After the Storm (Chambers of the Heart Book 3)

by C D Cain

  “You’re perfect,” Sam whispered. “Absolutely perfect.” She dipped her head into Gentry’s chest and pulled her in close to her.

  Gentry let the softness of Sam’s hair tickle her nose as she breathed in the eucalyptus mint. “Far from it,” she murmured back but then groaned to the sensation of Sam’s hand rubbing her breast.

  She could say what she wanted but Sam found everything about Gentry’s body perfect. The way her neck formed the perfect little V at the base of it. The way her breasts were carried upon her chest. She felt the weight of it in her hand. The perfect rise of her nipple between Sam’s lips and tongue. All of it…perfect. She wanted to taste every inch of them. She took her mouth from Gentry’s nipple to kiss along the side of her breast. Sam’s tongue roved along the softness of Gentry’s skin to taste the subtle saltiness from the perspirations starting to form. Sam slid her hand to the small of Gentry’s back to bring her back into her mouth as Gentry’s back began to arch in response to Sam’s touch. The change in the texture of Gentry’s skin stopped Sam from falling into the moment and feeling of it all. She ran her tongue again over the roughened skin. She opened her eyes and pulled her head back to look. Gentry felt it too. On the side of her perfect breast was a very imperfect, circular scar. It was old. Old enough to have been stretched in the growth of her development. Sam blinked several times, trying to figure out how the scar was here. What kind of accidental injury had happened to Gentry to leave a scar such as this? How does a cigarette accidentally burn this most delicate private of skin? Gentry saw the knowing in Sam’s eyes. She saw it as plain as if Sam had given voice to everything she knew from one look. She had taken the last she was ever going to take from her. She couldn’t, wouldn’t have another moment of Gentry’s life. Gentry kissed Sam with every bit of urgency she felt. She pulled Sam onto the couch with her and took her as she had done before.

  “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Sam said with labored breath.

  Gentry moistened her lips. “Mmmmm hmmmm,” she hummed. “Says you.”

  Sam tried to laugh but her body wouldn’t cooperate. Instead, she closed her eyes and attempted to catch her breath from the explosive climax Gentry had just brought her to. Gentry had a control of her hands in a way Sam never did. It’s not like this was her first rodeo…or second…or third even. Yet in the heat of passion, when the climax is so very close, she doesn’t have the best of control in the strokes of her hand. In fact, if she wouldn’t have tried to focus hard on Gentry’s body instead of her own, she would have surely been a fumbling fool. Gentry, however, was another story, which is probably why Sam had a harder time trying to regain focus. The movements of her hand were with consistency and precision. A smile slid across Sam’s face. Such great precision. Sam rolled her head over to look at Gentry. She let her eyes travel down her bare chest to see the small bump above her panty line.

  “Do you know what you’re going to do about the baby yet?” Sam asked.

  Gentry opened one eye and cocked it toward Sam. “Really? You want to talk about that right now?”

  “No.”

  Gentry closed her eye and smiled. “Good because I’d rather like to enjoy this moment.”

  They sat in silence and let their bodies enjoy the sensations of each other. From the corner of Sam’s eye, she saw Gentry raise her hand to her breast. She sighed as her finger ran over the scar.

  “Hey,” Gentry raised her hips off of the couch and pulled her jeans up to fasten them, “do you want to get out of here for the night?”

  “Sure.”

  Chapter 13

  “When you said get out of here for the night, I didn’t know you literally meant outside.” Sam maneuvered to a spot in the tent.

  Gentry laughed. “Gotta listen to the words more clearly before you accept them next time.”

  “I suppose so. Seriously, you want us to sleep out here tonight?”

  Gentry opened the door to the tent and then zipped up only the screen portion. “Yep.”

  Gentry stared out the screen opening and asked, “Besides, can you think of a better view to fall asleep?”

  “Not at all.” Sam drew each word out.

  Gentry caught Sam staring at her. “Stop that.” She playfully swatted at her. “Look outside, crazy. It’s glorious. I’ve never seen the Milky Way before, have you?”

  Sam leaned up next to her. “No, I don’t think I have. It’s beautiful.”

