Secrets Within Us

11. Chapter 11 - Hadley

Chapter 11 - Hadley

Secrets

A few days later, we were in the same loop of activities like we weren’t living on borrowed time. Kip left early to go out and do chores, leaving me alone in the house, once again.

I heard a plow go by the day before, but neither of us said anything about it out loud.

He didn’t want me to go; he had said that the night I asked him about Molly. Since that night, he has shown me a gentler and kinder side of him. He woke me up each morning with his lips and hands and amazing cock and put me to sleep each night, exhausting me with the likes of him all over again. Yesterday, he didn’t have too many chores to do, so he stayed inside with me, and we laid on the couch in front of the fire naked and made crazy slow love to each other like time didn’t exist and neither did our pasts or our futures .

Yes, I was referring to it as making love. When he got that soft, magical look in his eyes, he would lay me down and worship my body like it was the temple of his every hope and dream. He was so attentive and giving and he pushed my body to orgasm over and over until I couldn’t keep my eyes open long enough to do it again. And then we slept and woke up and did it all over again.

It wasn’t like I really had anywhere else to go, anyway. Florida had been a diversion and an escape for me from the boring monotony of my life. But the idea of staying with Kip in his secluded forest wonderland… made my heart soar and made my worries fade.

Most of my worries.

When I was alone and free of any tasks, I allowed my head to drift back to the torture I’d endured just weeks ago. My bruises had mostly faded, some had turned yellow on the ugly side of healing, but they were fading, and with them went some of the fears and nightmares. The only two things that still plagued me awful much were the wounds to my left hand from the snare I’d learned was Kip’s, and the broken ribs on both of my sides .

With time, both would also fade away, leaving only the memories to haunt me in silence. And then, I would almost be able to pretend none of it had happened.

But I’d never be free of it entirely. I was living in the same woods that had tortured me and I knew at some point I’d have to answer for what I had done. I had a feeling that it would come back and take my happily ever after away from me. Not once in life did I get the easy way out of something, and I wouldn’t bet on that changing. Telling Kip was inevitable, and I knew I couldn’t avoid it forever. He deserved to know the truth, even if he still hadn’t told me anything about his past at all. We hadn’t discussed it in days, and I felt weak for letting it go. But I couldn’t stand seeing the pain in his eyes when it came up.

I was in love with him. Unapologetically in love with a man, I knew nothing about and had known for next to no time at all.

I hadn’t wanted to love him. Hell, I didn’t even want to like him when we first met. He was such a brooding asshole that treated me like shit when he bothered to treat me like I existed at all. I wanted to hate him and just get through the few days I had to stay at his place because of the snow, and then get on my way after he took me back to town and never think about him again.

But he made me fall in love with him. He forced his way deep into my soul and I wasn’t strong enough to fight it like I had with everyone else. He tore down every defense I had by validating the intense connection between us, and I fell hard and fast and regretted not a second of it.

And I knew there was no way I could walk away from him and never look back. I just had to figure out how to stay without what I did, tearing us down and burning us to ashes.

I also had to figure out how to keep his past from getting in between us, too.

Hours ago, he’d gotten ready as soon as he got up and took off, letting the distance be physical and emotional between us again. The quiet in the house was amplified by the noise of the thoughts in his head. I was patient and tried to be respectful, giving him space and silent support.

But the silence was becoming deafening.

At noon, he came in for lunch, leading a tired and hungry Dev in for his bowl first before he searched out his own food. Fresh BLT sandwiches and soup already waited for us on the island.

But when he walked in and saw them, he just went to the pantry, got a couple of cans of tuna out, and went about making them. In more silence.

From where I sat on the stool, I asked quietly. “You don’t like BLT’s?” I had on another simple outfit of yoga pants and a zip-up athletic jacket, but I felt bare. I picked at a stray thread on the cuff of my sleeve as he just grunted and shrugged.

“If you’d tell me these things, I can try to make what you do like.” I tried again.

“I don’t like BLT’s.” He said gruffly from the fridge as he got mayo out.

“But you like bacon, lettuce, and tomato. Just not together? I thought everyone liked them.”

