The Door at the Top of the Stairs (16 page)

Morgan sat up. “I know, but I'm usually the one who's in control, and this ride is terrifying me."

Ryland playfully bit Morgan's ear. “I've never heard you admit that before."

Morgan swiveled around so she could put her arms around Ryland and rest her head on her chest. “Don't you dare tell her I said that."

"I wouldn't think of it."

At six-thirty, Jesse found Ryland in the kitchen washing dishes. She sat on one of the barstools and watched her a minute.

“Where's Morgan?"

"She's down doing the evening feeding. How are you feeling?"

"Like an idiot."

Ryland looked over her shoulder. “Only to yourself. I expected your headaches to get worse when we started digging.

Tomorrow we'll take it one step at a time so that doesn't happen again."

"I want to do it right now. I want to remember everything and get it over with. Right now."

The sink was full of soapy dishwater, and Ryland reached down and pulled the stopper. She rinsed her hands and went to the refrigerator. “Are you hungry? We had chicken and stuffing for dinner. I can put some in the microwave for you."

Jesse raised her voice. “Now, Ryland—just do it! I don't care if it kills me. I just want it done and over with. Tell me what I need to do!"

Ryland walked over and leaned on the counter. "And if we don't do it right now?"

"Then I'll do it myself."

Ryland stepped around the counter and pulled out another barstool. She sat next to Jesse and leaned on her elbow, her head on her hand. The two women looked at each other, one angry and determined, the other quiet and listening.

"Why can't we just do it all at once? Fuck this daily drama! I hate it!" Jesse punched the countertop with her fist hard enough to make the salt and pepper shakers jump. When Ryland didn't move, Jesse angrily pushed away from the bar and walked over to a free-standing tower of shelves holding several sizes and varieties of pots and pans. She pushed the tower over and sent the pans crashing onto the tile floor. "Now, Ryland! Goddamn it, tell me how to finish it!
Now!
"

Ryland swiveled her barstool around to face Jesse. When she didn't say anything, Jesse pounded two fists on the countertop right in front her face. “Answer me, goddamn it!"

"That's enough, Jesse." Morgan came into the kitchen. She calmly walked across the room, stood between the two women and said quietly, “C'mon, I'll help you pick up the pans."

Jesse ignored her. “Ryland, please."

Ryland pushed Morgan aside so she could see. “We do it my way, Jess. There's no other way to do it. I can't stop you from trying something on your own, and I'll be here to pick up the pieces if you do. You'll be staying up here tonight in the guest bedroom."

Morgan stood the tower upright and placed it back in the corner where it belonged. She started picking up the pans and placing them on the shelves. Ryland reached down and picked up a saucepan that had fallen close to her stool. She held it out to Jesse who ignored it and walked out of the room. They heard the front door open and slam as Morgan put another pan into place.

Ryland took a dishtowel and wiped the pan she was holding.

“Are you okay?" She handed Morgan the pan and bent to pick up another.

Morgan put it back on the shelf, but didn't say anything.

Ryland handed her the next one. “I'm just curious. Is there some reason you didn't react like you normally do?" Ryland picked up a saucepan and put it on the shelf with the others.

"Yes."

"Do you want to share?"

Morgan glared at her. “I came into the house just as the pans went flying, and when I walked into the kitchen and saw her pound the countertop next to you I was afraid if I let my emotions go, I might have killed her. I mean
literally
killed her!"

"She wouldn't have hurt me. You know that, right?"

Morgan shook her head as she walked out of the kitchen. “I don't know anything right now. I'll be out in the back yard getting some wood for the fire."

Chapter Sixteen

Jesse walked into her apartment and threw herself onto the bed. Thoughts raced through her mind until the walls began closing in. The horses were making more noise than usual so she went out to check on them. Morgan had already fed everyone and doctored Comstock, so there was nothing left for her to do. She figured she was off work, and for some reason she was craving a beer and a good fight. She grabbed her apartment keys, headed out to the road and stuck out her thumb, hoping for a ride.

