught him looking at her from over the short hedge that separated the properties, because she jerked the curtain shut and turned off the light.

Ryan shook his head as he walked toward the porch. A flurry of movement caught his eye as the front door opened and slammed shut, the young Orion Bennett forging a path across the yard and driveway. He was too busy adjusting the hood on his coat to notice Ryan, and he nearly slammed into him. The sheriff grabbed Orion by the arm and the boy startled, shouting out and pulling away.

“What the hell!” He threw his hood back, and a look of recognition crossed his face. “Sheriff Ryder, I—”

“What’s going on?”

“Nothin’.”

Ryan nodded toward the house. “I still hear shoutin’.”

“I don’t care. I’m done.”

“And where are you going?”

“Who cares?” Orion retorted. His eyes were red-rimmed, and he had a scarf wrapped across the right side of his face.

Before Ryan could stop him, the kid shot off into the night, blazing a trail through the empty wooded lot that ended in the distance on Main Street.

Ryan adjusted his hat, then squared his shoulders and headed for the front door of the Bennett household, thinking of the troubled young man he’d nearly collided with in the dark. That kid reminded Ryan of himself, and he knew all too well what he’d been capable of as a teenager.

I’d better keep an eye on that boy.