Текст книги "EMBER - Part Three"

Автор книги: Deborah Bladon

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Chapter 8

"I'm sorry, Bridge," Vanessa says softly as she leans forward in the chair. "I honestly thought it was Maisy."

"I know." I tap the top of her hand with mine. "I saw a picture of Maisy. Dane found one online. She looks a lot like her sister."

She pulls her hand back to fumble with the edge of the paper coffee cup. "I know it was Maisy that I met here in the cafeteria that day. Dane's mom introduced us."

I'm tempted to ask how exactly Dane's mom, Anja, framed that introduction. Dane hasn't spoken that openly about his relationship with his mom other than to say that she's important to him. Judging by the fact that she was in the hospital with his ex-girlfriend for an appointment, I'd wager a bet that Maisy is still important to her.

"I guess that was Cleo I saw in the corridor with Anja the other day?" She furrows her brow.

I half-shrug my shoulder. "You're sure you saw them together? You said Dane was there too, right?"

I want to sound as nonchalant as I can about this. I had wanted to ask Dane about why his mother would be hanging out with his ex-girlfriend or her sister, but I don't have enough insight into his family dynamics to throw the question at him. I also didn't want to delve into the topic of Vanessa seeing Anja and Cleo with Dane until I could get confirmation from Vanessa. After I took Vanessa at her word about the portrait being Maisy, I realized that her perception may be skewed by the fact that she barely knows any of these people.

"Dane wasn't with them," she clarifies. "I saw him about an hour after I saw them. Actually, it could have been around the same time you have your appointment with Ben."

I feel relief wash over me. I remember that day vividly. Dane had kissed me in the bustling lobby of the hospital before I'd rushed to my appointment. It was only a few days ago in literal time but because of everything that's happened, it feels like it was years ago now.

"Did you know that Cleo was pregnant?" I stop to consider what I need to say next. "I was just wondering why you didn't mention that to me if you thought she was Maisy."

She leans back in the plastic chair pulling a faint cracking sound from it. "Cleo wasn't pregnant when I saw her the other day."

"You're sure?" I ask because I'm not a medical expert.  I can't tell if a woman is six or eight months pregnant. I know that Cleo's belly was round enough to be visible once the blanket was pulled down but when I'd first started to draw her, I hadn't noticed it because of the oversize purse on her lap so it wasn't part of the finished portrait.  The purse, she had been clutching in her hands, was there in the portrait.

"I'm absolutely sure," she chuckles softly. "We get a lot of pregnant women coming into the ER, Bridge. I know one when I see one."

***

"I'm looking for someone."

The woman sitting behind the reception desk pops her head up until her gaze meets mine. "What can I help you with?"

"Can you tell me if there's been a patient named Cleo Trimble admitted to the hospital?" I rub my hand over my eyes. I could have asked Vanessa to check for me but that would have only complicated things more.  I didn't want to drag out our conversation about Maisy or her sister. I want Vanessa's focus to drift back to her upcoming wedding, not the complicated dynamics of Dane's ex-girlfriend's family.

"There's no one by that name registered." She doesn't look up from the computer screen in front of her. "Do you want me to try a different surname? Sometimes patients are admitted under the name that their insurance has listed."

I wouldn't know where to begin with that. When I saw Cleo at the museum her hand was void of an engagement ring and she spoke about marriage as if it would be part of her future. If she's not here under her maiden name, I doubt she's here at all.

"No, but thank you for checking." I scoop my smartphone into my palm from where I'd rested it on the counter before I turn to walk away.

"Wait." The woman behind the desk taps her fingers over her keyboard. "There's a Cleo Durand. Did your friend just have a baby?"

I should confess that she's not my friend. I should tell her that I'm on a fact finding mission that is only meant to quell my own desperate need to know more about the man I'm falling in love with but I don't do that. Instead I turn back towards the desk with a bright smile on my face. "That's her. She had a little boy."

Chapter 9

I stare down at the white, rectangular card in my hand. The woman at the reception desk had jotted Cleo's room number down for me. I'd walked away after thanking her in the direction of the elevators but before the lift raced back down to the lobby to pick me up, I'd darted out the hospital's main entrance doors.

