Holden: Hollow Duet: Part 2 (The Hollow Duet) Read online

  Holden relaxed, just marginally. “It has a beautiful ring to it,” he agreed, and the timbre of his voice when he said that made my knees turn to Jell-O.

  The bank manager asked if he could make an appointment with one of his financial planners for Holden in another few months to go over things and find out if there was anything the bank could help with. Holden advised he’d likely need some help a bit sooner as he was planning to purchase land or a farm.

  ***

  “If you take my name,” he grumbled as we crossed the street and headed toward the car dealership.

  “Not all women do. It’s a fairly recent development, just the past few decades. Some hyphenate it or just keep their own name for professional reasons.”

  He grumbled under his breath like it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.

  “I’m happy to change my name,” I assured him.

  “Hyphenated? What, like Krane-Holloway? I think not,” he growled, and it took me back to the memory of the research I’d done. Sergeant Archibald Krane was responsible for the death of Private Holden Holloway. The research that author had stated they had an ongoing beef up until Holden’s death, in fact.

  Holden tugged my hand sharply to cross the street. Ah. The car dealership. He’d spotted that yellow sportscar in the showroom window, I suspected. His eyes went round, like saucers and he licked his lips as we approached the building.

  His attractiveness took my breath away. He had a five o’clock shadow and his dark wavy hair was in his eyes a little, in need of a trim. His hazel eyes were lit with excitement and I suddenly couldn’t wait to get him home. Despite that my thighs felt as bad as they did the first time I went horseback riding, I was anxious for more alone time.

  I knew, though, he’d want to take that yellow car for a test drive first.

  ***

  And he did. He drove a little too fast for my liking, but he had so much fun that I couldn’t help but smile. As we walked back to the apartment, he looked at me with a huge smile.

  “Two hundred and twenty-eight horses.”

  “That’s a lot of horses,” I replied, laughter in my voice.

  He smiled. “How many horses in your little car?”

  I shrugged. “Not a clue.”

  “Hm,” he mused.

  “Probably six.” I shrugged.

  He laughed and kissed me.

  He’d ordered his new car, in silver, and seemed unbothered that it’d take a few weeks to arrive.

  I took a week off work. I had booked it in advance of Halloween, fearing my state of mind (and my fate) which was good, because it gave me time to get him settled.

  And two weeks later, we got married at the city hall a few towns over, me wearing a simple white dress with flowers in my hair. He wore a dark suit and looked so handsome and so blissfully happy that I cried tears of joy as we recited our vows. We spent our wedding night in a nearby hotel and had a ridiculously expensive room-service meal and made love deep into the night.

  As he held me close that night, probably thinking I was asleep, I heard him softly say, “Thank you. Thank you for this gift, heavenly father. Please have your hand guide me so that I might provide a safe and fruitful haven for my bride and our children. Oh, that you would bless me and expand my territory. And that you would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain.” There was then silence for a moment before he added, “Amen.”

  I knew there was no place for me but in the arms of this man. This was where I was meant to be.

  ***

  I woke in the morning the day after our wedding thinking, first, of the baby I’d lost. Holden was in the shower when I woke and I was alone with my thoughts, thoughts of the fact that I was married to him, married to the thing I’d feared for a year. Thoughts that my life’d had such a dramatic and fantastical plot twist that there was no way anyone would believe it. I couldn’t let myself dwell. I wanted this happiness that seemed like it was on offer for me. It felt like it was mine for the taking, and I wanted it.

  “Good morning, wife,” I heard.

  He was standing there in the doorway, stark naked. He had a beautiful body. Defined muscles. A smattering of chest hair and a beautiful dark happy trail that led to his groin. He was erect. I blinked at the sight of it in broad daylight. My eyes traveled down his strong legs to his bare feet and then traveled lazily back up to his face, which wore a grin.

  “Well, hello,” I flirted with some newfound confidence I hadn’t ever had before.

