Chapter 32

ChapterThirty-Two

Nick

Sadie doesn’t speak as I drive home. The truck is dark and silent, the sound of the radio plays Christmas songs that are way too happy for this fucking moment. I want to pull over and pull her into my arms, because I sense that she’s pulling away.

I don’t know what to do if she pulls away from me. I won’t let her run. I refuse. I’ll follow her home if I must. This woman breathed life back into a very lonely, monotonous existence. This woman has me cutting down Christmas trees and planting them in my living room. She has me daydreaming about a future that I honestly had given up on.

Tonight was a bloody revelation.

My mother’s scheming went beyond what I thought and was about so much more than gifting me the company of a sweet woman for Christmas.

Why she would think for even a second that I would take Patricia back after everything she did to me, after the scars she left me, I don’t know.

And Will—he should have told me, should have prepared me for this shit I faced tonight. He knows me well enough to know I’d never take Patricia back. Not a chance. Not before Sadie came into my life, and definitely not now that she’s here.

Patricia doesn’t even compare to Sadie. Fucking Patricia is like fucking a cold, dead fish. I didn’t realize just how bad she was before Sadie. I didn’t realize how cold, how selfish, how wrong for me she was. But now that I know the warmth of Sadie in my home, the inferno of Sadie in my bed—I know. And I’m not settling for anyone or anything less than her.

I don’t want another woman. I want the woman beside me in my truck. Forever.

But right now, that woman is pulling away. She’s closing down and shutting me out. I can feel it. There’s a wall between us and even though I can’t see it, I’m not sure I can break through it. She hasn’t looked at me once and I’m almost home. Her face is tilted toward the window, and I have a feeling that she’s crying. Thinking that she’s crying and not knowing what to do about it has my blood boiling under my skin. I feel violent and angry and capable of something terrible. I’m just happy I’m not with my mother. Or Patricia.

I’ll be having words with my mother. Words she’s not going to like, and I don’t give a fuck, because right now she’s the source of Sadie’s pain. But I’m making it my mission to cut through her pain, to carve every ounce of it away, to replace it with her cheerful, warm, husky laughter.

I pull into the drive and park the truck, but Sadie doesn’t move. She’s like ice in the seat next to me, carved into stone.

“Sadie,” I call, but she doesn’t reply. I swallow the burn in my throat as I pull the key from the ignition and kick open my door. Snow crunches beneath my boots as I round my truck to pull open her door and fuck, I was right.

Tears glisten on her cheeks and brighten her eyes under the light of the big, low moon. I can tell she’s tried to hide them from me, tried to wipe them away. It’s no matter, they’ve stained her skin. But beyond her tears is a pain that’s been etched into the warmth of her brown eyes.

My hands curl into fists for a moment before I reach up and pull her from the seat. I crush her against me, and she lets out a ragged little moan, her body trembling as a sob wracks her small frame. I just hold her tighter. I hold her so tight, if it weren’t for our jackets and clothes, I would mold her to me.

“Sadie,” I call again, and this time she shakes her head. She’s denying me conversation. She doesn’t want to do this with me. But I don’t care. I’m going to push her tonight.

I’m not letting her close herself away from me. I’m not letting her destroy what we’ve become.

I’ll demolish every wall she builds.

“Look at me, baby.” I don’t wait for her to do as I ask. I grab her chin between my finger and thumb and force her eyes to mine. They’re wet and bright and beautiful. Right now, they’re darker than they usually are. I could sink inside them and never come up for air. I could sink inside this woman and never come up for air.

How can she not see that?

“Talk to me.”

She shakes her head, but her voice sounds small, “I don’t know what to say.”

“Start with your thoughts.”

She laughs, but it’s bitter and humorless. “Nick.”

My name is a protest on her mouth I do not like as I return, “Sadie.” Her name on my tongue is rough this time, and there’s a warning in my tone that she heeds, because she says, “I feel used.”

Her mouth trembles around the words, and her chin quakes in my hold. She’s trying to swallow her emotion, and she’s failing. My little open book, I can read her so well.

“I know,” I tell her. “I do too.”

She laughs, and again, it’s bitter. “I’m sure.”

“What does that mean?” I demand.

“Nick,” she says my name tiredly. “You were engaged. How do I not know that?”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” I hate to say it because it’s the truth, even though I don’t want it to be the truth.

