6
6
PRESS
A n anvil straight to the head couldn’t have taken me down faster. Next thing I knew, my forehead hit floor. I splatted my palms against the pine I’d installed myself, then brought them over my head like a make-shift bomb shelter.
“ First time ?” The bomb that had taken me to my knees.
“First time,” she confirmed, her voice watered down to a thin consistency. A rebuke.
I couldn’t look at her right now. I was a day too late. Not even a day. I’m not sure why I took this news quite so hard. Isn’t this a better scenario than the one playing in my head the last couple of months? I’d assumed they’d been doing the deed since the day I saw the happy couple posing for all the world to see.
I thought of that picture again, his gorilla arm wrapped possessively around my girl. Ranger? Waiting for marriage? No, obviously not him. But an over-sexed sexist like him allowing her to wait? Did not compute. Maybe she was saying this for my benefit, a misguided notion of making this more tolerable for me.
I peeked at her through a crack in my hand. “You sure?”
She looked at me with the same expression one reserved for a cockroach on the floor. Ouch. Did not think I could feel worse. I was instantly contrite. Kate never lied. And anyway, she was so bad at it I would instantly know. I growled for about ten seconds, doing some kind of toddler impersonation on the floor. I felt like a person who’d shown up with a life-saving kidney two hours after the plug was pulled.
I barked a laugh that was completely devoid of humor. One fucking night too late. He’d even sent the staff home. I could’ve gotten her, no problem the night before. I didn’t even use the drugs I procured for him anyway. What an epic fail on my part. I finally scraped my sorry ass off the floor to look at her face. She looked like she was sitting on a bed of nails. I made a face. I’d put that look on her face.
“God, Kate.” I lurched for her. She was all stiffened up like a two-day-old dead cat. I tried to massage the rigor mortis out. “I’m so sorry. Forgive me. Just, I could’ve come sooner had I known. I assumed—” I broke off, remembering that old lecture Davies gave my elite class about assuming: Never assume anything, because it only makes an ass out of u and me.
I snorted. An Academy life lesson the hard way. I resumed my mish-mashed apology. “I assumed you had been . . .” Could not say those words, man. “For a while,” I finished.
Some of that burning anger bottled up inside me spilled onto the floor with the realization they hadn’t . I flashed back to those sheets. I tried to reconcile what I’d seen with what I knew. Shouldn’t it have been just a little spotty? Like a smeared cherry, so cliché but about right. It seemed a bit excessive for a first time . . . and then there was the matter of his back. My brain matter turned red on me.
In a very low voice I said, “Did he force you?”
She was the picture of misery: forehead creased, moisture glistening her eyes, gnawed-on lips atremble. She smeared her hands over her face before sliding back on the bed and drawing her knees up like a cornered animal. She stared at me with wounded raccoon eyes. Didn’t take a body language expert to read her—leave me alone.
“Did he?” I pressed, advancing forward.
She shook her head at me, either because she couldn’t speak or it wasn’t true. A denial or she was in denial.
My whole body was atremble now. “Kate, kook at me.” She shook her head, and I forcefully removed her hands from her face. “ Did he? . . . The truth.” Even to my own ears, I could hear the death threat in there.
Her eyes were glistening jewels. I would kill that son-of-a-bitch! No wonder she didn’t want to talk about it. Her face finally registered something beyond misery—alarm.
“N-no . . . not exactly,” she hedged.
“What do you mean not exactly?” That left enough wiggle room to commit murder.
“No.”
No meant no wiggle room. “Is it no, or not exactly?”
“It was my fault.”
“Don’t say it was your fault! That’s bullshit!” I slammed my hand on the headboard, causing her to flinch. “Makes everything that comes out of your mouth a lie.” I didn’t mean for that to come out so harsh. Man, I was fucking this up. I was just so damned angry I could spit nails—line his coffin with them.
Some tears began to spill. I sighed and raked some hair. “Make me understand, Kate. What am I missing here?”
