Текст книги "Thirty Nights"

Автор книги: Ani Keating

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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

Chapter Forty-Nine

American Beauty

I know where I am before I open my eyes. Bed, the glass door open, a cool breeze wafting in with the scent of freshly dug earth. And the cinnamon-sandalwood-and-Aiden fragrance around me. I equate it with being awake in every sense of the word. Even if terrified.

Today is his first day Versed-free.

I lie very still on my side, preparing for anything—from “Elisa, Cora has packed your clothes”, to “Elisa, police are outside to take you to prison”.

Aiden blows along my neck, and my muscles relax fractionally. This is normal for the last three days. Then I tense again. But utterly abnormal for him. His touch has vanished completely. In its place are only these soft gusts of breath that leave me bereft.

“You’re up,” I say a little late.

“As are you.”

I roll over to look at him. He is on top of the covers, curled around me without contact, already dressed in frayed jeans and a black T-shirt. The purple circles under his bottomless eyes are deeper. The stubble is thicker, longer, and the dimple is gone.

“Morning kiss, evening bliss, my mum used to say,” I whisper and kiss him. My lips barely brush against his before he pulls away. But for that one nanosecond of touching, we both shiver.

“They’re delivering Marshall’s tree soon, and your roses. I’ll start the sprinklers,” he says and blows out of bed and onto the patio before I can blink.

I stumble up, ignoring the sharp aches in my arm and back. Who cares about bruises when your insides burn this way?

I flit out of bed and into his closet to find something to camouflage the livid purple-and-blue patches on my skin. It’s easier at night—I can just wear long-sleeve T-shirts and flannel pajamas. But in seventy-five degree weather? Ah, yes, leggings and Aiden’s shirt from the painting. Then I can still feel like he is touching me. I slide them on and run out on the patio, lest he disappear.

He is sitting at the wrought-iron table, fingers pressed into his temples, shoulders hunched, empty eyes trained unblinking on the horizon. Like someone is siphoning his soul. The sight makes me shiver.

When he hears me, he stands and arranges his face into a semblance of human features.

“Cora bought you some more clotted cream.” He pushes a beautiful breakfast tray toward me. “Eat something. I’ll start digging the hole for the tree.” He leaps casually over the patio stairs and charges across the lawn without another glance.

“Have you eaten?” I call after him. He doesn’t answer.

The sun fades and a chill seeps through my skin.

“Aiden!” His name bursts from my lips.

He turns, and I notice that even for that fleeting instant he looked away from me, his face aged again. “Yes?”

I try to remember how to smile. “I love you.”

His empty eyes become—impossibly—more still. “I love you too,” he says without any intonation and stalks to the farthest edge of the yard.

I shiver again. Isaac Newton was wrong. Not all bodies at rest, stay at rest. There are bodies—torn, ravaged-from-within bodies—that shudder in stillness, perhaps even in death.

I wobble to the table where my tray is waiting. The same as our first morning. Cream, scones, orange marmalade, eggs, bacon, Baci… I pick at a scone, tossing most of it for the bluebirds, unable to look away from Aiden.

He rips weeds along the perimeter almost violently. Fast, like a hurricane. His shoulders ripple with movement and tension. He picks up a shovel and starts digging. I listen to the chirps, scurries and flutters he leaves in his wake. The sound of life that goes on without visas, wars or accidents.

I jump when his iPhone buzzes next to my tray. I peek at the screen, dreading words like “Prison”, “ICE”, or “Isaac Newton”. But no. Just a reminder for Aiden’s meeting with Corbin later this afternoon. They have been locked up in one of the guest rooms every day for hours. Shutters closed.

The phone vibrates again—Hendrix.

“Aiden,” I call out. “Hendrix is calling you.”

He nods and digs faster.

The phone stops buzzing but before I can force down another scone crumb, it vibrates again. This one freezes the air solid. Casa Solis.

I watch the number on the screen, unable to move a finger. How can I possibly answer this call? What could I say that wouldn’t be a lie or horror? They’ll know immediately from my voice that something is wrong. I can’t tell them. It would be a huge betrayal of Aiden. And another worry for the Solises.

My stomach twists so sharply that I almost deposit my breakfast in the blackberry bushes. I sense Aiden’s gaze on my face so I compose a smile and wave. He turns to his hole, digging his way to Australia.

