Crave (Splendor Book 2) (17 page)

“What?” Ian looked and sounded shocked. “How is that even possible, Tessa? How old were you?”

She shrugged. “Maybe seven or eight. When she was in one of her down phases, I’d try to get her to eat, encourage her to get up and about. I learned early on how to look after myself - fixing meals, getting to and from school, even doing the laundry. I was terrified someone would take me away, Ian. My mother might have been sick, but she was all I had.”

“Take another sip of your brandy, darling,” he urged. “I’m sure this all must be upsetting for you to relive.”

Tessa drank a bit more before continuing. “Things got tougher as I grew older and my mother got sicker. When she was manic she’d usually be able to find some sort of job - waitressing, a cashier, a hotel maid. There was never much money, barely enough to keep us going. But when she was down, she couldn’t work, basically just slept most of the day. We - we lived on welfare during those times, sometimes in homeless shelters, sometimes in our car.”

He paled visibly before drinking down the rest of his brandy. “My God, Tessa. To think of you in a place like that - being homeless. Christ, I want to wrap you up in my arms and never let go of you,” he told her fervently.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” she said softly. “It really wasn’t as bad as I know it must sound.”

“No, I’m guessing it was far worse and you’ll never admit to me just how bad it really was,” retorted Ian. “But I won’t press you for more details right now. Go on.”

Tessa began to twirl a lock of hair between her fingers, betraying her agitation. “As soon as I was old enough I got a job. Fortunately I matured early, so I looked two or three years older than I really was. At thirteen I bluffed my way into working at a summer day camp. Some of the kids attending the camp were older than I was.”

“Thirteen. Bloody hell, you were still a child.” He shoved a hand through his hair, mussing it, clearly displaying his distress. “But it’s beginning to sound like you never really were a child.”

“No, I wasn’t,” she agreed solemnly. “But at least I was able to earn enough to keep us out of homeless shelters. When I turned sixteen, I started working in retail, one job after school and another on weekends. My schoolwork suffered even more, but I made sure to pick easier classes that I could keep up with. No calculus or chemistry for me, I’m afraid.”

Ian hauled her against his side, as though unable to keep from touching her a moment longer. “It doesn’t matter, love. You’re the brightest, most brilliant girl I’ve ever known.”

Tessa sighed. “I always felt stupid in school. Except in my computer classes. I knew early on that I wouldn’t even try to go to college, and worked on improving my computer skills instead so that I could get a good job. I had always figured on taking care of my mom, you see, hoped that once I graduated from high school and got a real job that I could finally get her some help, get her on the kind of medication that might allow her to have a normal life. But I ran out of time.”

She started to tremble then, finding the next part of her story the most difficult and painful. She took another fortifying sip of brandy, not even flinching from the burn this time.

“By my junior year of high school, my mother wasn’t even getting out of bed most days,” she continued haltingly. “We were living in Tucson then, had moved there in January. It was October when it happened – and on a Wednesday, of course. Because almost every bad thing that’s happened in my life has been on that day of the week.”

Tessa hid her face in her hands, struggling to find a way to resume her story. The next part of her tale was by far the most difficult, the most gut wrenching, but it had also been the catalyst that had set so many other things in motion.

She kept her eyes downcast and fought hard to prevent her voice from breaking. “When I was driving home that evening from work, I could smell the smoke in the air three blocks away. I pulled up in front of our apartment building and it - it wasn’t there anymore. There had been a fire earlier in the day and the entire building was destroyed. When I got there a fire truck was still on site making sure the flames were under control.” She raised tear filled eyes to Ian, her jaw wobbly. “My mother - she didn’t make it out, Ian. Most other residents weren’t at home at the time, and the few who were heard the smoke detectors and got out. My mother was probably too deep inside her dark place to pay attention, probably didn’t even hear the alarms or the sirens or smell the smoke. She was - gone. Everything was gone - our furniture, our clothes, dishes. All I had left were the clothes I was wearing, my purse and school books, and our old car.”

