Found (Captive Heart #2) (9 page)

G
oing
to an NA meeting is always bittersweet. You don’t want to be there, don’t want to be an addict. But … these people are your family, they understand you better than anyone on this earth could.

I grab my shitty cup of coffee and join the circle of chairs in the middle of the community center basement. Sure, Lancaster wants to open its doors to people from all walks of life … but the dirty ones, they would rather hide us in the basement. I don’t mind it, this way I don’t have to worry about people using the gyms or various rooms of the building walking past and gawking at me in the meeting.

The community has pretty much lost interest in Char and I. The biggest uproar and gossip was when we got married, but it’s been a while since that happened. Sure, my release was a blip on some people’s radars, but mostly everyone has left us alone. I don’t need to start the rumor mill again by being spotted in a Narcotics Anonymous meeting.

“All right everyone, let’s get this session started. Hi, I’m Gary and I’m an addict. I am twelve years clean and sober and thankful each day for it.”

Gary is a role model if I ever had or needed one. He’s a former heroin addict who went cold turkey after he woke up one morning after a particularly nasty bender to his two-year-old playing with a used needle on their living room floor. He hasn’t touched a drug since, and has an ear handy or helpful advice whenever you need it. He’s someone I trust because I know exactly what he’s been through, and he I.

I chose Gary as my sponsor when I joined this chapter four months ago. While I don’t need him, I rarely call him because I rarely have cravings anymore; it’s nice to know there is someone who has my back.

“Hi Gary.” The group mumbles together.

Gary folds his hands around his water bottle as he places his elbows on his knees. The rickety folding chair squeaks beneath him. “Does anyone want to share anything?”

The circle, made up of about fifteen people, goes quiet. There is always something to share. Some pressure, some relapse, some milestone or accomplishment. But no one ever wants to go first.

“I’ll go.” Brenda, a middle-aged white woman with stringy blond hair, speaks up. “I’m Brenda, and I’m an addict. I’ve been four months clean and sober.”

Brenda has been with the group almost as long as I have, and I can tell staying clean is still a struggle for her. At three years and more, I’m a veteran in this group. Staying sober is the hardest in the first year, and I can tell by how her hands shake that she’s having a rough go.

The group mumbles hi and she goes on. “Today I saw a buddy I used to get high with. I was driving to WaWa and there he was, standing on the side of the road with a cardboard sign asking for money. I did a double take. His clothes were dirty and threadbare, his eyes were bloodshot and he looked like he was about to maul something or someone if it meant he could get drugs. And my first instinct was to pull the car over and ask if he had any meth. I wanted to die for even thinking it. But I could practically taste the meth, feel the high in my veins. The pull was so strong.”

Gary nods as the rest of us listen on. NA meetings aren’t therapy; there isn’t much discussion or suggestion unless someone explicitly asks for it. These groups are a sounding board, a camaraderie of sorts. We’re here for addicts, for each other, to talk out their problems and form conclusions on their own. Because while we have sponsors and friends, it’s up to that single person to keep themselves clean.

“My hands were shaking so much as I drove away that I had to pull over when I got far enough from him. I wanted so badly to drive back, to get out of my car and stand there with him. But I didn’t. I chose sobriety. And so that day could have been a bad one. But instead, it was a good one. I was proud of myself.”

She exhales a shaky breath and blinks the tears from her eyes as she looks around the room. Then Gary starts to clap. And everyone follows.

“Brenda, that’s great. Really, that is so great. Great job. All right, let’s have someone else talk.”

Everyone looks around apprehensively, avoiding eye contact. Typically, I’m more of the silent type here; I work the steps on my own in my own way. But today I feel the need to speak.

“Yeah, I’ll go. I’m going to take you to the negative side, sorry Brenda.” Everyone chuckles. “I’m Tucker, I’m an addict, I’ve been clean and sober for about three and a half years.”

The group says hi to me, acknowledging that I have the floor.

