by Riann Colton
On my two-year sober-versary, as he called it, he had taken me into the Pierce Point cemetery. There he had shown me a modest marker that read Sarah Jane James October 15, 1989. “I found your next home,” he said to me. “What do you think? A little smaller than your apartment but really, how much space will you take up?”
On my three-year sober-versary he gave me a job. He flew me from Vancouver Island to Toronto where I drew a sad five year old girl the bedroom of her dreams: a castle on one wall, a fairy garden on another, and in the clouds above her head, smiling images of the little girl’s family that had been killed by a drunk driver.
Jax Deveraux was not subtle with his lessons.
“What are you doing here?”
He hugged me back, lifting me and walking me inside. “I ask myself that every time I come to this shit hole of a town. More importantly, what are you doing here?”
I shrugged as I let go of the man responsible for me being alive. If he hadn’t come along I probably would’ve tried something far more successful. I had hit my bottom and saw no way out. Jax had helped me find a way out of my rock bottom.
He took off his coat and followed me into the living room. He tossed it on the armchair then pointed at me. “You’ve been crying.”
“Well…you know.”
“I can figure it out. Six-two, bit of a shit head, always has a camera in his hands? Did you tell him?”
“No.” I sat on the couch and Jax sat in the chair, looking at me with a serious expression on his face. One that said he didn’t want any of my excuses or bullshit. “No, I didn’t. He’s not going to care, Jax.”
“Wow. You really don’t think highly of my brother.” Jax flicked a piece of lint off his slacks. “Good enough to fuck but not good enough to give your secrets to?”
“Hill doesn’t want my secrets.” He doesn’t even want me.
Steel grey eyes pinned me to the couch. “Do not underestimate Hill, Sarah.”
“He won’t care. He doesn’t. I’m the Pierce Point fuck. A girl in every port, right?” I fiddled with the hem of my jeans and wished there was something to drink.
Damn it.
“Perhaps at one point. I don’t think there’s been much porting going on with him. You need to tell him, Sarah. This is a small fucking town that thrives on gossip. Someone is going to tell him and it should come from you.”
I shrugged. Hill was gone. What did it matter? “Are you threatening to tell him? You promised not to.” Shit. What would I do if Jax picked Hill over me? I didn’t have a lot of people on Team Sarah. Someone needed to be on my team or else I was going to smash apart. Pieces, pieces everywhere.
“And wasn’t that a bad decision on my part? No, I won’t tell him. You tell him. This is serious stuff, Sarah. He deserves to know.”
Yeah, I thought as I looked away. No one on Team Sarah. “Right,” I said softly. “So I can tell him I sobered up because I overdosed, and then what? What will he do, Jax? Stay? Suddenly, miraculously–” I swallowed my words.
“Love you?”
Wow, he didn’t need to say it like it was impossible and improbable. I already knew that. Having Hill’s oldest brother rub the fact that Hill would never love me in my face was not what I needed hours after waking up to find him gone. Yeah, I knew exactly where I belonged in Hill Deveraux’s life. And that was in bed, flat on my back. “Can you go? I’m tired.”
Jax swore as I stood. “Damn it. Sarah–”
“I know where I fit in his life, Jax. I’ve known since I was fifteen years old and he treated me like a doormat to wipe his shitty boots on. I’ve known since I was seventeen and we had sex. Drunk or sober, I know exactly what I am to him, because he’s not here, is he? Telling him what happened isn’t going to change a thing. Do you know why?” I met his gaze, hating the tears that slipped free. “Because he still left. I know you came here for him and not me so go get him. He needs someone right now and he doesn’t want it to be me.”
Pressing my hand against my stomach, I walked into my studio and locked the door. I slid down the door, folded my arms over my head and did what I had vowed never to do again. I cried over Hill Deveraux.
Again.
Hill
What the hell was I doing? Dragging my hand down my face, I pressed the doorbell. I shouldn’t be here. I should be trying to get as far away from Pierce Point as humanly possible. Jax wasn’t the only means out. I found a ride at eighteen; I could find one at twenty-six.
Instead, I was standing on a familiar porch, ringing a doorbell. I had never, in all the years I had known Sarah, rung her doorbell. And didn’t that just up my asshole quotient for the day.
