Bed of Lies (23 page)

Zach knew Sam had been through all kinds of shit himself, losing his own parents at a young age, separated from his only brother for years, tossed around from relative to relative, finally ending up with a grandfather who hadn't wanted him. He and Rachel had married young and lost a baby. Their scars ran deep, but Sam had always seemed like a rock. As solid and steady as a man could be.

"What happened?" Zach asked instead. "When you felt like this, what did you do?"

Sam took a breath, looked Zach in the eye again, and said, "I decided to leave Rachel."

"No way," Zach shot back. His parents' marriage was the kind no one believed existed anymore, as strong as anything in this world.

"I did. And when Rachel's aunt showed up at the door with you and your sisters, I told her no, Zach. I would have turned you all away, if it hadn't been for Rachel." Sam's gaze was unwavering. "Would have been the biggest mistake of my life."

"But you love Mom. You always have."

Sam nodded. "Always."

"And you didn't leave, did you?"

"No. I never did."

"And Emma and Grace and I ended up here. So what happened?"

"The three of you happened. Rachel happened. Letting her in. Letting the three of you in. Being honest about how we felt. Turning to each other, helping each other, instead of hiding our feelings and drowning in them. Zach, that feeling like you can't hold all those things inside you anymore?"

"Yeah."

"That's part of the problem, but just a part. The rest is about what you let in. Who you allow to help you. Who you allow to love you."

"Dad, I know you all love me."

"But you couldn't come to us, and you couldn't go to Gwen. Why was that?"

"I don't know."

"Yeah, you do," his father quietly insisted, not letting him get away with a lie.

"Going to Gwen wouldn't have helped. And the rest of you... I knew you were worried. I knew you cared, and I knew you'd try to help…."

"But?"

"I guess I didn't want you to know how crazy I feel—"

"Zach, we all feel a little bit crazy sometimes."

He shook his head. "Not like this. I can't believe other people—normal people—feel like this. The feelings just keep building up inside me until I can hardly breathe, and I don't know what's going to happen."

"This is all that happens," his father insisted. "Eventually you can't hold it in anymore, and it comes out. Like this. That's what happens."

Zach felt close to panic again, felt like, despite what his father had said, he didn't really know how bad it was. "I really hate this. What the hell do I do with this?"

"Just what you're doing now."

Feel like shit? Feel like he was coming apart? He was tempted to look down at his body and check for cracks at the seams, stuff oozing out. But as far as he could tell, he was still whole. Still standing. Still breathing, even if it hurt and it was hard to get enough air.

"And then what?" he asked.

"Let it go. Put it behind you. Move on."

"I don't know how to do that," he admitted, feeling utterly defeated and plain exhausted. "I just don't know."

"It's all right. We do. This is the part where you let the people who love you help you."

Oh.
That.
The other thing he really wasn't good at. He couldn't even bring himself to tell them everything.

"We're right here," Sam said. "Always will be. You don't even have to ask."

But he did. He finally said the words. "Help me." And much as he expected it, the world didn't fall apart.

* * *

He thought he was okay. He'd made it home and taken a big step toward admitting to his family what was going on. From here, things would start to get easier.

But he'd met the two girls his parents were taking care of. They'd come home from school, kindergarten and second grade, and they'd looked so tiny, so helpless, so solemn. He couldn't stop himself from imagining what their lives had been like, what they'd gone through, how scared and lost they must have felt.

The world just seemed to have so many terrible, scary, overwhelming things at the moment.

And that night, when he finally tried to go to sleep, it started again. That feeling like every nerve ending in his body was on high alert, that cold, clammy tingling over his skin, his thoughts racing, the idea that his life was falling apart, and he couldn't stop it.

His heart pounded in his chest, faster and faster, and suddenly, once again, he absolutely could not be still. He got up out of the bed, pulled on a pair of jeans and the shirt he'd worn that day and paced—his bedroom at first, then the downstairs.

He paced until he knew every creaking spot on the floor, and then he thought about going for a run. Sometimes physical activity helped. Sometimes he could outrun the feelings. He wasn't supposed to do that anymore, but it was late and everybody was asleep.

So he found an old pair of athletic shoes in the hall closet and slipped out the back door and around to the sidewalk in front, and started walking first, to warm up his muscles, see how he felt.

The first time he ended up in front of Julie's house, he kept right on walking. Not going to do that again, not yet. He circled the block four times, and on the fifth, when he still felt like his heart was about to explode inside his chest, he walked around to the backyard to see if he could spot any lights on that he couldn't see from the street.

And there it was, light shining through the kitchen window, her in what looked like a silky robe. She finally looked up, saw him, looked startled at first, but then he waved as she figured out who he was.

She smiled so big it hurt him just to look at her, then pointed toward the back door. He walked over and she opened the door, and he could really see her.

She was wearing a beautiful, long, silk nightgown the color of warm, thick cream, simple as could be and kind of old-fashioned, molding itself sweetly, sensuously to her body, and he didn't mind so much that his heart was still pounding. It made sense that it would be now, looking at her like this.

"What is this thing you're wearing?" he asked, so ready to go there instead of where he'd been in his head just moments ago.

She grinned even bigger. "You like it?"

He nodded. "It's beautiful."

"I found it in a drawer. I think I used to play dress-up in it when I was a girl and that it belonged to my great aunt, the one who used to own this house."

Zach reached out and touched her, just her bare arm, running the back of his fingers up and down in a light caress. "It reminds me of the dress you had on at the party. You were so beautiful, even if you were mad at me for being there."

