Chapter Twenty-three: Keep Holding On

Chapter Twenty-three

Lincoln

KEEP HOLDING ON

Performed by Avril Lavigne

As I turned back to the television and started searching in drawers for the remote, I was able to breathe again. For a moment, I'd been certain she was going to walk out, certain she was going to leave when all I wanted was for her to stay…stay and stay and stay. Having her here felt like a soothing balm. It felt right.

When she'd looked up from Sienna's painting, the hurt in her eyes had sliced through me like a box cutter through tape. I'd meant every word I'd said. Other than those first two nights when I'd thought Sienna had returned to haunt me, I hadn't once thought of Willow as her. If anything, the yin and yang of them stood out more, twining around each other because of their physical similarities but standing out due to the strength of their opposing forces.

Sienna stomping and storming through my gallery and kitchen had only emphasized it more.

In some ways, I wanted Willow for every way her light opposed those gothic images. For the light that promised to always guide me home.

After I finally found the TV remote in a drawer with a pile of cords, I joined her on the sofa. Flicking the television on, I swiped through the movie choices on the streaming service.

"What do you want to watch?" I asked.

"You've been here over a week, right?"

I nodded and kept sliding through the movie options.

"You haven't watched your TV at all?" she asked with a head tilt toward the paintings that had been piled in front of it.

I turned to find her gaze locked on me. "No, I've been unpacking or painting." She raised a brow, and I kept going, "Truth is, reading or listening to music is better than television when I can't sleep, but sometimes watching reruns helps too. While I can't actually stay in bed if I'm awake, it's good to stay close if my eyes do get heavy." I waved at the stereo system, the shelf of books, and a little makeshift tea center on a corner table. "So I make sure I have everything I need close at hand."

She frowned. "What do you mean you can't actually stay in bed? Isn't that where you'd want to be if you hope to fall asleep again?"

Normally, when anyone probed about my insomnia and my routines, I'd close off, afraidthey'd use some or all of it against me like Felicity had. But with Willow, I found myself wanting to tell her all of it so she'd maybe understand in a way that no one else could.

"Staying in bed is almost impossible because it's like ants crawling through me. The feeling eases once I move. Plus, it helps keep my brain wired right." She frowned, and I explained, "I've been through a shit ton of therapy. If you can name it, I've probably tried it. What works best for me is a combination of several but is closest to stimulus control therapy, which basically has your mind associating your bed with only the necessary activities. You use it just for sleep and sex."

At my mention of sex, her eyes darted to the bed behind us and back, and that delightful pink tinge hit her cheeks.

For the first time, I really considered her age—twenty-three. Life had already beaten experience into her no one should have had—but especially not at sixteen or twenty or twenty-three. But now, I thought about that delightful blush and the sweetness that followed her and wondered just what kind of sexual encounters she'd had.

Was there someone she'd made love to? Someone she'd cared about? Just thinking about it returned that feral jealousy to me I'd felt when the Secret Service agent had been here. But the idea of her not having had anyone in her life left me feeling almost as ferocious. If she hadn't had those experiences yet, it was another thing the gang in Chicago had taken from her.

Both times we'd kissed, she'd seemed just as greedy and hungry as me, but now, I was even more relieved I hadn't taken her to the kitchen floor this morning. If it was her first time, she deserved more than cold, hard tile. I couldn't make any assumptions, but I'd let her decide how far we took things, and I'd be even more careful about how we proceeded.

I turned back to the screen. "What do you think of A Knight's Tale ?"

She frowned. "I don't think I've seen it."

My eyebrows raised. "That's settled, then. You're in for quite the ride."

And when the color on her cheeks grew at my words, my body reacted to it, tempting me to go back on the promises I just made to myself and show her just what a beautiful ride we could take together.

I cleared my throat and asked, "Would you like to change into something more comfortable? A pair of sweats?"

She looked down at the berry stains on her T-shirt with a wince, fingering her flowy skirt. "That would be great."

I went into my closet and brought out a pair of gray sweats and an old Penn State shirt for her, pointing to the door on the opposite wall. "Bathroom is through that door."

She thanked me and went inside.

I tossed aside my jeans for my own pair of sweats and then went to the linen cupboard in the hall, pulling out a blanket. When I came back in, she was on the love seat again. My sweats swam around her legs with the shirt covering her hips, and some animalistic part of me liked her that way. In my things. As if I was marking her with my scent like some ancient Homo sapien throwback.