The iPhone buzzes again. A text this time.

Hendrix: Storm! Answer!

I leap to my feet—suddenly unable to tolerate anything. Our silence, their insistence and above all, the distance from Aiden. I march across the yard, careful not to trample the wildflowers.

“The whole world wants you,” I say when I reach him. “Not that I blame them.”

His cheeks are slightly flushed—the only sign of life in the otherwise hollowed face. He drops the shovel, takes the phone without a word and reads the text. The bottomless eyes deepen. But instead of answering, he tosses the phone on the grass and starts ripping some thistles.

I put my hand gently on his arm. “Aiden, love, they’re worried about you. Maybe just a line to say you’re…busy?”

He tears a dock weed off its roots.

“Why don’t you go see them for a few days? Corbin said it might help. I’ll be okay back here.” I keep my voice calm even though the idea of not seeing him now—even for an hour—rips me apart more than any attack he could deliver on man or weed.

He takes a deep breath and finally looks at me. “I want to comb through the list of potential witnesses first.”

“Any leads?” My voice trembles.

His muscles flex—the way they would if his arms were around me. “We’ll find one.”

That burns through my composure. I launch myself into his chest, craving his…everything. Maybe he can’t resist comforting me or maybe he craves this too; whatever it is—for the first time in three days—he doesn’t push me away. He cradles me gently in his arms.

My body responds with violence. Blood rushes to my skin, heart crashes against my ribs and the shivers become vibrations. I lock all muscles in place—afraid my desperation will drive him away—and rest my head on his chest. There’s more Aiden than sandalwood. I close my eyes and inhale deeply. He shudders and his breathing picks up. Like mine.

From somewhere outside our bubble, I hear another bloody buzz. I tighten my hold on Aiden but it’s too late. The spell is broken.

He drops his arms—my skin throbs at his absence—and picks up the phone from the grass. I’m about to rip it off his hand and toss it in the blackberry bushes but Aiden’s face derails me. The V appears between his eyebrows. Aiden doesn’t frown when he sees numbers—he always remembers them. I glare at the screen. A 253 area code.

“Who’s that?” I hiss.

“Not sure.” He picks up with his usual “Aiden Hale” and darts across the yard toward the house. Without a word. Without a touch.

The chills return, and tears I didn’t know I was holding spill over. Every cell misses substance. With every hour his hands are not on me, I turn ghostly. After all, isn’t this what makes ghosts, ghosts? Inability to touch them?

* * * * *

By the time Rose City Nursery has delivered Marshall’s Douglas-fir seedling and fourteen rose bushes, the tears have stopped, even if the chills haven’t. Aiden has not resurfaced from Benson’s office—he no longer uses the library, it has been sealed shut—so I stalk him there. Gardening has worked for us before. Maybe it will help now too?

I come to a skidding stop outside the closed door, ready to pound it off its hinges, but Aiden’s voice halts my fist in the air. It’s no longer even and detached. His timbre is energized, firing commands in its usual efficient hardness. Did I really find this cadence intimidating? Now, it sounds like music.

“Yes, we know about it… I’m sorry, I have another call waiting. Goodbye… Glenda, send copies to the lawyers and Congressman Kirschner. Transfer me to Sartain now. Yes, General, Aiden Hale…will this be enough?… Well, I’m calling in that favor now… That’s all I can ask. Goodbye… Benson, finish the rest as discussed… No outs.”

A slam on a desk. Then silence.

Bloody hell! I pound on the door with both my fists. “Aiden! It’s m—”

The door wrenches open. “Elisa? Are you okay?”

I open my mouth but his face mutes my words. It’s still hollowed, but for a faint flicker of light in his eyes. Like someone has lit a candle upstairs.

“Is everything okay?” I gasp. “I heard you talking to Sartain.”

He steps aside to let me in. I don’t have enough presence of mind to look around Benson’s office. I just register a dizzying number of screens, computers and furniture. Their blurry contours disappear when Aiden closes the door and takes my hand.

“Elisa, baby, take a seat.” His voice is urgent, and beautiful. He guides me to a swivel chair but I can’t breathe. He called me baby again. And he touched me. Is that a good sign? Or bad?

He takes the other swivel chair in front me. “Breathe, Elisa. It’s good news, I hope.” He blows on my face. “I think we have a witness. Someone who knows about Feign’s fraud and is willing to testify.”

