"He needs to be loved so much," Anna said, her throat tightening again. "But it's so hard for him to reach out to anyone, or let anyone reach out to him."
Emmeline nodded. "I guess we should have tried harder, after he'd had time to realize we weren't going to hurt him, but by then we were kinda used to keeping our distance from him. He seemed more comfortable that way, and we didn't push him. Looking back, I can see what we should've done, but at the time we did what it seemed like he wanted." She sat for a minute in silence, rocking back and forth a little in the wooden kitchen chair. Then she said, "Resent him? Never for a minute. Land sakes, we loved him from the beginning."
Chapter 9
Oaxon's face tightened when she told him Harold was dead, and the brilliant color of his eyes dimmed. She had expected him to refuse to listen to anything about the Bradleys, but he hadn't. If he was curious, though, he was hiding it well, because he hadn't asked any questions, either. The news of Harold's death jolted him into showing interest, though reluctantly. "Emmeline is still living in the same old house by herself?"
She told him the address, and he nodded. "It's the same house."
"She seems to be in good health," Anna said. "She cried when I told her I knew you." She took a deep breath. "You should go see her."
"No," he said shortly, dismissing the idea with a frown.
"Why not?"
She could feel him withdrawing, see his face closing up. She reached out and took his hand, remembering what Emmeline had said about letting him pull away when they should have pulled him closer. "I won't let you shut me out," she said. "I love you, and we're in this together."
His eyes were unreadable, but she had his attention. "If I had a problem, would you want to help me, or would you leave me to deal with it on my own?" she pressed.
There was a flicker of expression, gone too fast for her to decipher. "I'd take care of it for you," he said, and his hand tightened on hers. "But I don't have a problem."
"Well, I think you do."
"And you're determined to help me with it whether I think it exists or not, is that it?"
"That's it. That's the way relationships work. People butt in on other people's business because they care."
Once he would have thought it was an intolerable encroachment on his privacy, but though her determination was irritating him, at the same time it made him feel oddly secure. She was right; this was the way relationships worked. He'd seen it, though this was the first time he'd experienced it. Somehow their "arrangement" had become a "relationship," full of complications, demands and obligations, but he wouldn't have chosen to go back. For the first time in his life he felt accepted as he really was; Anna knew all there was to know about him, all the hideous details of his birth and childhood. She knew the worst, yet she hadn't left.
On a sudden impulse he lifted her astride his lap so he could look full into her face while they talked. It was an intensely personal position for talking, both physically and mentally, but it felt right. "It wasn't a good time of my life," he said in an effort to explain. "I don't want to remember it, or revisit it."
"The way you remember it is distorted by everything that had gone before. You think of them as cold and resentful of you because you weren't their son, but that isn't at all the way they felt." "Anna," he said patiently, "I was there." She framed his face with her hands. "You were a frightened boy. Don't you think it's possible you were so used to rejection that you expected it, so that's what you saw?"
"So you're an amateur psychiatrist now?" "Reasoning doesn't require a degree." She leaned forward and stole a quick kiss. "She talked for hours, telling me all about you."
"And now you think you're an expert."
"I am an expert on you," she snapped. "I've studied you for years, from the minute I went to work for you."
"You're pretty when you're mad," he said, abruptly enjoying this conversation. He realized with surprise that he was teasing her, and that it was fun. He could make her angry, but she would still love him anyway. Commitment had its advantages.
"Then I'm about to get a lot prettier," she warned.
"I can handle it."
"You think so, big guy?"
"Yes, ma'am." He cupped his hands on her hips and moved her suggestively. "I'm pretty sure I can."
For a moment her eyelids drooped heavily in response; then she opened her eyes wide and glared at him. "Don't try to distract me."
"I wasn't trying."
No, he was accomplishing, without effort. She was far from finished with her efforts to convince him, though, so she started to get up. His hands tightened on her hips and kept her in place. "Stay right where you are," he ordered.
"We can't talk in this position. You'll get your mind on sex, and then where will we be?"
"Probably right here on this couch. Not for the first time, either."
"Saxon, would you please be serious about this?" she wailed, then stopped in astonishment at what she had just said. She couldn't believe she had just had to plead with him to be serious. He was the most sober of men, seldom laughing or even smiling. She had probably seen him smile more in the past week or so than in the rest of the three years she had known him.
"I am serious," he said. "About this position, and about Emmeline. I don't want to go back. I don't want to remember."
"She loves you. She called you 'her boy,' and she said that our baby would be her grandchild."