Chapter Nine
Mason stood beside the bed, watching his son sleep. He hadn’t done much of that. His night had been spent watching his son and wondering how in the world he was going to make this work. From what he’d read online, Tommy was old enough to be put into a daycare program, but Mason didn’t know of any daycares, and even if he did, how would he know if they were reputable? He couldn’t just leave his son with strangers who might not be good to him.
That and a hundred other thoughts had kept him awake and worried. Could he take Tommy with him to the leather shop? Maybe, but was that a good place for a baby? And how would it interfere with him getting things done? And what about the dance classes and the rehearsals for the play? Had he made a mistake coming back here? He didn’t know anything about running a leather shop; it was just a convenient cover, a place to go. He’d never expected to actually have a business, and the orders he’d gotten he was having a hell of a time filling.
Dancing? That was another matter. Maybe he should have just opened a dance studio instead of the leather shop. What the hell had he been thinking anyway?
He put his hand to his head, trying to squeeze away the headache. As much as he had wanted Brittany to have the child, he was woefully unprepared to be a father. He didn’t even have a home.
Were it not for Savannah’s generosity, he would be stuck at Mrs. Baker’s, and he knew without question that would be a nightmare. But how long could he impose on Savannah?
And was it even wise to be here? They were both cognizant of the attraction between them. Hell, when they danced, it was foreplay. He’d come to crave those moments and hated when the classes came to an end.
He suspected she felt the same. No, he knew it. It was in her kiss. She wanted him, and he wanted her with an intensity that was starting to border on obsession. If he stayed, they’d end up in bed. He’d steer things that way. Mason knew himself well enough to know that’s what he’d do. And maybe that’s where they were headed regardless of where he lived, but he saw something in her eyes and expressions when she was with Tommy. It was obvious that she loved children, but it was also clear that caring for a child caused her some kind of pain.
That was the last thing he wanted to do. So where did that leave him?
Needing to talk to Savannah, he decided. Since the baby was still asleep, now might be a good time. He left the bedroom door open and made his way down the hall. At the door to the kitchen he stopped. Savannah was leaning against the frame of the open door that led out onto a back porch.
He stopped and watched her for a minute. When she turned and saw him, she quickly looked away, but not fast enough for him to miss the tears on her face.
Mason didn’t stop to consider the wisdom of his actions. He was across the room in two seconds, taking her arm to turn her toward him. The moment she turned she looked at him and then behind him. “Where’s Tommy?”
“In bed, he was—”
She didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence before tearing away from him. “You can’t just leave him alone!”
Mason followed to find her standing beside the bed. “He’s fine, Savannah. Just sleeping.”
“Yes, he’s fine. He’s fine.” She twisted her hands nervously.
“Come with me.” He tugged on her arm.
“We can’t leave him.”
“Why? We’ll hear him if he cries.”
She looked from the baby to him and the fear in her eyes concerned him. “What’s wrong, Savannah. First tears and now this? Have I done something wrong?”
“No. No. It’s not you.” She motioned for him and then moved to the hallway, not in the room but still within sight of the baby.
“I’m sorry.” She said when he stepped into the hallway with her. “I—” She shook her head and looked away, brushing at her face.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that something was really bothering her. “Savannah, talk to me. Tell me.”
“You don’t want to know. Not really.”
“You’re wrong.”
“But why?”
“Because…” Mason recognized where they were: in a pivotal moment that might define, but most definitely would shape things between them from now on. “Because I care, and I want to know you.”
Savannah looked at him, then sat down on the floor cross-legged, facing the door. Mason sat across from her and leaned against the doorframe.
“I grew up in a little town south of Savannah, Georgia. My dad was a brick mason, my mama did the books for a building contractor, and we lived next door to my grandfather on my mom’s side who was a preacher. A hellfire-and-brimstone Southern Baptist who was scarier than any horror movie you could ever watch.”
Mason watched as she started gathering her hair over one shoulder. As she talked, she separated the strands. “I was always a skinny kid. Didn’t matter how much or what I ate, I just didn’t gain weight. Everyone said I took after my dad, which secretly made me happy.
“My dad was the only person in the family who knew how to laugh. Or so it seemed to me.” Her fingers worked nimbly to create an elaborate braid. “Anyway, when I was ten, my gym teacher sent a note home that I was good at gymnastics and thought it might be a good idea to enroll me in classes. She knew of a school and thought that I’d enjoy it and it might help me overcome my shyness.”
