The car glided to a stop, and an Asian man beside him stepped out. Glasses, neat charcoal suit, red power tie. Lawyer, probably. Floor 32 lit up on the indicator, then the ding as the doors closed again and the indicator blinked off. He watched it, recorded it like he was behind glass, even as he hit the button to redial his wife.
“Brett.” Her voice was high, sharp, missing the lower register notes, and the elevator started down again with barely a hum. “Where were you? I’ve called and called. You need to come to Ballard now. They think something’s wrong with the baby.”
Afterwards, he couldn’t remember a single minute of that drive. At the end of it, he’d walked down the shiny-floored hall like it was a treadmill, never-ending, followed a nurse back into Labor and Delivery the same way, and found Nia on a bed, pale and sweating, her face taut, her belly barely mounding the white sheet, and a machine beside her recording two heartbeats. One regular and steady. One . . . not. A nurse worked to put an IV into Nia’s arm, her movements sure and unrushed, but there was an urgency to them all the same.
This was an emergency. This was bad.
“Check out the abs,” Nia had joked to him only the week before, poking at her taut little belly. “You’ve got the hottest pregnant wife of any of the boys. Aren’t you lucky?”
He’d kissed her and had felt lucky. Now, he looked at that not-big-enough belly and felt lightheaded. Why hadn’t he asked? Why hadn’t he doublechecked? He always doublechecked.
She’s not even eight months, he thought through the cold fog that tried to numb him. It has to be all right, though. Even as he knew it didn’t have to be any such thing, and that he should have known. He should have seen.
“Nia.” He gripped her hand, and the nurse didn’t even look up. “What happened?”
When she spoke, her voice was controlled. Tight. “I realized this morning that I hadn’t felt the baby move for a long time. I couldn’t remember if I’d felt her move since I woke up. I thought it was what they said, that she was running out of room and the movements would get smaller. I didn’t ever think . . . I thought it was all right.”
“And then what?” he asked when she ran out of words.
“I was in court, but once I got out, I called. They said to come in to make sure.” She was breathing shallowly now, and he had her hand, every muscle in his body saying, No. No. No.
Finally, she said it. “Her heart rate is too slow, too erratic, and she hasn’t grown much at all since the last appointment. They said they have to take her now. She might have a chance if they do.”
The words were cold, hard, and sharp, bouncing on their way down his body, slicing and bruising, and he felt physically sick.
Once I got out, I called. Once court had recessed for lunch, she meant. Later, he remembered the words, recognized the delay, felt the anger, and did his best to let it go. It probably wouldn’t have made a difference, and she hadn’t done anything worse than he had. Neither of them had realized that you couldn’t compartmentalize this. “How long have you been feeling that?” he asked, there in the moment. “Or not?” He tried to remember how long it had been since her last appointment, and couldn’t. A couple weeks, anyway. He hadn’t made it to that one. He’d had a kickoff meeting with the construction manager up in Bellingham. Nia had told him it was fine. He’d done the first two childbirth classes with her, and they had plenty of time. “Had you noticed anything before?”
More sharpness in her voice now. “Of course I didn’t. I just said. Don’t you think I’d have said something? Don’t you think I’d have checked? I called as soon as I realized, and then I called you. Where were you, Brett? Why didn’t you answer?”
Another nurse came in, moving fast, and told Brett, “Doctor’s on his way. Come scrub up.”
He kissed Nia softly on the mouth and promised, knowing he couldn’t promise it at all, “They’ll fix it. They can do miracles now. Hang on, baby. I’m right there with you all the way.” He never called her “baby” outside the bedroom, because she didn’t like it, but he couldn’t help it now. He put on the gown and the mask, scrubbed his hands, and felt the dark water closing over his head. He couldn’t breathe. His hands were shaking, slipping. He couldn’t hold on.
