44 Book Five (17 page)

I nodded.

“And I see that it’s between us now. You said that a long time ago. And I thought it wasn’t such a big deal, but I was naive. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand any of it.”

I looked away.

“I thought it would be okay,” he said. “That we would be okay. But now, honestly, I’m not sure.”

He brought my hand to his lips and kissed it softly. His eyes looked so sad and lost.

“That and I think I realized too that Jesse is really your Perseus. He’s the one who saves you. And he’s the one you really love.”

“But that’s just not true,” I said, desperately. “That’s not true, Ty. I love you.”

I couldn’t lose him.

“I love you,” I said again.

“I can’t feel this way. It hurts too much. I have to figure it out on my own. It has to make sense before we can go on.”

Tears spilled down my face.

Then he said it.

“If we can go on.”

I tried to stop crying, tried to be strong. We walked along the river for a long time afterwards as the light faded in the trees ripe in their autumn.

He then took my hand as leaves fluttered down, floating around us like butterflies.

CHAPTER 50

A light film of sparkling frost covered the gray track.

I zipped up my North Face jacket tight around me. The evenings were becoming more and more chilly, leaving behind crystal-covered reminders that winter was coming. The first snow of the season couldn’t be far away.

But on this particular morning the sun was still making its presence felt, quickly melting the frost. I made my way gingerly around the oval, doing my best to avoid any lingering patches of ice.

It had taken Paloma and me time to recover from the psychic and physical abuse we suffered at the hands of Clyde Tidwell. We spoke on the phone a few times but whenever we tried to meet something always came up.

After a few laps, I spotted her sitting on the bench. The same bench where she had told me about him in what felt like a lifetime ago.

I walked over. I was strangely nervous, but I didn’t exactly know why.  

She looked up and waved at me.

“Hi, Abby,” she said, a bright smile dancing on her lips. “It’s so good to see you, girl.”

“Hey, Pal o’ mine,” I said. “It’s been too long.”

She stood up and gave me a giant bear hug, like I was a friend she hadn’t seen in a long, long time. There was a lightness in her face that I had never seen before. Like a great weight had been lifted off her chest and she could breathe again. She looked young and happy, nothing like the way she looked the last time I had seen her after she had tried to drown herself.

“You look like you’re feeling better,” I said.

“I am,” she said. “Better than I have in a long time. I feel like I used to before all of this happened.”

“I’m really glad.”

She paused for a moment. She suddenly seemed nervous. Then she let out a sigh.

“I wanted to thank you, Abby. For how you helped me.”

I shook my head.

“I didn’t do anything, Paloma. I wish I could have done more, done something, but I was pretty useless. I’m not the one you should be thanking. It wasn’t me.”

I thought of Jesse. He should be the one she was thanking. Jesse was the one who had stopped Clyde Tidwell. Jesse was the one who had freed both of us from his power.

“You’re wrong,” she said. “You believed in me and you did what you could. You helped me a lot more than anyone else.”

I was silent. I still didn’t think I was worthy of her gratitude, but I didn’t want to argue with her.

“He was a bad man,” she said, watching a runner with a dog pass the “No Pets Allowed” sign. “When he… when he was controlling me, I saw some of what he did to those women. It was…”

She sighed again and rubbed her face.

“I know,” I said. “I saw it, too.”

She looked over at me.

“You too?”

I nodded slowly.

“It was horrible,” I said. “I’m so sorry that happened to you, Paloma. But he’s gone now. He won’t hurt you again.”

“How do you know that?” she said. “How can you be so sure?”

I let out a long breath.

“I just know,” I said. “I had a friend who got rid of him.”

She looked at me for a moment and then stared off in the distance. I could tell there was more she wanted to ask, but she had the good sense not to.

I couldn’t talk about Jesse with her just now. What he had done for me, for us, and what he had sacrificed was just too painful to face right now. It was still too fresh. Maybe someday I would tell her. But not today.

“Hey, did you know that I got a new job?”

I forced a smile, trying to push away my gloomy thoughts.

“That’s great. Where?”

