The Wrong Gentleman(45)

Landon took a seat on the blanket and pulled me down onto his lap. “I do. It’s wonderful and I feel . . . kinda special that you brought me here.” He cupped my face in his hands and pressed a kiss against my lips. “Thank you.”

“You’re not disappointed that I didn’t make reservations at the top of the hill?”

He chuckled. “Nope. This is much more my thing. I just didn’t expect it to be yours.”

I shifted so I sat between Landon’s legs and we could both look over the water. “Yeah, I’m not sure many people know me that well.”

“You’re a riddle, Skylar.”

“I don’t think so. I’m just a girl from the Midwest—we’re quite simple when you get to know us.”

Landon brought his arms around me, cocooning me with his body. “So tell me something so I can get to know you. Explain why a full stomach and a roof over your head are things you worry about?”

Had he known that I’d meant it literally? “You can’t take anything for granted. Don’t they teach you that in the army?”

I tried to make it sound breezy so I might get away with just a generic answer, but when he didn’t respond, I knew I’d failed. I was at a crossroads, one side of a line in the sand. I could choose to keep my history to myself, avoid and obfuscate, or I could take a step forward across the sand and tell Landon the whole truth. I could choose to trust him. I could let him in.

“After my mother died,” I continued. “I went to live in a group home. That period taught me a lot about life.”

He pulled me closer. “I’m so sorry, Skylar. How did she die?”

I slid my hand over his as I considered his question. “That’s a question most people don’t ask. They . . .”

“Are uncomfortable talking about death. I know. But I’ve seen it too often to be scared of the words.”

Was it because Landon was familiar with death that I wanted to tell him or was it because he made me want to open up? I’d never told anyone how she died. People close to me knew my mother had died and that I’d ended up in a home, but I never said how she’d died or who had killed her. But there was something about Landon, about the way he had about him, that made me think he’d stand between me and a drunken tourist or me and a bullet. It was the same way he was holding me now. And it felt safe to tell him anything.

“My father killed her,” I admitted.

Landon froze behind me but he didn’t loosen his grip. “Jesus,” he said.

“He was drunk. And they fought. They used to argue a lot. I was used to that. But it would pass quickly and the next day the hallway would be full of flowers, and the house would echo with laughter. I just thought that’s how things were—up and down. Looking back, of course, there were signs of violence that I didn’t recognize. The bruises. The time my mother broke her collarbone. It never occurred to me that my father—the loving, gregarious man who would tickle me breathless and make me toast in the shape of stars on the weekend—was violent and abusive.” I took a breath as I remembered back to those times. “I remember getting upset one time when I heard them fight. I was little, seven or eight, and my mom explained that it was just what married people did and that I shouldn’t worry—that it was like a thunderstorm and it would pass quickly. She said without the rain, the trees and flowers would die and so the storm was nothing to be scared of.” I paused. That’s what I’d been working so hard to avoid—the storms. I’d learned that sometimes when they came, the devastation they brought changed the world, or my world, forever. I tried not to think about that time now. I liked to stay in the present. There was nothing I could do to change the past, so what was the point in thinking back to that time? But I’d lifted the lid and was staring right at those memories that I had boxed away now, and I couldn’t look away. “The gunshot. It was so loud.”

Landon just held me while I let the memory engulf me. The blood. The sirens. All the people.

“Maybe it would have been different if I’d gone down. Tried to make them stop arguing.”

“You couldn’t have done anything, Skylar. You were a kid. It wasn’t your job to save your mother.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “When I found out my father had pulled the trigger, I remember making the decision right then that I’d never get married.”

“So your criteria for a man is . . .”

“It’s impossible to meet,” I said.

“That makes more sense to me. You don’t care that it makes you sound high maintenance or picky. You want to put men off.”

I shrugged. As usual, Landon saw more than I showed him. “I don’t trust many people. Because people aren’t who they say they are. My dad was a charming, joke-telling, family man, but underneath it was a jealous, possessive killer. It takes me a long time to believe that someone is really who they appear to be. I know as a child, you don’t always see the entire picture, but the same is true when you grow up too—people are good at hiding who they are.”

“That’s very true,” he said, not letting go. “How long were you in the home?”

“Until I turned eighteen. I left on my birthday. I had nothing. No one. Yachting saved me. I’d seen a magazine article about yachting and spent the little money I had on a one-way bus ticket to Florida. I slept on a bench in the depot the night I arrived.”