Savannah looked at him. “I was what people called withdrawn and shy, which is another way of saying I was an introvert. Anyway…” She looked away. “I gave the note to my dad instead of my mom and he said he would take me on Saturday. I was so excited. More because I was going somewhere with my dad than about the classes, to be honest.
“Anyway, he took me and signed me up and every Wednesday he’d get home in time to take me to class. I know it wasn’t always easy, but he did it despite my grandparents disapproving and my mama siding with them.”
“Sounds like you and he had a special relationship.”
“He was my hero. He paid for those lessons and took me every Wednesday for five years. And he took me to the competitions and kept the ribbons I won in a case he built with his own hands. Those were the happiest years of my life. It didn’t matter that Gran and Grandpa didn’t approve or that mama tsk-tsked and frowned. My dad was proud of me and I would have found a way to sprout wings and fly if I thought it would bring a smile to his face.”
“You’re lucky to have had that.”
“I was. Until a month before I turned fifteen. There was a competition at a high school in Savannah and I was entered. Only my dad couldn’t go. He had to work, so I planned on riding with one of the other girls.
“I got dressed and walked outside to wait on the porch. My grandpa was sitting on the porch in his rocker, smoking his pipe and…” Her voice caught and she fell silent.
“And?” Mason asked.
Savannah shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t.” She got to her feet and went to her room, closing the door behind her. Mason sat there, wondering what had happened that day that was so bad she couldn’t talk about it. Had her grandfather abused her? The thought of that made him feel sick and angry.
His phone pinged, and Mason got up to fetch it from the nightstand. There was an email from Savannah. He opened it and read
“The story of me. Read the attachment.”
Sure enough, there was a file attached to the email. He looked down the hall toward her room. The door remained closed. Since it was clear she wasn’t going to tell him face-to-face, he went into his room, stretched out on the bed beside Tommy, and opened the file.
Mason hadn’t known what to expect, but what he read was a story. One of a girl who grew up in a small town with a father she adored, a mother who only seemed to tolerate her out of duty and grandparents who seemed to scorn most everyone.
The father of the child protected her as best he could and didn’t realize that his daughter saw as much as she did.
Mason got lost in the tale and before he knew it, two hours had passed. He was just getting to the part about the gymnastic competition when Tommy started to wake.
For the next half hour Mason was busy getting the baby changed, warming a bottle, and feeding him. When that was done, Mason wrapped his son in a warm baby blanket and took him outside to the front porch.
There was no sign of Savannah and he’d noticed that her bedroom door was no longer closed, but her bed was made. Her car was not in the driveway. Mason thought it odd that she hadn’t told him she was leaving, but then, why would she? He was just someone staying with her.
He sat down on the porch swing, got comfortable with Tommy in his arms, and opened the attachment again on his phone. “Want me to read you a story, little man?”
Tommy actually gurgled at him, which have him a thrill so big he had to nuzzle and kiss his baby. Then he started to read where he’d left off earlier.
Excitement competed with disappointment as I walked out onto the porch to wait for my ride. I was thrilled that I’d made the cut and was going to be able to compete. Gymnastics was the one place I felt free, the one place it was okay to be me. No one made fun of me and I didn’t have to try to make conversation. I could just listen to the music and perform my routine.
I’d practiced like crazy on this floor routine and hated that my dad wasn’t going to be able to see. I’d mastered a double full layout and I knew he’d be so proud. But he’d told me to knock it out of the park and I was going to try.
When I stepped out onto the porch and saw my Grandpa sitting there on the porch swing, it was like walking from sunshine into a dark storm. His cane was between his legs, planted on the planking with both his hands on its carved head, one atop the other. Smoke formed a tendril from between his lips as he sucked on that foul smelling pipe and expelled.
I didn’t say a word, I just stood there silently, hoping my ride would show up.
“Harlot.”
The sound of his voice startled me. The venom in that one word scared me. “Pardon?”
“You heard me, Jezebel.” He set his pipe in the ashtray on the small table by the swing and stood. “Displaying your body like wares for sale and contorting yourself in an unclean manner. I’ve tolerated this Godlessness as long as I can stand.”
“Grandpa, I−“
“Silence, child-whore!” He marched over and grabbed my hair, which was in a ponytail.
“Grandpa, stop!”
“Silence!”
He wouldn’t let go and I was too scared to hit at him. I struggled, tried to grab hold of the porch rail as he drug me toward the steps, but he hit my hands with his cane. I started crying and he hit me across the face with the cane.
That didn’t stop me from crying, it just made me cry in silence. He dragged me across our yard and into his, then into the back yard to the shed. When he shoved me inside and closed the door behind him, I started to panic.
