Forbidden (6 page)

She was dying to explore the house a little, but the shower stall lured her, and she stood beneath near-scalding water for a good 15 minutes, letting it race over her body, hugging herself in the steam, pretending that he would be waiting for her on the bed in the guest room. There was a phone beside the roses, and as penance for her thoughts, she called Wade the minute she emerged from the shower, wrapped in a thick pink towel. No one answered at the Thompsons'. The phone rang and rang, and she finally left a quick message on their answering machine…
Hey, I'm here, see you soon
. It wasn't until after she'd replaced the receiver that she realized she hadn't left a return phone number.

Bryce curled around herself on top of the puffy white quilt, not meaning to fall asleep, but sunlight beamed lazily through the tall window and over her exhausted limbs, and she let her eyes drift shut, wishing that she at least had a name for Motel Man, something to make him seem more real.
Let me dream about him, please, please
…

***

She woke
hours later, opening her eyes upon a room in which the light had subtly shifted. She started, sitting up too quickly, her skin sore and red in long stripes from lying on the damp towel.
Shit, shit, shit
. She hadn't meant to sleep so long and was sick with anxiety again, hearing what sounded like an entire high school class in the rooms below. Someone was coming up the stairs, and she clutched her towel tightly around her naked body, thankful that her bag was at least in the room with her, and she didn't have to dress in her bus-ride clothes. Seconds later a gentle tap sounded on her door.

“Bryce, you awake, honey?” asked her aunt Erica.

“Yes,” she whispered, then cleared her throat and tried again. “Yes!”

“Supper's almost ready down here, if you feel like eating. You must be starving. You were sound asleep when I got home at 5:00.”

“I'll be right down,” she assured her aunt, hurrying to make herself presentable. She bolted into the bathroom where she squeaked at the sight of her hair. No comb would help the situation, so she settled for scooping the sides back into a barrette. She dressed in cut-offs and her navy-blue hooded sweatshirt, spread a little gloss on her lips and squared her shoulders. Fuck it, she was Michelle's daughter, and at the very least, she could handle this situation. So what if everyone was judging her, wondering about her, dying to ask her as many questions as she wanted to ask them?
None of this is your fault
, she reminded herself. But she dreaded the thought of showing emotion about the dead grandpa. Was she supposed to act sad, wistful?
I have never even seen a picture of him.

She did recognize her uncle Wilder right away…his face looked so exactly like her mother's. He saw her coming down the stairs and moved toward her immediately, a handsome man with a long, dark-blond ponytail and clear blue eyes. Bryce almost smiled, thinking he looked like the very essence of a country singer, down to the tight faded jeans and darkly-tanned face.
Hand him an acoustic guitar and a cowboy hat
. He was much taller than Bryce or her mother, his shoulders wide and his arms strong as he gave her a quick, hard hug. His eyes were intent as he studied her at close range; searching for traces of his sister? Bryce tried to smile at him, but her lips felt stiff.

“Little Elizabeth,” he said, and his voice was even warmer in real life. She wanted to like him, wanted to force him to talk, to spill every last secret he knew. “Since when did you change it?”

Her name, she realized. Did he mean from Sternhagen, or Elizabeth? She stammered, “There were two other Beths in my kindergarten class. I wanted to be different so I used my middle name instead.”

“Bryce was our mama's maiden name,” he told her. “Our real mother, that is, Margaret Bryce.”

She nodded at this revelation, something she had not known, and then he moved to let her finish coming down the steps. A boy with shaggy blond hair was hanging back shyly, and Wilder introduced him as Cody.

“Hey,” the boy said. He wore a torn t-shirt and dirty jeans, and had a bandana knotted around his head, remniscent of his mother. Bryce didn't move to hug him; he looked sticky and she was relieved when he turned and headed to the kitchen.

“Dinner's ready, you three!” Erica called, and Bryce breathed in the tangy smell of spaghetti and meatballs, something she hadn't eaten since Wade had splurged on a trip to an expensive Italian restaurant in Oklahoma City to celebrate Bryce turning 18 and likewise marking the moment when their relationship was no longer illegal in the eyes of the law.

“Have a seat,” Erica told her, nodding at the table that Evelyn was placing forks upon.

“Just not there, that's my chair,” Emma informed her, and received a smack on the shoulder from Evelyn.

