19. River
Chapter Nineteen
RIVER
There was a man in my house.
A couple of months ago, I would have said hell would have frozen over before the day would ever come that any guy other than Lennon would share my space.
But Huntley was camped out on my couch.
And I wasn’t afraid.
No, he made me feel safe.
I also realized he wasn’t just any man.
Bre had cuddled into my bed with me, Lennon next to us on the floor. He’d insisted and it made his sister feel better. Personally, I thought everyone was just more at ease knowing Huntley was right out in the other room.
Not able to stop thinking about the man that was so close, I quietly got out of bed and went out into the living room. I didn’t want to wake him but had this urge to be near him.
When I thought I heard him move, I asked if he was asleep. He answered right away and the next thing I knew, I found myself standing in front of him, asking to sit beside him. It was never easy to ask for things I wanted. Growing up, the answer was always no.
Then when I wanted to say no, it went unheard.
But Huntley didn’t say no. He also asked before he touched me. So, when he wrapped his arm around me, I found myself scooting even closer and snuggling right into his big, hard body.
He’d said it was perfect and he’d been right.
The rhythmic thump of his heart against my ear soothed me. Maybe so much, it loosened my tongue.
“How come I’m not scared of you?” I whispered. “Why do you make me feel safe? Make me feel things I shouldn’t after what I’ve been through?”
I was mumbling and hadn’t stopped.
“I’m broken and I don’t deserve you.”
My brain finally took control of my mouth and I quickly shut it. I closed my eyes and wished I could rewind the last fifteen seconds of word vomit I just spewed out.
This was when he was going to gently unwrap himself from around me—because he was a nice guy—and head for the door.
Or so I thought.
But that wasn’t what happened at all.
“I’m glad you’re not scared of me and I make you feel things, but you need to know that it’s me that doesn’t deserve you.”
What?
I tipped my head back and blinked my eyelids open, needing to see his face. Was Huntley serious?
When my stare clashed with his, I could see he was nothing but serious. He truly believed what he’d said.
“Moving my hand to touch your head,” he told me as I stared at him.
His fingers met some stray strands of hair that had flopped in my face and he gently brushed them aside before letting his free hand drop back to his lap.
“I think maybe now is a good time to tell you about my mother.”
I wanted to know about her, about his life, but something in my gut was telling me, as it had before, that it wasn’t going to be an easy going story. Especially after the way Lake had talked about her.
As anxiety swam through me faster than a fish headed upriver to spawn, I prepared myself for what I would hear. Our gazes held and I saw a touch of vulnerability shimmering in his eyes that matched how I felt.
“Tell me,” I said, pushing off his chest and turning to sit cross legged facing him.
He deserved my undivided attention. I gave that to my clients, but this was different. It was personal and he’d already done so much for me. For my kids.
“My dad was a real bastard,” he started, causing me to automatically suck in a gulp of air with only his first six words.
Noticing his hands tighten into fists, tension rolled off him and I watched as he fought to calm himself. Without thinking, or asking as he did me, I found myself reaching out and touching his thigh that rested close to my crossed legs.
Both our eyes widened in shock at my action, but it worked, the move had him relaxing. He uncurled one of his hands and moved it to hover over mine, then nodded down and looked back at me for approval. When I gave him a nod back he placed his palm on the top of my hand and a breath of air seeped from his lungs like a deflating balloon.
“Since the time I can remember, he beat my mother,” he said in a semi-broken tone.
His gaze didn’t leave mine. I knew he was watching for a reaction along with making sure I was okay. Those eyes of his spoke volumes and I was learning to read him almost as well as he did me, I think.
I fought not to look away. To not hang my head and hide from the turmoil pumping through me as I worked to stay in the present and not let my mind venture into the past.
“As small as I was, I couldn’t do a fucking thing about it either. I was only five when she finally grabbed me one night when the asshole was at the bar, then we slipped away into the dark trying to find safety.” He ran his free hand through his hair, mussing it in frustration. “It was a good thing too because as soon as he got home she would have received another round of abuse for sure.”
All day long I listened to similar stories in my line of work. Some would probably wonder why I did what I did when it could bring my past rushing back at any moment. But I wanted to help people and I’d found a way to shut my personal life off for the most part when I listened to my clients.
That wasn’t at all the case as I heard Huntley speak.
This felt personal.
He meant something to me at this point. So not only did my demons rear their ugly head and bounce around inside me like one of those little metal balls in a pinball game, but my heart also ached for the man sitting beside me and the young boy who had gone through what he had.
I stayed silent as he worked to get out what he needed to. His thumb absently started brushing back and forth over the top of my hand, his eyes less focused on me as though they had shifted to the past and he was reliving it.
“He even verbally trashed her as wife, mother, and a woman. The things that came spitting from his cruel lips were enough to send someone over the edge.”
And that’s when my control slipped, a sob breaking from my lips. I hadn’t shed any tears yet, but all of a sudden my mind went back to the worst time in my life when I’d done almost exactly that. When I’d been so close to walking right off the edge. The dam inside me had broken without any build up and the tears flowed like a raging river.