  I had a fleeting thought as he stalked toward me that married life might just very well agree with me.

  After room-service breakfast, we checked out and drove the two hours it took to take him to my parents’ house.

  Meeting my family after getting married? It didn’t go over real well when I stepped in, surprising them, leaving Holden to wait in the car. They were shocked and hurt at being left out of it, but invited me to invite him in.

  Mom called my siblings over and we all spent the day together. They tried to be polite to Holden and though I should’ve been riddled with guilt for hurting their feelings, I couldn’t help but let my happiness take center stage. I was blissfully happy. And by the end of the visit, they warmed marginally, seeing how happy I was.

  “We’ve been worried about you, about how distant you’ve been the past year or so. Does this young man have anything to do with that?” Mom asked while we were in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner.

  I was worried she’d ask questions about his background. He’d been very vague about where he’d come from, but had a skillful way of doing it without seeming abrasive. He talked about moving to my town to farm, which he had a background in as he’d helped his parents with their farm. Where? In the same general vicinity. And no, he had no family as his parents were deceased.

  “I think you’ll find that he’s responsible for bringing me out of that,” I said to Mom. “I’m feeling like not just my old self, but a new and improved version of—” I caught the sight of my new husband walking to the powder room near the kitchen. He’d have heard that, for sure. “Of the old Isabella,” I finished.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Mom said, still seeming concerned.

  They warmed up to him even more when we visited again a few weeks later for Thanksgiving.

  The first meeting wasn’t the only time Holden overheard me talk about him. It happened again as my sister and I were setting the dining table on Thanksgiving.

  “He doesn’t say a whole lot, does he?” my sister had mused.

  “When he opens his mouth, the things that come out of it actually mean something,” I defended.

  Cheyenne smiled at me. “There’s not nearly enough guys out there like that. That’s for damn sure.”

  I was happy to have the sisterly seal of approval. I saw him head outside from the corner of my eye, with my brother, who wanted to see Holden’s new sportscar. Daniel loved fast cars, too, so he and Holden bonded that day.

  ***

  Getting Holden Acclimated to Life in the 21st Century

  It was sort of fun getting Holden acclimated. I took him clothes shopping at the mall, which he found peculiar, but said very little about it. The next time I wanted to go to the mall, he declined coming with me, a semi-sour look on his face.

  I took him to a zoo, though, and he really enjoyed that. He was intrigued by the concept of drive-thru restaurants and drive-thru ATMs, and absolutely loved Kentucky Fried Chicken. He told me he could eat it every night without complaint.

  A few weeks after we got married, I took him for a physical and to get him some vaccinations, after it woke me in the middle of the night in sheer horror, suddenly waking with the stark realization that he could be susceptible to dangerous diseases he wouldn’t have been vaccinated against as a child.

  “Vaccinations!” I explained, when he tried to calm me (while I hyperventilated) in the dark.

  “Oh,” he said simply. “Right.”

  He clearly knew about them some
how.

  “I’ll call my doctor in the morning, make you an appointment. I’ll think of some reason to explain why you haven’t gotten them already.”

  He pulled me closer. “You take very good care of me, darling wife of mine.”

  “I’m trying,” I whispered.

  “It’s my job to take care of you,” he whispered against my lips, his soft ones pressing against mine.

  “We’ll take care of one another,” I replied and threaded my fingers into his hair.

  “We will,” he agreed, and his hand slid up my thigh and moved to between my legs.

  “No snaps?” he inquired. We hadn’t made love at bedtime as he’d fallen asleep first, reading in bed.

  “Not today,” I said. He’d been quite pleased on our wedding night when he found them under my dress as a little surprise.

  “Get some more garments with snaps,” he ordered in an authoritative voice that made me tingle.

  My heart skipped a beat. “You really like them that much?”

  “Mm hm,” he shimmied my panties off, “I like to best all my challenges and clothing snaps remind me of how capable I am.”

