Reached.
A knock on the front door saved her.
Curious, she craned her neck towards the door, mind flipping through all the possibilities and drew a blank. Aside from Rosie and the occasional greeting in passing, she didn’t really know the other people in the building. Not well enough to anticipate surprise visits.
Forgetting about food and the fridge, she edged towards the foyer. Her gaze flittered to the lock. She rolled her eyes; Rosie hadn’t locked it.
“Who is it?” she called out.
There was a split second of hesitation, then, “It’s me.”
Her heart rocketed even as her palms turned sweaty. She stared at the door with a new kind of dread.
“It’s open,” her mouth said while her brain continued to deliberate just how quickly she could lock the door before he could come in.
It opened before she could decide. Cole’s lean figure eased into her apartment, still clad in the same jeans and sweater as earlier. But it was the two large, square boxes steaming in his hands that perked Beth’s attention.
The mouthwatering scent of melted cheese, fried meat and baked dough made her want to sob. It was the last shred of her dignity that kept her from lunging at him.
“I thought you might be hungry.” The one corner of his mouth lifted. “I guess I was right.”
Beth quickly checked her chin. No drool.
He snickered as he moved deeper into the space towards the sitting area. Beth followed like an obedient puppy hoping for a bite.
“I brought two,” he said as he set the boxes down on the coffee table. “I wasn’t sure if your friend was still here.”
Beth shook her head, hypnotized by the food. “They left.”
Nodding, Cole peeled back the lid and Beth all but swooned. Extra-large, fully loaded, just the way she liked it. He pried one slice away from the others. Gooey cheese clung and stretched. He turned towards her.
“Maybe we should get plates,” he decided.
Beth felt her head gave a sharp jerk from side to side. “Don’t need a plate.”
“It’s pretty loaded, you could drop pieces onto the carpet.”
“It’ll come out.”
He hissed contemplatively through his teeth. “It’s tomato sauce. It stains.”
“I’ll buy another fucking carpet. Give me the damn pizza!” she snapped, her hunger overcoming her pride.
It was only when she tore her gaze away from the delicious morsel he was holding inches away from her to peer into his face that she noticed his grin.
“Asshole!” she grumbled, feeling her own mouth twitch.
Still smirking, he held it out, only to jerk it away when she reached for it. Thinking he was toying with her again, she started to tell him off.
“Open.”
Startled, Beth blinked. But her mouth opened automatically. The slice was placed on her bottom lip and her teeth sunk into the sea of vegetables, meat and sauce. The tangy flavor exploded across her tongue. Her stomach moaned its pleasure. Her eyes closed and she whimpered.
“So good!”
Something feather light brushed over her bottom lip and her eyes flew open. She watched as he wiped away a smudge of sauce off his thumb onto his jeans. She started to tell him he was going to wreck his pants, but the pizza was back and any concern for his wardrobe was forgotten.
“I can feed myself,” she said after she’d demolished three slices.
“I know,” he murmured. “But I like how you eat.”
Embarrassed, Beth chuckled nervously. “How do I eat?”
“Like you’re having incredible sex.”
The single bite she’d taken lodged in her throat. It cut off her sharp intake of air. She coughed as a swell of molten heat climbed up her throat to flood her face. She turned away from him and stumbled her way to the kitchen.
Cole was there, turning the faucet on and filling a glass with water. Then he had one hand cupping the back of her head while resting the cup gingerly to her lips with the other. She swallowed greedily before the morsel dislodged and she could breathe again. The cup was taken away and set aside.
“Okay?”
Breathing hard, Beth nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
It was only when his quiet murmur whispered over her burning cheeks like a cool breeze that she became aware of his closeness, of his hand stroking her hair, his chest brushing against hers. She was aware of his scent twisting through the heat pulsing off him and swirling around her, and the hand resting lightly on her hip. It was so much like how it used to be that for a moment, the last four years felt like a nightmare, one she had finally awakened from and was back in his arms. So lost in the delusion, she nearly closed that speck of space and nuzzled his throat. But commonsense prevailed.
She pulled away.
Without allowing herself the chance to change her mind, she hurried back to the living room and the pizza boxes. Her hands shook as she used the back to close the lids.
“I didn’t think you were coming back.” Despite her attempts to remain cool, her voice wavered.
“I wasn’t going to.” Maybe it was her imagination, but she could have sworn his voice was about as unsteady as hers. “I started to drive back.” He paused to chuckle humorlessly. “I’m beginning to feel like I live on that road.”
“Why did you turn back?”
She heard him move away from the sink and circle around the counter.
“I got hungry,” he confessed. “Thought maybe you were hungry, too.”
Ignoring the flip-flop of her heart in her chest, Beth dodged his approach by moving to the window. The sky was a flawless stroke of dark blue, bleeding into a crisp black that spilled inky shadows across the world below. Lights had begun to pop to life below, splashing the sidewalks with halos of pale yellow. A girl strolled beneath the one under Beth’s window. Her golden mane caught the light and shimmered. For a moment, just a second, Beth thought it was Lily. But the girl cast quick glances up and down the street before jogging across. And there was nothing left to distract her from the man taking up all the air in her apartment.