His words are slow but every cell starts vibrating with life. I’m afraid to feel it. It will finish me this time if I lose it again.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“A client Feign defrauded a while ago.”

“What about Javier? The witness doesn’t know about him, does he?”

Aiden shakes his head. “He won’t implicate Javier. If anything, he’ll help him.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Will this satisfy the DOJ? Will it make them stop before they get to me?”

Aiden’s hand squeezes mine—my skin bursts into flames. “I’ve sent the info to Bob. We’ll know more in a couple of days, love.”

His sentences are muffled by that one big word. “You called me love again.”

“You’ll always be my love.” His voice is so finite that my chest starts convulsing. This witness doesn’t change anything between us, does it?

“What about the last few days?” I breathe.

His right hand flies behind his back and his jaw flexes. “Love doesn’t change the last few days.”

I turn the words in my head. They sound backward. “You won’t kick me out?” I verify in unambiguous English.

The light dims in his eyes. “Not until you want to leave.”

“That will never happen.”

The flicker of light goes out. Abruptly, almost with an audible click. The void it leaves behind in his face is staggering. His features fold into a veil of desolation—utterly empty and barren. The change is so drastic that I gasp and cup his face like my fingers will shoot life into it.

“I will never leave you. I love you. Always,” I say with force.

He nods as, inch by inch, he brings his face back under control and tries to lighten his voice. “Did I hear a truck and some marching orders about where the roses should be delivered?”

I keep my hands on his face. “Kiss me.”

But I don’t wait. I lunge at him—fingers pulling his hair like hooks, arms vising his face, legs gripping his hips. So forceful is my attack that the chair tilts and he gasps, giving my tongue an in. Ah, his taste!

It takes a few strokes of tongue before I realize that the gentle hold on my shoulders is actually a push. I press myself into him further but he leans away, tipping up my face.

“No, love.” His voice is low.

“Please?” I whisper, trying to hold my body together. I don’t know if it’s trembles or dry sobs.

His jaw flexes in inner battle. When he speaks, his voice is back to even. “I miss it too. More than you know. But it’s no longer right.”

“It’s always right between us, Aiden.”

He blows on my lips once and—before I can blink, breathe or mount another attack—holds out his hand for me.

“We have a tree to plant,” he says.

* * * * *

Aiden surveys the crimson rose bushes scattered along the tilled perimeter in a perfect half circle. They’re already in bloom. Marshall’s fir stands sentinel across from us, the first tree before the forest starts.

“Douglas-fir?” Aiden asks as we traipse across the lawn.

“Yes. I thought it was a good choice for him. Tall, strong and always green.”

I ruffle the needles as we reach the young sapling. It’s only as tall as me now but, with time, it may reach up to three hundred feet.

Aiden reaches out a steady hand, grips the slender trunk and shakes it gently.

“Thank you,” he says with a strong, leashed emotion. “It suits him.”

I lean my head on his shoulder. “He’ll be around for a long time.” Like Lady Clare, I can’t call Marshall’s fir an “it”.

He nods and his eyes roam over the rose bushes. “Why fourteen?” he asks.

“One for each of our family members.”

Aiden swallows and a crease deepens where his dimple used to be. “Not English roses?”

“No. American Beauty.”

He turns to face me, his body close. So very close. The flicker of light I saw earlier gleams again in his eyes. I rest my head on his chest.

“I thought it made sense to start our garden this way. Then we can add later…” For a little Peter. Or a little Clare.

If he hears the unspoken future, he doesn’t comment. But he does wrap his arms gently around me. I stand still not to ruin it.

“It’s beautiful,” he murmurs.

“Like you.”

And I’ve ruined it.

He drops his arms, muscles tensing, and picks up Marshall. “Come on, put on your gloves. Are you wearing sunscreen?”

“Yes,” I grumble. Who cares about sunburn when the rest of me is blazing already?

He marches to the hole he dug earlier and bends to lower Marshall in.

“Wait! Wait!” I call, chasing after him. “Just a second, give me your phone!”

The V appears between his eyebrows but he reaches in his pocket and hands me his iPhone.

I tap and scroll until I find what I want. “I think we need some music for this.”

He frowns but then his forehead locks in understanding. His posture tenses as though bracing for impact. The tectonic plates shift for the first time in the last three days. He gives me a swift, jerky nod. I grip his hand and wait as his eyes roam my face. The instant they lighten to turquoise, I tap the screen and turn up the volume.

