She said nothing but turned as deathly pale as she had been back in the hospital. I grasped her by her delicate shoulders, torn between shaking her for deceiving me and crushing her to me to comfort her.
“I’m so sorry.” She closed her eyes. Her chin dropped to her chest and her lovely body went limp. “I know I should have told you from the beginning. I should have told you tonight before we...” Her voice caught. “I just wanted one more time with you before the truth ruined everything.”
“That’s insane, Melinda. Totally and completely crazy,” I gritted out, shock billowing to anger as the depth of her deception hit me.
“You’re right,” she whispered, bobbing her head in agreement but not lifting it. Satiny strands of ebony spilled over my hands like rivers of dark tears, ones she had no doubt shed while shutting me out.
I got out of the bed, brushing my hair out of my eyes while searching for my pants.
She made a sound, a pitiful choking sob. I glanced back at her. She had her knees drawn to her chest and her arms around them. Her shoulders shook from her weeping. I took a step toward her but stopped and clenched my fingers into fists. I couldn’t touch her. I wouldn’t be able to think straight with her in my arms. I would cave, and we would tumble back into this dysfunctional pattern that had characterized the last few weeks.
I pulled on my boxers and jeans and sat down on the bed.
“Melinda,” I called, but she didn’t lift her head. If anything she collapsed further into herself. I remained resolute, but only barely. “Look at me, babe.”
She slowly lifted her head.
“That’s better,” I said. Her pretty eyes were swollen now and rimmed in red.
“Talk to me. Tell me what the doctors said about your eyes.”
“I’m blind. It’s permanent.”
The knot in my gut tightened. The finality of her words snuffed out my last glimmer of hope.
“I can see shadows and shapes in really bright light. Some contrast and color. But not much else. The doctors warned me it might worsen, but they think that’s unlikely at this point.” She recited the explanation quickly as if in a rush to get it all out. I noticed that she had drawn the sheet up to her chest and was crushing it in her hands the way she had at the hospital. My heart ached for her, for both of us. “That’s it. That’s all of it. You can go now. You don’t have to stay. There’s no chance I’ll ever see normally again. No chance we can go back to the way things were before the accident.”
“You’re right,” I said agreeing with her on that last point. Her body jerked. “We can’t go back to the way things were, not because you can’t see anymore, Melinda, but because I trusted you to be truthful to me, and you betrayed that trust.”
She cocked her head to the side.
“My heart’s broken into so many pieces right now I don’t know exactly where to start.” I ran my thumb across my lips. “The biggest problem is that you don’t believe that I really love you.”
“I do,” she protested.
“You don’t,” I disagreed. “Not enough to be honest with me. Not enough to believe I would stick by you no matter what. If you really believed in us, you wouldn’t have run from this. I understand it’s hard to trust in love when it’s let you down so many times. But you gotta know it’s just as hard for me.” Her brows drew together and she chewed on her lip as I continued. “It hurts me babe, cuts me up inside like a fucking knife not only that this happened to you, but also that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me. All these weeks you’ve been carrying this burden alone when I could have helped you. You should know me by now. You should know that I would have gouged out my own eyes if I could have given them to you.”
Her eyes welled up as I continued. “I feel totally alone in this relationship right now. That’s not how I imagined things would be for us.”
I paused hoping my next words would sink deep inside her psyche. “I believe in you. I believe in us. The fact that you can’t see any more doesn’t change that one bit. But I can’t believe for both of us. I can’t be the only one who has totally bought into this relationship. It’s your turn now. You’ve got to take a leap of faith. You’ve got to prove to me that you’re in this thing one hundred percent. I need you to believe with me, Blue. Until you can we can’t move on. Until then we’re stuck with nowhere to go. Until you decide we’re taking that break that you asked for.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Melinda
I was up off the bed and halfway across the room minus my cane when I heard the alarm chirp and the front door to the mansion click open. “No,” I whispered like he had when he had discovered the truth. “No,” I said louder wide awake from my perfect dream in a personal nightmare of my own creation. “Sager,” I shouted and stumbled over something on the floor. Falling, I flung my arms out wide as I had practiced countless times with Grant. The reflex saved me from slamming my chin into the hardwoods, but I lost my chance to catch him. The alarm chirped a second time. Sager had closed the door.
He was gone.
Bringing my knees up to my chest I clasped my arms against my chest to hold myself together while the reality of his rejection began to unravel me. My shoulders shook uncontrollably. Tears coursed down my face. I cried until my muscles became stiff from huddling on the floor. I cried until the tears wouldn’t come anymore. Then I got mad, not at him but at myself. On my knees, I searched blindly for whatever had tripped me, intending to take my revenge on it but stopping when my fingers found the frame. My hands trembled as I traced it knowing without seeing that it was his portrait of me. I could feel the brushwork on the canvas. His paint. I held my breath. My touch worshipful, I encountered a long swirl that I imagined to be a lock of my hair. I followed it down through a curve, a hollow, and a swell as I envisioned the outline of my body. It wasn’t just a portrait. He had captured all of me on his canvas. My eyes burned in frustration at the precious gifts that I had squandered.
