Authors: S Jackson Rivera
Chapter 19
T
he next day, Ronnie’s friends signed up for the dive master course and Rhees wasn’t sure if she was relieved to know Paul really did use the time at Jungo’s to sell them on the idea, or worried that having Ronnie’s friends around meant two more girls would be vying for her husband’s attention.
Even if Marcelle and Sophie weren’t interested in Paul for themselves, having them around would surely fuel Ronnie’s flagrant flirting. The last thing Rhees thought Ronnie needed was a confidence booster.
Rhees had started to wonder if Paul was right—if she wasn’t crazy already, she was surely losing her mind, now.
oOo
Everyone turned to see the reason for Paul’s creative swear words. By the time every eye turned to him,
The Tow’d’s
engine parts had exploded against the wall of the The Room That Had No Purpose.
“Piece of shit!” His response may have had as much to do with his personal life than the actual performance—or nonperformance—of his premier dive boat, and a few people knew. Rumors had started to circulate as people noticed the tension between the newlyweds, but luckily, no one had come to any good conclusions. He wondered if Tracy was really keeping her mouth shut for a change, or if she’d just not heard enough of the conversation through the dense walls at their apartment. Either way, he was grateful.
“Poor baby. Anything I can do to help?” Ronnie offered, setting her hand on his arm.
Paul didn’t know where she’d come from, or how she got to him so quickly, but he jerked away from her touch, annoyed that the stupid girl believed he wanted her sympathy. He put on his grumpiest armor to scare her off. She didn’t move away, failing to take the hint.
The sound of the crash, his swearing, or both, must have been what brought Rhees rushing out of the office with the most beautiful concern on her face.
My wife.
He almost smiled to welcome her empathy before he caught himself.
How is it possible to
feel
this much?
He cursed himself for wanting to fall into her arms, tell her how much he loved her, and let
her
compassionate soul soothe his frazzled nerves. His resolve had taken a direct hit the other night, breathing in her luscious scent, feeling the warmth of her, holding her lovely body in his arms all night.
He hated the way he’d taken her, it wasn’t supposed to happen that way, but now, his body wouldn’t stop reminding him how perfect she’d felt. Damn, if he didn’t crave her all the more, knowing what it was like.
The fact that Rhees had forced him to sleep alone last night had been a blessing. He knew she’d done it because he’d hurt her, using friends to keep from having to talk about it again. He didn’t know how much longer he could hold out—keep from just sweeping her up in his arms—forever, and ignore her problems.
He also suspected that Rhees thought he was interested in Ronnie. Her fears about that were just another one of Keene’s predictions coming to light. Rhees did suffer from irrational insecurities and jealousy.
He almost laughed. Ronnie was too forward, even for the old him. That girl was too much like Ginger for his tastes. Not only had one Ginger been quite enough, Rhees was the
only
one he wanted, had wanted, or thought about, for . . . it felt like forever. He felt like he knew her, even before he did.
“Damn it!” he cursed again, aloud that time.
He had a hard time feeling betrayed anymore. He hated betrayal, but he’d come to the conclusion it wasn’t Rhees’ fault. She was sick.
The more he thought about it, every second of the day, and night too, the more excuses he came up with for her behavior, but none for his own.
As hard as it was, it didn’t matter how much he didn’t want to, it didn’t matter that it would kill him, he had to fix it. He had to get her the help she needed. The healthy Rhees would finally see him for what he really was, and she’d know what a mistake she’d made to love him. A healthy Rhees would want to love a good man, someone like her. A healthy Rhees would want to get as far away from him as possible.
He loved her, but he had to hold his ground, for her own good. He needed a shield.
“Ronnie!” He flashed his most charming smile, knowing Rhees would see. He even threw in a wink. “Do you know anything about engines?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” Ronnie laughed, and sashayed closer to him while returning a coy, flirty smile. “I know that when you throw the engine parts that hard against a wall, you’re screwed.”
