Читать книгу Chasing Shade - Sommer Marsden - Страница 12

Standing naked in her shower wasn’t helping him. Archie became supremely aware of how affected he’d been by the off-and-on contact they’d had through the day. Her taking his hands, hugging him, how her lush body had felt pressed against him. He grabbed his cock roughly and gave it three good tugs before dropping it like it was a loaded gun. He chuckled darkly.

‘Probably a bit creepy to beat off in her shower while she bakes you brownies. Might want to save that until you get home.’

His cock throbbed and his chest ached with a physical need to bring his arousal to conclusion. But also to do something – anything – to act on the weird and sudden feelings he had for this woman who seemed to have fallen into his lap. It was as if after beating him up for months on end, over a year actually, the universe had decided to drop a good thing in his lap. A bright and shiny thing that made him feel happier than he had in a very long time.

‘Sappy, sappy,’ he sighed, scrubbing his hair. He stood there smelling like peaches and lavender of all things, looking at her loofah and her pink razor and the towel that had suns and moons all over, and decided to kiss her. Really kiss her. And tell her what he was feeling.

She seemed the kind of person he could confess to and she wouldn’t run away.

He’d go out there, have a brownie, plant one on her and confess. Then they could see how it went. If it went.

Problem solved.

Archie towelled off quickly, dressed in his old clothes but shoved his boxer briefs in his back pocket and marched out barefoot to spill it all to Betsey Smith.

The oven timer was going off and she was sound asleep. Curled on her brightly patterned sofa with his bomber jacket draped over her. She was snoring lightly.

It made him smile. ‘Damn,’ Archie said and turned off the oven after putting the brownies on the stove top to cool.

He got his boots on and cut a slab of brownies and put them, still burning hot, on a paper plate to take to his hovel. Then he wrote on a napkin:

THANKS FOR THE DINNER. AND THE JOB. AND THE FIRST GOOD DAY I’VE HAD IN A LONG TIME.

SLEEP WELL, BETSEY

A

His walk home was short but lonely. It was odd, Archie realised, how obvious Betsey’s absence was after less than a day of her presence. She had secrets. He could tell. But he found himself OK with that. He believed her when she said that one day she would tell him. He thought it was true.

He’d pulled his truck around to the trailer while they were cleaning. He made sure all his bags were inside and locked it up. ‘I love you,’ he said to it, ‘But I’m sure as hell glad I don’t have to live in you.’

Inside his new home, Betsey’s energy radiated everywhere. He could smell her. See her when he glanced at the sofa and the bed. The clean floor and the neatly stacked dishes reminded him of her. When he glanced in the bathroom he saw the toilet paper folded to a point at the end and found himself laughing.

It was easy then, being in his own little space, to lock the door, turn on the ancient TV set and flop on to the bed. He shucked his jeans and took his bare cock in hand and just a few strokes got him off thinking about her. About the way her hair smelled and her body felt and the warmth of her curve against his body and her laugh…God, her laugh. He fell asleep with the comforter pulled loosely over him and the late show’s laugh track sounding in his ears.

She could feel him coming but her legs wouldn’t move. The ancient Buick – faded black with scabby sections of paint peeling away – rolled towards her. She couldn’t see it, but she could hear it. Could feel it. She knew it was there and she knew it was transporting Denton Jackson Miller. A former mailman with a penchant for abducting and keeping young girls. The first three had been abducted along his route. It had brought him down, eventually – that connection.

She was to be the last. And here he came. His gasoline-powered beast huffing expectant breath behind her as she stood there, on her way to school, as always. She was frozen. Frozen in the headlights. It was an overcast November day. Cold and bitter and the wind blew right up her school skirt, bit through her knee socks, tossed her ponytails.

She tried to run. Betsey had been here before. Over and over again and she knew the sensation of her legs being nestled in wet, sticky molasses. Wanting to move – needing to move – and yet unable to.

‘Run,’ she said to herself and shivered. The car crept closer.

Here came his voice, a sickening, almost-pleading query. ‘Need a ride?’

