Ransom (35 page)

“There’s something beautiful and untouched about a woman who hasn’t been with a man before, like they’re still innocent, you know. It’s like the way you feel when you still believe in Santa and all that magic stuff. I figure when a woman loses it, it should be special and make them feel like it was worthwhile waiting for the perfect guy, someone they really cared about, maybe even someone they loved.”

I shook my head, knowing that I’d sounded as sappy as I had expected, maybe even worse. But as crushed as my ego might have been, I couldn’t do it to Lexie. I wouldn’t allow her to believe for one minute that I didn’t think that taking her virginity was something I took lightly.
 

“Yeah well, that was never going to happen for me. It happened just like it should have,” she said. There was bitterness in her tone, and it made me feel like what I had said had pissed her off instead of what I had planned.

“So don’t feel bad. You did me a favor, there’s way too much build up about it being your first time and…”
 

She shrugged like it didn’t matter. Her broken expression said she hadn’t believed a word she had said.

I touched her shoulder. “No matter what happened, the fact that I was an asshole to you before I left the hotel room is unforgivable. I was just shocked is all. I mean I thought I was having a hot dream and when you told me that you’d never been with another guy, well…”
 

I broke off again not sure what else I could say to fix things between us. Lexie stared at me. Our eyes locked for a moment, long enough for me to see that she was lying when she had said that she didn’t care, she did. Her eyes widened as if she was just beginning to understand something.

“A dream? What’s that supposed to mean?” Her gaze had returned to the road ahead.

I drew in a breath and exhaled forcefully. “I was dreaming of a blonde and…” I shook my head. Anything I told her about fucking a girl in my dreams would come out all wrong, even thinking it sounded cheap, and nothing like Lexie. There was a small piece of me that wanted to have another chance with her. To know that it was her that I was with, not an illusion conjured in my dreams.

“So you’re like one of those sexsomniacs?” she said with a stiff smile.

“A what?”

“A person who has sex in their sleep and never knows they did,” she said, keeping her eyes fixed on the road.

I shook my head. “No way. I was there, I felt it all. What the hell’s the point if you can’t remember how fucking awesome it felt…” I said, before I could gauge what I was saying.

“Awesome,” she repeated in a low voice. The next smile that passed over her face was a lot more genuine and maybe even a little proud. I looked out the side window, grinning.

 
“It’s a seasonal town, about three-quarters of the place shuts down in the fall and reopens in the spring,” Lexie said a few minutes later, bringing an end to our previous conversation. I was glad she had moved on.
 

I glanced at the built-in clock on the dashboard. It was edging close to 10:00 p.m. Lexie exited onto a ramp with a sign that said Blue Cove. We had shared the driving for the most part, but Lexie had taken the wheel for the final leg of the journey since she knew exactly where she was going. The further in we drove the more desolate the place seemed, as if we were traveling into the wilderness. I guessed if a person needed to disappear this was the best place to do it.

“Does anyone stick around?” I asked.
 

I couldn’t help but feel creeped out by the absolute quiet and inky darkness that was only occasionally broken by street lights, separated by half-mile lengths of black.

“Not many,” Lexie acknowledged. “That’s why it’s the perfect place to hide out.”

Even though I knew where we were going, hearing her say that we were hiding out, made my stomach turn. It brought all the shit that I was trying to forget back to my mind.

“Yeah, okay,” I said.

We were both quiet for the rest of the drive as Lexie tried to find her way in the dark. In just under twenty minutes we had pulled onto a dirt road filled with potholes that jostled us like puppets, as we drove over it. Thick forest lined the track. The further in we went the more closed off I felt. I was relieved when the road finally opened into a wider area. The moon was full and shone white light on the cluster of twenty or so cottages that lay in front of us.

“This is it,” Lexie said.
 

