One to Tell the Grandkids

by Kristina M Sanchez

  Taryn moved her hand to his shoulder and squeezed with a light touch. Still locked in her stare, Caleb put a hand to her waist. He didn’t know what he expected. Maybe he expected her to pull away, but she didn’t. He took a step forward so their bodies nearly touched. Her eyes searched his, but still, she didn’t move away. He pressed forward again, and she had to step back because they couldn’t occupy the same space. They were out of room and her back was up against the wall. He paused and stared. He waited for her to tell him to stop.

  She didn’t.

  So he kissed her.

  He felt the shudder of her breath hot on his lips, the smallest sign of her surprise or disbelief, but then she kissed him back. It was everything Caleb had imagined it could be, the culmination of every intense moment between them these weeks or months—who could tell how long he’d wanted this. Lightning shot down his spine, and he felt like he could fly.

  But what was he doing? His sister was dead. This happiness couldn’t be right. Guilt threatened, and Caleb growled because he didn’t want to acknowledge it. He wanted this. He wanted a handful of seconds that were only him and Taryn and this thing that existed between them.

  He kissed her again, harder this time, needy. He kissed her like a man who was about to be ripped away from the woman he loved, and when no one came to drag her from him, he lifted her up into his arms.

  He needed her then because he was acutely aware that time was only granted in undefined increments. Taryn was warm in his arms, but it wouldn’t be that way forever. He had now, and he had no desire to waste this precious gift. With his mouth still connected to hers, he carried her to her room and lay her down on the bed. He was over her in a heartbeat, claiming her lips again.

  With his hand on her shoulder, he paused. He brushed his lips over her chin, giving her the chance to tell him to stop. She didn’t. Instead, she reached between them and cupped him through his pants. He groaned because it felt good, and despite how good it was, he instantly wanted more. He told her so with that one word. “More,” he said as his deft fingers made short work of the buttons of her shirt.

  “Want you,” he said as he dipped his head, covering her mouth in possessive, desperate kisses.

  “Need you,” he said as his fingers found the curve of her breast. He traced the shape of her nipples, memorizing the hard feel of them between his fingertips and the way she whimpered when he touched her like that.

  His hand fell to her belly, and he rested his palm over the taut convex line of skin. His sister’s life was over, but here a life was just beginning, just forming, her possibilities limitless. Pain and joy. Terror and wonder. Moments just like this, so perfect despite everything that said it should not be, laid out in front of her, undefined and unclaimed.

  Caleb raised his head to find Taryn’s eyes on him. They were shining and dark all at once, her adoration for him mixed with lust. His breath caught, and his erection strained.

  Taryn stroked his cheek and drew her hand down his body. She unzipped his pants and pulled him free. “You have me,” she whispered.

  Together, they rid themselves of the rest of their clothes. She pulled him close, bringing his mouth down to hers as she spread her legs to accept him. Time was lost completely to the divinity of the way they moved together. Her heat enveloped him, chasing away the chill that had settled over him when he first got that call.

  Caleb lost himself inside her, gave himself over to her touch, and their moans, and the way she wrapped her legs around him. For those minutes or hours or seconds he was with her, he was alive.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Taryn woke the first time in the middle of the night. The bed creaked, and she watched Caleb retreat. Her heart lurched until she realized he was still naked and his bare ass was walking only as far as her bathroom. She settled back on her pillow, and she was almost asleep when he climbed back into her bed.

  In the middle of the night, when her thoughts were indistinct and painted in surreal colors, it was easy to reach for him. She was resting on her side, her back to him, and it was the most natural thing in the world to feel the warmth of his chest, his body, pressed up against hers. He said nothing, but his mouth went to her shoulders, and he rained a smattering of kisses there. She trailed her hand along his side. Her fingertips brushed him where he was hot and hardening.