The door opened and I stared in confusion. Why was Jax in Sarah’s house?
“She’s crying. Fix it.”
I grabbed the front of my brother’s shirt and shoved him hard against the interior wall. “And why, big brother, is she crying?”
Jax slapped off my grip then smoothed down the front of his expensive wool coat. “Well it sure as fuck isn’t over me. Like I said, William, fix it.”
I watched my brother walk down the sidewalk to his slick vehicle that I hadn’t noticed before. Fuck. If Jax had hurt her, I was going to kill him. I was going to bloody up all that slick shit clothing Jax wore and make him hurt. I lowered my duffle bag and backpack to the floor then shut the door. I called out for her. “Sarah?”
Crouching down, I unlaced the battered hiking boots I had thrown on when I had slipped out this morning. They were easier to wear than carry. I looked up and Sarah stood there, tears still on her cheeks, her eyes red and puffy.
That was it.
Jax was dead.
“You left.”
“I came back.”
“You left.”
Yeah. I had. Nodding, I stood up and toed off the heavy boots. “Just catching a head start on the kicking me out of your house.” She nodded as she wiped impatiently at her cheek. “Got as far as the cove.” I walked to her, nerves pricking at my skin. “Realized I had some unfinished business.” Okay, had it shoved in my face but it was still a realization. It counted.
“Big Jack.”
I shook my head as I cupped her face and gently brushed my thumbs over her eyes. “Sad Sarah.”
She repeated the words and I nodded. I wanted to know why my brother had been here. Why the hell would Jax come see Sarah? My brother was ten years older than her and happily married to a woman I still didn’t entirely trust to not rip his heart out a second time. Not that I suspected the two of them were having an affair. Jax knew Sarah was…
I mentally shrugged off the end of that sentence. But what the hell was going on?
“Why are you crying?”
“Do you really want to know?”
Searching her eyes, I rolled the question around in my head. When her lashes started to lower, I tilted her head up. I was getting damn tired of her always hiding from me. “No,” I answered and saw the flinch in her eyelashes. “Because it probably means I hit the asshole bull’s eye again.” And wasn’t that getting tiresome? “Unless it was Jax hitting the asshole button then I’ll go kick his ass. Sure, I’ll get a beat-down but I’ll take the bastard down with me.” I rubbed my thumb over her mouth, then met her teary gaze.
“You came back. You never come back.”
What was she saying? Hadn’t she been paying attention over the years? I always came back.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Hill
I traced the graceful line of Sarah’s spine. She was so damn beautiful as she lay on her bed, her body sated and soft. It was nice to know that even without her mind impaired by booze and drugs, Sarah Jane James was a sensual being. More so now, I decided, because she was right there with me. “You are,” I said, leaning down to kiss the small of her back, “by far,” I kissed the slight curve at her waist, “the sexiest woman,” I gave the swell of her ass a bite and enjoyed the surprised gasp from her, “I know.”
“Liar.”
I la
y down beside her. “No way,” I said, kissing her shoulder. “I like knowing that even now you’re getting all tingly and wet for me.” Her snort made me smile. “Five bucks says you are.” My hand glided over her ass and she shifted her leg to give me access. Her eyes closed as her mouth parted on a sigh when I found that she was wet for me. “Tingly, Sarah?”
She nodded.
“Roll over.” I leaned down, kissing her when she was right side up. Our tongues muffled her moans as she shifted, hips rolling in time to my caresses. There was something a little addicting in how she responded to me. Even that first night when she had been tipsy on her first beer and nervous about what was going on, she was right there with me. When I eased a finger into her, she cried out, arching up as she covered my hand with hers. Fuck, that was hot.
I knew exactly when she found what she was looking for because her slick walls squeezed on my fingers as she came with another cry. “So sexy,” I said as I kissed down her arched neck, her fingers bumping mine. She reached up with her other hand and grabbed onto the pillow, as if that was the only thing holding her to the ground. With ease, she took a second finger, riding me as I found her swollen nipple waiting for me.
