Broken Wings (A Romantic Suspense) (17 page)

“Are you afraid you’re doing the wrong thing?”

I nod. “I am. I’m scared. What if we get married and then he doesn’t want me anymore? It hurts just to think about it. It hurts me here.” I clutch my fist over my heart.

“You need to talk to him about it. Really talk.”

“I know.”

“Do you want to go back out into the dining room and eat?”

I think about that for a moment. I keep expecting the girls to be disgusted by me, but they don’t seem to be. Jack’s mom hands me a tissue and I swipe at my eye. I know I look a little red and raw, but I open the doors and step out anyway. The kids have finished their food and run back out into the living room. They must have the day off for some reason.

I sit down next to Jack and start nibbling on my sandwich. I can’t take big bites, so it takes me a while to eat. He slips his arm around me while his mother sits at the head of the table.

My head falls on Jack’s shoulder and I sigh.

“My husband will be home around five,” his mom says.

“I haven’t had the pleasure. We’ll leave if you want,” Jack says.

His mother looks at the wedge of sandwich she’s eating. “I’ll keep him calm. He’s going to be upset to see you here, Jack. Your father is not a welcome topic of conversation in this house.”

“Good thing I’m not my father,” Jack says sharply.

“If Richard learns you’re here, there could be trouble,” his mother says quietly.

Jack looks up. I see the color drain from his face.

“If he hurts you I’ll…”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know about that, Jack. I am worried, I admit it. He doesn’t know how to let things go, you know? He’s left me alone for all these years. I kept my mouth shut and declined interviews. No tell-all books, no television specials. I just want to be out of his life completely.”

Jack tenses next to me. I grab his hand, reaching across my lap to touch it with my good hand.

“I’m glad you’re here,” his mother says finally. “I wish I could go to your wedding, but we both know why I can’t.”

She sighs. “Are you full? Want more to eat?”

I shake my head. Jack rubs my back with his hand and shakes his.

“I’d appreciate it if you’d spend some time with the girls while you’re here. I don’t know when I can expect you to see them again.”

Jack looks at me.

“You can lie down in the guest bedroom if—”

I stand and gather up the dirty plates as best I can, balancing them on my left arm. Jack joins in and we end up carrying them together.

“I’ll get the dishes,” his mom volunteers.
 

I walk out into the living room, and Jack follows. I see the girls looking up at me. I can feel the curiosity in their eyes, hear the unasked questions.
What happened to your face? Why are you like that?

Jack takes a seat next to me on the couch and I fall against him. They’re watching some kind of show about a…sponge?

Weird.

I haven’t watched cartoons in years. I stopped really watching television at all years ago. I don’t know why, I just did. The books just sucked me in, and I could stay in my bedroom with them.

Leaning on Jack, I pull my legs up and fold them, tucking myself up into a ball. After a while the younger of the two girls gets up and sits next to me on the couch, mimicking my position.

“You’re boyfriend and girlfriend?” she says.

“Yep,” Jack says.

“Are you going to get married?”

Jack hesitates for a moment. “Yep.”

“Are you going to have babies?”

“Not for lacking of trying—” Jack starts to say, but I cut him off.

“We don’t know yet,” I say.

After an hour, maybe two, I feel myself start to relax. I keep expecting to spot them staring at me, but it never happens. When I do catch them looking, they don’t turn away. They look at me and ask me another silly kid question.

After a few hours of being gradually interrogated about my favorite color, book, food, and other things, Jack’s mother walks out into the living room.

“My husband is on his way home. His name is Neil, Ellie. He and Jack have never met. Girls, I want you to head upstairs.”

They start to protest, but she shuts them down and shoos them up the stairs with ruthless efficiency and sits down in a side chair.

“How long?” Jack says.

“Half an hour. He’s wrapping things up at his office.”

“He’s an accountant.”

“Yes.”

The room is heavy with silence until the door opens and I hear footsteps. I tense up as a new person draws near and instinctively turn to press my scars against Jack and hide my face. He tightens his arm around me.

His mother’s new husband—his stepfather?—is a little heavyset, around six feet tall, balding, and wears little spectacles perched on his nose. He loosens his tie and sits down in the other side chair, facing his wife. He finally looks at Jack after about five minutes. It’s like I don’t even exist.