Paul genuinely laughed at the truth, and humor of her comment, but then glanced Rhees’ way in time to see the heartache he’d caused by being flirty with, not only another woman, but the one Rhees worried the most about. He looked out over the ocean while the shame ate away at him. Rhees turned and practically ran back to the office. He almost followed her, but he reminded himself that it needed to happen.
oOo
Paul stayed away from Rhees as long as he could, but an hour and forty-five minutes later, he’d finally come up with a believable excuse to go to the office and check on her.
“Where’s Rhees?” It shook him to find she wasn’t there.
Claire gave him the cold shoulder. Frustrated, he went searching for her. When he didn’t find her, he returned to the office, his imagination and worry were getting the best of him.
“Where is she?” He didn’t attempt to hide his anger.
“What do you bloody care?”
“Where. Is. She?” he hissed.
Claire turned and glared at him, but still refused to give him any information.
“She left without saying a word? She knows better.” He stepped out of the office and looked down the Plank, willing her back. He hated not knowing where she was, wondering if she was all right. He decided he’d look for her, but quickly changed his mind before he made it to the street. He couldn’t afford to let her know how much he cared.
He made his way back to his, piece of shit, boat and stood staring, too upset to really think through the problem with the damned thing. Randy was supposed to get back to him with the name of a mechanic on the mainland, but so far, he hadn’t heard anything.
A strange noise on the Plank caught his attention, and he turned to see the cause. Rhees marched across the wooden planks dragging her duffle bag, the wheels clanking as they went. His heart stopped.
“She’s leaving me,” he panted. He lost his balance and almost fell backward off the deck, his bones felt as though they’d liquefied. He couldn’t breathe. He leaned forward with his hands on his knees, trembling, as he assimilated the fact that his plan had worked—and he waited to collapse—and have to be taken to the hospital for the heart attack he knew he was in the middle of having.
Rhees made her way to The Room That Had No Purpose, and ducked inside, dragging her bag with her. When she didn’t come back out, Paul finally found the strength to move, and he followed her into the room, apprehension and fear eating away at his insides.
“You’re leaving!” he accused.
She turned, a questioning expression on her face, as he stood in the doorway.
“Your bag! You’re all packed. You’re actually going to leave.” He couldn’t temper his condemning tone, even though this was what he’d hoped for, didn’t really want, but needed, because she needed it. He thought about what she’d said. She believed leaving would be the end of them—but there she was, all ready to go. She didn’t care anymore. His own success knocked the air from his lungs. “You’re going to Texas.”
He knew he shouldn’t let himself sound like her leaving was going to kill him. He knew he should recalculate, but someone had pushed the pause button on his brain.
“No!” She stared at him incredulously.
“But your bag.” He hoped she wouldn’t notice how shaky his voice had become.
She glanced down at her duffle. “Oh, that. Um.” She fidgeted, actually started wringing her hands as she fumbled for a response. “I’ve moved out of Oceanside.”
After a beat, she nervously commenced taking clothes from the duffle bag and hanging them on the freestanding closet rod that used to be at her apartment. He looked to his left and noticed boxes stacked on the table, the microwave he’d bought for her was there too—everything they’d kept at her apartment was now in the room at the shop.
The time it must have taken her to move everything—how had he not noticed? She’d obviously taken advantage of the strained detachment he’d been forcing himself to maintain.
The nausea subsided, and the room slowed down, no longer spinning completely out of control. Now it felt more like a merry-go-round, still turning, but manageable.
“You moved out.” Paul’s voice was absolutely toneless, flat.
“Yes.” She started her explanation to get ahead of the storm she was sure would come. “It’s stupid to keep two apartments. We’re married now, and married couples should have their own place. I know you liked that my apartment was bigger and nicer than yours, but it’s stupid to keep two. We shouldn’t have roommates anymore. We do need privacy, and it’s stupid to be paying rent for both places. Oceanside is too far away which made yours the better choice. Yours is so close to the shop, more convenient. It’s unnecessary and stupid to keep two apartments, and yours is the better choice.”
“You said that already.”