“Well, I don’t. Is that okay?” He snapped as he slammed the fridge door shut.

I flinched at the noise and closed my eyes to calm myself. He wasn’t angry with me, I told myself. I was okay.

He stood at the counter and finished mixing his tuna before turning as he began eating it without sitting down .

He sighed as he saw me just sitting there, not eating. Like that annoyed him, too.

“You just don’t make them like-” He cut himself off as I sat there waiting, praying, wishing for a tidbit of information from him. A small piece of his past, a crumb, anything! “Never mind.” He sighed, turning his back to me as he finished eating, looking at the cabinet.

He would rather look at a cabinet than me.

I wasn’t good enough.

Shame and pain roared through my veins as my heart sputtered and my body shivered. “Like Molly does?” I asked in a whisper.

He whipped around so fast I flinched again and had to grab the counter to keep from falling off the stool as I ground my teeth and waited for the slap or punch, but it didn’t come. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. But I couldn’t live in ignorant silence anymore. This was more than just a landing place for me on my way to somewhere else. He was more than just a man that was sheltering me until he could take me home. There was more between us, and I needed to know if I was a fool for believing he felt anything for me after he’d forced me to feel for him .

“That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it?” I asked calmly. By keeping any trace of fear and anger out of my voice, I attempted to show him nothing but understanding and reason. “I just want to understand, Kip. I don’t make them like Molly does, and that’s why you don’t like them.”

“Don’t say her name!” He commanded. “Don’t you dare say her name.”

“She’s your wife, isn’t she?” I asked, with more strength behind it. “You think I don’t deserve to know if you’re married? Or if at any point a woman is going to walk through the front door and want to know what the hell I’m doing in her house?”

He wouldn’t answer me though, he just threw his bowl into the sink where the porcelain shattered against the stainless steel. I flinched again, but he didn’t care. He marched past me to the front door, where he started putting his gear back on. He was just going to walk out and expect me to just sit here and be okay with it.

“I see you; you know.” I breathed. He didn’t stop lacing up his boots as I spoke, but I knew he was listening. “I see you every morning wake up and look around and for a brief second,” I closed my eyes and shook my head slightly as I fought for composure, “just one second, I see the disappointment in your eyes when you see it’s me next to you in bed.” My voice trembled, and I battled to steady my breathing as I fought against the flood of emotions in my throat, finally opening my eyes again. He stopped moving as he just stood with his back to me, staring at the wall. I took a step closer to him, and the sound of my own footsteps echoed in the room. “It happens so fast, I can almost convince myself it didn’t happen at all, and that I imagined the pain that the rejection causes inside of my heart. But then it happens again the very next morning, and the pain comes back like it never left to begin with.”

He turned quickly and looked over his shoulder at me. Pain reflecting mine showed on his face, but I couldn’t tell if it was pain for me or pain for himself. Opening my arms at my side, I bared my vulnerable self to him. “I didn’t ask to be here, Kip. I didn’t ask for you to want me or to feel guilty for it, either.” With him at least looking at me, I attempted to reason with him.

Didn’t he see my pain like I saw his? Didn’t that soften him even a little? So I tried again.

“I didn’t ask for any of this, but I can’t just bury my head in the sand and hope that one day you’ll wake up and find peace in your soul, that it’s me next to you when you wake up like I do every single morning waking up in your arms. I can’t wait around and just blindly hope for that Kip. If you can’t tell me everything right now, at least tell me I’m not sticking around in a hopeless situation.” I pleaded as I held my hands over my heart. “Please, just have mercy on me.”

He still said nothing as I closed my eyes and dropped my head, wrapping my arms around myself, trying to hold it all together.

He walked over to me, closing the distance slowly. The moment our eyes met, I could sense my hope pouring out through my gaze. I could feel my body freeze up and hang on to what he was about to say.

But then he just did what he was good at.

He stayed silent.

He leaned down and kissed my cheek, not touching me anywhere other than where his lips seared my skin before he turned and walked back out the front door.

When the wood creaked beneath the force of the slam so powerful the walls rattled, I let out a shuttered breath and Dev bellowed from the front porch.

“It seems that my peace here has officially come to a close,” I whispered to the silent house .