I nodded without comment. After a full day of driving and the prickly conversation we’d had a half hour before, I was thankful that it was over. I hadn’t remembered ever being so exhausted after a long drive. I had never been very far away from Gabriel other than when I went clubbing, so being seven or eight hours away from him felt all wrong, especially with him hospitalized. I couldn’t wait to have a shower, then sleep. Beyond that was a mystery, but I allowed myself the luxury of shelving all my worries for the night. It was either that or go crazy.
 

Lexie pulled alongside a cottage. It was difficult to get a complete picture since it was quite dark, but from the small section that the car lights illuminated I noticed it was smallish and sunny yellow. She threw the car in park and was out before I knew what she was doing. She mounted the three concrete steps that led to the white double-sided steel frame door. Even as I opened my door she had already unlocked the cottage and had disappeared inside.
 

The porch light lit up not long after, confirming that there was electricity. I snatched Lexie’s suitcase from the trunk, and the few bags of supplies we had picked up along the way. I had only bought the essentials, deodorant, a toothbrush, underwear as well as a couple of pairs of cheap jeans and a few plain t-shirts in various dark colors. I had never been as glad as I was when I changed out of the Sponge Bob t-shirt once and for all. I had to admit that I had a tough time imagining someone as built as Aiden wearing that kind of thing. Lexie had said that Trinity had bought it for him. I guess you did weird things when you were stupid in love, like wearing lame-ass clothes.

When I strode through the door I was surprised at how big the place was. It was supposed to have been a cottage but seemed more like a small house. The floors were light colored Oak and glossy as if they had been freshly washed.

The place definitely had a country feel, with white-faced kitchen cabinets and Maple counters. The walls that rose above the counters were painted mustard yellow. The ceiling was a lattice work of exposed beams in a dark grainy wood. Copper pots, pans and rooster-shaped molds, filled what seemed like every bit of free wall space. There was a matching set of rooster folk art paintings on rough wood. A gas range was wedged between the cupboards along the farthest wall away from the door, and a built-in stainless steel fridge, polished to a brilliant finish, was directly across from the stove. The place was surprisingly spotless despite the fact that no one was supposed to have been living there.

“Come on,” Lexie said with a grin.

 
Excitement lit her face in a way that made me smile, clearly she’d had some good times in the cottage.
 

To the right of the kitchen was a small dining area with a rustic looking dark brown wooden table, with simple square legs and bench style seating, topped by red plaid cushions. Past the dining area was a living room. Here the color theme shifted to shades of blue, but kept to the country theme. The wallpaper was the strangest design I had ever seen before, definitely girly. It was clear no man had had any say-so in the decorating because who in their right mind would have picked butterfly wallpaper. The only redeeming fact was that it wasn’t in pink or peach, but navy and sky blue with dots of lemon yellow. The other impossibility was how the wallpaper matched perfectly to the fabric covering the cushions of the claw-foot love seat. A heavy cornflower blue recliner chair, sat next to it. The one thing I could appreciate was the floor to ceiling entertainment center adjacent to the seats. The doors were closed; I only hoped that there was something good inside.

“This place is all Mom,” Lexie said.
 

“Yeah I kind of figured that,” I said with a smirk.

Lexie’s gaze swept across the room.

“I can’t even remember how many country folk stores we had to hit to find all the things that she’d had in her mind and…”
 

Her face went dreamy, but just as quickly clouded with emotion.

 
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, as if trying to forget something that was too painful to remember.

 
I understood how that felt more than she knew. Instinctively I took a few steps closer to her. Every part of me wanted to take her in my arms, let her know that she wasn’t alone because no one deserved to suffer that way and not be comforted. I stopped myself midway, when without warning her expression shifted and the tears that had filled her eyes dried up. It was as if it had never happened. And in that moment I saw myself reflected in her bland expression. In my world when things got tough or your feelings threatened to break you, you either brushed the hurt away as if it had never existed, or you let it take you over. Survival meant you always chose door number one, because door number two was way too fucked up to open.
 

