Author's Notes: This was a tough chapter to write because I wasn't sure if this is what I wanted to do. I'm interested in what y'all think. I'm not sure what any of y'all are thinking about the rest of it anyhow because only a couple of y'all are reviewing! But thanks for reading and getting this far!
Chapter IX: Alone with Ghosts
Orianne was surprised to see the Metro, now Sloan's car alone, in her parents' driveway. Sloan was supposed to be in Birmingham—he supposedly already had an apartment there for his new job, which he had only hinted at previously. It was only early evening and she expected to see at least her father or Olivia come out of the main house to greet her. Stepping out of the car, she glanced around the farm and everything felt too quiet. She turned to Orrin, who had driven to the airport to pick her up. "Is something going on?"
He shook his head and lied, "I don't think so." He slammed the door shut to the Range Rover and then added, "I've got a few more things to finish up for the evening." She watched him stride off towards the barn but still didn't feel as if everything was right. He didn't offer to take her suitcase in and Olivia still hadn't come out of the house even though her shockingly blue pick-up was there. Orianne shrugged her shoulders and lifted the hatch of the Rover to pull her luggage out. She wasn't about to go anywhere near the guesthouse with Sloan's car there and started for the verandah. When she heard the screen door to the guesthouse bang shut, she instinctively turned towards it.
"I'll get that," Sloan stated and hopped down the steps.
"It's not a problem," she replied, turning away. Josh had drilled into her that she needed to remain civil towards her soon-to-be ex-husband. She honestly did want to be anyhow. She didn't hate him, just hated the circumstances that they forced themselves into.
"Orianne," he said in a tone that reminded her she could use the help.
She stepped back and allowed him to grasp the handle. When he started for the guesthouse, she immediately stated, "I'll stay with Mom and Dad."
"I might not be staying tonight," he responded. She let out a long breath and followed him up the steps. He held the screendoor open for her so it wouldn't slam in her face. Once inside, she could smell the food that was cooking. As her face screwed up in confusion, Sloan turned to her. "I want to talk, just you and me, no lawyers, no family. I know you must be starving after your flight, so I made dinner."
"Mom would have taken care of that."
"Well, when I told her I wanted to do it, she was a bit encouraging," he softly said.
"Yeah," Orianne scoffed under her breath. "Shall we?" she asked, heading for the small dining table that was already set for two and held a single red rose in a narrow glass vase. He had something in mind but she was clueless as to the purpose of this dinner. Despite Josh's advice, she felt she had to hear him out. That didn't mean that she had to respond to whatever Sloan was going to say. "What do you want me to help you with?"
"I've got it all. Go ahead and sit down."
It's not that Sloan didn't cook; it was just that he was home so little that she chose to cook for him. Making him come home and work as well always bothered her. So, to see him go to great lengths over a meal was rather surprising. He laid oven-roasted, mesquite chicken before her with several steamed vegetables—Marian would have a fit if they weren't fried, but who was telling her?—and Mexican rice. He produced sun-brewed sweet tea, which he claimed to have made as well. Had he offered her wine, she would have went running out the door, screaming that her husband had been abducted by aliens.
Orianne realized that she had played right into his hands when she set her fork down from the last bite. Orrin had abandoned her and no one had stepped foot out of the main house because they knew that Sloan was going to ask her to dinner. Then, he had excellently set her off guard as he asked how her flight was and how work had been going. He knew that she had had a diva shoot and he inquired as to how that had gone. She found herself animatedly talking, telling her pride in how well she thought the women's pictures had turned out. She paused with the tea glass half way to her lips and fixed him with a stare. "You're never interested in my work. What's going on?"
Sloan took a deep breath and then let it out. He had been in the military for twenty-seven years and it had been a long time since he had been this nervous. Then, he was flying over a war zone, praying that the Air Force's tracking equipment would keep him safe from the enemy's arsenal. How could this slight of a woman across from him scare him so? "I said I wanted to talk but it's me that needs to talk and I just need you to listen. Do you want to go into the living room?"
"Yeah," Orianne answered. She didn't want a knife anywhere near her in case she was tempted to use it. She settled in the sofa chair, her tea glass perched on the arm.