“That’s a long way to come back to deliver pizza.”
His reflection in the glass paused at the coffee table. He seemed to hover there a moment, considering something before folding himself onto the sofa.
“I figured your friend would be leaving soon, if she hadn’t already.” His head lowered to study the tight clasp of his hands dangling between his knees. “You’d be alone.”
There was nothing left to say. It was hilarious because they hadn’t seen each other in four years, one would think there would be something, yet the silence was a noose tightening around the room. Beth’s heart cracked with a viciousness that should have been concerning. It was the palpitation of someone who couldn’t breathe and panic had set in. Why wouldn’t he go away?
“Beth?”
She hadn’t realized she’d been gasping until he was there, holding her against him, holding her up.
“Air,” she choked out.
“Okay, hold on.”
Without giving her a chance to ask him what he was doing, he scooped her up effortlessly into his arms and marched with purpose to the door. In seconds, they were clambering down the stairs and out the front doors of the apartment building into the crisp night air.
Beth almost laughed, would have, if she hadn’t been greedily sucking every ounce of oxygen into her lungs.
“You could have opened a window,” she said at long last. “You can also put me down now.”
He was walking with long, casual strides down Twelfth with her still clasped to his chest.
“You don’t have shoes on.”
She hadn’t realized that. But that was the least of her problems. Her desire to breathe seemed like such a stupid thing now when she was trapped in his arms with no way to escape. That close, there was no room for anything else, except to huddle rigid against the wide berth of his chest and count the sharp spikes of his
lashes, the handful of freckles across his regal nose that he hadn’t outgrown and listening to his slow, even breaths.
How was he not panting?
His jaw was dark with growth, darker than it had been that morning. The stubble circled his full, generous mouth and Beth couldn’t stop herself from staring. His mouth was the most beautiful part of him. In the wee hours of the morning while he still slept, she would lay beside him and study that mouth. She would run her fingers over the curves and marvel at how soft they were.
“Are you cold?”
She hadn’t realized she’d shivered until she was being placed gently down on a bus bench. His jacket was shrugged off his wide frame and gingerly folded around her shoulders. The sweltering heat of his body clung to the fabric and burned her skin. His scent mashed with hers and she knew she would never get it off. It had taken months before he had faded off her skin, off her things after she left.
His knee popped as he crouched in front of her. His hands were ten strips of red hot iron pressing into her knees and she hissed low in her throat.
“Okay?”
The night hadn’t erased his perfect profile. If anything, his eyes were a magnetic blue that compelled her to stare into them forever and his hair glistened under the streetlamp. Why couldn’t he have gotten fat and ugly?
“I don’t think I can do this, Cole,” she murmured. “It’s just too hard having you here after … after everything that happened.”
“It’s not easy for me either,” he replied. “But we have a history. We had something that was … that I thought was special. I can’t just forget that. Forget you.”
“I didn’t forget,” she said. “But I’m trying to move on.”
There was sadness echoing in the depths of his eyes, and even when he cocked his head to the side and regarded her with a half-smile, it was still there.
“How’s that working out for you?”
Beth swallowed. “I’m trying.”
His shoulders lifted and fell in a slow breath. He raised a hand and gently brushed away a strand of hair that had blown into her face and caught the corner of her mouth. His fingers skimmed her cheek and she almost moaned.
“This doesn’t have to mean anything.” He let his fingers slide away, taking their warmth with them. “Two friends helping each other out. Once you’re healed enough to do things on your own again, I’ll leave.”
In the cavity of her chest, her heart cracked a fraction.
“That could be weeks,” she murmured despite the pain.
Cole nodded. “Which is why I’m hoping you’ll reconsider coming back to Willow Creek with me. I haven’t been away from Calla for this long since finishing college.”
She started to shake her head. “Where will I stay?”
“You can stay with me,” he answered before she could finish. “I have a small two bedroom apartment. I’m using one as an office, but you’re welcome to my room for the time being. I’m not there much, so you’ll have the place to yourself mostly. When you’re healed, I’ll drive you home.”
“And that’s it?”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
It wasn’t the route she would have willingly taken. But if there was anything Beth was good at, it was survival, and in that moment when her hands were useless to the point where she couldn’t even feed herself, she knew this was her only option.
“Okay.”
Chapter Five ~ Cole
It shouldn’t have made him so happy seeing her in the passenger’s side of his car. But it did. For a few minutes, he could actually pretend they were in college again, driving down to see Lily, Sloan, and Calla. The only difference was that she wasn’t laughing, or talking. She wasn’t telling him about her crazy professors, or the insane homework assignments she had to finish. She wasn’t humming along with the radio, or even telling him he drove like he was being chased by cops.
Instead, she sat somber in the seat next to him, watching as miles of trees and hills raced passed. Neither had said anything since that morning when he had driven up to her house. Her bags had been packed and waiting by the foot of her bed, unzipped.