“Grandpa, my friend and her mom are on their way. I have to go. I have to—”
“Shut your mouth or I will sew it closed!” He grabbed my face in his hand and squeezed. I could feel those thick yellowed nails of his cutting into my skin.
“You’re hurting me.”
“I’m saving you, you ungrateful whore.”
What happened next was the stuff of nightmares. He beat me. I mean beat me with his cane. I screamed and tried to get away, but he was too big and too strong. All the while, he shouted scriptures and called me names. And when I could hardly see and blood gushed from my nose and mouth, he hauled me to the chopping block and threw me to the ground.
He rambled around for a few moments, then returned to where I lay sobbing. In one hand was a stained and folded towel. In the other was a rubber mallet. I had no clue what he was going to do with those things.
A fresh burst of terror gave me a boost of strength when he placed the items on the block and grabbed my right leg and positioned it on the block. I kicked and screamed and tried to pry his hand from my knee. He placed that towel across my skin and then picked up the mallet.
I screamed and begged as he raised it, pleading with him as he quoted scriptures. And then his hand descended.
I’d never felt anything like the pain that lanced from the point of impact clear down to my toes and up the entire length of my leg. I couldn’t scream for several seconds. I couldn’t even breath. And by the time I could scream, he was raising the mallet again.
The second blow was worse than the first. I remember the pain and then everything went black. When I woke, I was being lifted in strong arms. I heard my dad say, “It’s okay, baby girl. I’ve got you. Daddy’s here.”
The next memory I have is waking up in a hospital. The tibia and fibula of my right leg were shattered. The days of me doing gymnastics had come to an end. But so had many things that were far worse than losing the ability to walk.
The sound of a vehicle had Mason setting his phone aside. Savannah got out of the car. She carried several grocery bags. He got up and met her at the door to open it for her. “Can I help?”
“No, but thanks.”
Mason followed her inside. As she put the groceries away, he put Tommy in his baby carrier. The little fellow made one coo, closed his eyes, and was fast asleep in a blink.
Try as he might, Mason couldn’t push what he’d read from his thoughts. “Savannah?”
She cut a look at him as she unloaded the bags. “I got more formula, and some cereal. As much as he drinks, he may not be getting what he needs. Cody said she started giving Billy cereal in his formula at two months, so Tommy might be ready.”
“Savannah.”
She froze and looked at him. “You read it.”
“Some. I read about—about your leg.”
She nodded and looked down for a moment and then back at him. “And?”
“And I’m horrified and afraid to say this.”
“Say what?”
“That I want to read the rest of it.”
“Why?”
Mason didn’t care if the time was right or not. He marched over to her and took her face in his hands. “Because…because there’s something happening between us—has been since we first met. I feel it when we dance. So do you. We’ve made love for hours on that dance floor and each time is more intense than the last. There’s a fire between us, but there’s more than that. I−I think I’m falling for you and I want to know everything about you, good and bad.”
She didn’t respond, and after a few moments he started to worry that he’d completely misread everything. Then she spoke. “You’re right. There is something and it scares me.”
“Why?”
“Because when you walk away, it won’t be like your play. We won’t go our separate ways and remember that summer. You may, but not me. I’ll be left with a heart that isn’t just broken, but shattered and I don’t want that pain. I’ve had enough to last two lifetimes, Mason.”
“I want to promise you that I won’t walk away but it’s pretty clear that you’re not ready to believe me, so how about this? How about we just give it time? Can we do that? Can we get to know one another more and just see what happens?
“Please?” he added when she didn’t respond.
“We’ll talk about it after you finish reading.”
“Okay.” He kissed her softly and when passion started to rise, pulled away. He didn’t want her to think his interest was only in the physical. “Listen, I think I’m going to take the day off. I don’t have anything pressing at the leather shop and no class today, so if it’s okay, I’ll just hang here with Tommy. Unless you’d rather we get out so you can have the place to yourself?”
“No. Not at all. I have to go into town for a bit. And I promised Callie I’d meet her for lunch so it will be early afternoon before I get back. I made sure to get stuff to make sandwiches and there are eggs and breakfast fixings in the refrigerator, so make yourself at home.”
“Thank you, again, Savannah.”
“You’re welcome.” This time it was she who initiated the kiss and like the previous one, it was chaste. “Okay, so you want to finish putting this stuff away?”
“Sure.”
“Great. I’ll see you later.”
“Yes. Have fun.” He stepped out of her way, watched as she picked up her purse and headed out.
Once he’d put away all the groceries, he took Tommy into the great room, put him in his carrier on the coffee table, and then stretched out on the couch with his phone to continue reading.