EMBER - Part Two (The EMBER Series Book 2)

by Deborah Bladon

  I don't need the reminder. It's not that there's a spear of jealousy that darts through me when he mentions the depth of his connection with Maisy. I'm well aware that he loved her and the knowledge that they shared a home is evidence enough of their intention to have a future together. There's just a nagging voice in the back of my mind, which sounds a lot like my mother, telling me that there may be more to their relationship than he's let on.

  "What will it take to settle things between you?" I ask not caring that the words sound pointed and brash. "Is she planning on moving out ever?"

  His gaze falls to the floor and his shoulder surge forward. I hear the faint sound of a curse word beneath his breath. "She's going to move out. She has to."

  Someone should probably tell Maisy that. I want to say that to him only because I sense that there's a small part of him that he's holding back from me. I can't pinpoint it and even though we've grown closer the past few weeks, I want his past to be just that. I don't want it to creep into our future and stall what is growing between us.

  "Have you talked to Garrett about it?" I ask knowing it's a silly question. His cousin is a probate attorney so I'm not even sure he could offer any legal advice that would help Dane see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it's worth a suggestion.

  "I did." He reaches down to pull on his jeans.

  Nothing follows those words. He silently puts on the sweater he was wearing when he arrived before he pushes his feet into the black loafers he kicked off when he came into my bedroom.

  If I learned anything that night when I was hit by the car it's that life is fleeting and everything can change in the blink of an eye. There's a question that has been sitting on the edge of my tongue since he first told me he'd left his girlfriend the night we met. If I don't ask him now, when we're immersed in this subject, and he's already headed out my apartment door, I may never find the courage again.

  "Dane?"

  He turns towards me as a brilliant smile courses across his lips. "Bridget."

  I swallow hoping that the motion will dislodge the words from deep within me. I close my eyes briefly before I look directly into his eyes. "Did you ever think about marrying Maisy?"

  He steps towards me and for the briefest moment I wonder if he's going to kiss me to try and quiet my need to understand about his past. He stops before he reaches the edge of the bed to look down at me. "I had a ring in my pocket at the restaurant. I was going to ask her to marry me the night I met you."

  Chapter 4

  Trying to get dressed with both a broken arm and a reeling mind isn't an easy task. Add to that the fact that I'm still nursing tender ribs, and it's a disaster waiting to happen.

  I struggle with my panties before Dane silently drops to his knee to help me. He reaches to grab my right hand, pulling it up to his lips for a light kiss on my palm before he places it on his shoulder. I hold onto him, balancing myself as I raise one foot off the floor, before I move the other so he can slide my panties on for me. He does the same with my jeans and as he carefully guides my casted hand through the arm hole of my t-shirt, he says my name in no more than a whisper.

  "Her plan for the past year was for us to get engaged on her birthday."

  The words feel foreign given what we just did and even though he's not talking in a raised tone, they feel and sound too loud for the small space. I brush past him, wanting to escape the sight of my bed where we've just made love.

  "It was your birthday," I say quietly as I walk into the living room. "I met you on your birthday."

  He shoves one of his hands into the front pocket of his jeans. "Her birthday was five months ago. I couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to ask her then."

  I should take some comfort in those words but I can't. He may have put off the inevitable popping of the question along with the presentation of the token diamond ring for a few months, but he just told me not more than five minutes ago that he was prepared to propose the night before we first slept together. If I'm not the poster girl for rebounds right now, I should be.

  "You were going to ask her to marry you?" I ask as much to hear the words from my own lips. "Why didn't you tell me that before?"

  His eyes scan my face looking for something that I can't give to him right now. It's reassurance. He wants me to give him a sign that I understand but I don't. I can't. "I couldn't do it, Bridget. I couldn't ask her. I realized that night that it was over."

  Call it cold feet if you will. Maybe it was engagement ring buyer's remorse but they were close enough for marriage to be part of the equation. He may have ran for the hills, or my bed, before he popped the question but the emotions that led him to the store where he bought the ring, and the desire to get dressed in a suit for the celebration of his birthday and planned engagement can't just disappear in the blink of an eye. "I don't know if I would have been with you…"

  "What?"

  I look up and into his face. His expression is unreadable. "I wouldn't have slept with you if I had known you were that close to getting married."

  He rakes his hand through his messy brown hair. "Don't say that."

  I rest my casted arm against my chest, suddenly feeling a dull ache in every part of my body. "I mean it. I didn't know it was that serious. I wouldn't have done it if I had known."

  "I didn't want to be with her anymore." He heaves out a sharp breath. "I've moved on."

  In record time and apparently with the first woman he saw, who just happened to be me.

  I shouldn't be standing here judging his life choices but the fact that I'm one of them makes it unavoidable. The man moved effortlessly from a near engagement to being my lover all in the span of a day.

  I smooth my hand over the cast before I look down at the floor. "I don't want to be your rebound, Dane. I don't want to be that."

  "Bridget." His voice softens. "I checked out of my relationship with Maisy months before I met you. I was at the restaurant because I didn't want to hurt her but that night… the night of my birthday… I realized I was hurting us both too much by staying."