The truck driver who picked her up dropped her about a mile from the center of town because he needed to gas up at the local truck stop. She walked the rest of the way, thoughts tumbling through her brain like a clothes dryer on maximum spin. After about forty minutes she walked into Harley's and sat at the same table she'd been at the last time she'd come in. Andy came over and wiped his wet hands on his dirty white shirt. "What'll ya have?"

"Beer and a whiskey chaser, and just keep 'em comin'. In fact, just leave the goddamn whiskey on the table."

Andy crossed his arms. “Need to see yer money first."

Jesse reached into her pocket, pulled out two fifties and threw them on the table. "Let me know when that runs out."

The crumpled bills landed on the edge of the tabletop. Andy scooped them up and left to get the drinks. There weren't many people in the bar. Jesse sat back and watched a man and a woman light up a joint. The woman was about twenty with hair spiked straight out from her head. The man, a forty-something hippie wanna-be, held the joint up and made her climb on his lap before he’d let her take a drag. Jesse lost interest when the girl started an awkward lap dance and the man's eyes rolled back in his head.

Andy set the drinks on the table. In five minutes the beer bottle was three-quarters empty and the Jack Daniels had a good sized dent in it. For the next several hours, she watched people come and go, her thoughts slowing to a gentle whir instead of the dizzying cyclone she'd had before she came in. The whiskey bottle lay empty, and beer bottles littered the table and floor around her feet. Her vision had blurred hours ago and she'd lost interest in trying to re-focus. Shadows moved across the table, several shapes circling in a dizzying pattern.

One blur reached in and grabbed a half-empty bottle off the table. “Well, well, if it ain't Baby Dyke! What's the matter, Baby Dyke? Your mamas wanted to fuck without you tonight?" Cody put the bottle to his lips and finished it off, then threw the empty into Jesse's chest.

There wasn't much rational thought left in her alcohol-soaked brain. As she tried to stand, she forgot where she was going and what she’d planned to do when she got there. The ground rippled beneath her feet. The room spun in circles, dumped her onto the table, then onto the floor with the table resting on top of her.

As she struggled to move, someone jumped on her to the laughter of the other people in the bar. Andy shouted something and Jesse felt herself being unceremoniously dragged to her feet and thrown out onto the street. In the far-off recesses of her mind, a man yelled "Dropkick!" and slammed his boot into her stomach.

The blow rolled her onto her back and another boot landed on her thigh. She heard a siren whelp, saw red and blue flashing lights, then rolled onto her stomach and threw up.

Ryland awoke at one-forty in the morning to an empty bed.

She'd tried to wait up for Morgan, who'd been in the den reading late into the night, but she'd apparently dozed off and Morgan had never come in. Her robe lay draped across the end of the bed, and she pulled it on as she padded barefoot down the hall. When she pushed open the door, she saw Morgan asleep on the couch, fully clothed with a decorative throw pulled up to her chin. Her boots lay across the room where she’d thrown them.

Ryland returned to their bedroom and took a down-filled blanket and pillow from the closet. She retraced her steps and curled up at the opposite end of the couch, spreading the blanket over both of them. Doubts that she’d pushed aside began to resurface as she leaned her head against the back of the sofa and watched her best friend, whose face was pinched and stressed even in sleep. Had she been wrong to get them involved in Jesse's nightmare? Tonight was the first time in ten years she'd awoken without Morgan by her side.

Morgan stirred, and when she opened her eyes, she saw Ryland at the end of the couch, a sleepy, worried expression on her face. Morgan sat up so she faced Ryland, her back leaning on the overstuffed leather arm of the sofa.

Ryland reached her hand down the length of the sofa, her fingers stretching out toward Morgan, who moved her hand as well. Their fingers just barely reached far enough to brush against each other, and Morgan let her hand drop to the cushion.

Ryland looked away, fighting back tears as she struggled to know what to say. Tonight, for the first time, she didn't understand her partner, and she was afraid to ask why she hadn't come to bed.

Morgan slid down into the couch, laying with her head on the arm of the sofa while she studied the patterns on the ceiling. "At what point, Ryland, do we say enough is enough? That we tried and failed?"

Ryland couldn't speak without opening herself up to more tears, so she shook her head slightly and said nothing.