“Well, I got a woman,” Ray Charles booms into the air.

Aiden’s breathing picks up, his shoulders ripple, but he doesn’t look away from me. I lean into his chest, wrapping my arms around him as, atom by atom, the tension leaves his body and he sighs.

“You did it,” I murmur, wiping my tears inconspicuously on his T-shirt.

By the time the song finishes, Aiden pulls away. I think he’s about to silence the iTunes but he taps the screen and Ray starts all over again. He rests the phone on the grass and, together, with synchronous movements, we lower Marshall into the ground. Big hands, small hands, tilling my own piece of land, covering the roots until the fir stands on his own.

“Grow well, Marshall,” I whisper, shuffling his needles.

Chapter Fifty

Allegiance

“Elisa! Elisa! Baby, wake up!” Aiden’s voice is urgent in my ear, his hand shaking my shoulder gently.

I jolt up, my heart racing.

“What? Aiden, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, love. Here, Bob wants to talk to you.” He shoves his phone into my hand but my fingers are shaking so badly that it drops on the covers twice. Finally, I grip it along with the sheet and press it to my pounding ear.

“Hello?” My voice is in shreds.

“Elisa, Bob here.” His voice echoes in the bedroom, and I realize he’s on speaker.

“Yes?” I clutch Aiden’s hand.

“Did Mr. Hale tell you about the witness?”

“Yes, he said you’d let us know?”

“Yes. Well, I think we have an out, dear. I just got a call from the DOJ. They’ve reviewed the evidence and have put the investigation on pause. They feel they have enough to prosecute Feign.”

“Really?” My voice is going to shatter the glass wall.

“Yes. Obviously they don’t disclose witness names but I got the substance of the testimony. It incriminates Feign enough to charge him.”

“What about my friend? Was there anything there about him?”

“No, dear, but of course, if other clients come forward or the state wants to push maximum sentence, they may rehash it. But by then, hopefully, you’ll have your green card and you can protect your friend.”

I try to fight the warmth on my skin before I lose everything again. “What do we do next?”

“We need to file today and expedite the process in case they pick up again.” Bob’s voice cracks in excitement. It’s not until I hear that note that I start thawing.

“Elisa?”

“Yes?”

“I won’t congratulate you yet but—with crossed fingers—welcome to the United States.”

I listen but I don’t hear. I look but I don’t see. The world falls silent and disappears. An aura of life starts from the soles of my feet and soars to my eyes, incandescent. Then I see her. A little girl with purple eyes and black hair, one hand in her father’s and one in her mum’s in an English rose garden. They lift her up and she giggles. Our eyes meet. Through my tears, she blinks and smiles. Her face changes in slow motion over the years, within reach now, eye to eye. I smile back as she becomes me. This is what dreams are made of. This one belongs to me.

“Elisa, are you there?”

The rose garden disappears. “Yes.”

“The application is ready. Come to my office at four and we’ll sign and seal.” Bob’s joy jolts through the phone and suddenly, the purest laughter I remember bursts from my lips.

I don’t recognize the girl jumping up and down, squealing, bouncing on the bed, and running in circles around Aiden’s bedroom, into his closet, down the hall and back. Amidst the screaming, I hear Bob ordering me not to get into any accidents or commit any misdemeanors before four o’clock.

When he hangs up, I scream some more while ringing Javier and Reagan but neither picks up. I toss the phone across the room and launch myself at Aiden, tackling him to the bed, laughing and kissing every inch I can find.

“Thank you!” I squeal between kisses. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

For the first time in the last six days, he smiles. No sound, no dimple, but still a smile.

“I love you,” I say. My desire is cellular. Not just for his skin or the exterior that contains his soul. I want him inside out.

I expect him to push me away but he doesn’t. There’s indecision in his face but he surrenders with a groan. It’s been too long since he’s kissed me like this. He rolls with me on the bed until his body covers mine and everything that’s not him disappears.

He kisses me in places old and new. The top of my head, along my hairline, my eyelids, temple, eyebrows, nose, cheeks, jawline, throat. Slow like whispers. As if he’s determined to kiss every millimeter of my body. At the realization, I make a decision. It’s time.

“Kiss me here,” I whisper, pointing to the center of my forehead.