I'd hailed a taxi then and during the entire ride back to my apartment, I'd contemplated whether I had any right to go see her. The woman doesn't know my name. It's highly likely that she won't remember my face either. Vanessa saw her without a swollen stomach which means that she's now a mom. A random woman who drew her portrait in a museum months ago is not someone she's going to remember.

If I'm being completely honest with myself, the only drive behind my desire to see her today was curiosity. She's Maisy's sister. She's also someone who is fundamentally important to Dane. She's not part of the fabric of my own life though and waltzing into her room, when she's just given birth to her first child, is not only selfish, it's also intrusive.

I turn just as I hear the faint knock on the door. I know it's him. He'd sent me a text hours ago asking if he could come over. I hadn't replied. It wasn't because I didn't want to see him. I longed to feel his arms around me and to hear his deep voice telling me again that he loved me.

My deliberate avoidance of him was wrapped up in that small card with the number 2049 written on it. He's been looking for her. I inadvertently found her and as much as my heart knows that I should hand him the card, my mind is causing me to pause.

Cleo is part of Maisy's life and even though Dane has been struggling with Maisy's refusal to leave his house since we met, I sense that there's a light of promise at the end of that tunnel. Guiding him back into the vicinity of Maisy's grasp isn't something I want to do.

I tuck the card into the front pocket of my jeans before I swing the door open.

"Bridget," he whispers my name as his arms circle my waist. "I was worried. You didn't answer my call or the messages I sent."

I fumble to find the right words. I pull back from his embrace to look up into his face. "You're wearing a ball cap. You look so young when you wear one."

"Young?" His brows shoot up. "How young are we talking?"

I push on his shoulder playfully. "You're one of the happiest people I've ever known."

He tugs the cap off his head before he rakes his hand through his messy hair. "I wasn't until I met you."

The concept of a man's words causing a woman's knees to go weak is real. I'm proof of that. I cling to the front of the dark sweater he's wearing. "You say exactly the right thing."

"I say the honest thing." He brushes his lips against my forehead. "You make me happy, Bridget. I live to make you smile."

I tuck my hand into the pocket of my jeans. My fingers fan over the edge of the card. "No one has ever made me smile the way you do."

"If I can put a smile on that beautiful face every day for the rest of my life, I'll die a happy man."

The words race through me with the power of a rushing wave. I reach for his shoulder to steady my stance. "I don't know what to say when you talk like that."

"You never have to say a thing." His right hand dips to my chin to pull my gaze up to his. "I can see everything you feel when I look in your eyes."

I tug my hand free of the pocket, lift it up to cup his cheek and I give in to my body's need to feel.

***

My hips involuntarily buck off the bed as he slides one of his long, firm fingers into me. I hear my own moan fill the quiet air in the room before I sense it within me. I close my eyes, not wanting him to see everything that I'm feeling. This time it isn't just about the magnitude of the pleasure that he gives to me. This time it's about the words he spoke when he kneeled in front of me. It's about the love that he feels for me.

"You're so wet, Bridget." His tongue dances over my clit. "I love how you taste."

I reach down to weave my fingers through his dark hair. I've never felt a need to direct the pressure or angle of his mouth on my core like I have with past lovers. Dane instinctively knows what I need. He can read my body better than I can and right now, I know that he senses that with just a few pressured licks of his skilled tongue on my swollen bud that I'll be racing over the edge towards an intense orgasm.

"Dane," I say his name not only to edge him on but to try to convey everything that I want to say. I wanted us to talk about his profession of love before we shared our bodies again. I wanted to hear my own voice saying it back to him. It's what I feel. It may be jumbled with confusion about his connection to Cleo or the lingering issues with Maisy, but my heart is bound to his. I know that now.

He buries his face between my legs with a soft sigh. His tongue races over my folds before he lashes my clit over and over again.

I don't want to cling to the edge of the sensation. I just want to feel and as the heat of my climax floods over me, I cry out from the sheer pleasure and the knowledge that this is the man I need in my life. This is the man I can't live without.

