Steel My Heart Page 15

  J. made love to her alongside the stream, her cries drowned out by the rush of the water, and nothing else had mattered except her. If he stopped paying attention to the glory of his present, he might miss something: the way her cheeks flushed cherry-red when she was excited. The way her hair fell in tumultuous waves down her back and curled tighter and tighter in the heat and humidity. The way she looked at him as he moved above her, her blue eyes wide, her raspberry lips parted as she cried out his name. The past was drowned out, the future was muted. Being with Emmy was what it meant to live in the now.

  "Are you okay?" Emmy looked at him expectantly. The waitress was poised with her pencil and pad, her drawn in eyebrows raised at him.

  J. looked down at his menu. They had eaten at this diner for every meal for the past four days. He could probably have recited it back to the waitress. "Burger, medium rare please. With mushrooms and Swiss."

  "The usual," the waitress nodded and gave him a ghost of a grin. "You know the grilled chicken is pretty good, and better for your heart."

  Emmy raised her eyebrows and nodded, but J. shook his head. "I like the burger. Thanks." He snapped his menu closed and handed it to the waitress who gave a disaffected grunt and left.

  "Is the burger really that good? I'll have to try it." Emmy peeled back the paper on her soda straw. There was something different about her small hands today, but he couldn't place it.

  "It's alright," J. shrugged, looking out the window onto the highway.

  The diner was not in the pretty part of town that catered to tourists. They were surrounded by locals; farmers plowing through huge plates of food after a hard day in the fields, and truckers searching for something a bit more like home than a rest area off the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The parking lot was huge, shared by a strip mall full of down on their luck secondhand stores and a garishly decorated pawn shop.

  "Then why do you keep ordering it?" Emmy pressed. She had ripped the paper down into little pieces that now snowflaked the table top. J. watched her nervous little hands fondly.

  "Because," he replied slowly, trying to figure it out at the same time he explained it. "I ordered it the first time we came here." She looked up at him, a hint of a smile playing along her lips. "So it feels lucky to me."

  Her smile widened. She took one of his hands into hers. It took two of them to cover his massive palm.

  "I don't want anything to change, either." She nodded towards their entwined hands. "That's why I did it."

  "Did what?"

  She turned her hand over flat on the table. "I pawned it."

  Once he saw the blank space on her ring finger, he wondered how he hadn't noticed it immediately. The huge, blinking diamond that she wore like a leaden weight on her hand was gone.

  "You did what?"

  "While you were waiting for our table for us." Her eyes shone excitedly and two pinpoints of color flamed in her cheeks. "I didn't go to the bathroom, I ran across the parking lot." She grabbed his hand again. "Now we can stay here longer. Now we don't have to leave and go back."

  J. stared at her hand, dumbstruck. "Is, is your fiancé," he cleared his throat as she looked at him sharply. "Is Robert going to care?"

  She tossed her head angrily and took back her hand. "I don't give a fuck," she hissed tightly. "He gave it to me. He's gone from my life." She took a sip of her drink, her eyes far away. "As far as I'm concerned, it's my compensation. Paying me for what I went through."

  J. swallowed and took a sip of his own drink. If it made her feel freer of her past, then it was definitely a good thing that she got rid of the ring. If it helped her move on. But it nipped at J.'s pride to know that she was using the money to pay for their room, his meals, his gas. He slid his hand back over hers, carefully squeezing.

  "I'm glad you're free of it."

  She snapped back to focusing on him, her blue eyes lively once more. "We'll have enough money to stay for a while," she babbled excitedly. "In fact, if we're careful maybe we could even use it as a security deposit on a place up here. You know," she gestured over to the entrance of the diner, "I saw some apartment guides, it's pretty cheap to live up here. Well, cheaper than Philly anyway. We could put a security deposit down and maybe have enough money to get a few pots and pans or something." Her eyes gleamed wildly and she clutched his hand. "A new start, what do you think?" She shook her head, her blonde hair swinging in her face. "We'd never have to go back."

