5. Lacy
5
LACY
I squeeze my eyes shut, the pain in my head searing.
“Help!” I try to scream, but my head feels like it’s in a tornado. I gulp in air, the fright in my body paralyzing.
“Help!” I scream again, the skin on my legs burning, my body full of pain.
“Help!” The familiar smell of dirt, animals, and gasoline infiltrates my nostrils.
Nausea swirls in my stomach and makes me lightheaded, as my hands are yanked over my head. The pain in my wrists is instant, and I blink hard a few times, my vision blurry.
“Somebody! Please!” I yell, but my voice sounds muffled. I’m confined, constricted. I can’t move, my arms aching from being tied together. Fear crawls up my chest, my heart races, and sheer panic starts to take over. I thrash around, but I can’t get free.
“Help me! Somebody, help me!” My shoulders feel like they are going to rip from my body, my wrists numb like they aren’t even connected to me anymore.
“Help me!” I scream and sit up with a start. My eyes open wide, my panting breath labored, and I look around my bedroom in fear, clutching the sheets to my chest.
Another nightmare. Just a nightmare. My heart is beating out of my chest, the vibrations making me tremble. I rub my eyes, willing the fear to dissipate, grateful for the small lamp I left on last night, bringing the reality of life to my eyes immediately.
I’m in bed. I’m safe.
I try to unfurl the sheets tangled around my body, my skin hot, slick with sweat as my head starts to thump, the nightly headache now approaching.
Throwing the sheets off, I turn and sit on the edge of the bed, placing my feet flat on the floor. Grounding. That’s what my therapist calls it. I look around the room and voice three things I can see.
“Pillows. Mirror,” I say before I turn to look out the window, taking in the sparkles that decorate the sky. “The stars.”
I take a deep breath in and verbalize the three things I can smell.
“Shampoo.” I take in another breath, my now damp with sweat hair intensifying the wash I gave it earlier. “My perfume… and the half-empty herbal tea.” I look at the cup on my bedside. Half-empty with chamomile tea I made myself, thinking it might help me sleep.
News flash. It didn’t.
I grab my cell. It’s 4:33 a.m. Too early to get up. Too late to go back to sleep. So I pull on a robe and walk out of my room, needing some fresh cool country air.
Opening my bedroom door tentatively, I tiptoe past Mom’s bedroom, the creaks of the floor sounding too loud in the quiet house. I quicken my pace down the hall to the screen door and walk outside.
The cool air hits me instantly, and I take in another deep breath, my body still convulsing involuntarily at the fear that consumed me only moments ago. I sit on the Adirondack chair on the porch and look up. The stars are beautiful tonight. Inhaling and exhaling deep breaths, I count them out slowly until my heart settles, my head is clear, and I feel normal. Whatever normal is.
I look at my cell and bring up the messages, searching for the ones that I need to see. Scrolling down, I eventually find it. Hudson. It’s been months since the last one, but I kept it. I kept them all.
Just seeing his name makes me feel better, and I wonder why my nightmares never resolve themselves with what happened in reality. With him rushing in and rescuing me. With him grabbing on to me and freeing me from the ropes. With him telling me that he’s got me and that he will never let me go.
Instead, they relay the dark parts. Where I’m confined, head throbbing, and smell gasoline, in complete terror and fear for my life. They always skip the rescue.
I click on the text and read it. It’s a benign message, asking how I’ve been. I sigh. Time has now passed. The town has moved on, life kept going, and me?
I now suffer in silence.
I sit with Victoria at the distillery, the two of us just finishing a meeting about our new spa interiors she put together. She has such a great eye for interiors, and even though the build isn’t complete, her plans for the interior are amazing, and we have pulled together a strategy for how to launch and what media we need.
“How’s your mom doing?” she asks me as we grab a coffee from the distillery restaurant during our five-minute break. It’s late afternoon and midweek so no one is around, just the two of us and a few other waitstaff preparing the room for the dinner rush. I love it here, the smell of whiskey, the smiles from our visitors. I’m not a big drinker, but I can appreciate a whiskey.
“She’s doing well. She has finished her treatments for a while. More testing will follow in the coming weeks, but at this stage, she is stable,” I say, remembering all the appointments and treatment plans we have and I try not to get too excited as my best friend beams at me. I stifle the yawn that threatens. Lack of sleep, coupled with too much on my mind, has me feeling dead on my feet.
“Well, would you look at that,” she says, looking out the large windows to the parking lot. I follow her gaze and spot Tanner leaning against his truck. Victoria’s face literally blooms whenever she sees him. It’s good to see and a pang of jealousy hits me that I don’t have the same thing. I grab my cup before my eyes dart to who Tanner is with, and when I see our new doctor, my heart stutters. I watch them for a beat, taking in his smile that has my own lips curling .
“Sugar?” I ask Victoria as I stir a little sweetener into my hot drink, avoiding looking at the men while I try to tame the jitters that now flick around my body just from seeing him.
“I’m so happy Hudson came back,” Victoria says absentmindedly, and my eyes betray me to look back out the window. Hudson is in his signature suit, hair swept back, his handsome features highlighted even more in the afternoon sun that shines down on his frame. As he stands tall, confident, in control, I look down his body, wondering what it would feel like under that distinguished suit.
“Yeah, the town needs a good doctor.” I take a sip of my coffee, my eyes remaining glued to the man standing outside. My gaze only moves when the steam from my drink hits my nose and fogs up my glasses, the ones I wear thanks to the increasing dizzy spells I have been getting every time I look at my computer screen.