"You thought I looked beautiful that night?"

He nodded.

"I felt like a complete imposter."

"Everybody does sometimes," he admitted.

Like him, right now.

"You couldn't sleep?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"Me neither. Too many memories here, everywhere I turn."

"I shouldn't be here."

"And yet, you are," she pointed out.

"I'm not being fair to you, Julie. Things are going on, things I haven't told you—"

"About your fiancé?"

"Well, that's not what I was talking about, but... I did find her in bed with a friend of mine today."

"Oh, Zach. I'm sorry—"

"No." He shrugged. "Honestly, it made things easier. Made me not feel so guilty about you and me."

"Still, it had to hurt."

"Actually, I felt more annoyed and foolish than anything else. For two such smart people, we made such a mess of our relationship. We seemed so alike. It should have worked, and it didn't." He was baffled by it, actually. They had been together for so long, and yet, he didn't feel like he really knew her at all.

Julie gave him a sad little smile. "I couldn't begin to help you there. I spent a couple of years trying to convince myself I should marry Steve. But I'm still sorry about what happened."

"Thank you. And just to be clear, I have to see her tomorrow, to say... you know... It's over. I'm sorry. Do you want to keep the apartment or do you want me to? It didn't seem like the time to have that conversation today."

"You were living together?"

"As much as two people can when we were hardly ever in the same city at the same time. And I promised myself just hours ago I wouldn't be here again until I had absolutely ended things with Gwen, and still... Here I am."

They stared at each other for a long moment. He took a breath, then another, feeling calmer and not so terribly alone, ready to fill his head with nothing but thoughts of her.

God, that wasn't fair.

He knew it. He just couldn't make himself say it.

Help me, Julie. I'm drowning.

"Yes, here you are," she said, letting her palms come to rest flat against his chest. "And why is that, Zach?"

"Because this is where I want to be." There was more to it than that, but it was the essential truth. He desperately wanted to be with her.

Slowly, he reached out and cupped her shoulders, and he felt better just having both his hands on her. She'd be his anchor on another dark, scary night. All he had to do was pretend this was about him wanting her, about sex, and she would take him into her arms, into her bed, just like that. She'd told him so that afternoon when they'd talked in front of her house.

Her gown had thick, ribbon-like straps, leaving the rest of her arms, shoulders and neck bare. He looked over all the pretty skin, watched the tops of her breasts rise and fall with each breath she took, watched her nipples bead up and press against the fabric of the gown.

It was so easy with her. So easy to fall into desire and let it sweep him up and away. She'd made all the bad things go away before.

Now, she stood before him looking like something out of his dreams, so soft, so sexy. Her skin was warm, her eyes kind, happy even. He hadn't seen a lot of Julie truly happy over the years, and it was nice to think she was now, with him.

With one of his thumbs, he traced the line of her collarbone, then toyed with that little hollow at the base of her neck. She was close enough that her soft breath came out in a hiss and then feathered across his lips. He ached to kiss her, but there was something he had to settle first, something he had to know.

"That night with me... I keep thinking I was rough with you." People had been rough with her all her life, and he didn't want to be one of those people. He wanted to be kind and generous and take care of her, to make life better for her, not hurt her or take advantage of her. "I hate that, and I really worried that I hurt you. I asked before, and you said I didn't, but... Julie, tell me. Did I?"

"Zach, it was nothing—"

"Don't say that. I know you like to think of yourself as the toughest girl in the world, but not with me. And dammit, it matters when someone hurts you."

She sighed. "Okay. If you insist. Do you want a list?"

List? Fuck, what had he done to her that night?

Feeling absolutely grim, he nodded.

"Rug burn on my back, something I hadn't had since I was a teenager, but I have trouble considering that a real injury."

"Okay." If he ever had her on the floor again, he'd make sure she was on top. "What else?"

"Some tiny—truly tiny—bruises on my hips from your fingertips holding onto me so tightly. Honestly, when I saw them, I thought they were kind of sexy." She grinned shyly at him. "A sex injury. It made me sound like such a bad girl, and every woman wants to sound bad sometimes."

Okay, that didn't sound so terrible. Not that he thought he'd ever left bruises on a woman before. Still, she thought it was kind of sexy...

He moved closer until their bodies were barely touching, let his hands drift down her arms and around to cup her bottom, sleek and softly rounded, fitting in his hands just as he remembered from that night. He couldn't seem to get close enough to her.

She sighed with pleasure and nestled her body against his, cradling his growing erection against her belly.

"That's it?" he asked. "That's all I did?"

She cupped his jaw with her hands, rubbing her thumbs across the stubble on his face. "This was the roughest part of you that night, Zach. You needed a shave. Although I didn't really notice at the time. I was too busy thinking about the contrast between your mouth, how soft it was, and the roughness on your jaw. I thought that was sexy, too."

Then he remembered devouring her, his mouth all over her. He traced her soft lips with his thumb, then the skin around her lips. "Here? I scraped your soft skin here?"

She nodded, her lips parted, her breath warm against his thumb. She turned her head just enough to press a little kiss against it, and he thought about her taking his thumb into her mouth, which made him think about other parts of him in her mouth.

He leaned in to show her that he was sorry, conscious of the fact that it was late and he needed to shave now, too. So he needed to be extra gentle with her, and he would be this time. He licked his way across her soft, parted lips with his tongue, barely letting himself inside her mouth, and then went looking for that tender skin he'd abraded before, licking that, too. He wanted to soothe, to apologize with his touch.