52. London
Ifound my husband making coffee in the kitchen, listening to Birdy.
Over the past few months living together, I’d begun to recognize a pattern to the music he listened to and his mood.
It was eerily similar to my pattern of mood listening.
Birdy was one of the artists we both listened to when we needed peace.
And it usually meant we were worried about something.
We’d listened to a lot of Birdy, Bon Iver, and Lord Huron lately. All of our “in need of relaxation” artists.
It had been only two weeks since Nick tried to take me.
Every night since, I’d woken up from a nightmare, flushed with sweat and panic. I knew it was driving Murray crazy with concern.
As was Kelly’s current behavior.
Last night, I’d slept right through the night for once. I didn’t think it meant there would be no more nightmares, but I hoped that eventually I’d stop dreaming about it.
Murray glanced over as I approached the countertop where he stood. I slid an arm around his waist, cuddling into his side. His gaze washed over my face, and he reached up one handed to swipe his thumb over my cheek. “The bruising looks better.”
“It feels a lot better.”
“No nightmares last night.”
It wasn’t a statement.
“You need to sleep.” I smoothed a hand over his stomach, worried about him too. “We’re all okay. We’re safe. You can’t stay awake, vigilant, waiting for me to have a nightmare.”
His expression was pained, but he nodded. “I know.”
The truth was the nightmares weren’t from fear of this ever happening again. Nick was dead. And I was relieved. I had a lot of guilt as well as a search for inner peace tied up in those nightmares. What kind of person was relieved they’d killed their ex-boyfriend?
I couldn’t think about it without feeling sick. Murray knew all this. I’d confessed it to him a few nights ago. He tried to tell me that how I felt was normal, but it still haunted me. My relief haunted me.
Therefore, I threw myself into the day-to-day of trying to return to the happy life I’d just begun to make with Murray and Kelly.
Once I was cleared of the concussion I’d suffered at Nick’s attack, I’d insisted on going back to work, even though Nee tried to fight me on it.
We went to the Lantern, but everyone gawked at us and I knew they were whispering about me, gossiping.
Murray drove me home, and I’d hidden in the house for the past five days.
Murray sighed heavily. “Kelly won’t come out of her room. Again.”
Concern threatened to shatter my denial. “She’ll come around.”
“London.” His tone was impatient. “We can’t go on pretending like it didn’t happen.”
“Why not? We’re finally safe.”
“Because your feelings are eating away at you. And my daughter—our daughter—is clearly traumatized.”
It was the our daughter that got me.
Emotion tightened my throat as tears blurred my vision. “I don’t know how I can help her when I can’t even face what I had to do to get back to her. To get back to you.”
His expression was tight with sympathy. “I know. That’s why I invited someone over to talk to you.”
Surprised as he gestured toward the living room, I was even more so to see Nee waving from the sofa.
Murray pushed a coffee cup and a mug of hot water with lemon toward me. “Go. Talk to your friend. I’ll be in my office.”
Then he was gone and I took the mugs, filled with bemusement and a little trepidation as I walked into the living room.
“Morning. Why aren’t you at the B and B?”
“Emmy’s managing things.” Nee reached up to accept the hot water and lemon from me. She grimaced at my coffee. “I miss caffeine.”
“Sorry.” I gave her a small, sympathetic smile as I sat down next to her. “What brings you here? Is the baby okay?”
“Baby is fine.” Nee shifted slightly to face me. “But my best friend is not. You’re having nightmares about killing Nick.”
Now it was my turn to grimace. “Murray told you.”
“Yes.” She considered me. “And I need to tell you something that it is literally top secret.”
I sucked in a breath at her dramatic declaration.
“I can’t tell you why or how, but after you moved here, someone from Ramsay’s past came onto Stòr with the intention of killing us both.”
Shock stunned me silent for a few seconds as she waited for my response. “I … how … why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t. I shouldn’t be telling you now. But you are more important than this secret. I … I killed him, Spoon. I killed that man. Shot him in the head because it was either him or me and Ramsay. I chose us.”
