17. River
Chapter Seventeen
RIVER
I’d have thought I would’ve been out like a light.
Between the incident at Gemma’s, the wine, and the emotional car ride home, I was tired.
But as I lay in bed, my blankets wrapped around me like a cocoon, all I could think about was Huntley’s big, warm hand. When he reached out across the console earlier, the decision to rest my palm in his seemed easy.
It was like another lifeline as the lyrics of the song I felt down to my bones, pierced my soul. And Bre’s magical voice only added to it all.
My daughter was talented and rarely let anyone see that piece of her, but in the comfort of the car with our family, plus the man she now deemed a friend, she didn’t think—she had just let the music guide her.
The words had pulled me under and lifted me up at the same time. And while I’d heard them before, they held all new meaning and made me think differently.
Was it a crazy coincidence that Huntley called me Warrior and that was the name of the song that felt like it fit me like a glove ?
It talked about a story that had not been told so I could take back my light that was stolen inside of me. While I’d told Lake some of it, I’d never truly laid myself bare, revealing the whole truth to anyone. Nobody knew everything that had happened to me or all the details. Would it take me doing that to feel free?
Or would I ever be free?
I could feel the slide of Huntley’s thumb as it traced back and forth over the top of my hand and I found myself wishing I could tell him everything.
He believed I was a warrior and I wanted to prove he hadn’t wasted the nickname on me.
Maybe instead of starting with me, I could let him in by finally asking him to share. I’d been too scared before now, afraid of what I might hear.
As the idea came, my phone rang. Huntley had promised he’d call when he got home. Everyone was so tired, he’d said his goodbyes at the door to Lennon, Bre and me, then left for his house.
Waiting for him to call was probably another reason I’d found myself unable to fall asleep.
“Did you make it home?” I asked automatically as I picked up.
“Yeah, just got inside and am gonna go take a hot shower before I hit the hay.”
My body heated as a mental image of Huntley naked in the shower with hot water cascading down what I believed to be a phenomenal body popped into my head.
“Sweetheart, are you there?”
He had me all sorts of messed up.
Placing the back of my hand on my forehead, I checked to see if I was burning up. The man on the other end of the line seemed to have quite the effect on me.
I didn’t giggle, talk on the phone, hold hands and think of men with no clothes on. But when Huntley burst into my life like a blazing wildfire, things quickly started to change.
“Yeah, I’m here.” I bit my lip, unsure if I should ask the question I wanted to, but then I went for it. “Will you call me back after you take your shower?”
“Sure, is everything okay? I mean, you know I want to talk to you whenever I can, but you sound like something is wrong.”
There was a lot wrong. From my past, the confusing feelings I was having, and the nerves that were kicking up at what I was about to ask.
Something else I didn’t do. Get personal. Yet the words left my mouth anyway.
“Will you tell me about your mom?”
I heard his swift intake of air before he responded. “Are you sure?”
Nodding, even though he couldn’t see me, I answered, “Yeah, I want to know you. Like really know you.”
There was a smile in his voice and I could picture him grinning when he said, “Then of course I will tell you about her. But I’d rather do that in person.”
Could I do that? It would probably be harder than on the phone, but it sounded important to him that we do it that way.
“Okay.”
A small sigh of relief came through the line. “Good, I will call you back in a few and we will just fall asleep as usual. Then, how about next weekend, since I have to stay at the station the next few nights and you have the kids who have school, you let me take you to dinner Saturday. We can talk after?”
I bit the inside of my cheek as I tried to digest what he just asked me. Had he just made plans to talk, or had he just asked me on a date ?
“Like a date?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.
He chuckled. “That’s up to you. It can be two friends sharing a meal and conversation or it can be a date.”
A flutter of happiness moved through me. I’d never been on a date. It was yet again not something I’d ever thought I’d do, but I found myself wanting to say yes.
To the date part that was.
“You’re in control, sweetheart.”
“I think I’d?—”
A blood-curdling scream echoed through the house and anything I was about to say was forgotten, along with my phone I’d instantly dropped to the bed.
I ran toward Bre’s room as fast as my legs would take me wondering if she was having a bad nightmare.
Lennon and I made it there at the same time. Bre sat huddled in the corner next to her closet, Roxie in her arms.
“What in the world happened, sweetie?” I dropped to my knees in front of her, her brother standing tall beside us, eyes scanning the room for any threat.
It killed me to think they were scared in their own home or couldn’t outrun their past to just enjoy life. Bre had suffered from bad dreams for some time when she first came to live with me, but they’d gotten more sporadic.
My girl was shaking her head side to side, her breathing still labored from whatever had scared her. “S-Someone is o-outside,” she stammered.
I jerked back a little at her response and my head spun in the direction of the window. Lennon moved to one side of it, pulling back the curtain a fraction to peek out.
“Bre, why do you think someone was out there?” her brother asked her, letting the fabric drop and moving to crouch by us.
Taking her hand in mine, I watched as she pulled in a couple of deep breaths to get the air flowing properly through her lungs.
“I was coming back from the bathroom and realized I hadn’t shut my curtains. When I went to close them I saw a light and then someone moved toward the house out of the trees.”
My daughter’s hand tightened in mine.
“Are you sure it wasn’t an animal?” Lennon asked her.
Bre’s eyes darted toward the window. “I swear, it was a person. It was no animal; I think it was a guy.”