“Huh.” She didn’t realize she’d been rambling. She waited for his reaction, wondering how bad it would be. He seemed to be taking the news well. He was quiet, not yelling, anyway. He’d been trembling, she’d seen it in his jaw until he clenched it. He fisted his hands so she couldn’t tell if his hands still shook.
“I know you’ve said you like having me in the best apartment on the island, and that your place is too small, and you have too much stuff, and that my things won’t fit at your place and still look like the kind of home you think I deserve, so I thought I’d just keep my things in here.” She waved her hand around the room that was usually empty except for the bedding they kept in there for the nights they slept on the deck. “Now, The Room That Had No Purpose; finally has a purpose.”
“I’ve also said, at least a hundred times, that I don’t want you in my bed.”
“I know, but we’ve always slept on the deck most nights anyway. We have months before the rainy season starts up aga—”
“Take it back.”
“What?”
“Take it all back. You’re not moving out of Oceanside.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.” He took a step forward, glaring down at her.
She not only didn’t shrink under his intimidation act, the way sane people always did, she leaned up, closer to his face, daring him.
“We’ve already found new renters for my room,” she said, glaring right back.
“You what?” His voice went up. He hadn’t expected that. “What about Tracy and Regina? You can’t just make this kind of decision for them. They should have a say in this, it affects them.”
“This was their idea,” she snapped. “They helped me move.”
“Regina?” His voice went up again. He felt blindsided. Regina was his biggest cheerleader. “Regina would never agree to this.”
Rhees tried not to smirk. She knew he’d counted on Regina’s crush to make her back him up, be on his side.
“Tracy hates being ‘privy’ to the
conflict
we’ve been experiencing lately, and Regina—well, Regina hates seeing you ‘
fall off your peg’
.” Rhees rolled her tongue against the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.
“What?” His whole face scrunched up in bewilderment.
“I think she meant, fall off your pedestal, or being taken down a peg, but Tracy didn’t bother to translate, so I can’t really be sure. I took it to mean she’s not ready to stop worshipping you just yet, so a little distance sounds like a better option to her, for now.”
Rhees watched him. He seemed to be keeping his temper under control. She felt guilty about playing it this way, but she wasn’t about to tell him that she refused to make it easy for him to cheat on her. Keeping his
bachelor pad
, the fact that he’d slept there—he hadn’t slept there in months
before
they were married—but now he’d used it as, what she considered, a weapon against her.
She’d strategically taken away his option to retreat while they’d been having their—she didn’t know what the heck they were having—marital problems didn’t quite describe it. Normal married people didn’t have this problem. She didn’t think sex was supposed to be such a big deal, after you were married.
He stared blankly at the wall behind her. His jaw set, his cheek twitched, and it looked like he wanted to say something, but he never did. He finally turned to walk out of the room but he stopped in the doorway. Again she thought he was about to say something so she waited. Twenty seconds later, he exhaled and shook his head.
He swore.
He stood there another ten seconds like he was too stunned to do anything else. Finally, he walked out without saying another word. It was her turn to exhale and she felt relieved that she hadn’t lost, but she didn’t feel much like a winner either.
Chapter 20
T
hat afternoon, Paul walked into the office. “I refuse to call Fred again. Randy knows a mechanic on the mainland. He and I are going to see what he can do.”
“Okay. Do I have time to run across the street for a shower before we go?” Rhees jumped up from her computer but the look on his face was a clear indication he still wasn’t over her moving stunt.
He walked back out as abruptly as he’d come in, and without saying another word.
“Okay then. Does this mean I don’t have time to shower, or that he doesn’t want me along?”
Claire shrugged and gave her a sympathetic look.
“Shoot.” She blinked a few times. “He’s really,
really
mad.”
“All right, little bird, sing. I’m tired of sitting by and watching this. What’s going on?”
Rhees looked up at the ceiling. “Claire! I love you, you know I do, but I can’t talk about this with you.”
“Then who can you talk to?” Claire sounded hurt. “We’re chums.”
