The Lion's Den (Faraway Book 2) (17 page)

I turned the granite in my hands, looking at them from every direction.

“When do you move?” he asked, and stole my attention from the stones.

“We settle—well, I’m
closing
on the house December thirtieth. Brad is settling that day.” The colonel and I both laughed at poor Brad. “He’ll come around.”

“What if he doesn’t?” he asked, and I stopped laughing.

I returned to the safety of the granite in my hands and said, “This one.” I handed him the sand-colored sample. “It looks like the wet sand after the tide has gone out.”

“I knew you were going to say that.”

He was standing next to me, but he may as well have been on top of me. His shoulder was so close to my face the smell of his skin was choking the words in my throat. I relived what it felt like the day I’d walked in on him in his office without his shirt on. I was suddenly terrified to remember more.

“How did you know I would say that?” My head turned slowly, and my body followed until I was standing only inches away, facing him. Trying to face
this
. Whatever this was.

I could have kissed him. I ached to taste him to the point of anger. The desire rose up inside of me and burned through the image of his sweet face, leaving nothing but outrage in its place. The colonel leaned toward me, and I needed his lips on mine. I forced my eyes closed to hide from that which I wanted more than air.

“What are you thinking? Tell me the truth,” he pleaded, and I knew it wasn’t the first time he’d demanded honesty from me.

I was flushed, and my emotions were overwrought. But I forced myself to look him in the eyes when I said, “I’ve lost almost an entire year, and the things that keep appearing in my mind, make me believe I don’t know myself anymore.”

“Like what?”

“Like wanting you to kiss me right now.” I wouldn’t turn away. “Regardless of the cost.” The physical pain of coveting him centered behind my eyes. “But that’s not who I am.”

Vince lowered his head. He groaned as he shook it. I waited. I stayed perfectly still, bracing myself for the truth he would share. “I just want you to be safe and happy.”

Those were the only words he said. He wasn’t going to tell me anything. And for some reason, I trusted him more than my husband who’d told me everything. I sensed the truth might hurt me more than the unknown, but it did nothing to quell the unknown inside me.

I TRIED TO STAY AWAY
from him. I tried not to inhale him like a dog as he walked by. I even tried to tell myself he was ugly. Disgusting, actually. He wasn’t as amazing as he was in my head. Surely, he had tons of faults, and his thick black hair and the width of his chest were blinding me to them.

This was how I started each day, and by the end of each one, I was still in love with him. If he smiled or didn’t. If he spoke to me or not. None of it mattered. I just wanted to be near him. I knew, without a doubt, I had to quit my job. I couldn’t stay here fawning over him every day. Nothing good could come of it. But, I didn’t think I could leave—him or my desk.

My cell phone ringing startled me. I knew Brad was going to call, but the sound still broke through my daily activity of imagining what the colonel looked like when he slept.

“Hello,” I said as I slid the green icon on my phone to the side.

“I’m here. Can we go get this over with?”

The smile drained from my face. Brad didn’t want to close on our new house. He didn’t want the house at all, and he was going to make me pay for it by complaining every step of the way. I considered just hanging up and not going outside. Letting the settlement pass and staying in the house he loved, but I loved the new house more than I loved Brad.

Deep breath.

“Do you have to be this way?” My voice was low, barely above a whisper.

The colonel and Thompson were studying a map hanging four feet from my desk.

“Yes! I have to fucking be this way. Now can you come out of the fucking police station so we can buy this fucking disgusting house?”

The colonel and Thompson turned to me, able to hear every word through my cell. My cheeks flushed. I was mortified by how my husband had spoken to me, and I could have killed him for it.

I hung up the phone and smiled at the officers. “I have to go. Today is settlement,” I said to them.

They were still staring at me in shock. Neither of them would ever speak to me that way. Until recently, neither would my husband.

“Everything okay? How about I walk you out?”

Vince thinks Brad hurt me.

“His bark is worse than his bite. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you coming back?”

“Not until tomorrow.”

“Text me later and let me know you’re all right.”

I stared at him. I wanted to stay here with him. “I will.”

“Don’t forget, or I’m coming to your house.”

I was the only one who smiled. The colonel meant it, and Thompson knew he’d do it.

“I won’t forget,” I said and held the colonel’s eyes a little too long. I’d forgotten just about everything else.

Brad was waiting in his black sedan with all the windows up and the music blaring. He was a child. I opened the door, and he didn’t even turn to me. I leaned in and shut off the stereo.

“I’ll drive myself,” I said and moved back from the center of the car.

“Why?” For a second, I thought he was drunk, but he was wound too tight. He was just a giant dick.

“Because you seem a bit agitated, so I’d rather ride alone than be near you.”

“That’s nice, Meredith.”

“Well what do you expect? Why are you screaming curse words at me because we’re buying a house? One that you helped pick out?”