  The spot of color blazed bright against her pale cheeks and J. ducked his head to avoid her piercing eyes. Just then the waitress arrived with their tray, and the next few minutes of jockeying plates around and removing glasses gave him time to organize his thoughts.

  He took a bite of his mediocre burger, but the magic of its sameness was gone.

  "Emmy," he started, putting it down and wiping his fingers with a napkin. "What about money? Jobs? I've been wearing the same jeans for five days now."

  She shook her head. "We'll find something."

  He bit his lip. "My skills don't really transfer well to the wider market," he smiled ruefully. "Plus, haven't you noticed I'm the only black guy in town?"

  She furrowed her brow. "But you have a degree! And it shouldn't matter, the color of your skin. It doesn't to me."

  He touched her hand. "I wish everyone were like you. But they aren't Em."

  He hoped she would let the degree talk slide. Now wasn't the time for him to have to tell the truth on that lie.

  Pressing her lips together, she looked at him furiously for a second and he felt his own anger growing.

  "Don't be naive, Emmy," he spat, more viciously than he meant. "We can't just fucking run away from our problems." He clenched his fist and exhaled, trying to temper his words. "This has been nice. Wonderful even. But I'm not willing to get run out of my town and my life by some redneck piece of crap calling me names."

  She blinked. "But I don't want to go back to my life." Her voice was low and dangerous. "I left everything behind and I don't want to look back."

  "There's a difference between starting over and running away, baby girl." He tried to find the right words. "Starting a new life on your terms is a good thing. Getting bullied into running away? That's not something I'm willing to accept."

  "I've lost my appetite," she replied calmly, her voice high and tight. She stood up from her side of the booth and looked out over the top of his head, rather than meet his eyes. All the fire and life that she had shown a minute ago was gone. "Will you please take me back to our room so that I can lie down?"

  He blinked at her, astonished. "That's it? We're done talking about it? You're just gonna give up?"

  "I don't want to fight, please," she replied primly, her face a mask of tightness.

  J. stood up, trembling with rage. "Don't you give me that bullshit, Emmy," he hissed. "I'm not fucking Robert. Don't you just pretend everything is okay and avoid the issue."

  She snapped her eyes at him and for a moment they blazed in fury that made his heart leap. But then she shook her head and the glazed, faraway look returned. "I don't want to fight, please," she repeated. "I'm tired, I want to lie down."

  J. threw down his napkin. "Fucking pay the lady then, I ain't doing no dine and dash."

  Emmy placed money on the table. The sight of the bills and the knowledge of how she had acquired them made his anger flame anew. But how would he tell her that if she refused to talk about it?

  She only held on to him loosely on the ride back to the Carriage Inn. The wind rushed into the space between their bodies, making the distance feel greater than it was. It bothered him so much they were practically in the parking lot before he noticed the police cars parked haphazardly in his way, and the guns that were all pointed in his direction.

  Chapter 31

  Emmy

  I wasn't going to get angry. I wasn't going to make a scene in the middle of a diner, no matter how badly I wanted to shriek and rage at J. No, I wasn't going to lose my cool, because if I let down my guard for one s
econd then the tears would start to flow and never stop.

  I said I wanted to lie down, the lie springing to my lips to convince me of its truth. Really I didn't want to look at him anymore. Because if I had to look in his face, I would start to believe the truth of what he was saying. That running away was not the answer. That I couldn't just disappear into a new life with him. That he wasn't my savior, no matter how much I now knew I loved him.

  I loved him and that was fucking terrifying. When I loved someone, bad things happened. If I could just get back to the room and pull the covers over my head. If I could just hide in a ball for a while, blanking out the world and pushing the truth of his words from my head, then maybe I could emerge unscathed.

  And I could forget that I loved him more than he apparently loved me.