“The bedroom is through here,” Lexie said, continuing on with the tour.
 

We walked down a short hall that was painted eggshell, passing a small bathroom on the right and a storage closet on the left. There were two dark wood doors across from one another at the end with gleaming brass knobs. There was no questioning that someone had cleaned the place recently, which left me feeling as if it wasn’t as good of a hiding place as Lexie liked to believe.

“Does someone come in and clean this place?” I said.

Lexie paused then turned to face me.

“Yeah, there’s a lady that comes when we call her to set up the place. I gave her a call before we got on the road,” she said with a shrug.

“But isn’t that kind of a problem if she knows that you’re here, we’re here?” I asked, not sure that I liked the idea of a cleaning lady knowing I was there. Now that I had accepted that I was in fact a wanted man, paranoia was working through me like cyanide, a poison that slowly built up inside you until it eventually killed you.

“She’s fine, and besides she won’t be back unless I call her to clean up,” Lexie said.
 

She laid a gentle hand on my arm then curved her lips in a poor attempt at a smile. Her whole demeanor had become stiffer and more controlled since we had arrived. I could tell that she was doing her best not to let me see that the place was dredging up some pretty powerful memories.

“It’ll be fine, I promise. I would never put you in danger.”

I stared at her, stunned by her statement. It sounded like something I might have said to Gab, but never had those words been directed at me. I was the protector, nobody had ever kept an eye on me, I hadn’t needed it. For some reason that I still wasn’t clear on, Lexie, in a few words was telling me that she had my back. An unexpected shudder ran through me. I shook it off, not allowing the warmth that was spreading inside me to take hold.

Now I was the one fake smiling, trying to ignore that no matter how much I tried to stop it from happening, Lexie was growing on me.
 

“Yeah, thanks,” I said in a gruff voice.
 

Lexie released her hold on my arm and strode forward. She opened the door on the right, moved inside then turned on the light in a fluid motion. I followed her lead. When I entered the bedroom I was surprised to see that the décor was so far removed from the rest of the place. It was like having a tiger print rug thrown in the lobby of the Ritz Carlton.

There wasn’t one speck of pink or purple, or any of the pastel girly colors that I had expected a female room to have. Not that I was an expert on the matter. The walls were painted black which by itself might have been a bit depressing, yet it wasn’t at all. Several painted silhouettes of pure white trees were sketched on the canvass of black, giving it an edgy appearance. Black and white snapshots of Trinity, Aiden, and others I didn’t know, were bundled together in collages. Among the strangers, I picked out one woman who bore a striking resemblance to Lexie. It made me think that it must have been her mother.

Embarrassed to spend too much time looking at her personal photos, I locked on the headless torso of a mannequin. It was snow-white except for the silver necklaces and clear beads that hung around the neck, giving it a touch of feminine, and also kind of brightening the place.
 

The queen-sized bed was covered in a white bedspread, with a tree much like the one on the wall at its center, only the black and white were reversed. A zebra print hung over the head of the bed. There was no denying that whoever had design the room had taken quite a bit of time doing it. Even the silver-toned, brushed finish fittings on the lamps and white furniture, matched. A silver candelabra light fixture hung over the bed with bare white frosted light bulbs. I was the last person to have any idea about decorating, but I had to admit that the place was cool. Even as I thought it, I couldn’t believe that I had actually described something as being
cool
. I had always thought the word
cool
was the kind of thing that nerdy college kids said.

“This is my room,” Lexie said.
 

“I like it,” I said.

“Good, because you’ll be sleeping here,” she said. I snapped my head around to look at her.
 

“But this is
your
room, you should stay here. Hell I’m fine sleeping on the couch.”
 

I knew she had agreed to help me, but that didn’t mean she had to give me everything that she owned. There were limits to kindness, and taking her room was completely out of the question.

Lexie’s eyes met mine. “But you just said that you liked it.”
 

She tilted her head to the side in question.