The Edge of Heaven (23 page)

"And you couldn't tell us?" Rachel asked. "Did you think we wouldn't understand? That we wouldn't help you? Emma, we would do anything for you. Absolutely anything."

"I know," she said, tears falling faster. "I know that."

"Sam is so upset. He thinks he's failed you in some way—"

"No." Emma shook her head. "I did this. This is my life, my decisions."

"And you're growing up and making decisions on your own. I know that, and Sam does, too. But in our hearts, you're still ours. Our daughter. You always will be. And he's a man. A father. He thinks he's supposed to be able to keep all of us safe and happy, that it's his job."

"I'm sorry."

Emma stared around her room, which was painted in the softest, creamiest yellow. She had a gauzy and puffy rose-colored comforter that looked like a cloud and a fabulous old bed made of intricately swirling iron. They'd done this just for her, and it was so pretty. Zach and Sam had been at an auction looking for things Sam might salvage from an old house and use in his construction business when they'd found the bed. She and Rachel had sanded it and painted it a grayish white that made her think of clouds, too. Sam and Zach had painted the room. Grace had picked out the curtains.

This was her room, her family, her place. How could she have forgotten that?

"Right after it happened, I got on the train to run back here. I thought I'd pour out the whole story to you both. But that night on the train I kept thinking about my mother. About how crazy everything was back then. Mark hit me, and it all came rushing back." Emma wiped away tears with a trembling hand. "It was so ugly. All of it. I didn't want to bring it into this house, or to have it anywhere near Zach or Grace. She doesn't know what it's like to be afraid like that, and I didn't want her to know. I didn't want her to ever think of anyone hitting her or me. I guess I thought if I never brought it here, I could pretend it never happened. Look how well that turned out."

"Emma, listen to me." Rachel gave her a squeeze. "This is not your fault. Mark obviously has problems. But those are his problems. Not yours."

"I brought him here."

"He brought himself here."

"To find me, and now he's Rye's problem," Emma cried.
Rye.
"He was just trying to protect me. That's all. I thought Mark had killed him yesterday. He was so still for so long, I thought he was dead and that maybe I would be, too."

"You're not," Rachel said. "Rye's not, either."

"He's in jail," she cried. "He must hate me. He was so worried about what Sam would think of him, and now look at this mess. All because of me."

"Emma, we talked to Joe. He said you both saw what Mark looked like when Rye got done with him. It went long past subduing him. It was brutal."

"He did it to protect me," Emma insisted.

"Did he?"

What else could it have been? She knew him, after all. Not the way she'd thought she'd known Mark. This was Rye. She knew what he was, deep down inside.

Oh, God, Rye.

She wanted him here with her, had to talk to him, try to make him understand, and she had to understand him.

"What happened between the two of you?" Rachel asked. "Joe said... He said Rye spent the night here with you, that it looked like..."

"It was nothing like that," Emma said. Surely Rachel would understand, Rachel who'd been so in love with Sam for so long. "Mark had been here, and I was scared. I hadn't slept much at all. Having him in the carriage house didn't seem like enough. But nothing happened. He wouldn't let anything happen."

"He
wouldn't?"

"That's right. I admit it. I wanted something to happen. He's special, Rachel. He's so kind, so understanding, so gentle." Not anything like the man she'd seen yesterday tearing into Mark. Not really. Was he?

"Emma, he's thirty-three."

"I know," she said, turning into a girl who just needed her mother. "I didn't when he first came here, and by the time I did, it was too late."

"Too late for what?"

"I think, maybe... I'm in love with him."

"Oh, Emma. No." Rachel sat up and turned to look at her, dismay on her face.

"Yes, I am. And I know what you're going to try to say. That he's too old for me. And that I'm too young, but you and Sam were married by the time you were my age." They'd snuck around behind Rachel's father's back, because he'd disapproved of Sam so much, and then Rachel had gotten pregnant. "You're really not going to try to tell me I can't be in love with him, are you? That I can't possibly know what's in my own heart?"

"I guess I can't. But, Emma, you've only known him for a few days."

"How long did it take for you to know you loved Sam?" she tried. "You said you always knew."

"Maybe I did. But, as much as we loved each other, it was still so hard. We were so young, and we almost didn't make it. I don't know if you ever really understood how close Sam and I came to losing each other."

"But you made it," she said.

Rachel covered her face with her hands and used her fingertips to rub at her forehead as if it ached, then switched tactics. "What about him? Is he in love with you? Did he tell you that?"

"No," Emma admitted. "He didn't want to have anything to do with me. He didn't think Sam would like it, and he really wants to get to know Sam. I don't think he has anybody else left."

"Doesn't sound like it," Rachel said.

"I know it's all a mess right now. I can't imagine what he must think of me, but it won't always be this way, will it? Things are bound to settle down, and then..." He'd forgive her for this mess, and he wanted to get to know Sam, which meant he'd be here, a part of their lives, and as long as he was here... "There has to be a way."

"Emma, did he tell you where he's been? What his life has been like?"

"He told me about his problems with his parents, and he tried to make it sound like he'd done awful things I wouldn't understand—"

"He has," Rachel said softly. "It's not the first time he's beaten up someone. Badly. He's been in prison, Emma. Joe has the records. Rye told him what he needed to find the records. It's no mistake. He was arrested for the first time when he was sixteen."

"When he stole the car. He told me about that. Rachel, he was sixteen."

