Chapter 8 #2
“Moore,” Kell said, his big hand landing on Moore’s shoulder, the press of fingers compassionate and caring. “You went through the accident, too. All of it. In some ways, it was harder for you than Colleen. How badly are you injured?”
Other than my heart? he wanted to ask.
But didn’t.
A shaky breath gave him enough fortitude to shake off the vulnerability.
“I’m fine. Nothing compared to Colleen.”
“No one experiences a flipped vehicle and rescues someone like that without some kind of damage.”
“A few scratches,” Moore conceded, unwilling to admit that his muscles were screaming now as the urgency of the whole event receded.
Not screaming as loud as his heart, but close.
“You need to be checked out, too.” Kell thumbed toward the ambulance. The flashing lights were still in the distance, but Moore couldn’t go with her.
Because he had no shoes.
“Just get me some boots so we can go. I never want to see this cabin again.” Moore sighed. “I’ll write a note to the owner. We owe them big time.”
“We owe you big time, too. If Colleen had died…”
“I know.”
“Luke couldn’t have handled it.”
“I couldn’t have handled it,” Moore said quickly, earning a hard look from Kell.
“Look, man, whatever happened between you and Colleen is your business. You two are grown-ups.”
“Glad you see reason.”
“And I don’t know why Luke went ballistic like that.”
Moore shrugged.
“I just know that you and Colleen have never struck me as the dramatic type. Whatever’s going on here needs to quiet down fast.”
“Luke is the drama now. Not us.”
“Right. And Luke is about as dramatic as dirt.”
That made Moore burst out laughing.
“Are you trying to have a moment here with me, Kell?”
“I don’t know what the hell I’m trying to do, so maybe I’ll just take all the yelling you guys have done to me and shut up.”
“Sounds good.” Moore could feel himself withdrawing, closing down, walling himself off. Conserving energy? He didn’t know. As Colleen’s departure sunk in and real life intruded, he felt unmoored.
And when he felt that way, he always backed off from the world.
“I’ll just go get you some boots and we’ll pretend none of this ever happened, okay?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
Kell shut the door with a finality that made Moore walk to the small dining table and lean forward, shoulders sagging, elbows hard to lock. If he weren’t careful, he’d fall face first onto the old wooden tabletop.
Just over twenty-four hours ago, his most pressing problem was finding Colleen in a lineup of cars at the airport, his phone carrying a rejection text, his four days with Jordy an emotional rollercoaster.
“Hah,” he said aloud, straightening up and beginning his search for writing materials and boots. “That was nothing.”
Except it wasn’t nothing. Chills shot through him as he thought of his wonderful, gangly son, the boy who hid his true feelings behind a smirk and a smart mouth, so much like Moore it ached.
Those four days were all Moore had in a carefully controlled, court-mandated world where he got his son for fifty days a year.
And by God, he’d take every single one of them, even if it meant hauling himself halfway across the country and spending most of his discretionary funds on plane tickets, hotels, and rental cars.
Worth every penny.
What if he’d died back there with Colleen? How would Jordy have reacted? This long weekend had been fun, even if it meant tolerating Jordy’s blistering condescension and teenage rebellion.
Moore, though, was a charmer. He knew how to loosen someone up, and there was no more important target than his own child.
Every time Moore visited, the first day was awkward, with Jordy sparing him no verbal negativity.
By day two, they always started to have fun, his child’s real smile finally emerging under all the long hair and braces.
Joy was a word Moore didn’t apply to his life in any situation except this: when Jordy was happy.
And now, he had another joyful situation: making love with Colleen. That had been a different kind of joy.
One Moore wholly owned.
“What have I done?” he groaned.
Finally, a kitchen drawer yielded a few pencils and a notepad stamped with the logo of a local insurance company, scribbled with numbers that looked suspiciously like a Scrabble score.
Tearing off a blank sheet, he wrote a grateful and very apologetic letter to the owners, leaving his business card.
Soon, word would get out about the accident and the man who’d carried Colleen through the storm to safety. Knowing most cabin owners, Moore suspected they’d be pleased to have passively provided that safety, rather than being pissed about the intrusion.
If they were summer people from New York or Boston, though, all bets were off.
In the note, Moore asked them to call him. Depending on their response, he’d invite them up to Luview to visit the jewelry store, offer them a gift certificate, maybe take them out for a meal.
A check might be welcome, too. Nothing had been harmed in his and Colleen’s time here, but sometimes money and attention went a long way toward heading off problems.
And speaking of problems–what was he supposed to do about Colleen?
