Dance of Desire (1001 Dark Nights) Page 9

  He can’t answer.

  “How many things in life have you wanted and not gone for because of what Abel said to you that night?”

  “Sometimes you decide that something else is more important.”

  “Like what? Moving? Again?”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Are you a drunk, Caleb? Do you wake up without knowing where you are? Do you lose track of your truck? Do you get in fights you can’t remember starting? Wake up counting the minutes until your next beer?”

  “No,” Caleb whispers.

  “Then you’re not your father.”

  “Still…”

  “Still, what? You’re not your father, Caleb. And Amber isn’t booze. Abel was wrong. He was wrong that night. Hell, lot of people would say what he did to you was downright abusive, but I’ll leave that for you to decide. Point is, he didn’t understand what a drunk really was, and he sure as hell didn’t understand you.”

  “He was a good man who made a mistake,” Caleb says. “And God knows, he made up for it later.”

  “Yeah, okay. I never met him so I can’t say. But if twelve years later, you’re not going after the love of your life because you’re still buying into the bullshit he said to you that night, then the one making the mistake is you, buddy.”

  Caleb wishes he had something in front of him. If not a beer bottle, at least a glass or a bowl of chips. Something he could grip. Something that would make it easier to resist the urge to punch Danny in the face.

  Danny stares right back at him. Baby-faced, for sure, but also cool as a cucumber under the pressure of Caleb’s furious, unrelenting glare. The kid’s not backing down. And so Caleb breathes through it. The anger, the desire to argue with his words and his fists. The desire to turn over the table.

  Because Danny’s right.

  Abel’s not standing in his way.

  Amber’s not standing in his way.

  He’s standing in his own way.

  “It’s almost one in the morning. My room’s got two beds. You want to crash here tonight?”

  “I’d like to drown you in that fountain is what I’d like to do.”

  “Good. That means you know I’m telling the truth.”

  8

  Amber wakes from a dream of kissing Caleb to find her mouth full of bedsheets.

  Her bedroom is dark save for the alarm clock, which tells her it’s only three thirty in the morning.

  This was the best she could do? Two hours of fevered dreaming that left her feeling jittery and wired, as if she hadn’t slept at all and didn’t really need to?

  A text or call from either Caleb or her mother would have lit up her cell phone’s display. Even though it’s a dark patch on her nightstand, she grabs for it anyway, unlocks it just to be sure.

  Nothing.

  Well, if I can’t sleep!

  She dials her mother’s home number.

  How many voicemails has she left for the woman already?

  Shouldn’t she start the clock over now that she’s had somewhat of a night’s sleep, however terrible? Fifteen unreturned voicemails the night before, which would make this current call the first official call of—

  “For the love of the baby Jesus, Amber, it’s three thirty! Go to bed! You can yell at me in the morning!”

  “It is morning!”

  “Sunup, then!”

  “How dare you rat me out to—”

  Click.

  Enraged, Amber throws the phone across the room.

  For a terrifying instant, she’s afraid it’s going to smash into the opposite wall and break into several pieces. Instead, it lands on the foot of her bed with a weak thump, a reminder of why she never played softball.

  All hopes of sleep dashed and the source of her current troubles unwilling to remain on the phone with her for longer than ten seconds, Amber sees only one option.

  A brief, frenzied shower and two Diet Cokes later, she grabs the weekend bag she packed the night before and heads to her Sentra. She’s got the driver’s side door half open when she shuts it suddenly, heads back inside the house, grabs four Diet Cokes out of the fridge, gets back in her Sentra and speeds off in the direction of the freeway.

  If she manages to drive straight through to Chapel Springs, she might catch her mother before her first cup of coffee. She speeds up, hoping to get there sooner. Too bad she didn’t bring a pair of cymbals with her. Maybe she can stop and pick one up along the way.

  An hour south of Dallas, her eyelids start to get heavy.

  Are you kidding me? Now? Now I’m tired?

  It’s still dark out, which is why she doesn’t notice the approaching thunderstorm until lightning forks on the horizon. Lightning. Her least favorite thing next to menstrual cramps and snakes.

  Also, I’m tired. Really tried. And getting more tired. And even though this fact seems dramatically unfair, saying so over and over again to herself isn’t making her any less tired.

  A few minutes later, sheeting rain washes the windshield. The taillights in front of her become vague, bleeding suggestions. She’s got another two and a half hours to Chapel Springs. Maybe three, if this weather keeps up.

  If I were home in bed, I’d be wide awake and staring at the ceiling. But now I’m getting sleepy. So very, very sleepy.

  Traffic slows to a crawl. Traffic! At four in the morning.

  Unfair. All of it. So unfair. She just wants to get to her mother, that’s all. All she wants to do is rant and yell and scream at her mother for breaking her confidence, thereby blowing the lid off a potful of feelings she’s tried to keep at a low simmer for twelve years.

  She’s going to get herself killed if she doesn’t pull over.

  The motel she pulls into is the kind of place where people go to have one-night stands with men who love face masks and recreational chainsaws.

  “Can I get a room until this storm lets up?” she asks when she goes into the front office.

