Return (Coming Home #1) (2 page)

Mark is
panting, hard, on top of me. My own breath is held back by his wall of muscle. Every part of him pushes against every part of me. When I shift my hips I feel his arousal.

It makes me hot suddenly. My mouth is against his neck and I want to lick him. The rain pounds us both, making him slick. Making me feel more alive
and raw than I have
felt
in three years.

Mark does that to me.
Only Mark.
 

He pulls back, hat long gone, and the rain runs in rivulets down his bangs. It drips on my face and I smile, lost in his eyes.

Even in the dark I know he sees the real me.

And that’s the problem.

He never believed the real me.

With a hard push I separate our bodies, relief and regret pulsing through me. He stands
quickly and brushes the sides of my arms as if taking inventory.

“You okay? That car almost hit you,”
he says.
 

My head is pounding, but not from the impact with the ground. Too many feelings, too many missed chances beat through my body like a
shockwave on an endless loop.
 

“I’m fine.” Those are the only words I can find.
Too bad they’re not true.
 

I’m breathing hard, standing two feet from
him, and his hands are on my elbows. If I lean forward right now and stand on tiptoes, I can kiss him.

H
e
would
kiss me back. I know it.

That’s why I can’t.

As if there’s some unspoken agreement between us, Mark lets go. I almost whimper from the loss of his touch. You go three years without a man’s touch and when you have it again, you want more.

I can’t want more.

I can’t want
anything
.

When you want a person, all you get is pain. And
not
the kind on my arms, now, from the gravel digging in and scraping me.
That kind is easy to deal with. Tangible and visual, it doesn’t keep you awake at night, making your chest heave and your gut turn inside out. Scrapes and scabs eventually heal.
 

Broken hearts? Not so much.

Mark pulls a flashlight off his belt and I almost make a joke. I
felt his want for me seconds ago, felt
h
i
m
pressing into my thigh, a thick longing that made my core bloom with heat.

I want to say, “Oh, so that really
was
a flashlight in your pocket,” but the joke would fall flat. It’s better to shut up. It’s better to get away before I
say or
do something stupid. Like kiss him.

Mark finds his hat and throws the soggy thing on his head. Then he turns back
to the task at hand: changing my tire.

“You’re freezing,” he says, eyebrows turned down. “Go in my squad car.”
His voice has that kind of authority that says I can’t refuse.
 

This time I don’t argue. If I have to stand next to him for much longer, I don’t know what I’ll do.

His car is warm. Even better, it’s empty. I can be with my own thoughts. My heart is slamming in my chest and my
butt
is soaking the seat.

Cradling my head in my hands, I start to laugh. Soon, I can’t stop.
My laughter has edges so sharp I could cut myself to the bone.
 

What was I thinking, coming back? Mark and I met at the
donut
shop on campus where I’d worked three years ago. He bought a donut and I made a cop joke and he stayed until my shift was over.

Walked me home. Waited until our third date to kiss
me. That kiss was still the best minute of my life, followed by the second best.

That was the next kiss.

Four
month
s of dating and we’d been so close, finishing each other’s sentences, volunteering together at the animal shelter, going on dog rescues and exercising the puppies. Petting and cuddling the old dogs no one came for. Talking about life.

Living
life.
Just starting to dance around
the idea of a future together.
 

And then I learned why he really found me at that
donut
shop.

And then I stopped really living.

The car door opens and my memory is shattered.

“Tire’s changed, but man is it bald,”
he says.
He’s worried. I can feel it in his voice. It’s nice that he worries about me. That’s the kind of emotion that isn’t safe, though.

The kind where you let yourself think
there’s a chance.

I cl
i
mb out of the warm car just as the radio sq
u
a
w
ks something about a robbery in town. The convenience store near my dad’s old bar.

Mark’s eyes light up with excitement and attention.
Then he looks at me and seems conflicted. Duty, however, always comes first.

“I gotta go,” he says. Sandy blond hair is now
dark
and soaked. His eyes flick between my lips and my wet chest.
If
our bodies
were pressed against each other
again
, I know it wouldn’t be a flashlight I’d feel
against my hip
.
My insides tingle at the thought.
 

“Okay,” I say,
willing away my desire
. What else can I do? I get out and he walks next to me. The slightest brush of his fingertips against my back makes me jolt.

“Sorry. Habit,” he says, and the tears come so close. Too close. That’s a habit I’ve
thought about for three years.

I have to stop thinking about it now.

I climb in and start the car. It rumbles, strong and steady, and I put it in gear. My foot is on the brake, all the way to the floo
r
. Words are stuck in my throat.

He swallows,
hard
. I can see his neck m
o
ve and his hand rests on my door. I open the window a few inches. What’s a little more rain when you’re soaked through?

“Carrie, I...I’m sorry about your dad.” He tilts his head to the left and makes a sound of regret.

“Thanks.” After months of hearing it, you would think I’d know what to say when people give condolences for my dad’s death. But I don’t. I never get used to it.

“I hope you don’t...”

His voice trail
s
off.
T
he rain pounds him, like punishment. Good.

He deserves it.

“You hope
what
?” I’m bold now.
I’m in my car and have control. I can peel out and drive away. The words he needs to say don’t control me.

The words I fear he’ll say can’t be unheard, though.
Please don’t say it
, I think.

And yet I need to hear it.

“I hope
I
didn’t...” Mark’s struggling with what to say.

I go cold.
I’m in l
ockdown. Emotions
are
in check, because there are two ways this can go.

Mark can tell me he hopes
he didn’t cause my dad to die.

