29. Natty
TWENTY-NINE
NATTY
PRESENT DAY
Silas didn’t drive us to the Stone Riders property, or to The Death Raiders. We drove back to Rose Ridge, but instead of pushing through the town, we ended up on the outskirts, near the water treatment plant. We drove a ways out until we entered a vast orchard that I had always assumed belonged to one of the wealthier families in Rose Ridge. The space stretched along the ridgeline of the top of the canyon, where the sun hit the hill the most.
I’d never walked among the trees, but I heard the owner of the bakery mention the varying fruit that grew here, and how delicious it all was. We maneuvered path after path, trees at every turn, making it almost dizzying, until Silas took a slight turn, almost imperceptible in the dark. I perked up because it felt very private, like we were suddenly traveling down someone’s personal drive that would soon lead to a house.
Nerves gnawed at my stomach as I waited to see a glow, or something that indicated where we were headed. Silas slowed his bike as the moon guided our approach to a small, brick house. There were no lights, so it was hard to make out all the details, but with the pitched roof, it gave the appearance of a cottage.
The bike stopped, and Silas pushed down his kickstand. The quiet of the night seemed to stretch around us like a bubble, holding in all the horrors we’d just seen…and done.
Silas twisted the smallest bit as he turned to help me off the bike. Once we were standing, his hand in mine, he led me toward the entrance. The single-story house was hidden within the orchard, like we’d finally found our version of the wardrobe we once hid inside. Our own little Narnia.
The porch was wide and enclosed as we maneuvered the steps, and gently entered through the screen door. It shut with a whisper behind me as Silas produced a key and my heart seemed to kickstart. Without even a glance over his shoulder, he pulled me inside.
The house smelled like lemon, the sweet kind, and when Silas clicked on a lamp, I realized why.
He had glass bowls of lemons scattered around the house.
His hand remained over mine as we walked along pine floors, and I inspected the white walls, trimmed with the same wood that ran below our feet. My eyes soaked up the small circular table off to the right with four chairs around it. To the left was a generously sized bookshelf that held all familiar books I remembered being stuffed inside a baby blue dresser. Silas had used his closet for his minimal wardrobe, but his dresser was saved for his prized collection.
I stepped closer, seeing on the shelves framed photos of me scattered between groups of books. Me, bent over a butcher block counter, rolling out dough while working at The Drip. Me, smiling at the sky while standing in a lake. Me, laughing at something while the sun caught in my hair, outside the library.
He’d taken all these images of me when I didn’t even know he was watching…and then he’d framed them and put them in his house. My throat felt tight as I slipped my fingers over another image of me in a red dress, making a funny face while pointing at Laura. It was outside The Hollow, after one of her shows.
God, how many moments had he stolen and bottled up here, like these random lemons scattered along the shelves in glass jars and vases. I traced a rock that we’d found in the grove one time that we both said had fallen from space. My eyes watered as I touched the leather reading chair and ottoman perched in front of it. The closer I got to the chair, the more I could smell my husband’s scent of leather, campfire and spice.
“You live in a cottage.” My voice was barely audible as we passed under a rounded arch that led to the kitchen, and a larger living room. He had a television, soft accent rugs, a large hearth, and a comfortable looking couch.
Silas trailed his hand down the length of my arm, which had me moving toward the back of the house. He flicked on another lamp and a bedroom materialized. A king-sized bed with dove gray bedding and white throw pillows, a beautiful rustic headboard, and two side tables that matched with bedside lamps.
I stepped inside a bit farther and then Silas clicked another light, but the space above me began to glow, which had me tipping my head back. Green vines ran along the length of the ceiling, intermixed with glowing lights, which made it look like something from a movie. It was vastly more elaborate than anything I’d ever put up myself. The vines were beautifully braided into cohesive columns, with white flowers woven into each strand, and the shimmering lights were more expensive than any that I had ever used.
