I spin around on the spot after hearing my name called.
I recognize his voice instantly.
I see a huge man walking toward me, his broad shoulders swaying.
I recognize his gait instantly.
He closes the distance between us, his strides urgent, his hands outstretched. Slowly his face comes into focus, and I see the same face that stops people on the streets, only harder. I see the same eyes that could be mistaken for a wolf’s in the night, only darker. I see the same lips, perfect for kissing, only thinner.
He takes my face, a little frantic, a little rough, cups it into his hot palms, and I feel them calloused where they once were smooth.
His kiss is nothing delicate, nothing gentle. I’m lifted off my feet before I even know what’s happening, and I’m confused and wondering how he found me, and only after moments do I gather myself, find his lower lip, and kiss him back.
I recognize his kiss instantly.
It hasn’t changed, but it’s rougher around the edges, and his tongue seems restless, as though he wants to explore all of my mouth all at once.
He holds me tighter, breaks the kiss, then moves his lips to my ear where I feel him against my neck, where I hear him smelling me.
I press myself into him, want to be swallowed up by him. I don’t know what I feel, but relief isn’t the word. It’s confusing, a hurricane of conflicting thoughts swirling around in my mind.
How did he find me?
Did he bring Dad with him?
The last one stings: How much have I missed him?
His hands are hungry, run up my sides, hold onto me. It’s like he never wants to let me go. I don’t try to push back, I let him just hold me, smell me. His body shakes a little, not from tears, but from… I don’t know what.
And then I find my strength. I feel my own surge. I grip onto him, as if for dear life, hold him tighter against me, cradle the back of his head as I sense the weight of his emotions from the drop of his shoulders.
It’s my Duncan, and he’s here… he’s found me.
I look into his eyes. They’ve changed. He’s changed. He’s got new scars, but they aren’t fighting scars. His hands are just as rough on the knuckles as ever, but now his palms are no longer so soft. They’re harder; he’s stopped taking care of them.
That means he’s stopped fighting.
He doesn’t say anything, he just looks at me, and his eyes travel down my body, to the bump of my belly.
He puts a hand there, kneels down, presses his face to my belly, holds me around the small of my back. His fingers slip beneath my sweater and he lifts it up, exposing my skin, and he kisses me softly, making me shiver, sending goose bumps erupting up and down the length of my body.
And then he falls back onto the beach. It’s like his body has no strength, and I clasp a hand to my mouth, drop to my knees with him.
I see in his eyes… anguish.
Accusation.
“Duncan,” I whisper, stroking his face. “How did you find me? What are you doing here?”
But he doesn’t reply. He looks at me, his eyes darting everywhere, as if checking to see that it is really me. He turns my head to the side, studies me.
“What are you doing?” I ask, but still he doesn’t reply.
His scent is strong, he’s obviously been running. His t-shirt clings to him. He’s lost a little weight; he’s not as muscular as he was.
No longer training.
He’s left it all behind!
“Is my father with you?” I ask. I hate to ask it, and I bunch my brow together as I do, but I need to know.
He shakes his head. Now in his blue eyes I see more than just accusation. I see the flickers of anger, and pain.
“You sure he didn’t follow you, Duncan?”
He folds his arms around his knees, ducks his head down for a moment. His chest swells as he draws in a huge breath, and then he lets it out slowly.
“I’m sure, Dee.”
His voice even seems different. Deeper. Meaner.
Without warning he gets to his feet, holds out a hand. I take it, let him pull me to my feet.
“We have a lot to talk about,” he says.
I nod, chew my lip. “We do. Do you want to clean up first?”
His tongue comes out, wets his lips. “No.”
“Okay,” I whisper. “My car’s parked just over there. We should probably talk somewhere private. You can come back to my place? It’s not far.”
We walk in silence, shoulders rubbing. His hands are buried in his pockets, and he just stares straight ahead, his brow a permanent crease.
We don’t talk the whole drive back… and that makes me nervous.
It’s not fear I feel. Duncan has never scared me a day in his life. He’s never tried to, and he’s never done it by accident.
But… but I feel trepidation.
It’s all still as much of a shock to me as it must be to him.
How am I going to explain myself?
“You got a nice place,” he says. “How can you afford this?”
I swallow. “The headmaster at the school I teach at… he owns some properties, he offered it to me for a good price.”
Duncan’s eyes stay fixed on mine. His voice is sticky… maybe a little afraid. “Are you and him…?”
“God, no,” I say, shaking my head quickly. “No. There’s nobody else.”
I glance around the apartment. It is nice, though small. More expensive than I could afford on my pay if it went at market-price, though.
“That was good of him.” The words leave Duncan’s mouth slowly, but they are sincere.
“He knew I was pregnant, knew I didn’t have anything to my name.”
Duncan nods. “And those dogs?”
“Just some strays I feed every day after work.”
There’s just a flash of warmth in his face. “You like cats.”
“Dogs are growing on me. Sit down,” I tell him, gesturing at the sofa. “Cup of coffee?”
“Water,” he says.
“That’s right,” I whisper. “No caffeine.”
