Amber Sky, page 10
I stared into his eyes for a long moment. “You’re not mad?”
“About what?”
I held up my arm as if he hadn’t just referenced the tattoo.
He shook his head. “Why would I be mad? Lina told me you got a purple elephant. I know it’s a tribute to your father. I understand. I wish you’d waited until after the baby’s born, but I’m not angry.”
“After the baby’s born?” I said, lying back and staring up at the vaulted ceiling.
Marc didn’t comment on my skepticism that this pregnancy would go full-term. “Come downstairs when you’re ready. I have something to show you.”
I looked him in the eye. “A surprise?”
He shook his head and smiled. “Better.”
“Better than a surprise? Is it decaf coffee that actually tastes good?”
He laughed. “Even better. Come on,” he said, planting a kiss on my cheek before disappearing into the upstairs hallway.
I listened to his footsteps going down the stairs before I got out of bed. I quickly brushed my teeth and hair, then plodded down in yesterday’s clothes. I had to find that tattoo care package they sent me home with yesterday, so I could change my dressing.
I found Marc in the kitchen, sitting at the breakfast bar with two cups of tea and a plate of my favorite chocolate dipped shortbread cookies from the Dutch bakery around the corner. I sat down on the stool next to him, smiling at the tag hanging over the rim of my mug. Marc made me orange-scented black tea. He knew that was my favorite tea to drink with my favorite cookies.
“Ask me anything,” he said after I’d had my first sip.
I reached for a cookie and smiled. “Is this a game or something?”
He shook his head. “No games or tricks. I’m ready to talk.”
I put the cookie back without taking a bite. “Anything?”
He was silent for a long moment before he finally nodded. “Anything.”
I felt the muscles in my chest contract. “Why now?”
He stared at his cup of tea for a moment before he answered. “I always wanted to wait until we had our first child. I was… I was afraid if I told you before, then you’d either leave me or decide you didn’t want to have children with me.”
Now my stomach tensed up as I anticipated what kind of secret could possibly make me leave Marc. I didn’t think there was anything in the world that could make me voluntarily check out other than a complete and utter betrayal of our marriage. His secrecy was verging on that, which I presumed was what prompted this change of heart. He must have sensed my desire to start a fight with him and knew I was trying to find a way out.
I shook my head. “You’re scaring me, Marc. I… I don’t know if I want to know.” I reached up to touch his smooth, freshly-shaven jaw. “Maybe knowing I can ask you anything — when I’m ready to ask — is enough…for now.”
He grabbed my hand and placed a lingering kiss in the center of my palm. “I’m ready when you are… No more secrets.”
I smiled as he sandwiched my hand between both of his, making it disappear. “No more secrets.”
Playing Tricks
As Walker approaches the easel, I step backward, keeping a safe distance between us. “What are you playing at?” The words come out of my mouth low and harsh, like a warning, as I keep my eyes locked on him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I thought you wanted me to paint you,” he says, glancing at the canvas.
My gaze flicks toward the painting, and I do a double-take. The portrait I saw of The Last Supper has been transformed into a vague outline of a woman lying on some grass. The woman’s facial features haven’t been fleshed out yet, but she seems to be wearing the same clothing as I am.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Walker asks, his voice soft and reassuring despite my outburst.
I shake my head. “I think…maybe the heat is getting to me. I… I should probably lie down.”
He nods, but he doesn’t follow me inside. I feel like leaving him alone outside to clean up everything is like a metaphor for my life. I’ve always been impulsive and reckless. And it’s always been the ones I love who are left to clean up my mess.
I’m beginning to wonder if my brain’s trying to protect me from knowing the truth. Why else would it show me these flashes of memories, then whisk them away before I can fully understand them?
Maybe the truth is I’m not a good person.
The downstairs bedroom feels colder than usual. I stare at the lace curtain fluttering with the evening breeze, and I pray for the first time in a year. I’m too out of practice to do it freestyle, instead, opting to recite the serenity prayer, which is engraved on the plaque hanging on the wall.
