“Keep going,” I whispered against her temple before placing a soft kiss there.
“Isn’t that enough? That I’m failing my daughter.” Josie hiccupped and my heart shattered for her. It was obvious she believed it.
“You’re not, and we will come back to it, but right now I feel like there’s something more you need to get off your chest. So keep going.”
“There’s no more.”
“Don’t lie, Jos. I can see it in your eyes. Tell me. What’s got you so scared? I’ve got you, pretty girl, I’m not going to let you fall.”
At my words, Josie buried her head in the crook of my neck and let go. Within seconds my shirt was damp from her tears and she shook violently. All I could do was sit there, hold on, and rub her back. Something was hurting her, something she needed to get out. Let go of. And I’d sit here like this all damned night if that’s what it took. Right now, with her in my arms, I doubted there was anything I wouldn’t do to help her.
After a while, her breathing evened out and she pulled back. Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes glassy, yet I couldn’t remember ever seeing someone so beautiful. She was so vulnerable in my arms, and even though I felt her try to wriggle from my lap, I held firm. She wasn’t going anywhere. Not this moment. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.
“Talk to me. Tell me the rest,” I encouraged.
“You’ll think I’m a basketcase.”
“Sweetheart, pretty sure I’m the one who should be worried about being embarrassed. Remember all the crying and vomiting? Yep, that was me. I’ll let you know when you catch up.” I tried to keep it light, make her smile. I wanted nothing more than to see her beautiful, carefree smile again. A pained smirk was as much as I got. But I took it. Anything was better than nothing.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she exhaled, her babbling began again. “I’m a mess. I can’t give my daughter a future. And I have to do it all alone. No one’s ever going to want me, I’m a failure. I couldn’t even figure out what I wanted to do, so I have no skills, now I’m too old. I can’t lose this damn baby weight and my boobs won’t shrink. Matilda’s father won’t acknowledge her existence. And I know he’s missing out, but so’s she. She deserves the best and that’s not me. Who’s going to want an uneducated, fat single mother who can’t even get her shit together enough to move out of her sister’s house?”
Wow! I know I’d asked, I just never thought that’s what I’d get. Clearly this woman was delusional. She wasn’t a failure. Sure, she had her fair share of challenges, but she was still here and doing a phenomenal job. I couldn’t believe she couldn’t see that. It pissed me off. Her parents must have done a real number on her convincing her that she was nothing.
“Josie…”
“You don’t have to say anything, Nate. Really. I just…you asked and I had to tell you the truth. For some reason, I believe you won’t judge me for it. I’m not entirely sure why, I just know I don’t…”
The woman wouldn’t shut up. She was rambling and squirming, trying to get out of my arms. Not. Fucking. Happening. I did the only thing I could think of to pull herself out of her own head. Slamming down my lips over hers, it took a moment, but I felt her deflate in my arms. The fight evaporating out of her. Then she was kissing me back, tugging on my hair, and pressing herself against me. As much as it pained me to end it, I knew now was not the time. There would definitely be a time, but now was not it. Not when so many emotions were so raw.
“My son, Samuel, he’s with my wife.”
Chapter 23
Josie
What the fuck? A wife? This asshole had a wife! He didn’t even say ex-wife.
“Let me go,” I growled as I struggled to get out of his lap.
I was so pissed. There was a very good chance I’d explode any second. I’d just bared my soul to him. Exposed my deepest and darkest secrets. Let him in. Told him things I hadn’t even confessed to Mia. Fuck! He’d just had his tongue down my throat. And he was married. I wanted to slap him like I’d never wanted to slap anyone before. It hurt even more than the moment Matilda’s douchebag sperm donor told me I was a whore and he couldn’t even be sure she was his.
“No.” His voice was commanding and I felt his fingers dig into my hips.
Wife.
The word kept bouncing around inside my head. I wanted to get out of this house and away from him.
“Nate!” I returned as forcefully as I could.
“Josie, please. Hear me out. Please?”
