Never Let Me Go

By Treanna

 

"Hands up, Belden."

Trixie put up her hands and quickly turned around and threw them around the man behind her.

"Dan Mangan, you swine."

Dan laughed as he grabbed her and swung her around. "Couldn’t resist it."

"What are you doing here. It is still more than a week until the wedding."

"I was summoned."

"By who?"

"Jim."

"Why?"

"None of your business, Miss Nosey."

"Jim, will be here soon. He is taking me to lunch."

"I have an appointment with him this afternoon."

Trixie smiled. "So how are you, Dan?"

"I am fine. Just tired."

"Well you have just been involved in one of the biggest drug busts in history. You deserve to be tired."

"Well, what about you, Miss Belden. The New York police tried for four days to find the kidnappers of the Sellers girl and you find her in less that eight hours."

She smiled. "I know Sleepyside like the back of my hand. It wasn't hard to find them."

"Well little Amy Sellers is now back with her family and the kidnappers are in jail. If they had known about Detective Belden's past history they would have never tried to hide here."

He then watched her for a moment."

"So, how are you really, Trix?"

He watched as she busied herself tidying her desk.

"I am fine."

"How is it between you and Jim?"

"Same as always."

"So he has not gone any further since your sixteenth birthday."

"Not really.

"What is wrong with that guy?"

"Nothing. He is just so busy getting the school set up."

"Trixie, you are twenty-two years old. He should have proposed by now."

She sighed. "I know but you can't rush him."

Dan saw a flash of red across the room and smiled.

He slid his arms around Trixie's waist.

"Maybe I can, though."

Before Trixie could open her mouth he had reached down and kissed her quite soundly. Trixie was so shocked she did not think to struggle. When he moved away she looked at him warily.

"What?"

He put his fingers to her lips.

"Just turning red a little green." He smiled.

He let her go and it was then that she noticed Jim standing across the room.

"Hi, honey." She forced a smile on her face. "I did not see you come in."

"I could see that you were busy," he answered and Trixie could hear the steel behind his voice.

"I am starving," she told him quickly and then turned to Dan.

"Do you want to join us?"

"I would love to." He smiled.

Trixie took Jim's arm and felt the tension there. She reached up and kissed him.

"Are you okay, Jim?"

He looked down at her and smiled. "I am now."

"I assume Wimpy's is on the menu." Dan laughed.

"Where else?" Trixie joined him.

As they got out onto the street Jim's cellphone began to ring. Trixie could tell by his face that it was bad news.

"What's wrong?" She asked him.

"They have a problem with the stove in the kitchen so I have to go back and sort it out."

"Can't it wait?"

He shook his head. "Sorry, Trix, but I have to see to it now." He then looked over at Dan. "I will see you at two?"

Dan nodded.

Jim kissed Trixie and then hurried back to his car.

Dan heard her sigh.

"Come on, Trix. We can still get something to eat."

"So, Trix, tell Uncle Dan what is troubling you?"

Trixie looked across the table at him and sighed. "I guess with the wedding coming up a girl gets to thinking."

"Well Honey is getting married in a week and with Diana engaged and due to be married in another couple of months you must be feeling a little left out."

"It's funny." She sighed. "Before Honey or Di became engaged I would hear them talk to my brothers about where they would like to live and how many kids they would like. But Jim never talks about marriage at all. All he talks about is the school."

"He loves you, Trix."

"I know he does, but I sometimes wish that he would show it."

"He has had a hard life so maybe it is just difficult for him."

"He won't talk to me much about his past life. I guess I just want to feel that he is in love with me and not just loves me."

"Is that how you feel?"

"I think about him all the time, Dan. I can't wait to see him and feel so good when I am with him. How can I get him to open up to me and tell me what he is thinking."

"Maybe Honey's wedding will give him some ideas."

She shrugged. "It hasn't so far."

"Have patience, Trix. It will happen."

"As long as I am not fifty by then."

He laughed. "Trust me you won't be."

*     *     *

"So you are happy with the offer, Dan?"

"It is fine, Jim."

"Then we shall have it all ready for you when you come back."

"Before I go can we talk?"

Jim smiled slightly. "I was waiting for this."

"What?"

"You had lunch with Trixie didn't you. And I assume what I walked in on in her office was a little jealousy ploy."

Dan laughed. "You have been hanging around Trixie too long. You sound like a detective."

"So tell me what you are thinking Dan?"

"What game are you playing with her Jim?"

"I am not playing any game with her."

"You know how she feels about you, yet you haven't made any moves since you kissed her on her sixteenth birthday."

"It is difficult, Dan."

"All you have to do is tell her how you feel."

"There is so much about my past that I have never shared with anyone. I don't know how she would take it."

"She loves you, man. Don't you think she can handle anything you tell her?"

"I don't know." Jim watched Dan for a moment."You're in love with her, aren't you?"

"What?"

"Come on, Dan, we have known each other for a long time. I know that you think more of her than a sister or friend.

Dan nodded.

"How long have you felt this way about her?"

"I remember the night she came tearing into the campfire when Bobby was stuck down the cave. I was really impressed by the way she put her brothers safety before hers. Since then I have watched her grow into a beautiful woman. The night of her sixteenth birthday when you asked me if I would have kissed her and I told you know because she was not the girl for me I think that is the only time I have ever lied to you. But I also knew then as I know now that there could never be anything between us. She is totally in love with you."

