Embers (Blaze Series Book 3) (7 page)

I hold him close, wrapping my arms around
him. His broad back tenses at my touch, but I won’t let him go. I pull him
against me, tangling my hands in his hair, pulling his head against my chest.
And I can’t help it; I start to cry.

I try to keep it quiet, blinking back the
hot tears as they well up, my mouth tightening as I curse myself for doing
this. For falling apart when I’m the one that needs to be strong for him right
now. Maybe I can get over it before he notices.

But when my body starts to shake he pulls
back to look at me. I try to hold onto him but he moves easily out of my arms.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, honestly sounding
puzzled.

“I’m just . . .” I try to smile as I wipe my
eyes with the palms of my hands. But that somehow just makes me sob harder,
which I still manage to do quietly. He takes my hands between his.

“Hey,” he says gently, and now it’s him
holding
me
, him comforting
me.
“It’s okay; I promise, it’s okay.”

“No it
isn’t
,” I say furiously, and
I’m angry now, angry with myself for doing this. “You just told me the worst
thing I’ve ever heard in my life, and I should be the one comforting you, but
now you’re doing all the work, and I’m a jerk for crying, and I’m sorry but I
just couldn’t help it, and . . .”

He lies back on the bed, and I swear, he’s trying
not to laugh.

“You might be the nicest person I’ve ever
met,” he says  as he pulls me down on top of him. But not for anything
physical, not for another round of what we’re so good at together. He puts one arm
around me and starts to stroke my hair with the other.

I nuzzle into his chest, curling up like a
little girl, safe in his embrace.

“The most scared I’ve ever been in my life
was when I thought Matt was going to die,” I say softly. “I wanted to leave San
Francisco so bad. I wanted to be with my baby brother and help him beat it,
even on the days when I was sure it was impossible for him to keep going. And
he kept saying
no, no, you have to stay. You have to keep living your life
and that’s what makes me want to keep fighting.
And it was so hard. It was
so
hard. And it was after one of those days that I met you.”

He presses a soft kiss against my head.
Sleep is starting to catch hold of me. I can feel my eyelids getting heavier,
and my body slumping into the rest it wants so badly.

The last thing I do before I slip into sleep
is run my hand over his chest, just to feel him, here with me.

I will not cry. I will not cry.

I repeat this to myself as Gabriel’s arms
wrap around me. I bury my face in the slope of his shoulder and take a deep
breath to steady myself.

I am so going to cry.

I start to pull away, wanting to get this
over with as soon as possible, but he holds me tightly. I relax into him and
close my eyes. He speaks softly, his mouth pressed against my ear.

“I thought about asking you to come to the
airport tonight.”

This time he allows me to pull back so I can
meet his eyes. He looks sad, and slightly embarrassed.

“But I thought that it might be too hard.
For both of us,” he continues.

He’s right, of course. For the first time,
our goodbye leaves us in a good place—a place of understanding. Even though I
don’t want to see him go right now, I know I’m important to him. Probably as
important as he is to me, but our lives are headed in different directions. At
least for now.

I rise on my toes and kiss him softly on the
lips. He smells of my shampoo and tastes like minty toothpaste. An ache begins
to fill my chest at the thought of him not being here when I get home later.

He kisses the tip of my nose and then my
forehead.

“I’ll miss you, Kate.”

A single tear escapes and he wipes it from
my cheek with his thumb. “Don’t—”

“No, it’s okay,” I say, cutting him off.
“This is a good kind of sad. I’m not mad at you, you’re not mad at me. No more
secrets. I’m just . . . I’ll miss you, too.”

I kiss him again and then step back before I
can change my mind.

“Now go.”

Gabriel squeezes my hand before letting go.
He’s wearing dark jeans and a blue shirt, and looks like he’s already back
home, in Montana, to his life that has nothing to do with me. I turn away when
he opens the front door. The sight of him walking through it, away from me, is
not something I want in my head.

I’m so consumed with work that I don’t have
the time to miss him, and it’s late afternoon when I get his text.

Write, Kate.

I smile and type back:
Yes, sir.