“Silas.” The air rushed out of my chest as I began to inspect the full scope of what he’d created.
A masterpiece.
“When you were traded to the Stone Riders, I nearly killed Simon Stone,” Silas muttered quietly while tossing his phone and keys on the small bedside table. I turned and watched him as he removed his shoes and set them inside a generously sized closet.
When he glanced at my feet, I realized I should do the same.
I was still wearing my jacket, and other riding leathers, so I started to strip.
“My mother didn’t tell me why you went. It was elusive and confusing. All I was told was that it was for the best and to keep you safe, but I had no idea why. I just had to accept a new life without you inside it.”
Guilt prodded for a place inside my heart, threatening to ruin this moment, but I pushed it out. We couldn’t change the past, and it wouldn’t do me any good to try and go back in time.
“I was mad at you…it hurt that you felt safer with them…it hurt me that you started finding this new life and this new freedom over there. But then, as I watched you, I realized I had started falling in love with you all over again. Your excitement over the smallest things…your smile. Your love for life.”
I was naked, standing in his bedroom as he gently took my hand and led me to the attached bathroom. A clawfoot tub sat in the corner on top of subway tile. A shower with the same tile was off to the side, and a long counter with two brass sinks.
Silas perched on the edge of the tub and started the hot water, adding in expensive looking bubble bath. Once it was full enough, Silas helped me into the tub, but I gestured toward his bloodied clothes.
“You should get in too. To clean up.”
He glanced down at his shirt and jeans and winced. I relaxed against the porcelain, watching as Silas shed his clothes, revealing dusky tattoos that made up his toned arms, long fingers and tapered waist. Even down his strong thighs, there were designs carved in intricate detail over his skin. He was a story dipped in ink, his soul a sonnet, constantly bleeding new lines of poetry each and every time his heart broke.
With his focus on me, he advanced toward the tub and as I made room for him, he slid in behind me until I was cradled between his thighs. His arms came around me as his lips came to my ear. “I have a thousand regrets, Natty. Most of them are from before you were ever even traded. I should have let the obsession with Fable go. I should have stayed home with you and found a way to leave. We should have left the club, all of it, and ran. We could have had this years ago.”
My hand was soapy as I pulled his hand into mine. My heart ached as grief throbbed there at my core, threatening to push through my emotions and ruin this moment. I knew it was important to Silas. That he needed to say these words, and I clung to him, hoping they’d help heal me as he said them. But all I felt was a sorrow that seemed to sink bone deep.
Red.
Brooks.
Alec.
“You asked me to run with you…recently and I just—” He blew out a breath. “Part of it was that I couldn’t relax until I knew he was gone. I ne eded to keep you safe, but the other part was the assumption that you’d be happier there, with them.”
Gone.
Forever.
I realized it wasn’t just grief that was keeping my mind at bay, as if an invisible barrier was between what Silas was saying and what I was absorbing. It was that I didn’t want to go back.
Not to those nights when terror would crawl under my skin like a disease and fester. Dirk had me too afraid to sleep most nights that Silas was gone. He’d become a demon, hunting my dreams, my waking hours. Fear was the very air I breathed, and right now…in the tub with him, I didn’t want to go back.
But this was a piece of parched land I’d never given him access to. For all the light he always claimed to love of mine, he’d yet to see the deserts, the valleys and places inside me that had been scorched by all that forced sunshine. So I let him continue.
And I remembered there was a cage around my soul now made of titanium. It would not break so easily again.
It would hold.
Silas stroked up my stomach and over my breasts. “After hearing what happened to you…” His voice dipped as though he had to work to control his emotions. “That you were being hurt by him…that you covered it up just so that I wouldn’t get hurt…” If I were looking at him, I had no doubt his eyes would be full to the brim with pain and an agony that I wished to my bones I could remove.
“I’d die a thousand times over if it meant I could keep you safe. My life is not worth living without you in it, Caelum. You’ve been my forever since my life started. If you were to end, then I would too. The fact that you didn’t realize that…it kills me.”