“Yeah, I’m getting that Nick.” She tears out of my arms and makes her way to the front door, calling, “I’m done. I don’t want to do this. I can’t do this. I’m getting Claus and I’ll get a hotel.”

“The fuck you will.” I crowd her with my body against the front door, slamming my key into the hole. She gasps at the feel of me behind her, against her as I push open the door and push her inside. She hasn’t seen this side of me. I won’t hurt her. I’ll never hurt her. But I can sense that she’s afraid.

She can sense that I’m enraged.

I slam the door shut behind us, slamming the bolt home. She’s already kicked out of her boots and even though her jacket is still on, she’s halfway down the hall to the spare bedroom. If she thinks she’s sleeping in there, she’s crazy. Crazier than I thought.

“Sadie,” I call again. I’m already I’m hot on her tail. My feet are eating up the space between us fast, but still, she races forward, slamming the door in my face. It doesn’t stop me from opening the door and entering her space. I should know better. I should be a gentleman and give her the space she demands. But I’m no gentleman. Not right now. Right now, I’m a man terrified that the woman who breathes life into his existence is going to disappear. Right now, I’m a man obsessed. Right now, I’m a man so fucking in love with a woman who’s threatening to leave that I’ll go to lengths I would never normally go to keep her.

“Get out!” she screams.

Oh yeah. She’s done. She’s past done. She’s rip roaring mad.

“Just get out!” she yells when I don’t move.

“Not going to happen, baby,” I tell her calmly.

“I don’t want you here, Nick.” She stomps her foot, and I nearly crack a grin. If I wasn’t so afraid of her leaving, I might have. She’s cute when she’s pissed. But then she cuts me as she adds, “I don’t even want to be here.”

“Fuck that,” I spit, and her eyes widen.

“Are you serious right now? I was just humiliated in a restaurant with you. You have a fiancée who is trying to get you back, and a crazy ass mother who put you up on some screwed up blind Christmas date so that you wouldn’t get back with that crazy ass ex.” Her pitch is rising, getting more and more out of control. “Do you see how messed up this is right now? Do you see how I might not want to be in the middle of this?”

“You don’t even know what this is.”

“Oh, really?” Her tiny hands find her hips and fuck, she’s hot when she’s mad. I much prefer to see the anger in her eyes than the sadness. “Why don’t you tell me what this is then, Nick?”

“That bitch gave me my scars.” Her breath hitches as her eyes widen, and she gasps.

“What?”

“Patricia, my ex-fiancée—the biggest mistake of my life—she gave me my scars, Sadie.”

She’s confused. It’s painted on her face as she breathes, “How?”

I curl my bottom lip into my mouth, thinking about how I’m going to get into this story with her. I haven’t talked about this since the night it happened. Everyone in Cottonwood Hollow knows what happened. Well, they know most of it. They know there was an accident. And they know I was left inside to burn. But what they don’t know was that Patricia chose to leave me inside. She knew I was alive, and she left me to save her own ass. And then when all was said and done, and I was burned, but alive, she broke off our engagement because she couldn’t stand looking at the monster I’d become.

How am I supposed to tell this beautiful woman that I want to make mine all that?

“Sit down,” I command darkly, and anger flashes in her eyes.

She shakes her head and denies me, “No.”

Maybe it’s memories of the past, of that awful night, of the feel of flames against my skin—maybe it’s the fear of her walking out on me and leaving me to this existence that I’ve hated for years. Maybe it’s the idea of her taking my heart with her when she goes, but I crack.

My shoulder finds her belly as I lift her off her feet and storm from the spare bedroom. I take the stairs two at a time as she pounds on my back. It doesn’t take long before I’m throwing her onto my bed, her body bouncing before I pin her into place even as she wriggles to free herself from me.

And then my cute, sweet little Sadie curses, “Fuck you, Nick!”

Her anger just makes me grin, and I dip my head, my lips moving against the shell of her ear as I growl, “Baby.” Her body shivers under my dark rumble. “Let me tell you a little bedtime story.”

Her body tenses beneath mine and her eyes blink up at me as she waits, bated breath locked in her chest.

“It was three years ago, early December,” I start. “Patricia had my ring on her finger. We were set to get married the following summer. I thought she was the one. She was beautiful. She looked good on my arm. I was shallow and too young. I didn’t know what love was. And I can tell you right now, I didn’t love that woman. And she definitely didn’t love me.”