“Nee …” Tears of empathy and understanding clouded my vision.
“I had nightmares for a while. Guilt. But the guilt … I felt guilty because I didn’t feel guilty, if that makes sense. I did what I had to do to survive a man who was bent on killing us.”
A different kind of relief, one so powerful it was like a crack opening in me and allowing air in for the first time since Nick fell on the knife I’d wielded, released a sob between my lips.
Nee grabbed for my hands, squeezing them, her own tears spilling freely down her cheeks. “Nick was never going to let you go. And these things always end badly, Nee. He would have killed you and you knew that and I am so fucking proud of you for fighting back.”
“Nee,” I gasped, crying harder.
“I know it’s painful. It’s hard. And it’s scary knowing there’s a side of us capable of feeling relief over someone’s death, but it doesn’t erase your goodness.
I know you. I know who you are. You didn’t kill him because of your anger.
You defended yourself so you could return to the people you love. It was love that drove you. Not hate.”
I reached for her blindly, gratitude making me shake violently against her. Nee held me tight, smoothing a soothing hand down my hair as she whispered words of love and comfort.
“Thank you,” I choked out.
Because if Nee could do what she had to do, then maybe I wasn’t a terrible person after all. Nee certainly wasn’t. She was the kindest, strongest, most loving woman. She wasn’t just one thing. She wasn’t defined by a base instinct.
Neither was I.
“It takes time,” she whispered reassuringly. “It takes time, but you’ll get through this.”
“Are you safe?” I asked. “I know you can’t give me details.” There was no doubt in my mind that Ramsay had worked in intelligence in a previous life. “But are you and Ramsay safe now?”
“From that threat? Yes. Are we safe in our relationship? Yes, we make each other feel safe. Safe in our friendships. Yes, we have friends we trust with our lives. But safe from the world?” Her voice gentled.
“No one is ever truly safe in this world. Bad things happen. It’s scary, but it’s true.
That doesn’t mean we sit around waiting for the bad things to happen and forget to live.
We must live, or what’s the point to any of this?
” She gestured around us. “We have so much to live for. Horrible shit has happened to us both, I know that. Yet, I still feel lucky. I feel lucky that I met you in the ninth grade. I feel lucky that my Scottish blood brought me back here and I found this place and fell more in love with a man than I knew was possible. I feel so lucky that my best friend came to live here with me and that she found a good man who worships the ground she walks on.”
“Are you just trying to empty my tear ducts?” I sobbed on a laugh.
“No. I’m making sure you don’t get so caught up in waiting for the other shoe to drop that you forget to just be in love and enjoy your life.”
Waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I squeezed my eyes closed because I might not have had the perfect childhood or the kind of parents who knew if your ex tried to kidnap you, but I had that thing I think we all looked for.
Other people, other souls who recognized ours. Who saw us. Deep inside.
And loved us … because we saw them too.
“What did she say?” Murray asked, amazed by whatever transformation he witnessed in me as we waved goodbye to Nee from the side of the house.
“I can’t say.” I squeezed his hand. “It was her secret to tell.”
My husband was not offended. “Of course. But it helped? Whatever it was, it helped?”
“She reminded me why I did what I did. She showed me by example that I’m going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.”
Relief flooded Murray’s expression as he drew me into a tight hug, so choked up he couldn’t speak. I loved this man with everything that existed within me.
“I’m sorry. For everything.” I clung tight to him.
“Please stop apologizing,” he whispered hoarsely. “I’m just glad we’re all here, we’re all alive. Now we need to start living, eh?”
Pulling back, I nodded. “Is Kelly still in her room?”
“Aye.” The light in his eyes dimmed. “I can’t seem to find the right words for her.”
“Let me try.”
A minute later, I stood alone outside Kelly’s bedroom, waiting for her to respond to my knock. When no response came, I turned the door handle and walked in.