The room is just bright enough for me to read the words on the plaque. The serenity prayer is one of the few embedded so deeply in my brain, I could probably recite it in my sleep. The words on the plaque are not exactly the same as the serenity prayer I remember from Sunday school, but this version will do.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I cannot accept,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Should I accept that my brain seems to have more than a few screws loose? Do I have the courage to admit this to Walker? Am I wise enough to know when it’s time to go home?
I toss the covers off and slide out of bed. I tread softly as I cross the bedroom and climb the stairs to the second floor, trying to avoid stepping on the creakiest floorboards.
The door to Walker’s bedroom is wide open. As I approach, I try to think of what I’ll say when I wake him. But when I arrive at the threshold, I find him awake, sitting on the windowsill, gazing out at the night sky. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of jeans, and his dark hair is wild, as if he’d been tossing and turning before he got up.
I enter without announcing my presence, but a creaky floorboard does it for me. Walker turns his head slowly to watch me approach. He doesn’t seem surprised to see me in his bedroom.
I stand next to him and look out the window to see what he’s gazing at. The sky is pitch black and studded with twinkling stars of various sizes and colors. It’s not a city night sky, muted by light pollution. It’s a brilliant, shimmering cloak wrapped around the world, beckoning us to embrace the night.
When I turn away from the window, Walker is staring at me, a new quiet confidence in his eyes. The moonlight paints silvery streaks over his cheekbones, collarbone, and pectoral muscles. He looks beautiful enough to paint.
Taking a cue from the look in his eyes, I turn toward him to let him see all of me. His gaze skims over every inch of my body, stopping for a while on my breasts. Taking a step forward, I take his hand in mine and hold it for a moment. When his eyes look up to meet mine, I lay his hand on my chest, so he can feel my heartbeat.
The corners of his mouth turn up at the sensation of my pulse pounding against his fingertips. “You are real.”
I nod and try not to cry as I imagine how lonely Walker must have been before I crashed into his life. He must have been questioning his reality these past few days, just as I have been.
“I’ll prove it to you,” I say, taking his hand and pulling him toward the twin bed.
We sit on the edge of the mattress holding hands for a few minutes. Finally, I gather the courage to remove the oversized Philadelphia Eagles T-shirt Walker let me use as a nightgown. His mouth drops open at the sight of my naked breasts.
He swallows hard and draws in a deep breath. “Is… Is it okay for us to be doing this?”
I suddenly feel more exposed than I did ten seconds ago. “Of course, it’s okay,” I reply. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
He tears his gaze away from my chest to look into my eyes. “Because…you’re… You’re not my wife.”
Something about the way he says this makes me worry that he has a wife somewhere. Otherwise, he would have questioned whether it was wrong because we’re not married.
“I…know I’m not your wife,” I begin, keeping my tone soft. “Do you have a wife?”
He looks surprised by this question. “Me? A wife?” He chuckles as he shakes his head. “No, ma’am.”
“You don’t have to call me ma’am. You can call me Cass like you did earlier.”
He looks a bit reluctant as he tries it out in his mouth. “Okay, Cass.”
It sounds awkward and formal, but a million times better than ma’am.
I glance at my bare chest and smile at him. “Do you want to touch me? It’s okay. We’re both adults. We don’t have to be married to touch each other.”
His breathing quickens as he slowly raises one hand and reaches for me. I lean forward a bit until my breast is in his large hand, meeting him halfway, so he knows I want this as much as he does. His eyes widen as he gently squeezes the soft mound of flesh.
“Look at that,” I whisper, moving his fingers over my nipple. “It’s perked up for you. That means…my body likes the feel of your hands on me.”
He glances up at me for just a brief moment before he turns his attention back to my breasts, but it’s enough for me to see the pure wonder in his eyes.