Tears were running freely down her cheeks now as she whispered in a broken voice. “I should have been there with her. I knew how bad off she was, how far into her depression she’d fallen. I could have saved her, could have -”

“Stop it.” He crushed her against him, lowering her head to his shoulder and holding her while she wept. “Hush, love. Don’t do this to yourself. I’m guessing you’ve blamed yourself for years, but it wasn’t your fault. Your mother was very ill from the sounds of it, and you were at work when the fire started. Working to help take care of her, I might add. So stop feeling responsible, Tessa. It was just a terrible accident.”

Ian continued to rock her gently in his arms until her sobs began to subside, and she was calm enough to continue telling her story. She didn’t resist when he refilled her brandy glass, and obediently took a swallow.

“So what happened to you after that?” he prodded gently. “You were what - sixteen? Were you forced into one of those foster homes you had heard awful things about?”

“No.”

She gave him a somewhat abbreviated version of what had happened after that horrific night - living on her own in a motel for a week or so; moving in with Michelle and her family, only to bitterly regret that decision very quickly; how things had gone from bad to worse when Brittany and Sean had moved in.

Ian made a low, snarling sound when she told him about Sean and his unwanted attraction towards her. “If you’re about to tell me that piece of filth touched you - or worse- I swear that I will hunt him down like the animal he is and beat him to death,” he vowed darkly.

She laid a hand on his arm, soothing his barely controlled rage. “No. It never got that far.”

She continued with her story reluctantly, knowing that the next part would only incense him further. When she admitted to having lived in her car for long weeks, Ian shut his eyes and didn’t speak for several seconds, almost as though he were silently counting to ten to keep his rage in check.

“God.” He surged to his feet and began to pace around the library. His entire body was tense and almost shaking, and he kept clenching and unclenching his fists, as though he longed to hit something.

“If it’s any consolation,” she told him meekly, “I only lived that way for about four months.”

He spun around to face her, his handsome face livid with rage. “Four
hours
would have been too long for you to live like that. I feel - sick, Tessa. Bloody sick at the thought of you all alone and helpless. Jesus, anything could have happened to you out there. You could have been raped, robbed, murdered.”

“I know,” she admitted reluctantly. “I never slept especially well those months, was always cautious to make sure no one bothered me.”

“What changed after those hellish months?” he rasped. “Please, for God’s sake, tell me things got better after that.”

“They did. And what happened after that was Peter. My hus - my ex-husband. He - well, there’s really no other way to say this. He saved me, Ian. In more ways than you can possibly imagine.”

Ian refilled his brandy snifter and drank half the contents in one gulp. “Continue, Tessa. I’m sorry if I seem upset but - Christ, to think of you all alone that way…” His voice trailed off as he shuddered.

“It’s okay, honestly.” Tessa found it a bit odd that she was the one offering
him
comfort under the circumstances. But then, she already knew how the story ended.

She recounted how Peter had helped her, looked out for her, became a true friend, the only person in her life she’d ever been able to depend on.

He leaned back against a low table that held a marble chess set, his feet crossed at the ankles as he sipped his brandy. “And how long did
this
new arrangement last?”

“Just a few months. Until Peter graduated from high school and turned eighteen.”

Ian raised a brow. “What happened then?”

“He married me.”

***

Ian was damned glad he hadn’t chosen that particular moment to take a sip of brandy, because he most certainly would have choked on it. When Tessa had told him rather uncertainly at the restaurant that she wanted to tell him about her past, nothing in the world could have prepared him for all of the terrible things that had befallen her in her relatively short life thus far. But this latest revelation, while certainly not terrible, might have been the biggest shock of them all.

He stared at her in disbelief. “So exactly how old were
you
when this marriage took place?”

Tessa looked down at her lap where she was clasping and unclasping her hands in agitation. “Seventeen,” she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Seventeen.” Ian shook his head in disbelief. “Why, Tessa? Why couldn’t you have waited until you were a little older? Were the two of you that much in love?”