“So … I got out of prison about four months ago. Things have been going okay. I have a decent job that I like. It pushes me, it’s not boring; I guess that’s all you can ask for these days, huh?”

The group laughs at my attempt at humor.

“I follow my parole officer’s rules. I’m afraid she’ll kick my ass if I don’t. And I come to meetings. All in all, I’m doing all right. But … shit, I feel like an asshole. I love my wife, I do. But I just don’t feel, I don’t know, good about myself when I’m with her now. I feel like I’m tainted, and by being with me, she’s tainted too. It’s like I’m making her life worse, and by thinking that, I make myself nuts. I’m constantly looking for ways to be better, to do better. She seems fine, and she hasn’t said a thing, but it’s me. I just don’t feel like I measure up. And those are the times I want to use the most. I don’t really get full-fledged urges anymore, don’t have cravings. But it’s the deadly quiet thoughts in the middle of the night. The ones that tell me this would all go away if I just scored some heroin. That by putting a needle in my vein, the world would be a better place. Those thoughts are dangerous.”

I shrug when no one says anything, although why I expected them to, I don’t know. We sit in an awkward silence for a minute.

“Thank you for sharing, Tucker. By sharing honest thoughts like those with us, you’re already doing the hard work. Just keep coming back, keep working the program.”

The rest of the meeting goes by in a blur, with my head hooked on thoughts of Charlotte. Then it’s the end.

“Let’s close with our usual.” Gary makes us join hands.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

W
hen I got married
, I held the same ideals and dreams that every man has when he joins his life with the girl of his dreams.

I wanted to provide for Charlotte. Protect her and make her every wish come true. I wanted to make her happy every single day, give her the big house with the big yard. A cute little golden retriever followed by a bundle of kids. I wanted to be the breadwinner, and the man she looked at and thought of as being worthy to be her partner.

Sitting in a prison visitation room two days before Christmas is not what I had in mind at all. In fact, it’s days like today that make me feel like more of a fucking loser, piece of shit than I already do.

I’ve failed so fucking miserably at being a husband.

“You’re sure you don’t want me to come back on Christmas day?”

Char is sitting across from me at the table, looking gorgeous and cozy in her purple turtleneck sweater. I can just imagine her in Lancaster, out for a walk in her big puffer coat, snowflakes falling on her eyelashes. Although, it’s just my imagination. I haven’t been outside in what seems like months. It probably
has
been months.

“No. I don’t want you here then. Go spend the holiday with Jackie’s family. It’s going to be too crowded here anyway.”

That’s a lie. Yes, it will be crowded, and there is a chance that she won’t get into visitation. But … she probably would if she tried.

The truth is, I just don’t want her here on Christmas. Our visits are getting tenser by the week. We’re not the same people we were. She has an entire life outside of these walls. Outside of what she has with me. And I … just have nothing.

Plus, Christmas in prison is nothing to celebrate. Most of the inmates and staff here don’t even acknowledge it as a special day. Nothing is decorated, besides the visitation room, and that’s usually just done for the sake of the kids who have to come visit their parents.

Wives aren’t allowed to bring presents. And I can’t give Char one, it’s against the rules. Not like I have the money or the means anyway.

“You’ll try and call me then?”

She looks down at her fingers, and I wonder if she’s counting the minutes until she can leave here.

“Yeah. I’ll try.”

I probably won’t get through though. Phone minutes are limited due to the long lines around Christmas. And the guards take extra-sick pleasure in cutting phone calls short on Christmas, forcing inmates to get off the line and lose time that they could have spent talking to their loved ones.

“I bet you’ll be able to barter all of the Snicker’s bars you want from your Christmas bag.”

Char smiles, and I know she’s trying to cheer me up. She’s been trying to cheer me up for the past six months. It hasn’t worked.

“Yeah, maybe.”

The Christmas Bags. Virtually the only things to get excited about around the holiday season. They’re just big plastic bags of name-brand candy that are handed out to each prisoner on Christmas morning. Chocolate bars, gummy snacks and even chips. All name-brand; stuff that you would never be able to buy in the prison commissary. Usually about twenty-seven pieces of junk food in all, if the guys who counted with me last year were telling the truth.