Chapter 10

"I love you, Bridget."

My eyes flutter open at the sound of his deep voice. I start to turn to face him but his chin is resting on my shoulder. His arms are draped around me, pulling my nude body into his. I can feel the pressure of his erection against my hip. After he licked me to orgasm, he'd crawled up my body and had kissed me with a fevered passion. I'd clung to him and as the tempo of our kisses quieted, he'd rolled me onto my back and had stared into my eyes before I started to drift to sleep.

"You love me?" I whisper as I try to crane my head to the side.  It's not what I want to say. I want to flip over and tell him that I love him too. I want those words to flow from my mouth with the same grace as they did from his but I know that they can't. I know that if I say them now that they'll sound like an empty reflection of his confession. This is his moment. Mine will come, but it's not right now.

His hands grip my waist to guide me to turn over. I do it slowly knowing that once I'm settled next to him that I'll want to look into his eyes to see if I can find the same meaning within the words there that I hear in his voice.

I rest my hands on his bare chest as my eyes catch on the tattoo. It's a symbol of his love and adoration for his mother. She's the one woman who Vanessa saw with both Maisy and Cleo. I push the thoughts from my mind, wanting only to focus on what he just said to me.

"I said it the other day," he begins before he lowers his lips to brush over mine. "When I thought you were having our baby, I said it."

My heart drops slightly at the quiet admission. He had said it in the heat of the moment when he thought I'd just announced that I was expecting his child. I don't want him to back track and tell me that it wasn't grounded in his reality but in the momentary belief that we were going to share a baby boy. I study his face, my gaze sliding over his eyes. "I remember, Dane."

"On the street that morning I thought you were telling me that you were having my baby." He glides his lips across my cheek. "I was so happy."

I feel a stab of pure joy. "You were happy?"

He nods his head slightly, causing his hair to brush against my neck. "Having a baby with you would be a dream come true."

I hear the words clearly but absorbing them isn't as easy. A baby of my own is an abstract, but wanted, part of my future. I'm too young to even consider the notion of bringing another life into my world. My work is finally finding its audience and my heart has just started opening to this beautiful, caring man. A baby may be something we'd discuss years from now, after we'd traveled somewhere exotic on our honeymoon, and have shared a few anniversary dinners.

"I haven't thought about having a baby," I say honestly.

"I didn't either until I thought you were having ours," he murmurs in my ear. "It made me understand how much you mean to me."

"You said that you loved me when you thought I was pregnant." I graze my lips against his temple. "I understand if you said it because of that."

He pulls back so his gaze is on my face. His lips part just as his eyes lock on mine. "I said it because I mean it, Bridget. I love you."

I feel my lower lip tremble. Even if I wanted to repeat back the words to him, my body won't allow it. I'm tangled in such a tightly wound emotional knot that the only sound I can make is a tempered whimper.

"I'll say it again so you never forget it," he rasps. "I love you, Bridget Grant. I'll never stop."

***

My eyes catch on the leg of my jeans as I watch Dane pull the sweater he was wearing earlier back over his head. After he'd told me he'd loved me, he'd fucked me slowly, the entire time his eyes had held onto mine.

I had wanted to say those tender words to him but after we'd both came, he had kissed me deeply before pulling himself to his feet. He'd retreated into the bathroom and as I listened to the water from the shower running, I'd stood to stare out the window into the darkened city.

Everything I wanted was ten feet away from me, singing at the top of his lungs in the shower, yet I couldn't drag my feet across the small bedroom to join him. I wanted to but the weight of the words I can't yet say to him are there, tugging me back, making me retreat.

Now, as I watch him adjust the ball cap back on his damp hair, I know the moment is gone. I can't share my heart with him tonight. I can't do it with the knowledge that I'm the one holding things back from him.

"We need to talk about Cleo," he says as if on cue. "I want to talk to you more about her."