Her gaze flew up to meet his at this question, and she shook her head in denial. “That - that’s not it at all. We rushed to get married as soon as possible so that Peter could be legally responsible for me. The social worker assigned to my case finally figured out that I wasn’t living at Michelle’s any longer, even though her mother kept cashing the support checks. So Peter offered to get married in order to - well -”

“To save you. Yes, I understand now.” Ian heaved a sigh. “So you didn’t marry for the usual reasons, then?”

“We weren’t madly in love, if that’s what you mean. Peter was kind to me, we became best friends, but it was never a romantic relationship. And we never intended to stay married. Peter had always planned to pack up and leave Tucson as soon as he turned eighteen - too many awful memories there for him. But he stayed - for me – the first time so I could finish high school, turn eighteen, and be considered a legal adult.”

“And yet you remained married for quite a long time after that.” His curiosity was growing by leaps and bounds.

“Yes.” She took another sip of her brandy. “Peter enrolled in community college that first year and we moved into a shared rental.
That
was another disaster. We were in such a hurry to find a place that we could afford that we didn’t bother to find out much about our roommates.” She managed a small smile. “You know how you told me your favorite movie is
Animal House
?”

Ian nodded, quite certain he wasn’t going to like where her question was leading. “You aren’t going to tell me your roommates were like the characters in the movie, are you?”

“Worse. It was the nonstop party house, people coming and going constantly, no privacy, everyone helping themselves to food and things that Peter and I bought for ourselves. We ended up stashing things in our room, buying a padlock for the door, and spending as little time as possible there. We’d signed a lease for a year, couldn’t afford to break it, and didn’t have enough money saved to put down on another place anyway.”

“So you toughed it out for a year?”

Tessa wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Somehow, yes. We each worked two jobs, took a third over summer break, and saved every penny until we had enough to get a little place of our own the following year.”

“Why did you stay together after that first year? What changed?”

She heaved a little sigh. “Peter felt responsible for me, even though he had no real obligation to look out for me. He told me he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself leaving town knowing I‘d be trying to fend for myself with no money, no real marketable job skills, no family to help out. So we decided I’d enroll in the office administration program at community college and get my certificate. He agreed to stay in town for the two years of the program, until I could get a good enough job to support myself. In the meanwhile, he received a scholarship to the University of Arizona and decided he might as well get his degree so that he’d have something to fall back on if his journalism career didn’t work out.”

“So you remained married another year so you could help him finish his degree?”

“That’s it exactly,” she agreed. “By then, we’d been married for four years and, well, we’d just grown used to being together, I suppose. When Peter got the job offer up here in San Francisco, I transferred, too. I didn’t have especially fond memories of Tucson so I welcomed the opportunity to leave.”

Ian offered up a brief smile. “Just about the only good thing to come out of this whole mess, wasn’t it? Your ex-husband’s job brought you into my life - even though I’ve had to wait an eternity for you.”

Tessa returned his smile a bit timidly. “Yes, that was a good thing as it turned out. And I do love San Francisco. It’s very different from any other place I’ve lived.”

“You’re leaving out the final piece to this puzzle, Tessa. Why did Peter ask you for a divorce after so many years - how many was it?”

“Seven. We’d been married a little over seven years when he got the job in the Middle East. I wanted to go with him, but he set his foot down. Told me it was time we stopped fooling ourselves that we could ever have a normal marriage, that it was time for me to finally start living.”

Ian looked perplexed, even as he took a seat next to her on the sofa. “What exactly does that mean? I know you said you didn’t get married for the usual reasons, but surely after seven years -”

“No. We never had a truly romantic marriage, or anything remotely near a normal relationship. Peter - he had a lot of issues. He only told me part of what happened to him but, well, he was badly abused as a boy and never really dealt with those issues.”

“The alcoholic mother, I presume?”