But now that he’s in my head again, I find
it hard to concentrate. I shoot Amy an email letting her know I’ll be working
from home for the rest of the day and practically run to the elevator. While
Gabriel was here I didn’t get any writing done. I remind myself I was given an
advance, not a gift.

When I cross the threshold into the house, I
fantasize for a moment that Gabriel changed his mind and stayed. He’s waiting
for me in the bedroom with a chilled bottle of wine. Of course, this is not
what I find, though I can still feel his presence everywhere in the room.

Might as well put this imagination to
good use, Kate.

I kick off my heels and change into a pair
of yoga pants and a t-shirt. There’s half a bottle of red wine in the fridge. I
take it and a glass back to my room. Sitting at my new desk, I bring up my
notes and outline. It doesn’t take long before I’m back into Samantha Stone’s
mind. I take a long sip of wine and prepare to work.

Most of the story flows freely, but I
occasionally hit a wall. A scene won’t play out the way I like, or the dialogue
feels wrong. I force myself to make notes and keep going. It’s just the first
draft. I’m chuckling to myself over Samantha’s comeback to a rude co-worker
when there’s a light tap at the door.

“Come in,” I call out.

Sarah opens the door just wide enough to
peek her head in. Her hair is piled on top of her head in a lazy bun and she’s
wearing pale blue scrubs. I grin and blush. “He’s gone,” I assure her.

“Okay. Just checking. Although,” she says,
stepping into the room, “I wouldn’t mind walking in on him if you two were . .
. you know.”

“Uh huh.” I take the envelope she’s handing
me and playfully swat at her retreating back with it.

“That was in today’s mail. I have a package
at the post office. Would you mind picking it up for me tomorrow?” Sarah asks.

“Sure, I can . . .” My voice trails off as
my eyes focus on the letter in my hand.

“Everything okay?”

“Um, just a letter from home. Yeah. I’ll get
that for you.”

“Thanks. I’m gonna crash now,” Sarah says,
yawning as she closes the door behind her.

I run my finger across my name, neatly
written across the center of the envelope. Then I do the same to the return
address. The letter is from Sam.

My hands shake a little as I tear the letter
open. I don’t know if I’m trying to slow myself down or do it more quickly. The
jagged sound of the paper tearing is too loud, too abrasive in the still room.

Sam’s writing hasn’t changed at all. It’s
still the painstakingly neat handwriting of a guy far more at home on the
football field than writing; I remember going over his notes with him in high
school English class when I was helping him study.

Hey Katy,
it
begins,
I’m up in the cabin, just making sure all the pipes are ready for
the colder days. Calley’s being a big dope, as usual, she’s either right at my
elbow trying to help or she’s running around in the snow wondering where all
the squirrels have gone.

I suck in a long breath. The image of being
in the cabin, the firelight flickering warm and orange on the walls, Calley
snoozing and Sam’s arms around me, catches at my chest.

I’ve stayed here a couple nights while I
get everything done
, the note goes on
, it’s
easier than driving in and out of town all the time. The bed seems too big
without someone else in it. Without you in it, I mean.

The next few paragraphs make my fingers
curl. My nails dig at the soft skin of my palms. With what, I wonder. Is it
guilt? Is it sorrow? Is it all the things I feel when I think of Sam?

I miss you. I always have. Every time
you’ve left it’s torn me into pieces, wondering if maybe this is the time you
leave forever. If this is when you’ll trail away to just a voice on the phone,
then maybe a message every once in a while, and then a photo I see of you with
somebody else.

I know that you need to be far away. I
know that that’s where everything will happen for you. I know that San
Francisco is where you’ll be discovered and you’ll get famous and I won’t be
able to open a magazine without reading about how you just released another
book that won a million prizes. I want that for you.

But I can’t help but wanting something
for me, too. A life where you can do all that and still be here with me. Where
we can be together and it can just be good, the way it was last time you were
here. When it was just you and me and Calley, out here, miles away from anyone.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I
should turn to the last page, or if that’s only going to break my heart even
more. But it turns out there isn’t much more.

