Indelible (27 page)

As Tia pushed through the door with her marketing bag, they eyed her cautiously.

“What?”

Jonah crooked his mouth. “Tell us it isn’t squid or liver you’re in the mood for.”

She jutted her chin. “It’s chicken. But now that I’ve been to the store, I don’t think I can eat that either. Did Lauren leave? I need her to tell me there’s an end in sight.” She set the bag on the counter, stretched up to kiss his mouth, and left them.

He smiled. “Guess I’ll grill chicken and hope she can eat it.”

“She’s having a girl.”

“What?”

“The baby. It’s a daughter.”

Jonah frowned. “You know this how?”

Jay shrugged.

“Don’t give me that wise native stuff.”

He grinned, altogether too pleased with himself.

“So if we’re getting personal, which one of you broke things off? Lauren?”

Jay drained the fake beer. “Some things aren’t meant to be.”

“Especially if we’re afraid to let them.”

Tia came back and circled his waist with her arms. “Mind hurrying that chicken up? I’m starved.”

He shot a look over her head. “See what you’re missing?”

“I’m not missing it. I’m watching from the safe seats.”

After SpaghettiOs, Cody started crying. He cried on her shoulder for nearly two hours. He wanted his daddy.

“Should I call him?” she mouthed to Trevor, who stood nursing a glass of wine and waiting to eat the stir-fry he’d prepared while she soothed Cody.

“Can he come?”

She shook her head. He’d flown to Scottsdale with Paige to see a specialist in a very private, very exclusive clinic. “Sh, honey, sh,” she murmured. “It’s okay.”

“Hold me, Auntie Nattie.”

“I am, honey. I won’t let go.” She swayed with him, pressing her cheek to his hair. Finally he calmed down enough to tuck into his tent. He clutched the flashlight as he curled up and slow-blinked to sleep. She backed out of his room and joined Trevor in the kitchen.

“You were right.” He handed her a goblet. “It was too much.”

“I’m not sure.” She took a sip. “I think—I hope—this was cathartic. He finally let it out—some of it anyway.”

“You’re great with him.”

She stared into the faint gold liquid. “It breaks my heart.”

“I know.” He rubbed her arm. “I’m not the one he needs.”

“You’re the one he has right now. And he’s lucky to have you.” When she leaned into him, he brought his arm around her.

“How ruined is the stir-fry?” She fought a yawn.

“I took it off the heat ages ago. If we fire the flame up high and toss it around a little, it might not be too limp.”

“Wonderful.” He’d thrown together the abundance of vegetables from her refrigerator and quick-fried them in sesame oil and soy sauce. Cody had not been at all interested, but it smelled good to her.

Smiling, she sat down across from him at her kitchen table. They threaded the fingers of their left hands together, wanting to touch even as they ate. She wished she could look and look and look at him. Maybe then she would believe it.

His phone rang. Letting go to answer, he viewed the caller and grimaced. “I’m dead.”

She tipped her head, puzzled, as he answered the phone.

“Sara, I’m sorry. I forgot about tonight.”

She worked on her stir-fry, trying not to intrude.

“Yeah, I know. No, I can’t. It’s not—” Pressing his fingers between his brows, he listened. “I’m really sorry. Something came up. Can we—Sara?” He looked at the phone. “I guess she’s gone.”

Natalie bit her lip. “What did you forget?”

“Dinner with them.”

She checked her watch. After nine. “Should you go?”

“No point now.” He leaned back. “But I feel rotten. She always goes out of her way to make it nice.”

“Is there anything you can do?”

“I’ll talk to her tomorrow.” He sounded grim. “It’s just a little different with her. For a while, a long time ago, we were … pretty close.” Did he not realize they still were?

“I think she assumed things would go a certain way. I guess we both did. But after Ellis died, she knew I’d never be the same. Before that, I’d been angry with my dad. After Ellis, the anger went inside.”

Driven by self-recrimination.

He scratched his jaw. “Once I was for sure a lost cause, she married Whit.”

“And you let her.”

“It was the right thing for both of them. The right thing for me.”

That didn’t make it easy. “No regret?”

He shook his head. “She was too close to it. That would have defined everything.”

“But you’re all still together.”

“In a way. Lately it’s been strained.”

He had to realize why. “If I hadn’t brought Cody over—”

“Don’t. Everything I did today, I wanted to. It’s my fault I forgot Sara. Not yours.” He pushed back and stood up, paced to the window, and looked out into her small courtyard.

She joined him there. “Sara will understand your helping Cody. She knows you. And she’s a mother.”

“That’s this snowball’s one chance in hell.”

They laughed softly.

Then he frowned. “Did you leave your gate open?”

“What gate?”

“Stay here.”

“Trevor?” She watched him go out her back door, watched him cross her small yard. There was no moon to temper the darkness, so she could just make him out near the back fence. She didn’t think it had a gate, but she hadn’t closely examined every inch.

When he came back in, he said, “You have a couple boards down. Maybe the wind.”

“The previous owners had the fence for their dogs. I don’t need it.”

“Don’t let Cody out there alone, okay?”