He glared through the front windshield again, and I slammed the passenger door and stormed toward the Escalade. I heard his driver’s door slam behind me, and then he was in front of me.

“Don’t be an asshole,” he said.

Takes. One. To. Know. One.

“What is your problem? You yell at the kids. You yell at me. You don’t talk anymore. What the hell is going on with you?”

“I work!” he exploded. His arms flew up in the air, and the blood rushed to his face. I took a step back, out of his reach, and even that pissed him off. “What, are you afraid of me now?”

“No.” There was a moment of silence, and in it, I felt the fear of my husband return. I wasn’t afraid he’d hurt me. I was afraid of what he would take from me. “If this is really about the house, I don’t want it.” Brad’s jaw loosened and his hands relaxed at his sides. “It’s not worth this much to me.”

“How much, Meredith? How much is it worth?” He wasn’t making any sense.

“What are you talking about?”

Brad roughly ran his hand through his hair. He was losing his grip. Without his anger, he was lost in this conversation. “Nothing. Ride with me.” He grabbed my arm, and I pulled it away at the exact moment the back door of the police station opened and the colonel stepped out. He stood near the door, his eyes fixed on me and Brad’s eyes fixed on him.

“Let’s go. I’ll ride with you,” I said, and Brad turned toward me. Relief crossed his face for the first time since I’d walked into the parking lot.

We walked back to his car under the rage of the colonel’s stare. When I was safely in the passenger seat with the door shut, I looked at him and smiled.

I knew I had to quit my job.

BRAD AND I SETTLED, BUT
made no mention of moving into our new house. Instead, we hired a contractor to renovate the kitchen and baths and raise the ceiling in the master bedroom. I swore to Brad that he’d love it when the work was done. We also hired a landscaper to build us a backyard worthy of my husband’s approval, and I promised to have a party in the spring. I’d do anything for him to love the house.

Despite all of that, Brad was still angry all the time.

“Can we talk about the pros and cons of having two heads?” James asked, causing Brad to look at me. He wanted reassurance these weren’t his children. He was hoping this was the moment I’d confess they belonged to someone else. “The major pro is you’re twice as smart,” James continued without caring if anyone was listening. “The con is if you have a fight with your other head, you can only control half your body.”

“Can we talk about you chewing with your mouth shut?” Brad asked, and it was a valid question. I was constantly reminding James about his table manners, but the way Brad said it was cruel. As if James should stop because it disgusted him rather than a father’s desire for his son to be the best he could be.

James finished his food and asked to be excused without another word.

After the kids left the kitchen and I’d cleaned up breakfast, I asked Brad the question he always refused to answer. “Is everything okay with you?”

“Fine. Why do you ask?”

I needed to tread lightly. The last few times I’d asked had ended with Brad blowing up at me or the children. “Because I love you.” What could there be to argue about that? I cared because I loved him.

“I’m sorry. There’s just a lot going on at work that’s stressing me. I haven’t been sleeping well. I don’t know . . .”

“Is it the house?” The guilt for making him buy it returned.

“No. The house is fine. I want you to be happy.”

“I’m thinking about quitting my job,” I blurted out without completely thinking it through. I knew I needed to quit, I just didn’t think that I ever would.

Brad’s face lit up the same way it did when I’d accepted his wedding proposal. My sight fell to the blue topaz ring on my finger. He was meant for me. The ring proved it. He’d known I wouldn’t want a diamond. He knew me better than anyone else did. “I would love it if you quit your job.”

“Has it been that much of an inconvenience?”

“No, no.” Brad pulled me close to him and wrapped his arms around my back. “I’d just like to keep you all to myself.” I rested my face against his chest and listened to his heartbeat. It was racing against my cheek. I could feel the ugly sense of loss settling in my soul. The job was the only thing that was mine. And now I’d give it up for Brad to be happy.

I was making myself a cup of tea when the colonel walked into the break room. I kept my face down and inhaled deeply as he reached across me for sugar.

“Pardon me,” he said close to my ear. His voice was soft. I dunked my teabag in my cup, and remembered crying when he left my house in the middle of the night. He was standing in my kitchen, and James was yelling my name from his bedroom. The colonel had walked out the back door, and I’d thought I’d fall to the floor and never stand again. “Meredith?”

I was sure my face told him the whole story. He’d left me. At some point in the year before, he’d left me crying in my kitchen, and that had everything to do with why he wasn’t telling me the truth about us now.

“Do you have a few minutes we could speak . . . privately?” I asked and stepped away from him. The empty feeling seeped behind my chest and rose to my throat. I didn’t want to be without him, in my memory or now.

“Of course. Come in my office.”

I followed him in. I sat down in the chair and the memory of a time I was in the chair before startled me. I was angry with him. He’d given Jenna a DUI after her accident, and I’d come here to scream at him.