Damaged

by Jody Holford

  “If I’ve handled it up until now, you’ll have no trouble,” he said, joining her. Eyeing a forkful of cake, he mentally prepared himself for the bite. Then sighed, heavily, in relief. “Okay, it tastes a hell of a lot better than it looks. I won’t lie. I was worried,” he said around a mouthful of surprisingly good cake.

  Natalie laughed, and the sound washed over him like a cool shower on a hot day. The sound chipped away at the mass of guilt he was carrying around. She hadn’t lost herself completely. He wasn’t too late.

  “You’re not the only one. I dropped the first three eggs and had to go borrow two from Maddi,” she shared. Noah looked up from his cake.

  Sexy-cautious Maddi with the gorgeous eyes. “Hmm. You getting to know her?”

  “Not really. Just kind of, ‘Hey, I’m the loser who can’t hold onto an egg. Can I borrow some?’”

  Noah didn’t return her smile but placed his fork down. “Don’t do that, Natalie.” She looked down, pushed the cake around her plate. The scraping sound prickled his nerves.

  “Do what?”

  “Don’t put yourself down. Don’t call yourself names. People make mistakes,” he said. She shrugged off his words and took her unfinished cake to the counter. “Whatever.

  Anyway, tell me more about this job,” she said with her back to him.

  He let it go for now because he knew pushing would get him nowhere. Stubbornness was a family trait.

  “I thought the schedule could be up to you as long as I know what day of the week you’ll be in the office. I’ll make a list of things I need done in the week, and you can deal with that. Once you get started, you can keep me apprised of my schedule, meetings, and things like that. Basically, you’ll be my secretary-slash-assistant.”

  Natalie leaned back against the counter. She had always been a pretty girl, but his sister had blossomed into a beautiful woman. Her tiny stature made people want to protect her when they looked at her, but she was tougher than people thought and certainly tougher than she believed. They shared a lot of physical similarities—hair and eyes to start. What struck him though, was that she didn’t see anything special in herself. He would help her change that.

  “Okay. It sounds really good. I’ll believe that you aren’t making up this position just to keep an eye on me or help me out. I’m going to trust you to tell me if I mess up,” she finally said.

  He nodded, his shoulders finally relaxing as she warmed to the idea. “I will definitely tell you. This is going to be awesome.” He stood, placed his own plate on the counter, and drew her in for another hug.

  Returning the hug, she added, “And I trust that you’ll pay me really well.”

  Maddi was enjoying back-to-back reruns of Gilmore Girls when someone knocked. She looked at the door and knew, just knew, that it was Noah.

  “What is it with those two?”

  She hadn’t been rude to either of them, because sometimes that drew more attention than being too friendly. She had been the perfect combination of polite and aloof to discourage them from seeking her out or thinking she wanted new friends. Any friends, she thought. Another knock. She sighed loudly then untucked herself from her couch. Looking through the peephole confirmed her prediction.

  She smiled to herself. “See. I knew it.”

  Maddi unlatched the door, looked down quick to make sure her tank top and high-heel-printed pajama bottoms covered her adequately.

  “I brought you some cake.” Noah greeted her with a sweet smile when she swung the door open.

  Why did he have to be so good looking? And when had she begun to see good looking as a flaw? He held out the small white plate with a piece of chocolate cake. It was a little lopsided, much like his boyish grin.

  Butterflies swarmed in her chest. “Why?” Why would he bring her anything? His grin widened into a whole-faced I-know-you-think-I’m-cute smile.

  “Your eggs. Seemed like the fair thing to do. Don’t worry, it tastes way better than it looks,” he answered.

  Taking the plate, she held it in front of her awkwardly, unsure of what to do. Maddi’s life revolved around certainties; a self-imposed schedule and predictable routine. She was debating asking him if he wanted to come in, and that bothered her. Maddi didn’t invite anyone in without a reason.

  “Have a good night, Maddi,” he said, breaking into her thoughts. She looked up from the cake in surprise. He was leaving?