  The way he touched her then did nothing to encourage Taryn’s more concrete thoughts. It all could have been a dream; it had that hazy quality to it. Some distant part of her was aware something ugly lurked, waiting to encroach on them. A vague awareness, like a filmy slip that did nothing to conceal a woman’s shape, settled over her. She knew this peaceful place was ephemeral.

  So she didn’t try to think. She let Caleb coax her legs apart. She twined their fingers together, as he set a quick rhythm. What few thoughts she had scattered, and she didn’t try to grab them. She melted into the sensation of his body moving with hers, and when he was spent, she slipped back into dreams, safe in his warm arms.

  When Taryn woke again the room was bright. The morning chased her thoughts out of whatever dark crevices they’d retreated to. She realized what she had done and why she was sticky and sore. And nude. Her eyes came open with a start.

  They’d shifted during the night. Caleb was turned on his side toward her and her toward him, but they weren’t tangled together. His arm was slung loose about her waist, but there was breathing room between them. Taryn’s heart sped as her head caught up. She remembered the hospital and Caleb’s vacant tone. She remembered his unnatural silence in the car and the lost expression on his face when he stood in her entryway. She remembered how he began to babble, and then . . .

  Then he’d been everywhere, and she couldn’t think anymore. She couldn’t think about being surrounded by death and disease. She couldn’t think of the long days ahead, of funerals and wakes. She couldn’t think about how unfair it was. It was one thing for disease to steal a life unlived, but the way Ann’s life had been stolen, the method, was beyond heinous.

  Most of all, she couldn’t remember Bailey when Caleb was kissing her.

  For that and for so many other reasons, it had been too easy to throw caution to the wind. In the harsh light of day, Taryn could enumerate each and every way this could bad, very very bad, but she couldn’t bring herself to regret it. In the wake of death, few acts were so life affirming. It had brought the warmth back to Caleb’s eyes, and if nothing else good could come from the hell of this situation, she would treasure the way her name had tumbled from his lips, with such reverence, forever.

  Because this could be the most she would ever have of him, Taryn took the time to savor. She let her eyes rake over his form, the light definition of his chest, his arms, and his shoulders. A day’s worth of stubble darkened his cheek and chin. In sleep, he looked peaceful.

  Taryn tilted her head as her eyes found the tattoo his clothing usually hid. It was a brilliant green trinity knot entwined with a blood red heart. Entranced, Taryn put her fingers to his skin and traced the line of the knot. It was a beautiful design. Slate had been good at his craft even then, it seemed.

  She gasped when Caleb’s hand came up to cover hers. Her eyes shot to his. “I’m sorry.” It was ridiculous to feel guilty, but that didn’t stop her. Certain privileges were inherent when someone took off their clothes in front of her. She was allowed to look.

  “Don’t be sorry.” His voice was rough with sleep. He blinked a few more times, and with each flutter of his eyelashes, she could see awareness dawn. He sat up, bringing his knees to his chest. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “Last night was a mistake.”

  Taryn’s stomach twisted right up into her throat.

  Shame came over Caleb’s features. “No. Taryn.” He gave a groan and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant to say. I’ve thought about this with you a lot.”

  “You have?” Taryn sat up, wrapping the comforter around herself
.

  “But I shouldn’t have.” As he spoke, his words began to run together. “I shouldn’t have thought of this, and I shouldn’t have acted on it. Last night—”

  “Caleb.” She put her hand over his against his knee. His sister had just died. He was confused and out of sorts. Taryn could understand that. “It’s okay. It doesn’t have to mean anything.” It hurt to say it, but she couldn’t put her issues on him.

  Caleb raised his head and searched her. “It does mean something. To me, it means something.”

  Taryn was frozen in his stare. She didn’t want to hope.

  He sighed and closed his eyes, cutting off the connection that sparked between them. “I just . . . I can’t talk about it. I can’t think about it right now. Not right now.”

  Seconds ticked by as Taryn tried to wrap her head around his words. I’ve thought about this. It means something.

  She steadied her breathing and scooted closer to him. “I’m here, okay?”