  I burst out laughing. He did, too.

  How we could laugh about that, I’ll never know. Maybe because of where we were and how unbelievably far we’d come from that first night. It was twisted though and felt a little bit dangerous to joke about something so close to the secrets we had to keep. How close to the line could we get without it being considered a breach?

  I sighed with delight as I felt my underwear leave my ankles.

  “Part those beautiful legs nice and wide for your husband, Isabella.”

  I obeyed.

  His face was immediately buried between my legs and he didn’t go slow or gentle. My back arched immediately.

  “I have a request,” he whispered against my thigh, planting a kiss there while driving his fingers inside me, driving me wild.

  “Anything,” I replied breathily.

  That got me a sound of approval before he said, “Stop removing the hair down here.”

  “Oh,” I jolted with surprise. “It’s, um… the trend, but…”

  I had a little bit of stubble. I’d just finished my period the day before and guessed I’d laxed a little during that week since it was out of commission.

  “Is it non-trendy to do things that your husband will find appealing?”

  I giggled. “If it is, I wouldn’t follow the fads.”

  “I wasn’t certain why you had none, but I feel it’s growing back. You have a beautiful body and I’d very much like it if I could feel your sweet curls around my lips when I kiss you down here.”

  “Oh. Okay,” I replied, feeling my face go fifty shades of pink despite the dark of the bedroom.

  “You’ll do things that please your husband, sweet wife?” He twirled that skilled tongue around and around my clit.

  “Gladly,” I replied, arching again.

  He sucked hard, between my legs, rewarding my obedience, and kept at me until I cried out my release. When I did, he flipped me over to my belly and swiftly filled me.

  Oh yes, my husband pleased me…

  “Close your legs tight,” he demanded, pumping into me, his knees on either side of my hips.

  I cried into the pillow at the depth of him inside me as I squeezed my thighs together.

  “You,” he grunted. “Mine. My Isabella. Bloody hell, you feel good.”

  “Holden, holy sweet fucking fuck,” I whimpered, squeezing my legs tighter, feeling him drive deep over and over as he groaned sexily. He went harder, faster, and then his teeth sank into the back of my neck as he came inside me.

  ***

  When I’d gone back to work on the Monday after our wedding, I announced that I, Miss Krane, was now Mrs. Holloway, much to the surprise of everyone at school. And life got into a rhythm, a really great one.

  During the weekdays, I worked at the school, and in the evenings, made dinner and made love with my new husband. Holden loved my cooking and beyond fried chicken, he was crazy about Tex Mex and Italian food. He didn’t watch much television. He told me he was sick of it, had already had enough of it, that it was a waste of time. He said all this with a surly tone that I found surprising. Though, a few weeks after that conversation, I noticed he was reading a book about the history of major league baseball, and so I put on a channel that played old World Series games for background noise while I was marking math homework for my students, my papers spread out on the coffee table. He put his book down after a few minutes and was watching with avid interest. After that, I noticed he would watch sports on TV sometimes. He started to get into football and rarely missed a game on TV. In fact, I purchased tickets to take him to a game for our first anniversary, tucking them away as a surprise, the tradition for year one being paper and all.

  He spent a lot of his evenings reading while listening to chamber music on my Bluetooth speaker. First, he read everything in the apartment he could get his hands on, including magazines, novels, textbooks I had leftover from college. A few days after I noticed his voracious reading appetite, I took him to the local library and got him a library card.

  I also took a few minutes to show him the local archives. I didn’t know if he’d want information on his family or anyone he knew two-hundred years ago. I tried to act casual as I did it, and his eyes were intensely on me as I stammered and blushed. He kissed me breathless in the middle of the library, which earned us some dirty looks. I then wandered off to find some books while I left him there.

  Over the next few months, he went weekly, sometimes more often, exchanging books about a lot of things. Agriculture. Machinery. Computers. Business. American history. Holden was learning about the current time.

