“Oh,” she sighed, “I will. No worries there.” She opened her hands. “And he’s doing so well. I mean, you can see him getting stronger. He’s working with Troy, the physical therapist, five days a week now. I’ve never seen him push himself like this. He keeps showing me his progress every time I go there. Last week, he was walking between the bars and doing really well, considering everything.”
Nodding, Reese watched the roiling and churning black and gray clouds rolling off the mountains. As they flowed into the long, wide valley, they lost a lot of their cauliflower tops, smoothing out. He could see gray veils of rain beneath them, soaking the valley west of them. Within the next half hour, the rain would arrive in their vicinity.
“He’s a man on a mission, no question.” Reese wanted to share with Shay his gut feeling about Ray’s sudden turnaround and getting physically fit again. But she had enough on her shoulders. From now on, he would have her back and be focused on her father. Shay was not going to be ambushed by Ray again if he could help it.
“Father keeps asking me if he can come and have Sunday dinner with us.” She chewed on her lip, stealing a glance up at Reese. “Has he been asking you that, too, when you talk to him on the phone?”
“No.” His mouth thinned as he considered the information. The worry and guilt in Shay’s eyes tore at him. “Look, he’s always going to try to manipulate you, Shay. You’re susceptible because he trained you for eighteen years to respond to him in a certain way.” He gave her a look of pride. “But you’re not falling for it. You haven’t let him sit at our kitchen table.”
“No, I haven’t. I-I just couldn’t handle it yet, Reese. I feel guilty because he is my father, but if he sat at our dinner table, I’d probably throw up.”
He gave her a sharpened look. “Is that what happened to you as a child?” His gut knotted, unable to even begin to know her daily life as a child, growing up under Ray’s toxic, abusive shadow.
“I used to hate coming to the dinner table to eat. I’d get nauseous . . . Sometimes, I’d run for the bathroom and throw up. It was pretty bad.” She chewed on her lower lip, looking down at the blanket. “My father would get angry because I’d leave my meal uneaten. He’d yell at me because I was wasting good food.”
Gently, Reese drew Shay into his arms and she came willingly, laying her head on his chest, wrapping her arms around him. “He might be your father,” Reese growled, “but he has to earn the damned right to ever sit at our table.” He looked down at her. “All right? Can we agree on that? If he can’t conduct himself like a decent human being, I will not allow him to come anywhere near our home.”
Nodding jerkily, Shay whispered, “That sounds wonderful, Reese. I-I’m just not there yet. He drove my mother to death when she was so young. I know he did. She saw no way out and wouldn’t fight against the disease. She gave up and died. I watched it happen.”
“It won’t happen with you. I won’t allow it, Shay.” Reese saw the anguish deep in her eyes. He understood what she was wrestling with. Ray was blood. She owed him because he was her father. He saw those reasons so clearly in those large blue eyes of hers. And until she realized that she was as worthy a human being as her father, Reese knew he would always be her shield until she got on her own two feet.
“That’s a good plan,” she whispered unsteadily, giving him a grateful look. “Thanks for having my back. You have no idea how that helps me, Reese. I’ll tell him we’ll let him know about any invitation to have dinner with us.”
He kissed her lips gently. “I love you, Shay. I’ll always have your back. I want to be there for you.”
She smiled gamely, rubbing her hand against his chest, the cotton cloth damp beneath it because they’d been working so hard on the fence line. “We can help support one another in so many different ways. Good ways. I know that.”
“It’s my turn to tell you how much you’ve helped me.” He looked deep into her eyes. “We’ve been sleeping together for a month and never once has the nightmare come back. I’ve lived in a special hell, worried about hurting you by accident, Shay.”
“I know you have.”
“It hasn’t happened yet.”
“It may not,” she whispered softly, caressing his cheek. “I believe you’re at a different place this time around, Reese. Before, when you were married to Leslie, you weren’t getting help. You were in denial. Now, you’re not. That’s a huge shift. I honestly believe you’re past that stage, because you’re working to heal yourself, not hide or run away from your symptoms. Diana said Chuck is having fewer and fewer episodes as time goes on, too.”
Reese studied her upturned face, which held the hope of the world in it. “That’s one of the many things I love about you, Shay. You hold out hope for the hopeless like us.” He looked away, grappling to get ahold of his emotions. “Just like that storm approaching us.” He gestured toward it. “I arrived here hurting, hungry, and I had no direction, just shame at how far I’d fallen. I was out of control. Nowhere to go. Just . . . screwed up.”