Sloan sat on the end of the couch nearest to her and looked as if he would fall off he tried to get any closer. "Orianne, I messed up. Wait, no, I…" He paused and then corrected himself. "I fucked up." She didn't chide him for his verbiage and he continued. "Royally. I didn't see what a good thing I had until I lost it."
"I'm not a thing."
He looked down and nodded his head in agreement. "Bad choice of words. I made a promise to you nine years ago that I didn't keep. All I wanted was twenty years of service and that came and went and I felt as if I had to keep serving, that I had to do it for you and our family." Before she could protest, he immediately added. "I honestly thought you wanted to have children and I'm so sorry that I was mistaken."
"I'm thirty. When we were going to have those children?" she angrily asked and then downed the last of her tea.
He shrugged his shoulders. "But it's something I can live with." Her mouth fell open. Was he about tell her that he didn't want to go through with the divorce? "I couldn't care less about that now if that's what you want because that's how much I want you back. I ignored that promise, I ignored you in just more than the issue about having kids. I never knew you were so passionate about photography. I thought it was something you did to fill your time while I was gone."
Orianne set the glass on the end table and pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. She didn't want to hear any of this. "Sloan—"
He was losing her, she was getting on the defensive. "Please, I have more to say." When she nodded, he continued. "I don't care about the affair anymore. I said some harsh things to you I never meant. It was the pain talking and it didn't get any better. I felt like you had ripped my heart into pieces. Not my emotions but I honestly thought I was having a heart attack after I left the hotel. The ache stayed but I let it rule me instead of trying to mend our marriage. You were offering me trust and I betrayed that when I went through your things. When I found those pictures and the necklace, I felt the same, as if I couldn't breathe and my chest was going to explode. I couldn't fight back because I didn't know how or what to say."
When he slipped to the floor on his knees, Orianne dropped her feet to the rug. She watched him suspiciously but couldn't stop his arms as he leaned in and encircled her waist. "Ori, please, don't let this be over," he said, his voice breaking as he pulled her close.
"Sloan, don't," she said, the tears starting to fall. "Don't. I've made my decision."
"I will treat you like the princess you are. Just don't leave me," he added, choking over the emotions welling up in him.
"No, Sloan," she replied but her arms circled his back. "I can't…"
He pulled away to look up at her and then rose up just enough to kiss her softly. "Ori," he murmured against her lips and then pulled her up to stand with him. Her brain was screaming at her to push him away but her arms wouldn't work and his mouth descended on hers again. He hadn't kissed her this deeply in so long and she found herself responding in kind. She turned with him as he carefully maneuvered them to the couch and then shuddered as he lay her down and followed.
As Sloan's hands reached for the buttons on her shirt, she finally found her resolve. She pushed him away and slithered out from under him. "Sloan, no," she said, standing and putting distance between them. "Now you have to listen." The tears were freely flowing and he wanted to wipe them away but she would draw back. "It really is over. I love Dave. I realized that more than anything the day you found those pictures. I choose Dave."
"Don't say that," he pleaded.
"I shouldn't have yelled at you and kicked you out. I should have acted like a mature adult and told you my feelings. I know that but I can't be with you because it's not fair to you," her breath caught in a sob, "and it's not fair to me."
He began shaking his head and put the heels of his hands to his eyes. "You don't love me at all?"
How was she supposed to respond to that? Of course, she loved him but her heart was no longer his. "I will never stop loving you but it's not the love of a wife for a husband. I've spent a third of my life with you—I can't wipe you away and forget about you."
"Then why do it?"
"I'm doing it but I have to close this chapter on our life. Our story is done, Sloan. It's over," she explained, pleading with him to hear and accept her words. "I'm sorry it has to be this way. Nothing you do or say can make me change my mind."
Her husband could only stare at her retreating form as she hurried out the guesthouse. He could hear her retreating steps as she dashed down the stairs. She had rendered him speechless only one other time and that was when she had kicked him out. Yet, the way she had responded to his kiss and his touch told him that she was still uncertain. In that instant, he had no idea what that would matter but he was going to have to let her walk out the door and he was going to have to show up tomorrow in Birmingham at Josh Holcomb's offices. He didn't have a lawyer but he could still listen to what hers had to say before employing his own if necessary.
