Between These Walls (5 page)

And in another flash, the memory vanished. Hunter smothered it, forcing it into hiding the way he would fold a sweater and shove it into a dresser drawer. He closed the drawer tight. Concealing such memories and feelings from others had served as his protocol for the last 14 years, since he was twelve years old.

Two light kisses before Kara hesitated. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Hunter hoped her question referred to his day’s professional loss and that she hadn’t picked up on his lack of romantic response. “Yeah, I’ve got plenty of other possibilities. Pipeline was my biggest and best, but I’ll find another one. In the meantime, I’ll start the day tomorrow by following up with other irons I have in the fire.”

Kara squinted again, then shook her head. “No, it’s not today. You’ve seemed, I don’t know, distanced lately. Everything’s okay?”

Despite his inner conflict, Hunter hadn’t faked his fondness for Kara. He harbored deep feelings toward her and felt comfortable around her. Without exaggeration, he loved Kara, in the sense that he cherished and cared for her in a profound way. He just couldn’t find a way to give his whole heart to her.

One piece short of a puzzle. The most critical piece, unfortunately.

Without a cornerstone, a building would end up lopsided or angled wrong, perhaps even implode.

A tiny rudder can guide an enormous ship. The flicker of a flame can set an entire forest on fire.

Sometimes little things matter. A lot.

But Hunter had had years of practice. He’d learned when he needed a surge of passion, he could incite it within himself, like drawing on a car’s reserve tank for fuel. The key, he’d discovered, was to relax and melt into the moment.

Hunter focused on Kara’s face. He felt intensity begin to rise and willed it into his stare. The moment the doubt in her eyes broke, Hunter discerned it. He laid his lips upon hers and kissed her deeply, as though to draw air from her lungs into his own.

With his hand on her arm, he felt her muscles relax as she closed her eyes and dissolved into their kiss.

Hunter brushed his lips against hers. He moved his mouth along her cheek, laid a kiss behind her earlobe, which he knew she enjoyed, then swept down to her neck. He slid his hand down to her waist, where he placed his other hand on the opposite side.

They shared one more kiss.

“Stop,” Kara gasped, then kissed him again.

“Stop what?” he whispered. Another kiss.

Kara pulled back and grinned. “We’d better stop while we’re ahead. The no-sex-before-marriage policy, remember?”

Hunter was a Christian and believed in saving sex for marriage. He held to the concept as a core component of his faith. And it wasn’t pious showmanship; he believed positive results would follow if he saved himself for another, giving himself to another as a gift. The concept served as an anchor for his heart.

But in light of his personal struggle with attraction—or lack thereof—to women, the concept of saving sex for marriage had also proven convenient. Not that Hunter had planned it as such; it had merely worked out that way. But it had brought him refuge over the years. By its nature, waiting revolved around time, and this particular wait afforded him an abundance of time to find his way out of his struggle.

Kara glanced at her watch. “I should head home anyway. I started typing up a summary on the plane and want to have it ready for tomorrow morning.”

“What about your need to relax after the flight?”

“I wish I could.”

She gave his arm a squeeze, got up from the sofa, and flicked her hair behind her shoulders. Hunter followed her into the kitchen, where she rummaged through her purse and retrieved her keys. As with all of her business trips, she had left her car in the second spot in Hunter’s garage. Airport parking lots made her nervous, the way people in a hurry tended to bang against car doors, and she preferred not to leave her car at her apartment parking lot around the clock.

“You could stay in the guest bedroom and save yourself time,” he suggested.

“I’m eager to get my bag unpacked and climb into my own bed. Thanks anyway, though.” She jingled her keys and shot him a wink. “I’ll lock the door behind me.”

Hunter had known Kara for years through a friend from church. A few weeks ago, when their relationship hit the five-month mark, Hunter had gone ahead and given her a key to his house. That way, if a coworker picked her up from the airport instead of Hunter, she could get her car. In the years Kara and Hunter had known each other, he’d learned that she wasn’t psychotic and he could trust her with a key.

Hunter kissed her good-bye. She walked out the door and, sure enough, locked it behind her. That made Hunter snicker. Yeah, she was cute, indeed.