  “It’s like glitter in the sky,” Gentry said as she climbed into the double sleeping bag she had made by zipping two open sleeping bags together.

  Sam pulled the sleeping bag open on her side. There was going to be enough room for them but it would still be pretty tight. Gentry rolled on her side as Sam got in to lay next to her. The freshly stoked fire outside crackled and popped. Sam felt the warmth of it through the thin material of the tent. She saw the shadow of their bodies in the light of the lantern Gentry had placed at the head of their sleeping bag. She watched the rise and fall of Gentry’s back.

  “Stale beer and cigarettes is what I remember most,” Gentry said quietly. “She reeked of it when she would climb on top of me.”

  Sam froze to Gentry’s words.

  “I don’t know that I remember when it first started or the moment when I realized what she was doing to me was wrong.” Gentry sat up with her back to Sam. “I think she had always done it to me. I never knew when she would come into my room. Only that some nights I slept while others,” she ran her hand along the back of her neck, “I didn’t. Some nights, I would sleep on the floor under my bed, hoping she would be too drunk to pull me out. My bedroom, the bed itself, was never a safe place for me.” Gentry thought of Sam noticing the scar on her breast. She felt where it was underneath her clothing. “She gave this to me. Most nights when she was doing what she was doing to me, she would tell me she loved me. That this was how she showed me how much she loved me. She wanted us to be together forever. Some nights,” she ran her finger down the screen of the tent, “she was pure evil with a side of mean, especially if I didn’t follow the rules as she called them. The night she burned me was one of those nights. She had come into my room drunk and already angry. When she found me in pajamas, she was furious. One of her rules was that I couldn’t wear any clothes to bed because if I did, it meant I didn’t want her to love me.” Gentry swallowed. “It was about the time I had started developing breasts. When that started happening, it was like she was always mad at me. I think she was pissed at me for growing up. As if that was something I could control. So when she found me in clothes, she really went off. She cut them off of me with a large pair of scissors. I was so scared, Sam. Until she burned me, I honestly thought her warped, drunk mind was going to try to cut them off. Instead, she lit a cigarette and smoked it calmly while she touched me. Before it was out, she burned me. Over and over in the same spot she burned me. She told me I was hers forever. That this was her brand on me. I didn’t think it would ever heal.” She ran her hand over it once more. “I guess it didn’t.”

  A tear fell from Sam’s jaw before she realized she was crying. Her heart had been breaking with each word Gentry divulged. Each moment of horror she had lived through. She wiped the others from her cheek and sat up behind Gentry. She raised her arm to lightly caress Gentry’s back.

  Gentry recoiled. “See?” she breathed out. “See? That right there. The way I can’t keep myself from doing that when you touch me. The scar won’t ever go away and neither will that. I never healed either of them. It’s her brand.” She placed her chin on her shoulder as she looked back at Sam. “I don’t want to pull away from you or flinch when you touch me. Believe me, I don’t. It feels good when you touch me.” She turned her head to focus back on the sparkle of the Milky Way. “Too good.”

  Sam scooted up closer to Gentry. She was nervous for what it may do to her, for how she may make her feel, but she wanted to hold her. Just hold h
er. She inched in behind Gentry and wrapped her arms around her. Gentry’s body gave a small jerk and then relaxed into Sam’s chest.

  “It’s over though. I never have to see her or hear her again.” Gentry brought Sam’s arms around her.

  “No, you don’t.” Sam held her tightly.

  “You would think after the state pulled me out of the house that it would’ve been over but it never was. The moment I started to live, the moment I felt safe, she would find me. Call me or come see me. It didn’t matter where I was. She even came to my college once. Every time crying. Telling me how much she loved me. How she only wanted us together. That we belonged together.” Gentry rubbed the skin between Sam’s knuckles with her finger. “My phone call today was to tell me it was finally over.” She tapped her finger against Sam’s knuckle. “She died this morning.”

  “What happened?”

  “Organ failure. She had drunk her liver into nothing. Even got a transplant but she fought rejection hard. I think it’s because there was so much evil in her that her body turned against itself when she got the liver. That liver was probably the only thing good in her. When I heard she had died, I was numb. I still don’t know how I feel about it. It’s the strangest feeling knowing she’s dead. I can’t describe it.”