  It was hard not to cling to him on the ride back to the Carriage Inn. My body wanted to be close to him. My body responded treacherously to the heat that rose from his back and the smell of his riding leathers. The rumble of the bike soothed me, and the noise drowned out the clanging thoughts in my head that swirled around, delighting in telling me how stupid I was to fall in love so quickly.

  I felt myself carried away into blankness, the familiar retreat I had found when I was little.

  Here in the private space in my head, the stinging shouts of my parents could not touch me. The constant terror of Robert didn't bother me. I could float along as weightless as a feather in the breeze. I closed my eyes as the wind rushed in the space between J. and me, and didn't open them until the bike slowed to turn into the parking lot.

  I felt, rather than heard J.'s shout.

  I opened my eyes and peered at the parked cars like I was seeing them underwater. The rolling flashes of red and blue confused me, as did the shouts and commands to stop and get on the ground. J. threw his hands up in the air and was dragged from the bike before he could put down the kickstand. I felt myself falling with the bike, my feet wedged unmoving on the passenger pegs.

  Before I landed I was caught up in a pair of strong arms. I reached out for J. wondering how he had caught me when he was lying face down in the parking lot. A cop had his knee wedged into J.'s back, and I saw J. grimace in pain when his arms were wrenched back into the handcuffs. I opened my mouth to shout, but my scream was muffled by a huge hand that smelled terrifyingly familiar.

  But it wasn't until I heard his voice in my ear that I knew all was lost. A soothing voice, murmuring assurances that turned my blood to ice. "It's all over, Emilia. I'm here. I've got you."

  Robert held me close to him, cradled in his arms like the hero of the movie and no one noticed how tightly he had to hold me to keep me down.

  "Why?" I whispered, watching in horror as the police cruiser sped out of the parking lot. Though it was dark I could still see J.'s head silhouetted in the back seat. It was bowed and broken, hanging heavily over his chest in a way that broke my heart open wider than anything I had ever seen.

  "It's okay officer." Robert's voice was all patrician jocularity. The officer handed him a blanket that he wrapped around my shoulders. It felt like a leaden weight holding me down. "She's just in shock from her ordeal."

  The cruiser disappeared around a bend. J. was gone, taken from me in a flash of red and blue.

  "When she's feeling better, Mr. Whitestone, I'm going to need her to come down to the precinct to give a statement." The officer's voice was warning. I could tell Robert didn't like what he was hearing by the way he squeezed my arm tighter. "We can only hold him for so long until charges are pressed."

  "My fiancée has just been through a horrible ordeal," Robert snapped. I listened dully to the story he spun. "Kidnapped and held by a dangerous felon who should never have been released from prison in the first place? I hold the police force responsible for what has happened here. I know my father is horrified too."

  As the words echoed nonsensically through my head, the officer stood by for a moment, looking as if he wanted to say something. But then he just walked away. "Statement in twenty-four hours," he called over his shoulder, leaving me alone in Robert's arms.

  "Let's go home now, Emilia," he murmured, smoothing my hair back from my forehead.

  His face was cut in half by the stark shadows of streetlights. Half dark and half light. His one visible eye glittered at me and I saw triumph in his gaze. He smoothed my hair again, and my stomach lurched. I swallowed hard to keep the bile down. "How did you find me?"

  He grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. "You're stupider than I ever imagined," he hissed, keeping his voice low for the benefit of the still lingering police officers. "Enough of this. Get in the car."

  "No."

  "Emilia," his voice was a warning. "Get in the car." His fingers dug painfully into my skin, bringing tears to my eyes.

  "Everything okay, Mr. Whitestone?" A female officer came towards us, her boots crunching on the gravel. She bent and picked up the blanket from where it lay in a heap on the ground. "Here, Emilia," she said, handing it to me. "You're probably in shock. Best to keep warm."

  Her voice was kind. Robert's smile stretched wide, and he stroked my arm fondly. The darkness hid the marks where his nails had pierced my skin.