Occupying my brain with indoor chores, I picked up the mess from lunch and silently made plans.

As I stood in the laundry room, folding a load of laundry and packing my bag, I tried to come up with the words to tell him what I had done in his mountains, as a last resort to rescue the situation. But I knew if I did, he could ruin my life with that information. I found myself staring blankly at the closed door next to the bathroom, my mind racing with repetitive thoughts.

The only room in the house Kip had never shown me and the only one that he kept the door closed on. With trembling hands, I set the laundry down and cautiously approached the door. Peering down the long, empty hallway, I strained my ears for any hint of Kip or Dev’s approach, but the silence remained unbroken. My pulse sped up as I stood there staring at the door handle for what felt like an eternity.

Something inside of me told me to walk away, that if he had wanted me to know what was in the room, he would have left the door open or told me about it.

But he hadn’t even mentioned it, he acted as though the door didn’t exist, and that made me feel like I needed to know what was on the other side of it .

I took a deep breath and then quickly reached down and turned the handle before I lost the nerve. My heart nearly exploded out of my chest when it turned and opened with hardly any effort. With one hand, I pushed the door open and stood frozen in the hallway, absorbing the scene before me.

Someone painted the walls pink and blue, separating the space into two halves. On the pink side, there was a white daybed with a pastel purple comforter on it, adorned with frills and lace, beneath hanging butterflies from the ceiling. On the blue side, baseball trophies and decor splattered haphazardly on the walls and furniture in true boy fashion.

It was a kids’ room.

“My god,” I whispered as I took in the sight of it.

Boxes were scattered in the center of the room with items hanging out of them and strewn across the floor as if someone had thrown them in here without a care.

As if on autopilot, my feet led me towards them, and I ended up in the middle of the room, peering down at the fascinating items.

Memories.

On top of one box was a photo frame with a broken glass front. I tipped the frame over and let the glass fall into the half-empty box below it. And there, framed in broken shards of glass and a busted wooden edge, was a picture of Kip. He looked younger, maybe by a couple of years, but he didn’t have a beard or a scowl. Instead, he was clean-shaven and smiling from ear to ear back at the camera sitting on a log next to a campsite.

And the reason he looked the happiest I’d ever seen him was wrapped around him on all sides.

A beautiful blond woman stood behind him, with her arms around his shoulders, as she leaned down and kissed his cheek. And on each knee were two of the cutest kids I’d ever seen.

A boy and a girl.

The little boy was a spitting image of Kip, with his dark coloring and perfect smile. And the little girl was an exact replica of the gorgeous woman holding Kip like he was her grand prize in life.

Molly.

Molly, my one true love, my soulmate among imposters.

I trembled looking at the happy family and then looked up around the room.

He was a dad and a husband .

The man I had fallen in love with in such a short time had a family. My legs gave out, and I fell to my knees amongst Kip’s past.

Pictures littered the boxes, tons of them.

Pictures of the kids and them, all happy and all madly in love.

My hands shook uncontrollably as I filtered through them. I felt like such a spectator looking at their happy memories from the outside, but I needed to know where they were, why they weren’t here with him, and what happened to his perfect family.

Below some pictures in one of the boxes, there were a couple of velvet jewelry boxes and I picked one up, unsure of what would be inside. When it snapped open, there was a military medal inside, with the Marine Corps logo on the inscription.

Next to a couple more of the same things were a few pictures out of frames. They were pictures of Kip, with other men dressed in military uniforms overseas. One picture was of him in his dress uniform, spiffed up with his crisp white hat and shiny metals on display, and so much about him fell into place from there.

Tears fell from my eyes and landed on the pictures that had collected in my lap. He had wanted to know my deepest darkest secrets, the ones that would tear me open and cause my heart to hemorrhage right there in front of him, but yet he never told me he was a soldier, or a father, or a husband.

He was making plans for the house to help me get more comfortable here, all the while his kids’ bedroom was locked away with pictures of them and his wife and all of his past like a tomb.

He wanted me to bear all of it to him when he couldn’t even tell me the smallest part of his history. I felt so betrayed and heartbroken that there was this whole side of him I didn’t know.

