Chapter 16 #2
Frowning, Santiago looked at his forearm. Blood ran from the ribbons of skin peeled from his flesh.
“You don’t want it to get infected; me and Jessie will finish up here.”
Outside Ty’s hospital room, Santiago explained to the kids’ parents everything that took place at the middle school.
He had the fortune of being there when the hospital staff rolled Garland Porter past them.
He was able to pull Butch away so he could be here for his son instead of in one of the cells that were quickly filling within the station.
“Thank you, Sheriff, for what you did for my kids,” Butch said.
He was the oldest of Lou’s children and helped run their barbeque business.
“Anything you want for the next month is on the house. Daddy’s expecting you to come by on your way home.
Got a special just for you and that extra mouth I hear your feeding. ”
Now that he knew there wouldn’t be a brawl in the hospital, he turned to leave.
“Oh no you don’t,” Nurse Allen said, stopping him. “Roan said that if your arm doesn’t get tended to this evening, my car wouldn’t remember what is was like to go unticketed.” Because she had a habit of staying beyond her metered time.
“I’ll be quick.” She guided him to one of the empty rooms. “Because I hear you finally got someone waiting at home for you.”
Home. After this day, all he wanted was to swim, eat, and sleep.
When he drove up the private road to his home, it looked like every light in his house was on. The opposite of the blackness that usually greeted him.
Grabbing the bag of BBQ, he walked up the front porch stairs, the weight of the world seemed to multiply with each step.
The door swung open before he reached it. And there she was. Dressed in the same bed clothes she’d worn the night before. He shook his head at those ridiculous orange house shoes. She noticed and modeled her footwear before reaching for his hand and pulling him through his own home.
He placed the bag on the table and she grabbed plates, napkins, and utensils as if she’d lived there longer than him.
“I baked a cake for dessert,” she informed him. “Two cakes actually. I didn’t know which flavor you’d prefer. I was told a long time ago that preparing things based on what I liked was self-centered.”
Why didn’t he like the idea of someone telling her not to look out for herself? Not around something so insignificant. “Who told you that?”
“Ma Mable…my mother.”
He still didn’t like it. Even if it was her mother, but he wasn’t gonna start an argument with her over it. Closing his eyes, he expelled a long slow breath. “I have to go to the water.”
“I figured. You had an eventful day too. I set out a towel and a beer on the back porch; beer should still be cold, but I’ll switch it out before you’re back on shore.”
Santiago simply stared down at her.
If he did what he wanted to do, he’d pull her into his arms; just to hold her; maybe just to feel her resilience, her softness, her warmth. He breathed her in then took a step back.
“Thank you.”
He walked toward the back of the house and she called out, “Disregard your office! I’ll put it back in order after dinner.”
His office was pure chaos, papers all over his desk, papers pinned to his evidence board. Again, he remained silent.
After opening the back door, he stripped.
There was a small metal bucket—which hadn’t come from his house—filled with ice and two beers. Folded over the handrail was one of his large towels.
Santiago didn’t stay in the lake for long, turned out he didn’t need to. Yeah, he was tired as shit, but his energy meter slowly seemed to rise when he was within Lauren’s orbit, and suddenly all he wanted to do was be close to her again.
After five minutes he waded out of the water.
He didn’t use the towel but opened the beer and took a few swigs before heading back into the house and up the stairs to shower.
Stepping inside the shower, he turned the knob to its coldest setting and bowed his head into the spray of water.
Placing both hands against the wall he closed his eyes and let the water flow over him.
He didn’t know how long he stood there, but when he reached for the shampoo bottle he opened his eyes to a figure on the toilet. The shampoo bottle dropped from his hands.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I had to go.
When you didn’t respond, I thought I could get in and out without you noticing.
” Lauren said over the spray of water. Her pajama bottom shorts around her ankles.
The way her eyes perused his body made him believe she’d been doing it since she entered the bathroom.
“What’s your thing with water anyway? I’m no professional but it seems excessive.”
He picked up the shampoo and began to wash his hair vigorously.
“Like you entering my bathroom and sitting on my toilet while I shower isn’t excessive?”
“I’m working on boundaries.”
His bark of laughter was automatic because the fuck she was.
When he opened his eyes after washing the shampoo from his hair, she was gone.