I feel so awkward around him. This is not how I imagined our reunion – if we ever had one – would be like. We look at each other just a moment too long, and I feel my ears burning.
I didn’t anticipate this gap between us. It’s palpable, like I can feel and touch the space between us, holding us apart.
I suppose I only have myself to blame for that. I did run away with his baby.
But it was my baby, too!
I set down the glass of water on the coffee table, take a seat next to Duncan on the sofa. There’s a space between us on the sofa… that’s a first. Usually we’re always in physical contact when we sit together. Shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, connected.
Usually… that’s the wrong word now.
“You go first,” I tell him gently. “How did you find me?”
He sips from the glass, sets it down, then squeezes his hands together. “Why didn’t you tell me, Dee?”
That’s him. Straight to the point.
I suck in air, don’t know what to say. I shake my head.
The look in his eyes haunts me. When he turns them on me, I break. It all bursts out of me, a crack in a dam finally caving.
“He was trying to take our baby!” I cry, slapping the armrest before folding my arms. I fight back the tears but now I just feel so guilty. Now I feel like the bad guy.
Why is he making me feel like the bad guy?
Still, his hard eyes are on me.
“Dad said he would kill the father. He would put Frank on him! You’d have turned up face-down floating in the lake.”
“You were trying to protect me?”
“Of course I was,” I hiss, wiping my cheeks with a shaking hand. I collect myself, take a deep breath. “I never wanted this.”
I can hear the enamel grinding together. Duncan’s gritting his teeth, and the muscles in his jaw tense and relax.
“When did you find out you were pregnant?”
“That morning! For certain, anyway.” I look down. “I couldn’t tell you before the fight. It would have distracted you, you might have lost.”
“I would have cancelled!” Duncan says, his voice rising a little. “We would have celebrated.”
“No,” I tell him. “We would have faced the reality. We were together in secret. We had a secret baby. We were legal brother and sister!”
“Were.”
“Are. Dad would never have accepted it. He would have killed you, Duncan. He would have stolen our baby! Shipped me off into the countryside to live in the middle of nowhere with some old relative! Like they used to do with girls who had illegitimate babies.”
“So you ran.”
“So I ran,” I say. “I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I couldn’t wait for you. I’m sorry. I didn’t know where you’d stand. I didn’t want to put you in that position. I didn’t want Dad to put out a hit on you. Everybody back home knows your face, Duncan. You would have been dead before the next morning. I would never have gotten out of the country if you were there by my side. Your face was on flyers, for God’s sake!”
Silence drapes over us like a wet, stifling blanket.
He doesn’t reply, and that just makes me feel guiltier. He sits, broods, doesn’t even sip from his water anymore.
“You need to see my point of view,” I tell him. “Dad had just told me he was going to send me away, and when the baby was born, he said he would raise my child as his own.”
Duncan’s voice cuts in, low, slow. “Our child.”
“Then he tells me he’s going to kill the father. What if he found out you and I… all that time? You think he wouldn’t have sent ten men after you? You know how he is.”
He sighs, and again I see the muscles in his jaw tense.
“I had to protect myself, our child… and you. Don’t you see that? Don’t you see that it was the only way?”
“It wasn’t the only way. There was another way.”
“Tell you before the fight?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t want to distract you!” I cry. “If I had known Dad was going to pull me aside during the fight, I would have told you! But when I decided I had to leave, you were still in the cage, still fighting!”
“You didn’t tell me you missed your period.”
“I thought I was just late. I wasn’t on the pill, Duncan! God, you know this shit. I know you’re not stupid. And it’s not like you noticed, either. I know you were busy preparing for your fight, but you still didn’t notice.”
“I should have.”
“Damn right you should have!”
“I still don’t understand why.”
“What do you mean you don’t understand? I just explained it to you.”
He shakes his head. “Doesn’t make sense.”
“Why are you doing this to me? Do you know how hard it’s been? On top of my crazy hormones, feeling sick all the time? Being stressed out of my mind all this time? I did this all alone. I’ve been all alone!”
“You didn’t have to be.”
I look away from him, start feeling angry. Why is he doing this?
“I was afraid,” I tell him. “Afraid for the future. I had to do something. Maybe I didn’t think it through, but it kept my baby safe, kept me out of Dad’s hands. I don’t regret it. I’m not sorry! I’ve been trying to do it all on my own, be strong.”
“I don’t expect you to be sorry.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I ask. Was that some kind of attack on my character? “You think I can’t see how this is? You think it wasn’t hard for me, too? You think I wanted to leave you that night, knowing you’d come home to an empty apartment? I mean that, Duncan. You, in particular. With your history, the way you grew up, you think it never crossed my mind that I was abandoning you? You think that I don’t feel bad about that?”
When he doesn’t reply I grow fed up. I get up, go to the door, open it.
“You need to go,” I tell him. “If you’re not going to talk to me, with me, then go. What the hell has happened to you, anyway?”
His blue eyes pierce me. They shine a little, they’re wet a little. He gets up, comes to me, but then turns and walks out the door, hands running through his hair.
I slam the door shut behind him, fold my arms, and lean against it.
I hear his footsteps disappear down the hallway.
What the hell is going on?