Standing beside another bed, then, a tiny one this time, later. The worst couple hours of his life, worse even than that other one. Swamped by the waves, still trying to get a breath that wouldn’t come, he held his daughter’s impossibly tiny hand, looked down at her waxen face, the perfect, pale moons of her fingernails, the eyes that had never opened, the rosebud mouth that had barely let out a newborn-kitten whimper, because she wasn’t big enough, and she wasn’t strong enough. He felt a hole rip open in his heart, as surely as if he could see it happen, and knew that she was gone.
Willow would have given anything not to hear this. Not to know it. She had Brett’s hand, and couldn’t remember taking it. Her chest hurt. It hurt. The pain was dull, though, and familiar. Helpless.
“I’m so sorry, Brett.” The tears were there, even though she still wasn’t a crier. “I’m so desperately sorry.”
“Yeah,” he said. “So was I.”
She swallowed and asked it. “What was her name? Your daughter?”
His gaze was steady, and his voice was, too. “Claire. You think all these things before your baby’s born, imagining what she’ll be, what she’ll do. You dream these dreams. You never imagine that she won’t make it at all. I’d lived my life controlling everything I could, and I found out that I couldn’t control the most important thing of all. I didn’t even try until it was too late.”
“What happened?”
“There was a problem with the cord, and she couldn’t get what she needed. That happens a lot, it seems, as these things go. Most common cause of stillbirth, but she wasn’t stillborn. She lived forty-eight minutes. They didn’t let us hold her until after she was gone, because they were working on her. They tried their best, but there wasn’t anything they could do. It just . . . happened. Sometimes it does.”
“And Nia?” She didn’t want to know, and she had to.
Still steady, but what had that steadiness cost him? “After the first weeks, when the shock had worn off and we were feeling something again, we couldn’t get on the same page. I think she blamed me for not being there more, not asking more questions, not taking better care of them both. Could be I blamed myself for the same thing. You try to be the strong one. That was the only spot I knew. That first night, when she was still in the hospital, recovering from the Caesarean? I went out to get dinner for her, to try to make it better, and I couldn’t find my car in the lot. I walked around that lot for an hour like a blind man, trying not to panic. I was this . . . this guy . . .”
“Batman,” she said.
“Batman. I thought so. And I couldn’t even find my car. So, yeah, I tried to be the strong one. Nia was trying to do the same thing for a while, and then she wasn’t. If you can’t fall apart, you can’t put yourself back together again. I didn’t learn that for a while.”
“Surely,” she said through the gripping pain of it, “it’s nobody’s fault. If anything was ever nobody’s fault, surely it’s that.”
“You’re right, but that doesn’t stop you feeling it. I was a lot more sure in those days, let’s say that. I thought I had the answers, that I could always get it right. Smartest guy in the room. So hard to grasp that something that bad could just happen for no reason. You try to bargain, to make it not true, to go back and do it over, but there’s no bargain and no do-over. It just is, and it’s a hard thing to move on from. Harder than you’d expect. Lots of marriages don’t survive the death of a child. Ours didn’t.”
Two words, and they lay there like lead. “Who left, though?” she asked.
A long silence. Brett wasn’t looking at her. He was gazing out into the darkness, and at that moment, she entered into his stillness, and she understood it. From one moment to the next, like a shooting star appearing, then disappearing again, le
aving its impression imprinted on the darkness of her mind. He was strong and steady because he’d been tested and hardened, over and over again. Because he’d had nothing left but the core of himself, and he’d built up from there, covering over the pain every time, making that layer stronger and thicker, then moving on to do it again.
Finally, he spoke. “Nia did. Nia left.” Telling Willow nothing she didn’t already know. “She went ahead the only way she could. It’s more than five years ago, and she’s remarried to a great guy and is an assistant U.S. attorney. That’s a big deal, and good for her. She didn’t have another baby. I don’t know whether it was because she couldn’t, or if she couldn’t stand to try. We don’t go into detail like that anymore.”
“I want to say something horrible about her,” Willow said, “but I can’t. And you couldn’t have felt that way at the time.”