“Like she's supposed to know that,” she told her little sister, and Emma pouted as she slapped a basket of breadsticks on the table. Bryce hid her smile and deliberately moved to a new chair as Cody plopped down beside her, pulling his bandana off in one smooth motion, revealing hair that had been caked with mud sometime in the day.

“Riley and Matty are coming,” Wilder told his wife, and she nodded distractedly.

“Well, they can join in when they get here, this is ready right now,” she added, and clapped down a giant bowl of salad greens and two bottles of dressing. Wilder winked at his wife as the girls joined them. There was a pause, and Bryce cringed, sure they were going to pray and thank the Lord for her safe arrival or something equally awkward, but everyone dug in with no ceremony, and she carefully let out the breath she had been holding.

“Cody Patrick, your hair is a disgrace,” his mother informed him.

“Me and Jenny were catching frogs,” he explained. “And we saw a huge snake
right in the water by the beach!
Right by where everyone was
swimming!
”

Evelyn said, “Grossin' me out, Cody.”

Emma cried, “Why didn't you come and get me to see it? I'm finding it tomorrow!”

Erica shook her head. “You know better than to bother snakes.”

“Aww, M
o-o
m—”

The screen door slammed and a male voice called, “Sorry we're late, Erica!”

“Don't worry, we didn't wait,” she responded pleasantly, and a moment later a tall, good-looking guy came swooping into the kitchen. He stopped short at the sight of Bryce and pulled the green baseball cap from his head almost involuntarily, revealing a halo of messy red-gold curls. “Well, hel-
lo
there.”

“This is Bryce,” Erica explained. “Bryce, this is my baby brother, Riley Christianson.”

“Hi, Uncle Riley,” the kids chorused, and Cody enthusiastically spouted, “Me and Jenny saw a
huge
snake today, way bigger'n the one we caught last summer!”

“Nice to meet you,” Bryce added quietly.

“Likewise,” he said.

From down the hall behind him another voice called, “Ri, help me unload the groceries, will ya?” as the screen door slammed and someone pounded down the porch steps.

Bryce froze.

Quick, quick, quick!
Her heart kickstarted and then proceeded to slam into her breastbone like a fist. For a second she didn't think she would be able to swallow the food in her mouth.
Holy shit, holy shit
.
Think of something, quick
,
Bryce!

“I'll help,” she said, keeping her voice level with tremendous effort. She could not think past getting out of the kitchen and seeing for herself.

Erica looked over at her in surprise. “That's all right, honey, you don't have to—”

“I don't mind,” she said, and forced herself to walk rather than sprint from the kitchen; the second she was in the hall and out of their sight she raced, out the screen door and down the steps and then…and then—a man, a tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired man was walking back up to the house with an armload of paper bags—

She whimpered in the back of her throat as she realized that it
was
him, her blood reversing course with the strength of a tidal wave, pounding into the channels of her veins, blooming in her cheeks and lips and nipples, and before she had total control of her feelings, joy swept in with a force all its own, singing through her blood for a burning instant in which her arms were reaching for him…

He stopped abruptly and the paper bags fell to the ground. He crossed the distance to within 12 inches of her, his hands reaching for her, too. He breathed hard through his nose, his eyes intensely dark as he gripped her upper arms almost painfully and blinked once, a man trying to convince himself otherwise. No words. He stared into her eyes as though hypnotized, clutching her arms in his huge hands, his heart crashing against his ribs.

“It's you,” she whispered, fisting her hands around the material of his shirt, trying to bring him closer to her against all reason. She could feel the way his heart was thundering and her own responded in kind. “Oh my God, it's you.” She was babbling. “What are you doing—how can you be—”

“Bryce,” he spoke her name as though it was beloved on his tongue. “Bryce.”

“Tell me your—”

“Matthew,” he told her, his voice shaking slightly. “Matthew Sternhagen.”

And her hands fell away from him as she fully understood.

Rose Lake, Minnesota – Monday, June 19, 1995

A
mazingly, everyone inside the house
was still calmly eating. Matthew opened the screen door and called, “We'll be right there,” to no one in particular, keeping his voice steady and lighthearted with immense effort. Bryce was standing rigid in the small orange glow of the front porch light, around which moths were already beating. Above her head the evening sky was a mellow baby-blue, a perfect backdrop to crisply outline the pine trees in solid black. Bryce hugged herself hard enough to leave bruises and yet still without enough pressure to keep her heart from spilling out onto the grass at her immobile feet.

