Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jenny
Raffe kissed me. He touched my butt, and then he kissed me.
It’s not the first time he’s done either of those things, but back then we were just two awkward teens. Now he’s a man.
Brody left right after supper; I could tell he was missing his family. Everyone else stayed, and we played cards. We used a deck that Bill had given to me. Playing cards was one of his favorite things to do.
Raffe and Jackson got a kick out of them because they had the old logo from his bar on the back. I made Jackson take them home with him. He said he and Willow had a closet full of games at home. The cards will make a nice addition to their collection.
I was happy to hear that Bill’s granddaughter, Billie Rose, and her husband still own the building. They’ve turned it into a custom bike shop.
I’ve been quiet all evening. I’m still so embarrassed that I lost touch with reality for a bit. They must think I’m crazy, but they did stay, so I guess I shouldn’t worry about it too much.
Jackson and I watch Raffe walk Willow and Aspen down the path. My son and his little family are heading home for the night.
“Are you okay that he’s staying?” Jackson asks, placing his hand on my back.
My heart is about to jump out of my body at the thought, but I put my best smile on for my son. “Yeah, yeah, it’s fine. I’m sure he has questions.”
“I can make him leave,” he deadpans.
It makes me chuckle while warming my heart at the same time. Jackson is very protective of his family, and it’s nice to be included in that. “I’ll be fine. He just caught me off guard earlier. I didn’t expect him to be so …”
“Weird,” Jackson finishes for me.
I run my fingers over my forehead. “That’s just it … it doesn’t feel weird at all.”
He gives me a shy smile. “Well, I’d be lying if it didn’t catch me a little off guard too. I hadn’t given much thought to what his relationship with you would look like.”
“We’ve only ever been friends, Jackson. Please don’t think there is more here than there is.”
“I know that, but …” Jackson shakes his head and looks away. “It might be hard for you to see it, but there’s something magical about the two of you. I mean, my god, neither of you look over thirty.”
“Oh Jackson.” I laugh.
“I’m not kidding. And after all you’ve both been through, well, it would have aged most people.”
I reach out and brush his hair out of his eyes. “You are something special, Jackson. I’m so thankful you’ve come into my life.”
He blushes. “So, you’re not going to admit you have a thing for Dad?”
I take a deep breath, wanting to be honest with my son. “I’ve always had a crush on him, but like you said, we’ve been through a lot. I’m not sure …” I can’t bring myself to say it, but I don’t know if I’m capable of having a romantic relationship with anyone.
Jackson stares up at the darkening sky for a few minutes before turning his attention back to me. “Will you promise me one thing?”
“Sure.”
“You said you wouldn’t hide from me. Can you promise the same with him?”
I wrap my arms around myself because the thought scares me a little.
“Just be honest with him. Whatever comes of it, you’ll get through it together.” He taps two fingers over my chest. “Keep this thing open, even if it scares you.”
“You’re too wise for your age.”
Raffe steps around the bend, and we both look at him.
“It’s only because I had a good teacher,” he says, staring at his father.
Jackson swipes at his eyes as Raffe approaches. He leans over and gives me a quick peck on the cheek, and then he slips something into my hand. “I need you to have this,” he says.
I look down at the phone in my palm. “Oh, I haven’t had one …”
“Don’t worry. Dad will show you how to use it if you’ve forgotten.”
“How to use what?” Raffe asks, joining us on the porch.
“I got Mom a phone.” He gives me another kiss on the cheek, and then he pats Raffe on the back as he heads down the steps.
“But …”
He holds up his hands as he walks away. “I’m not backing down on this one, Mom. It’s for your own safety. I need you to be able to reach me twenty-four-seven.”
Raffe chuckles. “That’s my boy.” He tosses a thumb out toward our departing son. “He’s a true Skull through and through,” he says proudly. “We protect what’s ours.”
Jackson looks back and gives us one last wave goodbye, and then we’re alone.
The wind picks up, and my wind chimes break the silence between us.
“How have you survived up here?” he asks, taking my hand and walking me around the corner of the house.
“In what way do you mean?”
He gently pushes me forward, insisting I lead him around my sanctuary. I stumble, my heart picking up a beat at his composure. It unsettles me.
“I guess in the physical sense,” he answers, bumping into me when I stop abruptly.
“Oh sorry,” I say, gently toeing the big orange lump on the path, trying to get him to please step aside. “This roadblock is Garfield.”
