Splinters (20 page)

Will he ever understand what he did wrong? Do paranoid schizophrenics recover?

Duke’s hand slips from mine and he stands up.

I reach for him. “Where are you going?”

He blinks at me. “I… Coffee.” He gestures across from us where a horrid looking coffee machine stands on a rickety table.

“Oh.” I nod and sit back. For a moment there— No, it’s fine.

“Do you want some?” Duke stares at me, a frown wrinkling his forehead. He almost looks like he’s surprised I’m here.

I rustle up a grin. “No one wants me caffeinated on top of…everything else.” Elsie squeezes my hand, and I look at her with the smile fixed in place. “None for you either, Twitchy.”

She squeezes my hand again, smiles just a bit, and then leans her head on my shoulder. I’m taken back to the ranch and the moment I said something similar to Mia. She’d been so jumpy, and I’d joked, not knowing at the time she was like that because of Dean.

In all our talks, I hadn’t ever asked Duke about Mia. He hadn’t offered any information either. I watch him filling a small paper cup with very dark coffee. Can we really do this? His family has been shattered. Mia could still be in jail, and Dean’s definitely going there. All of this has destroyed Duke’s family. How can he look at me? I can’t accept the blame, but I am the catalyst. Their discussion during Duke’s coming out, the photographic evidence, Dean’s convoluted reasoning… It all comes back to me. I’m a dark cloud over Duke’s life right now.

He can’t possibly want to be with me.

I want him to, though. Looking at him as he leans against the doorframe and sips his black coffee, everything I’ve felt, the confession of love just hours ago, it’s all still there. I want him and I want to be with him. We have so much left to talk about, to learn from each other. It shouldn’t be over. Not yet.

But though our external conflicts are resolved, our inner conflicts seem far more insurmountable. I pause and blink at the floor. Would you look at that. I
was
paying attention when that darling script boy on set explained character motivation to me.

“Please tell me you’ll stay together,” Elsie whispers. “I need something good to come from all of this trauma.”

I frown. She’s turned into a mind reader. How do I explain that—

Duke tips my chin up. “I’m not done, if you aren’t.”

I’m still looking up into those warm amber eyes when I remember something else that script boy said: the story isn’t over until everything’s been wrapped up. Little bugger was right again. Duke and I aren’t
over
. There’s far too much left to figure out and do.

“I’m not done either,” I say and smile.

o you’re meeting the parents, hmm?” I chuckle when Elsie groans on the other end of the line. “Three months in and at this stage… Are you ready to admit love now, cupcake?”

While she babbles through excuses about why it’s far too early to say such an important word, I take my first successful batch of Walters’ family secret recipe biscuits out of the oven. Pride makes me a bit deaf to Elsie’s inability to just admit she’s wild about Save-the-Day Stuart.

They may say shared trauma is a terrible way to start a relationship, but it’s worked for Duke and me, and it’s definitely working for Elsie and Stuart. While I’d recuperated with Duke in my apartment, my best friend and my bodyguard had very thoroughly consoled themselves at Elsie’s place. They weren’t to the moving in together stage of things, but flying across the country to meet the parents was significant.

“Are you even listening?” Elsie whines in my ear.

“Sweetie, when you say something truthful, I’ll be happy to listen to every word.” Before she can do more than groan, I continue. “I’ve just created little golden mounds of heaven all on my own. They’re beautiful. They smell like hearth and home.” I inhale deeply. “Duke is going to ravish me, I’ve done so well with these biscuits.”

She snorts at me. “You need to bake in order to be ravished?”

“I need only
breathe
, and he can’t keep his hands off me.” I shiver a bit. “Baking is a bonus for everyone.” Though it occurs to me there is something of a reward system in play here. Every time I master a new recipe, Duke does something orgasmic for me.
Hmm
…

“You’re disgustingly domesticated.”

I cock my hip out and hold up my left hand, even though she can’t see either. “Don’t be hatin’ just ’cause your man hasn’t put a ring on you yet.”

Two weeks ago, Duke brought home two simple gold bands and got down on bended knee, asking me to marry him. It might not be legal here yet, but we’re bound in wedded bliss just the same. I keep my ring so polished it glitters like sunshine.

Elsie gasps at my suggestion of Stuart doing the same. “I don’t— He hasn’t— Oh, shut up.”

I chuckle at her and scoop my beautiful biscuits onto a cooling rack. I’m glad to be useful around the homestead. I’ve settled into being a househusband. Duke ranches with Toby and Ray while I—and two local girls who actually enjoy cleaning—keep house. I haven’t retired from either career—I have a photo shoot next week and Elsie’s in negotiations with a studio for a new movie part—but this ranch and Duke are my home base now.

I have plans to wear my Donna Reed pearls, heels, and apron this weekend. I might even wear a dress, too.

“So,” I ask, “what did you get Stuart’s grandfather for his eightieth birthday?”

Elsie answers, but I’m distracted by Duke coming through the kitchen door. Seeing him, I suddenly remember what today is. Odd that I forgot. We’re going up to see Dean for the afternoon.

“You ready?” Duke asks.

“Um…” I hold up a finger. “Elsie? I’m sorry, but I need to go.”

“It’s fine. Go ahead. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

I roll my eyes. “Of course you will be. You love Stuart and he loves you. Call me when you finally say the words, m’kay?”

“Brat.”

“Love you, too.” I pocket my phone and briefly look at Duke. “I’ll, um, just leave these, I guess.”