  I see truth in his eyes but I can't tell if it's my desperate want to find it there or if it's genuine. "I like you, Dane. I like being with you but it's too soon. It's so soon."

  "It's not." He leans down to brush his full lips against my forehead. "My heart has been empty for a long time, Bridget. I finally feel things again."

  I don't say a thing. I only close my eyes as I feel his hands slide down to my shoulders before he pulls me into his chest to hold me there in the quiet silence of my apartment.

  Chapter 5

  "Wait." Her hand flies into the air between us. "Just, wait."

  I had to talk to someone and given the fact that my mother has been looking for an excuse to send me a one way ticket back to Connecticut and Vanessa's fiancé is related to Dane, my choices are limited.

  I look at Vane first before I level my gaze back on Zoe's face. We're in Central Park. I had tried to sketch before they arrived but the muddled image of Dane dropping to his knee in Axel NY that night to ask a woman to marry him keeps clouding my thoughts. I may not know exactly what Maisy looks like but in my mind's eye, my focus is her left hand where an engagement ring almost found a permanent home.

  "Zoe," I say her name in exasperation. I had barely given her time to sit on the bench next to me before I tore into a disjointed recounting of how I met Dane, how quickly I've fallen for him and his confession yesterday about almost asking his ex-girlfriend to marry him.

  "Bridget," she interrupts before I can utter another word. "You're telling me that the night he met you, he was about to get engaged?"

  Trying to twist the situation into something other than what it is, won't change a thing. "Yes. He had an engagement ring in his pocket when he took me home."

  Her eyes drop from my face to where Vane is asleep in his stroller. She carefully adjusts the soft blue blanket that is covering his lap. "Remember the night Beck came into the pub? That first night we met him?"r />
  It's hard to forget that night. I'd recognized Brighton Beck in an instant because of my admiration for his work. I'd fallen in love with his watercolor paintings when I saw them in an exhibit in a museum in Rhode Island during my sophomore year of college. I'd approached his table when I noticed him sitting in the pub. It was after he'd hit on one of the other servers. He'd muttered something inaudible about a woman he loved before he ordered a scotch. By the time I'd brought the drink to his table, he was eyeing up Zoe. It was obvious to everyone in the pub that he was there for two reasons. He needed to drink and he wanted to fuck. After spending ten minutes talking to her, he'd left alone.

  "He was wasted, Zoe." I try to contain a small smile. "Remember how drunk he was?"

  She laughs quietly. "He had a lot to drink that night. He was torn up about a girl."

  "What girl?" My curiosity pushes the words out before I have time to think about masking them in something less direct. I've longed wondered about the woman he was muttering about that night but I've never felt comfortable asking Zoe. I wouldn't have known how to bring it up without reminding her of someone from his past who was obviously important to him.

  She pulls on the corner of the stroller edging it closer to the bench. "Her name isn't important. She's not important anymore but on that first night when I met him, he said he loved her."

  I know that my expression can't contain the utter shock I feel so I don't even try to curb it. "What?"

  "It's so twisted." She scratches her left brow. "A woman he loved got married to someone else that day."

  "She got married the day we met Beck?"

  "A few hours before that," she says the words softly as she twists her fingers around her wedding rings.

  I have so many questions but they're all running into one another in such a twisted mess that I can't vocalize even one of them. I just stare at the side of her face.

  "He needed me right then." She turns to look at me. "If I would have shut him out because he was getting over someone else, I would have lost the love of my life."

  I shake my head slightly as my eyes dart down to the sketchpad in my lap. "I understand what you're saying but that's you and Beck. You were made for each other."

  "We were." She moves forward on the bench so she can brush her fingers softly over Vane's forehead. "Sometimes you meet the right person when you least expect it. You don't get to choose when love walks into your life, Bridget."

  "I barely know him." I look off into the distance of the crowded park, hoping she won't see my scattered emotions. "I'm not in love with him."

  "Don't close off your heart because you think you know what he needs." She taps my knee. "He's the only one who knows what he's feeling and from I saw right after your accident, he's crazy about you."

  Chapter 6

  "Do you know the name of the physical therapist you'll be working with?"

  "I have it written down." I gesture towards my kitchen table. "I keep everything in a pile over there so when I need something I know where to find it."

  Dane glances briefly towards the papers before he looks back down at me. "Did Ben recommend someone or were you assigned someone after you left the hospital?"

  It had only taken me a few days to realize that Dane had more than a passing acquaintance with the doctor who took care of me when I was rushed to the ER. Ben Foster is the kind of physician who puts everything he has into his work. He'd explained as thoroughly as he could in layman terms, the extent of my injuries, to my parents and me. He'd never rushed me through an examination and he answered each and every one of my questions.

  On the day I was being discharged, he had personally sat next to me and gone through the protocol I needed to follow after my release. He'd called to arrange my physical therapy himself and as I left the hospital, I knew that the care I'd received had helped me immeasurably. I got home with a renewed sense of purpose and a strong belief that I'd fully recover in time.