“You’ve got a cat?” he asks, squatting down to pet him.
“More like the cat has me. He’s been here almost as long as I have.”
Garfield winds himself around Raffe’s legs, ensuring his scent is successfully left behind. He’s effectively claiming Raffe as his own. It makes me smile, and I don’t really know why.
My cat rolls over onto his back in front of him. Are you kidding me? He never lets me rub his belly. Garfield stretches leisurely, clearly enjoying the attention he’s getting.
My stomach tightens as I watch Raffe’s long, ringed fingers run over my cat’s fur. I turn away from them and continue down the path.
I don’t know why I feel guilty over my reaction to Raffe. I mean, just look at him. He’s perfect. A woman would have to be dead to not be affected by him. I glance over my shoulder … and … he’s right behind me.
He gives me a sexy grin, making my head spin back around.
This is crazy.
My entire body is buzzing at his nearness.
I begin to run, and he follows.
Raffe wraps his arms around my waist just as I reach the water’s edge. “Caught you,” he says, swinging me off my feet.
“Yeah, but I still won!”
He spins me around and smiles down at me. “You always win,” he says, his grin widening.
I try to shove away from him. “Oh, oh, you’ve been letting me win,” I accuse.
He doesn’t deny it. He just shrugs and begins to walk downstream.
I rush after him, having to take three steps to his one. “Why do you let me win?” I ask.
The way he looks at me sideways makes me a little embarrassed. Should it be obvious? He acts like I should already know the answer.
“It’s because I like to chase you, and …” He holds up a finger. “I like to see your smile when you win.”
“You like to chase me?” That’s a little weird, isn’t it?
“You’ve got the cutest butt I’ve ever seen,” he says.
Oh. Oh! My face goes hot.
He chuckles under his breath. “I like you, Jenny. I like you a lot,” he says, grinning down at me.
My head feels dizzy but in a good way. I can’t wait to tell Momma about this.
“Do you want to race back to the bike?” he asks.
“Are you going to look at my butt?”
“You know it.”
I stop at my tree and close my eyes, waiting for his touch. His arms wrap around my waist, and he picks me up off my feet, spinning me in a circle.
“Caught you,” he rasps in my ear. We’re both a little more winded than the last time we did this.
“Yeah, but I still won.”
He spins me in his arms, staring down at me. “You always win,” he says, his voice cracking.
Neither of us move. We just continue to stare at each other. I take in every line, every grey hair, every scar. He’s more beautiful than ever.
Eventually, Raffe tears his eyes away from me to look at where we’ve stopped.
“This is my tree. This is how I survived. He knows everything.”
He steps away from me and places his hands exactly like I taught him so many years ago. I lower myself to the ground, resting my back against the trunk.
“Bill brought me everything I needed in the beginning.”
Raffe stares down at me for a few seconds, and I worry over whether I should continue. He lowers himself to the ground beside me.
“How did you manage after?” he eventually asks.
“He talked to all the surrounding neighbors.” I laugh lightly because I still can’t believe how much that man did for me.
“He convinced them to help me. They still leave things for me at the gate. We trade.” I shrug my shoulders.
“Bill didn’t make me meet any of them but one.
He insisted I have one contact with the outside world other than him.
He’s an older man. His name is John. Once a week I walk down to the gate to meet him.
He and his wife have a small dairy a few miles away. Ah, their milk is to die for.”
Raffe listens quietly.
“He brings me whatever I need that I haven’t already received from the others.” I pick up a stick and begin to draw in the dirt mindlessly. “I do a lot of baking, canning, and sewing. That’s mostly what I trade with the neighbors. My jam is very popular around these parts.” I stop and laugh sadly.
He reaches out and takes my hand in his.
“Oh, and I make teas and beauty products.” I pause, thinking about it. “And candles.”
Raffe laughs. “You’re exactly how I’ve remembered you.”
I smile, blinking rapidly. When I turn away from him, his fingers curl around my chin and he holds me still.
“What is it that you’re feeling?” he asks.
“I’m feeling sorry,” I say.
“For?” he prompts, not letting me go.
“For letting you believe I died. I didn’t know how bad that would hurt you until I lost Bill, but by then so much time had passed.”
His gaze bounces over my face. “Losing you was the worst pain I’d ever felt, and that says a lot after what I’ve been through.”
I let out a sob because I don’t want to think about what they did to him.