Matthew came down the porch steps and asked her quietly, “Will you come with me for a second?” Politely, as though his tongue had never traced butterfly wings between her legs, as though her ankles had never been locked around his hips. His back probably still had scratch marks from her fingernails; her right shoulder still bore a pink, ragged-edged circle from his teeth.

She couldn't bring herself to speak and he couldn't bear the look in her eyes in the porch light, so huge and distraught, ripping him straight through the heart. He wanted to grab her and run away from here, run anywhere…and just as desperately, he knew he could not. She didn't move, and he whispered, “Please, Bryce?”

She could tell he had spoken her name aloud since two days ago. Finally she whispered, “Okay.”

She followed him, staring at the back of his shirt in the gloaming light, a separate part of her noticing and loving the way his wide shoulders shifted under it as he walked. She could taste him on her tongue just as sharply as she could not shake the feeling that he was meant for her, and she for him. Slowly, agonizingly, she eased back to reality, the reality in which he was her mother's younger half-brother and she had spent one incredible night fucking his brains out. Her stomach lurched and she clutched her elbows even more tightly against her ribs.

They came through the woods to a dock that stretched west over the lake, where the last traces of peach-tinted daylight skimmed over the impossibly flat, silken surface of the water, which seemed like something from a fairy tale, so unreal did it appear in this light. Or perhaps it was just her state of mind at present. Matthew stopped, turned wordlessly, and wrapped her in his arms. Instantly she wrapped her own around him, pressing against him, not caring about their predicament for that long moment. He clutched her like a drowning man, curving his huge body down to press his cheek to the top of her head.

“I'm so sorry,” he whispered into the familiar smell of her hair, and he closed his eyes, letting himself breathe her in for one last second. Then he made himself pull away. “Bryce, I am so goddamn sorry I left you that way.”

She was suddenly cold without his arms. Although no longer directly touching, they were only a few inches apart, and the air between them seemed to hum. She wasn't imagining it, damn it. The universe felt it, and thrummed up into their feet and swirled in the space all around them.

“Don't be sorry,” she told him, speaking through a throat that felt bruised. “You didn't know.”

“Wilder called me that night,” he told her, his eyes so dark and intense on her own that her chest ached. Still she wanted him so badly…it stunned her with its force, far worse than she could ever have known that night. “He told me about Dad. Bryce…I have never left a woman like that in my life. I care that you know that.”

“I knew it that night,” she told him. “I've never done that either. Just…let go like that with someone.” She couldn't look away from him, even though her cheeks were blazing. “I don't think I ever can again. You did something to me…and now…” She gulped and anger instantly swelled within her, replacing the shock in a hot and welcoming rush. She let it come into her and hissed, “What the hell were you doing in Oklahoma?”

“I was on a route for my friend Marshall,” he said, taking her shoulders in his hands again. “I was staying in that motel because the truck—Marshall's truck—blew an axle, and it was getting fixed. I was heading back here when it happened.”

She shrugged his hands away roughly. “And what? You thought you'd hit some local tail while you were there?”

“No, Bryce, no. Not like that.” She wanted to believe him. “You did something to me, too,” he went on, his voice ragged. “I can't stand here and pretend that you didn't, even with what I know about us now. I have never felt that way with anyone, from the moment I saw you, I just…knew. I don't understand any of it, Bryce.”

And just like that, her anger dissolved away, down a depthless channel in her heart.

“Matthew,” she whispered, just to speak his name aloud. She laced her fingers together over her belly, pressed hard against the pain there. “We have to pretend we've never met,” she said after a long moment, and then looked abrubtly away from him, out over the darkening surface of the lake. Around them the air had subtly shifted, on a level that was only sensed, not really seen. There was no exact second when evening became night, other than at a cellular level of perception. The gray-violet tint seemed to be simultaneously dimming her insides; surely she was not the same person she had been only a few minutes earlier.

“Yeah,” he agreed in a low voice, unable to tear his own gaze from her face. “You're right.”

“I'm sorry about your father,” she added quietly, still looking away.

