Chapter 10
Gwendolyn Madsen Gwen knocked on the door again. There was a light on in the hallway--she could see that through the crystal window on the front door--but more than that, she knew because Dad said that Clawson was watching. Dane was in the house, though what he was up to they didn't know. Gwen swallowed against a lump of fear and nervousness in her heart. She'd told Dad that she didn't think it was a good idea, that Dane didn't need to be bothered if he was feeling depressed. Besides, she'd added, she didn't want to see him. This, of course, wasn't true, but Dad had taken it as she thought he would: A recognition of her own powerlessness in the face of Dane's previous behavior. Dad wasn't entirely wrong; she was nervous about that. But more than anything, she didn't know if she could really see Dane as anything other than who he was--broken, sad, and in need of help. Gwen never really considered herself a manic pixie dream girl, but she did care about Dane. Seeing him hurt made her want to do something to draw him out of the darkness in which he hid. That meant facing him. Having her dad watch the proceedings, though, definitely made her uncomfortable. Really, though, what she needed to do was see if she could get Dane out of the house in a way that wouldn't make Dad suspicious that it was her idea. Nothing had come to her yet, but, then again, if Dane didn't answer the door, it wouldn't matter what her plan was… A shadow played against the light in the hallway, the shape distorted by the prism of glass in the door's window. The house creaked as the footsteps came closer. The deadbolt slid to one side; the door opened a crack. Gwen nearly gasped. Dane's face was gaunt with a deep worry that seemed to radiate out of his eyes. Tears streaked into his beard. His brow was rumpled and pale, with a slight sheen of sweat on it. "Oh, my god, Dane! What happened! What's wrong!" He didn't answer, but stepped back to let her inside. Before the door was shut, a hard embrace encircled her. Gwen responded in kind, wrapping her arms about him and holding him tightly. It took a few moments before she realized that he held something in his right hand. Pulling back a bit, she bit off a cry and said, "Dane…why are you holding a gun?" He turned away, moving toward the expansive front room. Gwen followed, her heart hammering in her chest. She was used to seeing men with guns around her--she lived with the sheriff, after all--but she was not used to seeing Dane look so forlorn and desperate holding a pistol. Swallowing back her conflicted feelings, she sat next to him on the leather couch as he set the gun aside on a cushion (which made her feel marginally safer), their legs barely touching at the knees. "Can you talk to me?" She dipped her head as if to catch his eye, which he studiously avoided. "Please, Dane, I can't help if you don't let me in." "I don't know if I want you to," he said softly. "Don't want me to what?" "Come in." Those two words chipped at her heart and she had to fight to keep the tide of tears from rising into her eyes. Sucking in a deep breath, Gwen reached out and put a consoling hand on top of his. "Why not, Dane?" He didn't answer immediately. In fact, she had to ask him a couple more times before he would. "It's too much." "What is?" "Life. This." He gestured at the room. "I don't know if I can…" He hesitated. Gwen availed herself of the lull in his confession to scout out the room with her eyes. Dad said that Clawson had a mic-enabled home security system that would allow them to listen in to the conversation. If Dane whispered the whole time, though, would the mic be able to hear them? She supposed it depended on where the camera was. She scanned the corners, but didn't see anything beyond motion sensors. Dropping her gaze back to his, she almost jumped to see his intense scrutiny. "Why did you leave me?" "I…" The words wanted to come out, they really did. As soon as she'd gotten the call from Dad that he wanted her to go talk to Dane, that he and Clawson were ready to observe, she'd been running over in her mind what she would say to Dane when this inevitable question came up. She'd thought she had something upon arriving at the Lodge, but now that the question sat in the room like a leaden weight, she couldn't remember even the first word of her explanation. "I…" "Was it your father?" he asked, his voice still low and pain-ridden. "Did he put you up to it?" "Dad?" She blinked, then glanced up again at the motion sensor. Then she saw it, above