  “Um, thank you,” she uttered inanely. He nodded and walked away. He didn’t look back either, and she knew this because she, stupidly, stood there watching him as he made his way down the hallway to the elevator. Closing and locking the door, she took the cake to the kitchen counter. The butterflies in her stomach had calmed, but her pulse raced. Grabbing a fork, she eyed the dessert cautiously.

  “It can’t be that bad.”

  Taking a small bite, she smiled. It was good. She hadn’t expected that. Though she couldn’t deny she liked to be certain about all things, she couldn’t ignore the fact that, sometimes, things she was unsure about could actually surprise her in a good way.

  Chapter 4

  Maddi stared at the email. She didn’t need to read it again. She’d practically memorized it. The first read-through had caused instant, heart-pumping elation, but she knew better than to act without fully thinking something through. Maddi was not an impulsive person. Nothing good came from spur-of-the-moment decisions. Maddi weighed choices, wrote pros and cons, considered and reconsidered. Pushing away from the counter where her laptop sat open, she grabbed some water from the fridge. A local boutique had contacted her, expressing interest in her designs for both their retail store and online catalogue. Maddi had looked into them. Their history was impressive with a strong client base, strong sales figures, and excellent reviews from current and past designers. They wanted her to design for them, exclusively.

  “Exclusive does not mean forever,” she told herself. “It’s security.” She would still be free to make custom orders she received from her own website but she would agree, for a term, not to be carried by any other merchant in the immediate area. This included the small gift shops, knick-knack stores, and unique shops she currently carried pieces in. If she was being realistic, she knew this one client would be far more lucrative than all of the others combined for a variety of reasons. For one, they offered to pay her a base salary on top of commission. Second, a large volume of their business was online sales, though they did have a store here in Aurora. She’d been researching where to drop pieces off and had come across them.

  Staring at the mountains, which never stopped being impressive, she sipped her water and ignored the tightness in her lungs. Breathe. Signing a contract did not mean setting down roots. The contract would have an expiration date and, if she needed to, she could still fulfill her orders without living in Aurora or even Colorado. Currently, she shipped jewelry all over North America. It didn’t matter where she went. Most of her business was web based. There had only been a few towns where she’d approached some of the local artisan stores. None had been interested in contracts, which worked well for Maddi. This shop, Seamless, was different and was trying to sway her toward a commitment.

  Maddi needed to get away from her own thoughts. Frustrated, she changed into her running gear. Running gave her clarity and strength. Not physical strength but an emotional strength that came from knowing she was running by choice, not away from something. She had nothing to run away from anymore. She wished, so badly, that she didn’t always have to remind herself of that.

  After slipping her key in the small inside pocket of her running pants, she turned up the volume on her iPod and took the route she’d mapped out just weeks after moving into town. Her routines were habitual. Find a city with a good feel or an interesting name, find an apartment with strong security in a neighborhood that offered the amenities she needed, and find a few running routes. She didn’t need anything else. Hadn’t since deciding, at eighteen, that she would rely only on herself.

&nbs
p; The air was crisp and smelled of leaves mixed with exhaust. The hum of traffic and thump of her own footfalls penetrated the music. As she rounded the first corner and waited for the light to change, she felt the slow, steady burn in her muscles as they warmed up. It urged her on and when the light turned, a burst of energy propelled her forward. She didn’t need much, but she needed this. She needed the strength that infused her when she pushed past the ache in her lungs. The feeling of pride that came at the end when, dripping with sweat and breathing heavy, she knew if she needed to, she could keep going. She could keep running. At one time, Maddi had questioned her ability to run and keep running. Not anymore.

  The last foster home she’d lived in had been better than the others. When her eighteenth birthday came, Maddi had been there almost two years. The scared little girl inside of her had wanted to stay. She knew she would have been welcome to even though she’d given them no reason to want her. That desire to stay had been what pushed her to go, to run, even when she felt like she couldn’t go any farther. There was no such thing as a safety net. So on her eighteenth birthday, Maddi made herself leave and not look back. She hadn’t made connections or ties, and she’d felt no remorse leaving. Leaving was never a problem once you had faced the depths of darkness she had. As it turned out, however, staying was.

