“How was your first night at work?” I ask as I fill the coffee maker with water.
“It was good, actually,” Kelly says.
“Are you working again tonight?”
“Actually, I’m not. The restaurant starts the new servers working every other night, to get us used to the hours and being on our feet for so long.”
“That’s good, since you probably didn’t sleep very well in the hallway.”
“I don’t know. I was in some kind of deep sleep when you shook me.”
I look down at my shin. “No kidding. I’m going to have a nice bruise.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
I’m amazed at how quickly and easily the words I’m sorry come out of her mouth, but I choose not to mention it.
“It’s all right. You didn’t mean to, but no more sleeping in the hallway, Kelly. I mean it.”
“You didn’t answer your door,” she says.
“Have you heard of a little thing called a telephone?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of it. But I didn’t want to talk on the phone, Leif. I wanted to talk to you in person.”
“If you had called me, I could’ve come home.”
“Would you?”
“Of course I would’ve. You’re my job.”
Her lips turn into a frown. “Right. I’m your job.”
I sigh. “You’re more than just a job to me. That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s what you said.”
I smile then. “You will be the death of me, Kelly Taylor.”
“I don’t want to be.”
“Then let’s make a pact. Here and now. We’re going to be nice to each other. We’re not going to make assumptions about each other. If we have questions, we will ask. If we don’t like the answers we receive, we won’t lash out.”
“I can’t promise I won’t lash out.”
“Yes you can. You can, and you can mean it.”
“All right.”
“Good. Now we have an understanding between us. No more lashing out, by either of us. That includes me.”
“When have you lashed out?”
“Hundreds of times.” I smirk. “All in my head, of course.”
She smiles. “I’m a real pain in your butt, aren’t I?”
“Yes, you are. But I don’t mind you so much.” I grab two mugs out of the cupboard. “Tell me about your first night at work.”
She rattles on then, talking animatedly—more animatedly than I’ve ever seen her. “Over a thousand dollars in tips. I can’t believe it. And the restaurant pays us the tips in cash. Of course, they also made me fill out a tax form, so it’s not like I can keep all of it.”
“No, but you can keep about seventy percent of it. That’s pretty good for a night’s work.”
“Yeah, absolutely. Especially since I don’t have any expenses. At least not yet.”
“The Wolfes will let you stay here as long as you need to.”
“I know that, but I hate taking other people’s money. I hate taking help. I’ve been on my own since the day I turned eighteen, and I—”
“Since the day you turned eighteen?”
I know her story. Her mother kicked her out of the house when she turned eighteen before she was finished with high school. But I want to see if she’ll tell me. Confide in me.
“Well, yeah. Aren’t most people on their own at eighteen?”
“It’s the age you become an adult. But I get the feeling there’s more to your story.”
“When you were researching my mother… Just how much did you find out?”
“I found out the two of you were on food stamps when you were a kid. I found out that there are no records regarding your childhood, meaning social services was never called.”
She looks down.
I tip her chin up. “You can tell me, Kelly. Please. Tell me.”
“You’ll think less of me.”
“Why would I? No child is responsible for anything that happens to her. It’s all on your mother, Kelly. Every bit of it.”
“That’s not true. Sometimes kids can be bad.”
“Absolutely. When I misbehaved, I was punished. But there’s a difference between punishment…and abuse.”
She swallows. “I’m not sure I know that difference.”
“I know, and I’m so sorry about that. I don’t know what your mother put you through, but I promise you were never that bad.”
“But I was. I must have been.” She melts into me, burrows her head into my chest.
She doesn’t cry, or at least not any sobs that I can hear. Perhaps she’s crying silently, and when she sniffles, I know.
I push her away slightly, so I can look into her glistening eyes.
“Whatever happened, I promise you that none of it was your fault.”
“I thought I was done crying over her.”
“You are. She doesn’t deserve your tears. But you know who does deserve them? The little girl that you were. The little girl that, in some ways, you still are.”
“I want to tell you,” she says. “I want to tell you everything.”
“I’ll be happy to listen.”
“But I can’t, Leif. It’s just too painful to talk about it. I’ve talked about it so much to Macy and my therapists on the island. I feel like I’m all talked out. And I know exactly what you’ll say. You’ll be horrified, disgusted, and you’ll wonder how such a person could even exist. All things I used to wonder myself, until I went to the island and I realized my mother wasn’t the only evil in the world.”
“Oh, baby.” I kiss the top of her head. “Evil is everywhere. You’ve seen it, and so have I.”
“If you’ve seen what I have, you have my sympathy.”
“I haven’t seen exactly what you’ve seen,” I say, “but I’ve seen enough. And I know what happened to you was far worse than anything that happened to me. Kelly, if I could wave a magic wand and make it disappear, I would. I’d give up everything if I could make you happy.”
She burrows into my chest once more, and this time her sobs aren’t silent.
I’m not sure why I said those words.
But the truth of them envelops me like the warm sun.
I would do anything to make this woman happy.
It hits me like a bolt of lightning.
I’ve fallen in love.
I’ve fallen in love with a woman who’s not ready to receive love.
It means hands off, Phoenix.
Buck’s words… But I didn’t keep my hands off when I should have, and now… Now I’m a fucking goner.
I’ll go slowly. Is what I’m feeling truly love, or just a strong need to protect her? To protect her from everything she’s been through and keep her safe so nothing like that will ever happen again?
Perhaps that’s all it is.
I can’t be in love with her, not after only a couple of days, during most of which she was yelling at me.
Of course, the sex was amazing. But that’s just chemistry. Chemistry between two very needy people.
She probably didn’t pay any attention to my words anyway. The poor woman has been destroyed, and now she’s putting herself back together.
All the women on the island went through the same thing, but most of them had been ripped from lives that were good. They were succeeding.
Kelly was ripped from a life that never gave her any happiness. Any love.
Poor sweet Kelly.
Kelly only knows how to fight back.
Maybe that’s why I was given this assignment. Not just to protect Kelly, but to show her she’s worthy. That she doesn’t always have to come out fighting like a cornered wolf.
I kiss the top of her head once more. “You want some breakfast?”
She shakes her head, sniffling against my shirt.
“What can I do for you then, baby?”
She looks to me then. Tears streaking her face, her nose red. “Take me to bed. Please.”