I reach for him as much to feel his touch one last time before he leaves, as to stop the urge I have to bend over so I can pull the white card with Cleo's hospital room number on it, from my jeans. I should have confessed to him that I know where she is. I should have told him that she's a mom now. I shouldn't have held onto all of that as he opened his heart to me.

He wraps me into his arms. "I'm so glad I came over.  I have to go to work but I'll be back tomorrow."

I nod as I feel his lips rush over my cheek. Tomorrow. That's the day I'll tell him about Cleo.

Chapter 11

"It wasn't Maisy?" Zoe holds up the carafe of cream. "Do you want some of this in your coffee?"

I shake my head slightly, holding my hand over the rim of the paper cup. "I don't have cream in my coffee."

"Right." She dips her chin down as she rips open the corner of a small packet of sugar. "Vanessa takes cream."

It's an off-handed comment that isn't supposed to sting as much as it does. Zoe's life is a balancing act. When she's not taking care of Vane, she's either in class at law school or working her way through her internship at an office in mid-town. The fact that she wanted to pour cream into my coffee is a gesture that comes from a helpful place in her heart. She can't know that it only punctuates the fact that she and Vanessa are closer than the two of us will ever be.

"We can sit over there by the window." I gesture towards a small, empty table next to two wooden chairs.

She tips the cup in her hand in that direction. "That's perfect."

I walk silently through the crowded café towards the table hopeful that by the time we reach it, another New Yorker hasn't settled there to read the morning paper or work on their laptop.

I skim the room as I take a seat at the table, waiting for Zoe to lower herself onto the chair opposite me.

"Vanessa said it was her sister or something," she says loudly as she blows a puff of air over the cup. She holds tightly to the base when she snaps the plastic lid back on top. "Did you even know she had a sister?"

I'm tempted to push back with a question about whether Zoe knows if the girlfriend that Beck had before they married had a sibling. Until a few days ago I didn't even know that Dane had a brother. I wouldn't label myself as informed when it comes to the important people in his life or the lives of the people he once loved.

"They look a lot alike," I offer. "I can see how Vanessa mistook Cleo for Maisy."

"Is Maisy in a wheelchair too?" Her face twists into a grimace. "That sounded insensitive. I didn't mean it like that."

She didn't mean it in any way other than curiosity. I know that. "Maisy isn't in a wheelchair. Vanessa saw them both at the hospital at different times. Maisy was sitting in the cafeteria and then she saw Cleo a few weeks later in her wheelchair."

"What were they doing at the hospital?"

It's a question I have absolutely no answer for. I've been meaning to ask Dane about his mother's relationship with his ex-girlfriend and her family but if I'm being honest with myself, the answer isn't something I'm sure I want to hear.

I don't have an ex-boyfriend who keeps in touch with my parents. Most of the boys I dated when I lived in Connecticut didn't even want to hang around my mom and dad when we were immersed in a relationship. I can't imagine any of them purposefully making plans to spend time with them. It's an abstract concept to me, but apparently it's not to either Maisy or Cleo.

"I think Cleo was there because she had a baby."

"How does that work?" She leans her elbows on the edge of the table. "I didn't know that women in wheelchairs could have children."

I didn't know either but it wasn't a conscious thought I had when I first realized she was pregnant. I didn't question the mechanics of how it was possible. I just reveled in the joy that had radiated from Cleo that day I met her. It was only a week later, after I saw another pregnant woman dining on a patio at a restaurant that the question crossed my mind. I'd meant to ask Vanessa about it back then but it didn't hold even importance for me to remember it.

"I don't know the details of her condition." I want to convey the sensitivity I feel. "It's something I want to talk to Dane about."

"Do you think he'll be open to talking about her?"

I haven't confided in Zoe since I left her apartment the morning that I thought Maisy was carrying Dane's son. It's not because I don't trust her with the complicated details of Dane's past. I don't want to cloud our friendship with all of the uncertainty I'm feeling.

I asked Zoe to meet me for coffee this morning so I could feel normal again, or at the very least, as normal as my life can be right now. I want to hear about her son, her job and I'm even hoping that she'll have a story or two to tell me about the people who live in her building. No one can gossip about strangers the way Zoe can. It's an escape from reality that I desperately need at this moment.