And it turns the prison blocks into casinos. Guys bartering for bags of Doritos, trades on Twizzlers going around, and poker games with M&M’s as the chips. It’s the most fun and festive the guys get around here, everyone trying to score the most of their favorite candy.

“Next Christmas, we’ll be at home together. We can cut down a tree and decorate it. Drink hot cocoa by the fireplace.”

Char’s delicate hand reaches out to the middle of the table before she yanks it back, remembering the rule of no touching.

“Yeah, and maybe I’ll be able to fucking touch you.” I slam my fist into my thigh. I’m so tired of sitting here, listening to her wax on about our future and this bright, shiny world we’re going to live in.

“Don’t be like that, babe. This is your last Christmas in here. You only have six more months. We’re almost done!”

She smiles and it should light up my heart. But all I see is her in this dingy prison lighting, being dirtied by everything around her. I brought her into this mess. I kidnapped her and it was my fault when she got attacked, when she almost died. And now I’m ruining her life even when I can’t be near her. She’s wasting every weekend sitting in this hellhole, with these people who aren’t worthy of even a second of her time.

“Yeah, we’re almost done.”

That sad thing is, I don’t just mean with my sentence.

O
ne of the
best things about Tucker being out of prison, besides
well
Tucker being out of prison, is the fact that we get to celebrate holidays together. Living without your husband, and having no conceivable family, makes for very lonely holidays.

Last year, I went to Jackie’s parent’s house for Thanksgiving. But that was about it. I spent every other holiday alone, or at the prison visiting with Tucker.

This is the first birthday I’ve been able to celebrate with Tucker in three years. June seventeenth. My twenty-eighth birthday. It feels like yesterday that we were twenty-five, surviving at Camp Marsh together.

The past month has gone well, with less and less counseling sessions together. Tucker is still going to see Dr. Taylor alone, but she feels he is world’s better than where he was. Weekly NA meetings, work, nights out with Jackie. All of these keep us busy … and normal. And of course we spend every minute, that we’re not involved in obligations, with each other. My mother’s visit haunts us, but we’ve tried to put it past us.

I wake up to the sound of the shower going, Tucker already up and ready to start his day at the crack of dawn. Construction crews start early, and he leaves almost two hours before I walk out the door for the office.

My eyes flutter over to my bedside table, and then to his pillow.

Hmm. Nothing.

Not that I expect some extravagant presentation, but it is my birthday. I thought maybe for his first one back home, he’d do something special. I’ve spent each birthday for the past three years with Jackie, and then alone by myself at night. Wishing Tucker was holding me.

The water in the bathroom ceases, and I know he’s about to walk out here in all of his muscled, wet, towel-hanging-from-his-hips glory. I’ve taken full advantage of all of Tucker’s new muscles since he’s been home, which are only getting bigger from all of the heavy lifting he does on his job. The man is like a walking porn advertisement.

And now he’s standing in the doorway, and my heart literally skips two beats as all of my blood rushes below my waist.

“Good morning.” He grins, shaking the water from his deep brown curls. The droplets go flying, and most of them land like flecks of gold onto his tanned abs.

I think I just lost the ability to breathe.

“Well, good morning to you, Mr. Lynch.”

He laughs and looks down at his feet while moving towards his dresser. “I’m still not used to this saucier side of my wife. Not that I mind it at all.”

Tuck’s said this to me multiple times since coming home. “Blame Jackie. She brings out the bold in me.”

“I’ll have to thank her. Particularly for the boldness you’re giving me in the sex department.”

I still blush at that. After not making love to your husband for three years, you see how much you want to boss him around and tell him what you want him to do to you. I’ll give you a hint; it’s a lot.

I watch him pull on a faded pair of jeans and a simple T-shirt as I wait for him to wish me a happy birthday.