I switched off the light and joined her on the sofa. As I started the movie, I swooped an arm around her waist and tucked her up against me before covering us with the blanket. She hesitated, resisting ever so slightly before she allowed herself to sink into me.

Within minutes of starting the movie, her eyes were already glued to the screen and Heath Ledger. The guy was dead, and I was still jealous of the way she was watching him so avidly. What had she called herself earlier? Ridiculous. I was equally ridiculous. The entire situation between us was, but I wouldn't change a moment of it.

Sitting there, with her in my clothes, sharing a blanket in the dark of my bedroom, it was intimate and personal. While my body practically vibrated in every place we were joined, a hopeful serenity also swept through me. As if everything in my life had somehow righted itself simply because she was at my side. As if this was what was always supposed to happen when I decided to move to Cherry Bay. I thought of Sienna's words once again.

She's your person.

I believed it. Not just because a ghost had told me, but because my soul felt such absolute tranquility with Willow there.

? ? ?

The credits rolled, and I hit the off button, pitching the room into darkness.

Willow was asleep. She'd barely made it halfway through the movie before passing out, even though it was only nine o'clock. Her body was deep in slumber while mine was wide awake. While this was nothing new, I was more furious at the itching sensation growing inside me than I had been in years. I didn't want to leave the peace of our embrace. I was enjoying the full weight of her leaning into me, reveling in her sugary scent and the gentle warmth of her breath as it feathered along the arm I had around her.

Even with her eyes closed and her thoughts tucked away in dreamland, my mind reeled with new ways to paint her. Ophelia. No…not the tragedy of Ophelia. Sleeping Beauty, then. Hunted by evil because of her parents, but kind and generous and gentle. With a bed of flowers and moonlight streaming around her as her inner light pushed at the shadows of the forest.

My fingers twitched. The desperate need to get up that always found me pricked at my insides. My brain was unable to stop flipping from scene to scene like an old slideshow reel. I spiraled from one idea to the next before slipping back to that first Sleeping Beauty image of her and how I would show the shadow and light.

My soul was happy here, tucked up beside her, but my mind wouldn't shut the fuck up. My restless body was even now threatening to wake her, twitching restlessly beneath her.

I closed my eyes, sighed, and then slowly and reluctantly moved. I held her up gently while I slid out from under her and piled several throw pillows in my place. When I eased her down, her lids fluttered, and I thought maybe she'd wake, but then she squeezed one of the pillows to her, and her breathing evened out again. I stared at her, the longing to wake her with a kiss almost impossible to ignore. I reached out, brushing her cheek that glowed even in the darkness of the room that was broken only by the starlight slipping in the window.

More kaleidoscope images reeled through me.

I spun on a heel and headed for the hallway, picking up a blank canvas from the stack I'd moved out of my room, wishing I hadn't taken the majority of my supplies to the studio. I needed more of my things at home so I wouldn't have to go downtown in the middle of the night. Although, it could hardly be called the middle of the night, even for people without insomnia. Maybe if you were a five- or six-year-old, you'd be tucked into bed by now.

But as Willow worked baker's hours, I figured it might just be her normal pattern. Maybe she was able to train her body to sleep in ways I'd never been able to teach mine.

In the kitchen, I propped the canvas up on the counter at an angle against the upper cabinets. It wasn't an easel, but it would suffice. I turned on all the lights, made myself a cup of tea, and then stared at the blank linen for several minutes before finally starting a long curve that would be the slope of her lying in the grass. I let the Sleeping Beauty image guide me.

How long had it been since I'd had multiple projects going at once? I couldn't remember. Maybe before Lyrica had been shot. Before Dad was elected President. Before my life had been put on display more than ever before.

As I worked, I wished for music. The blaring of a symphony. But I couldn't put it through the house speakers and wake Willow. I could listen with my earbuds, but who the hell knew where I'd left them? I barely remembered my phone these days. Where was it now? In the pocket of my jeans? I could pause what I was doing to search for it and play the music softly in the kitchen, but my fingers were already moving. Black across the page.

Maybe I wouldn't do this one in oils. Maybe I'd do pencil and ink. Maybe I'd do watercolors.

The strawberry-and-chocolate dessert Willow had made sat nearby, adding an aroma to the visual, and suddenly, prickly berry vines grew around the edges of the drawing. Sweet and dangerous.

I wanted the smells embedded into the painting to give it the full sensory experience Willow's food art had provided. How would that even work? Oil scents near the display? A card below the image that people could scratch? But how would we keep the smells from blending in the gallery? Maybe only a few select pieces would have the scent. I'd think about it. Lyrica might have some ideas.

