Lark swallowed hard. “I know.”
She didn’t, though, and that was the problem. “I used to have bad dreams,” I blurted out.
“Really?”
I nodded in the dark. “Had a lot of them after I got kicked off the ranch. Took about a year until they stopped. I’d dream about the beating I got on the day I left.” Hell. That was enough sharing.
Lark sighed. “So you’re saying I could have another ten months of this.”
“No! Not necessarily.”
She smiled, and the proximity of her mouth to mine was hard to ignore. I did it, though, by asking her a tough question. “Lark, what happened to you in Guatemala?”
Her face fell. “I got kidnapped.”
“Fuck.”
Lark gave me a bitter smile. “That’s quite the curse word for you.”
I smiled back because it was true, and because she’d noticed. I had a weird relationship with cursing. Mine was the mildest language on the farm by a country mile. When a curse was necessary, I usually opted for “dang it,” or “shoot.” My strongest curse was “fuck,” because even after three years I couldn’t bring himself to take the Lord’s name in vain.
“You’re changing the subject,” I pointed out.
She wrinkled up her perfect nose, looking one hundred percent awake now. “I don’t like to talk about Guatemala.”
“I know that, and I’m not usually the kind to pry. But I am curious what keeps you up at night.”
She wore her thoughtful face for a moment, and I realized that I’d already memorized all of her expressions. “I’ll bet you are. And I guess you deserve to know, since you’re the one who wakes up when it happens.”
“Nah,” I backtracked. “You don’t have to tell me. Instead you could tell me why you were living in Guatemala in the first place.”
“Ah.” She flopped back onto her pillow. “I was working for a nonprofit that educates farmers in developing nations. I was there to teach some local farmers about seed-saving practices and multiculture. That kind of thing. I thought it was the best job ever. I was so brave—the kind that turns out to be stupid. People told me to be more careful, but I walked places where you’re not supposed to be alone.” She met my eyes. “It’s not like I had a death wish. But I thought—if we all act scared of each other all the time, we’ll all just huddle in our corners. And the world will stay fearful.”
I gave her hand a squeeze, silently asking her to go on.
“But a few weeks into my year of living boldly, some men grabbed me off the street of this tiny town and put me into the back of a van. I was screaming, mind you. But everyone sort of vanished when it happened. I spent twenty days in a shed out in the middle of nowhere. There was a bucket to pee in and almost no food.” Her voice had begun to shake. “I thought I was going to die out there.”
I already regretted asking her to talk about it. And the only comfort I could offer was to rub her hand between both of mine. “Why did they take you?”
“Ransom.” Her voice was flat. “Organizations that send people to work in far-flung places all have kidnapping insurance. So there are countries where grabbing stupid girls is a cash crop. But this group—turns out I was their very first target, and they hadn’t figured out yet how to be kidnappers. So it took them a long time to reach the negotiator. It’s almost funny, right? I couldn’t even get kidnapped by the right people.”
“It’s not funny at all.” I lay down beside her again, still holding her hand.
Her eyes got wet, but she went on. “I thought nobody was ever coming for me. So I started working on this young kid. A teenager. I was trying to convince him to just let me go.”
Her voice was rough, and I wished I hadn’t asked her to relive it. But we’d come this far. “What happened?”
“They found out. And they killed him. In front of me. I don’t actually remember every detail. A doctor told me that the mind sometimes protects us by hiding upsetting memories.”
I didn’t say anything because there wasn’t anything to say. So I stroked my thumb over the back of her hand.
“Aren’t you glad you asked?” Her voice was bitter.
“I’m so sorry, Lark.”
“Well…” Her voice faltered. “I’m sorry I scream at night. I wish I could stop.” She rolled sideways to face me. We were nose to nose, staring at each other. She looked a little wild, and fierce. Like she wished she could burn her enemies to the ground. “I’m so sick of being afraid,” she whispered.
“You don’t have to be anymore.” Her hand was still in mine, and I gave it one more squeeze. “If anyone wants to get you, they’ll have to go through me.”
