Chapter 60
CHAPTER 60
I pulled on a pair of Porter’s sweats and a baggy sweatshirt. I swam in his clothes, but since I wasn’t wearing a bra or underwear, I was okay with that.
Downstairs, his mom waited for me in the kitchen. It seemed like everyone else had left. “I have some dinner for you.” She gently put her arm around my shoulders. “Come and sit down.”
I obediently sat down. The steaming bowl of soup and bread that she set before me smelled incredible. “Thank you.”
She squeezed my shoulder. “I’m thrilled you’re here.”
“I am, too.”
She sat across the table from me. “Please, eat. You look like you need a few hearty meals.”
Obediently, I picked up the spoon.
She watched me eat for a few moments and spoke, “You know, I wanted a girl more than anything. When I was pregnant with Porter, I knew six kids were more than enough, and I prayed that my last baby would be a girl.”
She had my attention. “It was like Porter knew that, and he came out squawking mad, red-faced and pissed off. I wasn’t prepared for all of his emotion. All of his passion. His older brothers are like me. Calm and patient. Slow to anger. Slow to feel. Porter’s exactly like my husband. Passionate with the ability to feel so deeply.”
She laughed as she played with her teacup. “He’s also the youngest. He couldn’t keep up with his brothers simply because he was so little. When he was a toddler, with these tiny chubby legs, he couldn’t stand that he couldn’t keep up with them. Can you imagine a three-year-old angry because he can’t keep up with a twelve-year-old? He was always so determined. He never saw his size or his age as a limitation. From the day he could crawl, he’s been working to catch up and pass his older brothers.”
Her eyes met mine. “Porter is exactly like my husband. They both have that fiery passion that can outshine anyone. Those two love harder than anyone else. But Porter had some losses early on associated with that passion, and now, he equates love and that intensity with something bad.”
“He hides it. He hides how he really feels,” I blurted out.
She nodded. “I know. He’s changed a lot since he joined the military. When he was 18, he wore his heart on his sleeve. He was either laughing or fighting but either way, he was the light of the party. These days, the only thing I know about him is that he’s desperately in love with you.”
My throat thickened. “I love him, too.”
“You know, the whole family took bets on how long it’d take him before he went searching for you.”
“Really?”
She patted my arm. “I got the sense he was giving you as much space as he could, but it was only a matter of time until he couldn’t handle not seeing you.”
Was she speaking the truth?
I chewed on my lip and stared at my empty soup bowl. “Thank you for dinner.”
She waved my hand away when I tried to pick up my dishes. “Go now and sit near the fire in the living room. Porter will be back in in a few minutes.”
I wandered into the massive living room that overlooked the endless yard. I watched as a tractor towed my car up the road. Behind it, two men in yellow rain jackets walked behind the car.
I instantly recognized Porter. He laughed at something his brother said and shoved him. His brother shoved him back, and they were suddenly in a full-on struggle, both laughing, both pushing against each other like two bulls in the rain.
The guy in the tractor stood on the back of it and shouted something at them. Still laughing, they walked to the end of the tractor to unhitch my car. My heart beat solid in my chest, watching him with his brothers. He seemed so at home here. This place suited him.
He waved goodbye to them. They moved off, and he pulled my suitcase out of the backseat and walked towards the house.
Without speaking, he sat down on the couch beside me. I couldn’t keep my focus off his face. That mouth. Those cheekbones. Those grey eyes that focused on me.
“Are you still mad?” I asked.
“Beth, I was never angry with you.”
No. It had been me who’d been angry.
“What happens now?”
“I need to tell you the whole truth about me.” He fixed his gaze at the flames that flickered in the fireplace. “But if you don’t want to have anything to do with me after I tell you, you have to promise not to leave tonight. The roads are too shitty.”
“Porter, I’m not going to leave.”
Grimness defined his features. “You might want to after you hear this.”
I swallowed and waited .
He stared into the fire. “When I was 17, I got Mandy, my 16-year-old girlfriend, pregnant.”
Wow .
I blinked and didn’t move a muscle.
“I was such a cocky kid. When she told me that she was having my baby, I was overjoyed. I wasn’t even in 12th grade, but in my mind, it was just life, and we were living it. I got on my knees and proposed right there.”
I worked to bring air into my lungs and fought all the questions that threatened to push out of me.
“My parents weren’t happy that they had a grandkid on the way, but along with her parents, they signed papers, giving us permission to get married. On the condition that we both finished school. I was so arrogant, so certain I could take care of shit, I got careless.”
“Mandy wasn’t the most experienced rider, but I wanted to take her to the top of this mountain ridge. I told her it was the best view in the entire world. And she trusted me. We were heading up there on a narrow trail, and her horse got spooked and reared back.”
His eyes dropped down at his hands. “She was five months pregnant, and she fell 50 feet and landed on a tiny outbreak of rock.”
My hand covered my mouth, my eyes never leaving his face.
“My dad, he’d warned me again and again about that ridge, but I never listened to him. I didn’t listen to him about anything. By some miracle, my dad was in the pasture below, and he saw the entire thing.” He took a deep breath. “Using a rope and his horse, my dad lowered me down to that ledge. Mandy was lying there. So silent. So quiet. Like she was sleeping. I cradled her in my arms, and my dad and his horse pulled us back up.”
“Porter,” I whispered.
“I had just gotten Mandy back up to the path when his horse saw a snake, probably the same snake that spooked Mandy’s horse, and his horse came rearing back, fighting to get away from it. It came straight for us. My dad shoved us out of the way. His horse should have landed on me, but it landed on him, which is how he ended up in that wheelchair.”