But it never comes. I’m still lying snug under the covers as he opens his bedside drawer and throws his wallet and keys into his back pockets.

“Have a good day, baby. I’ll try and text you on my lunch break.”

He bends down to kiss me, and then he’s downstairs and out the door.

Huh. Maybe he forgot.

The thought causes an irrational amount of anger to course through me. That’s selfish of me. It’s okay if he forgot. He’s been dealing with things far greater than my birthday. And he’s been in literal hell the past three years when I’ve been alone out here in the free world.

I should be fine with him forgetting my birthday. But my whiny, needy, attention-seeking inner-brat wants him to throw rose petals all over the condo and be lying naked with birthday cake on his chest.

Oh well. Pushing the disappointing start to my birthday aside, I get up, shower and make it to work.

When I get into my office, I’m greeted with a balloon on the back of my chair and a red velvet cupcake the size of my face.

“Happy birthday, bitch!” Jackie jumps out from behind me and wraps me in a huge bear hug.

I can’t help but laugh. “Thank you! And thanks for the cupcake. I really need it.”

She lets me go as we move into my office. “Good for you. Throwing caution to the wind. You may be twenty-eight, but hell no you don’t need diets or anti-wrinkle cream. You go girl!”

She does a fist pump and I can’t help but snort. This is what I need on my birthday. After I set my things down, I run a finger through the icing and pop it in my mouth.

The sugar rush does heavenly things for my mood, and I sigh while slumping down in my chair.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Jackie perches on the chair opposite me.

“You really are a mind reader.”

“Nah, I’m just your best friend. And I also want you to share half your cupcake with me so I’m being nice.”

That makes me chuckle. But I have to tell someone, so I launch into it. “Tucker forgot my birthday.”

Jackie tries to hide her surprise, but I see it. “Really? I’m sure he didn’t forget …”

“Well, he didn’t say anything this morning. Just gave me a kiss and left for work.” I can’t help the hurt that invades my tone.

Jackie combs through her blond curls. “I’m sure he didn’t forget. Maybe he has like, this huge epic plan!”

I give her a stink-eye. Because I’m in the it’s-my-birthday-I’ll-cry-if-I-want-to mood.

She backpedals and sticks her finger in the icing on my cupcake. “Fine. Maybe he forgot. But he’s a guy, give him a little slack.
And
he just got home from prison. There could be much worse excuses.”

She’s right, and I really shouldn’t dwell on it. Having him home is enough of a birthday present.

And right now, I have a cupcake to devour.

* * *

W
ork and congratulations
from my colleagues makes the day go by with light speed.

After lunch with Jackie and a few other girls from our floor, which resulted in a Mexican food baby, I was wiped. My guacamole coma made working through the rest of the day impossible.

So when Hunter, the boss himself, comes to my door around three thirty to wish me a happy birthday and tell me to take the rest of the day off, I do it. He doesn’t have to tell me twice. As soon as I see him retreating, his salt and pepper hair and expensive navy blue sport coat making him even more attractive for a powerful man, I take off.

He knows I work my butt off, and that every once and a while, I need a break.

I pull up in front of our condo, opting for street parking instead of the garage. I don’t want to walk, it’s my birthday. And no one can say a damn thing about it. Pushing my key through the lock, it’s almost as if I smell …

Candles.

Candles everywhere.

They line the hallway, the stairs. I see the trail they make into the living room.

And they’re accompanied by hundreds and hundreds of white rose petals. Someone must have plucked thousands of roses just for this amount of petals.

I drop my bag and keys by the front door, and make sure my jaw isn’t hanging down by my feet. I’m in awe. What the heck?

“Stop standing by the front door and come in here.” A deep male voice calls to me from the living room.

Tucker. Oh my God, he didn’t forget.

My feet carry me toward his voice, and once I turn the corner into our living room, he’s there. Holding a big white birthday cake with more candles. The entire room is lit up by them, and there are more rose petals.

“Happy birthday, Char.” He smiles at me, and I think I might faint.

