Be brave even in your words. Even in your thoughts.

Racer, the Knight of Sparrows

GABRIEL

I heard George’s truck before I saw it and stepped from the garage, removing my gloves as my heart hammered in my chest. Oh God, please let her be with him. I squinted as the truck moved closer, noticing the outline of two heads in the front window. I let out a relieved breath.

The truck stopped and I watched as George hopped out, giving me a slight nod and a smile, gesturing that he’d help Ellie out. She stepped down and glanced at me nervously while getting herself situated on her crutches.

George started walking toward the driver’s side, calling out a quick goodbye to both of us.

“Thanks, George,” I said, hoping he understood the deep sincerity of my words. He nodded as he climbed inside.

“Hey,” I said, turning to Ellie, who was standing on my walkway, that same uncertainty in her eyes as she chewed at her lip, making me want to kiss her and comfort her all at the same time.

“Hey.”

I nodded to the front porch swing. “Will you sit with me?”

She glanced behind her. “Yes.”

I helped her up the two steps although she was already adept with the crutches, and we sat down on the swing, strangely awkward for a moment. The porch was cast in shade, and the chocolate mint growing on the side of the house scented the air.

I felt like a young kid on my first date with a girl I wasn’t sure wanted to be on a date with me. And I felt like a man who had apologies to make and didn’t know where to begin. I let out a slow breath. Best to dive right in, I supposed. “Jesus, I’m sorry, Ellie.”

She looked at me, turning her body slightly the way mine was so we were mostly facing each other. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

“After everything, I didn’t keep you safe—”

“You hold no responsibility for that.” She looked down. “The truth is, I goaded Dominic. I encouraged him to do what he did.” Her eyes were full of a pained guilt, and it made my heart pinch, though I couldn’t deny a fierce streak of jealousy raced through me, too, hot and uncomfortable. It made me feel edgy, like hitting something again. Or someone, rather. My brother had kissed Ellie before I’d kissed her.

“Did you want to kiss him?”

“No.”

I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth, watching her for a moment, wondering why she’d let him, thinking she might not even know. “I think maybe we should lay the responsibility mostly at Dominic’s doorstep and leave it there. What do you say?”

A slight smile, a small nod. “But I don’t want to come between you and your brother. It’s not right.”

I looked past her, staring off into the trees over her shoulder, the sun high in the sky, remembering the way my guts had twisted when I saw Dominic pressed against Ellie in the hallway, his face angled over hers.

I clenched my eyes closed briefly, attempting to shut out the image still seared on my brain. “What I told you before is the truth. Dominic and I have needed space for a while. We have a complicated relationship, Ellie, and it has nothing to do with you.” I had realized for some time, years probably, that in some ways, Dominic considered himself my caretaker. I’d felt … smothered, though I’d never acknowledged how much. He’d been in college locally when I bought the house, and I’d asked if he wanted to move in for a while. A while had turned into years, and we were long overdue for a change.

We needed this space in general. What had happened with Ellie was just the proverbial straw. A very large, exceedingly weighty straw, but a straw nonetheless. I’d kicked Dominic out of my house because of what he’d done to Ellie. But I should have asked him to leave long before that. It would have been better for both of us.

Ellie’s wary eyes moved over my face for a minute before she nodded her head. “George gave me a job at the quarry. I … I can go back home now. I can get around much better and my car is fixed …” She frowned slightly, looking away as if there was something troubling her despite her words.

“Stay here.” My words sounded so serious, even to my own ears, and her eyes moved back to mine. I shook my head quickly. “It’s minutes from the quarry, and I can drive you there and back. How can you drive an hour and a half every day while you’re wearing a cast on your right leg?”

She looked down at her leg. “I think I could but … I guess it wouldn’t be the safest thing to do.”

“No.”

We were both quiet for a minute as Ellie picked at her fingernails, a habit I’d noticed she did when she was nervous or unsettled. “Gabriel, Dominic told me why you came to the Platinum Pearl in the first place. About Chloe …”

Ah, God. I sat back, letting out a breath, even angrier now at my brother for his insatiable need to drive Ellie away. His insatiable need to control. I used my toe to push the swing very slightly. “What did he tell you?”

“He said you had dreams about her … that you came to the Platinum Pearl to find someone to help you get ready for her. That … that was my role. And now she’s here and …”

I made a small sound in the back of my throat that turned into a sigh. “There’s a bit of truth in that.” She flinched very slightly, and I looked down at my hands for a moment, gathering my thoughts. “When Chloe contacted me, I let my mind wander to … possibilities. But the whole truth, Ellie, is that Chloe made me realize I was ready to try to recover that last part of myself—the part that’s been holding me back from seeking relationships. She was the catalyst that sent me to the Platinum Pearl that night. The idea of her …” I paused, picturing Ellie as she’d looked that night sitting across from me in her gaudy makeup and too-high heels. “And that’s where I found you. I didn’t expect you, Eloise, but there you were. And it’s you I fell in love with.”

She looked up and blinked rapidly, and the guarded hope in her eyes almost undid me. But it was quickly replaced with uncertainty, maybe even a small measure of panic. “No, Gabriel.”