Lifting my head to look at the asswipe, I was beyond shocked with what I saw. Gone was all the bravado, replaced by the same guy I remembered staring miserably out my car window barely an hour earlier. I wanted to run, but something was stopping me. For some reason I knew I had to hear him out. Then I’d kick him in the nuts. Yeah, that’d work too.
“Fine!” I huffed, folding my arms across my chest. I may have still been perched in his lap, it didn’t mean I had to like it. For a long moment, he didn’t say anything. He didn’t move, hell, I don’t remember even seeing him blink. And I was staring straight at his face.
“My wife, Alicia…”
I shuddered at the words. I didn’t mean to. I really didn’t. It was an involuntary thing.
Ignoring my physical reaction to his words, Nate’s eyes froze on something on the other side of the room as he continued, completely emotionless. “We were at home. It was a Sunday morning. Nothing exciting or memorable that day. Samuel was barely three weeks old. We’d just gotten home. It was a beautiful sunny day and Alicia wanted to get out of the house. After breakfast out, something we did almost every week pre-Samuel, we went grocery shopping. After twenty minutes in the shops, he was a nightmare. Screaming and fidgeting. Nothing we did seemed to calm him. Giving up, we abandoned the trolley in the aisle and came home. While Alicia was embarrassed, I didn’t give a shit. My son was the most important thing in the world. I’d go out later and get the crap we needed.”
I felt Nate stiffen. He didn’t have to say ‘here it comes,’ his body said it for him. His fingers dug in a little more as he shifted me in his lap, holding me even closer. For now I let him. I hadn’t forgotten about his wife, but the way his face paled meant I couldn’t pull away no matter how much I wanted to.
“We got him home and Alicia was just as frazzled as he was. I think she was just overtired. I had been back at work for the first time since he’d been born and she was doing it all alone. After changing his nappy, she settled him against the lounge and gave him a bottle. Even though I’d seen her do it before, it still broke my heart. All she wanted to do was breastfeed him, but he wouldn’t latch on, and we had no choice. After she fed him, she handed him to me to burp. It was something I did whenever I could. I wanted to be a part of his life as much as possible. It was harder now I was back at work, but any moment I could have the little guy to myself, it was something I cherished. Even if it meant changing the stinkiest nappies. Alicia went back into the lounge room and I handed him back. She settled on the lounge and watched as he wriggled around before his eyes fell closed and his breathing steadied.”
“We were chatting. We shouldn’t have been. I should have been paying attention. I should have done something. Noticed earlier. Not distracted Alicia.”
Grabbing Nate’s face between my hands, I forced him to look at me. I could feel him falling apart. Fuck, I was falling apart, and I didn’t even know how this story ended. All I knew was it wasn’t going to end with a happily ever after.
“It’s okay. You’re okay. You don’t have to keep going.”
“He was blue. I don’t remember what happened or what made me look, but he was blue. I remember Alicia screaming and tapping his back. I couldn’t find my phone. Then I couldn’t get Alicia’s to work. Everything was fucked. The ambulance arrived and my life was bundled into the back before it tore down the street, the sirens blaring. I don’t remember how long I stood there, the front door wide open. Somehow I found my way to the hospital. I didn’t
want to go. I didn’t want to step foot inside. I knew I had to, but I didn’t want to. I knew what was waiting for me on the other side of the heavy glass doors. When someone slipped their hand into mine, I almost collapsed. My mother was there. Right beside me. I don’t even know how she found out or how she got there so fast. It was barely midday and my life was in tatters.”
“Mum led me inside and I found Alicia slumped in a chair. Her head was in her hands and she was shaking. I should have gone to her. It was my job to protect her. Protect them both. And I’d failed. In the moment it mattered the most, I’d let the most important people in my world down. When Alicia looked up and our eyes met I slumped to the floor. I remember Mum pushing me into a chair, then everything’s a blur. Samuel was gone.”
“Nate…” my voice choked out painfully.
“There are almost three hundred thousand kids born in Australia each year. Three hundred thousand. And three and a half thousand of them died from SIDS. Samuel died from SIDS. Point one percent of all those born, Samuel was taken from me. He became a statistic.”