  “Then don’t. You don’t have to explain any of your feelings to me. I’m not that kind of a person. I like you for everything that you are.”

  Gentry again turned her head to rest her chin on her shoulder. This time, Sam’s face was right there. She smiled into Sam’s eyes. “I like you too.”

  Sam kissed her softly on the lips. One single, simple kiss. It was the first kiss of any feeling the women had shared. A simple kiss held in the arms of someone whose eyes had an understanding to the pain Gentry felt.

  “Was she your stepmother?”

  “Nah. My dad never married her, but they lived as if they were.”

  “And your mom?”

  “Suicide when I was a baby. I think it was postpartem depression but you’d probably know better than me about that stuff. She had left a note that basically said she felt trapped and this was her only way out. I don’t really think my dad ever loved her. They had runaway when they found out she was pregnant.”

  Sam let her forehead fall against the back of Gentry’s head. “How did you ever get away?” she murmured in Gentry’s hair.

  Gentry caught the scent of Sam with her movement and thought of the tree. For a moment, she was silent in the memory of the limbs of the eucalyptus cradling her. “My dad worked nights at the paper mill. Eleven to seven. When he wasn’t working, he was high on whatever he could find. Days he worked it was the light stuff like pot or coke—you know, something that he could function at work on. On his off days, he cooked heroine. I’d come in to find him laid out on the floor sometimes with the needle still stuck in his arm and her sloshing around drunk, yelling at me for taking it out and propping him up. She’d tell me to leave him. To let him drown in his own vomit.” Gentry sighed at how her words must sound to Sam. One reason she never talked about her past with anyone was for the fear of what they might think of her or the judgment in their eyes when she described her childhood. “It sounds terrible, doesn’t it? That I let them do all of it to me. That I didn’t stand up or fight for myself. Impossible I stayed in that.” Gentry began to make excuses for herself. “I was a kid, Sam. A child. Where was I to go? It had happened all my life. Hell, it was my norm.”

  “Shhhhh.” Sam gently nudged for Gentry to look at her. “The only thing I find impossible is how you are who you are. The strength in you now. You lived through hell at their hands, yet you have this insatiable compassion for others. Gentry, you’re an amazing woman. I knew that before knowing all of this. But now, I’m even more amazed at how truly remarkable you are.”

  When Gentry turned, she leaned into Sam’s chest with her nose buried against the neck of her skin. She breathed in her scent. “That was one of the first signs telling me you were part of my journey.”

  “What was?”

  “Your smell. You smell like eucalyptus.”

  “It’s my lotion.”

  “For me, it was my safe place. There was a eucalyptus tree planted in the back of our yard. For the longest time, I didn’t know it was there. I would hide under our trailer but when it started falling apart, I got scared of the wires and insulation stuff. One day, I ran into the small patch of woods trying to hide and that’s when I found it. I would bury myself in the limbs. When I first smelled you, I immediately felt safe.” She gave Sam a half-smile. “Anyway, that’s where I was when the police found me. Apparently, my dad had dialed 9-1-1. They found him overdosed on the floor. Of course, she was drunk out of her mind. The EMTs had called the police when they saw the place. You would’ve thought it was a drug house with all of the burnt spoons and crap laying around. I never figured out how or why they knew to look for me. It’s not like there were toys or an indication a kid lived there. She broke or threw away anything I made to play with. But for some reason, they did. She freaked out when they were taking me with them. Started screaming for them to get their fucking hands off of me. That I was hers. Even punched every cop she could reach. My dad went to a mandatory rehab for two years. She went to jail. I was placed in foster care until they found my grandmother. And that was the end of that.”

  “Had you gone to school at all?”

  “Yes. They had to in order to keep their business to themselves. They had gotten in trouble with the state when I wasn’t going. School was an escape. A few hours in the day where they weren’t.”

  Sam opened her mouth to ask something else but Gentry silenced her with a finger across her lips. “Can we maybe talk about something else?” She shook her head. “I really want to stop now if that’s okay.”

  “Of course,” Sam said. She pulled Gentry into her arms and rocked her. “Whatever you want.”