“No what?”

She shook her head. “You shouldn’t love me.”

I let out a breath. “It’s too late. I already do. I’m sorry but I can’t take it back.”

Her eyes moved over my face as if she was trying to find some untruth in my eyes, some deception in my expression. I caught that same small glimmer of hope before she blinked it away. Ellie.

I suspected she had feelings for me, too, though she might not be ready to admit it, even to herself. I’d first thought so the other night when she was looking at the sparrow on the mantel. I’d seen the same yearning in her eyes that I felt, saw the flush on her face when I touched her, the way she leaned into my hand instead of away. And then the night before at dinner, as she’d watched everyone from under her lashes, looking shy and happy and completely defenseless. I’d taken her hand under the table and noticed the goose bumps that formed on her bare arm.

She’d looked at me and smiled that same dazzling smile she’d given me when she held the rainbow in her hands, the one that filled her face and her eyes and seemed to make her shimmer in some indescribable way. I’d lost my breath again and I knew then I was in love with her. And it scared me and energized me and made me weak with want. It made me want to touch her, to know her in every way possible, to love her in every way possible, and it made me want to be touched and loved by her as well.

Loving her had begun to heal that last part of myself that still felt broken. So I’d wait. I’d wait for Ellie as long as she needed me to.

“I …” Whatever she was about to say after that faded away.

I smiled at her. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything until you’re ready. But I got a lesson once about never missing the opportunity to tell the people I love how I feel about them. And it’s sort of a motto I live by now.” I smiled again and she tipped her head, a small smile appearing on her pretty lips. I glanced at her mouth, feeling overwhelmed with the desire to kiss her. But not today. Not the day after my brother had taken something from her.

She looked away from me, out toward the road for a minute before looking back. “I’m sorry for leaving without telling you. I just …” Her words faded away and she shook her head. “I’m good at running, I guess.”

I inclined my head, trying to catch her eye, to make her smile. “I don’t mind chasing you, Ellie. Just let me catch you once in a while.”

* * *

For the next week we fell back into the routine we’d had before. We watched the sunrise together, and Ellie chatted with me as I worked on William. With the admission of my feelings for her, there was a certain tension that hadn’t been there before, a sort of knowing swirling in the air that neither one of us were addressing. I had told her how I felt, and now I was waiting for her to do the same. Hoping. I saw her sitting alone on the patio in the afternoons, her arms propped on her knee, staring off into the trees, and I left her to think the thoughts she needed to think, hoping to God some of them were about me.

At night I lay in my bed and thought about her, unable to help the fantasies that ran rampant through my mind. Wondering how her skin might feel beneath my hands, what her mouth would taste like, how it would feel to join my body with hers. Thoughts of intimacy didn’t scare me as much anymore because when I pictured touching someone, I no longer pictured an unknown, nameless, faceless possibility. I was picturing someone specific now, someone I loved. I was picturing Ellie.

Chloe came to the house almost every day, and we chatted easily as we’d done from the start. Even though the topic was extremely personal, Chloe had a way of making me feel comfortable and at ease. She’d make a good therapist someday. She was warm and intuitive, and I found myself hoping we’d keep in touch even after this project was over.

I couldn’t deny that I wondered what it would have been like if I hadn’t met Ellie, if Chloe had shown up and I’d felt ready to pursue a relationship with her and she had wanted one as well. Chloe was vibrant and pretty and so easy to be around. I liked her, and maybe under very different circumstances, I could even love her. It would be a comfortable sort of love, I guessed. But she’d never set my heart on fire like Ellie. She’d never move me and captivate me and make me feel a thousand different emotions all at once. I knew that like I knew the feel of stone beneath my palms, the same way I understood how to move the chisel to create a round edge instead of something square, how much pressure to apply to chip away, but not to break. Because Ellie’s mine. Not to possess. But to love.

Maybe it was something I saw in her eyes that reminded me of the pain I’d experienced, too. Maybe it was the same reason I loved anything I loved: because it spoke to my heart and my soul. Maybe it was nothing that could be explained and nothing that needed explanation anyway.

My love for Ellie felt like a breath of life inside of me.

And so, in a way, it felt strange to be sharing intimate details of my life with one woman when the only woman I ached for was sitting somewhere in another part of the same house.

One day, after Chloe left, I found Ellie sitting on the patio, and she turned to me and smiled. “I’ve been thinking.”

I chuckled. “Thinking’s good.”

“What’s your favorite dessert?”

I frowned slightly, confused by her question. “Uh, lemon meringue pie.”

She tilted her head. “Oh.”

“Was that the wrong answer?” I teased.

“No.” She bit at her lip. “It’s probably not that easy to make, though.”

“You want to make me dessert?”

“I thought I would, yes. If that’s okay. Dinner, too.”

“Of course that’s okay. If you feel up to it.”

She smiled and it was bigger this time. “Would you mind taking a quick trip to the grocery store with me?”

I laughed, hope filling my heart. She was going to cook me dinner and make a pie. Something about the normalcy of that felt so good. “Not at all.” I tilted my head, grinning.