Anyway. I have to go, because if I don’t,
I’m going to end up writing a hundred pages. I just wanted you to know that I
love you. And if you ever decide to come back . . . I’ll be waiting.

Sam.

I’ve never in my life had less of an idea
what to do. I stare at the letter and its beautiful, awful words, like it’s a
coiled snake, sleeping on the counter but ready to strike at the slightest
sound. So I do the only thing I
can
think of to do, and call the
smartest person I know.

Matt picks up on the second ring, his voice
strong and clear.

“Really?” he asks. “You didn’t think to
Skype? Don’t you know Mom and Dad got me a new laptop as a reward for my immune
system being so kickass?”

I can’t help but smile.

“Okay, okay,” I say. “Even though I look
like something the cat dragged in. Gimme a sec.”

When his face comes up on Skype I feel even
better—the color is back in his face and he’s lost that skinny, sickly look
that had settled in under his skin. Even on my crappy little iPhone screen I
can see that his hair is thicker and he’s lost the heavy purple bags from under
his eyes.

“You were
not
kidding,” he says. “You
look like shit.”

I gasp.

“Hey asshole, I was just about to tell you
how good you were looking! And then I get this? Jeez, you must be feeling
pretty pleased with yourself.”

He laughs.

“Seriously, what did you do last night? You
look like you should be in bed for at least a week.”

I don’t say anything, but my cheeks burn
scarlet red. Matt groans and buries his face in his hands.

“Oh,
man,
I just put my foot in it,
huh?  Don’t tell me, because I do not want to know.”

“Shut up,” I say, still blushing furiously.

Mom chooses that exact moment to bustle into
the background. She blinks at the screen for a moment, and then her expression
clears.

“Katy!” she says, too loudly, like she
always does. “Hey! How are you?”

“I’m fine, Mom,” I say, and shoot a
shut-your-damn-mouth look at Matt, who’s still got a wise ass grin plastered
over his face. “A bit sleepy from all the work I’ve been doing lately. But
everything’s good on my end. How are you?”

She beams and plants a kiss on Matt’s head,
and I’m delighted to see that now it’s his turn to scrunch his face up in
embarrassment.

“Delighted to have this one home,” she says,
and she squeezes him. “Although now your father’s gone crazy with this truck
idea.”

My confusion must show on my face because
Matt laughs. Before Mom can go on he explains.

“Dad’s been eyeing this used truck for sale
up at Gregson’s car yard,” he says. “Calling it a fixer-upper is being, uh,
generous. But he’s got the idea in his head that when I’m feeling better he and
I could take a crack at fixing it up.”

Mom starts in before Matt’s even finished
talking.

“And
I
told him that Matt can’t be
going out in the cold and the snow until the doctors say that he’s . . .”

Matt winces as Mom goes off into what sounds
like a well-rehearsed speech. Finally, he manages to excuse himself and take
the laptop up to his room.

“So how’s everything?” he asks. “How’s work?
And Gabriel?”

I sigh.

“God. Confusing, frustrating, driving me
crazy . . . all of the above. I don’t know. Take your pick. I just don’t know.
And then on top of that . . . I get this letter from Sam.”

I don’t read Sam’s words aloud. Those are
private, and I’ve hurt Sam too much already to betray his trust. But Matt nods,
like he already knows what’s inside.

“He’s come around a few times,” Matt says.
“Since you’ve been gone. Just to check on me, you know? Or at least, that’s
what he says. But man. You can see there’s something he’s not saying. And I
don’t think it’s something happy.”

I close my eyes for a moment. Why is it
every time I try to get things right I screw up? It makes me want to be selfish,
to just throw caution to the winds and do whatever I want, like Gabriel does.
But I know I’d just end up making an even bigger mess and be even more confused
about what I was supposed to do.

“I can’t tell you what to do,” Matt says,
“but maybe think about giving Sam a call sometime. He’s a good guy. I mean, you
already know that. But maybe he just needs to hear from you how things are.”

Yeah,
I
think.
Except that means I would have to know. Which I don’t.