Elizabeth Finn - Unforgiven

“Did I hurt you?” He was tracing his finger along the skin of her shoulder. It felt slightly bruised and still slick from the trail his tongue had been running.

“No. Sorry to disappoint.” He froze in place for half a second before he pushed off her and stood from the bed. When she rolled to see him, he was raking his hands through his hair, and he looked annoyed. She pulled her dress quickly over her breasts as he rolled his eyes.

“Is that what you think?” His hands were on his hips.

“I don’t know what to think.”

His jaw clenched tight in response, and he turned to the door. When he reached it, he paused and then turned back to her. “I’m off the next couple days, so I guess I’ll see you in a few days.” He didn’t wait for a response, and she heard his bedroom door close shortly after that. She wanted to go after him, but she also needed to get away from him. She was telling the truth when she said she didn’t know what to think. She didn’t have a fucking clue, especially now. What the hell had just happened?

Five minutes after she walked through her front door, her phone rang. It was three-thirty in the morning, so there was little question who it was. “You’ve been avoiding me.” He didn’t bother even greeting her when she answered the phone.

“Is that why you didn’t call me to tell me when you’d be home from the hospital tonight? So I couldn’t leave?”

“You’re goddamn right!” Then he hung up on her.

Four Months Before

Her mother wrapped her tightly in her arms as Bailey emerged from the door. She assumed there was some hidden side door where they let criminal graduates leave—some secret hidden passage, but no. It was the front lobby and front door that ushered Bailey out to her waiting mother. The day was warm for early January, but then, it was southern Texas. It was sunny and warm, and the second Bailey stepped out into the open, she started to panic.

What if there was a mistake? What if they’d accidentally screwed up her paperwork? What if they’d just changed their minds? Were they going to catch her before she made it to her mom’s car to tell her they’d made a mistake? Would it be wrong to run? God, she just wanted to get away from here before something ended this all-too-good moment. But her mom had a giant bear hug waiting, and while Bailey was falling apart in happiness and tears, she couldn’t shake the paranoia that the nightmare wasn’t over.

“Mom, can we please just go? I’m sorry, I just really want to get away before they realize they made a mistake.” Her mother looked at her with concern showing in her eyes. Maybe she thought her daughter was cracking up after five years behind bars.

“Sure, hon. Let’s hit the road. Long way to go before we’re home.”

Home. What did that even mean anymore?

Bailey fell asleep quickly as her mom held her hand. It had been a sleepless night before—hell the entire last week. She’d never been so paranoid in her life, but with the end of this nightmare so near, there was no other word for how she felt. Paranoid.

When she woke, her mom was pulling into a little roadside hotel. The nine-and-a-half hour trip from Texas back home was too far to travel in one day when she’d not been released until early afternoon, and as Bailey sank into the small bed with her mother by her side, she fell instantly back to sleep.

She woke early. Her mom was still sound asleep, and given the slight pink tinge to the night sky, it was only just breaking dawn. She retreated to the bathroom, running a deep bath in the bathtub. She didn’t even like baths. She was a shower sorta gal, but after years without this, she just wanted to sink into the deep, warm water. She let her ears submerge, and she listened as the water filled the tub around her. Her eardrums tickled as the water slowly filled her ear canals. She soaked, she washed, and she stayed until the water cooled. When she climbed out, she stared at herself in the mirror.

She’d gained weight since going into prison. Not something you’d expect to hear, but three squares a day and no more daily running, and she’d put on fifteen pounds. She was small to begin with, and as she stared at her slightly curvier look, she studied her body. Her boobs were bigger. Her hips contrasted her small waist more than they used to, and her ass was definitely rounder. She actually liked her post-prison bod. Though she needed to get back to jogging if her curves weren’t going to turn to jiggly Jell-O. So far she was still toned and fit, thanks to plenty of time to exercise. Didn’t mean she felt much like doing it as much as she ought to in that place, but it could be worse. She combed her long auburn locks, before pulling them back in a ponytail, and then she returned to the bedroom to find her mom.

Coffee was percolating in the small coffeemaker, and her mom was just pulling a sweatshirt on. “Ready?”

Bailey nodded. “Just have to call my parole officer and let him know our status.” She fished the contact information from her pocket, and she borrowed her mom’s cell phone. It took little more than a minute to assure the man they were headed to Savoy. She’d been paroled there rather than someplace in Texas, and the journey home left her out of touch with the parole system for longer than they appreciated.

Soon they had disposable coffee cups filled, and they were back on the road. She started recognizing landmarks a few hours later, and that was when the anxiety hit. She started fidgeting; she started taking big, gulping breaths of air to calm the nerves. It didn’t go unnoticed by her mom, and soon her mom’s eyes started flitting to Bailey in concern.

“Bailey, you’re going to be fine.” She nodded but said nothing. She wasn’t at all convinced. “Um . . . Darren is working in Savoy. In the hospital somewhere, I think.” Bailey’s heart skipped a beat.

“What? You mean, he’s not in Little Rock? I thought . . . I don’t know. I just thought he’d want to stay. He wasn’t planning on coming back to Savoy once he was through residency.”