the mantlepiece--a small camera, the fine-mesh grill covering the microphone a blur at this distance on top of the lens. She shook her head as her eyes drifted back. "No, he…" Dane followed her gaze, then looked at her pointedly. She could almost see him processing what he inferred. This had a strange double effect on her; on one hand, it was remarkable to see him make the inductive leaps that put him on the right path. On the other, it was terrifying to see how quickly his mind worked. She felt the blood drain from her face--a feeling that she'd thought was only authorial hyperbole, but now that it had happened to her, she understood exactly what was meant--and she was glad that she was already sitting down. "Where is your dad?" Swallowing, she answered honestly. "I don't know. At home, I think." Dane snorted. "Well, that's a lucky thing. He should stay there." "What do you mean?" "Well, my father went out of his house, and look what happened to him." Gwen felt it hard to breathe, hard to talk. She sat, uncertain of what to say, when Dane surprised her by asking, "Did you ever love me?" Breaking contact with him, she stood and walked toward the fireplace, being careful not to stare at the small camera. She pretended to look at the framed pictures that stood at attention on the mantle. "It's not…so simple, Dane." "No," he said in a voice with much more understanding in it than what Gwen had expected from him. "No, I suppose it isn't. I thought I loved you." She thought back to their night together six weeks back, enfolded in his arms, entranced by his smell and his presence. The feeling of their closeness, his warmth as he'd pulled her close, the gentle whisper of his breath on the back of her neck. "You…you made me think that you did." "Well--" and now he sounded disgusted, though at her or himself she couldn't rightly tell "--I…wish you hadn't." The heat of tears pushed up her face so quickly that she felt lightheaded. A gentle cry cracked her self-control and the sobs began to leak out of her, tear-accompanied. "Even…" She could hardly speak, the knot of embarrassment and loss threatened to choke her. "Even after we…" He didn't bother looking at her, choosing instead to stare at the gun in his hand. It was at that moment she realized in what danger she'd placed herself. She was in the house all alone with a man who was clearly unwell. A glance to the exit--far away, too far away, and Dane was between her and the door. Panic started to erode her emotional worry. Drawing in a breath, she fought to put her tears away. "You know something?" She put as much forced lightness into her question as she could manage. It was enough to get his to her. She summoned her courage: She couldn't contain it any longer. With her back to the camera, she mouthed, I'm pregnant. "What?" he asked. Inwardly, Gwen felt the smallest flicker of hope. Maybe her dad had missed that she hadn't spoken aloud. Maybe she still had time to keep that reality away from him while she figured out what to do next. The timing, she knew, was less than ideal, but when else would she be able to get him alone? After this, she doubted that her dad would ever knowingly let her get within a mile of Dane Amleth. Besides, she felt ready to burst with the news--not that she knew what she felt herself about pending motherhood. And--she could only admit this to herself in the dark moments of greatest honesty--she hoped that the revelation would change Dane's mind. She knew it was crazy; since when had pregnancy made a man want to get back together? "You…" He arose, meeting her gaze for a brief moment then his eyes flicked over her shoulder. From where they stood, it was possible that Clawson and Dad wouldn't be able to see that small motion. She gave him the shallowest nod that she could muster. "You dumped me…" "I didn't want to." He didn't speak for a long moment. Though Gwen couldn't see inside his head, she could tell that he was pondering something, coming to a conclusion. When he met her eyes again, there was a sadness--and a hollowness--that robbed her of her breath. "So you're leaving me alone. This--" and she knew he meant what was slowly growing inside of her "--comes along and then it's all over?" "I didn't want to," she repeated, meaning the words even more. "Then why? What was your thinking? You couldn't be around a guy like me?" "That wasn't it…" "What, then, am I not good enough for you? Not worthy?" She shook her head, tears diamonding from her eyelashes. "No, no, that isn't it at all." "What was