Her eyes searched me, and I didn’t have a clue what they were looking for. Her gaze landed on my mouth, and I felt myself swallow roughly. The moment pulled taut between us, like a rubber band stretched and ready to release its built-up tension.
Kiss her, my heart prodded, and I wanted to obey. But a kiss wasn’t what she needed just now. So, acting on some instinct I didn’t know I had, I tugged her by the hand until she landed half on my chest. Then I wrapped an arm around her back and just held her instead.
And, as they wrote in Genesis, it was good.
Lark burrowed closer to me. She tucked her nose into my neck and sighed. I had to remind myself to breathe. My heart was wailing against my ribs like a hammer, and goosebumps broke out on my skin from wanting so badly to kiss her. But it wasn’t to be. And the way her body relaxed against mine was my reward—a token of my accomplishment.
A few of her demons had fled the room, and that was all that mattered.
We lay there awhile, not saying anything. The stress I’d caused by making her talk was gone now. And I loved the warmth of her curves against my body. I’d never held anyone like this. And soft brush of her breath on my cheek made me realize what I’d been missing all these years.
This.
My mind drifted, until Lark suddenly asked me a question. “What crime did you commit?”
“What?” I was too drunk on happiness to understand the question.
“When you got thrown out of your home in Wyoming? I’ve been wondering for a week. And you made me talk. So…”
Oh. Well, heck. The girl had a point.
“You don’t have to tell me. But I just can’t figure out why they’d toss you of all people.”
The compliment was indirect, but it lit me up inside. “It’s funny, but even after I got caught, I didn’t think they’d actually toss me, until the very moment they did.”
“Why not?”
“I was a really good worker, kept my head down.”
“You? Nah.”
I chuckled, and she giggled into my neck. Best feeling ever. I don’t know why this didn’t feel weird. Maybe it was the fact that it was the middle of the night, but holding her felt like the most natural thing ever. “Okay, they were pretty lucky to have me. I thought they knew that. It’s just human nature—everybody thinks the bad things won’t happen to them, you know?”
When she spoke, it was in a voice so low I almost couldn’t hear. “I do know, as a matter of fact.”
That’s right, she did. I gave her back a rub, enjoying the sturdy feel of her body under my palm. “Well, so do I. And when my number came up, it had to do with a girl.”
“Ah,” Lark sighed. “Like Isaac and Leah? You loved her.”
“Nope,” I said quickly, because it was true. “We were friends, though. Her father died around the same time that mine did. Our mothers remarried to a pair of cousins. Each of these men had five wives by the time I left.”
“Yikes,” she hissed. “What a household that must have been.”
I was used to this idea, but I’d watched enough faces to know that everyone else found the family structure on the compound incredibly weird. I closed my eyes, trying to picture my mothers’ house the way it was just before I left. The memory got a little rustier all the time. “Yep. That’s a story for another time. Anyway, Chasti
ty was sixteen, and I was nineteen. She…” I’d never told this story, except to Isaac.
Lark lifted her head to look down at me. “She what?”
Good thing she couldn’t see me blushing in the dark. “She liked to fool around with me. She’d come into the garage when I was working alone.”
“Oh…” Lark said quietly. “Somehow I thought this story was going in a different direction.”
“Nope!” I said, then laughed. “Pretty boring story about teenagers getting caught in the back seat of a car.”
It had been a stupid risk to take, but I was young and horny. I didn’t hear the deacon enter the garage with my father. I was too busy making out, my hand up the girl’s skirt. It was the first time I’d dared to touch her. I’d wanted sex so badly that I wouldn’t have heard a tornado coming. And a tornado might have been less life-changing.
The car door had suddenly flown open and the shouting began.
“An hour after they caught us, I had deep wounds on my backside from the horsewhip. And then they dumped me by the side of the road.”
“Wow,” Lark said. “And you said her name was…”
“Chastity,” I supplied.