“That we do,” she says slowly, looking at me, but I get us moving, walking back to my office. I need the space to take a deep breath and roll my shoulders, because just seeing Hudson makes me nervous. As we walk, my cell vibrates, and I look at it quickly, waiting on an email I don’t want to miss. But my stomach sinks immediately.
Summer School Sessions are open for enrollment. I believe this would be a perfect opportunity for you to enhance your online learning on campus. I’m taking a special intensive class that I would love to see you participate in…
I don’t read the rest of the very long-winded message before I delete it and block it instantly. My skin crawls and I take another sip of my coffee to dampen the nausea that creeps up my throat.
“Have you two talked yet?” Victoria asks, and I blink a few times, thinking about what we were talking about as she takes a seat on the small sofa in my office. I join her, slumping in the armchair, needing all the caffeine today.
“He was around to see Mom the other day,” I tell her as I try to stifle another yawn.
“No, I mean, really talked. About the fire. About him rescuing you and then leaving town immediately after. The therapist said it was good to talk about it.”
“No. There isn’t anything to say. He rescued me. He treated me as a medical professional would…” I start to tell her before she interjects.
“A medical professional doesn’t sleep at your bedside all night, holding your hand,” she adds, and my eyes flick to her in warning. I told her that in complete confidence. “Don’t worry, your secret's safe with me.”
“It was a traumatic night, with a lot of emotions for everyone. He’s a doctor, he helped you, he helped Tanner, and he helped me. The rest is just nothing,” I tell her, sick of thinking about that night. Thinking about the small glances we took of each other in the bar the weeks prior, the small smiles we shared. It was the closest I’ve come to being flirty since college. The closest I’ve come to having a man take some sort of interest in me in a long time. It felt nice. But we aren’t anything. We can’t be. He’s just a new face in town, and I have too much to do to even consider getting to know him better.
“You two really should talk. Maybe go out?” Victoria presses. “The way he was looking at you at the bar last week, I would say that he is keen on you.”
“I think you need my glasses because you’re seeing things. A guy like Hudson Hamilton wouldn’t be interested in a girl like me.” Waving my hand in the air, I try to act disinterested, even though the idea of it all has my pulse racing.
“Ahh, but are you interested in a guy like him?” she teases as she sips her coffee, already knowing that he’s caught my eye. She leaves a bright-pink lipstick mark on the cup, her signature look.
“There is at least a fifteen-year age gap.” I roll my eyes.
“So? Tanner and I are twenty years apart…” She smirks, like she has a checkmate on me.
“I’m fresh out of college, I have a sick mom to look after, I’m trying to build my career…” I have a stalker problem , I think to myself as I look back at my cell and thank the stars I don’t have another message. “I don’t have a lot to offer a man like Hudson, and I sure as hell don’t have the time to play around.”
Plus, history tells me that older men aren’t really an area I should be exploring.
“You’re being ridiculous. You’re amazing, caring for your mom. You just got a promotion with the best whiskey distillery in the country. You are an extreme professional. This strategy we worked on this morning is out of this world, and I can’t believe you already know all these media personalities and journalists. You’re so beautiful, I can hardly stand it, and every time I look at you, I want to puke because I need your long thick hair more than I need to breathe sometimes.”
“Oh, stop.” I pretend to scold her as I get up and move around my office. I feel fidgety or nervous, like I need to keep busy. It always happens to me when the topic is on me or something I have done. But I hear her words, and I know she is right. I’m smart, capable, and resilient. “He’s a widower. Probably still in love with his late wife. Besides, I went to sleep with him by my side, holding my hand, and when I woke up, he was gone. He saw me at my most vulnerable, then left. I’m kind of embarrassed. I was a mess. Shit, I still am a mess,” I say, feeling my cheeks heat and rubbing my temples. I can be honest with her, and while I don’t tell her everything, she knows more than most.
“Are you still having nightmares?” she asks quietly, and I stop. Swallowing, I look at her before I sit again.
“Yeah.” I sigh. “Are you?”
“Sometimes,” she says, and I nod in understanding. I know she does, but she has Tanner to curl up with, to soothe her night terrors. I just grip the cold sheets and try to breathe through the fear, feeling like a child who can’t get her shit together. Another reason Hudson can’t come close… I’m too damaged.
“Are they getting better?” I ask, feeling hopeful.
“Less and less, thank God,” she says with a small smile of encouragement.
“Good.” I’m looking forward to the day when mine start to ease.
“I think going back to Marie’s Place helps.” Lifting her eyebrows, she looks at me accusingly .
“I’ve been back. I drive past there every day to come to work,” I tell her, although she is right. I have only been back a few times, and each time, I feel better. Maybe I need to go back again. Walk around the new shed, have a coffee in the new kitchen. Just be still in my thoughts.
“Yes, but you know as well as I do that sometimes the best therapy is facing demons head-on. I go to Marie’s Place all the time. At first, it was hard, but now I refuse to let that woman take away the one place that I truly made mine. I put my heart and soul into that place; I’ll be damned if I’m not going to enjoy it now.” Hell, if Victoria can do it, I sure can.
“Fine. I will try and go some more.”
“Maybe have your next therapy session there. That helped me,” she offers, and I nod. I might take her up on that.
“Well, should we talk about the spa?” Sitting forward, she grabs her laptop, and I grin. We both can’t wait for the day when a health spa is installed here at the distillery.
It’s something the two of us will make very good use of.