His voice cracked, and I finally turned, making the bubbles shift and move. I got to my knees, letting the water drip, my slick breasts exposed and sopping wet. My hands went to his jaw, and I leveled him with a stare of my own.
“What of my love for you, Silas? Can I not also want to move the sky and crack the earth just to protect you? Loving you has been the greatest joy of my life, and if it meant that I lost a few pieces of myself along the way then it was worth it. Your mom did what she felt was best to keep us both safe.”
His hand covered mine over his jaw as he ground his molars together. I felt the muscle shift under my palm.
“She nearly ruined us.”
I shook my head. “She knew our love was made of the very same substance that makes the stars stay in the sky, and the currents that spread throughout the rivers. We’re an ocean wave: violent, turbulent and steadfast. No time apart would ever diminish that.”
A tear slipped down his cheek.
“How do I accept what was done to you?”
His hands came to my hips, stabilizing me against him. I stroked his dark, furrowed brow.
“The same way I accepted what was done to you. I offered you my light. You might need to extend some of your own. You have some in there, my darling husband. I know you do. It’s brilliant and beautiful and perhaps it was just waiting for a season of peace to come out.”
He laughed as more tears fell from his lashes. Then I stood, stepped out of the tub and wrapped myself in a white fluffy towel. Silas did the same, tying it around his waist. I was about to walk past him, but he put his hand out, gently tipping my chin up.
“I’m sorry you lost him, Caelum. I know you cared for him.”
That sorrow felt like a plucked string on an instrument, ready to play to the tune of grief.
“I did care for him; he was annoying and I hate what he did to me. Parts of me will never forgive what he did to me in that house. But there are other parts of me that remember him as a kid, a gangly teen…a friend who was just as much a shield to me as you always were.”
Silas pressed a kiss to my mouth, soft and gentle. I followed him into the room where he handed me one of his t-shirts. I slipped the soft fabric over my head and then slid under the covers, watching as Silas did the same.
“How long have you had this cottage?”
Silas pulled me into his arms, making me feel found in ways I hadn’t even realized I’d been lost. “I discovered this place by accident about a year and a half ago. I was up here, trying to clear my head after you were traded, not wanting to be too far from you. There was an older couple who would also be up here, so I started helping them. Every day I would pick lemons, help load them, and carry them back to their house. I got so used to being here that I started sleeping on the ground, under the trees. They found me, and the next day, the old man led me here. Said it used to be for their groundskeeper. I bought it off them before they retired and moved back to Texas.”
I hummed, feeling tired, sad and happy all at once. The grief over Red, Alec and Brooks was a knife prick against my sternum, refusing to let up or go away but seeing this place, and how settled Silas was, I’d only ever hoped he’d find a place like this.
Silas hesitated, pushing some of my hair back. “Do you like it?”
My eyes slid shut, as a smile slipped free.
“It’s better than anything I ever hoped for…would you…” I stopped, suddenly feeling nervous. “Could I stay here with you?”
His soft chuckle was firelight against my exposed neck. “Yes, Caelum. This is yours. All I am is yours, including this cottage.”
“So you’ve been up here, on top of my town, just watching over me like a dark shadow?”
Slow strokes started against my stomach as he kissed my ear.
“Two years, I’ve never been more than five miles from you.”
Pain radiated like a webbed piece of glass, forcing my eyes shut and sleep to claim me.
The next morning was gray and full of clouds that snuffed out the sun. It felt fitting for my mood. Silas had brought me coffee in bed, and I realized I didn’t have the energy to leave it. I was sad.
So sad that tears trailed my face, leaving a cold sting behind.
I sipped the coffee, then closed my eyes and fell back asleep.
Silas would wake me for meals. But I wouldn’t eat them.
