Leanne Davis - Natalie (Daughters Series #2)

by Natalie (Daughters Series #2)

  I do not know, however, where that leaves us.

  ****

  More pretending. We pretend again the next morning. Sam and I only really associate or talk to each other when we are inside the Hendrickses’ house. Somehow, I manage to leave before he pretends to stir in the mornings. There isn’t a whole hell of a lot of peace between us. It’s Saturday and everyone is hanging around. Jessie passes by me and stops to ask me something, casually setting her hand on my shoulder. I neither flinch away, nor discreetly try to remove it, but let it stay. We meet each other’s stares and share a look. It’s the first time as mother and daughter that we touch so casually.

  I am planning to leave here tomorrow. My stomach cramps as I glance at Sam. He is casually stirring milk into his coffee while he and Will discuss the advantages of the local wind farm. Sam is quite interested in the giant windmills. I forget sometimes how intelligent he is. How quickly his mind works. But as he gets technical with Will, testing in depth Will’s general knowledge of the wind farm’s inner workings, I remember the Sam of our youth. He always wanted to know more about everything than anyone else ever bothered with. I think I’ve forgotten how attractive his brain is. He catches my stare and gives me a small, polite, yet almost nervous nod. He seems to sense I feel something different from yesterday. I don’t know how I feel about all of it: Jessie, the sisters, him, or us. But tomorrow, when we go “back,” something has to be done, or faced, or decided. I know what must happen, and it makes my stomach churn when I try to picture the reality of it happening.

  It’s mid–day when Christina finds me, I’m out towards the horse pasture, watching Melissa work with the mare. She’s pretty good at getting the horse to circle her, then stop and go the other way. Her patience and endless kindness toward the animals impress me. Christina puts her foot on the fence rail next to me and nods at Melissa. “She’s going to be like Mom someday with the animals. I just hope she can make it through school and go on and do something momentous with it. She should not waste her gift with animals.”

  “What do you mean get through school? She’s fifteen.”

  “Missy doesn’t like school at all. She barely gets Ds or passes. It’s bad. But when you put her with an animal, she has so much patience, and endless talent. She can get them to do things no else can. She could be an amazing vet like Mom, or work in zoos or, I don’t know… it seems limitless, if she’d just apply herself, or stick with something.”

  “She’s got a lot of time to figure it out still. Most teens are apathetic, but they grow out of it. It’s most likely just her age and a natural phase.”

  “I hope so. Look, Natalie, I know you leave tomorrow. I just, well, I got these for you. You seem to think you need to know everything. And I guess I think you earned the right. It’s up to you what you do with them. Just, here…” She hands me a stack of letters with a rubber band around them. My mouth pops open in astonishment.

  The letters! Jessie’s letters are in my hand. I glance up at Christina, my eyes full of confusion. “You stole them from her?”

  “I took them from her closet, yes. They will tell you the story I can’t. It’s a terrible story, Natalie. Be prepared for the worst. But then, maybe you will understand her better. And us. But it’s not about you. Okay? This isn’t the story of you. This is the story of Mom and how she decided to give you up in order for you to have a better life.”

  I should not do this. I’m breaking promises and my word. But still, I’m dying to sit down right there and start scanning them. Christina leaves and I do, too. I walk far from the house, past the horse pastures and into some trees. I find a pleasant spot to sit. A wooden bench that overlooks a small pond is perfect. I sit on it and grab the first letter. I take in a deep breath; here I go.

  There are no dates. And no to or from. It’s more like a journal entry. But it has the fold marks of being stuffed into an envelope at some point. They were written to Will because Jessie says his name many times. But it isn’t the love notes of a husband and wife who are separated. It’s angry, desolate, sarcastic and then… tragic. She calls her discomfort from the “monster” growing and forming inside her as a mutated virus that won’t go away. That’s what she calls me! My heart sits heavy. She detested me. I am the source of all the angry and awful words she writes. I flip to the next letter. This batch is consecutive. For more than forty days in a row, she wrote to him. Letter after letter depicting her discomfort, misery, and things about her father. Dear God, her father! I am shaking and starting to feel sick. Something deep and dark begins to grow in the pit of my stomach.