  “Okay, calm down, Nat. I’ll be there as quick as I can, but there’s traffic so you’re gonna have to chill out a bit,” Noah said, reaching deep for a calm that didn’t exist. Natalie was on the phone crying because she’d locked herself out. She’d only started to cry harder when he said it wasn’t a big deal. Being a man, how could he possibly know what constituted a big deal in the mind of a woman? Apparently, to Natalie, this was a huge freaking deal.

  “Just relax. I’m on my way. You’re inside the building?” He chucked his hard hat onto the passenger seat of his truck. It ricocheted off the door and landed on the floor beside a mess of papers and folders.

  “No. If I was in the building, I’d see if the manager was around, Noah. I’m not stupid,” she said.

  If he wasn’t already on edge, he might have appreciated the snappiness of her tone—the fight in her voice. Slamming the door shut on his truck, he pushed his own temper back.

  “I know that, Natalie. I’ll be about fifteen minutes. You’ll be fine. I have my phone on if you need me,” he said shortly. It wasn’t her fault that one of his guys had to leave early and another one had brought a hammer down on his own hand hard enough to break it. Though it likely made him an ass, Noah’s first thought had been, Great, more paperwork. Then Nat phoned crying and his heart had dropped, thinking horrible things. When it turned out that she’d forgotten her keys, it seemed like an easy fix since he had a key. Saying that hadn’t calmed her down a bit.

  “I’m sorry, Noah,” she said in a quiet voice around hiccupping sobs. His heart cracked and his temper waned.

  “Don’t apologize. It’s okay, honey. Sit tight,” he replied. The tone of her voice unearthed the calm he’d desperately needed.

  He’d spoken to his friend, Ryan, about finding someone for Natalie to talk to. Noah had every intention of being there for her, but he knew she needed to talk to a professional to sort through what she had faced. Ryan’s mom was a psychologist, so he had said he would ask her for a recommendation of a therapist who worked with victims of domestic abuse. The words turned his stomach, and he had to fight back the bile rising in his throat. If he expected Nat to face the truth, then he had to as well. Maybe he should see someone too. He couldn’t get over the fact that he hadn’t been there for her or that she hadn’t reached out sooner. Noah turned the radio on to distract himself from the traffic and his own thoughts, but it did little to help.

  He had been reading about domestic violence and learned that Natalie had likely convinced herself it wasn’t that bad. She had probably felt embarrassed to talk to anyone and took some of the blame herself. Likewise, he knew it wasn’t his fault. It was not his absence that pushed her toward her relationship. Still, he felt like if he’d been closer, physically and emotionally, things could have been different. If she’d had an approachable male role model in her life, in close proximity, she would have realized that only bastard-cowards talk to women with their fists.

  He forced himself to loosen his own fists as they clenched on the steering wheel while he waited for the light. “Not your fault.” He’d give Ryan a call tomorrow, see if he’d talked to his mom. Right now, his main concern was showing up with Natalie’s keys before she had a full-out panic attack.

  He was mentally listing other phone calls he needed to make when he finally pulled up to the brick-fronted apartment complex. Fairly new, it had a sturdy but elegant construction. The small courtyard entrance made it feel park-like, with flowers lining the cobblestone walkway. The interior was bright and open and, most importantly, inside and out had good security. Ryan had suggested this place. He had briefly dated a girl who had lived here a few years back and remembered the building as being secure.

  It was in a good area of town, close enough that his sister could walk to get what she needed, and only about ten minutes from his own house. Last year, Noah had swallowed a bunch of grow-up pills and bought his first house. After starting his own construction company four years ago, he’d felt like he should put money toward his future and a house seemed the way to start. It had been scary as hell signing those papers, but it felt good to go home every day and know the house was his. He’d put down some roots of his own, on his own, and it was evidence of his success. Noah had started to realize, even before the mess with Natalie, that the things that made him happy seemed to be the things that took the most effort.