  Gentry looked around the tent. She began to feel trapped, smothered. “I could use some air. I’m going to go stoke the fire. I’ll be back.”

  “Okay.” Sam didn’t follow. She heard the fire begin to crackle again. She heard Gentry’s footsteps outside of the tent but Gentry didn’t come back. Instead, she walked to stand at the edge of the water. Sam watched as Gentry stood still with her arms crossed over her body. She wondered if Gentry would come back. Nevertheless, she knew she wouldn’t go out after her. She would sit in the tent and wait for her. She would be there when Gentry was ready for her to be. In comparison, her phone call today didn’t seem as bad. Essentially, she began to appreciate her own fault in it. She had gotten angry at her friend. Violet had done nothing wrong. No one had. Rayne had as much right to find herself in all of this as Sam was doing. As Gentry had shown her, life goes on. No matter the hell to get there, life does go on. She felt badly for hanging up the way she did on Violet and vowed to call her first thing in the morning.

  The coldness in the air burned Gentry’s lungs as she filled them. Addie was the last she had told about her childhood. The last to know the nightmares she had escaped. Gentry didn’t feel a relief of putting voice to the things she had overcome. She felt exposed, like the little girl who wasn’t allowed to wear clothing at night time. Naked and exposed. She pulled her arms in tight around herself and tried to think about what it was exactly that made her want or perhaps need to share with Sam. With Addie, it was more of a freak-out moment when she had come in to tell her goodnight. With Sam, it was her eyes. The way she held Gentry in them. She was never pushy with her. She didn’t question her quirkiness. She merely accepted her for what she was and what she could or could not give. Gentry looked back over her shoulder. Sam’s silhouette was illuminated by the lantern light. She was sitting silently. Even now, after telling her so much, she sat in the tent patiently waiting for her to come back. She was giving her space but was there waiting when she was ready. Gentry dipped her hands in the water and then
wet her face. It was time to go back to the tent.

  Slowly, reluctantly, she unzipped the screen opening of the tent and ducked inside.

  “I want to ask you something,” Sam said.

  Gentry’s heart sank with disappointment. She had said she didn’t want to talk anymore about the past. She had asked if they could stop. Regretfully, she said, “Okay.”

  “What if I need to go to the bathroom in the night? I mean, like, can’t wait until the morning go to the bathroom. What do I do?”

  Gentry laughed with relief. “Well then, I suppose you better take two steps and go to the bathroom in the bus. It’s not like we’re in the wild wilderness, crazy.”

  “Oh yeah. Okay. I’ll do that.” Sam laid down in her side of the sleeping bag. She rolled on her side with her back to Gentry’s side. “Good night, Gentry.”

  Gentry cocked her head to the side. Hmph, she thought to herself, she really is different. She pulled the sleeping bag open, laid down, and clicked the lantern off. “Good night, Sam.”

  Within moments of the darkness, the critters outside began to seem louder. Sam’s body flinched with one particular loud screech. “What was that?” she asked with a nervous anxiousness.

  Gentry slid in behind Sam and wrapped her arm over the top of her. “It’s just a night owl. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

  Sam pulled Gentry’s arm in between hers and held it firmly against her chest. She thought about the past Gentry had shared. “Ditto.”

  Chapter 14

  “Ugh,” Gentry grunted as she forcefully closed her book. She had spent the last half hour reading the same paragraph. A few days ago, Sam told her she had found a place in Bar Harbor. This was her first night to stay there. She had been excited when she found the fully-furnished condominium. Of course, she was happy for Sam, although she had not insinuated at all a timing for Sam to leave. In fact, she hadn’t even thought about it. Sam was easy to be around. It was like she was able to have her own private space even when she was there. But for some reason, Sam seemed to think Gentry was wanting her to find a place ever since they arrived in Maine. She reached across the bed to run her hands over the cover of Sam’s side. She saw the bookmark laying on the pillow next to her and looked back at the closed book in her hand. “Oh well,” she muttered as she rolled her eyes. “It’s not like I was really reading it anyway.” She tossed the book onto the pillow and let her head fall back against the bus. With her eyes closed, she desperately tried to feel Sam’s touch. The way she softly ran her fingers up her arm. The way her lips felt against hers.