Orianne didn't look back as she sprinted across the yard and to the barn. She didn't care how much she looked like a gimp as she moved as fast as her legs could take her. The woman started grabbing tack off the wall and dropping it over the fence into the pasture. She was already scanning the horses for Ares—the strongest of the faster of their horses. She needed speed and strength. With tears dripping down her cheeks, she stormed back into the barn for the saddle blanket and tossed it over a fence post. Going back for the saddle, she heard someone enter as she began pulling at it from its pegs high on the wall. Whipping around, ready to give a tongue lashing, she paused as she realized it was only Deacon Malone, her brother's closest associate on the farm. She wiped the tears from her face and then turned back to the saddle, giving it a good jerk but only managing to get it off one of the pegs—it was too high for her.
"Don't ignore me, Orianne," Deacon said in his deep, gravelly voice and reached over her head to pull the saddle down for her before she hurt herself.
"I'll do what I damn well please," she replied, hefting the saddle onto her shoulder and pushing around him.
"Orianne," he sternly called and she stopped dead in her tracks. She hadn't heard that tone of voice from him since he forced her to face her fears about riding again. "Don't go out there."
"I'll do—what—I—damn well—please."
"The last time you stormed out of here to ride a horse, you ended up in a wheelchair for a very long time," he stated evenly, striding around her to block her exit.
The tears were flowing freely again and she tried to sidestep him but he was too quick. Trying the other way, he once again blocked her. "Get out of my way," she seethed.
"You're going for Ares, aren't you?"
"That's none of your business," she barely said, her words catching in her throat.
"It's getting dark outside," he said as she dodged him but this time he caught her in his arms. "You want to kill him like you could have killed Aramis."
The saddle dropped to the ground with a thud and she collapsed against his chest, the sobs coming freely now. Deacon had tried to remain neutral over the situation as he heard talk around the farm. He chided those who gossiped about his boss' daughter and he warned those who maligned Sloan. No one had the right to talk about something they didn't know about. It wasn't so easy to maintain that ambivalence with her crying in his arms like a child.
It had been a long day and it was already several hours past when Deacon usually left but he had to see to a patch of fence that had been torn down by what he guessed to be hooligans out looking for trouble. He was climbing in his truck when he saw Orianne limp across the yard from the guesthouse and into the barn but waited to start the ignition. When he saw her produce the first of the tack, angrily throwing the bridle and halter over the fence, he knew what she was doing. He put two and two together and figured she must have had an argument with Sloan. She was already going back for the saddle by the time he got there. He wasn't about to let her hurt a horse or herself because of her failing marriage. He only removed the saddle from the wall because she would keep trying to take it down and not listen to a word he said. When she fell into his arms, he could only cradle her like he had when she was a young girl, hurt by her own childish actions and afraid to face what she had once loved with a passion. She would never compete again but she could learn to ride again. This time, the hurt went beyond the physical and he couldn't teach her to get back up on the horse. He already had his suspicions that someone else was already doing that.
When her cries began to quiet, he pulled back to wipe the tears away. "I don't know and I don't want to know unless you want to tell me," he softly said.
"Thank you for keeping me from making a huge mistake. I'm sorry I fell apart on you."
"You have been strong for too long. Don't make apologies to me. Go on into the house and I'll put the tack up."
"I got it out, I should put it up." She didn't want to come out of the barn until she knew Sloan was gone.
"I heard the car leave, he's gone," he said and she shook her head, wondering how he could read her mind. "Make me one of your apple turnovers the next time you're home and we'll be even."
"It's a deal," she replied with a crooked smile that made the corners of her eyes turn up.
"That's my girl," he responded and gave her a gentle nudge toward the door.
No wonder she had had a crush on him as a kid, she thought as she sniffled and trudged toward the guesthouse. It was either deal with the remnants of Sloan's presence or deal with her mother with her face red and puffy with him gone as well. She chose to be alone with her ghosts.
TBC…