  When he pulled into the building parking lot, two things immediately occurred to him: one, there was no parking, and two, his sister was nowhere to be seen.

  “I’m so sorry. My brother will be here in a few minutes. I’ll text him to let him know I’m up here. He has a spare key. I can’t believe I forgot mine.”

  “Natalie, stop,” Maddi said firmly, looking at her. She had found her softly crying outside their building when she’d returned from her run. It seemed she was meant to continuously run into the siblings, and she didn’t know what to make of that. Natalie looked at her as if she’d spoken much harsher than she did. Maddi tried with everything in her not to draw comparisons between this fragile girl and her own mother. To not to see her mother’s slumped shoulders and defeated expression in place of Natalie’s. It took effort to keep herself in the present. No past, no future, just now.

  “I’m sorry,” Natalie repeated contritely.

  Maddi realized she no longer apologized for every little thing in her life. It wasn’t easy when others transferred blame, to believe something wasn’t your fault, that sometimes things really weren’t a big deal. Another benefit of keeping to herself: there was no one to apologize to. Maddi poured water for herself and her unexpected guest and sat down on one of the barstools.

  Ignoring the tension in her shoulders, Maddi said, “You don’t need to be sorry. I let you into the building. That’s it.” But sometimes, even the smallest kindness could overwhelm.

  “Now I’m in your house taking up your time,” Natalie said then sipped her water.

  “I would be doing the exact same thing I’m doing now if you weren’t here. Having a glass of water to cool down before my shower. People forget. They make mistakes,” Maddi said. And they aren’t always punished for them.

  Natalie stared into her glass as if it held a response to Maddi’s words.

  “How old are you?” Maddi asked against her better judgment.

  Natalie looked up. “Twenty-four. I should call Noah.”

  Before she could dial, Maddi’s landline rang twice, signaling a guest. It was the only time her house phone ever rang. Picking it up, she knew who was on the other end.

  “Hello.”

  “Hey Maddi, listen, have you…”

  Her stomach tingled at the sound of his voice. �
�She’s right beside me. I’ll buzz you up,” she interrupted. She ignored the worry in his tone by telling herself not to get involved. Pressing the code into the phone, she hung it up and turned back to Natalie.

  “I interrupted his day too,” Natalie said quietly, standing and taking her glass to the sink.

  “It’s the end of the day so I’m sure it’s fine. Your brother doesn’t seem like the type to be bothered by much. Make him something to eat. Then you’ll add to his day,” Maddi suggested. She remembered Natalie’s plate and went to get it from the dishwasher just as the knock sounded.

  “I’ll let him in. Is that okay?” Natalie asked.

  “Of course. I just want to grab your plate.”

  Noah came in and, as Maddi suspected, did not look put out, but like he had come straight from work. She tried not to focus on the way his white T-shirt emphasized his tanned skin and wide chest. His worn jeans had seen many work days. His eyes were a little tired, maybe a little concerned. His handsome face was warm and friendly when he smiled at both women. Maddi’s heart did a double-beat. Just nerves. Definitely not because of his smile.

  “You okay, Nat?” he asked, staying by the door, likely because of the heavy, dirty work boots he wore.

  Maddi didn’t know when she’d begun to consider the construction worker look attractive, but apparently, on Noah, much to her discontent, she found most things attractive. Sexy even. Which was entirely new for her.

  “I’m good. I’m…” Natalie stopped short when Noah’s hand rose in a stop motion.

  His eyes closed for one brief second. “Please don’t say you’re sorry again. It is not a big deal,” he said.

  Maddi grinned in appreciation of the way he hid the note of exasperation inside an easy-going response.

  “See,” Maddi prompted quietly, handing the plate to Natalie.

  “Here’s your key,” Noah said, handing it to her and moving aside so she could get through the door. “Give me a minute, okay? I just want to talk to Maddi.”