Breaking Skin

by Debra Doxer

  As he draws nearer, my eyes widen with curiosity, but his are playful to match the sly smirk on his face.

  “What are you doing?” I whisper when he stops beside me.

  The sly expression disappears, changing to something much more serious and determined as he reaches inside his suit jacket pocket.

  “I’m doing this,” he says and withdraws a small velvet box.

  The dancers around us gasp and so do I, covering my mouth with one hand and my galloping heart with the other.

  Everyone here knows Cole and I are dating. Our picture has been in the paper numerous times. At first, the headlines announced that he broke up with the beautiful blonde he was seeing to date a ballerina. Turns out, he never dated that blonde. She was and still is his assistant, Gwen. She’s also one of my closest friends now, along with Deedee, and I have a feeling both of them knew about this, even though I didn’t. I had absolutely no idea.

  The audience buzzes with excitement when Cole gets down on one knee, and I dissolve into tears as I look at him.

  He smiles up at me and takes a deep breath. “Nikki, I love you. I want to build a life with you. I want to have a family and grow old with you. I want to fight with you the way we do sometimes, and make up with you the way we also do.”

  Cole winks, and soft laughter surrounds us.

  “I want to travel with you and show you the world. But most of all, I want to make a home with you where I can spend the rest of my life making you happy. Will you marry me?”

  His words completely level me. They reach deep inside and wind themselves around my heart.

  “I love you so much,” I tell him. With a watery smile I say yes. I say it over and over again as he picks me up and spins me around.

  The audience erupts in applause, and so does everyone onstage. I throw my head back and laugh, thinking how perfectly Cole planned his proposal.

  He lowers me to the floor and I slowly slide down the front of his body, my skin flushing with heat at the contact, even in front of all these people. Only minutes ago, I thought I couldn’t be any happier, but I was wrong.

  Looking up at the man I love, the one I want to spend the rest of my life with, I’m struck by the emotion burning in his eyes. It fills me with a fierce tenderness for him and something so strong, I can’t quite name it. It’s more than destiny. It’s a deep sense of belonging and rightness. Cole and I found each other not once, but twice. The first time only briefly and the second time forever.

  As the audience gets up to leave, the other dancers surround us and offer their congratulations.

  “Did you know?” Deedee takes my hand to look at the ring Cole slipped onto my finger. “Gorgeous,” she whispers.

  I look at it closely for the first time. It’s beautiful. Simple and perfect, but I would love it no matter what it looked like.

  “I had no clue. Did you know?” I ask her.

  She grins. “Someone had to talk to Nadia for him.”

  I shake my head at her, even though I’m hardly upset, just overwhelmed and amazed that Cole managed to pull this off. I hug Deedee and half the corps, it seems, by the time the stage clears out. All the while, Cole stays close to me.

  Once it’s quiet, I tug him off to the side. “I can’t believe you did this.”

  He smiles. “Was it okay? I would have done it in private. I almost did every night since I picked up the ring, but I thought doing it here in front of the people we love, in a place that means so much to you, would give it special meaning.”

  Was it okay? Is he kidding? “It was perfect, Cole. Those things you said to me, I’ll never forget them.”

  “I meant them. Every word.”

  I go up en pointe to kiss him, and he smiles against my lips.

  “I got some news after you left this afternoon,” he says.

  I lean back to see his eyes glimmer with whatever this news is.

  “I won the appeal. I have shared custody of Derek again.”

  “What?” I jump into his arms so abruptly, he has to take a step back to maintain his balance.

  He laughs at my reaction. “Celeste landed a part in a television show that shoots in Toronto. She can’t take Derek with her, and she isn’t about to turn down the role, so she agreed to let him stay with me during the school year and we’ll switch off in the summer.”

  “Oh, Cole. That’s more than shared custody. You’ll have him most of the time. I can’t believe it.”

  Bouncing with excitement, I move in to kiss him, but freeze when moisture gathers in his eyes. I’ve never seen Cole cry before, and there’s a sharp tug at my heart.

  “What is it?”

  His arms tighten around me. “I have everything I want.”

  I cradle his cheeks in my hands and smile. “So do I.”

  Our lips meet and his tongue sweeps into my mouth. I meet each stroke with one of my own, making him groan before he breaks away.

