'Oh God-Oh God-I'm so sorry-I forgot. I forgot. I'm sorry…' Tears were streaming down her face. 'Tris, it's okay, honey. It's okay…'
He was looking around, not at her, eyes darting here and there like those of a trapped animal. Then, slowly, the bright terror in his eyes faded to dull awareness. He darted one quick, embarrassed look over his shoulder and said in a choked voice, 'Your mom-'
'It's okay, she's already gone to bed. Oh, Tris-'
He reached out to brush her lip with his thumb. 'I told you not to touch me.' His voice was as harsh as his touch was gentle.
She caught her lip with her teeth and sucked it in, hiding the blood from him. 'I know…I know. It's just that… you look so…you've been seeming so…'
'Normal?' Wearing a travesty of a smile like a Mardi Gras mask, he got stiffly to his feet, then took her hand and helped her to hers. 'I thought this
Aching inside, she slipped an arm around his waist. 'We just have to be patient, give it time…'
He dropped his arm across her shoulders and drew her close to his side. 'Yeah,' he said, as they started up the stairs together, 'they keep telling me that, too.'
Tristan slept in one of the spare bedrooms that night, regretting the pain he knew it was causing Jess, but knowing full well he wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep after all that. He could feel the nightmares lurking still…feel the walls closing in on him even before he closed his eyes. Damned beer must be losing its effect, he thought.
It wasn't that it was uncomfortable, this house his wife had grown up in. Just the opposite, in fact. In some sort of complicated, perverse way, it was the very comfort of it, the homeyness of it, that made him feel so alienated. He couldn't seem to get his mind around so much softness and warmth, the clean smells and good tastes, the laughter and the love. The cold and hunger, pain and fear and darkness of prison wouldn't let go of him. In the daylight hours he could convince himself he'd left all that behind him forever, but in the dark of night he knew better. He still hadn't escaped from those prison walls, and he was beginning to wonder if he ever would.
The next morning he told Jessie he was going to start looking for a house for them to rent. 'I know your momma's got plenty of room,' he said reasonably, 'but we need a place of our own.' He didn't use the word
His biggest problem, he soon discovered, was going to be transportation. There seemed to be plenty of vehicles around, but no spares, and even if there had been, it went against his grain to borrow a car from one of his wife's relatives. The obvious solution was to buy himself a car-he was going to have to, eventually. And money wasn't going to be an issue-he'd been given the first installment of his back military pay before he'd left Washington, which had amounted to a pretty sizable sum. But it was only one more confusing thing about his return to 'normal' life that he found the idea of buying a car both thrilling and terrifying.
He didn't know where to begin. There were too damn many choices, that was the problem. After having someone else direct every aspect of his existence for eight years, he wasn't used to making decisions. Used or new? Foreign or domestic? Should he go for power and performance or fuel economy? He sort of liked the idea of the SUVs, but they were really more car than he needed. Sports cars tempted him, naturally, but that seemed a little too much like he was trying to overcompensate. On the other hand, everyday run-of-the-mill cars…hell, how would he ever decide on one? There had to be hundreds of them, all more or less alike.
In the end he said 'The hell with it,' and went out for his morning run. He was pumping iron over at C.J.'s when J.J. came ripping up on his shiny new Honda motorcycle. Tris stopped what he was doing to watch J.J. put the kick-stand down, take off his helmet and hang it on the handlebars, then dismount with a seventeen-year-old's flexible grace and come sauntering toward them, pulling off his gloves.
'Hey,' J.J. said, grinning, the thrill of the ride still bright in his eyes.
Tris could feel that thrill himself, remembering his own brief spin on the bike. He felt it again now…a humming under his breastbone and a tingling in his thighs.
'Hey,' C.J. grunted back to his nephew, between lifts.
Tris muttered something, he wasn't sure what. He was smiling and looking past J.J. at that black-and-yellow motorcycle.
'You did what?' Jessie couldn't believe what she was seeing with her own eyes.
'I bought it.' He said it in a casual, offhand way, but the glow of pride in his eyes made her heart quiver. She tried to swallow the fear that had jumped into her throat and search for something positive to say.
'It's…' But it was no use. She shook her head helplessly.
'It's a BMW,' Tris explained, as if she couldn't see that for herself. He was as enthusiastic as a boy. 'It was between this and a Gold Wing-didn't want a Harley-I'm thinking, too much vibration-might be hard on my knee, you know? This hasn't got much vibration at all, just a nice, sweet hum… Hop on. Let's go for a ride.'
'Oh, God, no…Tris-' She couldn't stop an involuntary recoil. She was remembering the autobahn, Tristan behind the wheel of a Euro-model Ford, and the wild light in his eyes and the twisted bitterness of his smile. Remembering her terror, her anger, she felt her breath grow shallow.
'Here, I even got you a helmet. And look-there's a backrest-and you can have armrests, too, if you want. It's like sitting in an easy chair.'
He was imagining her there already, thinking how it would be with her behind him, arms locked tight around his waist and breasts pillowed against his back, and all that power under him and the wind pummeling his face and tearing the breath from his lungs. Power, speed and sex-all the things he'd been denied-right here, in one sleek, sexy package.
'Come on, Jess…ride with me,' he murmured, folding his arms around her and nuzzling her neck with his sweetest voice and most seductive smile. Making a conscious point of doing what once had come as naturally to him as breathing. He felt her body expand with her indrawn breath, and her heart flutter inside her hospital smock, printed with alphabet blocks and Teddy bears in primary colors. Her skin was warm and damp and smelled of lotion and powder and disinfectant. 'Just a short one…I'll take it easy, honey, I promise.'
'Oh…' Her laugh was weak and fragmented, and he could feel her body softening…trembling…responding to him the way she always had…always would. It was one of the things that had made her so irresistible to him, back then. He chuckled and rocked her in his arms, rubbing himself suggestively against her, shameless in pressing his advantage. 'Come on, darlin'…don't you trust me?'
And even as he said it, even before she laughed again and finally gave in, he knew that she didn't. Once she would have-utterly, completely, implicitly. And now she didn't.
He kept his smile in place as he helped her climb into the BMW's rear seat, showed her how to adjust the foot-and armrests and strap on the helmet. Then he took her for a ride, down the lane and onto the paved road, past C.J.'s place and then left onto the dirt track that ran between timber groves and came out on another paved road, this one curving around past Jimmy Joe and Mirabella's house and eventually back to where they'd started, taking it easy, the way he'd promised. He kept the BMW's speed to a sedate ramble that barely tapped its power potential, and erotic fantasies were far from his mind.
She was smiling when she took off her helmet and shook her hair loose on her shoulders, but more, he thought, from relief than any real joy in the ride. Her eyes were bright and her laughter breathless, and as he helped her dismount and get her feet steady under her, he was careful not to let her see how badly she'd disappointed him.
After a week or so, when Tristan hadn't managed to kill himself or suffer any other major calamities with the
