Eli stopped walking, turned to take both of her hands.
“Along my ribs. I still don’t know if it was an accident or he meant to, but I thought I’d be dead, any second, and started screaming. Instead of the knife, he used his fists. He beat me, he choked me, and he was raping me when my neighbors broke in. They’d heard me screaming and called the police, but thank God they didn’t wait for the cops. I think he might’ve killed me, with his bare hands, if they hadn’t stopped him when they did.”
His arms came around her, and she leaned into him. She thought a lot of men backed off when they heard the word “rape.” But not Eli.
She turned to walk again, comforted by his arm around her waist. “I had more than a black eye this time. My mother had been in Africa and came straight back. You’d know all about the process—the tests, the interviews with the police, the counselors, the lawyers. It’s horrible, that reliving of it, and I was angry to be viewed as a victim. Until I learned to accept I was a victim, but I didn’t have to stay one. In the end I was grateful they worked out a plea so I didn’t have to go through it all again in a trial. He went to prison, and my mother took me to this place in the country—a friend’s summer house in the Laurel Highlands. She gave me space, but not too much. She gave me time—long quiet walks, long crying jags, midnight baking sessions with tequila shots. God, oh God, she’s the most wonderful woman.”
“I’d like to meet her.”
“Maybe you will. She gave me a month, and then she asked me what I wanted to do with my life. The stars are coming out. We should walk back.”
They turned, walking now with the evening breeze at their backs. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her I wanted to live at the beach. I wanted to see the ocean every day. I told her I wanted to help people, but I couldn’t face going back to an office, going back to appointments and meetings and strategy sessions. I blubbered because I was sure she’d be disappointed in me. I had the education, the skills, the experience to make a difference. I had been making a difference, and now I just wanted to see the ocean every day.”
“You were wrong. About her being disappointed.”
“I was wrong. She said I should find my place, and I should live my life in a way that satisfied me, that made me happy. So I came here, and I found ways to make myself happy and satisfied. I might not be here, doing what I really love, if Derrick hadn’t broken me.”
“He didn’t break you. I don’t believe in fate, in destiny, in absolutes, but sometimes it smacks you in the face. You’re where you’re meant to be because you’re meant to be here. I think you’d have found your way.”
“That’s a nice thought.” She stood on the bottom beach step, turned to him, laid her hands on his shoulders. “I have been happy here, and more open here than I ever was before. I made a very deliberate decision a year or so ago to go on my sexual fast because, though I’d met some very nice men, none of them fulfilled that part of me that may have been damaged more than I admitted. It’s a lot to lay on you, Eli, but I’d really appreciate it if you’d help me break my fast.”
“Now?”
“I was thinking now would be good.” She leaned in to kiss him. “If you wouldn’t mind.”
“Well, you did make soup.”
“And bread,” she reminded him.
“It seems like the least I can do. We ought to go in the house first.”
He cleared his throat as they started up the steps. “Ah, I’m going to have to make a quick trip to the village. I didn’t bring any protection. I haven’t been thinking much about sex until recently.”
“No problem, and no need for the trip. I put a box of condoms in your bedroom the other day. I’ve been thinking about sex recently.”
He let out a breath. “You’re the best housekeeper I’ve ever had.”
“Oh, Eli, you haven’t seen anything yet.”
Thirteen
OUT OF PRACTICE, HE THOUGHT WITH SOME NERVES AS they climbed the beach steps, and he wasn’t entirely convinced sex was like riding a damn bike.
Sure, the basics remained the basics, but the process required moves, technique, timing, finesse, tone. He liked to think he’d been pretty good at it once. Nobody’d complained, including Lindsay.
Still.
“We’re going to stop thinking about it,” Abra announced when they reached the door. “I’m messing up my head, and I’ll lay odds you’re messing up yours.”
“Maybe.”
“So let’s stop thinking.”