  It isn’t until the last letter of this batch when I start to understand. Her words haunt me. They’re so few and yet… they say so much.

  Will, I think about it. Every night. The pain. The pain. The pain. So much of it. Inside me. Around me. Everywhere. There is no hope for me. I lie there still tied up. Trapped forever. Like a rat to them. My life, and my pain have that much meaning to them. I mean nothing to them. I am nothing now. What you saw, if you had not come for me… I would have died. But I think, now, tonight, as I’m so alone here in this place, with you far away in the world, maybe that’s what should have happened. It would have been so much easier. So much better for all. For you certainly. But maybe me, most of all. Who can go on after something like that? Who can live with that? Who can ever find something good in life again?

  I set the letter down. Tied up. Them. The them has me shoving the papers away. I lean back, resting my head on the hard surface of the bench’s back. My heart rate explodes and blood pumps madly through my ears. She was gang raped! I do not know the circumstances, or where she was, much less why Will was there and somehow managed to save her… but not before she was gang raped. Tears fill my eyes. They fall and I sit there, numb. I have no right.

  I feel the pit of my stomach bottoming out. I had no right to pry into this woman’s former life and read her personal thoughts. I slowly rise to my feet and gather all the letters in my hands. I hate myself and I know she will ask me to leave. I can accept that.

  I deserve that.

  But for now? The tears fall down my face.

  “Natalie?”

  It’s Sam, of course. There is no missing his deep voice. Or the way my body trembles in response to him. The tears fall faster down my face. There is also no hiding the raw hurt in my eyes as I finally open them and find him standing over me. He doesn’t hesitate, but simply rushes to my side and takes me in his arms. “How did you…?”

  “Christina told me to find you. She said you needed me. She had no way of knowing that I am the last person you’d want to see.”

  I let him hold me. I cry against his chest, burying my face below his collarbone. I sniff deeply. He wears a soft cologne. Nothing obnoxious, just enough to tantalize me with his scent. It’s soothing. Normal. Sam.

  I don’t know for what or for whom I cry. Jessie? Me? Will? Sam? Our history? Or now? I just don’t know. Or for a wasted life and lost chances and rape and adultery? All of it swirls in my head with dizzying regularity.

  There is nothing simple about my marriage, but he is here.

  I’m still buried against him. I hiccup and finally mumble, “These letters… She was, she was raped. I am the biological result after she was gang raped.”

  His lips touch my hair in a kiss. “Damn. Baby, I’m sorry. I feared… something like this. There was a lot more to her story. There was a lot more there than the one–night–stand she claimed it was. I’m sorry for her, I am, but it’s not your story. It’s not you, Nat.”

  His large hand strokes my hair and the nape of my neck. He murmurs to me, but I don’t know what he is saying. He leans back far enough to cup my face in his large hands. My cheeks fill them, and he runs his thumbs oh–so–gently over my lips. He presses his lips against mine and I can taste the faint salt from his warm skin. We stare at each other. Dark eyes to dark eyes. Tears to concern. Love to love.

  “Why did you do it?” I finally whisper. There is no a
nger. Or recrimination. Just my broken heart. And my honesty. The depth of my heartbreak is evidenced in my tone.

  He already told me, of course. We had this conversation before. I knew the reasons. I knew the discontent he felt. How I didn’t need him and quit talking to him. And did not listen, or hear, or really even care about him for a year. I know all that. But why? My heart is screaming at me, and at him. Why did he have to do that to retaliate?

  “Natalie…” His tone is tortured. It’s a whisper. Like a prayer on his lips. He’s sorry. I know that. I feel it in his touch and see it in his eyes. I know he’s sorry. I know beneath all my anger and outright fury, the Sam I grew up with, dated, married and loved always is sincerely sorry. But he still did it. He broke us. There is no going back. We can’t go home, or start living our lives again. We can’t go back to working, grocery shopping, cooking dinner or living together as husband and wife. We can’t go back to Dolores Street, or Golden Gate Park, or browse Pier 39, or stroll down at Crissy Field. We can’t go back to the days when we explored the city together, mostly just to hold hands with each other. I know that so clearly, but my heart simply wants to try. We haven’t been this connected in so long. And here, in this moment, we are.