“I know. It’s not about our friendship.” Rhees looked apologetic and torn. She didn’t want to hurt Claire’s feelings. “My mom taught me that people should never discuss their marital problems with anyone outside the marriage. When she first married my dad, they’d fight, just normal, first year stuff, but she’d run home to her parents and tell them all the horrible things he’d done, getting it off her chest. They only ever heard her side of the story, but then she’d go back to dad, they’d make up, and life would be blissful, until the next fight.
“It took her a while to realize why her parents hated him. She’d make up, but her parents never had the chance. They never heard her half of the fight, the things she’d done to start it or provoke him. They only heard about the things he did to hurt her feelings or make her mad, but never the things he did to apologize, or to treat her like the special woman he knew their daughter was. She was sure her parents hated him until the day they died.”
“Okay, but I hated Paul before you two ever met.”
“Claire,” Rhees scolded. “You don’t hate him any more than he hates you.”
“I do today—since you got back from your honeymoon.”
oOo
Rhees tried to stay out of Paul’s way, but within his sight, as she watched him and Randy preparing the Porgy for the trip; still relatively sure he’d never leave her to fend for herself. She’d skipped her shower and dressed in her new closet so she’d be ready to go. Her pack sat on the table in the gazebo where she could grab it quickly, just in case.
No one had come forward yet, and as the day wore on, the list of possible babysitters grew shorter and shorter. Paul had asked Claire to attend the council meeting for him that night, the one that he really did have. He trusted her to be snarky enough to keep the other council members in line. She’d never let them slip anything by, in his absence, that would be bad for the dive shops. Rhees also knew, somehow, that Paul would never give Dobbs any one-on-one time with her.
Tracy and Regina had sneaked off after helping her move, not wanting to be around when Paul found out about it. No one at the shop had seen them since. She assumed they were home getting to know their new roommates. She was also pretty sure he was probably mad at them, or hurt that they’d helped her behind his back. They’d been his friends longer than hers.
Paul obviously trusted Christian to babysit, but her old dance partner hadn’t shown up for two days. She was sure there was more to that story than either one of them had let on. She wanted to know, but Christian was MIA. She couldn’t ask Paul about it either, since she’d promised herself to stop trying to force him to talk about
things
.
Mitch and Shanni were telling everyone about the big televised game at the Starfish that night. They’d invited her but she’d declined. If Paul had enlisted them to look after her, they would have put up more of a fight—or he would have stepped in with his two cents—it would have been more like his fifty dollars and two cents worth. He had to be planning to take her with him.
The Porgy pulled away from the dock, and she watched until they were nothing but a speck against the large mountains on the mainland, and then she couldn’t see them anymore.
Paul never once looked back, and it was all Rhees could do not to cry.
oOo
It had been the longest afternoon she could remember. She looked out over the ocean every few minutes, hoping to see the Porgy chugging its way back. Paul must have figured he wouldn’t be gone too long. He wouldn’t have left her if he had. She finally grabbed her snorkeling gear and jumped into the water. She needed a distraction. Under the dock was always good for an interesting wildlife sighting, but today she wasn’t interested. She didn’t really care about seeing anything at the moment. She just needed to get away.
She put her face in the water and floated, barely even kicking. The sun beat down, hot, but the water was perfect. It covered her ears and muffled all sound to a nice quiet hum. She focused on the silence, and for the first time since the hijacking, she completely relaxed.
She didn’t pay attention to how far she’d drifted until she noticed rocks under her floating body, instead of the white sand. She lifted her head to get her bearings. She’d drifted over a mile away from the shop and it shocked her. Without realizing it, she’d floated past the public beach as well as the row of private, mostly vacant, beach houses that sat to the north of the shop. She rolled onto her back and relaxed for another few minutes before heading back. She made a mental note to do it again sometime, soon, definitely.
oOo
Rhees stood on the bottom rung of the ladder and tossed her fins onto the deck. She climbed up, squeezed the excess water from her hair and watched Claire erase the board and begin to write down the next day’s schedule. It was time to close up.