I remembered a conversation we had once had about the different mediums he used in his art. How oil paintings were the most challenging for him. He had ventured that he didn’t have the patience or the energy for it. Yet he had invested the time and effort…for me.
I’m almost finished with your painting. I just don’t have the eyes right yet.
I gripped the frame tighter.
I had been afraid when he had said that. Afraid that my unseeing eyes could no longer reflect my emotions. I certainly still felt all the same intense things for him. Had he achieved his purpose in the end?
You’ve got to prove to me that you’re in this thing one hundred percent.
Was there really a way to do that?
Hadn’t he proved himself to me over and over again?
He loved me without fail while I had screwed up over and over again.
King said I had used up my last chance with him.
Had I used my last one with Sager, too?
• • •
“What the fuck?” King complained. The tequila fumes leeching off of him made my eyes burn. “It’s five fucking a.m.”
“I know what time it is,” I replied, keeping my voice low so it wouldn’t carry and wake the neighbors down the hall. I didn’t need Sutton security intervening.
“Mind your language, young man.” Stan cleared his throat. He stood his ground for me, but I could tell the big angry Latino who had yanked opened the door made him as nervous as I was.
“Hombre, I get woken up this early in the morning by anyone, I’m gonna drop some f-bombs. That’s just the way it is.”
“It’s ok.” I touched the rough wool sleeve covering Stan’s arm. He had kept his jacket on, as I had. I didn’t anticipate this taking long, but it was something I had to do, and I had to do it alone. “I just need to have a few words with Juaquin. Can you wait for me at the elevator, please?”
“Yes, Miss Belle. Just call me when you’re ready.”
“I will. Thank you.”
As his footsteps retreate
d I could feel King’s weighted gaze on me. With pity? Doubtful. Disdain, more likely. But what he was thinking, I didn’t know for sure.
“He’s asleep. I’m not gonna wake him. I’ll tell him you came by. If he invites you to come back later that’s his business.”
“I didn’t come to see him. I came to see you.” My grip tightened around the handle of my cane. “To talk to you,” I corrected. “There’s no seeing involved.” I hated the way that so many common phrases didn’t fit anymore for me.
“Yeah, he mentioned that you kept that from him.”
That didn’t sound promising. “Yes, well, what he probably didn’t tell you is why.” I pulled in a breath. “When the doctors gave me the diagnosis, I tried to break it off with him. To let him go on with his life. I didn’t want him to stay out of pity and end up resenting me because of all the stuff that goes along with my impairment.”
“Sager’s not…”
“He’s not like that,” I cut in. “I know. You’re right. You’ve been right all along. It’s not him that’s the problem. It’s me. It’s always been me. I was totally in the dark until he came along, even before I lost my eyesight. His faith in me and his love for me brought true light into my life.” My brows drew together. “I don’t know how he found anything in me to love behind all the layers of bullshit. Maybe with his artist’s eyes he saw the potential in me that I couldn’t. He believed in me. And now it’s time I believed in him. And myself. You’re his best friend. I know you don’t like me. But you need to know that I’m not going anywhere until I can convince him how much he means to me. I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I have to try. With everything in me, I will strive every single day to show him that his love makes all the difference. That he is my light and my life.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Sager
The bed shook. I turned over on my other side ignoring the movement while swallowing back a wave of nausea.
The shaking didn’t stop.
Fuck. Maybe we were having an earthquake.
I lifted the pillow off my head and cracked open my tequila soaked eyes. A slash of sunlight from the open blinds in my room seared them.
I let out a blistering curse that would’ve made Abuelita shake her finger at me.
“Pendejo. Get up, loser.” My best friend didn’t sound as wrung out as I felt, but then again I should have known better than to try to best him in tequila shots.
“What time is it?” I complained carefully sitting up, trying not to puke.
“Past time to grab a burger and meet the guys at the Mine.” He let out a heavy sigh. “Here. Take these. It ain’t the hair of the dog, but it’ll have to do.” I took the bottled water and Tylenol caplets from his hand but avoided his pitying gaze. I had babbled quite a bit about Melinda even before the drinking started. Told him about her blindness, how I felt about her deception, and even admitted how badly I wanted to go back to her. That was when he had suggested the game of shots.
“Thanks,” I told King after I swallowed the pills and drained the bottle dry. I threw back the covers and reached for my pants. “The way you drive maybe we beat the others there.”
“No chance. I’ve been getting text bombed and phone called to death. War can be such a woman sometimes.”
“He just wants all of us together at our usual hangout. He thinks it’ll be good publicity and bring in a lot of extras for the music video.”
“I know, but still.” He raised an inquiring brow. “You want your cell back?”
I had asked him to take it from me so I wouldn’t be tempted to call Melinda and soften my ultimatum. I stared at it and shook my head. I was still tempted. The last time I had delivered an ultimatum to her it hadn’t turned out all that well.