She said no. ‘No.’ She always did. She had. And yet he continued to follow along in his car.

She was at the end of the road. No one was coming. He blocked her with his car. She could run off into the underbrush at the edge of the nearby park at the end of this cul de sac. She could. Why didn’t she? Because fear had locked her. Fear had buckled her down, muffled her instinct and clouded her judgment.

He got out of the car. Coming towards her. This is where she acted. This is where she ran. Made noise and ended this thing. But he reached for her with his short grubby fingers. Reached for her and took her wrists in his hand, his grip tight and unyielding. This time he had her. This time she wouldn’t get away. He was coming…

‘Jesus Christ, Betsey, wake up!’

She opened her eyes to find Archie over her. His blue eyes wide and wild and scared. ‘Archie?’

She was on her sofa, covered up, and for a second confusion overwhelmed her. ‘Did I fall asleep while you were showering?’ She was wrapped in his jacket so it couldn’t have been that long.

‘Hours and hours ago. I left you…I just came back because I heard you.’

She pushed the jacket away and sat up. Her head swam for a moment. ‘From your trailer?’

He dropped down next to her, putting his hand over his heart. He was pale. She’d scared him. It was then that Betsey realised her heart was pounding. ‘Jesus Christ, yes, from my trailer,’ he said, his breath short. ‘You scared the shit out of me. I thought someone was killing you.’

She shivered when he said that. Sobbed but then got herself under control. His expression one of concern, he reached for her but she waved him off. ‘Don’t. Please. Not yet.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said after a moment of silence. Her heart was slowing to normal. Her fingers and her face weren’t so cold. Still, she stood and pushed the thermostat up a notch.

‘Don’t be sorry,’ Archie said. She realised he was in a giant sweatshirt and jeans. No shoes. No socks. No jacket. ‘Just tell me what happ–’ He stopped himself. She watched him reconsider and had the urge to kiss him just for the effort. He could read her. Knew he was treading sacred ground. ‘Just tell me what I can do for you.’

‘Nothing,’ she said. It was a lie. A small one, but a lie.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Thank you for coming,’ she said. Her eyes darted to the letter there on the small table by the front door where she kept the bowl for her keys and her umbrella and outgoing/incoming mail.

He followed her gaze but remained silent. Finally, he stood and rubbed his hands together, blowing on them. ‘You’re sure?’

‘I am.’

‘If you change your mind…’ He chuckled. ‘Just yell.’ He kissed her on the forehead and she fought the urge to melt into that contact with him. It would be unfair to Archie to bring him into this mess. After what he’d been through. He’d had enough shit.

‘I will.’ She hugged him very fast as if she might burn him if she held on too long.

When the door swung shut behind him, the sobs came out. Big wracking sobs that bunched her stomach muscles painfully and twisted her body so she bent double. She stuffed the heel of her hand against her mouth but they still came. Exhausting her. Twisting her up inside. Huge sobs that didn’t even come with tears. Her eyes were nearly dry. It was the fear and the anger and the memories that she’d stuffed down down down all rushing out at once.

The door popped open and she almost screamed. Archie’s face was there. Worried, pale, tired. ‘OK, see, I can hear that –’ he began.

Betsey’s sobs turned to laughter. Almost maniacal laughter. Crazy-person laughter.

Archie stepped inside, moving slowly as if he might spook her. As if he could! ‘See, you might think these things are insulated from sounds but, Betsey, gotta tell you, honey, not so much.’

Here came the tears, finally. Sneaking in at the end of the emotional upheaval. Then more sobs. He moved towards her slowly but deliberately. He sat beside her, his thigh pressed up against hers, but not touching her in any other way. Until she bowed her body towards his. Until she made that move. Then he wrapped his arms around her and held her.

She caved. Gave in to that welcome warmth of another person holding her. Caring what was going on. It was a heady feeling. More addictive and attractive than any drug.

‘What is it, Betsey? What can I do for you?’

She settled. Everything in her growing still, like the moment when a violent storm blows out and what was just chaos and darkness is silence and light.