Did I know him at all?

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

I yelped and gasped as I turned towards the door in fear and shock at his harsh tone and words. The movement sent lightning bursts of pain up my sides and into my chest.

A sense of helplessness washed over me as he stood in the doorway, his scowl conveying nothing but disdain and fury.

I picked up the picture of them at the campsite and held it in front of him, my shoulders rising in shock and confusion, tears streaming down my face. I searched his eyes, silently pleading for him to say something that would bring clarity to the confusion.

It all had to have an explanation that I could understand.

It had to.

I needed it to make sense because I couldn’t just accept that he had kept all of this hidden from me while lecturing me about honesty and lies.

“I asked what the fuck you were doing in here, Hadley!” He yelled from the doorway. His body was coiled tightly, his hands clenched into fists at his side, his chest heaving with anger, and I slid backward slightly away from his bulking form.

“Wh- what is all this?” I finally got out of my mouth. With my eyes wide in shock and mouth open, I just stared up at him. The events unfolding before me were so overwhelming that my mind couldn’t comprehend them.

“It’s none of your goddamn business! Get up.” He ordered, but I couldn’t get my body to move. I couldn’t just get up and walk away from all of this. I looked down at the boxes and opened my arms, motioning to it all.

“How can you say it’s none of my business? After what has happened between us here. How could you say that?” Instead of replying, he simply met my gaze, his eyes burning with a murderous rage. “What does all of this mean, Kip? Why is all of this in here shut away?” My entire body was shaking, and my lungs felt like I couldn’t grasp my next breath fully as panic set in.

He bellowed over top of me, “Get out. Get up and get your shit and get the fuck out of my house.” Now it was my turn to just stare back in horror. “I said get out!” He screamed as he lunged forward, grabbing me by the arm and yanking me up to my feet before turning and pulling me out of the room. He ripped the picture frame out of my hand and threw it at the wall where it exploded on impact, raining shards of glass and wood down on us.

Dragging me down the hall, he lifted my arm so high that I struggled to stay on my feet and had to fight to maintain my balance. “Stop. Kip, stop! You’re hurting me!” A scream erupted from my lips as I crashed into the doorjamb, my shoulder slamming against the unforgiving wood, sending waves of agony coursing through me. “Kip!” I screamed again, but he didn’t stop.

He let go of me once we got to the living room, and I tripped without his hand on my arm, falling into the back of the couch and landing on the floor in a heap .

My mind left the present and fell to the past in a similar situation I’d gotten myself into. The Saint’s heinous words flowed over me once again, like he was in the very room.

Worthless little bitch. You think you’re worth a damn thing? You’re insignificant. Literally worth nothing. No one wants you. No one has ever wanted you.

My vision darkened around the edges as the pain overtook my entire body as memories flashed back, blocking out everything that was happening around me. I got sucked back into flashbacks, recalling my tortures.

“You dirty little slut. You should thank me for taking you into my home and sheltering you. Feeding you! Bathing you! You selfish, ungrateful cunt!” The Saint threw me to the floor before winding up and kicking me in the ribs when I landed. I screamed but nothing came out, the pain was so intense my vision darkened, and my hearing dulled until all I could hear was the roaring of his insults and the thuds of his kicks hitting my back and sides. I curled into a ball, trying to protect my head and stomach as he kicked me repeatedly. “You’re going to appreciate me after a night outside in the ground! You’ll be begging me to bring you back inside, you’ll lay on your back and spread your legs for me like the little whore I know you really are!”

I careened back to my present situation but couldn’t differentiate the two. God, no. Please don’t let Kip hit me. I won’t survive it again.

Kip flew up the stairs to the loft, where I heard him slamming open the closet and drawers, getting my clothes, and throwing them into my bag. He came back down the stairs and threw the bag on the floor at my feet where I sat, hugging my knees to my front and sobbing.

“Get up. I’m taking you into town and you can figure out how to get the hell out of here and back to wherever the hell you came from, because I’m done. My past is none of your damn business. You wouldn’t tell me what the fuck happened to you even though you came to me for help, so don’t you dare get all high and mighty and demand that I tell you about me! You’re a damn hypocrite.” He yelled as he threw my coat and shoes at me as he stomped into his own.