A little sniffle from the Mrs. “Explain it to me,” I continued in a softer tone, “so I don’t march myself back to The Academy and make you a widow.”
She snapped her head up, swiped at her eyes. Those lips of hers were still trembling. My whole body was about to erupt like a volcano was inside. “I-I . . .” She couldn’t seem to cough it out.
I was losing patience. I drew in a deep breath. The madder I got, the more she clammed up. “I’m sorry, Kate,” I started again, a little too tersely. “I’ll not touch another hair on that bastard’s head, if you don’t want me to. But please . Explain the situation to me, so I can better understand this whole thing. Let’s skip the gory honeymoon scene for now.”
She hiccupped down a couple of deep breaths, trying to get it together.
I relaxed my muscles and tried a soothing voice. “Start from the beginning. How did this match made in hell all begin?”
Still unable to keep the nervous tics at bay, she fiddled with her lips. I pictured them locked onto his in passion, and a wave of revulsion passed through me.
“Please.” Even though my chest burned, I tried to simmer down. “I’d really like to know. My mother seems to have been under the impression it was a real marriage. She supported it. I thought it was because she unsupported us at first, but I could tell she really thought it was in your best interests.”
Kate flashed me a wounded look.
“My mother likes you, Kate. A lot. But.” I sighed. She braced for it, and I let her have it. “She thinks we’re no good for each other. Like we have some kind of Romeo and Juliet thing going. Too young . . .” Kate still looked like her best friend just snatched her boyfriend away, but I drilled on. “But then she called my 911 phone. The night of your wedding. Said you were in bad form that night. Told me what you’d said: ‘It should’ve been me and not him.’” I lifted half a lip. “Then she told me where your honeymoon was to take place. Ended the conversation by telling me not to do anything stupid. She was too late—I was already planning on coming for you. She just gave me the details. Saved me some time and effort.”
Kate’s eyes trickled tears. She sniffed and swiped at them uselessly.
“So you see, sweet Kate. I’m confused. Can you please tell me how it all began? Did . . . did you fall in love with him?” My voice went wonky at the end.
She bit her thumb, looking at me with a resigned expression. She cleared her throat. “He saved my life.”
I nodded my encouragement. As good a place to start as any. It had obviously made an impact.
“On a mission,” she explained, then stopped there and kind of knuckled her lips for a second.
“What happened?” I probed for more, hungry for details about her life at The Academy. I was pissed as hell at my mother for never mentioning it. I tried cutting her a break. Maybe she didn’t know? But my mother had fed me less than nibbles when I asked about Kate, so if she knew, she wouldn’t have told me anyway. “Kate?” I prompted again.
She shook her head, staring at the floor. “I can’t talk about that.” She snapped her head back up, set her jaw. “Ever.”
I was afraid she was going to clam up again, just when I got her jaws greased. I quickly nodded. There were certain things I couldn’t talk about. Ever.
“Anyway,” she continued, “a couple of weeks after I got out of the hospital . . .”
My heart seized. “You were hospitalized ?”
She folded her arms across her chest and stared balefully at me.
I ran a hand though my hair. She was closing off. I drew my lips into a grim line and nodded for her to continue.
She deep sighed in, a little wobbly like a child after a long cry. After taking a moment to compose herself, she continued. “So Ranger takes me out to the city to celebrate my recovery.”
I winced at the word recovery . The intimation wasn’t a sprained wrist or a bump on the head.
“But it was more of an apology dinner. For the way he’d treated me since . . .” she paused to huff out a dry laugh, “the first day he’d met me.” She began running her finger along the zipper line of my duvet, not looking at her captive audience. She took another deep breath. “Anyway, he explained it was all because . . .” She returned her gaze to mine. I was barely breathing. “It was my mother who got his father kicked out of the Academy . . . because she coerced him into helping her escape.”
My eyes bugged out. “Holy shit!”
She nodded at me. “I know.”
I hadn’t even realized I’d said that out loud. A whole lot of things were making sense now: Ranger’s instant intense dislike of her, why he fought so hard to do the mission. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t put it together before.