  The kid behind the front desk looks like a twelve-year-old playing a game of Let’s Be A Motel Clerk. He’s even slicked his hair into a perfect side part.

  “We’re not that kind of place,” he says.

  “Not what kind of place? Aren’t you a motel?”

  “Yes, but are you in some kind of trouble? Is somebody following you?”

  “What are you? Twelve years old? I just want a room. I don’t do lighting all that well, okay?” And then she catches sight of herself in the reflective glass behind the clerk and realizes she looks like she’s been struck by it.

  No wonder the kid seems terrified. Apparently she started thinking about something else when she was in the middle of drying her hair after her frenzied shower, because even after getting rained on, it still looks wild and teased, like she’s a backup singer out of an 80’s music video who’s been run over by a car. Only now does she remember that she actually started to put makeup on before thinking I don’t need to be wearing makeup to strangle my mother. Problem is, she didn’t bother to take off any of the makeup she applied before changing her mind, and now half of her face is running with it, making her look a little like that dog that used to sell beer when she was a girl.

  She’s startled back to the present by a metallic thud.

  The clerk drops a key on the desk in front of her.

  “You may not believe this, ma’am, but I’m a Christian and as such I kinda feel like it’s my duty to keep you off the road right now. You can have the room for free ’til sunup.”

  “Thank you. I guess.”

  “Also, I’m twenty-nine.”

  “Yeah, sorry.”

  Only when she’s almost to the room does she realize the clerk didn’t say anything about keeping her safe during a storm. He probably meant it was his duty to keep the road safe from her.

  The room’s actually not as bad as she feared.

  And there’s a phone.

  A phone with a number her mother won’t recognize on caller ID.

  “I’ve got bail mon
ey,” her mother answers, sounding bored. “Just tell me where you’re holding her.”

  “How could you?” Amber cries.

  “How could I what? Where are you?”

  “I’m driving to Chapel Springs to murder you.”

  “You’re going to murder me right now?” her mother asks.

  “No, I was going to murder you once I got there.”

  “Are you still drunk?”

  “Stop deflecting!”

  “So you are still drunk.”

  “I am not still drunk. It’s been hours since I’ve had a drink.”

  “Human hours or dog hours?”

  “Now who’s being sarcastic?”

  “I am! Because it’s five in the morning.”

  “I called you fifteen times and you didn’t return one of my calls. Don’t act like I’m being crazy for no reason.”

  “Okay. Fine. But we can agree that you’re being crazy?”

  “Sure. Fine. Alright.”

  There’s a silence on the other end. Thunder rolls outside. She can just make out the rustling of her mother’s comforter. She’s sitting up in bed, a sure sign she’s getting ready to talk some truth.

  “So what did he do?” her mother finally asks.

  “What did who do?”

  “Caleb. What did he do when I told him?”

  Amber’s so caught off guard by her mother’s directness and the resignation in her voice, she can’t manage a response at first.

  “Oh my God,” she finally says. “Belinda was right. You told him for a reason. You were trying to make him jealous.”

  “Pretty much, yeah. Did it work?”

  “I’m not going, if that’s what you mean.”

  “To the sex club place thing?”

  “It has a name, but who cares? No. I’m not going. So yeah, you got your way.”

  “Did you?”

  “What does that mean, Momma?” But she knows exactly what she means, and the knowledge makes her voice sound shaky and weak.

  “Honey,” her mother says. “I’m just gonna cut right to the point because it’s five in the morning and I don’t actually know where you are and I’m just hoping it’s someplace you’re not about to get murdered or washed into a ditch. But twelve years ago your father made a decision about what would be best for Caleb and what would be best for you. He made it without consulting me or anyone else, but he made it with his heart and the absolute best of intentions, I can assure you. And you know what, Amber?”

  “What?” she asks.

  “He was wrong. He was dead as a doornail wrong. And if you accept how wrong he was, you will not besmirch his memory or his name.”

  I’m just tired, that’s all, she thinks, tears blotting out her vision as she sinks to the foot of the bed. I’m just tired and about to get divorced and stressed. That’s why I’m crying. That’s why I can’t speak.

  “I’m going to tell you a story. I never told you before because as soon as Caleb grew up it stopped being my story to tell. And it was one of your daddy’s greatest regrets. But the night Tim and Abby were killed, when you all were up at the lake house and he decided to leave you there and take Caleb back to Dallas, he lost control. He and Caleb were in the car on the way to the airport and Caleb wanted you to come and he wouldn’t stop asking for you.”

  Amber’s too startled by this information to even gasp. She’d always assumed Caleb’s grief for his parents had effectively killed his desire for her. Had taken whatever he’d felt for her on the boat dock that night and sent it into exile. But he’d asked for her. Even in the midst of all that pain, he’d asked for her.

  “Well, he threw a fit is what happened,” her mother continues. “And your father pulled the car over and he shook him. He shook him and he said all sorts of terrible things. He told Caleb that our family was his last shot at ever having one. He told the boy that if he ever acted on his feelings for you, he’d lose that shot forever, that he’d be out on the street.