  His musical tastes even began to evolve a little and sometimes he mixed it up with classical guitar music and on the weekends he’d sometimes read old classic novels. He seemed to enjoy John Steinbeck, so I bought him the entire catalogue of Steinbeck’s works for a Christmas gift.

  We didn’t do a lot of socially active things. He loved to be with me, but clearly didn’t like crowds or scenarios where he might find himself unable to relate to people. He loved going for walks. On weekends, we often took long drives and wandered through local museums and antique markets. He made love to me almost every day. He was affectionate and I loved being with him.

  A few weeks after we got married, he told me he’d bought a property for us, to make into a family farm, and picked me up at the school in his new car to show it to me. His mood was a little off, so I was a bit confused by it. I was also a bit miffed that he hadn’t had me look at the property with him before deciding to buy it. I was nursing a bit of a snit about it, in fact, and thought we might be about to have our very first argument.

  I found it a little strange that he’d done this behind my back, not knowing how he could find the time to do that this quickly without me knowing a thing about it, and thinking he might be old-fashioned but it was the 21st century now and where I came from, you talked to your spouse before you bought them a new place to live.

  But it soon started to make sense. This transaction had been in the works since before he came to me on Halloween night.

  3 – Flashback: The Farm

  I was shaken to my marrow when I realized where he was taking me.

  We were on that road, that route that I’d taken the night I met him. Not him of now. Him of Halloween. Headless ghost-haunting-a-valley him.

  He slowed down and turned at the spot I knew led to there… to the former tulip tree site. When he parked, climbed out, grabbed my door and hauled it open and then reached for my hand, I was sitting there, frozen with pure horror. I thought he’d speak up about our past, about our beginning, but he didn’t, thankfully.

  “Holden?” I asked, my voice laced with fear. “This is dangerous, I think.” I was trying to glue myself to the car seat.

  He shook his head. “Trust me. Come.”

  He held my ha
nd as we walked, as we took the path I’d taken, the path where I’d run, where I’d cried, where I’d crawled in the muck, where I’d feared for my life, where 11:59 PM lasted an eternity, and I thought I’d been losing my mind.

  My heart beat a vicious staccato rhythm as we walked. It came at me on the movie reel in my brain. Falling down the hill, there. Climbing back up. Watching him on that demonic horse there. Rolling down to escape at that clearing. There was a way down without rolling, and that’s the way we went.

  I was certain my heart would take flight and carry me skyward, but my husband held my hand tight and took us to the front of the cabin. That cabin.

  ***

  “This looks like a perfect place to build a home, don’t you think?” His eyes were sharp and on me with warning, warning me, I guess, not to say anything dangerous.

  We were staring at the cabin. Well, I was. I felt his eyes on me.

  I pulled my hand away to hide the fact that I was trembling, which was dumb, since he’d known it’d been trembling the whole walk there.

  “Isabella?”

  We stood in what could be an autumn painting. As pretty as a picture. The cabin was just as rustic as I remembered it. The creek was peaceful today. The mature trees gave so much shade and a fall rainbow of color. Leaves fell gracefully around us as we stood there.

  Though my body shook, I kept my mouth shut as he described how he’d set up our farm. We’d have cattle. He’d prep the fields beyond the wooded valley that led to town for crops. He’d pave a new road in for a shortcut to get me to work. He said he’d build a beautiful house and there were two hundred acres worth of fields framing the woods making it perfect for his plans. He was excited and told me he’d always wanted his own land.

  And then he said, “And maybe we’ll get some chickens and some horses.”

  I couldn’t help but jolt when he said that. Red, glowing eyes invaded my mind.

  “Or not immediately, perhaps,” he added and looked away with what looked like remorse. Pain. His own fears.

  We both lived every moment with the memories of our beginning, and for him --- of who knew what else. I didn’t know how far back his memories actually extended. It dawned on me that his must be so much worse than mine.