  We love each other. There isn’t enough to erase it all. Or what we did to get here. Or what Sam ultimately did with another woman. Which I witnessed. We can’t undo any of that. No amount of apologies or heated discussions can undo that.

  His forehead rests on mine and his breath is warm on my nose as he leans down and kisses my eyelids. “Do you remember the first time I kissed you?” he whispers, his eyes so close to mine, we’re almost cross–eyed. I inhale sharply at the memory. Of course I remember the night on his parents’ couch. My heart was as hurt as it is right now, actually. My mother was dying. The shock and reality of that had not yet set in. Just the words. And he was home and acting like he never knew me. I all but kicked him in my fury for him to notice me. But then, somehow, we got close and I told him the news I’d yet to utter out loud. Then we kissed. We kissed and he instantly had my heart. Always. I just hadn’t been mature or brave enough to admit it until that moment.

  “I remember,” I whisper. My eyes are still shut. I’m pretending that I shouldn’t send him away. Pretending we are okay.

  “It felt like the first time I ever kissed a girl.” His statement is simple and sweet. I open my eyes to him. He smiles a boyish, almost shy grin. “I never felt that way with any girl before. I haven’t since, either. I love you, Nat. I know, I know how much you think I don’t. But I do. I would do anything to change what I did.” His gaze is as compelling as a flame to someone suffering from hypothermia. “But I would never change you. You’re here. I don’t care how it happened. I’m just glad it did.”

  Tears cover my face because right now, that’s exactly what I want to hear. I was born to an innocent woman who had to suffer unspeakable torture caused by other people’s decisions. That doesn’t make me feel glad I’m here and alive. I am a victim, but Jessie is so much more a victim than I am. I feel so alone, except for Sam.

  He leans forward and his lips touch mine. It feels just like the first time. A sensuous meeting of lips, upper to upper, and lower to lower. So reverent and caring. He leans back and I know his gaze is fastened on my face. I keep my eyes closed. If I open them, I have to acknowledge where and who I am, as well as what year it is. I don’t want to. I want to lose my head in my feelings and Sam. I don’t want to think. I don’t want to do what I should do. I don’t want to remember what he did. I lean towards him. He tucks his hand behind my neck and firmly pulls me towards him.

  “Look at me, Natalie.”

  I open my eyes at his tender command. I am captivated by his gaze.

  “Tell me to stop.”

  I am staring into his eyes. We are inches apart, our breaths warm on each other’s faces. My eyes are glazed over in tears. His are full of sympathy and I see something more. There is a fire glowing deeply in his brown, dark pools. My breath slowly escapes as I shrug and almost helplessly say, “I don’t want to tell you to stop.”

  He holds my gaze hostage, leaning forward until his lips touch mine again. Almost as if it’s the very first time he ever touched me. His lips are soft and wet, yet dry and perfect. He has a gift for exerting just the perfect amount of pressure and speed in his kisses. He starts slow, and builds it up gradually to create an even more intense burn. Or he swoops in fast and hot like a flash from a nuclear blast. Sometimes, his execution has me almost climbing on his lap, begging him for more. Sometimes, I’m so stunned I can’t even move my limbs. He’s just that good at it. And this time feels more intense than ever before. He comes in with a soft, tentative, almost insecure pressure of his lips on mine. When was Sam ever unsure of me? I’m filled with a power I’ve never felt before with him. I was always convinced I loved and wanted him more than he did me. I was crushing on him for years before he ever once noticed me. I watched him with girl after girl, all the same type. His type. And not one of them was anything like me. From their looks, to their coloring, to their personalities, talents, interests, opinions and thoughts.