I knew I was losing him. And he was losing it. Obviously he’d done his research since, but statistics weren’t going to help him. I really didn’t think anything could. I don’t know what I would have done if something like that happened to Matilda. I couldn’t even think about it.
“It wasn’t your fault, Nate.”
“You weren’t there.”
His words cut life a hot knife through butter. I know he didn’t mean it the way it sounded, but it stung like a motherfucker.
“I know.” I didn’t want to ask the next question, but I had to. I had to know. “Where’s…where’s Alicia now?”
He laughed a sadistic, pained laugh.
“Buried next to Samuel.”
What? How? Oh my god! How was this guy still standing? I knew there was something about Nate the moment I laid my eyes on him, something that called to me. Not once did I dare to imagine that it was a strength built from surviving the depths of hell he’d been dragged through.
“We buried Samuel on a Thursday. It was raining and miserable. Everything was. Alicia and I were creeping around each other, barely saying a word. Neither of us bothered to cook dinner, or grocery shop, or even do the laundry. It was like our lives stopped the moment Samuel’s heart did. It was pointless going on without him. The moment we’d got home from the hospital I’d pulled his nursery door shut and hadn’t opened it. It didn’t get opened again for six months.”
Tears were falling from my eyes like a waterfall. One I couldn’t tame. As much as I hated Nate for being married before, I couldn’t hold back. Squishing myself up against him as much as I could, I wrapped my arms around him and held tight. As bad as this was, I felt like the worst was still coming.
“We had a gap between the funeral and the wake. Mum planned it, and I just went along with it. I was a zombie. Going through the motions, but not really participating in my own life. I’d gone home and sat on the swing out the back. It was Alicia’s swing. One she’d demanded six months into her pregnancy and I caved. Anything she wanted, she got. When Mum rang and asked where I was, I noticed I was already late. Like a robot, I got in the car and drove over.”
“The moment I pulled in the drive, Dad was there, hugging me close. We’d never really been big on the hugs before, but seeing him with tears in his eyes, it cracked the only part of me that was still holding together. I remember him asking where Alicia was. I had no idea. I’d just left without her. What sort of asshole husband leaves without his wife to go to their son’s wake?”
“Nate. It’s not your fault.”
“She was asleep. I got home and that’s what I thought. So I left her there. For hours. When I went in to change out of the monkey suit I’d had on all day, she hadn’t moved a muscle. Not one. Usually she tossed and turned. I don’t know what made me do it. I think I already knew, and just needed to be sure. I went over to the bed and touched her face. It was ice cold. I remember sliding down the wall and calling the ambulance. Twice in two weeks. Twice they had come barrelling through the door, lugging bags of stuff. Twice I knew it wouldn’t help. Barely two minutes. Two minutes is all it took for them to declare my wife, my Alicia, all that I had left, was dead.”
“When I woke up, I was in hospital with an IV line pumping into my arm. My mother sat beside my bed with a grip on my hand. She explained what had happened and it hurt all over again. Alicia had OD’d in our bed on anti-depressants. If I’d have checked on her earlier, if I hadn’t forgotten about her, if I hadn’t left her to deal with everything on her own…”
“You were dealing with it too…” I reminded him.
At my voice, Nate looked at me. Up until that moment I wasn’t even sure if Nate realised I was still there.
“Alicia needed me, and I wasn’t there. I did this. I let my family die right in front of me. Josie, we can’t be friends. You have Matilda to take care of. You’re beautiful and full of life and that little girl needs the best mother in the world. You. I’ll just destroy that. I’ll destroy you.”
That pissed me off.
Really pissed me off.
I got where Nate was coming from, I really did, but this man in my arms, he wasn’t a monster. Nothing that happened was his fault. Yet here he was, blaming himself and trying to survive. He never would if he kept trying to punish himself for something he had no control over.