That seemed to snap him out of the trance he had been in.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I’ll stop.” His thumb hadn’t stopped moving but had changed in rhythm a bit.
Huntley was now working to soothe me versus himself. Even as wound up as I was, I could feel the shift.
“N-No, p-please finish.”
He needed to get it out and I had to hear the rest. Knowing the amazing guy next to me went through anything horrible hurt my insides, but as crazy as it sounded, it made me feel even closer to him.
Like maybe there was hope I could be as whole as him one day.
And also share my past with him soon.
“You sure?” he whispered.
“Y-Yes,” I answered, softly. The tears were still streaming down my face but with a few deep breaths they had lost some of their steam.
“I could tell you about many incidents. Even as young as I was, they are burned into my brain. But we don’t need to do that. The one that shifted our lives was the day my father turned his hands on me.”
Don’t ask me how I’d ever found a nurturing side, Lord knows nobody had used it on me growing up. I’d never witnessed it in the homes I’d been in and the first time I’d ever felt an ounce of it directed at me was when my angel found me that grim night.
I owed a lot to her.
Horrified for the young boy whose own father would touch him in anger, I shocked the two of us once again. I pulled my hand from under Huntley’s and reached out to touch his cheek tenderly. It was an action I’d only done with my kids and while it was done to comfort, something shifted.
A charge of energy sparked and I yanked my hand back as if I’d been struck by lightning. Huntley seemed to have an abundance of power and it was coursing through me then from head to toe.
I wasn’t scared that he’d hurt me.
No, I was more scared of the thoughts in my head telling me to do something about how he made me feel.
Needing to escape the craziness running through my mind, I asked, “What happened?”
Letting me off the hook, though his eyes told me he wanted to address the thing zinging between us, he carried on.
“My father came home one night after work—drunk as usual—having stopped at the bar, and I’d forgotten one of my toys by the door. We were always so careful to not do anything that would make him mad, but when the guy was angry at everything it was hard.”
Huntley flexed the hand I’d released in and out, so I grabbed it again, clasping my palm with his. He gave it a gentle squeeze.
“You can imagine that when he almost tripped on my little plastic fire truck, he was one pissed off motherfucker. Normally he’d have laid into my mother for not cleaning up, but I was closer, so he started on me first. He backhanded me so hard, my lip split and I fell backward, hitting my head.”
That broken voice was back but by what he told me next, I knew it wasn’t for the kid who’d just been abused by his father, but because of what his mother experienced next.
“River you should have seen her after. She was a bloody mess. He’d broken her arm and hit her so many times that her face, along with her back from trying to move away from him, were almost instantly black and blue. She just kept yelling at me to get in my room and hide, but I couldn’t move.”
There was no way I could stay silent any longer.
Or be as far away.
Letting go of his hand, I swallowed down the trace of fear over what I was about to do, and I climbed onto his lap. Straddling his muscled thighs, I rested both hands on his cheeks where a few wet tears had begun to fall.
The big, bad fireman, amazing guy, larger-than-life, superman as my daughter called him, was crying.
And it killed me.
He didn’t touch me, but he didn’t need to in order for me to feel the undeniable connection the two of us had.
“It wasn’t your fault. Or your mother’s. Honey, you were five years old. You shouldn’t have had to worry about your father laying a fucking hand on you! And neither of you deserved to endure anything that asshole dished out.”
The endearment along with the curse words slipped free so easily. I was pissed on his behalf and I needed him to hear me, to believe me, almost more than I needed air.
His eyes were like a tornado, swirling from one emotion to the next with rapid speed.
When they settled on me with a look of understanding and determination, everything inside me stilled for what he was about to say.
“You know it wasn’t your fault either,” he whispered.
He lifted his hands slowly toward his face, once again waiting for my signal that he could touch me, and when given, placed his hands on top of mine.
“Thank you for listening and for allowing yourself to be vulnerable enough to get this close to me. I know how hard that has to be.”
I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat from the emotional rollercoaster I’d been on while the tears still slightly slipped down my cheeks, and then asked, “What happened after that night?”
Huntley’s smile—one that even reached his eyes—was full of love and admiration. Something I not only saw but with his next words heard.
“I’d only known one woman that I’d ever thought of as a warrior before I met you, and that was my mother. When my father stormed out—most likely right back to the bar—after leaving us battered and bruised, she pulled herself up, and then got us the fuck out of there.”
My eyes widened in shock. “Wasn’t she hurt badly? You said even her arm was broken.”
“Yeah, baby it was, but she took care of it later because she wasn’t waiting around for him to come back. Not after he got to me. She told me it was hard to live through what she already had but he’d cut her off from everyone she’d known, she wasn’t working because he didn’t let her, and didn’t have much money stashed away.”
When Huntley dropped his hands, I did too. But I immediately regretted it and my expression must have conveyed that because he reached forward with both his, waiting for me to grab on.
With our hands locked in one another’s again, he finished his story.
“My mom, Valerie, had no family, so it was just her and me. She took us as far away as she could, doing odd jobs along the way from some friendly people as we went, and we never looked back. As far as we know he never came looking for us and we didn’t inquire about him.”
