12. Claire
12
CLAIRE
N ow.
Ransom finishes his story, and we both sit in the silence that follows.
The game plays on the screen, but the noises are soft and muted.
Crickets cry out, singing softly outside the stables.
I clutch the smooth glass of the bottle. “Daddy blackmailed you into staying.”
“I dug myself in that hole. He just filled it.” Ransom takes a slow pull from his beer.
“I suppose that doesn’t surprise me. He was a heartless bastard. I was his trophy, and he’d do anything to control me.”
Ransom gives a hum of agreement.
My braid brushes against my back as I twist to look up at him. “But you surprise me. The Riley Ransom I knew wouldn’t let anyone tell him what to do.”
Those chestnut-brown eyes meet mine. “The Riley Ransom you knew was an idiot.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re still a dumbass.”
He lets out a humorless huh at that.
“I wish you’d told me,” I say.
“You would’ve tried to stay.”
“Maybe,” I say sharply. “But it would’ve been my choice. You don’t get to make that decision for me. I’m so goddamn tired of men controlling my life.”
The beer turns bitter in my mouth. I plant it in the dirt and push against Ransom’s leg to rise to my feet. As I brush the straw and dirt from my dress, Ransom says my name.
“Claire.”
The sound of my name on his tongue is like a bell ringing on my heart.
Bear. Woman. Princess.
These are all words I’m used to Ransom using for me.
When he says Claire , he means it.
His eyes are sad when they find mine. “I wasn’t trying to control you. I was trying to love you. The only way I knew how. I loved you then, and I love you now.”
My breath catches in my throat. My heart splatters against my rib cage.
He continues. “I don’t expect anything to come of it. If I thought James was your true love, I’d keep my mouth shut, but?—”
“Don’t,” I snap. “You don’t know anything about James.”
“What do you know about James?” he asked pointedly.
“I know he’d never leave me alone at an airport.”
That knocks his words back into his mouth. But then he stands and closes the distance between us. My heart trips in my chest when those chestnut eyes stare into my own.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you,” he says, his voice low, intense. “Not once. Not for one night. You’re the only woman in my brain. The only woman I want in my bed.”
“Stop it,” I say. A quiet whisper.
His gaze doesn’t budge. “Do you think about me?”
“ Stop .”
His hand catches the side of my face. His thumb touches my bottom lip. I fight back the urge to suck the digit into my mouth. There’s fire in his eyes, a dark rim around those soft browns. “Do you think about me when you’re with him?”
And…
I’m tired, suddenly.
So, so tired.
I’m tired of hating him. I’m tired of loving him. I’m tired of fighting both feelings battling around in my chest like pissed-off farm cats.
I feel like my muscles have been tensed and ready to fight ever since I got that call that my father was dead. And now…
I don’t have the energy to fight this. Not tonight.
I take his hand from my face. I know this hand. I remember these strong fingers between my legs. I touch my lips to his rough palm. With my eyes on his, I guide his hand to cradle my face.
We’re close. So close. His thumb strokes my cheek. I can see the rapid rise and fall of his chest, as though just being near me is enough to get his heart racing.
“Daddy’s funeral is tomorrow,” I say pointedly.
He nods. “I know.”
“I need you there. So whatever you’re feeling right now…I need you to button it up and sleep it off. ”
I use every reserve of energy left to put my hands on his chest and shove him. Hard.
His solid frame moves a step back.
“Claire.”
“What?”
He gives a small, nearly imperceptible tilt of his head. “Sweet dreams.”
The look in his eyes says, I’ll see you in them.
I leave the stables and don’t look back, even as I can feel Ransom’s eyes following me. I run my fingers through the tight braid in the back of my head and shake it out as I walk, letting the strands unravel until it’s just a wild, tangled mess.
I slip through the break in the hedges and walk back inside the house. I kick my shoes off in the foyer. The house is dark but not quiet. There is a presence. The creaking of old wood. The ticking hands of the clocks. Even the walls seem to have their own beating pulse.
There’s a ghost in this house, but I don’t know if it’s my father’s or my own.
James is upstairs. I can hear the floorboards creak as he walks from one end of the bedroom to the other. He’s talking to someone, the sound of his voice soft and muted. I climb the staircase and move toward him, but I find myself pausing in front of my old room.
Little ghost girl .
I touch the crystal door handle. The rough pattern bites gently into my skin as I twist and push it open.
I’m met with a gush of stale air. As though the ghosts are saying, Finally. Finally, we’re free .
There are the powder-blue walls I was forced to stare at when Daddy locked me in here as punishment. There are the books that kept me company. A line of stuffed animals sitting on a shelf above my bed—to look at, only, not to touch. There’s my trophy case, each blue ribbon set out on proud display.
And then there’s the wall of Belleflower Queens.
I walk toward the wall, remembering how I used to study each poster meticulously. They’re mini posters, each framed and hung along the wall. Not every Belleflower Queen, but my favorites. 1974, Lynn Beckett, with a stern but handsome expression. 1994, Maeve Belladonna “Maeby” Katherine, with her effortless, pixie-like beauty. Cassie Sinclaire, 1999, with a cat-that-ate-the-canary smile. Some of the newer posters have signatures scrawled at the bottom. My own personal collection. These were the women I looked up to—their beauty, their grace, their strength .
The Maeby poster is special. She signed it with a pistol shot. The exit wound is ripped through the poster paper, making it pucker outward like a white clover. My fingertips touch the picture frame, and I scrape a line of dust across the glass.
This used to be my entire world.
The dream to be a Belleflower Queen was my entire existence.
Even now that I’m a different person, a grown adult, with her own apartment, her own fiancé, her own life in Paris…
There’s a longing here. Like a phantom limb.
But all dreams turn to dust. Eventually.
I sneeze. This room is going to make me sick with allergies.
There’s one more artifact I want to uncover first.
I crouch down and run my fingers along the lowest rung of my bookshelf. All the way to the right, I press my fingers against a panel in the shelf. It wobbles, loose, and I push the panel so it slides back .
My secret place. The small, hidden spot where I kept my journal with all my young, angsty teenage thoughts.
But when I slide the panel back, there’s nothing but an empty gap in the wood.
My diary. It’s gone.
Unbidden, rage swells up inside of me.
Daddy found all my secrets, then. Found them and burned them, probably.
Maybe it’s for the best.
Maybe it’s better to leave the past in the past.
I replace the panel, get to my feet, and exit the bedroom, closing the door behind me.
When I go to the master bedroom, James is off his call. He’s in bed, iPad in his lap, finger on the screen. The lamplight halos his dark curls, softening his features. The screen reflects in his glasses.
My heart wiggles and twists like a fish on a hook.
Yes. The past in the past.
I’m worn to the bone, and I’m too exhausted to shower off. James has unpacked us, and my bottle of Ambien sits on the oak bedside table, along with a glass of water. I take a pill and swallow it down. Then I shed my hellish dress, leaving it in a puddle on the floor. I climb under the sheets and into bed with James. He opens his body to me, extending his arm out around me, and I rest my head on his chest. His body is hard and sturdy, and his heart has a nice, predictable thump against my ear.
“Everything alright, love?” he murmurs.
“Who were you on the phone with?”
“Work.”
He strokes a hand through my hair. I peer at his iPad screen .
He’s watching a captioned documentary about the Jurassic period.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
My steady, predictable James .
I close my eyes. “I just want to sleep.”
His breath is warm on my forehead as he lands a kiss there. He takes an earbud from his ear and slips it into my own. A droll, British voice informs me of flora and fauna that will never see this earth again, and I’m out before the meteor hits.