“Over at the Astro Lounge. I’m bartending fulltime and it’s a much classier place than Club 6. A new building with no ghosts attached, and more importantly, no cage.”

I laughed.

“Congrats, Paloma,” I said, giving her hand a squeeze. “That’s really great.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I think it’ll be good for me. It’s time I moved on and took my bartending career a little more seriously anyway.”

We talked a little longer before I had to leave for work. She invited Ty and me to stop by the Astro Lounge anytime and drinks would be on her. I told her that I was planning a fall party next month and wanted to invite her and her sister.

“Oh, you know there was something I never got a chance to ask you,” I said. “There were more important things going on at the time.”

“What?”

“At some point you said, ‘You don’t know me from Adam’s house cat.’ What does that mean?”

She squinted at me for a moment.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “I don’t really know. I think it was just something I picked up at Club 6. Sounds like a Southern expression.”

“Well, I’m glad I do know you from Adam’s house cat,” I said.

She smiled.

I checked my watch and saw that I was running late. I stood up to leave. She got up and gave me another hug.

“I’ll see you soon,” I said, walking away.

“Abby?” I heard her say. I turned around.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks again for what you did. I mean it.”

I waved goodbye.

It wasn’t me
, I repeated in my head.

I turned away and walked to the Jeep, thinking of Jesse.

CHAPTER 51

As the weeks passed, I poured more and more of my energy into soccer. I was up to running six miles on the track, four times a week, and I found time to practice every day. There was a sadness in me I couldn’t shake, but I could make sure I exhausted myself to the point where I didn’t dwell on it. I began sleeping again, all the way through the night.

As we headed into the playoffs, I was playing the best I had since my high school days. Since before my accident, when I had been college material.

The last game of the season was just a formality, a chance to fine tune a few things, rest key players, and build our confidence. But, of course, this being rec soccer, the last refuge of has-beens and never-weres and all lost souls trying to recapture their glory days, everyone treated it like it was life and death. Including me.

We demolished the other team, which was also playoff bound, 5-0. Everything I touched was gold. I assisted on two of the goals and scored the other three.

But as the rest of the team celebrated when it was over, I walked off the field with a hollow feeling. There was no one there to see it. No one I really cared about. Kate was working late. I barely saw Ty anymore. He hadn’t come to a game in several weeks. And Jesse.

Jesse wasn’t there either. Not like he had been for my only other hat trick all those years ago.

I got into the Jeep and drove away through the dark night, a lump as big as the desert growing in my throat.

CHAPTER 52

“It’s killing me to see you this way, Abby Craig.”

I shrugged. I helped a customer, told Lyle the order, and slowly walked to the back to get more napkins. David was still waiting for me when I returned.

“Breakups are such a bitch,” he said.

“It’s not official yet,” I said. “He’s still thinking about it.”

But it sure felt official.

“Well, I say we put him on the clock,” David said. “Tick tock, tick tock. He can’t leave you in limbo like this. It’s already November! We give him until Thanksgiving to shape up or you, Abby Craig, will ship out. I have tons of hot guys I could set you up with.”

I was too tired to even think of a funny response. I looked at the clock. Six and a half hours to go.

“I can’t do inventory. Would you mind if I stayed out here at the register?”

“Of course not,” he said.

David reached over and gave me a long, genuine hug.

“You’ll be okay,” he said. “We all go through it.”

I sighed and faked a smile as a lady walked up and handed me a piece of paper.

“There’s eleven drinks there,” she said, her face as sharp as her tone.

Those were always the hardest orders, when one customer handed us a list. It threw everything off. And even though David stayed up front to help, by the time we finished with her, the line was backed up to the door.

I helped the two moms coming from an exercise class while David took an order from the college professor who was a regular and liked to talk a lot.

I looked up again, my heart dropping out of my chest.

He was in the back of the line, smiling at me.

Adjusting his baseball cap.

THE END

The adventure continues…

44 Book Six

Coming soon

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Like her main character, Jools Sinclair lives in Bend, Oregon. She is currently working on
44 Book Six
as well as a new series
.

Learn more about Jools Sinclair

and the
44
series at…

JoolsSinclair44