  I adjust myself slightly on the cramped couch. Dane had pulled me into his lap when he arrived and even with all the doubts still floating in my mind, I'd nuzzled my cheek into his chest. "Dr. Foster arranged it."

  "You should call him Ben." He leans down to graze his lips across my cheek. "He's my friend. He told you to call him Ben, didn't he?"

  He had. I can't recall our first meeting because I was still in shock but the next day I vaguely remember him introducing himself to my parents as Ben. "How long have you known him?"

  "I don't know." His chest rumbles as he chuckles deeply. "Maybe a year, but it could be more."

  The exact timing of the friendship doesn't matter. I don't care if they've known each other forever or for a month. I do care that he clearly wants me on a first name basis with someone he views as important to him. That has to count for something.

  "I've been thinking about what we talked about the last time I was here." His index finger catches my chin to jerk it upwards until our eyes are locked.

  Unless he's referring to the lack of fresh produce in my kitchen, I know exactly where this discussion is headed. Just to be sure, I'm going to get behind the driver's wheel and steer it in the direction I want. "You mean when you told me about Maisy?"

  His expression does nothing to hide the fact that my blunt words stun him. He pushes his back into the couch just a touch but it's enough that he has to shift my weight on his lap. "Yes."

  Now that I have confirmation I realize that I don't know what I'm supposed to say next. Zoe's confession about Beck's feelings for another woman blazes across my thoughts. I want to give Dane the benefit of the doubt but I refuse to get pulled into a love triangle when I'm on the cusp of a breakthrough in my art career. I love spending time with him but I'm not going to forsake my entire future for a relationship that may crash and burn once he realizes that wedded bliss with Maisy is actually exactly what he wants. I can't risk derailing myself emotionally that way. It would impact me too much.

  "I know that I should have been more open about how serious things were between me and her." His fingers slide over the leg of my jeans. "I was going to tell you that first night when we were drinking coffee in your kitchen, but I couldn't. I was worried that you wouldn't want to see me again."

  If anything, the man has a grip on logic that is unwavering. He's right in thinking I likely wouldn't have let him back into my place the next night if I'd have known that he broke up with someone he cared that much about right before he rescued me from Larry's sweaty grasp.

  "I want you to understand something." He pushes my left hand into my lap, stroking his fingers over the plaster cast. "I feel like I woke up that night. When I looked at Maisy sitting across the table from me, I didn't see my future anymore. I just saw my past."

  I stare at my hand, wiggling my fingers the way Ben instructed me to do a few times each day. "Why did you wait until then to end it?"

  "Exactly a year ago on that same night…on my birthday," he begins before he pushes a lock of hair behind my ear. "The night of my twenty-eighth birthday, Maisy told me she wanted to marry me."

  I stare at his face. I see nothing but honesty in his eyes but it's impossible for me to judge whether that's based in reality or in my need to trust in everything that he says. "What did you say to her?"

  "I can't remember." His finger slides down to my neck. "I remember exactly how I felt, but I can't remember saying anything to her after she told me she wanted to get married."

  I ask the obvious because it's right there waiting for me. "How did you feel?"

  "I felt panicked. I was scared."

  I study the strength in his jawline. I soak in his chiseled features. After seeing him in his firefighter gear the night I was hit, I'd never label him as anything but strong and courageous.

  "I should have ended it a year ago," he says the words softly. "I had to end it now or it would have only hurt her more."

  I don't know Maisy but judging by the fragmented parts of her relationship that I'm hearing about, she had to have been
in pain after the break up. She expected a proposal that night and instead her dreams of a happily-ever-after collapsed in the blink of an eye. That explains, at least partially, why she's still holding onto the house. It's the place where she built her plans for the future.

  "I wish I had met you first, Bridget," he whispers the words against the skin of my neck. "I wish every day that you had walked into my life before I ever met her."

  Chapter 7

  I lean my cheek against the headboard as he lashes his tongue over my core again and again. "Dane, please."

  The only response is a growl through the moans that have been pouring from his lips since he undressed us both and got on his back on my bed. He'd gently guided me onto his face and now, after coming already once, I'm too tender. I'm so close to another orgasm that I can already feel the rush flowing through me.

  I grip tightly to the top of the headboard as I glide myself over his lips. His hands jump up to my thighs to hold me in place. I cry out from the high, knowing that as soon as I crash back down, he'll pull me back and onto his hard cock.

  He licks me softly as I feel my body collapse beneath the weight of the pleasure. I try to move to gain distance only because it all feels like too much and if he dives back into my wetness full force, I'm going to pass right out. I already feel faint.

  "I can't," I whisper as I look down at his eyes. "You need to stop."

  He grazes his tongue slowly over the length of my cleft before he pushes my body back onto his chest. "I could eat you all night, Bridget. I love doing that."

  I love when he does that too. "It feels so good."

  I inch myself downwards as gracefully as I can but having my arm encased in a plaster prison doesn't help. I wince when I feel a burst of pain shoot through my side as I try and twist slightly to gain enough leverage to slide down to his stomach.