I understood why Lake had said what she did and who wouldn’t admire a woman like Huntley’s mom.
“She sounds wonderful, Huntley.” When the words left my mouth so did a huge yawn .
He chuckled. “You need to get some sleep, sweetheart. I’ll tell you more about my mother later.”
“I’d like that.”
I meant it too. I couldn’t wait to hear more about the amazing woman he described and about their life after they left the sick man they’d escaped.
“I need you to know this. You are every bit the warrior that my mother was and is. I saw it in you from the moment I ever laid eyes on you at the fire and you’ve continued to show me how right I was. And your kids are too.”
Releasing one hand, he slowly moved it toward my face. When I smiled he finished his forward motion and gently cupped my cheek.
“I know there is more to your story and I’m here if you ever want to tell me. I don’t think my nickname for you has even touched the surface of how right it is. And I’m not going anywhere.”
My eyes closed as his words sank deep into my soul.
When I opened them again and gazed into his eyes, I let my feelings run my mouth once again. “If I was a different girl, not a twenty-eight-year-old woman who has never kissed a man, would you be kissing me right now?”
I’d seen Huntley shocked, but it wasn’t anything like it was right then at my confession. I felt my cheeks heat like they were on fire.
Good thing I have a fireman at my disposal right now.
But the embarrassment made me want to run.
“I can tell you want to retreat, but don’t move, please.”
His thumb was on the move again, tracing small circles on the side of my jaw. “I was stunned there for a minute about the kiss, but I can’t say it doesn’t please me that maybe someday I will be the first. And, sweetheart, I don’t want you to ever be a different girl.”
I’d been nervously shifting a bit on his thighs but stilled, my eyes going straight to his lips. Something changed inside me and I found myself asking for what I wanted again that evening.
“Will you kiss me now?”
He froze and his eyes searched mine. “Is that what you want? There’s no rush, baby. I told you; I’m not going anywhere.”
I blew out a frustrated breath. Huntley was being careful, sweet and kind, but for the first time, I really wanted someone to just give me what I asked for. But it wasn’t his fault I was such a mess. So, I asked again.
“Please kiss me and be my first.”
I swear I felt his hand tremble slightly before his thumb moved to my mouth and traced my bottom lip.
“Warrior…” he whispered.
Leaning forward, he closed the distance between us, bringing his mouth a hair’s breadth away from mine before he stopped. He was giving me the choice. An out, to be sure I knew if I truly wanted what was in my grasp.
“I might be bad at this,” I mumbled softly.
He traced my lip a second time. “I don’t think that’s possible, beautiful.”
His encouraging words had me bridging the last of the gap, letting him know that I was sure and knew exactly what I wanted.
With his palm still resting on my face, he brushed his lips across mine in a feather-light kiss. It was short, it was sweet, and right then it was everything I needed.
I knew there was a whole lot more to kissing but for my first it was perfect. A tear slid down my cheek and Huntley caught it with a finger, swiping it away.
“Maybe I was the one that was bad at it. Because you were perfect.”
A giggle escaped .
Huntley and bad didn’t belong in the same sentence. I was pretty sure he was amazing at everything he did.
“To repeat your words, I don’t think that’s possible.”
We were smiling at each other and I hated to put a damper on things, but something inside me was screaming to give him a bit more of myself.
“When I was young, avoiding anyone’s mouth was a blessing. Then later, fear stopped me and I never found anyone who made me want to get over it.”
His smile vanished and I wanted it back. I should have stayed quiet.
“Until you. I told you earlier, you make me feel things. Things I never thought possible. But I also meant what I said about being broken.”
Sliding his hand from my face, he ran it down my arm.
“You just took a big step in repairing something that may have made you feel that way. And I’m so happy it was with me. Baby steps, beautiful. I’ll be right here while you take them.”
Gaw, this man is something else.
“What if I never get to where you need me to be?” I asked, raising the question that had been plaguing me for a few weeks.
“If this is it, then I’m more than okay with that. But I felt the passion from you in just that small, yet perfect kiss. And you have opened up to me and others so much. The progress I’ve witnessed is phenomenal.”
When I thought about it, I knew he was right.
Then it hit me like a tidal wave.
I’d just been kissed.
And it was life-altering.
Unable to contain that giddy feeling, I leaned forward and laid my head against Huntley’s chest, my hands sliding to his sides. Knowing he wouldn’t move without my permission, I saved him from asking and just told him what to do.
“Hug me back. I trust you.”
When he wrapped his arms around me, we both sighed in contentment.
“Does this mean you’ll go on a date with me?” he asked. “I know I already told you about my mother, but I still want to take you out.”
He might not have been able to see that I was smiling against his chest, but I was sure he could hear it in my voice when I answered, “Yeah, I’ll go on a date with you. It will be another first.”
“I’m a lucky man,” he told me before I felt him lightly kiss the top of my head.
I was positive I was the lucky one.
He’d said I needed sleep a while ago and I could feel the exhaustion creeping in even more, but I didn’t want to leave the safe cocoon of his embrace.
And I wasn’t quite sure how it happened.
But I knew in my heart, Huntley had become my person.