“Oh, Zach.”
“I know. The irony,” I said, enjoying her smile as much as the feel of her body against mine. “Griffin and the other guys don’t know this story, by the way.”
“I won’t tell,” she said quickly. “It really doesn’t fit your reputation.”
“I know, right?” I smiled into the dark. “They don’t get that I have as dirty a mind as anyone else. Just haven’t put it to recent use.”
She was quiet for a moment. “So they just…threw you out? In spite of your talent with engines and your work ethic.”
“That’s how it goes. Plenty of other suckers to take my place. One less mouth to feed.”
“And do you know what happened to Chastity?”
That was the big question in my life. “Nothing good. They probably married her off to an older man. That’s what happens to seventeen-year-old girls there.”
“Like how old a man?”
“Forty, fifty. If she was super lucky, she’d get to be somebody’s first wife. But that’s rare.”
“Yikes,” Lark said under her breath. “Do you worry about her?”
It was hard to talk about this to anyone, even Lark. “Every day,” I admitted. “I feel guilty. Because I got out and she didn’t.”
Lark made a sleepy noise and relaxed against my body. “Maybe she did get out.”
“Maybe,” I agreed, just to be nice. But the odds were practically zero. The elders would have married Chastity off right away. And the old man wouldn’t have waited to take her to his bed. She might have two kids by now.
I closed my eyes and pictured her face. The girl in my memory was sixteen and smiling. She sang to herself as she hung out our mothers’ washing on the line. I’d see her on my way to the garage, and she’d follow me with her eyes.
It was only four years ago, but it might as well have been a different lifetime. I felt about it like I felt about the alternate universes in Griff’s sci-fi movies. Nobody could ever go back and forth between those worlds. When you were a member of the compound, you stayed on the compound. And when you left, you could never go back.
Every so often I tried to imagine what it might have been like for me if I’d stayed at Paradise Ranch. At twenty-three, I’d still be toiling for other people, trying to get ahead. It would be another five years or so before they might allow me to marry.
If I was as lucky as that, my wife and I would get a crappy little house of our own—at least until the kids started coming along. I’d try to scratch out a living, always having to jockey for position among the other men.
And the moral code of that place was thorny. To keep in the elders’ good graces, I’d have to look the other way whenever they tossed out the next twenty-something boy. If I’d had sons, I’d have to worry whether they’d be thrown out. If I’d had daughters, I’d have to worry that they’d be given to someone who liked to use the switch on his wives.
What a lousy, soul-grinding existence it would have been.
But here’s the thing about Paradise Ranch—even if I didn’t ever want to go back, it still stung that they’d thrown me away. I felt like the merchandise at the second-hand store where I sometimes bought the T-shirts I wore to work on engines. Everything was a dollar in there because nobody wanted it anymore.
Paradise Ranch was the worst place on earth, and yet I hadn’t been good enough to stay.
I closed my eyes and tried to push that awful place out of my mind. I took a deep breath of Vermont air, and rubbed Lark’s back again.
She did not stir. And after another long minute of listening, I decided that she’d fallen asleep, right on my chest.
I lay awake a while longer just appreciating the weight of her sleeping form on my body. Then I slept, too.
9
Lark
It was the first Friday afternoon in September, an hour or so before dinnertime. I’d spent the day picking Zestars in the sunshine before May asked me to come inside and make applesauce with her. We’d just canned twenty quarts, and the house smelled like cinnamon.
Even so, I was full of dread, because my ex-boyfriend was expected any minute.
“You don’t have to see him,” May fretted. “We could send you into town on an errand, and I could tell him you just weren’t feeling up to it. I feel bad because it’s my fault he’s stopping here.”
“No, it’s fine,” I said quickly. “That will just prolong the inevitable. I’m not afraid of Gilman. I just don’t like drama.”
“And that is why we are friends,” May said, leaning against her mother’s ancient butcher block prep table. “What are you going to do if he wants you to move back to Boston with him?”