Somehow, I'd bring it together.

I had time.

Weeks, if not months, before anything of mine would be ready.

A loud crack drifted through the house from the front, ripping my eyes from the bouquet I was shading. Sienna's shimmering ghost appeared in the archway as another loud snap followed the first.

Lincoln, go! Go quickly! Worry bunched her brows together.

I dropped my charcoal pencil and headed for the front door.

One of the antique panes in the door was broken. A long, jagged slice skittered along the surface like a splintered windshield. My pulse raced, my gut twisted, and I fought the instinct to throw open the locks and chase after whoever had done this.

But I'd promised Hardy I wouldn't be stupid. Running, unarmed and barefoot, into the street while someone was taking shots at my house, with rocks or worse, would be entirely stupid.

Instead, I turned, intending to rush to the study, my laptop, and the cameras, when I caught sight of a figure coming down the stairs. For a single, panicked breath, I thought it was Sienna again until Willow's sleepy eyes, blinking awake in my clothes, registered.

"What was that noise?" she asked, confusion blending with a hint of fear.

"Get back!" I roared.

A third crash had the pane shattering completely. The glass tumbled to the doormat.

Willow cried out and instinctively crouched at the base of the stairs. I hurried over, grabbed her hand, and dragged her toward the study at the back of the house.

Once we were inside, she started to stand back up, and I pushed her toward the floor.

"Stay down!"

I stormed to the windows and drew the blinds before grabbing my laptop and joining her by the door. The cameras showed a masked man in all black dropping something on my front stoop. Even with the mask, he kept his face turned away just as he had when leaving the note at Willow's.

As we watched, he turned and headed down the street. Outside my window, I swore I heard whistling. That serial-killer tune Poco was fond of, but it could easily have been all in my head.

My body shook with fury at the utter calmness of the man, the hubris to just assume he could do this and walk away.

Screw Hardy.

I flung the laptop and ran for the front door as Willow called my name in alarm.

I was out and down the sidewalk before I'd really considered what I was going to do.

"Come back and take a shot at me personally!" I snarled into the dark.

No one was there. No sounds.

No bodies.

"You won't get away with this!" I hollered.

"Lincoln!" Willow's voice was terrified, and I whirled around to see her haloed in the doorway. An easy target.

"Get back inside!" I thundered, heading her way.

As I went to step inside, I saw the note he'd left on the mat. The paper was old and torn. The ink spread through it like blood through veins.

I barely registered the words, Next time it won't be rocks, before I was forcing her inside and slamming the door behind us. I locked it, even though it felt useless with the missing pane, and shifted to take her in. Her eyes were wide and terrified, but anger had begun to make an appearance as well. Good. It would keep her from crumbling.

Suddenly, she shoved me in the shoulder with a strength that had me stumbling back into the wood frame.

"What were you thinking?!" she cried. "You could have been hurt. Shot. Oh my God. Oh my God." She was shaking, her entire being trembling. She sank onto the bottom step, dropping her face into her hands. "What was I thinking? Bringing you into this?"

I closed the distance, squatting before her and running my palm over her silken strands. "Shh. It wasn't a gun, Sweetness. Just rocks. Just a coward taking a potshot."

Her head jerked up, sadness and fury there. "You didn't know that, Lincoln! You could have been hurt. I saw what happened to my dad… I saw his body jerk with every single bullet…" Her entire body trembled.

I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her into my chest. She buried her face in my neck as her body shuddered. "Shh. Shh. It's okay."

After the shaking slowed, I grabbed her hand and dragged her up the stairs, saying, "I need to call Hardy."

She was with me physically, but I could also feel her pulling away from me emotionally, erecting barriers she'd believe were for my own damn good. So she wouldn't be responsible for something happening to me. I understood that desire. It was the reason there was no way I'd let her walk out that door alone with someone after her.

I'd just found my jeans and recovered my phone from the pocket when she gasped, "You're bleeding!"

I looked down in surprise, searching for some unseen wound before finding the cut on my foot that had left a trail behind us. "The glass. I must have cut it on the glass. It's nothing."

I hit Hardy's number while Willow stared down at the blood for a long time before her eyes landed on the note I still had grasped in my free hand. She closed the distance, yanked it from me, and read. Her face paled impossibly more.

Just as she said, "I made you a target," Hardy's deep voice picked up, grunting out, "Lincoln?"

I didn't give a shit that it was the middle of the night, his time, as I said, "He took a potshot at us."