“I can’t zip it!” she’d told him, infuriation vibrating through her words.
He had done it for her, hoisted the bags up and took them down to the car. Then he’d gone back up to help her change her wraps. She was waiting on the bed for him, her things set neatly next to her. She had somehow pulled on a sweater and sweats over the shorts and camisole Rosie had helped her into the night before. He figured the bagginess of the outfits had made the task of dressing simpler, but he didn’t ask. Part of him had been relieved not to have to strip her.
Cole had burned himself enough times to know what a burn mark looked like, yet even he hadn’t been prepared for the violence her torn flesh invoked in him. Her skin was a jagged mess of blistered tissue. Her hands were torn and a shade of red that was angry and enflamed. His gut wrenched with horror and fear, and a small dose of relief. If this was all, as bad as it was, it could have been worse. He could have lost her forever.
“Do they hurt?” he had asked, attempting to keep his voice calm.
She had shaken her head, but there was pain in her eyes when he dabbed cream over the wounds and wrapped them back up. Even his best efforts not to hurt her caused her to flinch. Every moan and whimper she fought to hold back slashed at him. It was a struggle not to bring her hands to his lips and kiss them. To kiss her.
“Are you hungry?” he asked her as a sign zipped past announcing the next exit and a Tim Horton’s.
Beth shook her head. “No.”
“You should eat something,” he said. “We never stopped for breakfast.”
“I’m not hungry,” she murmured in the same listless tone.
“What’s wrong, Beth?”
She said nothing.
“I’m here to help you,” he pressed. “I can’t do that if you don’t tell me—”
“I didn’t sleep last night,” she said, cutting him off. “My hands were throbbing.”
Cole frowned. “Didn’t the doctor give you something for the pain?”
She went back to not speaking.
He sighed. “You need to take them, Beth.”
“I don’t take pills.”
He knew that and he knew why.
“This is different,” he stressed. “You won’t get better if—”
“If what?” She turned her head to him. “If I feel the pain?”
Cole sighed, the sound ringing with his own exasperation. “What kind of nurse refuses to take medication? I just don’t understand that.”
“The kind that doesn’t want to be dependent on drugs,” she shot back at him. “I’ve seen what it can do to people.”
“Yeah, but not if you take it when you’re supposed to.”
She shook her head and turned her face back towards the window. “That’s how it always starts.”
Her past was the cause of all her insecurities and fears. He knew that. He knew her mother had been addicted to prescription medication after her father had left them. He knew later on, she had upped to harder drugs until it had eventually killed her. But it didn’t seem to matter to Beth how important it was to take medication, because she never would. Not even aspirin. When they had first started dating, Cole had worked so hard to get her to trust him, to make her see that he loved her no matter what, that whatever happened before was in the past. It made no difference. There were some things even love couldn’t change.
“Do they hurt now?” he asked.
She looked down at her hands lying palms up in her lap. “A little.”
He was considering making her take one of the pills. He knew he was stronger than her. He knew she wouldn’t be able to stop him if he forced her. But he also knew she would never forgive him.
“Are you taking your antibiotics at least?” he asked, as he scanned the road ahead for what he needed.
She hesitated a split second before she nodded.
Co
le narrowed his eyes. “Beth…”
“I am!” she snapped. “I’m not stupid, just cautious.”
He didn’t push her again. He’d seen what he was looking for.
Carefully, he turned the wheel and slid into a free parking spot in front of a gas station. Beth frowned, but didn’t ask as he left the engine running and climbed out of the car. The temperature had dropped, a sure sign that winter was approaching quickly. He gritted his teeth and hurried to the store.
A teenage boy of roughly eighteen stood behind the counter. He bobbed his head in greeting when Cole ducked inside. Neither spoke as Cole moved to the freezers in the back.
Beth had her head back, her eyes closed when he returned. She gave a start when he knocked lightly on her window before yanking the door open. He set his items down on the floor and reached for the zipper of his coat.
“Lift your hands,” he instructed.
Brows drawn in confusion, Beth raised her hands. Cole quickly shrugged out of his coat and folded it into her lap. Then he gingerly took her by the wrists and set them palms down on top.
“What are you—?”
Rather than answer, Cole grabbed the first bag. He folded the handles up and over around the small pack of ice until it was a neat bundle and set it gently over the back of her hand. He did the same with her other hand.
“There.” He pulled back slightly. “That should help a little.”
He raised his head and was startled to find her already watching him, studying him with those cat-like green eyes. There was contemplation on her face, a narrowness of her eyes that suggests she’s not really certain what to make of him. But beneath that, hidden under layers upon layers of doubt, uncertainty, and pain, there was something that made his breath catch.
“Thank you,” she whispered at last.
Damn it, baby, I’d fucking do anything for you! He wanted to snarl at her, to shake her until she saw that.
Instead, he inclined his head and pulled back. Gravel crunched beneath his feet as he made his way around the car to his side. Neither spoke for the remainder of the drive. Not until they broke through Willow Creek and came to a rolling stop in front of his apartment.
Bye-Bye Baby Page 6