  "You're a lucky woman," she continued, looking at Robert. "He wouldn't give up on finding you. Night and day he was searching. Luckily we had that breakthrough."

  "Breakthrough?" The word fell out of my lips but I didn't recognize my own voice.

  "The letter mailed by the accused. He was stupid enough to send it from his hideout."

  "He mailed a letter?"

  "He made you write it, didn't he Emilia? Saying you had left? But I knew you would never leave me. And Officer Wilkens said that lowlife had been hanging around for a week now. Stalking you." Robert's voice was stern, prompting me on the proper script to recite.

  The letter. My breakup letter. J. had sent it out for me in the club's mail. And it had brought Robert right to their doorstep.

  "You're a very lucky woman," the officer repeated. I shivered at the fawning note in her voice.

  "Let's go home, Emilia." Robert tugged on my arm, dragging me to the car he rarely ever drove. The officer watched us, and her eyes softened at the fierce display of the protective fiancé rescuing his helpless bride-to-be from the clutches of a ruthless biker. As he pushed me into the passenger seat, I realized it was all over. There was no use fighting.

  He had won.

  Chapter 32

  Emmy

  "..stupid fat whore, did you get enough of that nigger's cock or have you turned into a complete slut? I knew you were a dumb bitch, but this kind of stupidity is a new level, even for someone like you...."

  Robert's insults washed over me, and every nasty word echoed a thousand times in the hollow space inside of me. He alternated between flinging insults at me and then swearing at the other drivers on the highway. His rage was as dangerous and capricious as a tornado.

  "...fucking jackass, press the gas pedal and then the car will go..."

  The drive back to Philadelphia was plagued by traffic. I don't know why Robert found this surprising. Probably because he so rarely drove himself. If the driver got stuck in a traffic jam, Robert could just lean back and close his eyes, or maybe answer some emails on his endlessly pinging Blackberry. To actually have to sit and stare at the brake lights of the car in front of him was an experience he wasn't used too.

  And it was making him even angrier than he already was. "...who the fuck you think you are, anyway. Piece of trailer trash from Pennsyltucky. You're nothing without me and you know it....” Spittle flew from his mouth and the vein at his temple throbbed an angry warning.

  I was in serious trouble.

  I wedged myself against the passenger door. But I was not out of his arms' reach. Try as I might, I could not shrink myself down to nothing. I could only hope that the traffic would clear soon so he would have to pay attention to the road again.

  "...moving up the wedding date so you'll never pull a
stunt like this again."

  I looked at my ring finger. He hadn't noticed it was gone yet. The bare space on my hand gave me the tiniest shred of pride. He didn't own me anymore.

  "...need sleep and then we have to get back up here. You will tell them he kidnapped you from our apartment. Wilkens will corroborate. I already have a lawyer. If you don't cooperate, so help me god Emilia...."

  I thought of J. alone in a cell, with no one behind him and the whole weight of the Whitestone fortune against him. They wanted him out of the way. Robert wanted me back in his clutches and would stop at nothing to get it.

  "...violent felon like that away for good. Get him off the streets and back behind bars where an animal like that belongs...."

  I looked at my finger again. In all his plotting, Robert had overlooked one tiny detail. His plan centered on one assumption. That I wouldn't fight back.

  I clenched my fists and the ghost of pain in my knuckles felt like strength.

  If I wasn't going to fight for myself, then I would fight for J.

  "You're lying."

  Robert turned to me in shock. I had never contradicted him before. His mouth hung open wide for a moment before he snapped it shut into an evil smile.

  "I'm afraid not, Emilia. Your secret lover spent six years in the slammer for armed robbery and assault. He's a lowlife animal." Robert chuckled. "Only you could be so blindingly stupid."

  My shock quickly diminished and I made my decision. J.'s past meant nothing compared to the man he was now. Robert meant to hurt me with this new information but there was nothing left to hurt. For him to hurt me, I needed to have feelings for him. I needed to care what he thought. He assumed I still did.