  “Everyone’s waiting for us,” he says. “They want to celebrate.”

  “I am celebrating.” I grip him tighter.

  With a laugh, he sets me down. “Later. I have plans for you when we get home.”

  “Promise?”

  He answers with a sexy smile that makes me shiver in anticipation. Since he has Derek with him, Cole means when we get to his home. I still have my apartment in San Francisco, and I stay there on performance nights. Normally Cole would stay with me.

  “I have to go by my place first to get Siegfried.”

  “Okay, but no more your place or my place. They’re our places, and we need a bigger one in the city with security for you when I’m not there.”

  I understand that he can’t be here as much with Derek moving back. But I don’t want to be away from him for long stretches.

  “When we find a place,” he says, “I’d like all three of us to live there together.”

  My eyes widen, and I wonder if I heard him right. “You want to live in the city?”

  “I can live anywhere. Your job is here,” he states simply.

  He’s already thought about this, and he’s willing to move here. For me.

  “What about Cooperstown? Derek is happy there. He must have missed his friends and his school while he was gone. You can’t uproot him again.”

  He puts his hands on my shoulders. “I know you’d live in Cooperstown for us, but I can’t ask you to do that. It’s too far from the company, and it holds too many bad memories for you.”

  Cole’s thoughtfulness warms my heart and fills me with a rush of tenderness, but living in the city isn’t what’s best for Derek or him. It’s not best for me either.

  “I don’t want to live here. I want us to live in Cooperstown. I’ll commute to work. It’s not that far.”

  My declaration surprises me almost as much as it does him. To live there of all places, a town that holds so many painful memories and hurtful rumors, a place I couldn’t wait to leave. But that was before Cole moved there. He’s my home now. He’s my family.

  Home and family.

  For the first time, those words don’t sting. They offer the promise of a future filled with enough love to overshadow a past that held so little of it.

  Cole and I are outside on his deck, lying together on a chaise lounge, looking up at the night sky. It’s the same sky I looked at every night growing up, a dark sea dotted with lights that absorbed wishes but never granted them. Not long ago, I looked up at those stars and thought they would laugh if they knew people wished upon them. I don’t think that anymore.

  Tonight I gaze up at the sky with a brand-new life full of wishes that have come true, and I find myself thanking those stars. I was wrong to believe they had the power to make good things happen on their own. They don’t work unless you believe in them.

  That’s what I was lacking before. I didn’t believe. Not in the stars, or myself, or others. Then I met a man who made me believe, and like a snowball rolling downhill, my belief grew into an expanding circle of loved ones who fill my life
with more joy than I ever thought possible. And as of a few hours ago, that man is my fiancé.

  Fiancé. It’s a word I’m proud to use, even though it makes me want to giggle each time I say it because it sounds so pretentious and feels so foreign on my lips. But I’ve been careful not to say it too much in front of Renee. She seems genuinely happy for Cole and me, but I want to be sensitive to her. I want to be sensitive to Langley and Lily too, although I did worry about them.

  Langley because I didn’t know if she had expectations for her mother and Cole. But Renee said she talked to her, and Langley simply accepted the situation the same way children accept that the world is round and broccoli is good for you, because adults tell them so. Or maybe Langley has learned to roll with the punches, and this is simply another blow. Whatever she’s thinking, we’re close enough now that we can talk about it, and I’m here to talk if she wants to.

  As for Lily, when I saw her tonight, she made a point of saying how pleased she is to have me join her family. Her blessing is a relief and it came with a bonus I hadn’t expected, another sister.

  Sometimes I watch Cole with Lily and envy their easy relationship. They have arguments, occasionally heated ones, but their bond is solid. They fight without the worry of lingering resentments or the possibility of their words doing permanent damage. They trust each other too much for that.

  Renee and I have come a long way, but we may never reach that level of comfort with each other. In the meantime, we’ve become friends, and I think that’s a good place to start.

  “Nikki . . .” Cole hesitates. “I need to know you’re not doing this for me, because that’s not what I want.”

  He’s talking about us living in Cooperstown again. For him, it’s not yet settled. I’m not a mind reader, but I can read Cole when it comes to his selflessness and his desire to make me happy. Sometimes I think he’s too good to me. He would like to stay in Cooperstown, but he doesn’t want to say so because he’s afraid it’s not what I want. He’s trying not to influence me, and it’s true, I am being influenced, but the persuasion is coming entirely from myself. I have my own reasons for staying here.