I don’t want to push him beyond the limits of his innocence. But it’s hard to deny this carnal attraction. I feel like we are the only man and woman on the earth — the first man and woman to touch each other like this. I’m the forbidden fruit and temptress all at once.
Before I have time for these taboo thoughts to sink in, his mouth is on my nipple. His eyes are closed as he suckles at my breast, but I can see his eyes rolling with pleasure beneath his eyelids. I gasp as a pulsing ache erupts between my legs.
He pulls his head back, looking up at me as if he’s done something wrong. “Did I hurt you?”
I shake my head adamantly. “No, you could never hurt me,” I reply with total confidence in the sanctity of my words. I flash him a small smile to further convince him of this, and he smiles back.
But he doesn’t return to his previous task. Instead, he kisses me on the mouth again, a hungrier, more confident kiss than before. My body pushed backward by the gravity of his need. And without knowing how I came to be there, I’m lying on my back, with Walker grinding his pelvis into mine.
I turn my head to catch my breath from his ravenous kiss, but he grabs my jaw and turns my face so he can keep kissing me. I chuckle at his enthusiasm, and he responds by pinning my wrists to the mattress and kissing me harder.
“Walker,” I mutter into the hollow of his mouth, but he doesn’t respond. “Walker, please.”
He gathers my wrists together above my head, encircling them in one of his large hands. His other hand slides between our bodies, slipping beneath the waistband of my panties. I whimper as he violently shoves a finger inside of me. As he moves his hand recklessly in and out of me, I want to tell him to stop being so rough. But as I open my mouth to protest, he bites down on my bottom lip. Hard.
I use all my energy to push him off me, and he lands on the floor beside the twin bed with a thud. “What are you doing?” I cry out, breathless and trembling with fright as I use my arms to cover my bare breasts.
He looks at the hand that was just inside of me like it’s a loaded pistol. “I’m… I’m s-s-sorry.”
I touch my fingertips to my lips and stare at the red blood I taste in my mouth. “It’s okay,” I whisper, then I look him in the eye and repeat my words louder. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” I assure him as I get down on the floor next to him. “That’s just…a natural impulse. You did nothing wrong? Okay?”
He continues staring at his hand for a while before he looks at me with so much shame in his eyes; it makes my heart ache. “I’m not… I’m not like him.”
My stomach vaults as I try to comprehend what he means by this while also wishing I’d never heard these words. The implication is that someone has hurt Walker, or someone close to him, and he thinks this moment of passion has doomed him to become the same kind of monster.
“You’re nothing like him,” I reply with conviction. “You’re a good man. You’re a gentle man.”
His hand curls up into a fist. “I’m not gentle,” he says, his voice deep and dark, almost otherworldly. “I wasn’t gentle when I shot him.”
Amber Sky
Two months earlier
I entered the kitchen to find my mother standing on one side of the island with her sister Lillian sitting on a stool across from her. The same Aunt Lillian who told me on the day of my father’s funeral that my dad, “Would not have wanted to be cremated.”
She found it appropriate to make this assertion even though she hadn’t seen my father in nearly a year before gazing upon his ashes in an urn on top of the mantle in my mother’s living room. She was lucky I was not a violent person.
Aunt Lillian knew what my father wanted far less than my siblings and I did. Even being the one person who knew my father almost as well as my mother, I still didn’t feel as though I really knew him. Otherwise, I would have recognized that he was yearning to take his classic Ford Fairlane out for a drive as soon as I left his side that day. I should have seen the hunger for the freedom of the road in his eyes. After all, it was one of the many qualities I shared with my father; the desire to press that gas pedal into the floor and leave the world behind.
But I still couldn’t understand how losing his memory could cause my father to make such a deadly calculation while driving his prized car.
“Hi, guys,” I said, trying to keep the tone light and casual, so Aunt Lillian wouldn’t feel the need to steer the topic of conversation to my father’s death.
“Hi, sweetheart,” my mother proclaimed as she bumped cheeks with me. “How are you feeling? How’s the baby?”