“I would say she loved you.” She lifts her chin. “She’s fighting for you now, isn’t she?”

I laugh, but it’s my turn to sound bitter. “She didn’t love me, Sadie. And let me tell you how I know that.”

There’s a fire in her eyes as she waits for my words, and God, but she’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. My hands are curled around her tiny wrists, pinning her to the bed. My legs are straddling her. She’s challenging me with that raging fire in her eyes, but she’s not fighting me.

She’s not fighting me because she wants this. She wants to hear what I have to say. So, I give it to her. “Patricia was never satisfied with the life I provided for her. I built this house before Patricia. This is my house. My place. What I want from my life. I own this land. I’ll never give it up. Not ever. I definitely wouldn’t have given it up for her. But she pushed and she pushed. She wanted a big house in town. No, she wanted to lord over the town. She wanted people to look up and see where she lived and all that she had. This house, in these trees, on this mountain, nobody fucking knows where I live. Nobody knows what my house looks like. And I like it like that.” I snarl the last words, pressing on. “We were driving home. I was driving us home, and she was bitching, like usual about wanting more. She wanted to move to town, and I was ignoring her. We’d had this conversation. She knew where I stood. I didn’t see a point in talking about the same shit over and over again. I turned up the music and she flew into a rage. She hit my shoulder a few times, and then she grabbed the steering wheel. It was snowing and we hit a patch of ice. I couldn’t control the car. We slammed into a guardrail, and then we went over. The car rolled a few times—more than a few times. I was in and out of consciousness. But I very clearly remember meeting her eyes and asking her to help me before she pulled herself free and climbed out. It took everything inside of me to hold on to consciousness. I slipped a few times—too many times.”

I pause, my eyes boring into her horrified ones. Then I give her more. “The last time I woke, I woke on her side of the car. My side was pinned against a tree. There was no getting out of my side and the car was on an angle. I had to climb up into her side. I had a broken shoulder and a concussion. A very serious concussion. The car was on fire then, and so was I.”

I hate this memory, and I pause because relaying it like this, reliving it like this, hurts. She seems to see it, and because Sadie is all about caring, she shakes her head. “I don’t want to hear any more. I don’t need to hear any more. You don’t have to tell me. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

She’s trying to console me, and I think I love her more for it.

I know I’m in love with this woman.

I’m past the point of in love with this woman. I would give my life for this woman.

But she needs to hear this. I need her to hear this.

“I ended up pulling myself out of the car, and thank God there was snow, because it put the fire out, but the damage had been done. I passed out again and have no memory of the rest until I woke up in the hospital, my skin ruined, my clothes melted to the flesh on my left side. There were surgeries I could do, and I spent a long time in the hospital, but I denied most of them. They would have taken a very long time without the assurance of a positive result, and I was in a bad place. I wanted to be alone. Patricia stayed for a while, but she never spoke about how she left me. It was only how she got out and she thought I was dead. She called the ambulance, but she didn’t even try to help me from the wreck.” My voice is low and angry. “She knew when she looked back and her eyes met mine that I might not make it, and she left me. And then when I got out of the hospital and I got to go home, she left me again. This time because she couldn’t spend her life looking at the thing I’d become.”

“Oh my god,” Sadie breathes, horror in her eyes.

“My mom knows that part. What she doesn’t know—what no one else knows—is that Patricia left me there.”

“Nick…”

“But Mom knows she left me after. And that’s enough to make Mom hate her. I know she’s crazy, and I know she shouldn’t be doing what she’s doing, interfering like she is in our lives. But she loves me, and she watched me fall apart after that accident. She watched me decide that I wasn’t worthy of love, of life, of a family after that accident. I know she’s hurt you, and I’m not going to apologize for her. I’m not going to make excuses. These are just the facts, and you need to know them.”

A tear slides from her eye down her temple and I feel a burning need to kiss it away. That need intensifies as she breathes my name into the silence, and then her entire body starts to shake as more tears come. But when her eyes connect with mine, they’re flashing with rage for me.

This woman loves me too.

I don’t think about it, about asking for her permission or forgiveness as I dip my head and take her mouth. My hands still shackle her wrists to the bed, but when I drop my mouth to hers, she kisses me back. And that’s all I need from her.

That’s forgiveness.

Tomorrow, in the light of day, we’ll figure out the rest.