“Pl- please Kip.” I pleaded, trying to swallow my sobs. “Please, just talk to me, don’t do this.”

“Talk?” He yelled again. The veins in his face and in his neck were bulging from his anger. “I don’t want to talk to you. You served your purpose while you were here. We had a good thing going, you warming my bed and giving me holes to shove my cock into, then you had to go and get nosey and snoop in shit that is none of your business and now we’re here. This is your fault. You just couldn’t leave well enough alone.”

I didn’t recognize the man in front of me anymore. He was saying such heinous things. “Don’t be cruel, just tell me what’s going on. I just want to know what’s going on, why didn’t you tell me about them?” I kept trying, even though my survival skills were telling me to run far away. He picked me up again by my arm, although he was gentler, he still lifted me off of my feet and caused me to stumble behind him towards the door.

“Put your shit on or I’m dragging you through the snow barefoot.” He snapped as he pulled me to face him. He leaned down and got right into my face, “Unless you’d rather walk to town on your own again. It should be getting dark soon, so you should feel right at home walking all alone out there.” He grabbed my coat from my hands and forced my arms into it roughly. “Right, Hadley? When you ended up on my property, weren’t you just out enjoying the winter wonderland?” His face morphed into a mocking glare. “Oh wait, you don’t want to talk about what happened to you though, right? You haven’t wanted to talk about it once, but you expect me to just let you into all of my personal shit like it doesn’t matter, like it’s not relevant because you had it worse. Like my family is less important than whatever happened to you? Is that what you think?” He sneered at me again as he grabbed my legs and forced my shoes onto my feet haphazardly. “My dead family is less important than you getting roughed up by some boyfriend. Like their murders mean less than your bruised ribs and busted lip!”

Murders? Oh God!

“I didn’t say that!” I pleaded. He ripped the door open and shoved me out of it, I stumbled again and fell on my knees onto the hardwood of the porch. “Kip! Stop, please!” I yelled as more tears fell from the pain in my hand contacting the ground.

“Kip?” I looked up from where I was on my knees in the snow on the porch to see a man standing at the bottom of the stairs looking up at me and then at Kip in pure disbelief. “What’s going on here, boy?”

I looked at the man in horror; at how I knew the scene looked, but he just walked up the steps and stood between me and Kip, who stood in the doorway with as much horror and a lot of guilt on his face.

“Not now, Mike. Now’s not a good time. I’m taking her into town, and I’ll be back later.”

The man, Mike, looked to be in his fifties, with salt and pepper hair and beard, dressed in a red flannel and jeans much like Kip. He said nothing, but leaned down and offered me his hand to help me stand up. I tentatively placed my good hand in his and he gently picked me up.

He was tall and broad like Kip, not as big, but I could tell he was not to be messed with either, and it gave me a bit of relief to know he had stopped Kip’s tirade.

His anger was clearly pain and fear resurfacing now that I knew what had happened to his family, but he still terrified me. I had my own trauma too.

“You okay?” Mike asked me, ignoring what Kip had said.

I nodded my head gently, looking down at the ground as I brushed some of the snow off of me. It was already seeping into my clothes and chilling me.

Memories of how cold I had been when I was forced to sleep in the hole in the ground and the days I spent walking flooded my mind. I trembled in fear, never wanting to experience that level of coldness again.

“Let’s go inside and get you dried off, darling,” Mike said, ignoring Kip’s protests and opening the door to lead me through it. I looked up at Kip in question and the look of disgust that he aimed my way stopped me in my tracks. He didn’t want me in his home anymore.

“No,” I whispered. They both looked down at me as I stepped back and away from them. “I’m not welcome here anymore. I’m fine, but I just want to leave.”

Mike looked from me to Kip and then back before reaching forward once again and gently leading me into the still open front door. “I’ll take you myself in just a minute, but first I need to have a word with Kip. Go on inside and warm yourself by the fire and we’ll be on our way in just a little bit.”

He didn’t give me much choice as he ushered me in and shut the door behind me with gentle authority. Unable to move and unable to process what had happened, I stood on the inside in shock.