I reached out and grabbed his hand, squeezing hard.
“The fall caused Mandy to lose our baby and her ability to have any kids. She divorced me a week before my 18th birthday. All of that happened because I was too stupid, too cocky, and too immature to follow simple instructions.”
“That’s why you left. That’s why you joined the military.”
He shook his head. “You know what the worst part was? They all forgave me. My entire family. My dad. No one blamed me, and they should have. I couldn’t take it.”
I thought about what Jackson had told me. How Porter showed up, wanting to be punished, to the point of torture. “You punished yourself.”
“Two people I loved more than anything in this world, and I ruined their lives.”
A voice spoke from behind us, “You know, I’ve never stopped blaming myself for what happened up there on that ridge.” His dad wheeled himself in front of the couch.
“Dad,” Porter started.
“Everything that happened to you was my fault. I should have been a better parent. I wasn’t, and because of that, I ruined your life.”
“You’ve got it backwards.”
“You think I didn’t know what you and Mandy were doing? Hell, the whole county knew what you were up to. Your own mother was terrified you’d get that girl pregnant, but you want to know what my response was? I told her that choices had consequences, and the sooner you learned that, the better. Now, what kind of father says that about his 17-year-old son?”
Porter's voice remained low. “I knew what I was doing.”
“You were a kid. A young, dumb, stupid kid, and I spoiled you. I let you do whatever you wanted. You ran wild, partying beyond your years, keeping up with your brothers when what you needed was a parent to give you boundaries. ”
“You told me not to go up there,” Porter said between clenched teeth.
“Oh, yeah. I told you, and you did exactly as you pleased when you should have had a parent, safely teaching you life consequences. I should have taught you that if you disobeyed me, you’d get your truck privileges taken away. Or if you didn’t do what I asked, you’d be given extra chores. But instead, the first consequences you ever learned ruined your life.”
“You’re the one in the wheelchair. I’m the one who ruined your life.”
“You know what my regret is? It isn’t this damn chair, because these are only legs, and I get around just fine. My biggest regret is not being the one to teach you responsibility or consequences. The military did that for me. They parented you in ways I should have.”
“You can’t take the blame here.”
“Son, I was the parent. And I let this shit happen to my kid. And then worse, I let you carry that burden of guilt for another ten years because I was so damn ashamed of how I failed you.”
“That’s not how that went.”
“And now all my mistakes are being thrown in my face because every day you continued to punish yourself for my mistakes feels like torture.”
“Stop! Please stop.”
“I had to grow up, son. You think your five brothers would’ve have made me grow up, but you’re the one that made me become the man I am today. But I’m begging you to forgive me and stop carrying my burdens for me. Because if I have to watch you suffer one more day, I’m not sure I can take it.”
“Dad,” Porter sounded tortured.
“Son, I’m begging you to forgive me. Can you do that for me?”
I watched as Porter moved to his dad and kneeled before him. Then, they were hugging each other. So tight. I silently crept up the stairs. Tears squeezed out of my eyes as I climbed naked into his bed.
Suddenly, everything made sense. His mission in life had become about protecting others. About sacrificing himself. How many years had he tortured himself over an accident he’d been part of as a young teenager? He’d isolated himself from his family. Feeling too guilty to come home. Feeling too ashamed to face his parents.
I prayed that after he talked to his dad, he’d be able to find some peace and forgive himself.
I woke up to Porter kissing my neck. He was so gentle. So patient. His fingers were like silk, teasing soft sighs past my lips, his mouth hot and warm, coaxing me to arch and moan.
And then, when I couldn’t take it any longer, he slowly pushed himself into me.
Missionary style.
Who said slow was boring?
Slow felt like pleasure drizzled over my body like warm honey.
Slow made me feel wanton and drugged.
Slow was surrendering with each breath.
Slow blew my mind.
When my body tightened and convulsed around him, I cried out into his mouth. Only then did he allow himself to gather me into his arms, crushing me as he called out my name, releasing himself into me.
We held each other while our racing hearts slowed.
“I missed you,” he kissed.
“I thought you didn’t do it slow.” I kissed back.
He pushed my damp hair off my face and sucked my bottom lip into his mouth. “The complaints department is now closed.”
“I was promised a proper punishment.” I was drowning in his gaze. There was so much love coming at me, I thought my heart would burst.
“Come back tomorrow for what you’ve been promised.”
“Oh, I plan on it. ”
“You ready for the bonus?”
“You going to try and cuddle me now?”
“I thought I’d give it a go.”
I rolled over and sighed happily as he tucked his body around me. “You advertised that you didn’t like to snuggle.”
“I don’t. Just you. You’re the only one.”
Another content sigh escaped me. “Well, good thing I like cuddling.”
He kissed my shoulder. “Thank you for coming to find me.”
“I got impatient.”
“I was coming.”
“You were taking your time.”
He laughed.
“Are you okay?” My question hung there, in the dark, loaded with so much meaning.
“Yeah. I have a lot to think about.”
“You were protecting Mandy. That was the secret my dad held over your head.”
“She’s been through enough. She didn’t need her name splashed in the papers, nor did she need to re-live that part of her life.”
“I like that you did that for her.”
“I couldn’t hurt her again.”
“Do you ever talk to her?”
“No. My mom said she’s married and has adopted two little girls.”
“That’s nice.”
He pulled me tighter. “Yeah. That made me happy.”
“I’m sorry that whole thing happened to you.”
“If I could go back in time, I’d change it, but now I need to learn to accept it.”
“And move on.”
He pulled his arms tighter around me. “I love you, Beth.”
I swallowed down all the emotion, that threatened to bubble out of me. “I love you, too.”