“Are you bringing trouble on my house?”

Jack sighs. “I don’t think so. Once I’m gone, no one will bother with you.”

“I’ll handle it,” Jack’s mother says. “He’ll call, I’ll answer his questions, and that will be the end of it.”

“That will be the end of it?”

“Neil—”

“Don’t ‘Neil’ me. I’ve heard all the stories you told me about your ex-husband. I would have liked to have been informed that his son was going to show up at my house.”

“My son,” Jack’s mom corrects. “My house, too. He’s welcome here. I haven’t seen him since he was a little boy, Neil.”

“I’ll be gone tomorrow,” Jack says.

Neil looks at me. I sit up.

“I’m Ellie. I’m Jack’s girlfriend.”

“I know who you are. Helen has mentioned you to me. I’m sorry about your accident.”

“Thanks,” I say flatly.

He sighs and scrubs his fingers through his thinning hair.

“I must sound like a real bastard. I’m sorry, but, Jesus Christ. I’m thinking about my family here. I’d rather not have one of the richest men in the world out for my blood.”

“No one is going to be out for your blood,” Helen says calmly. “I said I’ll handle it.”

Neil looks at us and sighs.

“Let’s have dinner,” Helen says, rising. “I’ll get it started. Help me out, Neil. Let’s leave these two alone for a bit.”

After they step out, Jack slips his arm around me and squeezes me, hard. I bury my face in his neck and breathe deep his scent.

“You okay?”

“I think so.”

He runs his fingers through my hair. We just sit, with the TV droning softly in the background. I like this. I like just sitting. It reminds me of before, when were kids madly in love with each other. We couldn’t stop touching. Holding hands, rubbing up against each other, me sitting on his lap. It drove my mother crazy. She would check on us every five minutes. We could never be alone.

I’m half asleep by the time Helen calls out that dinner is ready. She’s put a leaf in the table and set places for us, sitting across from each other beside the head of the table where she sits.

Dinner is pot roast. Jack cuts my meat for me, and I don’t snap at him over it this time. I find myself surprised by how good it is.

“Eat up, you have a trip ahead of you. You are staying the night, yes?” Helen says.

She looks at Neil, but he says nothing.

I touch my foot to Jack’s leg under the table before he answers.

“We will, but we need to leave early in the morning.”

“I’ll make up the guest room for you after dinner.”

After I slowly eat a bowl of chocolate ice cream, the girls help Helen clean up while we sit at the table with Neil.

“So, you two,” he says.

“Yeah,” Jack says.

“Your mom told me about the accident,” he says to Jack. He glances at me briefly. “Terrible shame. I’m surprised to see you two together after all this time.”

“So are we,” I say.

“I’m not,” Jack says, smirking at me. “Like I would ever give up.”

“I met your mother through work,” Neil says. “Before she quit to take care of the kids she was one of the best regarded teachers at her school. She’s the most wonderful person I’ve ever met.”

“Thank you,” Jack says. “I wish I could see a lot more of her. Hopefully I will.”

“I don’t think your father would approve of that.”

“May I be blunt?”

Neil looks at us.

“I don’t give a flying fuck what my father approves of. Trust me, his approval is the last thing I’m ever going to seek.”

Neil chews on that, his jaw working.

“No harm is going to come to my sisters, sir. I won’t allow it. We’ll be gone by the time anyone realizes we’re here.”

Helen reappears and shows us to the guest bedroom in the corner of the house. It’s small, just a bed and an empty dresser. A queen bed, smaller than the one we shared at the motel.

“Jack,” Helen says, tugging his wrist.

He steps out and I sit on the bed and sigh.

Jack returns a moment later.

“You have the run of the house,” Helen says before she steps out of the room. “Feel free to join us in the living room if you like.”

When she closes the door and leaves us alone, Jack sputters and starts laughing.

“What?”

He pulls a box of condoms out of his pocket. “She gave me these.”

I can’t help it, I start laughing. “How many are in there?”

“Three.”