A tingle of unease rippled down my spine as Lennon’s phone started ringing from his bedroom just as someone banged on the front door. We all jumped and then stared at each other.
“Stay here with your sister,” I told my son as I stood.
“You’re not going out there alone. Let me check my phone.”
I shook my head as we heard someone yell. “River, it’s me…Bronson. Open the door.”
What the hell? I didn’t know why he was here or how he knew we needed him, but I felt the tension that had my body coiled tight, start to release.
“Let’s go together,” I told the kids, helping Bre up to stand on shaky legs.
We all moved toward the door and before opening it, I double checked I’d heard him correctly. “Bronson?”
He replied immediately. “Yeah, it’s me, River.”
“And me,” my sister's voice came.
“Me too!” Stormi added.
When I pulled open the door, there stood my family, worried looks stretched across all their faces.
I was happy to see them and relief washed over me, but I couldn’t help but wish it was someone else standing there on the other side of the threshold .
Oh shit, Huntley.
Waving the group inside, I was about to rush to my room when I noticed Bronson’s phone pressed to his ear., “We’re here and everyone is okay… Yeah, I’ll tell her.”
My brother-in-law held up his phone, shaking it in the air. “Huntley said, go grab your phone.”
Without saying a word, I rushed to my room to find my cell I dropped when I made a mad rush to get to my daughter. Plucking it up off the bed, I shoved it to my ear.
He couldn’t still be there after all that time, right? Not sure what I was doing, I said, “Hello?” in a hesitant voice.
“Thank God, sweetheart. I think you took ten years off my life.”
I pulled the phone away from my head and stared at it for a second before putting it back. “How are you still here?”
“You didn’t think I was going to hang up when you guys could be in trouble did you? I’ve been here the whole time, babe. I just added Bronson to the call and told him to get over there right away.”
I hadn’t even thought of that. The kids would put all of us on a call together, but I never had done it myself.
“Are you all okay? I know Bronson said yes, but I need to hear it from you.”
Crap, I hadn’t even said a word about what was happening to Bronson and my sister. I wandered back into the front room as I answered him.
“We’re okay, just shaken up. Bre thinks someone was outside her window.”
Lennon looked at me and nodded toward Bronson, who stood next to him in the front room, while the three girls were sitting together on the couch, Stormi curled up next to Bre. That little girl was sometimes the best medicine, I’d come to realize .
“I told them,” my son said just as a feral growl sounded in my ear.
“I’m on my way,” Huntley said.
My heart fluttered at the thought of seeing him and him rushing to us when he wanted to protect us, but I also felt guilty about him driving back over. It wasn’t hours, but probably thirty minutes to my place. Not like Bronson and Lake, who’d made it in two minutes.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Sweetheart, I’m already on my way and will see you within ten minutes. I left the second I heard the scream and you didn’t answer me.”
If he’d be here in ten minutes he was driving too fast. “You’re gonna get a ticket.”
“Good thing I know a cop.” Huntley chuckled and the sound vibrated through the phone, warming my insides. “Bronson can help me out and if not, it’s totally worth it.”
There was a pause and I waited, all the eyes in the room watching me.
“ You’re worth it,” he said softly, as if he knew exactly what I needed to hear.
A lone tear slipped free and trickled down my cheek. Lennon took a step toward me, but I waved him off, mouthing that I was okay.
“Why?”
I couldn’t help but ask. Huntley could spend time with any woman he wanted to. Yet he’d chosen one that was still broken, scarred, not only emotionally but physically, and with so much baggage I wasn’t sure I could ever give him what he deserved.
My thoughts sounded like a broken record; I’d had them so many times. Even voiced them to Lake. Because they were real. They were true.
“Because you’re an amazing, beautiful woman inside and out. You can be funny and don’t even mean to, you have a big heart, your kids are proof of that, and you are a warrior. Everything about you makes me want to be close to you.”
I laughed, literally laughed. The man just said the sweetest things and there I was cracking up. If that didn’t tell you I was so far out of my comfort zone and didn’t have a clue what to do with that information then I wasn’t sure what did.
“You’re crazy.”
My audience was looking out at me trying to decipher the conversation transpiring in front of them, but they could only hear one side. They all looked puzzled—except for Stormi. She got up from the couch and came to me. She peered up at me as she placed her small hand in my free one, hanging at my side.
“I think Uncle Huntley is crazy about you, Auntie River.”
The others in the room laughed, my kids included, which still kind of amazed me how they’d taken to the man and seemed okay with their cousin's assessment.
“Smart girl,” Huntley said in my ear.
Was he confirming what she said was true?
“She’s right?” I asked, dumbfoundedly.
“Of course she is, sweetheart. Now open up and let me in.”
Just then there was a knock on the door.
“It’s Huntley,” I told everyone, as if they didn’t already know, or at the very least, have a hunch.
Bre jumped off the couch. She still looked shaken, but I guessed Huntley trumped any lingering fear.
“I’ll let Superman in,” she said as she quickly ran for the door.
“Hey, what am I?” Bronson asked her, feigning offense, and further lightening the mood. “Chopped liver?”
“You can be Batman,” Bre fired back.
Huntley must have heard their banter through the phone and let out another chuckle. That sound was something I could really get used to hearing forever, I thought.
My eyebrows practically hit my hairline at the thought.
I didn’t do men, much less forever. Or more like ever.
But when Bre opened the door and my eyes met Huntley’s, I couldn’t imagine ever giving him up.