‘Really?’ she asked.

‘Really. Anything,’ he said. His arm curled around her shoulder. He held her close.

‘Will you…go to bed with me? Hold me?’

It took an enormous amount of courage to ask him that. More than it had to read that damn letter from the state. More than it had to come to Turner’s Corner and start a life. More than anything in a very long time. Oh, she’d fallen into bed with two men since she’d moved here. But it had been temporary and just for fun, for release. She had never asked one to share her bed – or her emotional upheaval.

He didn’t answer her. Just stood, locked the door and held out his hand. ‘Let’s go. You look exhausted.’

Betsey took his hand.

She woke up hot. It was so hot and Betsey couldn’t figure out why. Until she remembered being so terribly cold and turning up the heat. Then there was the extra body heat of a large man next to her. Curled up against her. One hand flung possessively across her belly. She let herself lie there and feel that. How good it felt to have someone touching her.

Betsey moved his hand as slowly as she possibly could so as not to wake him. She’d probably scared the shit out of him, yelling from her nightmare. She’d been having them, the same one mostly, ever since the letter had arrived. She pushed the thought away, crept out of bed and went into the living room to turn down the heat. All she could think about now that she was calm and sleep-drunk was how long her propane would last if she kept cranking up the heat any old time she felt like it.

She hit the bathroom and brushed her teeth. She’d slept on the sofa and then the crying and yelling and heat of the trailer had left her with a dry mouth that tasted like death.

‘Death,’ she said in the mirror, grimacing at herself.

‘Who you talking to?’ came a voice from behind the closed door. Unaccustomed to being spoken to from behind closed doors in the middle of the night, Betsey let out a startled squeal and speckled the mirror with toothpaste.

‘Jesus,’ she whispered, clutching her chest. ‘I was talking to myself,’ she whispered, pulling the door open.

‘Why are we whispering?’ he whispered back.

She studied his bare chest and his jeans. ‘So we can go back to sleep easier. Jeans?’

‘No drawers underneath.’ He grinned.

‘Oh. Need the bathroom?’ She blushed and hurried past him. ‘I’ll leave the light on so you don’t kill yourself.’

Betsey turned the overhead light on so he could see. She crawled back into bed, feeling the ghost of his body heat. It was odd and thrilling to hear another person moving around the small space. It felt somehow cosy. Safer.

When she heard him coming down the hall her heart picked up speed. He cracked the door open and stuck his head in. ‘OK for me to come in?’

She giggled. It was a nervous sound. Betsey rarely giggled. Ever. ‘Of course. I’m not kicking you out at –’ she glanced at the clock ‘– two o’clock because you had to pee.’

‘I can, though, Betsey, if you need me to.’ He stood there in the doorway watching her. There was interest in that gaze. Attraction if she wasn’t mistaken. But also unsureness and worry. He was a nice guy, wanting to be nice to her. To give her what she needed.

‘I don’t need you to. It’s fine.’ Her eyes skated along his body, studying him. Broad shoulders, a few freckles there. Nice pecs, a lovely flat, slightly ridged belly. Trim hips. Lean, long legs. Her heart flared and banged. Her breath came faster and she shook her head.

What she needed…

‘What I need,’ she said softly.

He cocked his head. Watched her. Waiting.

When she didn’t speak he said, ‘Yes?’

‘I was just thinking you look like a guy willing to walk home in the freezing dark if that’s what I need.’

‘Yes,’ he confirmed. ‘Whatever you need, Betsey.’

She held out her hand. ‘Whatever I need.’ She said it like a mantra.

He looked a little bewildered until she curled her fingers to him. ‘Well, come on then. If you mean it, Archie.’

He nodded. Said nothing. His blue eyes had turned a stormy grey in the harsh yellow light from her overhead.

‘I need you,’ she whispered. ‘If you can manage that. I mean, if you…want me too.’

He moved towards her and only stopped when she whispered, ‘Hit those lights.’

He did and his weight dipped her bed – a bed that usually only held her – and she found herself in his arms again. And he was kissing her.