Chapter Thirty
Hold Me
Ryan, March 30, 2012, Dallas, TX
Ryan had been drivingwithout purpose for over an hour. The prospect of staring at his hotel bathroom door with a half-empty bottle on the counter made him zoom past his exit and keep on driving. But where he went made no difference—she was imbedded in his brain, in his heart, in his soul.
Before long, he found himself in a residential neighborhood, narrow road feeding into a row of unremarkable duplexes: a pick-up truck with one wheel sunk into the grass, a faded red wagon abandoned on an overgrown lawn, a fat gray cat curled up on a doormat. On the sidewalk, a petite woman with a blonde ponytail struggled with her bike. The front tire was flat, and she half-walked, half-dragged the thing, stopping to rest, starting out again.
He rolled down his passenger window and leaned over, thankful she looked nothing like her. He’d been “seeing” her everywhere, seeking her out in faceless crowds despite himself.
“Need some help?”
The woman whirled around, startled. “No, sir!”
He didn’t know what possessed him to reach for his badge instead of continuing on his way. “I’m with law enforcement.” He softened his voice. “Just wanted to offer help.”
She studied him with narrowed eyes, read the badge. She seemed young—maybe mid-twenties—and pretty, all long hair and long legs in tight leggings. He blinked. There was something familiar about her he couldn’t quite pin down.
“Oh...hello, Ryan, ah—” She gripped the bar handles as the bike tipped. “I work at your gym—front desk.”
He nodded and removed his sunglasses. Yes, that was where he knew her from. “Can I give you a hand?”
“Well, sure—” She hesitated, sizing up his SUV. “I mean if you don’t mind... Think it’ll fit?”
Ryan put down his backseat and loaded the bike into his trunk while she waited on the curb. Maybe that was the solution—drive around and help random people instead of running himself rugged at the bureau and drinking himself into the ground in his hotel room.
They didn’t talk as he drove, except when she said to take a left turn at the stop sign and pointed to a nondescript apartment building behind the duplexes.
“Well...thank you so much, Ryan.” She opened her passenger door.
He gave a reassuring nod. “Hey, no problem, uh—”
“Whitney.”
“No problem, Whitney. Glad I could help.”
He popped open the trunk and took out the bicycle. “I’ll take it up.” He dismissed her half-hearted protest. “Really, I don’t mind.”
“Well...that’s real kind.” She flashed a shy smile. “Thank you.”
There was no elevator, so he carried the bike to the second floor and leaned it against a wall.
“Got a spare?” he said, almost eager. “I’ll change it.”
Anything but his empty hotel room, haunted by the hellish images and sounds of her.
“Well, I don’t know...would you care to come in? I mean, for a little sweet tea or somethin’?” She held his gaze a moment too long. “I made a fresh batch this morning. Everyone says I make it real good.”
Ryan scratched at his jaw. The last thing he wanted to do was to lead this girl on. On the other hand, he could drink some sweet tea and delay the inevitable rendezvous with the whiskey bottle in his miserable hotel room.
Whitney’s apartment matched her to a T: pretty and petite, whites, creams, and pinks everywhere, sparkly and fluffy things peppering every surface. The sweet tea was indeed one of the best he’d had since his move to Dallas—just the right amount of sugar with a hint of lemon.
“Damn,” he raised an eyebrow, sipping the ice-cold goodness on her cream velvet couch. “This is good.”
“Well.” She pursed her lips, and a shadow crossed her face. “It wasn’t good enough for my man.”
“Hmm.” He finished his glass. Would it be rude to leave now?
She nudged closer: a trace of girly shampoo and sweet perfume. “Well, he and I had a real ugly fight this morning—right after I made it. I mean, not about the tea.” She ran a hand over the upholstery. “So, I bawled all day, and then, I just couldn’t take it, so I went on a bike ride and forgot the air was low, you know. Parker, I mean, he was going to put the air in—he’s got the pump. But well...anyway, so, that’s why I got that flat.”
Their eyes met and caught.
She broke contact. “I don’t know why I just told you all this...”
“Well,” Ryan said, getting up, “thanks for the tea, and I hope you make up with Parker.”
“Are you seeing anyone?” Whitney poured more tea into his glass from the crystal pitcher.
“Ah...” He rubbed his forehead, eyeing the door. “No, not at the moment.”
She returned the pitcher to her little coffee table. “Well, I’m never making up with Parker.” Her eyes widened, shiny and unblinking.
Ryan clenched his jaw and sat back down. “Why is that?”
“He dumped me.” She fiddled with her watch. “Didn’t have the guts to tell me in the evening, so he spent the night, and...and then...”
“Shit, I’m sorry. That’s...” Ryan was at a loss for words. He’d never played a confidante to a woman and sure as hell wasn’t about to start now.
Whitney clasped her hands together. “I think this might sound strange, but...why do I feel like I know you from somewhere... I mean, not just from the gym?” She studied the floor. “Like you appeared out of nowhere for a reason?”
Ryan stiffened against a weird tingling in his stomach.
“Ryan—” She stared with glittering eyes. “Can I ask you...can you hold me?”
He shivered as a dizzying sensation stole over him—a ghost of recognition—cup in hands, sitting side by side, an unremitting feeling of dread. Time faltered, then stopped, and he knew with unsettling certainty what would happen next: his arms closing around a dainty shape, an almost chaste kiss, misery and gloom.
The wave receded, then it was gone. He shook himself. Nothing but one of those elusive déjà vu Sie used to talk about—
His chest tightened as if locked in a brace. He swore to never—not ever—say, think, write that name again. Because it was dead to him. Dead as she was.
