Page 59 of Down Shift (Driven 8)
And thoughts are something I have a lot of right now, when I wish I had none. I replay the scene with my father in my head just like I did a hundred other times during work today. No, my resolve hasn’t wavered, but at the same time I wonder what he’s going to say, how he’s going to try to force my hand into returning to my duties and the marriage he refuses to accept is over.
The emotions rush through my mind like the wind through the window, constant and powerful. Shut it down, Getty. Let it go. So I try to do just that. I glance over to Zander and smile before closing my eyes, resting my head back on the seat, and allowing myself to enjoy letting someone take control of the wheel for a bit so I can just be a passenger.
I’m not sure how long we drive, but the deceleration of the car and a sudden bump of the shocks have me opening my eyes. Zander has pulled off the main road that meanders along the entire coastline of the island onto a rutted asphalt road. I look around in curiosity, but all I see are dense trees and a dirt road sloping downward in front of us. And just as I’m about to ask what’s going on, the trees open up into an isolated clearing.
The waves churning in the ocean beyond us provide a breathtaking view. It’s a clear day and whitecaps dance on the water and the wind rustles the trees. It’s an astoundingly beautiful scene.
“Wow.” One word. That’s the only possible way to describe it.
“Yeah. Wow.” But when I glance over at him, he’s looking at me, and for a brief moment the thought ghosts through my mind that he’s not talking about the view. I maintain our connection for a beat before shifting my gaze back to the water, a surge of sudden attraction causing my nerves to hum when they shouldn’t.
“Mable dropped a check by the house today while you were at work. It’s on the kitchen counter.”
The subject change comes quickly enough to give me whiplash. And while I try to remain outwardly calm, my insides are vibrating with anxiety. So I sit there and wait for the questions to come, the barrage over what she’s paying me for. Why I’m so broke. “Thanks.” Time to change the subject. “How’d you know about this place? It’s incredible.”
“Liam told me about it.”
Oh. “When were you talking to him?” I feign disinterest as warning bells sound. Worrying that maybe Liam said something to Zander about walking in on me in the stockroom today when I was with my father. Or maybe he asked Zander who it was, since I made sure to suddenly become busy any time he asked about the unfamiliar man.
“You were in the back, I think. He came over and asked me a few things, said it was a cool place to watch the storms move in.”
I chew the inside of my lip as I stare out at the tranquillity of the sea. “But there’s no storm moving in.”
“Isn’t there, though?”
Oh. Shit. The question and the searching tone in his voice catch me off guard and I’m instantly leery of stepping into this conversation. At the same time I long to talk to him about it. I keep my eyes focused anywhere but on him, draw strength from the beauty around me with the trees rustling high above us making the only sound.
“Who came to the bar today, Getty?”
Panic flutters. My mouth goes dry. My fingers twist together in my lap. My thoughts collide with fear. I want to tell Zander but am afraid what he will think of me once he knows how weak and stupid I was in the past. How I allowed myself to be treated.
No self-respecting woman puts up with what I did. So what does that say about me as a person?
“I told you I was adopted.” Zander’s unexpected comment startles me enough that I shift and turn to look at him, wondering where he’s going with this. “If you were half as nosy as most people these days, you’d already have pulled all of this up, but I respect you more because you haven’t. I appreciate you letting me tell you on my own terms. Especially because the reason I came to PineRidge won’t be in any of those articles. I’m the only person who knows why.”
I nod slowly, curiosity piqued. “I’d rather you tell me . . . when you want to.”
He’s leaned back in the seat, one elbow propped on the window frame with his hand on his forehead, while the thumb on his other hand is tapping on the bottom part of the steering wheel. When he turns his head slightly and looks at me, there’s a far-off look in his eyes and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “I grew up on the wrong side of town. Drugs, alcohol, violence, you name it—they were always in my house for as long as I can remember, but that’s not to say I remember much. When I was almost eight, I woke up in the middle of the night. My mom was screaming for help. She’d been stabbed. Many times. My dad was covered in her blood. He threatened to come after me if I ever told anyone.”
“Oh, Zander.” My comment is
reflexive. So is the movement of my hand that reaches out to squeeze his thigh in sympathetic and silent support. I can’t even attempt to wrap my head around what his eyes have seen or the pain he’s lived with. Both as a little boy and as a grown man.
“I’m not . . . it was . . . shit,” he says as he blows out a sigh and shakes his head. “I don’t mean to sound so matter-of-fact about it, but that’s the only way I can not let it get to me . . . because it does that enough already.”
I keep hoping he’ll look my way so that I can tell him somehow with my eyes how sorry I am. . . . I know my words won’t amount to much. But he doesn’t look my way. In fact he seems to focus everywhere else but on me as he works through the memories in his mind.
“I didn’t talk for months. Couldn’t. I was seriously messed up when I was placed in that home for boys I mentioned. All of their stories were equally as horrible as mine and with no other suitable family members to adopt us, we kind of adopted each other. And we had Rylee.” A smile ghosts his lips and softens his features momentarily. The love he has for her is blatantly obvious. “She ran the House and was a mother to all of us in a sense. Her patience and compassion were—are—the reason we all made it. How we survived.” The smile grows wider. “One day this man came to the house to see her. When he walked in, I knew who he was immediately. It was Colton Donavan. You see, the one thing that my dad did with me was watch racing, and so the minute I saw Colton, for a second, I forgot about everything my dad had done. I was sad and scared and lonely and heartbroken and there was this larger-than-life person in this new place. And I know it makes zero sense, but seeing him made me feel close somehow to the little bit of good in my old life. He knelt down . . . and there was something about him—a connection, a moment, a something that somehow made a little boy want to speak for the first time in months. . . . It wasn’t much, but it was a start.”
Now it’s my turn to smile as the comfortable silence settles around us. To imagine what Zander looked like as a scared little boy looking up to this giant persona and having a connection. And there are so many questions I want to ask him, so many things I want to say, and yet I do neither because I’m utterly fascinated how that broken boy could be the kindhearted man sitting beside me. The one who would mess up a silverware drawer just because it affected my own triggers somehow.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For telling me.”
He looks my way for a split second and then shifts in his seat so his back is against his door, gaze focused to his thigh where his fingers intertwine with mine. I can sense he’s uncomfortable by his lack of response, that he hates discussing his past, and yet for some reason he’s doing it, so I sit patiently and wait.