I ached to find her sitting on the end of her bed, hands braced at her sides, staring at the wall by the door. She was still in her pajamas, her blond hair tangled around her shoulders, cheeks pale.
Her gaze flicked to me, and it was scarily blank. “I didn’t say come in.”
“I know, and I’ll ask your forgiveness later.” Frowning, I stepped through the clutter on her floor. The room was a mess and totally unlike her. Murray had once told me that Jill was untidy, but Kelly was more like him. She liked organization and having a place for all her things.
The bedroom was also stuffy and starting to smell a little.
Ignoring her small noise of protest, I hurried over to the large picture window that faced out onto the back of the property and pushed it open. There wasn’t much of a breeze, but anything would do.
Kelly continued to stare at her wall, though her body was tense with my presence. Tentatively, I sat down next to her on the bed.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She shrugged.
“Is it your mom? Or what happened in Oban? Or both?”
Kelly flicked me an angry look. I’d take it. I’d take anything over that dull, blank stare. “How can you be all right with everything?”
“I’m not,” I told her honestly. “But I’ve decided not to let the bad stuff win.”
“You didn’t tell me about your ex-boyfriend.”
I heard the hurt in her voice and winced. “Sweetheart, I … I didn’t want to fill your head with that stuff.”
“So, it wasn’t because you don’t trust me? Trust me and Dad?”
“I told your father.” I slowly covered her hand with mine and thankfully she didn’t shake it off.
“Dad knew?” Her tone changed ever so slightly.
“Yes. Your dad and I … I will always try to protect you as much as I can from all the crappy stuff in the world. But it’s different with your dad. He needed to know that my last partner wasn’t very good to me for me to feel safe in our relationship.”
Kelly processed that and eventually replied, “Okay. Well, at least you told Dad, I suppose.”
Suspicious of why she was so mad at me for keeping this secret from her, I said, “We couldn’t have known Nick was in Scotland or that he would be so reckless. I would never have put you in that position if I thought we were in danger.”
“I know that.”
I squeezed her hand. “Then why are you so angry with me?”
Her cheeks flushed as her head jerked toward me. “I’m not!”
“Sweetie, it’s okay if you are.”
“I’m not!” She flicked off my hand. “I’m just … I didn’t stop it. I couldn’t stop him from taking you and he used me to get to you! Why do bad things keep happening to us? Is this life? Every time you think it’s going to be okay again, something totally shite happens?!”
I flinched at her cursing, at the pain and guilt in her voice.
“Why does everything have to feel so hard and scary all the time?” Kelly began to cry softly.
Tears of empathy filled my eyes, proving Nee had not emptied out my tear ducts earlier.
Sliding an arm around my stepdaughter, I pulled her head down onto my shoulder and let her cry.
I soothed and murmured words of reassurance as she released her pain, letting everything horrible and awful leach out of her.
It broke my heart how long Kelly cried, long enough for my body to ache with the position, but I didn’t move a muscle. I stayed right there where I was needed.
Eventually she quieted, running a hand over the back of her dripping nose.
I reached down and picked up a T-shirt from her messy floor and offered it to her.
Kelly let out a small giggle as she lifted her head and wiped the fabric across her nose. Embarrassment shadowed her expression. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. We all need to let it out, you know. I just broke down on Nee’s shoulder before I came in here.”
“Really?”
“Really.” I reached for her hand again, clasping it in both of mine as I held her young gaze.
“One, what happened in Oban is not your fault. Two, I wish I could promise you that nothing bad or hard or scary will ever happen again. I can’t promise you a smooth life from here on out.
But I can guarantee that your dad and I will love you through every second of it. ”
Kelly’s lips trembled again as she glanced quickly away. “What if you decide you don’t want to be here with us anymore?”
Realizing what was behind her fear and what it meant about her feelings for me was overwhelming, but in the best way. I pulled her close again and kissed her temple. “I will never leave you by choice. You are stuck with me, kid.”
She giggled tearfully. “I guess I’m all right with that.”