  He ducked his head to lean against hers. “Thank you.”

  Taryn was a godsend. By the time he was out of the shower, she had a full breakfast on the table. As soon as the smell of sizzling bacon hit him, Caleb realized he was ravenous. He tried to remember if he’d eaten at all the day before and could only recall his morning protein shake.

  “You didn’t have to do this,” he said as he sat at her table.

  “Who said I did it for you? This is what my normal breakfast looks like. Eating for two and all that. You’ll be lucky if you can get to a piece of toast before I devour it all.”

  Caleb’s cheek twitched. She was a vision with her hair up in a hasty bun, one hand with a spatula at her hip, the other over her swollen stomach. What a pretty picture it was, if he didn’t know the context. What a calm, domestic scene. How easy it would have been to let himself believe her hair was rumpled from lovemaking, and walking in, fresh from a shower, to breakfast on the table was nothing new.

  But that was not his life. His sister was dead, and Taryn had been comforting him. Caleb slumped, his head in his hands and his elbows on the table.

  “Hey, hey. Don’t worry. I was joking. I have more self-control than that. In all likelihood, you’ll be able to choke down at least three pieces of bacon while I eat everything else.” She sat in the chair beside him and pulled him into a hug. “How are you?”

  Caleb didn’t know how to answer that question. “When they called me yesterday, they only said she’d stopped breathing. They couldn’t tell me more over the phone. They couldn’t tell me she was dead.” His voice was monotone. He didn’t lift his head from where he’d rested it on Taryn’s shoulder, but he picked up a piece of bacon. He began to break it into tiny pieces on his plate. “I knew, of course. What else could that mean? She had a do not resuscitate order, so I knew what it meant that she’d stopped breathing. But I . . .” He sucked in a sharp breath because this was difficult to admit.

  “You what?” Taryn’s fingers were gentle as she stroked his hair.

  “I didn’t want to hope.”

  He let those words hang between them. It was a hellacious thought, wasn’t it? Wrong? When a person died, especially someone as dear to him as his sister, it was supposed to hurt. He was supposed to want her back. He was supposed to be struck by grief.

  “I’m not even sad,” he said. “I’m just so relieved.” He waited for Taryn to tell him he was the world’s biggest asshole, but she was silent. Her fingers never faltered. He raised his head. “Tell me I’m a jerk.”

  Her eyebrows furrowed. “What? Why?”

  “Because I should be crying. Or pissed off. Or begging for a miracle.” He’d ripped the bacon into teeny tiny bits by then. “Annie is dead. I should want my sister back.”

  She took his hands and guided them away from the bacon. One by one, she began to clean the gristle and grease off his finger with a napkin. “The nature of her disease was too bad. Even if you could have snapped your fingers and cured her yesterday, her brain had been decimated, hadn’t it? There’s no turning that off. Curing her disease and giving her back everything it took from her. That’s too many miracles—too many to even ask for.

  “The night my sister died, I knew before they told me. My mom and dad came home crying. They sat Mike and me down, and I remember how I was just tense. I was holding my breath. And when they said Bailey was gone, I could breathe again. I said, ‘Good.’ ”

  Caleb winced.

  “Yeah. It was the worst thing I could have said to Mom and Dad. I didn’t mean it the way they heard it. It wasn’t good their baby was dead. It wasn’t good they were hurting. But she was tired, and she’d been suffering. It was good she could rest. It was good that she wasn’t hurting anymore. There was too much wrong. There were too many things that had to be healed for her to have a good life, so I was glad when her struggle was over.”

  Her hand was soft on his cheek. “There’s nothing wrong with death. I think wanting her back would be natural, but I also think being glad she’s not hurting anymore makes you anything but an asshole.”

  Caleb wound his arms around her waist. He kissed her cheek and let her hug envelope him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “After watching her jerk for so many years, it’s strange to see her so still,” Caleb had said when they sat by Ann’s bedside the day she died. “She even jerked in her sleep. Did you know that?”