"Do you know what occurred to me tonight?"

Another shake of the head.

Morgan continued to follow the swirls and lines etched into the plaster above her head. “This isn't about Jesse. It's about that young man, that Vietnam vet who dared kill himself on your watch. You couldn't save him, and here's a chance to make up for that young life you couldn't save."

A dark mass started in the pit of Ryland's stomach and hurled itself up at her, unbidden and unexpected. She pushed herself forward, crawled on top of Morgan and let the tears flow freely onto her friend's chest. Morgan held her close and let her cry, unsure how to handle the strongest woman she'd ever known falling apart in her arms.

Ryland let the tears cleanse her mind, and she inched her arms down and around Morgan's back until there wasn't a separation of space between them. "Please don't ever make me wake up in the middle of the night without you there. I can take almost anything except the thought that you and I aren't together forever."

Morgan stroked Ryland's hair and rested her cheek on her head. “I'm sorry. It was just...I don't know. I was incensed, enraged, that Jesse would come into our house and threaten you, and—" She fought back tears herself, not knowing how to explain her feelings. “And if she had touched you, I would have killed her."

Ryland lay quietly, listening, thinking. She wiped her eyes on Morgan's shirt and lay her head back down. “Can I try to explain something about me to you?"

"Always."

"What you said about Steven, that young man, was partially true, but not totally. Over the last forty years, there were six men and women who committed suicide while in my care." She listened to Morgan's heartbeat as she spoke. “That's a terrible truth when dealing with critically, emotionally traumatized patients. They often survive the physical torture only to succumb to the emotional refuse that comes after."

Morgan shifted down farther into the couch, and Ryland squeezed her tightly again, feeling their connection. She continued, wanting Morgan to understand why she needed to help someone like Jesse. “A part of me, a part of my self-confidence, died with each one. What you don't understand is that I know—I really
know

—that we might fail with Jesse because I've failed before. But I also know we might succeed."

She pushed up so she could look into Morgan's eyes. “It's what I'm good at, Morgan. Knowing how to heal people like Jesse is a gift, and I believe, very strongly, that there was a reason she came to us."

Morgan looked up at the ceiling again and shook her head, not really understanding.

A thought popped into Ryland's mind, and she smiled and lay her head back down. “Okay, try this out for size. If a dog or a hound had been tortured as badly as Jesse was, and that animal landed on our doorstep, would you turn your back on it just because it threatened to bite us? Because, you do realize, Jesse has never actually bitten either one of us."

Morgan returned Ryland's smile. “That's hitting below the belt."

"Well, would you?"

"Of course not, but—" She couldn't come up with what the

“but” might be, so she sighed and pulled Ryland close again.

“Good grief. Okay, I get it...but if I do kill her, will you still love me?"

"I will love you forever and always."

"And do you think we could buy her a muzzle?"

The two of them quieted when they heard the metal gate leading onto their property scrape against the ground as someone pulled it open. They got off the couch and went to see who'd come onto their property at two-fifteen in the morning. Morgan opened the door. “It's a sheriff's SUV. What does he want?"

They waited on the porch as Deputy Meier pulled up in front of the house. "I've got a delivery for you. She was getting the heck kicked out of her in town." He walked to the passenger side and pulled Jesse out onto her feet. She started to fall over as she leaned against him, so he propped her up on the hood of his vehicle, face first.

Morgan turned and banged her head against the door post as Ryland sighed and started out to the car. Morgan reluctantly followed. When she reached the SUV, she wrapped Jesse's arm around her shoulders. “She's filthy, and she's filthy drunk. What happened?"

Deputy Meier stepped to the passenger door and brushed the seat off with his hand. “Well, I was driving down Main Street and saw Andy throw her out of the bar. Then three men came out and hauled off and kicked her. I turned on my siren, and when they saw me, they all took off running."

Ryland put Jesse's other arm over her shoulder. “Who were they?"

"I couldn't tell, and Andy won't say. He says a bartender who knows too much is bad for business." The deputy smiled and climbed into the driver's seat. "Well, ladies, have a wonderful morning." He drove out onto the road and stopped to pull the gate closed.