She cocked her head. “Do you think I’d let him anywhere alone?”

“No. But he could crawl through the gap if you got distracted.” Or visually incapacitated?

“No offense, Nattie.” He clasped her shoulders. “But things happen that fast.”

“Tell me about it.”

He searched her face. “Still feel rushed?”

“Don’t you think we should?”

“What do I know? I’m way past expiration.”

“And what, you’ve started to spoil?”

He didn’t laugh. Catching the warning signal, she pulled back, feeling a potential for pain she’d hardly imagined. “Are you going to leave, Trevor? When Cody’s gone?”

He looked away. “I’m not only here for Cody. He wasn’t in the picture when I came looking for you. But I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”

His rush home from the mountain survival class, her joyous reception seemed far away and naive. “I should be careful?” She rubbed her arms.

The muscles of his jaw flexed. “You should be careful.”

She drew a shaky breath. “Then, can you go now?”

He nodded. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” He paused beside her, searching, but she didn’t look up.

She swallowed. “Good night.”

When the door closed, she pressed her hands to her face. It was so easy to believe in him, too easy to think he felt what she did. How clearly she understood Jaz—so tired of reacting to that man. “Not going there,” she said to the window. “I’m not.”

Except she loved him. Probably from the moment he leaped off the trail.

Trevor circled her block, checking for anything out of place. There weren’t many fences to compare for wind damage; most of the yards opened to the next. The fence looked as old as the house, so probably disrepair. He drove to Whit and Sara’s, saw the windows dark, and drove on.

Standing Sara up had clarified just how selfish and inconsiderate he could be. Already feeling like furniture, she’d just been hauled out for the yard sale. He expelled his breath. Not fair. Not fair to anyone.

Yeah, they were still friends—his Teflon people who let his sins slip off them. He expected to grow old with them, but in some ways, they’d never moved past his brother’s death. Like an unspoken pact, parts of them stayed exactly as they were. A memorial of arrested development.

He drew up to the gate, scanned his key to activate, waited for it to swing. He checked his rearview as a car passed slowly behind. Frowning, he looked again. That junker from the trailhead?

Too dark. He went through the gate into the garage, took his reserved spot, and noted the car in the guest spot beside him. The moment he entered his place, Whit was on him with a fury.

“Just who do you think you are?”

“I know, Whit. I feel terrible.”

“You feel terrible?”

“I got caught up helping Cody and lost sight of things.” No excuse, just the truth.

“Cody or Natalie?”

“They’re interconnected.” He moved into his living room.

“Look.” Whit’s hands fisted. “I know what’s going on, but Sara doesn’t. You haven’t bothered to tell her.”

Trevor shook his head. “I took them out to the trail to work through the trauma. When we got back, Cody decompressed. I couldn’t leave them distraught.”

“Cut the bull.”

“It’s true.”

“And kissing Natalie in the parking lot? What—” He spread his hands. “Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?”

Trevor rubbed his face.

“You”—Whit poked his chest—“have an obligation. If this is more than a fleeting episode, Sara needs to know.”

“She’s
your
wife.”

Though shorter by inches, Whit came nearly jaw to jaw with him. “We both know why.”

Chest heaving, he looked away. “She chose you, Whit.”

“Knowing she’d get the matched pair.”

He chewed his lip. “I didn’t mean to upset her. I will apologize tomorrow.”

“And tell her the truth.”

He threw out his hands. “I don’t lie.”

“So you and ‘Nattie’ are nothing more than whatever you are with Kirstin or Jaz or …”

He sighed. “I don’t know what we are.” Not true, or he would have told Sara it was nothing. “But yes, she matters more than Kirstin and Jaz.” Or anyone else. After tonight that might be a moot point. He turned. “I forgot, Whit. I simply forgot dinner.”

Whit nodded. “Well, make it right. I’m sick of her crying over you.”

This my long sufferance, and my day of grace,
They who neglect and scorn, shall never taste;
But hard be harden’d, blind be blinded more.
That they may stumble on, and deeper fall.

C
aution. Patience. He must stem the fervor that would lead to haste and haste to mistakes. He left the car in a different place and walked. Wait. Wait. He couldn’t act yet. Seeing him once was not enough, not nearly enough to know what he needed to know.

Seed sown must lie still, swelling, splitting, growing. Patience. Caution. Wait. He knew how to wait.

Back in the place he’d slept before, he drew the book from the deep pocket of his cape. He stroked the cover, seeing the room, the tight, bare walls, a piece of foam to lie on, a thick candle on a metal plate upon the cracking concrete floor. The book in the corner.

Closer he crept until he saw. The form on the front sent a shudder through his soul. He looked at it now. Black, pointed wings, rippled muscles, tormented face.

His little hands had reached. Words he’d never seen, never heard. Learn them. Say them. Know them. Know them and leave. He promised. The father of lies.

Seventeen

S
ara’s eyes were bright as he stood at her door, trying to explain. “I thought revisiting the sight of the trauma under safe conditions would alleviate their fear. Then Cody lost it and I felt responsible. Everything else just went out of my head.” He searched her face for softening. “He’s been through so much.” There it was.