"I think he will be," I finally answer after taking a long sip of my coffee. "He told me he wants to talk about her."

"Get all the answers you need now, Bridge." She licks a drop of cream from below her lip after taking a drink. "Don't get closer to him until you know everything you need to about his ex-girlfriend and her family."

I stare across the table at her, knowing that it's the voice of experience talking to me. Zoe may not have faced the exact same scenario as I am when she first met Beck, but I sense she made certain that every skeleton in his closest was cleared out before she gave her heart to him.

Chapter 12

"I've been meaning to ask you something." I swallow hard past the lump in my throat. "It's about the night of the fire."

He pulls in a sharp breath. "The fire in Queens?"

I nod. "How are the boys that were in the fire?"

His gaze travels past my face towards the open kitchen of the small bistro we're sitting in. "They're both still in serious condition. I've been back to visit them at the hospital a few times."

I'm not surprised by that. I could tell, when he confessed that he'd been at the fire, that he was shaken to his core by the injuries the boys had sustained. I'd stopped at the bodega near my apartment one day when I'd noticed the newspaper's headline about the two boys along with a picture of their smiling faces. They'd both suffered smoke inhalation and burns to their hands and torsos. Dane was credited for helping to save them. I wasn't surprised in the least that he didn't mention the fact that he had raced into the house, along with several other neighbors, to carry the boys to safety.

"I hope they pull through." There aren't words that can properly convey what I'm feeling. I may not know the two youngsters, but any compassionate person would want them to recover so they can live the lives they're meant to.

A small smile tugs at the corner of his lips. "They're fighters. They've got a lot of support around them. The prognosis looks good."

"I'm glad," I say looking around the bustling eatery. Dane had asked me to meet him here because he wanted to grab lunch before he came over to my place. He already had ordered for us both by the time I arrived and now as I sip the lemonade the waiter brought for me, I realize that I don't have the small card that has Cleo's hospital room number written on it. It's still tucked deep within the pocket of the jeans that I tossed onto a chair yesterday after Dane left.

"Are you looking for someone?" he asks casually. "You seem nervous, Bridget."

I am. I didn't come here to eat half of the club sandwich he ordered for us to share. My stomach is doing so many flip flops at this point that I doubt I'll even be able to finish my lemonade. I need to ask him why he was at the house he shared with Maisy the night of the fire. It shouldn't be this difficult to form the question, but for some reason I feel as though I'm on the edge of a cliff that I don't want to jump off of.

"I'm not looking for anyone." I drop my hands into my lap. "I was hoping we could talk about your house in Queens."

"What about it?" He brings the glass of beer he ordered to his lips. He takes a large swallow while he watches me over the rim.

"Why were you there?"

His tongue darts over his lips to catch the last traces of the amber liquid. "I met a real estate broker there. I'm selling the place."

I'm relieved. It's the last tie that he has to Maisy and once it's sold it means he can move forward and find himself a new place. I skim my eyes over his face. I can see the disappointment that is there, hovering beneath the thin grin that covers his mouth. "I know that can't be easy. I sense that house meant a lot to you."

He blows out a puff of air between his lips. "I thought I'd live there my entire life. I had big plans for the place."

I don't want to let any jealousy seep into my response but I know, without any question, that part of those big plans involved his future with Maisy. She's not a fixture in his life now, and as soon as the house is sold, she'll be a memory that in time will slip from the forefront of his mind to a distant corner. "I'm sorry that you had to let it go."

He motions for the waiter to place the plate with the sandwich and a mountain of fries between us on the table. He thanks him quietly before he turns his attention back to me.

"It's just a house," he says casually although I see a hint of sadness in his eyes when he looks at me. "There are a lot of other houses."

I nod as I take a piece of the sandwich he offers me. "I guess this means Maisy found a new place to live."

His eyes close briefly as his shoulders tense. "Maisy is moving to the city. She's actually going to live with my mom for a while."

I feel like time stalls as the sandwich falls from my hand and bounces against the edge of the plate before it tumbles to the floor.