Harlot (Bartered Hearts 2)

When he turned away, she thought he meant to dress. She stumbled to her feet, her legs nearly buckling as she lurched toward the bed. She couldn’t stay naked and on her knees just waiting for him to leave, but as she pulled back the blankets to cover herself, his hand cupped her shoulder.

“Here,” he said as she spun toward him. Her knees finally lost their strength and she sat hard on the bed, watching in confusion as he reached toward her face with a rag.

The cool water was heaven against her flushed skin. He wiped her cheeks first, the corners of her eyes, then her mouth, dabbing gently at her lips as if she’d break. She pulled the rag from him, afraid she’d cry from such a careful touch. She swiped the cloth roughly over her mout

h, then stared at the crumpled fabric in her hand.

He handed her the bottle of whiskey, but she clutched the cloth until he opened her fingers and took it from her. A swig from the bottle burned the taste of him from her mouth. She couldn’t look up. She didn’t want to.

The floor creaked when he moved away from her. She took another drink, barely cringing at the harsh liquor this time. If she drank enough of it, it would burn away more than his taste. It would dissolve her past, her memory, her knowledge. For a little while.

She heard the splash of water and knew he was washing himself as well. Cleaning her away.

Setting the bottle aside, she curled into the bed and tugged the covers to her chin. His shadow stretched against the wall as he moved. The light dimmed as he turned down one lamp, then the other, and his shadow disappeared.

“It’s raining,” he said.

Funny, she hadn’t noticed the drumming of the rain on the roof, but just as she heard it, a clap of thunder shook the house. His soft footsteps crossed to the window, and he looked out for a long time before approaching the bed. The thin mattress dipped behind her when he sat.

She wanted to ask him to stay. A stupid thought. Why would he stay? And why would it comfort her to feel him there?

Dumb as the idea was, it still made her chest ache. If he stayed, she could pretend he loved her and belonged here.

Hadn’t Melisande said that sometimes it was enough to pretend? That sometimes fantasy was enough to get you through one more day?

“Why did you do it?” he asked into the low rumble of the falling rain.

Jessica frowned at the yellowing paper on the wall. “You told me to.”

“Not that. I mean why did you do this?” The bed shifted as he gestured at something she couldn’t see. Her body or her house or her life.

Why? Because Caleb had left her, and her father had died, and she’d been lied to, and scared and alone. She shook her head.

“Why, Jessica?”

“I asked you not to leave,” she whispered.

“But you knew why I went. For you. For us. You can’t blame me. I didn’t turn you into this.”

No. It hadn’t been him. She’d done it herself.

“I was afraid,” she said, closing her eyes against the faint lamplight.

“Of what?”

Thunder again, but somewhere very distant. She’d been afraid of so many things for so long that it was hard to remember.

“My father died,” she started. “It was so sudden. I felt…abandoned. Alone. You’d been gone so long, and I heard…”

When she went quiet, his weight shifted and his voice sounded closer. “Heard what?”

She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I wrote to you. I begged you to come home. You didn’t respond.”

“I didn’t get that letter.”

Yes, she understood that now. There were probably a few letters his stepfather had never included in the packet. And at least one letter from Caleb that she’d never received. His stepfather had probably destroyed it.

“He had debts,” she said. “My father. I should’ve anticipated it. His debts were the reason we moved from Pennsylvania to Colorado in the first place. We lived beyond our means. I see it now. He liked the finer things. Suits for him and dresses for me, and French wine and exotic fruits and so many books, all of it shipped from Europe. Within a few days of his death, I learned the extent of it. He’d borrowed heavily. The house belonged to the hospital and had to be vacated for the new director, and everything else…everything else would be sold to pay his debts.”