I rubbed my belly as I rounded the island toward Aunt Lillian. “She’s as healthy as a horse, just like her mom.”
My mother gasped. “She?” Her eyes filled with tears as I gave my aunt a quick one-armed hug.
“Well, you’re positively glowing,” Aunt Lillian added. “I have a good feeling about this one.”
I ignored her jab at the failure of my previous attempts at motherhood. I wasn’t in the mood to teach someone the proper way to pay a compliment to a woman who’d lost as many pregnancies as I had. It wasn’t a skill people were born with.
“Thank you,” I said, showing my gratitude for the “glowing” compliment. “We found out yesterday,” I said, turning to my mother. “Seven weeks to go, and you’ll have granddaughter number two.”
My mother wiped tears from her powdery cheeks. “Your father is smiling down on you.”
My smile disappeared as I was taken aback by this comment. My mother had never been a religious person. My father was the one who turned to God in difficult times. Even in times of emotional upheaval, my mother always preferred to rely on her therapist over God.
It was apparent my father’s death had her seeking out new avenues of comfort. But to hear a platitude like “your father is smiling down on you” come out of her mouth—directed at me—felt like an insult.
My head filled with a roar of escalating rage. My father was not smiling down on me. My father was gone. His beautiful mind, his bellowing laughter, his warm embrace were gone in a cloud of smoke from the cremator’s chimney.
I drew in a deep breath to douse the flames of wrath flickering inside me. “Is Carter coming home soon?” I asked, desperate to change the subject. “I really want him to be here when she’s born.”
My mother finished wiping the remnants of moisture on her cheeks. “He has a business meeting in Hong Kong next week, and he’ll know after that if he can make it back before then.”
I sensed some reticence in her tone. She was trying to hide the fact that Carter wanted to wait until he knew this baby would actually survive. “Okay,” was all I could bring myself to say.
“Honey, Zelda wants you to call her. She wouldn’t tell me what it was about, but she said it was urgent. Her phone number is on a Post-It, next to the phone on your father’s desk.”
I nodded, grateful for an excuse to leave the room. Passing through the breakfast nook into the west wing corridor, I entered the third door on the left and was once again assaulted with the aroma of fresh coffee. My sense of smell was always heightened while pregnant, but this was a bit ridiculous. My father had been dead for almost a month and a half. Unless my mother had suddenly taken up coffee drinking, there had to be a reason for the smell lingering so long.
I immediately crossed the study toward my father’s desk by the window. As my mother said, a Post-It note next to the desk phone had Zelda’s name written on it.
Zelda Greenburg was my father’s literary agent. I didn’t know why she would want to speak to me, but I suspected it had to do with unfinished business.
I sunk down into my father’s comfy leather desk chair and dialed Zelda’s number. Unsurprisingly, she answered the phone on the first ring.
“It’s Cassidy,” I announced. “What can I do for you, Zelda?”
“Oh, honey. I’m so glad you called,” she began, indeed sounding thoroughly relieved to hear my voice. “I just got a call from the editor at Dial Books. I can’t believe I forgot your father had a book due last month. You know we were trying to keep the news of his condition under wraps. But after his passing, Dial began discussing what to do with the anthology they’re doing for charity. I don’t know if you know this, but your father was the primary author on this book. All their marketing dollars were pushing his name on this thing.”
“Zelda, I’m not really sure how you expect me to help you. I can’t bring my father back from the dead so he can finish a book.”
“Oh, dear. I hope you don’t think I’m being insensitive. Your father left clear instructions that I was to come to you with any concerns about his books.”
“Instructions? What are you talking about?”
Zelda cleared her throat. “Well, I… I assumed you’d read the will by now. I’m sorry if I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s just that this book is to benefit your father’s literary foundation. I… I thought maybe he made you the point of contact with your knowledge. I’m really sorry, Cassie. I didn’t mean—”