He smiled. “Yeah. I didn’t. Couldn’t stay mad forever, though. The look on her face when I had to tell her Claire had died . . . I couldn’t forget that. It hit her hard. She thought she could do anything if she tried hard enough, and the one thing that turned out to matter most . . . Well, yeah. We both found out about that. People deal with it the best way they can. I didn’t cover myself with glory either, not for a long time. If a man can’t protect his wife and his baby girl, he might not feel worth much after all. Could be I was a shell myself for a while there. Not hero material.”
“I don’t believe that.” The words came out too fierce, and two of those sneaky tears had spilled over and made their way down her cheeks. The long day, the warm night, and this pain, squeezing her heart like a vise. “I think you tried your hardest to be a hero, and it wasn’t what she wanted. I think that hurt.”
“Could be.”
“Brett,” she said, and tried to laugh. “I wish you could see the man I see. I wish you could see my heart. I’m pretty sure it’s bleeding. All I want to do is kiss you, but you’re too broken. What a time to realize how much I want to.”
“No,” he said, and sounded sure again. “I’m dented, but I’m not broken. Not anymore.”
“But you didn’t remarry yourself. You didn’t try again.”
“Oh, I tried. Or let’s say I did a pretty good job of going through the motions. I’m going for honesty here. It’s feeling like a risky tactic.”
“Could be you’re a rough bargain.” Her heart had made the leap, but the rest of her was still in there fighting. He wasn’t her match, everything logical in her knew it, and her heart wanted him just the same. More than ever, now, the pull between them smooth and strong as silk.
He laughed, low and soft, and his hand was on the back of her neck, somehow, rubbing its slow way down it, below the collar of her dress. “Could be you’re exactly right.”
She was so close to him, all she had to do was lean over and touch her lips to his. A spark leaped between them, so hot and fierce, she would have jumped if not for his hand holding her there. He brushed his lips over hers, and the kiss changed. She was over him, but he was the one in control.
“I have a broken leg,” he said against her mouth.
“And you’re old, mate.” Still going for it.
She felt the curve of his smile. “Forty-three in two weeks. You could make me a cake.” He kissed her again, slowly this time, all heat, rich, dark wine, and a faint, woody aroma of cedar and spice, like you were walking through evergreen forests with mountain peaks rising above you, and he was there beside you, strong enough for anything.
Her nerve endings were tingling like they’d been shocked all the way down her bare arms, her mouth was opening under his, and she was turning liquid. She couldn’t get her breath. She couldn’t slow her heart. “Knocked around by life,” he murmured. Another kiss. “Divorced. Scared of water.”
“And you live . . . many places.” Her head was swimming, and his other hand was on her shoulder, stroking down her arm. Quicksilver and patience, like he was teasing her, and like he was learning her.
“Hotel rooms, and some houses,” he said into her ear, his deep voice, his warm hand, his slow, patient mouth at her neck, just under her ear, sending silver sparks all the way down her body. “Portland and Sinful. Both far away from here. Not bad, though. You could see for yourself.”
“I have a . . . business.” It was barely a breath. His hand traveled down her arm, then up again, over the bicep and up to that spot where her shoulder met her breast, and lingered there, tracing the tender flesh, his fingers just inside her dress.
He didn’t answer that one, just held her head tighter, his hand tunneling into the knot of her hair, loosening it, then holding her by it as he kissed her again. Slow, and soft, and deep, tasting her, like her mouth belonged to him. Like he was willing to take his time to explore everything he could make her feel, and like he wanted to do it all.
Love you all night long.
Like he wanted to do that, too.
He shouldn’t do it. He knew it. Too bad his body wasn’t listening.
She was halfway over him, her skin smooth as milk under his fingers, her mouth soft and warm over his. He had his hand in her hair, and when he found the covered elastic holding up her hair and pulled it out, he felt the sigh all the way through her body.
The sigh, and all the surrender in it. The desire surged through him, hot and dark as the night, and he turned his hand, wrapped her hair around it, and kissed her again. Harder this time, and deeper, invading and tasting and having. She made a noise in the back of her throat, and he burned that much hotter.