“Ryan...?” Whitney’s voice hitched. Another moment, and she’d burst into tears.
He winced. “C’mere.”
She felt thin and fragile, her small arms wrapped around his neck and silky head resting on his shoulder, her scent of flowers and broken dreams wafting over him.
Christ, what now?
She raised her pretty, expectant face as he was about to say he had to be somewhere, her gaze fixed on his lips.
He drew back. “Hey, that’s not a good idea, right? How about—do you have a friend you can call? Or maybe I can call someone for you?”
She peered at him with reproach. “I’m sure you mean well, but I’m not a child,” she said, faint, her delicate skin flooding with pink.
His heart drummed a loud, uncomfortable beat. He could go to his hotel to drink the whiskey that made him forget nothing. Then fall into fitful sleep to the image of her eyes closing in ecstasy and her fingertips digging into another man’s shoulders. To the sound of another man’s name on her lips. He wished he could burn her from his brain. Rip her out. It was too much.
Eyes downcast, Whitney slid the elastic off her ponytail. Her hair cascaded down to her waist, wild and luxurious like sheaves of wheat. Not the color of whiskey, woodlands, and autumn leaves—
Ryan’s chest was a hollow void, cold and bleak. Only three months ago, he thought he had it all. Then she took everything in one fell swoop. It seemed too cruel, almost improbable. He’d wondered in his darkest moments if some of it—or all of it—was his fault. Maybe there was an extenuating circumstance he’d overlooked—some significant area in which he lacked, something just under the surface he should have known. But he always came up empty. He’d done nothing wrong this time around. Nothing—apart from marrying a rotten woman.
“Ryan...? “Whitney placed her tiny cool hand on his. “You seem so nice. I thought you were kind of...uppity—at the gym...” She averted her eyes.
He stared at their hands, pushing away a faint onset of another deja vu. What was even the point of it all? Where was any sense in it? He wished he’d never met her—neither then, nor now.
Flush creeping across her cheeks, Whitney haltingly removed her tank top, then sports bra, then leggings.
She must have been a dancer of some sort, her body lithe and graceful, opening for him, welcoming.
Why the hell not?Ryan closed his eyes, emptying his mind of pain, focusing on this unexpected glimmer of respite.
She pulled him close. “Ah...Ryan...”
He froze. Ah...Connor... His skin grew hot, body rigid. Hotel, work, this unfamiliar apartment—it didn’t matter where he was. His downward spiral started and ended with her. Always and forever.
Whitney slid down the couch, raised her hips to meet him. “Ohmigod, Ryan...”
It happened like in one of those modern paintings, where two scenes are transposed over each other. In his mind, he saw himself getting up and hightailing the hell out of there while he also drove himself into his goddamn two-timing wife. His thoughts were a confused tangle; body burned as if with fever. Flash drive. Ohmigod, Connor... Ryan, no... Mini bottles. Bloody knuckles. Ugly sobs. Wet pillow. Trash. Ryan! Fuck you—
“Aw...”
Chest heaving, he stared down into an incongruous pair of widened blue eyes peering into his.
“You’re too rough!” Whitney wrenched away right as he pushed himself up.
“Oh, God—” He blinked, scrubbed both hands over his face. “I’m sorry. You okay...?”
She pulled up her knees, clutched a fuzzy pink blanket to her chest.
He stood. Grabbed his shirt. It slipped from his tremulous grip. Grabbed it again.
“I mean, I’m fine, really...” She shot him a sideway glance. “It was just...”
He didn’t look at her as he finally managed to zip his fly and button his shirt.
“Gosh, I’m so sorry...” she mumbled as he headed to the door. “It...it wasn’t that bad—”
Ryan kept his mind carefully blank as he drove. Back in his hotel room, he sat on the bed and burst into soundless, mirthless laughter. It was funny, in truth—the whole thing. His paroxysms turned dark and manic. Here he was—the same Ryan Casey who couldn’t get rid of all the women throwing themselves at him since he’d turned fifteen—kicked out in the middle of the act and pitied for it. He stopped laughing. And cheated on—easily, thoughtlessly—by the woman he’d thought was his soulmate and viewed as a damn goddess.
He recoiled from belated awareness that rushed through him with the sobering force of an electric shock. His ring finger may have appeared unbound, but he was still married where it mattered—in the eyes of the law and God. He clenched his jaw so hard, it hurt. Just like she was when she carried out her filthy affair.
Congratulations, you’ve hit a new low.Ryan stared at the floor, wishing for it to swallow him whole.
He straightened. He hadn’t been right in the head for some time now. Maybe he simply needed a release, so he could stop thinking of her heartbreaking eyes. Ryan took himself in his hand, pushed her image away. But she stood in front of him, beckoning with her perfect curves, her gorgeous body unfurling for him, warm and ready... Ohmigod, Connor...ohmigod!
He shot to his feet, marched into the bathroom, and turned the water ice cold. Then he stood motionless beneath the punishing spray, letting the merciless chill seep into heart, mind, soul. Her image blurred, grew thinner, then scattered into millions of snowflakes that melted against his skin and disappeared down the drain. He didn’t need a release. What he needed was a divorce.
Breath quickening, he stepped out of the shower, grabbed his half-empty whiskey bottle, and filled his cup to the rim. Then, wet and shivering in the too-small hotel towel, he threw his laptop open and clicked the link from Jason’s lawyer.
It’d been sitting in his email for weeks: Petition for Dissolution of Marriage.
He skipped over the boilerplate and scrolled to the custody section to make sure he’d have every weekend with his son. Then, he drained the whiskey and clicked “Start.”