  Renee is doing better than she has in a long time, but I want to stay close, just in case. I want to be here if Langley needs me. I want to be here for my sister also. If the distance is too far and the time between visits too long, we could easily slip back into old patterns. I don’t want to lose the progress we’ve made. I don’t want to lose them again.

  My other reason for staying is harder to explain. It’s an instinct, a sense of rightness. It seems fitting to experience my happiest moments in the place that I saw my darkest days. It feels like healing.

  “I want to live here, for you and Derek, but for me too. I promise.” I keep my tone firm, hoping to erase his doubt.

  For a long time, Cole is quiet beside me. Finally he says, “I don’t like the idea of your driving such a long distance after rehearsal. You’re too tired. I’ll hire a car to bring you back and forth.”

  I smile inside. It’s settled. This is going to be our home, and if hiring a car makes Cole more comfortable with this decision, I won’t argue.

  “Okay,” I say easily.

  A cool wind rustles through the trees, making me shiver. Cole’s arm tightens around me.

  “Let’s go inside,” he says.

  “Not yet.” I’m making a wish. It has to do with our future and the wistful look I saw in Cole’s eyes when he held his baby niece the other day.

  “You’ll catch cold.”

  “Five more minutes.”

  He sighs and shifts closer to share his body heat. Cole tells me how strong I am and then he treats me like I’m made of glass, but he can’t deny me anything, not even five more minutes.

  Once my wish is made, I shift onto my side to face him and see that his eyes aren’t on the sky. They’re on me. I don’t think he’s been looking at the stars at all.

  “Those plans you said you had for me when we got home, I’m ready for them now.”

  “What happened to your five minutes?”

  “That suddenly seems like an eternity.”

  His eyes glitter in the darkness as he shifts above me to press a soft kiss to my lips. Cole blocks out the sky, and all I can see is him, my soul mate, and my future with all the possibilities it holds.

  If joy and sadness are two sides of the same coin, it seems I’ve won the toss and joy is settling in for a nice long run. When sadness comes again, if it comes, Cole and I will face it together.

  “We make a good team,” he says.

  I smile. “We slay dragons.”

  He presses a kiss to my forehead. “Yes, we do, sweetheart.”

  In loving memory of my friend Amie White,

  who passed away in February after a long and courageous struggle.

  I will never get used to a world without her in it.

  Thank you to the talented individuals who take the raw material I give them and transform it into a final product that goes above and beyond my original vision. They are Pam Berehulke at Bulletproof Editing, Julie Ann Titus at JT Formatting, and Sarah Hansen at Okay Creations. I count myself lucky to have these professionals lending their considerable skills to my latest project.

  As always, thank you to my family for putting up with my radio silence when I’m working on a book. I couldn’t do this without your understanding and support.

  Publishing a book is not for the faint of heart. It takes faith, thick skin, and just enough audacity to hit the Publish button. I wouldn’t be brave enough to do this again and again without the encouragement of a few key people. For your kind words and camaraderie, thank you to Bianca Smith, Rachel Blaufeld, and once again, Pam Berehulke.

  Thank you to my readers! I jump between genres and I have a strange aversion to perfectly happy endings, but when I write, I follow my heart. Oftentimes it feels like the rest of me is only along for the ride. Thank you for taking this ride with me.

  When I started writing this book, I assumed chronic traumatic encephalopathy was a well-known risk and a possible consequence of certain sports accepted by both players and professional sports leagues. To my surprise, that is not the case. While doing my research, I discovered that CTE continues to be a volatile and controversial topic, especially as it relates to youth sports and the future of professional sports.

  If you have a child currently playing or considering playing a sport that carries the risk of repetitive head injuries, it’s worthwhile to educate yourself about the potential dangers.

  Connect with the Author

  www.facebook.com/AuthorDebraDoxer

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  debradoxer@gmail.com

  Books by Debra Doxer

  Contemporary Romance

  Breaking Skin

  Play of Light

  Paranormal Romance

  Keep You from Harm (Remedy #1)

  To Have and to Harm (Remedy #2)

  Young Adult

  Like Candy (Candy #1)

  Sweet Liar (Candy #2)