CHAPTER 3

A roar erupted as the Cleveland Indians scored their first run at the bottom of the third inning.

Hunter kept his eye on the television as the batter crossed first base and continued around the diamond until the third-base coach signaled for him to stop running at second.

Ten high-definition televisions hung throughout the bar and grill. On Sunday afternoons, they displayed different football games. But tonight, all eyes focused on the Indians.

Kara reached for Hunter’s hand beneath the table. She intertwined her fingers with his and gave them a quick squeeze. He responded in kind. While he enjoyed giving affection to women and receiving it in return, the women in his life initiated contact more often.

“I can appreciate a run as much as the next guy.” With a swish of her head, Ellen Krieger sent her brunette hair behind her shoulders. “But you’d think word hadn’t gotten around that the Indians’ post-season hopes have vanished. Why didn’t they try this hard in July?”

“You don’t just give up, Ellen.” Hunter winked, his voice raised so she could hear him over the voices from surrounding tables. “If you’re gonna go down, you go down fighting. That’s what guys do. We never go down without a fight.”

“That was a surprising remark of resignation from you, Ellen,” her fiancé, thirty-year-old Brendan Pieper, chimed in. “Do
you
go down without a fight when you want me to put glasses in their proper row in your dishwasher?”

A broad smile swept across Ellen’s face as she gave Brendan a playful slug to the arm. “Proper row in the dishwasher, my ass! If I could get you not to leave them in the
sink,
I’d call it a miracle.”

With a snicker to reveal he understood Ellen’s comment but would admit nothing, he pulled her into him with one arm and kissed her forehead. When they parted, he straightened his eyeglasses.

Ellen and Brendan’s relationship struck Hunter as natural, as if they fused together without effort. Hunter knew they’d had their share of arguments—with her blunt personality, Ellen had a way of locating people’s farthest boundaries. But as far as Hunter could tell, neither Ellen nor Brendan doubted the strength of their relationship.

How satisfying to find love and not be looking around, Hunter mused, not fearful you’re missing out on something better, not wishing for something different.

Hunter picked up a trace of cigarette smoke from a table across the room. Between the Saturday-night crowd and the televisions, the restaurant was loud, but the noise didn’t prevent Hunter and his companions from hearing each other if they leaned into the square table to talk.

“I always liked the Indians’ mascot as a kid, even before I lived here,” Kara said, her eyes on the game. “Didn’t he look like a Saturday-morning cartoon to you?”

“I think that’s the biggest reason Hunter wore his Cleveland baseball cap every day as a kid,” Ellen jibed. “For the picture.”

How does she know these things?
Hunter wouldn’t give Ellen any satisfaction, though. His competitive spirit wouldn’t allow it. “Yeah, right. And I suppose your avoidance of Phillies gear has nothing to do with the fact it’s not your home team. You just don’t like that cursive
P
on the front.”

“Touché.” Ellen clinked beer bottles with Hunter, who sat toward her left. She followed up with a long pull from the bottle.

The server arrived with two dozen chicken wings in two round baskets. From one basket, Hunter could smell the sweet, sticky tang of Jamaican jerk sauce that covered the wings, but he reached for the basket that contained the crispy buffalo wings instead. He whispered a quick prayer to thank God for the meal, then took a bite. As he breathed in, spices from the buffalo sauce sent a tingle through his nasal passage. He stifled a cough and took his first bite.

Before starting her dinner, Kara excused herself and headed to the ladies’ room.

Hunter looked over at Ellen, who grabbed Brendan’s napkin from his lap and applied a playful dab to the jerk sauce at the corner of her fiancé’s mouth.

“Now that you’re engaged, I can tell you this,” Hunter said to Ellen. “As independent as you always were, I never thought I’d see the day you’d settle down and get married.” He shot a conspiratorial look toward Brendan. “You must see something in her nobody else can see.”

“Digging for it tends to wear me out, but there’s a price to everything,” Brendan replied.

Ellen rolled her eyes. “I never realized it before, but if you crack the same jokes over and over, they
do
sound more clever with time.”