it, then, that made you leave me…right when I needed you most?" Those words caught her hard enough to drive the air from her lungs. She stared at him, mouth working soundlessly. How could she tell him? It wasn't him, it was Dad…and Lenny, and the fear of being like Mom--a teenage bride who had dreams that never came to pass, a life sacrificed for her husband and son, her daughter a sometime afterthought? How could he possibly understand that her relationship with him reminded her so much of her own mother's life and death that she sometimes wanted to scream? It didn't make sense in her own mind, to say nothing of trying to explain it to him. She couldn't drag him through that sort of thing, not when he was already struggling with so many problems of his own. It didn't seem fair. "I wanted to be there for you," she said, taking a step forward, most likely to comfort him, when he moved with such speed and ferocity that she yelped in surprise. Dane straightened, the pistol he'd set on the couch now in his hand. He pointed it at her. The strain of so many different emotions crashing over her so quickly was enough to make her want to scream, but the sudden, deadly panic took precedence. Holding out her hands as tears coursed her cheeks, she sobbed, "No, Dane! No, don't…I didn't mean to hurt you!" "It wasn't what you meant, Gwen. It's what you did!" The shot burst out loudly--far too loudly, making her ears buzz and head ring--and Gwen shrieked in fright, hands up in a desperate bid to make him remember that she was unarmed, she didn't deserve this. A framed picture burst behind Gwen's left shoulder, sending a geyser of drywall and shattered glass over the living room floor. Instinctively, she cowered, dropping low. Another shot echoed off the vaulted ceiling. Another explosion of wall and picture frames. Gwen dropped to her knees, her arms over her head. A third--a final shot--crashed into the fireplace. Gwen looked up, eyes wide with fear. "W-what…?" He dropped the gun and kicked the weapon beneath the sofa. Then he walked up to her-- --and past her. He stared at where the third bullet had struck. "This was it, then?" he asked in a soft voice. The ringing of the bullet was still loud enough in her ears that Gwen almost missed the question. She gave him an incredulous expression. "You shot at me!" "I didn't." "You did!" Fury at survival--not that she hadn't wanted to, but that her adrenaline could do nothing but feed into a sudden flash of anger--fueled her next words. "You shot at me, you piece of sh--" "Gwen," said Dane, his face tight with a concern that she didn't recognize, a distraction in his expression that softened--though not pushed away--some of her anger. "I'm so, so sorry." Then he did the wrong thing: He kissed her. She pulled away, scooting backwards. "What the hell is wrong with you?" His face, drooping in confused shock, would have been funny had not the situation been so bizarre. "Gwen…" "I'm leaving, Dane. I'm sorry--" "Wait! We have to…" He opened and closed his fists, as if gripping something that kept slipping. "You're really pregnant?" She shrugged as she heaved herself off the floor, drying her eyes with the back of her sweater's sleeve. "That's what the test said." "And it's from…" "When you took Fall Break here, yeah." She sighed. "I didn't mean for it to happen any more than you did. I…" She stopped. She thought of saying something about having forgotten to take her pill for a few days--she'd been sick and out of the habit, then, just as she got feeling better, Dane arrived--and discussing what it might mean for them, but in the end, she could only say, "I don't want to lose what we had. But…" Gwen gestured at the bullet holes in the wall. "I can't…" "That? No, I--" Dane part laughed, part snorted his disbelief. "No, I did that because…because we were being watched." He hesitated. "Weren't we?" She looked at him for a long time, then said, "Goodbye, Dane." Despite his protests, she gathered herself and headed for the door, her head throbbing and her throat sore. Dane's pleas echoed in her ears as she stepped off the porch and headed to her car. Night was coming, and soon, but she didn't really want to go home. She needed to think. As she backed out of the immense driveway, she spun the wheel to the right, aiming her car eastward, and headed toward the mountains. In her rearview mirror, she could see another vehicle approach the Lodge and turn in. She decided she didn't care what it was. Gwen needed some space. And she was going to get it. |