“It gets better,” she said. And by better, I knew she meant worse. She inhaled and exhaled. “Remember that microchip y’all were looking for out by our ranch?”
I nodded dully, knowing exactly where she was going with this.
“Well, Ranger went back and ‘pulled it from a pile of coyote dung’,” she angry quoted, tears springing back to her eyes. “Said my mother had killed his father ‘after all he’d done for her’.” Her voice came out in squeaks. She looked up at me, pleading. “My mother wouldn’t have killed his father unless she had a very good reason!” She said this like she had to convince me. The only thing I knew about Dr. Nealson was that he was weirder and more ruthless than his son.
I moved a couple of steps toward her, feeling like she might need a hug. She backed away, and I let her settle herself back on the bed before speaking. “I knew he’d been dismissed from The Academy and disappeared, but I never knew why.” That explained a lot. This was fascinating in the grimmest way possible, like an ugly crime finally being solved.
She dashed some tears away and said, “So I got really mad at Ranger for that—using me as a vendetta against my dead mother. He didn’t even know the whole story—her side. Anyway, he asked what he could do to make it up to me. He’d abducted us and made me miserable for two years.” Her face suffused with color. “I wanted to tell him to go suck it, yunno? But then I thought of Mikey. And how he’d never stepped foot off campus. Had never even seen the ocean or the Golden Gate Bridge one time. He’d was still passed out when they brought him in. We both were,” she spat.
We both flashed mutual hate at The Academy.
Kate offered me a wobbly smile before continuing. “I told him if he really wanted to make it up to me to start taking Mikey out on field trips. So he did. Finally. I went along on that first excursion as a precaution. Anyhow, we went to that little lighthouse. You know the one? In Golden Gate Park. The one you have to walk over that suspension bridge—Bonita Lighthouse?”
I curt nodded to roll it forward.
“Well, he arranged to give us a private tour. That bridge is pretty treacherous right? So Ranger takes Mikey’s hand and they look at each other, and the bridge starts swaying in the wind, and that thing that happens to me happened. Like lightening struck—Ranger and Mikey are brothers.” She paused for effect.
I nodded, already knowing this from my mother. I wanted to keep her going.
“After screaming his name, I passed right out. Woke up with him pouring water over my face . . . like you did that day in P.E. remember?” I clenched my jaw at the comparison, but nodded through it to get her talking again. “I told him what I knew. Stunned him stupid for about a minute. Then he nods at me and runs us back to campus. To your mom’s lab. For some blood tests. Ranger kept his head together, insisting we keep the whole thing under wraps.”
I wound my hand at her to skip it forward to how they got started.
She took a moment and a breath. “So Mikey and Ranger share a father. He and I have different mothers and fathers. He seemed equally relieved by both sets of news.”
I cut her off with another roll it forward gesture.
She made a face at my obvious impatience but complied. “Okay, so Ranger kinda goes MIA after that. I think it freaked him out. But when he returned from a mission, he seemed . . . different. More—” she stuttered to a halt and blushed. I also turned red, but for a different reason. I did the roll it forward thing again, and she began again. “Then, at the New Year’s Eve party, he just kinda grabbed me and planted one on me, right after the countdown.” A semblance of a smile at the memory lifted her lips.
Inwardly I burned. Outwardly I snorted. “A move stolen right out of a sappy movie. You see how that was staged—stroke of midnight my ass. He planned that first kiss ahead of time to appeal to a young girl’s sense of romance.”
Her eyes and lips drooped like I was shitting on a precious memory.
“He’s a master-manipulator, Kate. Can’t you see it? Just like his father manipulated him and turned him into a monster.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think he planned it. Honestly.”
I let out an incredulous huff at her blindness. She was still guileless so she wouldn’t know how a bastard like that operates.
“I could be wrong. But.” She peeked at me beneath her wet lashes. “It wasn’t our first kiss. Just the beginning of our . . . courtship.”