Sagging against the kitchen counter, grabbing a stool to fall into as the weight of everything nearly made me collapse. I could hear the guys on the other side of the door, and I quieted my breathing to listen to them .

“What exactly is going on here?” Mike asked angrily.

Kip sighed heavily and I could imagine him running his hand over his beard before rubbing the back of his neck as he usually did in frustration.

“Nothing. She needs a ride to town. Nothing else.”

“Who is she?”

“It’s a long story, Mike, one I don’t have the time to indulge you in right now. I’m going to take her into town and then I’ll be back.”

“Like hell I’m letting her get in a vehicle with you right now, I already told you I’d take her down. Now tell me, did you leave those bruises on her face and neck, boy?”

“Do you really think I’d do that, Mike?” Kip sounded wounded by the older man’s words.

“Do you realize what I just saw when I pulled up?” Mike asked loudly, “I could hear you screaming at her from way out here, then you blew through the door and shoved her down the steps onto her hands and knees. That poor girl is as small as a sack of flour and you put your hands on her and threw her down like a rag doll. The look of fear in her eyes nearly stopped my heart, I can’t even imagine how she feels. I don’t care what she did to rile you up so badly, but no woman deserves that. And the Kip I’ve known since he was a boy would never touch a woman like that for a second, let alone yell at her in that tone or say such vile things. So right now I can’t tell you what I think you’re capable of. I do know I haven’t seen you this pissed off since you got home five years ago, so you want to try that line again and actually tell me what the hell is going on?”

Kip sighed once again and started pacing on the porch. “She’s just someone I’ve been- well, we’ve been fooling around. And today I found her snooping around in the kids’ bedroom, looking through pictures of Molly and the kids and I just- I lost my damn mind.” He paused as he kept pacing. “Fuck, Mike, I put my hands on her. Fuck!” He yelled and kicked the chair on the deck. “I hadn’t told her anything about them and then I found her in there and she was upset about finding out that way and I just—I lost it.”

“Well, you fucked up, that’s for sure. How’d she get all the bruises and the busted hand if not from you?”

I got up and walked over to the kitchen window, so I could see them and watch what was going on.

“No fucking clue, man,” Kip said as he shook his head and threw his hands up in surrender. “Seriously. Two weeks ago, I found her with her hand caught in one of my snare traps, about two miles out from here, beaten, bloody, unconscious, and frozen half to death. When she woke up, she didn’t even know what state she was in and wouldn’t tell me who beat her up. Can’t get a damn thing out of her other than her name is Hadley, and she grew up in foster care in New York City.”

“Hadley?” Mike looked towards the front door with a shocked look on his face before looking back at Kip. My heart sank as I saw the array of emotions cross the older man’s face. “No fucking way.” He muttered and then he took off barreling towards the front door, with Kip hot on his heels.

“What? What’s wrong?” Kip asked as Mike stormed through the front door and turned to face me with disbelief written all over his face.

I stood still as stone, at the kitchen sink, watching the unraveling of my life happen right before my eyes.

“Hadley? Hadley Shaw? From New York?” Mike asked, rapid-firing questions at me. But I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t nod, I couldn’t do anything but grip the edge of the sink in horror as I tried to keep from passing out.

He knew.

And I was going to pay for what I’d done .

“What’s going on Mike?” Kip asked, but we paid no attention to him as our focus was on each other, so he attempted once more. “I’m not kidding Mike. Tell me what’s going on, you’re worrying me.”

Mike ignored him again, questioning in disbelief. “There’s no way. You’re hardly bigger than a kid. There’s no way you could have done that kind of damage to a man that size.” Mike said as he looked me up and down at the way I was cradling my hand and my sides.

Kip looked over at me, his eyes wide with confusion and speculation, but I still couldn’t say anything. I just felt more tears pool in my eyes before dropping over my eyelashes to my cheeks where they ran down them silently. Kip grabbed Mike from the shoulders and forcefully turned him to face him head-on. “What are you talking about!” He yelled.

With a skeptical expression, Mike turned to me again, then glanced at Kip. “She murdered Pastor Daniels,” he stated firmly, his voice laced with disbelief.