  I was the one he married. Sam was probably the only person on this planet that I felt insecure with. I cared about him so much that I doubted he could give that back to me. I was never totally, deep-down convinced I was the only one he wanted. He loved me. I didn’t doubt that. He was attracted to me, and our sex was always hot and fresh. But I always suspected there was something missing. Maybe I wasn’t really the love of his life.

  Sam’s cheating should have proven I was correct. That some deep dark corner of me had always been right. But shockingly, his reaction—running after me, trying so hard, apologizing over and over—has somehow touched something else deep inside me. I’m shocked he cares so much as to grovel. And to find me. Maybe he really does love me that much. Maybe I wasn’t the only one who thought this relationship would be our end–all of everything emotional.

  His hands slide to the bottom of my t–shirt before moving up to my sports bra. Never too girlie, not even in my underwear. He knows that as he slides his hands over the cotton material covering my breasts. The heat from his hands makes me moan. He knows how much I like this. His palms cup my breasts, and he lifts them while his fingers rub me. My nerve endings grow warm and tingle with heat before exploding when he swipes his thumbs back and forth, over both nipples, repeatedly. All the while, our lips are locked together tightly and our tongues fill each other’s mouths. There is no finesse. And no slowing down now. We are messy, hot, lip–to–lip, mixing our spit, and wild. He grabs the edge of my bra and dips it down before tucking my small boobs on top and giving the bra a super support, push–up lift. I shift until I straddle him while he pulls away far enough to tug my shirt off. It goes over my neck and head, until my hair gets caught in the buttons. His eyes spark darkly as he stares at my uplifted breasts, as if being displayed at his feast. He leans forward, and this time, puts my bare nipple into his mouth. Wet. Oh–so–wet. The familiar, warm sensations start to percolate; they tug and strum my pleasure sensors until a deep, gnawing need begins to grow inside me. He tugs all my nerve endings and I respond by cradling his head to my chest. It feels like such a loving act, holding him close to me. His dark head tucked against my bosom. I hold him, letting my fingers swirl through his dark hair. Overwhelming feelings rush into my chest. Love. Tenderness. Joy. Sex. Want. Need. So many emotions are swirling inside me at once. Sadness. Anger. How could he? They also speak from inside me as I cling to him. He causes all of this to happen inside me. And Jessie’s story stirs up something deep and dark inside me too. It is more upsetting than I thought. I feel almost desperate for a connection. And Sam? Sam is my connection. Perhaps the only connection I have left.

  Yes, I’m aware how vulnerable I am. So is he. I know when he stops and asks me. He’s worried I’m using sex to eradicate my pain. The thing is, he might be right. I could be doing that. Jessie’s story is so gruesome, I almost w
ant to feel something that’s good and real. Maybe that’s twisted on my part, because her story centers on sex. But that sex was a very different kind than what I have with Sam.

  He kisses my breasts and follows the curve towards my collarbone and my neck. I lean my head back, allowing him more access to my throat. His hands encircle my back as his lips once more find mine. He kisses me long and deep; but I feel a sense of desperation in his kiss, as well as in his grasp of me. His hands tremble as he grips my bare back. I begin to address his shirt. He has a button–up on so I quickly start unbuttoning it. He allows enough space between us for me to separate the sides of his shirt, jerking his shoulders forward and helping me slide it off them. He has a long, sleek torso, perfect for his tall height. Not an inch of fat on him, he is lean and trim. My hands slide over his chest and I memorize the feel of his skin against mine, the softness of his hair beneath my palms and his sharp intake of breath, letting me know how much he likes it.

  He suddenly leans forward, and buries his hands into my hair, angling my head the way he wants it before his mouth nearly devours me. He’s so anxious for me. His tongue delves deeper into my mouth and I moan at the onslaught. It’s not like Sam. He’s never so desperate or spontaneously unplanned. I feel his burning heat when I try to press my own aching body harder against him. He pushes me up, and I’m standing on trembling legs as his hands drop to my waist and he slips off the workout pants I wear. Unceremoniously, he drops them to my ankles, along with my underwear. I kick my sneakers off, but leave my socks on as he works his own pants down. I wait until they’re far enough down and step forward to fill my hands with his hard, radiant warmth.