Nate stood up, and instead of me tumbling from his lap, I wrapped my legs around his waist the same time my hands grabbed hold of his shoulders. He wouldn’t let me go earlier when I bared my soul to him, I wasn’t about to let him block me out.
“Josie, let go.”
“No.” I squeezed tighter.
“Let go. I’m tired and I want to go to bed.”
He was probably telling the truth. Beneath his eyes were deep black bags, even though they were filled with unshed tears. “Then go to bed.”
“Are you letting me go?”
“Never.”
Chapter 24
Payton
I don’t know why I do it to myself. As much as I love to bake, running my own bakery was exhausting. Six days a week I was out of bed at idiot o’clock, pouring my heart and soul into boring white bread and multigrain rolls. Not what I’d envisioned when I’d done my apprenticeship. It wasn’t the hours that wore me down, but the lack of creativity. I experimented all the time, but in this tiny hick town that didn’t even register on Google maps, so far no one had really dared to embrace anything with even the slightest semblance of difference. Today though, today would be different. At least I hoped it would.
As I swirled the vanilla icing onto the top of the fluffy red velvet cupcake, I set it on the tray with all the others. I’d probably gone overboard, actually I knew I had, but this was just so much fun. My first consolation for a wedding cake.
Mia was the first friend I’d made when I’d arrived in town. Something about the disgusting coffee everywhere served, she’d barrelled through the doors pleading for a decent cup on my first day open. Even though I had no confidence in the ancient machine, I got it up and running and handed her a latte.
Not five minutes later, she stepped behind the counter and silently hugged me. It was weird as hell and just as awkward, but every day since at nine thirty in she comes with a book or a magazine, sits in the corner booth, and downs her caffeine. One of the things that surprised me most about Mia, besides her unfiltered personality, was her ability to put away the calories and seemingly not suffer for it. Me on the other hand, if I so much as looked at a cupcake, my ass expanded.
Today she was coming in, not only for her latte, but to choose a flavour for her wedding cake. With her wedding not far away and the whole town gossiping about the details, I had no doubt Mia would do something to surprise them. Hell, they were all still in shock—and just quietly some of them more than a little ticked off—that the tiny gym owner from Melbourne had scored the town’s only cop. I couldn’t blame her, Derek was
sexy as sin and everyone with eyes could see that.
Grabbing the tray of cupcakes, I stepped out of the kitchen and made my way over to Mia’s booth. It’s funny, in the few weeks I’d come to know her, I’d already named this booth hers. Setting them down, I grabbed a couple of glasses and some water for the table as well as napkins and forks.
Ducking back into the kitchen, I yanked off the dirty apron and tossed it in the hamper, before selecting my lucky one from the back of the door. I needed this. Not only to make me feel like this wasn’t the biggest waste of time in the world, but I needed it financially. Owning and operating a bakery in a small town wasn’t as profitable as I’d believed.
“Where’s my latte?”
“Coming, Mia!” Tying the strings behind my back, I shuffled out the front, waved a quick hello as I stepped behind the ancient machine. I kept my eyes on her while I steamed the milk and watched the way her whole face lit up at the sight of my creations.
That, right there, that’s what I missed the most.
Impressing someone.
Someone appreciating my work.
Someone actually wanting me to do my best.
“Is Josie joining us?” I called, wondering if I should start her mocha too.
“Actually the hussy didn’t even bother to come home last night,” Mia called out across the shop. Thankfully it was just us in here this morning, so Josie’s business remained hers. For now at least.
“Oh.”
“Let me call her. She was supposed to be here…”
“Who was supposed to be here?” Josie asked, breezing through the door with a smile on her face like the cat that got the cream.
“Who the hell’s clothes are you wearing?”
Placing the coffees down in front of the ladies, I poured myself a glass of water before nervously shifting into the booth across from them. I shouldn’t have been nervous. Mia was more than a customer; she was a friend. And as far as I knew she wasn’t looking anywhere else for her cake. This wasn’t a trial, it was a simple, painless flavour selection.
Believing Again (Finding Your Place Book 3) Page 22