It’s so romantic. “This is like
Sixteen Candles
. When Sam thinks everyone forgets her birthday, but then she celebrates at the end in the best way possible with Jake, and …”

While I ramble, Tucker sets down the cake and walks over to me. Then shuts me up by kissing the living daylights out of me.

When he lets me up for air, my stomach is doing all sorts of flips. “I thought you forgot.”

He trails a finger down my arm, sending goosebumps scattering in his wake. “I would never forget. That’s just what I wanted you to think. I had to put my grand plan into motion.”

An idea strikes me. “How did you know I’d be home early?”

“How do you know this wasn’t the plan all along?” His devilish smirk has me rubbing my thighs together to relieve the building pressure below my waist.

“Jackie was in on this?”

“And maybe your boss, Mr. Landon, was in on it too.”

I’m shocked. “You talked to Hunter?”

Tucker starts to distract me by undoing the buttons of my blue Oxford shirt. “Nice guy, your boss. He seems like a good person to work for. But enough talk about your job.”

He leans his head to my ear and nibbles the lobe, sending shockwaves of lust shooting down my body.

“Mmm, Tucker …”

I shove my hands up his simple T-shirt, glad he doesn’t have to wear the intricate clothing I do to work. I can simply pull up his shirt and pull down his jeans for any access I need. His abs are warm, and they contract when I run my nails over them just a little too harshly.

“So that’s how you want to play on your birthday?” Tucker bites my neck hard as he gets the last button undone and pushes the fabric from my shoulders.

“I want my husband to give me special, special birthday sex.” I stop playing with his hard muscles and snake my hands down to the button of his jeans. I really need the other hard part of him in my hand. Now.

But right before I’m about to draw his zipper down, my hands shake and stop. Because he’s shoved his fingers inside of my bra cups, trussing me up and working on my nipples like they’re his own private toys. Which they are.

“How does it feel when I pinch and tease you like this?”

My head falls back on a moan.

“How about when I do this?” He lowers his lip to the right bud and skates his teeth over it. My nerves go haywire.

“Oh, God, yes.” I draw his head closer to my breast, wanting every lick and suck of his tongue to be more intense. Tuck switches sides, laving my other nipple, as he presses hard circles into the one he was just giving attention to.

I need to feel him, to send the same sensations through his body that he’s stimulating mine with. My shaky fingers make contact with the rough fabric around his zipper. A couple of tugs and I have his jeans down around his thighs, and his smooth, hard cock in my hand.

“Baby …” Tucker groans into my neck as I feel him, testing his arousal with a stroke or two.

“How does it feel when I do this?” I spit back his own question to him and he gives a hoarse laugh.

But instead of teasing me, he gets me back one better. His hands reach around to my ass and squeeze both cheeks hard, causing the slow burn to ignite in the confines of my tight skirt. Tucker’s one step ahead of me, drawing the zipper on my pencil skirt down quickly and shoving it past my hips.

We both help to wiggle out of our bottoms, our mouths nipping and tangling with each other. And then he’s lowering me to the plush white rug in our living room.

“You’re so wet already and I haven’t even touched you.” He grinds his bare cock against my entrance.

“Take your shirt off and get inside me then.” I want to feel his skin everywhere.

“Slow down, birthday girl. Don’t you want your present first?”

He fists the back of his shirt and pulls it over his head one-handed, and I’m so turned on I think I might be dripping onto the rug.

“My husband is so hot.” I’m in awe of his body.

“Only because his wife is the most gorgeous creature on this earth.”

Tucker kisses down my body, taking extra care at my nipples and both of my hip bones. He sucks and bites the skin there, making me squirm so hard that if I just position my thighs against one of his legs, I may be able to relieve the enormous pressure he’s built up inside of me.

“Not yet, baby.” Tucker smiles up at me from the apex of my thighs, and his devilish grin tells me what my present might be.

I look up to the ceiling. “I definitely don’t remember this happening at the end of
Sixteen Candles
.”