But he kind of did.

Or he could say something else. But then he’d be avoiding sayi
n
g the first thing, which
i
s just stalling. This
i
s inevitable.

Coming home was a bad, bad idea.

I let my foot off the brake and the car move
s
forward just enough to make Mark step back into the safety zone. I peel out. The engine roars
and
the
glowing
road lines are easy to see
as the moon witnesses everything, now out from behind the clouds. E
ven through my pooling tears
I see it all
and I’m driving, moving further and further away from the man I once loved.

W
ho said he loved me back.

Yet every tire’s turn br
ings
me closer to a past where nothing made sense.

“Carrie!” Elaine Boynton is a warm, loving woman who wears cats. Not just sweatshirts with pictures of cats. I mean, she’s always car
r
ying a cat
in her arms or on her shoulder
. And that hasn’t changed.

Sometimes good things don’t change.

“Come in, come in. Brian told me to expect you tonight. Oh, dear, you look so wet! What happened?”

Brian, her husband and my dad’s old partner
at the bar, yell
s
out, “Carrie! Let me guess. That piece of shit car your dad gave you in high school finally
crapped
the bed.” Brian
i
s a man with a ready opinion and a sailor’s mouth.

“Brian! Language!”

That
i
s probably the nine-thousandth time I’
ve
heard her say that to him. He never listen
s
.
I haven’t seen them in three years and they are still the same.
I just sh
ake
my head and stuff my
hands in my pockets, trying not to shiver.

Brian and my dad were co-owners of one of the local bars, The Shanty. I
took
my first steps in there.
L
earned to ride my bike in the parking lot.
Did my homework on the shiny bar a million times after school
. Most important, though: Brian t
a
ught me how to pour a beer there.

N
ow I
am
finally legal and c
an
work the bar.

But there
i
s no bar.

Dad
and
Brian
lost i
t
three years ago. Mark’s words ripple through me.
I hope I didn’t...
 

Elaine pul
ls
me in the house and hug
s
me.
The calico cat on her shoulder leaps away. It pauses before walking up the stairs and glares at me. Great. The cat already hates me. I have yet another enemy in my hometown.
 

“I don’t care if you’re wet, you need a big old squeeze.” She
i
s warm and soft, a big woman with
a bigger heart. Blonde hair that come from a box
at the drugstore
frame
s
her cherubic face. She w
ears
just enough makeup to look put together, but not too much. She
i
s about my mom’s age. Early fifties.

I wonder what Mom would look like if she’d lived this long.

Brian turns the corner from the kitchen, takes one look at me, and turns back, shouting, “Drowned rat!” He reappears with a giant towel,
the kind you use at the beach. His arms wrap around me and soon I’m in a bear hug, lifted off my feet, the air crushed out of me.

That’s the second time a man has wrapped his arms around me in the same hour.

Brian and my dad always looked like they could be brothers. “Battlefield brothers,” he always said. They met in the army, doing work in Central America in the 1980s before I was born. Neither
man would talk about it. They both had nightmares, though, and turned off the
TV
when anything about El Salvador came on.

“Scary Carrie!” he rumbles in my ear, using their old nickname for me. I can feel a piece of my dad here, in Brian and Elaine, and normally it would make me smile.

Not after seeing Mark,
though
. Just the thought of his hands on me makes me flush.
I feel guilty for wanting
that after what he did to my dad.
 

And me.

“The poor girl needs a shower and to get in some dry clothes!” Elaine insists, smacking Brian’s beefy arm. He’s got the same
blonde
hair my dad had, a tight wave that needed to be cut all the time to keep it under control, and chocolate brown eyes hidden under a thick, muscled face. When Brian and Dad weren’t working at the bar they
worked outside
a lot
.

Elaine shoos me upstairs and shows me the bathroom. It’s
neat
and old, with pink ti
l
e in patterns on the floor and up the wall, about halfway. The grout is nicked and chipped, faded to a dull, yellowish-grey, but it smells clean. Like bleach.

“Here’s a towel and a spare robe. I’ll have Brian put your luggage in Mikey’s old bedroom and you can change in there,” Elaine explains. She reaches
for my face and brushes my wet hair behind one ear.

“You really look like your mother when your hair goes dark like this,”
she adds.
I want to hear more. Need to hear more.

“Thank you,” I
answer
,
unable to ask for what my heart wants
. Words are hard right now. Three years away
from home
, then losing my dad, makes these connections so difficult. I spent three years severing my life and now I
ha
ve
to face what I cut.

It feels about as good as you would think.

The click of the bathroom door as Elaine slips out makes me feel like this is final. I am here. I can’t back out. T
wo
more days and I start my new job.

Amy
. I need to talk to my friend. She can ground me and fill me in on how to salvage my life.

Starting a new one is impossible. Not here. Not with so many ghosts.

What was
I thinking?

As I undress I think about the letter in my purse. The offer for a full-time job came a month ago, out of the blue. A complete shock. I was staring at a pile of bills from dad’s funeral. Something other than a bill in the mail was a bittersweet event. Yates University stationery made me catch my breath.

My alma mater. Well, not quite. Is it your alma mater if you drop out and never
graduate?

The letter was an invitation to interview, by phone, as a preliminary candidate for a job as Program Coordinator in the dean’s office. The dean of arts and sciences.

I turn on the shower and steam begins to fill the room.
My face in the mirror is almost unrecognizable. My blond hair is dark and stringy, clinging to my cheeks. Eyes that are normally so guarded look haunted by emotion.
Three years of staying away from all the people who betrayed me should have taught me something.