I wasn’t trying to be difficult; I just didn’t have an appetite. When I slept, I saw Alec’s gray eyes right before he stopped living. The way he talked about me one day living a life he’d never be a part of, one where he didn’t get to meet his niece or nephew, one where he didn’t get to fall out of love with me, and just be the friend he’d always been to me.
I’d see Red’s face as we laughed about playing charades. Her hands moving as she rolled out dough. Brooks grease-stained fingers as he helped me tune up my secret bike that no one was supposed to know about.
I’d see things that had knit invisible pieces of hope inside my heart, creating a snapshot for when their presence evaded this world. All that would be left would be those pieces of hope, stuck in our heart like chunks of forever.
Silas stroked my hair as I drifted off again, and I realized it was dark and an entire day had passed. I closed my eyes and let it drift away.
The following day began without Silas checking on me. Eventually my bladder had me leaving the bed. Once I relieved myself, I shuffled out of the room. Still in the shirt Silas gave me, my hair a wreck as I searched the cottage for my husband.
A note was left behind for me, indicating he was working the orchard.
A fluttering sensation started in my stomach. He’d become a peaceful man…a farmer, and I had yet to see him in action.
I turned around, located my clothes that Silas must have washed for me, and dressed.
Then I went in search of the orchard.
Sunshine soaked the world, doting on all the trees. I covered my eyes with my hand as I walked past the enclosed yard, and back down the path Silas had initially driven up. There were white buckets abandoned every few yards or so. I grabbed one and began walking with it, still no idea where Silas was until I saw yellow and remembered lemons.
I found my husband wearing a white, gaping Henley with the sleeves shoved up to his forearms, brown gloves were on his hands. Thick canvas jeans covered his legs, and work boots replaced the motorcycle boots I’d always seen him in. There was also a black ball cap on his head, covering his hair and helping protect his eyes from the sun.
The sight of him…it was like a searing piece of metal plunged into my gut and swiped around. Was this what he meant when he said he’d begun to fall in love with me all over again? Because it was starting to feel that way as I watched him gently pulling a lemon free and tossing it down to a bucket; I felt like I was seeing him for the first time and completely in love already.
“Hi,” he said, looking down at me.
I realized I was just staring at him.
“Hi.”
“Lunch?”
How late was it?
“I guess.”
He smirked then scaled the ladder he was perched on. “Penelope, Laura and Callie would like to send a message along to you that roughly states if you don’t contact them by today, they will begin tearing the town apart in search of you, which will include calling in the aid of any and all motorcycle club allies.”
I snorted, imagining who drafted that little text. I did need to check in with them…they had to be so worried about me. I just disappeared.
Silas was down, walking along the trees with me, while carrying that bucket, so I turned to join him.
“Would that include yours? We going to talk about what you did, or how Fable was able to get to you, or better question, how you got out of the chair?”
His hand found mine as the quiet in the trees seemed to settle around us. It was so tranquil and perfect.
Finally, Silas took a deep breath and explained, “I gave them up. Lance is the new president.”
I stopped and faced him.
“You gave them up?”
Silas pushed a piece of hair out of my face.
“I lost my mind after I discovered you were hurt. I got rid of every single person who was ever a part of Dirk’s circle, or had ridden with him. I had to get rid of that house…and somewhere in that blood lust, I wasn’t paying attention or watching. Lance was trying to deal with the bodies because I’d created such a mess. I took off toward the grove, but Fable had already been watching me.”
I held his hand in mine, stroking along his wrist.
“So he took you?”
“He knocked me out but didn’t check me for weapons. I had a slim fragment of iron from the stakes…” He trailed off and that’s how I knew he was still good inside. Because even though those men deserved it, he still struggled to even talk about it.
His eyes drifted to some place behind me. “I had a small piece still in my back pocket. I was able to use it to cut through the rope.”
“He was toying with us…” I drifted off, but Silas pulled my chin back.
“Doesn’t matter. We won. Now let’s go see your friends before they find us and murder me.”