Hunter had known Ellen for as long as he could remember. Ellen was the type of girl you’d hear about on the national news from time to time, the feature story of the middle-school girl in a small community who wanted to join the boys’ football team. Ellen had several female friends and maintained a feminine side that rendered no doubt about her sexual orientation. That said, while coming of age, she had related to guys as buddies more than flirts. Nonetheless, the guys had managed to view her as nothing less than female. Ellen had never lacked a date in high school. She’d proven a popular female with effortless appeal and brass balls, the Lisa Marie Presley of Hudson High School. The cheerleaders had hated her for it.

Ellen nudged Hunter, a knowing look in her eye. “Now that your significant other has left the room, why don’t you tell us how your relationship is
really
going.”

“We’re fine.” Hunter wiped buffalo sauce from his hands and reached for a wing from the jerk basket.

“Uh-uh!” Ellen shook her head. “I’m not buying that.”

“What do you mean? Where’s that coming from?”

Now Brendan rolled his eyes. “Ellen, let it go. He doesn’t want you putting him on the spot.”

Hunter gave him a quizzical look. “You’re in on this too, whatever it is?”

“She has this idea ...”

“It’s not an
idea.
It’s nothing much,” Ellen said, “it’s just—”

“She thinks something’s
askew,
” Brendan added, wrapping the final word in finger quotes and drawing out its last syllable in a hinting, teasing manner.

“I can see it in your eyes, that’s all,” Ellen said, ignoring her fiancé’s jest, a look in her eye that said,
Come on, don’t try to hide.
“I know you, and I know when something’s off.”

Hunter took a pull from his beer. A long one to buy himself a few seconds to think.

“I guess you could say it’s maybe gotten a little, well, distant.” Hunter said.

“Distant? For her or for you?”

“For me. As far as I can tell, she’s content. Maybe distant is the wrong word.”

“It’s lasted six months. That’s a new record for you.” Ellen smirked. “Maybe you’re not used to settling down.”

Brendan leaned his forehead against his fiancée’s. “Give him a break, Ellen. Considering how long it took
you
to settle down ...”

“Fine,” she said. “Point taken.”

Hunter finished off another chicken wing. He grabbed another napkin from a small pile the server had left on the table and wiped his fingers. He shot Ellen a wry look. “You’ve never been Kara’s biggest fan to begin with.”

“Speaking of her, did she fall into the toilet bowl? Where is she?”

Hunter scanned the room and caught sight of her standing at a table near the restrooms, chatting with another couple. “Looks like she ran into someone she knows.”

Ellen finished a wing and washed it down with a drink. “I like her. I’m not the biggest fan of
you and her.
”

“Babe, don’t say that. And by the way, Kara’s adorable.” Brendan grinned. “Not as adorable as
you,
of course. You’re adorable when you play mother hen. I’m sure Hunter will thank you for it when he grows older.”

“Whatever. He knows I mean well.” She turned back to Hunter. “It means I respect your relationship. As well as I know you, she seemed like a—let’s say an outside-the-box fit. And you try so hard to make sure everyone else is happy, so I’m being your friend, making sure you’re happy because you
deserve
to be happy.”

If anyone could tell Hunter how to reach happiness, he would have loved to know. Given his struggle inside, he’d given up on the concept of full contentment long ago. Nowadays, when it came to romance and relationships, he wondered if the next-best thing was the best he could hope for. But he couldn’t tell
that
to Ellen.

“I’m happy.”

Ellen studied his eyes. Hunter felt his heart pound as he tried to maintain composure in his face. When it came to conversations, his biggest challenge in keeping his secret was to avoid appearing off guard. That might trigger suspicion: Ordinary remarks and observations seem random to other people until a change in the eyes or facial expression occurs. Then they wonder why the sudden change happened. When you harbor a secret in your soul, you notice double entendres that people never intended amid innocent comments.

Comments like,
One day, you’ll find the perfect woman.

At that, Ellen shrugged with an air of calm resignation. “Good. How’s your back feeling these days?”

Relieved that Ellen had changed topics, Hunter eased back in his chair.

“Still sore, depending on the day. Feels fine now. I think it’s stress.”

An
A-ha!
expression filled Ellen’s face. She splayed her hands in his direction. “I know what you need! You should try my massage therapist!”