“Hey.” Duke steps closer to me. “You sure you’re up for this?”

I swallow and cross my arms. “Yeah.”

“Al.”

I lean on him, resting my head on his shoulder. His arms immediately wrap around me. I’ve learned a very important thing about Duke: he wants to be my rock. Not out of guilt—we talked about that—but because he genuinely wants to take care, to be the person who soothes and fixes. I’m learning to let him, understanding that I’m even stronger when I have support. I don’t need to do things on my own.

So I tell him, “I’m nervous. I kept cycling through anger and sympathy during the trials because he was defiant and then so raw and broken… I guess, I’m not sure who’ll be there today.”

Once Dean was fit enough to leave the hospital from his gunshot wound, there was a mess of lawyerly dealing. Dean’s lawyer wanted an insanity plea, but Dean wouldn’t allow it. On his medication, he was a reasonable man and refused to be labeled insane. Because I insisted on getting Dean help rather than locking him up and throwing away the key, both sides and the District Attorneys in New York and Texas came up with a plan: if Dean pled guilty at both trials, he would be remanded to a mental health facility here in Texas instead of prison.

Duke rubs my back slowly. “There’s no defiance in him now. Determination, yeah.”

He’s visited Dean twice, trying to mend bridges. It’s inspired the same from me.

“Why’s he determined?” I stop hugging myself and hug Duke.

“To be better. Healthy. He wants that chance at parole.”

I sigh. That was another condition of his guilty plea. He was sentenced to three years before he’ll be eligible for parole. Since it could’ve been ten years just for the third degree felony kidnapping, everyone’s glad the judge was sympathetic to Dean’s mental condition. The facility he’s in will make sure he takes his medications and receives counseling. I’m glad for all of that, but especially for the fact qualified professionals will have a say in when he’s fit enough to be free again.

But most of all… “I need to know he understands what he did and why it was so wrong.”

Duke tightens his embrace. The squeeze is comforting. “I’ll be right there with you.”

“I know.” I kiss his jaw.

The ride there takes a little less than an hour. I fiddle with the radio for a time, only to rediscover the alarming number of country and gospel stations. I sincerely doubt I will ever grow accustomed to the music of my cowboy’s land. I hook up my phone and call up the classical playlist—it’s something we can both chill to—and amuse myself with counting the places Duke and I have rolled in the hay, including an actual roll in the hay.

He’d stayed at my apartment for a few days after everything with the police was done, and sex had been our distraction from the reality of what we’d been through. Like bunnies, we’d done it on every available surface at all hours of the day. Two shattered vases, a broken coffee table, and a chandelier partially pulled down from the ceiling later, we’d settled into what I like to call domestic bliss sex. We grew comfortable, patient and thorough, sharing eye contact and words of love. I discovered waking up in his arms was yet another piece of my life’s puzzle I had been missing. Then we’d carried that home with us to the ranch.

And making peace with his sister and brother is required for me to have a fully happy home. I don’t want a rift between Duke and me where his family is concerned, and I need to heal myself from the trauma. Elsie works on her issues in her way—and is doing much better—and this is my way of dealing.

Mia and I have been writing letters in addition to a couple of visits to the jail she’ll be in for another two months. They don’t mess around with the misdemeanor of failing to report a felony here in Texas. Though they waived the fine—for her and Dean due to the hardship it would place on the ranch and Duke being a victim, too—Mia was sentenced to five months in jail. She’s not complaining, and I think she might not truly regret her actions. I can see that she’s a loyal sibling and all that, but it’s making any reconciliation between us harder to achieve. For Duke, I won’t give up.

I’m not sure if it will be harder or easier with Dean.

When we enter the facility’s main building, what strikes me first is how everyone we meet is friendly, helpful. Medical staff and even security guards seem genuinely invested in the patients. I suppose, I’d expected the screaming, thrashing scenes from
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
or
Twelve Monkeys
. Apparently, reality is far quieter and calmer.

We’re walking down a hall toward the area where we can sit with Dean, and a guard does a double take before he laughs.

“You got me again,” he says to Duke. “Even just seeing him and I had to think about it.”

Duke grins and shakes his head. To me, he says, “It never ends with identical twins. Should’a seen ’em when I came through the door the first time.”

I manage a smile. “It’ll probably throw me for a second, too.”

“That’s fine.” He hooks his arm around my shoulders.

Immediately, I check the guard’s expression. He doesn’t look entirely comfortable, but he tips a hat he’s not wearing and gives us a nod. “Have a good visit.” We walk off in opposite directions.

I suppose it’s possible the whole place knows why Dean’s here. The crimes themselves, at least, but maybe the reason behind them, too. If not because they have to, then because of gossip. I bet the first question one patient asks another would be why they’re here. Might there be comfort in knowing you aren’t the only schizophrenic? I imagine so.

We come to a wide room lit by sunlight, and I have to pause. Dean is impossible to miss and all cleaned up—even clean-shaven—he’s too painfully similar to his brother. I was right, I’m thrown.

“It’s all right,” Duke whispers near my ear as his hand slides down to massage my arm. “He’s lucid now. He won’t hurt you.”

“It’s not that.” I tear my gaze away to look at Duke. “You’re just so much the same.”

“Twins, baby.”

“I know. That’s a first for me. And…” I sigh and look back at Dean. “A part of me doesn’t want him wearing your face.”