I swept aside my misgivings, shrugged into a shirt, buckled my belt and tugged on my boots while he drummed on the doorframe impatiently. I paused at the nightstand, snagging my rosary but staring long and hard at the leather cuff. I grabbed it in the end and turned around. King’s knowing eyes met mine. They softened, not with pity, but with something else.
“C’mon.” He headed down the hall while I followed trying to decipher what I had seen. “Aren’t you gonna ask if she called?” he inquired, turning his head slightly to the side but not enough that I could see his face.
Hope unfurled. I swallowed. “Did she?”
“Better than that. She paid me a little predawn visit, vato. Your pixie’s not afraid to take me on to get what she wants. She’s got cajones, that one. She’s fighting for you, amigo. She made it pretty clear that she’s not going anywhere until she convinces you to take her back. She’s still not my favorite person, but I understand her a little better, and I can see that we have one area of common ground that we can meet on.”
I raised my brows at this surprising new development, as he filled in. “You, mi hermano. We both want what’s best for you.”
• • •
Melinda
“I don’t think it did a bit of good beyond amusing King to see me grovel.” Dejected, I dropped my head onto the bar. April had just wiped up a spill but my skin still stuck to the surface.
“It was the right thing to do, honey.” April knocked her knuckles against the top of my skull. “Get your face out of my bar. I haven’t had a chance to run a sanitizing wipe over it. We’ve been so freaking swamped tonight.”
“Why’s it so busy?” Even with the music pumping I could tell that the sound of the crowd rumbled louder than usual.
“The guys are making an appearance. War’s going to select volunteers to be crowd extras for the music video they’re going to film here tomorrow.”
“What?” I lifted my head and speared her with what I hoped was an accusatory glare. “You knew this before you invited me over didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“April,” I warned. “He’s not going to want me here.” My chest got tight, still trying to knit back together the gaping rent his rejection had left in it.
“Too late. He’s already here.”
I heard a surge in the noise level. Tempest had made their entrance. My spine straightened. I smoothed my hair which fell loosely around my shoulders hoping I looked halfway presentable in my black one shoulder top and pre-anorexia jeans.
“Hey, kitten,” Diz said to April, brushing against my side as he squeezed between me and a patron on the next barstool.
“Hey, babe,” she returned. I could hear the smile in her voice.
“Bluebelle,” Dizzy said without any inflection.
I turned my face in the direction of his voice and nodded to acknowledge him. My voice stuck in my throat, my ears strained to hear a different voice.
“I’m going to sit with the guys in our booth. Can you send over the usual order?”
“Absolutely,” April replied while my heart slid out of the gash in my chest and landed on the floor to be trampled. Not that it mattered. I didn’t really need it anymore.
I dropped my head again.
“Stop it.” April conked me on the head with something hard. A bar tray. “Who is this wimp? Where did the sassy don’t push me around pixie go?”
“She fell down a mountain and lost everything.”
“Not so and you know it. You’ve got me. You’ve got Mary in your corner. That’s like having an army of support. And you’ve got him.”
“I don’t.”
“You do. His eyes are practically glued in this direction. Here.” She shoved something at me. “It’s their drink order. Take it over. Say your piece. Don’t let him ignore you.”
“Ok.” I slid my hands around the tray. “But I won’t be able to use my cane.”
“I know.” There was just a hint of trepidation in her tone. “But they are at their usual table. It’s about twenty-five feet away.”
“Along the wall. To the right. One step up to their booth.”
“Yeah,” she confirmed.
“Ok.” I took the tray and swiveled around in my seat.
>
“I might spill,” I muttered.
“I’ll pour more.”
“You’ll probably have to.” I shimmied out of the chair balancing the tray while trying to dredge up my courage. As I took one careful step and then another encountering no one I began to suspect that people were being directed to move out of my way. I lifted my chin. Courage was one thing I still had going for me. I had been using it all these days as I had cobbled a life back together out of what the mountain had spared me. I had more to be grateful for than I had thought. Mary had been right. So was April.
My foot hit a stair. I sloshed a little. Hell, maybe a lot. My hands got wet. So be it. “Hey any of you losers order drinks?” I asked, sliding the tray onto the table.
“Yeah, pixie,” Bryan replied. “Thanks.”
“She spilled most of my Maestro Dobel,” King complained.
“Maybe it’s a sign,” I returned haughtily. “That you should cut back.”
“I like this chick more and more every time I meet her.” War. “Thanks, babe.”
“You’re welcome.” I smiled.
“Pretty fine, too. Wanna dance with a someone who’s seen you naked?”
“Not if that someone is you.”
“You sure? Sage is about to melt me with his red hot laser beam eyes just for asking. It’d be fun to see what he might do if I touched you.”
I was at a loss. I didn’t know where Sager was sitting. I couldn’t see his face. I had to rely on what the others were saying. I think they were trying to help me. I was just going to have to go on faith. Try to do what I felt was right.
“Thanks, but I’ll take a pass. There’s only one man I want. Only one whose touch lights me up like an ember in the dark.” I turned my head guessing where he might be.
The Complete Tempest World Box Set Page 159