Before he could think, Kell stomped up the stairs and threw the door open, holding a duffel bag and wearing an expression of chagrin.
“No boots?”
“No boots.”
“Damn. None here, either.”
“Yeah. I’ll have to get you back to the truck the old-fashioned way.”
“What’s that?”
“Piggyback.”
Moore snorted. “You’re–oh, geez. You’re serious.”
“I can carry you easily.”
“I’m not questioning your manliness.”
“Then what?”
“I’m trying to preserve mine.”
“No one’s doubting your strength, Moore. Or your, um, prowess.”
“Can you stop bringing that up?” A sick feeling washed over him. Kell was perceptive enough to catch it.
“You’re not okay. Let’s get you to the local ER.”
“Where Colleen’s going?”
“No. EMTs decided she needs to go to Manchester. Luke went in the ambulance with them.”
“That bad?”
“They want to assess everything. Her shoulder, wrist, the hypothermia…”
“I want to go there, then.”
Kell put one of his big hands on each of Moore’s shoulders, looking down at him.
For years, Kell had been the skinny, tag-along kid brother Moore never had.
Luke viewed Kell as an annoying mosquito you just couldn’t wave away, but he wasn’t allowed to smash him against his arm into a tiny smear, no matter how much he wanted to.
Unlike Luke, Moore was the baby of his family, the “bumper kid,” with two siblings who were more than a decade older. Effectively an only child, he’d loved being an unofficial member of the Luview clan.
And now… now what was he? Luke was nuclear. Colleen had seemed so sad as she left, as if she’d made a big mistake.
All these years, Moore had held back because he didn’t want to ruin the bedrock foundation of his life, the sense of belonging to the extended Luview family.
Had he really misread Colleen that badly? Was it all just the rum and trauma talking?
“Dude. You’re a million miles away.”
“Sorry.”
Alarm filled Kell’s face, those slate gray eyes examining him. “Is it a head wound? Maybe we should take you to Manchester, too.”
Exhaustion made his spine droop, the muscles along it aching as he took in a slow, sorrowful breath. “You know what, Kell?”
“What?”
“That piggyback ride is sounding pretty good right now. Let’s get out of here.”
“You have to get medical attention.”
“I’ll go see Doc Blythe.”
“Back home? You don’t want to go to Manchester?”
“I want to go home. I need to check in with my parents. Word must have gotten out.”
“It has. Everyone’s buzzing. I texted Rachel to tell her the whole story.”
“The whole story?”
“Hell, no! Not the part where you somehow found my sister, of all people, attractive enough to bang.”
The word bang made Moore’s hackles rise.
“Don’t talk about her like that.”
“She’s my sister.”
“All the more reason to treat her with respect.”
“I always respect Colleen!”
Moore didn’t have eyebrow muscles strong enough to raise them as high as that comment deserved.
“Just shut up about her and banging.”
“You really are just like Luke, aren’t you?”
“What does that mean?” Moore moved away, grabbing his ruined suit coat, remembering he had nothing but the clothes he was wearing.
“I made a joke about Kylie once and Luke dropped the hammer on me.”
“Did he hit you in the head? Because sometimes you act like it.”
Turning away, Kell wiggled his butt at Moore. “Are you going to insult me, or climb on?”
“You sound like one of the ladies at Love You Harder.”
“How would you know? You’ve never gone there.” Kell spun around. “Or have you? You and Luke been holding out on me? You have some coming of age story where you lost your virginity to a prostitute at that place?”
“Kell?”
“Huh?”
“Shut up and give me a ride.”
“Bet they say that at Love You Harder, too.”
Before Kell could open his big mouth and say anything worse, Moore grabbed the guy’s shoulders and flexed his knees, willing his aching thighs to leap as high as possible, his banged-up knee protesting but not stopping him.
Kell caught his feet and Moore hung on, feeling exceptionally vulnerable and at the same time, whimsically free.
“Heigh ho!” he sang out in the Disney tone.
“No singing!”
“HI HOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
“Ugh,” Kell groaned as Moore belted out the seven dwarves’ song, or a very butchered version of it, Kell closing the cabin door and wading straight into the deep snow, following the tracks he and Luke had already made.
Cold air shocked Moore’s lungs awake. Crossing the cabin threshold took him from surreal to real, and with each lumbering, steady step Kell made, what happened with Colleen faded a little bit more.
Which made his soul ache.
And the line he crossed last night was redrawn, thicker than before, darker and bolder.
Because it had to be, now that he’d had a taste of what could be.
And of what she didn’t want.