She looked over to where the Porgy was usually docked. Still not back. She turned to look toward the mainland, thinking for sure that Paul would be on his way back by now. Nothing.
Thirty minutes later, everyone had disappeared from the shop except Claire and Dobbs, but even they set about locking everything up.
“Do you want to have dinner with us?” Claire looked concerned for her friend. “We were going to just grab some baleadas before my meeting.”
“No, thanks. I want to wait here.”
“You know that engine’s been the bane of Paul’s existence for months. It’s probably giving the new mechanic trouble too.” Dobbs scratched his bald head, looking out toward the mainland.
“Do I look
that
pathetic?” Rhees chuckled, ignoring the highly unlikely fact that any mechanic shop in this country would stay open past the dinner hour.
“Get something to eat, and don’t worry about him. He can’t stand to be away from you any more than you him.”
Claire grabbed Dobbs by the elbow, knowing that there was more going on with them than her husband knew. “I’m starved. Let’s go. Bye, Sweet. See you tomorrow.” Claire turned and asked, “You have your key, right? I didn’t just lock you out?”
Rhees glanced to the table to confirm her backpack hadn’t walked off. She nodded and waved. “I’ll be fine. Have a nice evening.”
oOo
Rhees paced back and forth, watching the direction he would be coming. She ran to Paul’s apartment to shower and change, returned, wandered around, found some trash—put it in the bin. She shook her head at how the people at the shop left their garbage lying around. She wasn’t their mother.
She wished Paul had a phone. They still hadn’t replaced their phones since the hijacking. She paced again, ran through a few stretching poses, twirled a few times, turned to look at the mainland again. She sat on the table and faced west. The view was better from the table than it was from the floor. Her stomach rumbled, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to keep food down. She watched the sunset, a welcomed distraction, but before long, darkness enveloped the shop.
‘He can’t stand to be away from you any more than you him’
, Dobbs’ words stung as she sat in the dark. What did Dobbs know?
It was pitch black at the end of the deck, and she was alone at the end of civilization. Only one bar and the private beach houses sat to the north of the shop, but even they were down the road. Randy’s house was next door to the south, but it sat closer to the road. The shop’s deck extended a long distance over the water. There was no one around to hear her and she finally let go. She sobbed for almost an hour and when she couldn’t cry any more, she sat up and let herself be numb.
An hour later, she got up, jumped up and down, waving her arms until the motion light turned on. She grabbed her backpack, dragged her chair to the light, sat down, pulled her journal out, and started writing. At midnight, she pulled her mat,
their
mat, out from the rafters of the gazebo, rolled it out, and sat against the rail, letting herself go numb, again.
It was almost two o’clock before she noticed lights on the water. It took another ten minutes before the Porgy’s engine geared down to begin docking. She jumped up, expecting Paul to throw her one line while he jumped off the boat to tie off the other, but she couldn’t see him. She did her best to position the boat from the deck while Randy worked to back the boat into its spot.
“Grab the line.”
She hopped onto the bow, tossed the bumpers over the side, grabbed the front line, hopped back onto the deck, and tied it to the cleat. Randy killed the engine, jumped off the boat and beat her to tie off the back.
“Sorry so late.” Randy tossed his head toward the passenger sitting in the front corner of the boat. “Someone ‘cided ta pardy.” He stepped back onto the boat and positioned one of Paul’s arms up and over his own shoulder, pulling him to his feet. “That it, big boy.”
Paul couldn’t stand without help, but he managed to hang onto the bottle in his hand just fine. Rhees raced to them and did what she could to help Randy keep his balance while Paul swayed. Together, she and Randy managed to get him off the boat without falling into the water.
“I don’t neeed hel-p,” Paul growled, slurring his words as he wrestled with them. “I’ve been getting my-self on and off this damned boat for years.”
Rhees moved to take his other side once they had him on the deck. He finally noticed her.