I started at this. My chest burning again. I felt like accusing her of something. Cheating? I was a hypocrite a thousand times over. And, of course, he tried to get into her pants sooner. Who wouldn’t?
After she got a glimpse of my face, she made her own face. “Only one time,” she answered my unasked question. “And it didn’t . . .”— ahem —“go over so well.” She screwed her lips up at the memory and colored a little.
I wanted to ask but wanted to move it forward more. I wanted to get to the matter of the crime scene honeymoon suite. I did the hand gesture.
“So”—a little laugh—“I guess we started dating?”
“Just like that?” I didn’t mean to interrupt. I was just so pissed at her for being so forgiving. Or easy, some might say.
She made an apologetic face, then an apology. “I’m sorry, Pete.” She flapped her hand helplessly. “You were . . . out of the picture. Unlikely to return to The Academy. I couldn’t leave”—she dry-coughed into her hand—“Mikey.” Respectful pause. She drew in a deep breath and shrugged. “It is what it is . . . it happened.”
That was both the stupidest and most appropriate expression I’d ever heard. I made a guttural noise in the back of my throat. “You didn’t question it? That little feeling you get didn’t give you a heads up?”
She pulled a disapproving face at my tone. I would have to tone it down. I wiped both hands over my face as if I could erase this story from my mind.
“I’m sorry,” I said, for the umpteenth time already. “This is . . . harder to hear about than I thought. I need to hear it though,” I countered before she could cite that as a reason to stop the reel. “Please continue.”
“I did question him,” she replied. “Ranger had to convince me a little. He said he could protect me from Missions, as his wife. Me and Mikey. We would have as normal of a family life as could exist within the confines of The Academy.”
I shook my head at her. “Master manipulator.”
She nodded. “You have to understand I’d just come off”—she paused to modulate her voice—“a bad mission.” Her eyes found mine. “That he’d just saved my life on. Then apologized for all the bad things he’d done. Tried to make it right. We just found out Mikey, who adores Ranger by the way, was his brother.”
I blew out my cheeks, suddenly seeing how it all came together.
She gave me a wry smile. “And I was so grateful for how Ranger made Mikey’s life so good. I’d never seen him so happy. He took him fishing, sailing, to the beach. He even got him a puppy. Ranger was the father Mikey never had. It was like, we were like . . . a family.” Pleading tears at this admission.
Understanding softened my face. I couldn’t say I blamed that bastard for trying to create the family he never had, or her for trying to recreate the one she just had.
“So I agreed to the proposal,” she admitted, with an incredulous huff. “It felt weird at first. Like I’d tried out for cheerleader when I was really a volleyball player.” She gave an embarrassed laugh at the metaphor, then tried a different way of explaining it: “Engaged to Ranger . Who would’ve thunk it, yunno?”
“Took the words right outta my mouth.” I barked a humorless laugh. “’Not if he was the last man on earth’,” I reminded her again bitterly. “I somehow knew those were famous last words when you said them.” I snorted. “My father always cautioned me against making those kinds of bold declarations. Somehow the universe always sends them back to bite you in the ass.”
We shared a painful smile. After which, she went right back at it, seeming to need to get it off her chest right when I’d almost decided I didn’t need to hear anymore. In all my scenarios, I never pictured Ranger as the hero of the story.
“It was all going . . .”—she took a breath and released it with a big shrug—“pretty well. Weston gave his permission, even allowing a big wedding The Academy was going to pay for. Ranger was enthusiastic. Outmatched only by Mikey.”
I noticed, with a much-needed shot in the arm, she hadn’t mentioned herself in that scenario.
“He planned it for spring,” she said, a bitter tone taking hold. “Right after my graduation from CAP. You know take some time off for”—she cleared her throat—“the honeymoon.” We both winced. “Before I started the Elite Program.”
“I thought the whole point of this farce was to get you off Missions,” I interjected.
“He did get me off. But The Academy wants me to continue training, especially in languages because I’m still supposed to interrogate suspected terrorists, read intel, that type of thing.”