"And they sent him to a juvenile detention center, and while he was there, he got into a fight with another boy and killed him. He spent the next eight years in prison for manslaughter."

* * *

Emma wouldn't believe it until she heard it straight from Rye. She waited until Rachel finally left, then slipped out the back door, walking the eight blocks to the jail in a daze.

Joe took one look at her and said, "Sam know you're here?"

He didn't want to let her in to see Rye, but she simply refused to leave. Joe finally gave in. He took her back into the office, unlocked a door, and there was Rye, locked up in an awful little cell in the back corner.

It was a colorless place, washed-out gray with gun-metal bars. He stood in back by a tiny window—covered with more bars—and he didn't turn around.

She stared at his back, at muscles bunched in his shoulders and his arms, strength that had never frightened her until yesterday, when she'd tried to pull him off Mark, and he'd turned around like a wild thing ready to attack.

He had scared her then.

But he'd saved her from Mark, and she'd been scared enough that she couldn't regret the manner in which he'd done that. Except for the way he was suffering now because of it. She remembered how her mother looked after her father had taken his fists to her. Mark could easily have done that to her. If she'd let him, he might have done it again and again and again.

Some men were just like that.

She'd have sworn Rye wasn't.

"Sure you want to do this?" Joe asked softly.

"Yes."

Rye turned around at the sound of her voice. Clearly, she'd surprised him. He put his back to her again just as quickly, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. His head dropped back until he was staring up at the ceiling and probably swearing, if she was any judge of the situation.

"You yell if you need me," Joe said, obviously not liking this.

He left, not quite shutting the door behind him.

Emma walked over to the bars. She hated the idea of him being caged up this way, of having these bars between them. She hated dragging him into a situation blind and having him end up here because he wanted to protect her.

Didn't they know that? None of this would have happened if he hadn't simply been trying to protect her.

Rye finally turned around again. He looked like he wanted to strangle her at first, and then he just looked so tired. "You okay?"

She nodded, tears threatening already.

"What are you doing here, Em?"

She cleared her throat and managed to say, "You're here."

"And believe me, this is a lousy place to be."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Emma, don't even start with that."

"I know you must be angry...."

"Not at you," he said.

She blinked back tears. "But you're here because of me."

"No, I'm here because of me. My choices. My actions. We talked about this. Remember?"

"You saved me from him," she said.

"And then practically beat him to death. If I'd pulled him off you and called the sheriff, I wouldn't be here. I know that. You do, too."

"I know that it was my problem. All of this has been my problem."

"Come on, Emma. You're smarter than that." She flinched at the tone, but he kept on going. "Guys like Mark want you to believe it's all your fault. That's how they get girls like you and how they keep them. Don't buy into that crap. Not with him and not with me."

So he was being cruel to be kind. Fine. And maybe he had a point, but she had one, too. "Look at this." She threw her hands out toward the bars. "Look at where you are."

"It's not anyplace I haven't been before," he said. "I told you it was ugly. I told you that you wouldn't understand."

"Make me understand," she begged. She wanted him to make excuses, to tell her it was all a mistake.

"What is there to understand? This is who I am. This is what my life has been like."

She came to the heart of it, then, to the hardest part. She whispered, "They said you killed someone, years ago."

He looked her in the eye and said softly, "I did."

Emma took a step back at that.

He wasn't anywhere near her. It wasn't like she was afraid of him. It was the truth. She thought maybe if she could get away from it, it wouldn't hurt this badly and that maybe it wouldn't be true.

"How could you do that?"

The look he gave her then left her nearly completely undone. He took a ragged breath and stepped back himself. One minute, he was looking at her. The next he was staring off into the corner of the room behind her. He was lost, gone back so many years. She thought she was seeing the boy he'd once been.

Seventeen, she thought. Not far from the age she was now.

He'd taken someone's life at seventeen?

She felt like she could see it all, the horror, the bewilderment, the sorrow, and she wondered what he'd been like before that, what he might have been.

"I just did it, okay? We got into a fight, and by the time they pulled me off the other guy, he was dead," he said, finally looking her in the eye. "If you were expecting some pretty story, you're not going to get it. I told you, dammit. I told you what it was like. I told you that you didn't know me, and you just wouldn't listen."

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Yeah, well, so am I."

"What's going to happen to you?" she asked.

"I don't know, and I don't want you to even think about it. I want you to forget about this. Go back to that pretty little life of yours. Find some boy and..." He was pacing then, fuming. "God, Emma. You're really eighteen?"

"I'll be nineteen in February," she said.

He laughed then, a disgusted sound. "And you think that makes a damned bit of difference?"

"You care about me," she said. "I know you do."

"Emma, you're a child. Sam is ready to kill me for ever laying a hand on you, and honestly, if I were in his place, I'd feel the same way."

"I am not a child," she insisted.

"Well I'm thirty-three, thirty-four in April. It's indecent."

"You didn't think so a day and a half ago," she reminded him.

"Okay, so you don't look eighteen and I sure didn't think you were. Believe me, if I'd known, I never would have laid a hand on you."

He was fuming then, and he looked a lot like Sam. If her heart wasn't breaking, she might tell him so. But her heart was breaking. She hardly had any words left, hardly had anything left inside of her at all.

"I'm sorry," she said, in complete and utter despair.

"Oh, God, Emma." It was a ragged sound, the sound of a man dragging the bottom, every bit of energy and hope gone, which was exactly how she felt.