Ugh. What, indeed? I tried to picture Gilman comforting me when I woke up screaming in his bed, and the image just wouldn’t come. He was a good guy, but his help was the analytical variety. He’d probably whip out a spreadsheet and ask me to categorize my symptoms. Then he’d hire a team of specialists to study my sleep cycles.
“I’m not going back to Boston,” I said firmly. “Not with Gilman, anyway. And not until you kick me out.”
“Well, that’s not happening.”
“Let’s bring a pitcher of cider or iced tea out to the porch,” I suggested. “I’ll face the ex in the fresh air.”
“Great idea. I’ll get the drinks ready. You go upstairs and put on one of the sundresses in my closet.”
I looked down at my shorts and tank top. “Hmm. I wasn’t going to dress up for Gilman. He might get the wrong idea.”
“True.” May plucked a pitcher off a shelf so high that I’d have needed a cherrypicker to reach it. “But I like to face trouble in a dress and lipstick. Makes me feel more confident.”
“You are very wise,” I said. “I’ll try it.” Confidence was in pretty short supply these days.
“There’s a sleeveless black polo dress,” she called as I headed toward the stairs. “Try that one.”
Five minutes later I jogged down the stairs again, but May had left the kitchen. I went out the front door onto the porch, where she was arranging cookies on a plate.
“Oh, yum,” I said, grabbing one of Audrey’s gingersnaps.
“I brought out enough for everyone. Including those hooligans,” she said, pointing. The guys had finished up in the orchard for the day and were playing Frisbee on the lawn. I watched them for a moment, realizing that coming outdoors was the right decision. Everything was made more bearable by watching Zach’s golden form lunge for a flying disc.
The men didn’t see that May and I had treats. So I picked up one of the two pitchers, put two fingers into my mouth and whistled.
My timing was unfortunate. Zach turned his head just as Griffin launched the Frisbee toward him.
“Look out!” I yelled, but Zach didn’t hear me. He was staring in my dire
ction, slack-jawed as the Frisbee clocked him right in the head.
“Ouch!” May said. “That’s gonna leave a mark.”
Poor Zach. He grabbed his head, and Griff ran toward him to apologize.
“Boys,” May muttered.
A minute later they came ambling up to the porch for tea and cookies. “I’m so sorry,” I babbled when Zach climbed up onto the porch holding his face.
“It’s nothing,” he said, his cheeks flaming.
Poor guy. How embarrassing to be nailed with a Frisbee.
“Let me see it, Zach,” May demanded. “Only a scratch,” she pronounced when he moved his hand. “But it will bruise.”
“You’ll look like a tough guy,” Kyle said, clapping a hand on Zach’s shoulder. “Chicks love that.”
Zach rolled his eyes.
“Nice dress, Wild Child,” Griff said. “Rawwrrr. Zach almost lost his teeth because of it.”
“The dress is your sister’s,” I said. “I didn’t pack any dresses for farm work.”
“You shoulda,” Kyle muttered, causing both Griff and Zach to give him grumpy looks.
“It looks great on you,” May said. “Keep it, okay? It shrank in the dryer and isn’t long enough on me anymore. Makes me feel like a giraffe.”
“You are kind of a giraffe,” her brother pointed out.
“And you’re an asshole.”
That’s when I heard tires on the gravel and looked up to see Gilman’s beemer rolling up the drive. “Shit,” I swore under my breath.
“Who is it?” Kieran asked.
“My ex,” I grunted.
“We can make ourselves scarce,” Griffin offered, pouring himself a glass of iced tea.
“Not on my account,” I said through gritted teeth. “This will be a short visit, I promise.”
Griff nodded at Zach. “More Frisbee? I promise not to nail you in the noggin.”
“Yeah,” Zach said sheepishly. “Let’s do it.” He grabbed a cookie and followed Griff and the others off the porch.
As they retreated, May and I watched Gilman step out of his shiny car. It looked so out of place here in the land of rusty trucks.