“Your screams haunt my dreams,” he says, gripping my face in both of his hands. “Every single night, I weep for our innocence.”
His words break me, but he won’t let me go. He dips his head, forcing me to look at him. “Look at us. We beat them, Jenny. They didn’t fucking win. We did. They thought we were just two na?ve kids, but we’re fucking here and they’re dead. They’re all dead.”
Not all of them.
“I never stopped looking for you,” he says, dropping his forehead to mine.
“I know. I’m so sorry,” I say. “I wasn’t strong like you.”
He shakes me. “Don’t say that. You brought Jackson into the world. I saw that kid’s head.”
His attempt to joke at this moment makes me laugh and cry simultaneously. “You know what I mean.”
His thumbs brush my tears away, and he looks me in the eye. “You’re still here. That is strong.”
“Here. I’m here, Raffe. I can’t go anywhere else.”
“That’s not true. I saw you at the cemetery.”
Panic begins to build low in my gut, because I know he’s going to try to get me to leave this place with him. I know I promised Jackson I’d work on it, and I will, but Raffe won’t be so patient.
“You remember the carefree Jenny. The Jenny who would go anywhere without thinking it through. But that’s exactly what got us in trouble.”
His brows pull together, and I think he’s just now realizing why I wouldn’t let Rachel tell him where I was. I’m not the same girl.
“Jenny, I know you’ve left this place more than one time. You left an amethyst on Rachel’s grave, didn’t you?”
“Going to the cemetery is different.”
“I’m going to help you.” He stands, holding his hand out for me to take. His jaw clenches tight in determination.
This is what I was afraid of, but it’s getting dark and I don’t have it in me to argue. I accept his offer, letting him pull me from the ground.
We walk back to the house quietly, pausing only once to give Garfield’s belly another quick rub.
“Do you ever get lonely?” he asks, holding the backdoor open for me.
“Yes.”
His hand rubs over his chest, and his face pulls into a grimace. He doesn’t try to hide how much this pains him.
“It’s not constant. Maybe it’s even a normal amount of time that I feel that way. Do you get lonely?”
I pull a tin of popcorn out of the cupboard and start the oil in my cast iron skillet. Raffe jumps up on the cabinet beside the stove to watch me.
“Yeah,” he finally answers. “Sometimes I can be in a room full of people and still feel lonely.”
“I understand that. Before I met Lily, I was in a constant state of loneliness even though I was rarely alone.”
He looks away. I haven’t tried to talk about her with the others, but for some reason I feel safe bringing it up with him.
“Is she angry with me?” I ask.
“She’s going through a lot right now. I think all of this kind of caught her at a bad time.”
“Oh, is she okay?”
Raffe jumps down from the cabinets. “She’s good.”
I can tell there is more, but the corn on the stove starts popping and I have to devote my attention to it. I watch him out the corner of my eye as he walks around. Eventually, he lowers himself onto the couch.
“I’m sorry I don’t have a television. It gets kind of quiet out here at night.”
“It’s peaceful. I like it.” He lays his head back and closes his eyes.
By the time the popcorn is done, I worry he might have fallen asleep, but a smile pulls at the corners of his mouth when I lower myself beside him. His eyes open, and for a brief moment I worry I’m hallucinating.
He reaches out and pinches me. “Ow.”
“I’m going to do that every time you wander off, you know.”
“I know. I want you to.”
“Or I could just touch your butt every time it happens.”
“That’s what caused my spiral from reality last time.”
He laughs and then tosses a piece of popcorn in the air, catching it between his teeth.
“Show off.” I shove his knee.
When he winks at me, a little butterfly takes flight in my chest.
“I can’t wait for all of my friends to meet you.”
The butterfly takes a nosedive toward the pit of my stomach. “Raffe.”
He shoves a piece of popcorn in my mouth effectively shutting me up. “Right now, though, I’m just going to enjoy having you all to myself.”
Raffe reigns in the butterfly, pulling him up at the last minute. He’s always had a way of doing that. He pushes my limits. He always has. It’s one of the things I loved about him.
He sets the popcorn down on the coffee table and pulls me onto his lap. With my back against his chest, he wraps his arms around me, resting his chin on my shoulder. I lean my face close to his, brushing my cheek against his whiskers.
“I’ve missed you, Jenny.”
“I’ve missed you too.”
“Please don’t ever leave me again,” he whispers.