We drove to the grocery store in Morlea. I pushed the cart through the aisles while Ellie read ingredients off her phone from a recipe she must have looked up. I tried not to smile continually, but was hard-pressed not to. Watching Ellie walk through a grocery store—even on crutches—made me happy in a way I realized might be slightly excessive. Still, it felt like we were a couple, and I allowed myself to enjoy it. I felt comfortable with her beside me, found myself moving toward the soft brush of her arm rather than away.

As we were checking out, I noticed the looks, people talking, looking at me uncomfortably, the way they always did. I noticed and I saw Ellie noticing, too, although she quietly went about her business, unloading the items from the cart onto the conveyer. She looked embarrassed—for me, I assumed—and it put a sudden damper on the trip. Something about the expression on her face worried me, though I couldn’t say exactly why.

My eyes moved to the newspaper stand, where I saw a small article about the Wyatt Geller case. It wasn’t even a headline story anymore. That reality settled heavily in my gut. Other than checking the online news every morning, I had been somewhat successful at not letting my mind settle there. I was completely helpless and just had to hope and pray the police would get a break. Dwelling incessantly wouldn’t help anyone, least of all me.

Ellie was quiet in the truck on the way back, but once we’d arrived at home, she seemed normal again, and I helped her unpack the groceries before heading back outside to finish the yard work I’d started the day before.

I’d only been working for about an hour or so when I heard the front door bang open and looked up from where I was kneeling in the front flower bed spreading a bag of mulch. I stood slowly, my eyes moving up Ellie, her white shirt stained with something green, to her face, streaked with flour, up to her hair, which was splattered with the same green sauce on her shirt and in complete disarray.

“Ellie? You okay?” I watched her face, figuring there’d been a kitchen disaster, but not sure why she looked so incredibly devastated.

She came hobbling down the steps to stand in front of me and let out a long, shaky breath, using her hand to smooth back a piece of food-drenched hair. Her eyes were filled with such incredibly raw pain, I was rendered speechless. My heart wrenched as I stared at her.

What is going on here?

“When I was twelve, one of my dad’s friends came into my room one night while I was sleeping.” Oh no. Ah, Christ. I continued to stare at her, unwilling and unable to look away from her wide, pained eyes.

She had failed at making dinner, and this was her reaction. Why? Why had a simple failure brought such deep pain to the forefront? Was she trying to shock me again with something from her past she believed made her ugly and unlovable? I stood frozen, waiting for her to voice another thing she thought would do the trick and make me feel the same disgust for her she obviously felt for herself. Tell me, sweet girl. I can handle it.

She took a deep breath that made her whole body shiver. “We were together.” She raised her chin as if bracing for a reaction. I gave her none. You were raped, Eloise. Why don’t you call it that? A deep tremble seemed to move through her again, her shoulders raising and her eyes clenching shut for a moment. “He would bring me candy and then laugh and say he guessed he was my s-sugar d-daddy.”

Sugar.

Sorry, my lap-dance card is full for the night, sugar.

So what brings a nice guy like you to this den of sin, sugar?

Oh God. Oh Christ. It felt like someone was squeezing my guts in a vise. He was old enough to be her father, and she was just a little girl.

She took another heaving breath, and it was everything I could do not to reach for her. But I knew my gesture would stop her words, and right now, she needed to get them out. “My dad caught us one time and I thought … I thought … well, he didn’t c-care. He never cared. It went on for a year and then he s-started dating some woman across town a-and stopped coming over to my dad’s house. It was wrong, I guess, but when he stopped coming to me, I went to his h-house and begged him not to stay away. I begged him.” She spat it out as if it were poison. “I thought he loved me and so I begged him not to leave me. He did anyway, of course, but not before one last roll in the hay to remember me by.” A sound came up from her throat, not quite a moan, not quite a sob, but something that spoke of deep devastation, a sound I imagined had been lodged inside her for far too long.

It felt as if my body, my soul, was radiating pain. She gave me a shocked glance as if she had just come out of some strange fog and then turned abruptly and limped away, faster than I’d ever seen her move, as if the pain in her leg was the least of her concerns in that moment.

Oh Jesus. Now that she couldn’t hear me, I groaned out loud from the pain of her confession, the way in which she’d made herself starkly vulnerable in front of me. She’d been used—abused—so horribly and hated herself for mistaking it for love. God, sweet Eloise. I knew that type of pain, knew what it felt like to be so desperate for love that you’d try to find it anywhere. Create it if you had to. But the difference between her and me was that I had never been abused and thrown away by the people who were supposed to love me and keep me safe. My heart ached for her. And I realized again what a tender soul she was, how she wanted love so badly she had even tried to find it in the ugliest of places, in the first attention she’d ever received from a man.

Ellie, my Ellie.

A fierce protectiveness gripped me, the need to comfort her so overwhelming, it was a deep, aching need. And suddenly I realized that my desire to love her was bigger, more powerful, than my fear. It wasn’t practice I’d needed. It was love. Filling my heart so full there was no room for anything else.

I put my hands behind my neck and leaned my head back, staring up at the clear autumn sky, praying my love would be enough for both of us.