His eyes widen and he shakes his head. “Elisa, no—”

“Yes. I want you to,” I say with conviction.

He watches me for a long moment, then cups my face with both hands. Slowly, he breathes on my forehead like I did with his scar. I shiver but not in pain. I shiver with pleasure. Then light, like butterfly wings, his lips brush on my forehead once. Somewhere deep, I feel the past sealing.

I bring his mouth to mine and kiss him. Hard and fast like the new life ahead is not long enough. He groans and, abruptly, sits back on his heels. He watches me with burning eyes. That flicker of light is blazing there, strong and wild. Then he grips the hem of my T-shirt and peels it off in one move.

I tense. The bruises!

The snap of his teeth is audible. For a long moment, he is frozen, tension ripping through his body, hands in fists, teeth gnashing, eyes burning.

My first instinct is to cover myself but he bends over me, blowing a gentle gust of breath on my face. Then, slowly, he leans closer to the bruise on my arm. He blows on it too. Like he’s trying to chase it away.

He kisses every contour of his grip, every patch where I slammed against the door. His lips flutter over my skin, across my ribs and to my hips. He peels off the rest of my clothes and rolls me gently on my belly, as he kisses and blows across my shoulders, down my spine. The bruises are swarthy there too. His lips don’t stop. When we’re face-to-face again, there is no part of me he hasn’t kissed and consumed with his eyes. His body covers mine, a balm to my skin.

“Look at me,” he whispers, his voice strangled in my ear.

Our eyes meet as he slides inside me. I welcome him in spasmodic tremor. He buries his face in my hair, covering every inch of me, and starts moving with slow, deep thrusts. I’m lost in Aiden. He’s all I can smell, feel, touch, taste, see. He picks up his hard rhythm—my body molds to him instantly, and I come the only way I know how. Fully and for him alone.

He doesn’t stop. His heart’s craggy rhythm magnifies in my ears as he beats in and out of me. I come again but he keeps going. Like I want him to. No words, only sharp tempests of breath over my skin. He finds my lips. Mouth to mouth, we come at the same time with a violent shudder.

In the afterstorm, he lies with his head on my chest as I cradle him in my arms and legs, playing with his hair. I don’t know for how long—time has stopped having meaning. No more clocks, days, months. Only this road ahead of us that, despite the bruises, from where I’m lying, looks long and beautiful.

At length, his breathing steadies.

“Since this worked out, I think I’ll go stay with the guys at the cabin for a while.” His voice is still husky.

In the depths of my body, two things happen: a chill prickles at the base of my spine and the warm ember kindles between my lungs. “Good. You’ve earned a real vacation since I ruined it in every way.”

“You’ve ruined nothing.”

“How long will you stay?”

“Not long.”

“When are you leaving?”

He inhales behind my ear and kisses my throat. “A few more hours.”

I lock my arms and legs tightly around him. I’ll miss him like air but he needs this.

* * * * *

“Be safe,” Aiden says as Benson stows his suitcase—a reassuringly small weekender—in a navy-and-white Bell 430 helicopter with HALE HOLDINGS printed across its fuselage.

I force a smile but the chills are returning. “I miss you already,” I say, walking into his arms. They wrap around me tightly.

“Don’t worry,” he murmurs in my hair. “You’ll get over it in a couple of hours.”

“Not funny.”

For an instant, his eyes shift. It’s too fast before they still again, gleaming with a new focus. More intent—the way one might gaze to decipher something on the horizon.

“Benson will be around,” he says. “If you need something, tell him. Promise?”

“Promise.” I melt to his chest.

To my surprise, he tilts my face up and kisses me hard. This kiss is hungry like the one this morning. And it sweeps me off my feet like our first one. I fist my fingers in his hair but he releases me too soon.

“I love you,” he says with unblinking eyes.

“I love you too.”

He kisses my forehead and tears himself from my grip. With an odd, stern look at Benson, he climbs agilely inside the Bell 430.

“Semper fidelis, Aiden,” I call as Benson closes the door and signs to the pilot—a Jean-Luc Picard look-alike—some aviation gesture.

As the Bell lifts Aiden to the heavens, a warm gust of air floats from my mouth as though chasing after him. Biologically, I know it’s just a breath but the instant it leaves me, I feel empty. Adrift. So maybe it’s not just breath. Maybe it’s the soul.