When the back of his hand brushed down the vee of her dress, she jumped, and he held her head tighter and felt her some more, his fingers just under the silky cotton fabric, tracing over even softer skin beneath. He could feel her lighting up like he was inside her already, and if he’d had two good legs? He’d have been picking her up there and then, putting her on his bed, and coming down over her. Since he didn’t have two good legs, he forced his hand to slow down, let go of her mouth enough to talk, and asked, “Do you want me to touch you?”
It was a different way to go about it, and in a way, it was even hotter. Torture, but hotter.
He got a moan and a gasp, and it took a serious effort to hold still. Finally, she said, “Yes.” On another sigh, and he smiled. Damn, she was exciting. “You could hurry a bit with that,” she said. Sounding annoyed.
He smiled some more, pulled her head down again, felt her hair between his fingers, soft as the finest strands of silken thread, and when she’d melted against him again, sent his other hand a little further inside her dress. She was wearing a bra tonight, but it was soft, too. “Putting barriers in my way?” he asked.
“Uh . . .” She was having some trouble talking, like all the blood had gone to the part of her that needed him most. He knew how she felt. “I thought it was . . . wise.”
“Maybe we don’t need to be wise.” The bra came only halfway up the swell of her breast, and when he ran his fingers lightly over the top of it, she tensed. “This is so sweet.”
“Not sure that’s flattering.” She was still in there swinging, and he couldn’t stop smiling.
“Let me try something else, then.” He kissed his way over her soft cheek to her ear, and she turned her head to let him do it. Another surge of excitement. Surely, she’d been born to receive pleasure, and to give it. He saw her like he’d already undressed her, flat on her back and gloriously naked, his hands parting her thighs, the sound of her uneven breathing filling his head. “How about if I tell you that you’re beautiful, you smell delicious, and all I want to do is eat you up, nice and slow, then nice and hard? After that, I want to fill you deeper than you’ve ever felt a man. I want to fuck you like you’re mine.”
He felt her shiver start somewhere down deep, like the electric feeling in the air before an earthquake, and while it was happening, he flicked open the front of her bra, got his fingers on a peak that hardened instantly, and squeezed.
He thought she was going to come right ther
e. She let out a cry, stiffened against him, and shuddered. “Brett.” It was a plea. It sounded great. “Please. I need you to do that.”
Holding himself back was torture, and it was necessary. First, because he needed to make her come before he did anything else, and second, because he wasn’t exactly mobile. He said, “Inside,” set her away from him, and reached for his crutches with hands that wanted to shake. “Bring the wine. And the candles.”
He didn’t say “Please,” and she didn’t ask him to. She grabbed the tray she’d used to bring out the dishes, shoved the wine bottle and both glasses onto it, added the candles, and headed inside behind him.
That’s good, anyway, he told himself as he crutched his way through the dim house ahead of her. Give her a chance to catch her breath and decide whether she wants this, because you know she’s had mixed feelings. He wasn’t doing such a hot job of convincing himself, though. His logical, modern-man brain knew it was right, but the primitive part of him wanted to put his hands all over her, set his mouth to her, and feel her orgasm under him like she was coming apart, her arms up beside her head and her mouth open in helpless surrender. After that, it was what he’d told her. He wanted to fuck her. He wanted to be on top of her when he did it, too. Starting out slow and easy, and then turning her over and putting her on her knees, grabbing her hips and pulling them back. He wanted that so badly, he could taste it. It wasn’t going to happen, though, so he was going to have to use his ingenuity.
The walk didn’t do anything at all for his patience level, but when she followed him into the bedroom and stood, hesitating, in the doorway holding her tray, something in him shifted. The candles she held showed him her face, and there was more than desire on it. He saw uncertainty, as clearly as if she’d said it, and that wasn’t one bit OK. She set down the tray on the nightstand and stood again, and he wished once again that his arms and legs were free. They weren’t, so he set one crutch carefully against the wall and said, “Willow. Come here.”
Sexy as Sin (Sinful, Montana Book 3) Page 17