Matthew suddenly reached for her shoulders and gently turned her to face him again. He moved slowly to cup her face with infinite tenderness, and she closed her eyes and he knew he had to stop now. But for this last sweet, forbidden moment he cradled her jaw in his huge hands, his nerves singing with the contact, and he whispered, “I remember you.”

Her eyes flew open and she looked into him, feeling as though their very souls were touching through their eyes. Her heart thrummed against her chest, trying hard to push her forward and against his own beating heart. “What do you mean?”

“When you were little you came to my mother's funeral,” he said, so softly. “I remember you from then. You hugged me. I was so sad at the funeral…it was raining that day, really hard rain, and your mom walked away without you…she was talking to someone…and we were kind-of left there, standing in the rain. I had an umbrella, and you walked over and put your arms around my waist…”

The memory at once gushed into her mind and she shuddered with its impact, needing to be fully in his arms just one more time. He crushed her to his chest again, rocked side to side, and she clung like the child she had once been, seeking to comfort and be comforted by the little boy who couldn't seem to stop crying that cold rainy day long ago. She hadn't understood then, and understood even less now…only felt. He felt right, and that was it.

“Matthew,” she said again, holding him, pressing against him, and for a split second she knew he was going to kiss her, bring his beautiful lips against hers. Unconsciously she pressed closer, her lips parting. But in the next second he made a sound low in his throat, a tortured sound, and put her down, turned away. She felt stabbed and said to his back, “I'm sorry…I didn't mean…”

He stood with his head in his hands for a moment, then said, “We better get back.”

She followed him back through the woods in silence, hearing only the clubbing of her injured heart, the fiddling of a thousand and one crickets. Just before they came into the clearing, he said quietly, “I'm sorry, too, Bryce…more than you'll ever know.”

***

Wilder was
on the porch with the twins when they emerged from the forest, and Bryce got a grip on herself with every last ounce of willpower she possessed. Two feet in front of her she sensed Matthew doing the same. He waved at his older brother and called out, “Hey, you save any for us?”

“Uncle Matty, you missed supper!” Emma scolded as they reached the glow of the porch light. She and Wilder were sharing the swing, and Cody was lying flat on his back, observing them upside-down, his head hanging down the top step.

“I know, pumpkin,” he said, pausing politely to let Bryce pass up the steps first. She couldn't even bear to glance at him, and instead focused on Cody.

“You'll get a headache like that,” she told him.

“Naw, I'm used to it,” he responded brightly. Bryce hesitated, nerves jumping, on the porch; Matthew was still standing on the grass, and with the steps between them, they were the same height.

“I guess you've properly introduced yourselves, then?” Wilder asked, and the nature of the question was softened by the way he ruffled Emma's hair while asking. Bryce tried to let her shoulders relax.

“Sure did,” Matthew replied easily.

“I've never seen a real lake,” Bryce supplied. “It's so beautiful here; you guys are so lucky.”

“It is a great place,” Wilder confirmed, and then said, “Honey, there's plenty left in the kitchen.”

Gratefully she bounded inside; behind her Wilder grumbled, “You could have brought all those damn bags inside before running off to the lake, little bro.”

Erica and Evelyn were working on the dishes; Riley was nowhere to be seen. There under the warm kitchen lights, all of the false bravado dissolved from Bryce's limbs. Suddenly she felt as though she might be violently ill in a huge spray across the gleaming wood floor. Erica was moving to dish her up a plate, but she lifted one hand weakly and said, “Aunt Erica, thanks for supper, but I think I'll go lie down. I have…really bad cramps right now.” There, and not even a total lie.

Erica changed directions and pulled a plastic pill bottle from a side drawer. “It's been a long day for you. Take a couple of these and you'll feel better.”

“Thanks,” she whispered, and Erica patted her shoulder, her eyes concerned. She had removed her bandana and unwoven her braid, and the gorgeous mermaid's hair Bryce recalled gleamed down her back in waves. She smelled of onions and garlic, homey scents, and Bryce was stunned to realize she wanted to burrow in her aunt's embrace and be held tight. She backed away, cupping her hands around the small white pills, suddenly missing Trish very much. “Good-night, you two. Thanks again.”

Moments later she was climbing the stairs, hearing Evelyn ask, “Mom, what's the matter with her?” in a hushed voice.

Erica quietly replied, “I don't know for sure, honey. I think she's a little overwhelmed by all of this.”

Erica, you have no fucking idea.

Part Two: Deception