“I didn’t know that. He told you that, I assume.” Her mom was watching her curiously. “Yeah. Long time ago. Well, fuck.” It just slipped out. She wasn’t really used to having to watch her tongue.

“Bailey! Language.”

“Sorry, Mom. Shit.”

“Not much better. I take it you weren’t considering having to deal with him?”

“No.” The anxiety started ratcheting up a notch with every mile that took her closer to Savoy. She wasn’t sure she could deal with this. She’d assumed he’d be in Little Rock or somewhere else, but not Savoy. This was going to be bad.

The last five miles were the hardest. She could barely sit still in the seat, and she caught her expression in the side mirror once just to see a full-on grimace. Her mother reached for her hand, giving her a reassuring squeeze.

“Bailey.” Her voice was quiet now, and she kept her eyes on the road as she wound them through the hilly curves slowly getting closer to home. “The rest of your life starts today.”

Bailey breathed steadily as she watched one curve in the road disappear after another. “What if I can’t do this? These people hate me.”

“This isn’t going to be easy, but I know how strong you are. You can do this.”

Bailey stared straight ahead. She refused to look around, though she recognized everything now. She was too afraid to look. She wanted to curl up on the floor and hide like a child. Could she really come back to this place after so long? Her family had fallen apart; she was responsible for destroying another family as well. However recognizable this place might be, everything was different. And he was here.

Somewhere he was near. Could she handle that, knowing he was so close? She couldn’t conceive of seeing him again, and she closed her eyes and prayed she wouldn’t. He must hate her, and there was just no getting past hate like that. She knew in her gut that friendship was gone. That respect and admiration had been destroyed. He could never see her as anything other than the cause of his sister’s death. It was hopeless. How could it not be?

Now

Her bike was in the driveway when he arrived home a few days later. He hadn’t expected her to stay, and now he was nervous. His heart started pounding, and he sat in his car for a moment before finally climbing out.

When he opened the front door, she was already there. She looked about as nervous as he was, but she had a small smile on her lips that hurt like a stab to the gut under the circumstances.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” At least he could return a greeting at this point.

“Um . . . I was thinking I could make dinner.” She tried for a nervous smile again, and his heart fell. “I owe you after the disaster—”

“I have a date with Veronica Gregson.” Her smile froze on her lips for a moment before her face fell. Her nostrils flared as she tried to breathe, and he could see the tightness in her throat muscles. “I have to jump in the shower.” He walked away from her, leaving her staring at the floor in the entryway. He felt like an asshole. He was doing it again. Hurting her.

In truth, he hadn’t expected to throw it in her face. Had he wanted to use this to hurt her, he certainly could have, but that wasn’t his goal. He’d said yes to a date. He’d said yes because after the way things had ended the other night with Bailey, he was confused, and he needed to unconfuse things. He couldn’t be with Bailey. He just couldn’t. A man didn’t date the woman who killed his sister. It was socially unacceptable. Fuck, it was just absurd.

She didn’t trust him, and he didn’t blame her. He didn’t deserve her trust, and since there was no hope of a future for them, there was just no sense perpetuating this flirtation. That was all it was. A flirtation. He’d gotten swept up in the moment. He’d always been attracted to Bailey, and now was no exception, but he wasn’t doing either of them a favor by letting this go on. But he hadn’t meant to throw it in her face. He truly hadn’t.

He’d run into the lovely and tall Dr. Veronica Gregson, who had fired his little flirtation thanks to a bit of leaked information on his part, of course, at the gas station the morning before. She’d picked up her own flirtation right where she’d left off in the vet clinic lobby three months before. Had it really been three months since he’d first seen Bailey again?

He agreed to the date on the spur of the moment, though he wasn’t sure why. He’d decided there was no reason to continue confusing things between him and Bailey, and he thought a distraction was in order—at least that’s what he was telling himself. The distraction was beautiful, and he hoped she would do the trick. Now though, he wasn’t convinced. He stood in his shower, imagining the hurt on Bailey’s face. It destroyed him to see that hurt, and he sat on the built-in bench in his shower for nearly ten minutes as he came to terms with what he was going to do.

There was a knock on the door five minutes after he jumped out of the shower. He’d given Veronica his address. Her house was twenty minutes outside town, and he’d suggested she just stop by once she was finished up at her clinic. She wasn’t exactly sure when that would be, and for the five free minutes he had after showering, he started hoping it might be never. But alas, the doorbell rang. He ran his hands quickly through his hair, and he bounded down the stairs for the entryway.

“Hi.” Her greeting was seductive, and for some reason he hated it. He liked Bailey’s tentative one. The one that said she cared more than she should about what was going on in his head. Veronica’s greeting said she’d rather fuck him than know him, and he was going to do just that, but it was one hell of an empty feeling coursing through him at the moment.

“Come in. I’m about ready.” He turned from her, but he paused when he heard her voice.

“Thought we could just stay here. I rented a couple movies and brought a bottle of wine. I’ve had a long day, and I was hoping for something a bit more intimate than a night out in Savoy.” Her voice was still seductive, and when he turned back to her, he saw that her expression was too as she held up the bottle of wine.

“Sure. Let me take that for you.” He grabbed the bottle of wine, and she followed him to his kitchen.