  Taryn had known, in fact. Though she’d only visited Ann a handful of times, she had seen the other woman sleep, had seen how there was no respite for her even in dreams.

  For the second time, Taryn sat with Ann’s preternaturally still body. Though days had passed, it was still eerie to see her this way. The absolute inertness of the dead could be unsettling, but with Ann, it was especially jarring.

  Taryn sighed, flexing her fists at her side as she drew closer. Though she’d long gotten over the irrational fear that one of these cadavers might someday come back to life, Taryn couldn’t stop the anxiety in her blood when it came to Caleb’s sister. Though she had only known the other woman for a short time, this was the first time she was working on someone she had known in life. Her palms were clammy, and she was more nervous than she’d ever been before.

  Taryn had always done her work knowing the families of the dead would never know her name or see her face. There was some comfort in anonymity. She huffed as she looked over Ann’s body.

  “This is awkward, isn’t it?” She sat on her customary stool, arranging and rearranging the various tools of her trade. “I don’t know. Does it have to be so weird? In some alternate universe, if you were part of our group and we got along, maybe you would ask me to do this. If there were some big event we were both going to, you might ask me to do your makeup, right? Girlfriends do that for each other. Melanie has never asked, but I did some great work on Robin once. He looks awesome in guyliner, believe me.”

  She picked up the foundation and dipped the corner of a triangle into it. More careful than she’d ever been, she began to line Ann’s face. “Your brother asked me to do this for you. Or for him, I suppose. I think funerals are for the living, because what are you getting out of it? But he wants everything to be perfect for you. No pressure on my part at all, right?”

  When she began to cover up the scrapes along Ann’s forehead, Taryn’s touch was lighter than usual, as though the other woman would flinch if she were too rough with her tender skin. “I’m not going to lie. I’m really nervous about this. When Caleb asked me, I wanted to say no, but I get it.

  “It’s why I do what I do. You should have seen Bailey’s—that’s my sister—makeup at her funeral. Even then I understood a dead girl is never going to look like a live one. There’s no magical makeup that can accomplish that. And maybe it was always going to bug me because it was my baby sister lying there, but I hated her makeup. Dead or alive, I think there should be something honest about it. Bailey didn’t have rosy red cheeks. Dead people can’t have rosy red cheeks to begin with, but Bailey never loo
ked like that, like she’d been outside playing all day, even once in her whole life.”

  Taryn frowned as she worked to cover where the tip of Ann’s nose had been rubbed raw and deep. It was a wound that had been continuously reopened when Ann squished her face against the mesh of her cage. For minutes, Taryn concentrated on trying to find the right blend of concealer and foundation. It wasn’t the kind of thing she was going to be able to hide in its entirety, but she should be able to make it look less garish than it had in life. She felt a rush of pride some minutes later. Ann’s skin looked smooth. “See? We got this.”

  Setting down the foundation, Taryn rifled through the rest of the various bottles and pallets on her tray. “Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. I don’t know what to think about the afterlife and all that, but if you’re up there somewhere, you probably know. I feel like I should apologize about Caleb. I know I didn’t take advantage of him in a classical sense. He was the one who initiated everything, but maybe I should have stopped him.

  “Look, I know how protective older siblings can get. You seem like you might have been more even-tempered than Mike, but that’s not saying much, is it?” Taryn fingered a tube of lipstick, considering the shade against the color of Ann’s skin. She twisted and untwisted it, watching the subtle red move in and out. “I care about him. A lot. I don’t know if you worry about him. If he were my brother, I know I would.”

  She tilted her head, considering for a moment as she smoothed lipstick on Ann’s lips. “It’s unfair of me to talk about this with you, but you’re kind of the only one I have. Melanie isn’t great with advice. Robin is a romantic at heart. He likes interesting stories.” Her laugh was wry. “This would definitely be one to tell the grandkids, huh? Girl gets knocked up on a one-night stand and falls for her baby daddy’s best friend?”