My hands dug in my hair as a wave of nausea surged up my throat and yanked on my insides. All the reasons not to be together with Jill, not to make a life with anyone, reared their ugly heads and laughed at me.
I had put hundreds of miles of road between me and the Calderones. I had changed my name, kept away, laid low.
It didn’t matter, though, did it? Hearing Catch say his name just now proved that.
But tonight—tonight—I had finally given into the temptation, to the promise of her. I’d tasted that rightness singing in my blood, filling my arms. I had found the one thing I had always wanted but had refused myself for fear it would be threatened, taken away.
How can I go back to being that man again? How can I go back to being without? To being without her?
I couldn’t. No fucking way.
I would protect her with every ounce of whatever strength and cunning was left in me.
I would hold on to what I had claimed.
To Jill.
To my own life.
Hold on for as long as I could, for as long as it would last.
“YOU ARE THE BEST FOOT AND LEG MASSAGER EVER.”
“I learned from the best,” said Grace.
“Lock?”
She grinned. “Mmhmm. He spoils me rotten.”
“You’re spoiling me rotten now.”
Grace and Lenore had taken me to Boner’s room and given me a ginger ale to drink. I’d insisted on taking a shower, and then Grace had handed me a T-shirt of Boner’s to wear. Lenore had left soon after.
Tears clouded my eyes. “I’m sorry about all this.”
Grace glanced up at me. “What do you have to be sorry about?” She rubbed her thumbs into the sides of my calf muscles.
“Catch and our never-ending drama. I should’ve told him sooner. I kept putting it off. I knew he’d freak out. I—”
“Jill, he chose to lose it. He chose to drag you here and stake some sort of Neanderthal claim where there is no claim for him to make. Even if the baby you’re carrying were yours and not mine, he’d have had no right to behave the way he did. Yeah, they’re his crazy emotions, and Catch has always been a fireball since he was a kid, but he’s not a kid anymore. He put your life in danger, even his own with the way he came out here and the shit he said.”
Her hands traveled down to my feet again, her thumbs focusing on my arches.
“They’re teaching him a lesson now, aren’t they?” I asked.
“I think you know the answer to that.” She released my feet and rubbed her hands together, the light, clean fragrance of her moisturizer lingering between us. “Are you feeling guilty about that?”
I dropped my head back against the headboard and stared at the ceiling. “No, I can’t say that I am.”
“Good.”
I took her hand in mine. “Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome. Do you want some more ginger ale? Lenore brought this bottle of water, too.”
“I’m all set.”
“You okay with staying here tonight?”
“Better, now that we spoke with Rae, and I know that she and Becca are okay.”
“Thank God for Martha the neighbor, huh? She kept things calm and got them both in bed for the evening.”
“She’s such a good person.”
Meager was a good town with good people. But I had brought the bad. The bad to Rae, the bad to my daughter, and now, the bad to Grace.
My chest caved in, my lungs squeezed.
“Jill? Honey, look at me.” Grace’s voice got woozy. “Breathe with me. Come on. Listen to my voice. Let’s count, okay?”
My throat tightened, my skin prickling. “You do that, too?” I gasped for a breath.
“For years now. Count with me. Here we go. Breathe in slowly. That’s it.”
“One, two, three, four.”
“Hold. One, two, three—”
I held my breath and heard my voice join Grace’s. “Four.”
“Release.”
“One, two, three, four.”
All my focus went into my breathing, my counting. I stared at Grace’s hand firmly on mine. Her beautiful diamond eternity bands were all lined up on her ring finger.
Yes, the diamonds.
I held them in my line of sight and gave them my spinning emotions. My fear, my panic, twisted out of me and headed for the diamonds.
Mole tied me up to the bed, the headboard rattled and banged against the wall.
The rope burned into my wrists.
His gleeful sweaty face above me.
His sour breath steaming over me.
“Breathe,” came Grace’s steady voice, breaking through the images.
Give it all to the diamonds.
“One, two, three, four,” I intoned.
“I’m gonna fuck you like a train, bitch, and you’re gonna love it! Choo-choo!”
That “beloved” flashback played out against the back of my eyes like a movie.
“You gimme the pizzas for free, and I’ll let you play with her. Just don’t fuck her *. That’s all for me.”
My chest squeezed.
It’s just a flashback, images, a memory. It can’t hurt me. I am more than a memory. I am more than a memory.
“Hold.”
“I’ve never fucked a pair of titties before. Can I do that?”
“As long as I get to watch while I eat those pizzas you got.”
My neck went limp.
I’m here on Boner’s bed, in Boner’s room, at the One-Eyed Jacks in Meager, South Dakota. Becca is safe with her grandma. I am not alone. I’m with Grace.