I nodded my understanding. “Continue.”
She nodded back. “So life went on. Ranger lightened my workload, let me indulge in my new hobby with your mom, planned the whole wedding, took Mikey and me out, when he wasn’t away on a mission. Everything was fine. Everything was good.”
I was searching for the but . . . didn’t have to wait long.
“But then I started gettin’ those funny feelin’s ,” she trilled in a high pitch. “He was hidin’ stuff from me. I busted him with a psychology textbook, and he about went berserk on me. The old Ranger was back”—she snapped her finger—“like that. It scared me. I tried to discuss it with him, but he wouldn’t talk to me. I realized that we never really talked about anything: not our parents’ history, not our bumpy history, or our feelings. Nothing but superficial stuff. I got spooked. Cold feet. Whatever. I just felt weird, yunno? That head-nod thing from my gut you were talkin’ about happened.”
I nodded. I was listening.
Kate drew in a breath and released it. “Ranger came home from another mission for my graduation. Very close to the wedding. He took me out to celebrate, but his mood wasn’t right. He wouldn’t talk to me. I was trying to read him, but he wouldn’t look me in the eye. I was suspicious.” A pause to remember. “I’d seen that cadet, Elizabeth Perkins ,” she spat out, “give me the smirk smile—nice ex-girlfriend by the way,” she threw at me. I didn’t catch it; wasn’t worth holding on to for a second.
“Anyway”—she tossed her hair back—“so Ranger hasn’t seen me, his fiancé, for eighteen days, comes back and doesn’t send for me that night? Says he’s gonna bach it up with Slater.” Another name she spit out. “So, I’m stewin’ in my bed. Can’t take it anymore. I decide to go confront him with my suspicions.”
I was pretty sure I knew where this was going. A little smirk smile tried to form that I commandeered into obedience. Thankfully, Kate was too lost in her story to notice.
“I jog over there in my pj’s and trainers. Only he’s not home. I’m about to turn back when I hear him and Slater talkin’ and playin’ pool. My gut gives me the signal, so I head over to listen—” Her voice broke. “I heard an earful.”
The smirk tried to slip to my lips again, but I held it in check. Not the hero then. My world was right again.
“Apparently, he’d been cheatin’ on me the whole time.” She chewed around for a moment before getting her mouth right. “I guess I was na?ve.” She huffed. “He said he was plannin’ on continuin’ on with that tradition right after the weddin’.” Her voice cracked. “They laughed at me. I felt so stupid,” she croaked. A fresh batch of tears sprang to her eyes.
I knew how much she hated to be made a fool of. My heart broke for her a little even as I was glad Ranger was a heartless bastard. I made to move to her, but she waved me away, swiping at her tears angrily.
She gulped a wobbly breath. “And then . . . the icin’ on the wedding cake—Slater asked him why he even bothered going through with the charade: the ring, the dress, the weddin’. I thought Ranger was gonna tell him to protect me from Missions. You know? The same thing he told me, but he didn’t.” Emotion choked off her voice. “He . . . he said . . .”—she started crying—“that he wanted a gifted child from me. To . . .”—sniffles and sobs—“further his career.”
She started boo-hooing in earnest. He was a pragmatic bastard, I’d give him that. Killing a lot of birds with one stone. He was every bit as ruthless as his father. I broke through the invisible wall she’d put up between us to take her in my arms. I rubbed at her back a while before I poked her for more backstory.
“So you refused to go through with it on your honeymoon?” I prompted her. I could tell she was done talking, but I had to know.
She sobbed-talked for a few seconds, trying to get it out for me. I understood she countered with those birth control pills I packed for her and getting wasted at her reception. I now understood that look of resigned misery on her face before she marched down the aisle. What I still didn’t understand was the blood on the sheets.
“So you wouldn’t go through with it, and he forced you?” I tried to force it out of her.
She began crying again, rubbing at her face like she was trying to expunge the memory. She vehemently shook her head at me. It could’ve meant anything.