“Hey, beautiful.” Paul looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. He pulled the arm Randy had hold of, and threw it around Rhees. She almost buckled when his full weight was suddenly only on her.
“Whoa! Careful there, you’re going to have us both flat on our faces in a tangled heap.”
“Mm!” Paul grunted and then grinned. “That sounds good. Let’s get taan-gled.”
Randy helped her get Paul to the mat, and after a brief argument and struggle, he seemed to fall asleep. They put his bottle on the table under the gazebo, and Randy explained what happened.
After dropping the part off at the mechanic’s shop, they’d gone to get dinner and had a few drinks while they waited. Paul asked Randy to go settle up with the mechanic while he waited at the bar. When Randy returned, he had to search several bars in the area before he found him.
“He’s so drunk, I don’ know how he’s standin’, let alone dancin’, but you know how it gets with him. Them girls, they all vyin’ for his ‘tention.”
Rhees must not have hidden her sorrow well enough, because Randy blurted out the rest as an afterthought.
“He’s tellin’ them he’s married ta the mose beautiful woman in the world. That he’s not in’trested in them. He never sees them other girls ena-more, only my cousin, criss ting. He won’ be strayin’ from your bed. Them genes run strong in our Williams’ women, they keep their men hangin’ on for dear life.”
She tried to smile, knowing they didn’t really share any DNA. “Thank you for getting him home. I’m sure it wasn’t easy, but now you’d better get home before
your
most beautiful wife locks you out of the house.”
“Prob’ly too late for that. You han’l him all right?”
“I got it. Thank you.”
“We’ll have ta give ‘im a proper welcome at the nex’ par’dy. He’s fam’ly now, too, you know.”
Rhees forced another smile. It was true, but she didn’t know for how long.
“Walk good,” Randy said, waving. He must have been more concerned about getting locked out than he’d let on. He didn’t waste any time getting away, probably before Rhees could change her mind.
oOo
Rhees stood, watching Randy walk away when Paul’s arms snaked around her waist from behind.
She startled, and he sighed in her ear.
“You
ever
going to stop doing that every time I touch you?”
“I’ve already stopped—I just didn’t know you were there. I thought you were asleep.” His stubble and warm breath skimmed affectionately over the skin of her neck.
“No-pe. Not ready to sleep.” He pulled her hair out of the way for better access.
“You’re drunk. You
should
be asleep.”
He snickered against the skin behind her ear. “Yeah, I’m da-runk.”
“Yes. I know. You wouldn’t be so affectionate if you weren’t. In fact, you wouldn’t be anywhere near me.”
A frustrated, but soft growl rumbled at the back of his throat. “It-s’all fucked up, everything.” His hands moved up, his arms smoothed around her shoulders, pinning her back against him. “I l-love you
so much
,” he whispered feverishly against her cheek.
“I’ve noticed.” She closed her eyes and savored his touch. “—Just how much you love me, lately.”
“I know. I’m sorry. It-s’all fucked up, but I. Do. Love. You.”
She wanted to believe it but she didn’t dare. She’d longed for this kind—
his
kind of assurance for days, but he’d refused to give it to her. She reached up behind her and tenderly stroked the side of his face. He kissed the palm of her hand before leaning his cheek into it.
“As nice as this is, now, you’re going to hate me again in the morning, aren’t you?”
He burst out laughing. “Now there’s a whole new twist on, ‘will you still respect me in the morning’?”
“You know what I mean.” She turned in his arms to face him. He was so beautiful when his eyes sparkled that way, but she still felt a sad pain in her heart. “That’s what all this boils down to, isn’t it? I finally gave it up for you, and now, you don’t respect me anymore.”
She looked down in shame. “I can’t say I blame you. I’m sorry I hurt you—”
He grabbed her chin and kissed her, hard, to shut her up. “Let’s not waste my excellent drunk by going there.” He kissed her again before pulling back to look at her, as if just receiving a revelation. “I’m ve-rry da-runk!” He arched a brow and one side of his mouth curled up into a sexy grin. She realized what he was inferring.