"What happened?" He was instantly awake as I explained the situation.

Willow turned, collected her clothes from the pile she'd made earlier, and pulled her phone from the table by the sofa.

If she thought she was leaving, she had another thing coming.

I crossed over to the door, blocking it before she got anywhere near it, while I listened to Hardy's lecture about allowing a Secret Service detail back into my life. I was almost in agreement because, damn it, I needed someone with actual training to ensure Willow was safe. And yet, doing that—inviting them in—would end everything.

The Secret Service would dig around into her past, which would only flag the Marshals, and they'd come running. And everyone would agree our being together was an impossibility. Danger on both sides that the agencies would find unacceptable.

"I can't discuss this right now," I said to Hardy. "This is Poco. Find him."

I hung up and barred her exit as she tried to brush past me. When she refused to meet my gaze, panic worse than I'd felt while chasing an unknown assailant flooded me.

"Where do you think you're going?" I demanded.

"Home. If they're going to come, I won't let them bring you down with me. Let me by."

"No."

She stomped a bare foot. It was a soundless action, and yet it vibrated through me in a way that would have had me smirking if things weren't so desperate.

"If you go home, I'm coming with you," I told her with a deadly resolve.

"This isn't your fight!" she insisted, eyes flashing a warning I didn't heed.

"No?" I demanded. I'd prove to her just exactly why it was my goddamn battle.

I yanked her to me, pushing my lips against hers. All my anger and fear and frustration came out as I plundered her mouth. She held herself rigid for all of two seconds before I felt her drop her clothes and lean into me.

The taste of her overwhelmed my senses, instantly softening my kiss. I felt a tremor run up her spine that had nothing to do with fear. I slowed my frenzied pace, licking along her seam, seeking the inner recesses, touching, soothing, marking. Focusing on the beauty of our connection until I felt the edge of fear and darkness slip away from both of us. When I pulled back, her eyes were hazy with the same desire that tore through me.

"That feeling, Willow…that hunger we feel for each other…it proves this is very much my fight. Hell will have to rise up and swallow me whole before I let another woman I care about face tragedy on her own. I refuse. You go home, you lock me out, and I can guarantee I'll be sleeping on your front step. You kick me off your property, and I'll be lying along the sidewalk at your gate."

She shook her head, closed her eyes, and a single tear escaped, slowly traveling down her cheek as if connecting the soft dots of her freckles. I swiped at it with a thumb.

"It's not right, Lincoln," she whispered.

And because I was desperate, because I knew it was the last thing she wanted, I asked, "You want to call the Marshals, then? Have them come? Because there's no way I'm letting you face any of this alone."

She gritted her teeth and pushed out of my embrace. She crossed her arms over her chest, but I could tell my words had landed home. She was debating now just as fiercely as she'd debated leaving after she'd seen the painting of Sienna. We'd get through this just like we'd gotten through that. She'd see the truth. She had to.

"While you think about that, let me clean this foot up," I said. Because I didn't quite trust her not to leave, I grabbed her hand and pulled her with me into the bathroom.

I dug around for the first aid kit, soaked a cotton ball with antiseptic, and leaned against the cabinet, trying to locate the cut on the ball of my foot. She let out a huff, grabbed the cotton from me, and knelt at my feet, dabbing at the wound.

"I don't think there's any glass in here," she said quietly.

Taking a Band-Aid from the case, she placed it over the wound before surrounding the ball of my foot in medical adhesive to keep the bandage in place.

When she rose and placed the roll back into the first aid kit, her hands were shaking. I captured them in mine.

"It's going to be okay. This is just Poco. We're going to stop him."

"What if we're wrong? What if it isn't?"

"From what you told me, we'd both already be dead."

It was the wrong thing to say. Her eyes turned into huge wells of sorrow and indecision, a black hole of ugliness that shouldn't ever surround her eating her up from the inside. I brought her hand to my mouth and kissed the knuckles, trying to reassure her with my touch.

She watched the movement, and her breath caught.

I wanted to wipe away everything that had happened tonight. Yesterday. This week. I wanted to see only smiles on her face. Hear her laughter. Hear the soft breathy moan she'd let out when I'd kissed her in the kitchen. Feel her tremble from passion and pleasure instead of fear.

I swore to myself I was going to make it happen. She'd be free of this nightmare if I had to use every single resource at my disposal…or my father's disposal. The goddamn military my dad commanded could figure this out. I'd do something to make sure Willow was never again in this situation.