Putting on a T-shirt and boxers, he went back downstairs, his hunger now a ravenous gnawing thing. Sitting at the kitchen table he watched Lauren take the food off the stove and felt no hesitancy in exploring her body with his gaze, not after she’d so flagrantly looked her fill.
“I got a text from your aunt saying you needed to put salve on your arm before you went to bed.” He grunted.
He forgot to call Aunt Lina before he left town.
He didn’t even wonder about his aunt hearing about the incident with Garland Porter.
“I looked for the medication and didn’t see it, so I checked your car and voilà.
” She held up the small paper bag on the island.
“I’ll put some on after you finish eating.
” She sat down opposite him. “You know, if Lina hadn’t called…
and Audrey…and Roan, I wouldn’t have known about the medicine.
You could’ve been infected with racist rot by the time you woke up in the morning.
Can you imagine how much more of a demented asshole you’d be if that happened? ”
He laughed and dug into his food. “Surely not as demented as I would be if I continued to stay in your presence for extended periods of time.”
“Well, you’re going to have to risk it because I’m not leaving tonight,” she said over a mouthful of mac and cheese. “When we’re done, I’m going to give you your reward for saving that little boy. You can have either pound cake or chocolate cake. Or both.”
There were better rewards than cake she could give him tonight, but that reward would be a deadly sin he wasn’t willing to sacrifice his soul for.
After dinner, he cleaned the kitchen and she returned his office to order. Now they were back at the kitchen table.
“Well don’t squeeze it like that!” he shouted.
She laughed. “Two minutes ago, you were all it’s not a big deal, now you’re acting like I’m trying to rip your arm off. And you’re go’n stop yelling at me like you ain’t got good sense.”
“I will,” he promised, because at this point yelling at her was damaging his good sense more than it was damaging hers. Because she doesn’t have sense. Good or otherwise.
He snorted with laughter.
“Open.”
He glared at her before opening his mouth. This time it was a slice of the pound cake. He still couldn’t decide which he liked more, though he was on his second slices. Of each.
“I don’t know why you doth protest so much, Santi.
You’ve been shot, stabbed, pushed out of and into places most of the world probably don’t even know exist. Then there’s the scariest part, the whole communing with vengeful spirits in your lake.
So, take this awesome bandaging job and be grateful. Derrick would never—”
Her energy changed immediately.
“Who is this Derrick? And maybe he fucking should have.”
“There were a lot of things he should and shouldn’t have done, but none of it is my problem anymore.”
“Is he the reason you end up here?”
“No, you’re the reason I ended up here, remember?”
Lauren stood abruptly, angry she’d allowed thoughts of fucking Derrick to intrude into this moment.
She stood, placed both remaining slices of cake onto one saucer, and walked upstairs.
Climbing into the bed, she finished the cake because men were selfish, and she was petty.
When she was done, she lay down, turned off the lights and settled, listening to him move around downstairs until she was lulled into sleep.
She roused when the bed moved under his weight, dozing again as he settled on his side of the bed.
“Thanks for rebandaging my arm, little wren,” he said, probably believing she was asleep.
“Mm-hmm. Thanks for sharing your home.”
Silence.
“I don’t remember being given a choice.”
She smiled. If Santiago wasn’t going to be anything else, he was going to be frank.
“This Derrick, did he abuse you?”
“Only my trust.”
“Another woman?”
“My sister.”
He whistled softly.
“Are they dead?”
She smiled into her pillow. “I don’t know why you think I’m a violent person. Plus, I would never tell a cop any response other than no to that question.”
“They’re probably dead,” he reflected. “Authorities just haven’t found the bodies, I’m thinking.”
She turned over and through the dim shadows, saw that he was on his back, one arm behind his head.
“What if I told you they were very much alive. And pregnant; but my mother and sister didn’t feel it was important to tell me until a week before the wedding. After I’d sold my condo but a day before I was about to ship my belongings to Derrick’s house in San Francisco.”
“Damn. I get it now. The violence.”
“I don’t know if it’s a man thing; hearing and not listening. But again, I am not violent.”
“Tell that to Mayor Archer’s balls.”
“I would, but it didn’t feel like he had any.”
His unrestrained laughter made her smile.
“Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping?” she mumbled begrudgingly.