“Well. We’d better get the most out of them then. I just want to lie down for a while. Is that alright?”

“Yeah. I’ll join you,” he yawns.

Jack

Ellie starts to snore not long after she lies down. She rolls on her right side and tucks up to me, and I slip my arms around her and breathe softly against the top of her head. Her hands and feet are cold, but I don’t care.

Half awake, she mumbles something about me being warm. I grab the blanket from the foot of the bed and pull it over us.

My mother’s words roll around and around and around in my head, until I can hear the sound of them like a marble on the rim of a metal bowl.

I always assumed my father was behind the accident. Mom has a good point, though. Something I never really thought about.

I
was in the car. Would he risk me being injured, or even killed? One of the three people in the car that night didn’t make it. As Ellie’s breath tickles my chest, I find myself wondering.

I was driving the car.

The car wrecked.

Her father died.

“Jack,” she says in a small voice, “I want to ask you something.”

She pulls herself closer and doesn’t wait for me to say anything.

“What do you see when you look at me?”

“I see you.”

“I know that, you jerk. I mean what… Why…?”

I lie for a while, holding her in my arms. Nothing feels as good as this, as good as her breath against the crook of my arm. She can’t keep her freezing-cold feet off my calves, but I don’t care. I’d rather be tickled by chilly toes than be without her.

“I see you. I see us dancing. I see you helping me with my homework. I see you playing your guitar. I see you scribbling in that journal you’d never let me look at. I see you with snowflakes in your hair. I see all the joy you bring me just by being in my presence. I see your pain. I see you.”

She tightens her arms around me. “That was almost poetic, Jack.”

“I read a book once.”

She giggles.

Then I have to ruin it.

“Ellie, did you ever think… Do you blame me for your dad? Do you think it’s my fault he died?”

She doesn’t say anything for a while. Her breath grows soft and regular and I start to wonder if she’s fallen asleep.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember. Why?”

“I’m afraid. It scares me that you might.”

“Was it your fault, Jack? They never told me why it happened. When I asked Mom she’d change the subject. I had no one else to talk to about it. Do you remember it? I don’t remember anything. I don’t even remember eating dinner with you and Dad. It’s just gone.”

She turns her head up to look at me.

“I couldn’t steer,” I say, my voice trembling. “I
tried
, Ellie. It was like wrestling with a bank vault. The wheel wouldn’t budge, and when I put my foot on the brake, nothing. I stood on it with both feet and it didn’t do a goddamn thing.”

“Then it’s not your fault.”

“Yes it is,” I blurt out, without thinking. “I should have been going slower. I should have made him put his seat belt on. I should have put the car in neutral so it would slow down. I shouldn’t have panicked. I should have
done something
. I can’t stop thinking, if I hadn’t fucked up, he’d be alive right now and you’d…” I trail off before I say it.

Ellie says nothing.

“You know what I’ve been thinking all these years?”

“What?”

“If I could take your place, I would. If I could take your dad’s place, I would.”

She sits up all at once, leaning on her arm, and scowls at me.

“I wouldn’t let you.”

“It should have been me.”

Ellie nudges my shoulder until I roll onto my back then throws her leg over my hip and straddles me. She lowers herself down and wraps her arms around me.

“I wouldn’t wish this on anybody. I don’t want to hear you wish it on yourself. I’m happy you made it out almost unhurt, Jack.”

“It hurt me the worst way it possibly could. It hurt you.”

Her head pops up. “Are you getting a hard-on?”

I smirk. “Can you blame me?”

She smiles, slides down a bit, and wriggles her hips. From the look on her face I know she can feel my now fully erect cock pressing against her. She wiggles until it’s pressed against her stomach and slowly undulates her body, making me even harder.

Ellie bites her bottom lip, pressing her teeth into it until the soft pink of her lip turns white, and gives me a look that makes me forget that one of her eyes is covered by a square of fabric.

I roll and take her with me, and then I’m on top of her, pumping my hips, grinding my cock into her stomach. Her hands roam down my back, her left hand scratching at me while her right hand kneads and squeezes. She spreads her fingers, gets a big handful of my ass, and clenches. My cock turns from stone to steel as I kiss her, tasting her.