  “And then he left him there. He drove off like he wasn’t coming back. Of course, he had a change of heart instantly. He was out of his mind with grief over Tim and Abby, you see. But by the time he turned back Caleb was gone. The boy had tried walking back to the house, but he got lost and it took your father hours to find him.

  “Darling, your father had to do things in the Marines he never wanted to talk about. Hard things. But I can assure you, he didn’t regret any of them the way he regretted what he did to Caleb that night. He spent the rest of his life trying to make up for it. But he was convinced the only way you two could care for each other was if you were siblings, not lovers, and nothing I said ever changed his mind about that. He said brothers and sisters last forever, but teenagers fall out of love all the time. And Caleb couldn’t afford to have you fall out of love with him or vice versa. ’Cause what Caleb needed more than anything was a family and you had to be part of that family, no matter what. And like it or not––and I didn’t like it, not one bit–– there was only one way your daddy knew how to make that happen. Unfortunately, it was the wrong way.

  “I guess I always thought you two would just grow out of it. That one day, you’d both be grown-up enough that you’d see y’all were made for each other and that your father had just been delaying the inevitable. But it’s not that easy, apparently. Even with Abel gone, it’s still not that easy. I guess I understand. Sometimes, if we wear them long enough, chains can seem like clothes.”

  Her mother goes silent for a minute.

  “You still there, darling?” she asks.

  “Yes,” Amber croaks through her tears.

  “Aw, honey. It’s easier to get over the mistakes of a bad man ’cause you can just dismiss the man. But the mistakes of a good man? Those are much harder to contend with.”

  Someone pounds against the door. Amber jumps and leaps to her feet.

  “Darling?” her mother asks. “You alright?”

  Amber peels back one corner of the curtain. The man outside is so tall he blocks out the overhead light. And he wears a dripping Stetson and a light jacket.

  “He’s here,” Amber says in disbelief.

  “Who’s there?” her mother asks. “And where is there?”

  “Caleb’s here. I’m in a motel and Caleb’s here.”

  “Well, that escalated quickly.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  Another series of pounding knocks, followed by Caleb’s voice bellowing her name.

  “Okay, well, I guess if I’d wanted more of an explanation I could have returned one of your ten thousand calls.”

  “I should…”

  “Yes, you should. You let that man inside, darling. You just go right ahead and let that man inside.”

  Amber stands there for a second listening to the dial tone, realizing that as soon as she puts the phone back in its cradle she’ll be crossing a point of no return.

  When she opens the door, he reaches up and pulls his hat off so she can see it’s him. The gesture sends raindrops spraying from the hat’s brim to the pavement beside him. How long was he out in the rain looking for her? How is it possible that he’s here at all? There’s fear in his big, beautiful blue eyes and his tense mouth suggests he’s having trouble breathing.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he asks.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Following you.”

  “Well, come inside.”

  When he steps across the threshold, he seems to fill the room. He sets his cowboy hat down next to the tiny boxy television. Then he begins to slide out of his jacket, one arm after the other, slowly, so as not to send raindrops spraying everywhere. And now there’s just the sound of the rain pounding the roof and the occasional roll of thunder and the occasional flash of lightning as the man she’s resisted for years greets her in an anonymous motel room.

  He looks bigger than he’s ever looked before. Maybe it’s the room. Maybe it’s how close they’re standing. Maybe it’s what they did to each other
just a few hours before. Or maybe it’s because she’s seeing him as a teenager, a teenager clawing his way through dark woods, sobbing and grief stricken and desperate to find his way back to the only family he’ll ever have.

  “How long have you been following me?” she asks.

  “I was parked outside your house. I was going to wait until you woke up but then you sped off so I followed you.”

  “Why didn’t you call me? You knew I was awake once I was driving.”

  “I thought you were going there, that place. The sex club.”

  “I see.”

  “Are you?”

  “She won’t take me anymore.”

  “Your boss?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why’s that?”

  Because of you, she thinks. Because she knows I’m in love with you.

  “My mother…” The words leave her. She hasn’t closed the door all the way. She moves to it, shuts it with a final-sounding click.

  “Is she okay?” Caleb asks.

  “She told me what Daddy did to you the night your parents died. She told me about the woods. And what he said to you…”

  Caleb looks away as if he’s been slapped. He’s never done that before. Looked away from her with a turn of his head so pronounced it seems as if some loud noise in the bathroom has stolen his attention.

  “He did something to me that night too,” she says.

  He looks back to her as quickly as he looked away.

  “He took me aside and said I couldn’t go with y’all back to Dallas. He said he knew what happened down on the dock and that things were going to have to change. Did you know? Did you know he said something to me too?”

  “No,” he whispers. “No, I just thought…”

  “Just thought what?”

  “I just thought…me being in your house, I thought it was too much for you, is all. And I thought you didn’t want to be with someone whose parents had just died. I thought my sadness…I thought my sadness drove you away.”

  “Tell me that’s not what you thought,” she says, blinking back tears. “Please tell me that’s not what you thought for twelve years.”

  “It’s not your fault. We didn’t tell each other anything. Nothing real, anyway. So how could you have known?”