I throbbed to be back inside that oh-so-greedy, oh-so-generous body. Abandoning her breast, I ran my cheek down her stomach, feeling the muscles tightening and pulling with each needy roll of her hips. “Move it,” I said, brushing her fingers. I smiled when she screamed, my tongue sliding over her. One more lick had her arching hard, squeezing my fingers and spilling over me.
“Oh so sexy,” I said, sliding my fingers free.
Get inside her now.
It was my only thought as I brought her to orgasm again. “Hill.” A hand pressed on my shoulder. Down? Up? I had a feeling she had no idea. Grinning, I looked up at her. And lost my breath. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes closed though her lashes were fluttering. I grabbed her hand and slid it back where it had been. Rolling away from her, I grabbed my camera, then zoomed in on her face.
I waited, watching her through the viewfinder, her soft cries sliding over my skin like a touch. Not yet. Not yet. “Sarah.”
“Don’t you dare,” she moaned.
Grinning, I shifted the shot and took it of her fingers. They flexed as her back bowed. Returning to her face, I caught the sensual image of her orgasm. I slid over her, unable to resist her anymore. As if I ever had.
“I hate you,” she whispered as she lifted her head to kiss me. Slick fingers found me and I groaned as she stroked. “I hate you so much.”
“No, you don’t,” I murmured as I let her guide me in. “Oh, no you don’t.”
“No,” she moaned, her legs wrapping around my hips and she met my thrusts. “I really don’t. Come inside me, Hill.”
“Look at me when I do.”
Her eyes opened and I stared into them as I did exactly as the lady requested. It was the least I could do.
Sarah
“Can I show you something?” I didn’t look up from my sketchpad. What was I doing? There had always been fences with Hill. Places neither of us dared to go. I half expected to wake up and find him gone again. But he was still there, sprawled on my couch as he read a book, his jeans open at the waist.
Sexy man.
“Now?”
Frowning, I contemplated the question. If not now then it would be never. Nodding, I finally met his gaze. “Now.” With a loud exhale, I set down my pad and pen, then stood up. The rubbing of his jeans over the couch cushions seemed loud to me as I walked down the hall, Hill following. “You showed me yours,” I said as I gripped the doorknob. “This is mine.”
Pushing the door open to the studio was one of the hardest things I had ever done. Because this was it. Jax was right. I needed to tell Hill what had happened because someone would tell him. The hell if I wanted Brandi to tell him out of spite.
It wasn’t the fanciest studio, but then I wasn’t the fanciest girl. Closing the door, I leaned against it as Hill gave the room a thorough look over.
Then he began to walk around. There were a few projects on the go because a few people I had met in rehab and I were putting together a show. Alistair Holt, who had once been pretty big in the Canadian art scene with his photography, had decided that it was time to return to what he saw as his slippery slope downward and had contacted me and the others about doing a show in Vancouver, centered around our addictions.
It was an opportunity of a lifetime and it terrified me. I was a bartender in a town of seven hundred people. No one knew. Not even Jax. “Don’t look at that one yet!” I held out my hand, stopping him when he approached a long ream of paper on the floor. He had been quiet since he had walked in. “I need to…” I rubbed a hand over my heart, my stomach churning with fear and nerves.
He ignored me and crouched down, studying the drawing. He would know the table. It had been the coffee table in my old, shitty apartment. The paper was as long as the table had been. I knew what he would see. Inked renditions of empty pill containers, a tipped over vodka bottle with a little liquid still in the bottom. And an alternating pattern on the table. Pill, shot glass, pill, shot glass. There was a half empty wine glass and a baby’s soother on the table. Two shot glasses were empty, two pills were gone.
He walked his fingers over the combination I had taken that night. His finger stopped over the empty spot. Slowly, he tapped it, then looked at me over his shoulder.
“Three years, one month, and three weeks ago,” I said softly, “I took a lethal combination of vodka and ecstasy that sent me into a coma. By the time the air ambulance arrived, I had gone into cardiac arrest.”