Jim sighed. "I know."

"Then do something about it."

Jim reached into his desk drawer and handed Dan a piece of paper.

Dan read it and looked up into troubled green eyes.

"I assume she knows nothing about this?"

Jim shook his head.

"When are you going to tell her?"

"I was planning to take her out on Saturday night for dinner and then I will talk to her."

Dan stood up and shook Jim's hand. "I wish you luck, mate."

Jim squeezed Dan's hand. "Thank you for everything."

"Anytime, mate, anytime."

*     *     *

"I wish I could come over, Trix, but I have so much paperwork to do. We have three more boys arriving next week and I need to make sure that everything is ready for them. But how about dinner tomorrow night?"

She sighed. "That will be fine, Jim. What should I wear?"

"Something nice, Trix. It won't be Wimpy's tomorrow night. I have to go now baby, but I will see you tomorrow."

"Okay, Jim. I love you."

"And I love you, too."

As Trixie put down the phone she sighed. "It would be nice, Jim, if you would say it first for a change."

Trixie went to bed with a heavy heart.

She did not sleep very well that night, so the next morning she woke up with a headache.

"Are you okay, Trixie?" Her mother asked and she forced a smile on her face.

"Just a little headache," she told her, reaching for a coffee cup and two painkillers.

She sat down next to Mart, taking the pills with the first mouthful of coffee.

"You should eat something with them." Brian told her and she picked up a piece of toast.

"I was intending to do that, Doctor Belden."

"I saw Dan last night and he told me that he had lunch with you yesterday," Mart told her.

She nodded.

"It is good that he will be back here for good in a couple of weeks."

She again nodded, his words only focusing in her brain a minute later when he said.

"Jim must be pleased that Dan is willing to come back and be the head of security for the school."

It all hit home. "What!"

Mart and Brian looked at each other.

"I told Jim that I was interested in the job!" She exclaimed as she pushed her chair back and stood up.

"I thought you knew?" Mart told her.

"I do now and I am intending to do something about it."

She stormed out of the room and Mart sighed. "Jim is so dead."

"I bet he wishes he was when Trixie is finished with him."

Mart laughed. "I am sure she should have been born with red hair."

*     *     *

Trixie picked up the phone and dialed his number angrily.

"Hello."

"Don’t hello me, Jim Frayne."

"Trixie, is there something wrong?"

"Meet me at the clubhouse now and you will find out."

"But, Trix, I am just going to breakfast with the boys."

"Then you have to make a choice between them and me. If you are not at the clubhouse in ten minutes, don’t bother coming."

She slammed down the phone and headed into the kitchen.

"Are you okay, honey?"

"I just have to sort this out with Jim, Moms."

Her mother gave her a hug. "It will be okay, honey."

"Will it," she sighed as she left the house.

She was only there a minute when Jim came running in. He was breathing heavily and she could tell he had run all the way.

"It is a fair run, Trix," he panted. "You could have given me a few more minutes."

She waited until his breathing returned to normal.

"So, what is so important so early in the morning?"

Remain calm, she told herself. "I heard that you have hired Dan to be your new head of security at the school."

"I was going to tell you tonight."

"So that is what the fancy dinner was for?"

"Partly."

"Well, now you don’t have to spend you money on me. I already know."

"Trix."

"You know I wanted the job," she snapped. "Wasn’t I good enough?"

"That is not the reason."

"So I am fine to kiss and cuddle and hold hand with but to have me around your precious school is not something you would like. Is that it?"

"No. Of course not."

She could see that he was getting angry but she didn’t care.

"I must be so stupid. I thought that maybe we had something good between us. But obviously I was mistaken."

"Trix."

She put up her hand. "Let me finish. I love you, Jim Frayne, and I hoped that you felt the same way as I did. But obviously not. I think about spending the rest of my life with you, having your children but you have never mentioned marriage or anything else to me. I know you had a hard life before you came here."

"You know nothing about my past life," he snapped.

"That is not my fault. You never talk to me about it. I want to know about you but you don’t want me to. So maybe it would be better if we went our separate ways. You obviously don’t love me. Was it just a game for you?"

"You know it wasn’t," he snapped and when she began to talk held up his hand. "You have had your say now I am going to have mine. I have told you some of my past life. How Jonesy would beat me and lock me up for days. You have seen the scars on my back. But the emotional scars are the ones that I am finding hard to face. He told me so often that I was useless and a no good son of a...."

He stopped and sighed. "He told me that no one could ever love me and I could never ask for that love because I wouldn’t and didn’t deserve it."

"Jim I..."

He again put up his hand.

"Don’t pity me , Trixie. It is worse than not being loved," he told her angrily. He reached into his pocket and slammed something down on the table. "Don’t you dare assume that I don’t love you Trixie Belden. And never assume that what I fel for you is just a game I am playing. I thought that you knew me. I wanted tonight to be special. I wanted a candlelight dinner, stars in the sky and a full moon. I wanted you dressed in a beautiful gown. But, no, Trixie you had to spoil it all by not giving me a chance to explain."

He went to say something else but she could see that he was close to boiling point.

He turned and stormed out of the door.

Trixie took a deep breath and then looked down at the table. Her eyes widened in horror when she realised what the box signified. She grabbed up the box and hurried out of the door. She had to catch him. She couldn’t let him go.

And then she tripped.

To Be Continued

This is part one of my second story. I receive no renumeration from Random House for using Trixie and Jim.