“Kate?” My patience was about to snap.
She let out a sob. “I don’t wanna talk about it, Pete. Please! ” Her voice nearly broke my heart. I felt myself grow hard, like a weapon. I would kill that son-of-a-bitch.
“He forced you. Didn’t he?” What did I want to hear here?
She expelled an exasperated sigh. “No! Not exactly.”
I bolted up and backed away. Raked some hair. We were back to where we started from. There was wiggle room. I didn’t want there to be. “Goddammit, Kate!” I exploded. “You’re killing me here! Put me out of my misery already. Level with me. Either way I can take it.” A bold lie if I’d ever heard one.
She sprang up to face off with me. “It was my first time!” she blasted through tears, her arms thrown out. “I was bratty, okay? I purposefully pushed his buttons! I was confused! I stood across from him and recited vows in a church, in front of a priest, witnesses, my family, God! It seemed . . . it seemed like he was taking it seriously. Like I’d dreamed up the whole horrible conversation. Another gut flip-flop, just like with you. I couldn’t tell if I was right or not. It seemed like he was a man marrying a girl . . . he—” She broke off and refinished: “Kissed me like he meant it.” Tears spurted from her down-turned, pleading eyes.
“He’s good, Kate,” I argued. “You know that. Well-trained. How do you think he’s moved up so fast? World’s best manipulator. He learned from the best.”
Kate stood there, sniffling her pink nose, a little indignation sparking from her eyes at my words. “He seemed like he was tryin’, yunno?” she defended him. “Tryin’ to make it special for me. He went to a lot of effort. Was bein’ all lovey-dovey, and I couldn’t stand it, so I started bein’ cold. Then he seemed hurt by me .” She finger-stabbed her chest.
“He’s not an ogre, Kate. He would try to make it special. Good for you. Any guy would. Still doesn’t mean he’s s not the world’s greatest prick.”
She glared through tears and rubbed at her temples like she had a headache. How were we on opposite teams all of a sudden? I’d pushed her too far. She was still reeling from shock. Hell, my head was still spinning just from the retelling of it. I should’ve waited. Should’ve focused on starting my life with her instead of fighting my war with Ranger. Vendettas were a Ranger thing.
I came up to her and cupped her shoulders, forcing her to stare into my eyes to see the truth. “Don’t forget what he did, Kate . . . all those rotten things he did to you, he did for no good reason. You were innocent all along. Had never done anything to him to deserve all that shit he shoveled at you. He made you miserable. Cheated on you. Lied to you. Forced you into having sex when you weren’t ready.”
She stopped my roll with a headshake and broke away. “Like you said Pete—he would try to make it good for me. Make it special. He’s not an ogre.” She bit her lip, so she wouldn’t start crying. For what? For being here when her not-quite-an-ogre-husband was in the hospital. Did she love him? I was too afraid to ask.
I deep breathed in through my nose, trying to force the pieces of the puzzle she gave me with the shapes in my mind. Maybe some crimes are better off left unsolved? After all, the worthless bastard actually did me a favor. If it would’ve been a picture-perfect romance with zero fuck-ups from him, she wouldn’t be standing here crying with me now.
Crying . I dropped my head in shame, then closed the distance between us to wrap my arms around her. I cradled her head to my heart while she sniffled into my best shirt. I kissed the top on her head. One time. He’d had her one time. I could live with that. I’d already resolved myself to thinking it had been for longer. I’d had her two days and she’d already cried three times. Not exactly the joyful reunion I’d planned on. I made to tell her I’d never make her cry again. Then realized: those were some famous last words. So I settled for swiping some tears away with my thumbs.
It was time to step out of the past and into our future. I was going to make her forget his name, his face, and their short story. I was going to pull out all the stops for her. I swiped at tears that kept flowing. I would remedy that.
“You know what you need?” She peered up at me, her eyes so full of hope my heart melted on the spot. “Road trip,” I declared. She rewarded me with a wobbly smile.
It was a start.