Hill shifted his finger and tapped the soother. He said nothing, just looked at me. Nodding, I gazed up at the ceiling. The white ceiling was easier to talk to than those grey eyes. “He’s three. Lives with his dad. I’m pretty sure Donovan hasn’t told him that when he was five weeks old, his mother sat on the floor of her crappy apartment while a cheap ass band played below and she overdosed right in front of him.” Tears fell down my cheeks as I stared at the popcorn pattern on the ceiling. “Because who wants to know that, right? Who wants to know that their mother is so broken and dead on the inside that she’d rather die when she’s supposed to love him and look after him? So I gave him to the one person who did love him and would look after him. Someone not fucked in the head, someone not broken, someone not afraid to live for him.”
Hill stood up and stared at me. I wished he’d say something. Anything. “I hated that they brought me back. Hated them all. I hated Donovan sitting beside my bed,” my jaw began to hurt as I looked back at the ceiling. “I hated Billy, that’s his name, for crying so loud that someone heard him down in the bar so they came investigating and found me. I hated the doctors. I hated them all because I just wanted it to stop, so I was planning what I’d do next when Jax appeared.
“He didn’t leave when I told him to. He didn’t leave when I screamed at him. He sat in that goddamn chair, his stupid pen always scratching over paper. “Sarah mine,” he said, “it’s been a shitty haul for you but suck it up, darlin’. This pity party has gone on long enough. You will get clean and sober. It will suck. But by God you will not let them win this way.” Then he slapped a piece of paper in front of me that said he would pay for my rehab and give me a down payment on a house so I was not in that apartment. I don’t know why I did it. Maybe because my own family never came to see me. I don’t know. It was hell. It took a long time to stop hating everyone because I was alive. Then I stopped hating everyone. I began to draw again. I hadn’t for years. One day I had a visitor at rehab and it was Jax. Told me he found what I needed and showed me pictures of my house….my home. That’s what he called it. Sarah’s home. I couldn’t go back to that apartment, Hill. I couldn’t go back,” I whispered as I finally looked at him. He was staring at the floor, at the drawing.
“I saw you four years ago.”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“Five weeks old you said?�
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I nodded and he nodded too.
“Hey, Hill,” he said without looking up from my sketch, “I’m pregnant.” Finally he looked at me. “That would’ve been nice to know, Sarah. That would’ve been really fucking nice to know. But this…Jax. Jax knew.”
Shit. I nodded again as he rubbed the back of his neck.
“My Jax?” He didn’t see me nod. A bitter laugh escaped and made my stomach hurt. “That asshole. Asking me if I knew why you got clean, acting surprised when I said you were sober. That asshole knew. All along. Why am I just finding out now, Sarah?”
“I–”
“As opposed to three years, one month, and three weeks ago!” He yelled it out as he faced me. “What the fuck, Sarah?”
I swallowed and fought the urge to go to him. “Would you have come?”
“Fuck. You.”
“Would you have come, William? Would you?” I was shouting too, fear that telling him was a bad idea. “Be honest. Right now. Right here. In my room full of truths, would you have come if someone had said I had overdosed? Because between the bouts of all our fucking, there wasn’t a lot of wondering about me. Even when you were here it was fuck Sarah, pretend she doesn’t exist. Fuck Sarah, walk away. Fuck Sarah, walk away. No thoughts of me, no concerns. Just got an itch, let’s see Sarah. Would you have come, William?”
“Yes,” he shouted. “I always do. You will not lay all our shit on my door, Sarah. Because I’m pretty sure you were in that bed with me. I would have come and that’s why you had Jax keep it a secret. You died! Sarah, you fucking died! Had someone called me to tell me you were in pretty bad shape, I’d have hauled my ass out of that jungle to get here.”
My shoulders sagged as I looked at him. “No, Hill. You wouldn’t have. I have to go to work.” Not that I wanted to work. I just wanted to escape.
“No. This is not done. You are not running away. You must think I’m total shit to think that. Yeah, I’m selfish and was shitty to you, but give me some fucking credit, Sarah. You know me. Good, bad, and the asshole, you know me.” He stalked across the room and lowered his face to mine. The storms were alive in his eyes: anger, fear, hurt. All because of me. “You know I would have come back for you. You think about that as you’re pouring alcohol for that fucker who slapped you around. Because I always come back for you. Though at this moment I’m kind of asking myself why. Had you died would Jax call me? Or would I have found out knocking on your door a few nights ago? But I guess we’ll never know. Fuck you for that, Sarah. Fuck you right back.”