EMBER - The Free Novella Read online

  Lying to Zoe about what's going on isn't going to benefit me at all. I haven't been able to confide in my parents about what's going on. That's not for fear that they'll judge Dane or his family. I know that they'll want to race to New York to help, even if there's no tangible way they can. They did it when the police car hit me. They come when they sense I need their strength and right now, I can't handle the thought of having to balance being supportive for Dane with maneuvering around the minefield of questions they'd have if they knew that Dane's father had abandoned his family for years.

  "He went to see his father," I start before I glance down at my smartphone. It's been several hours since I said goodbye to Dane at the entrance to Zoe's building. He'd sat next to me in the taxi on the ride over, his thigh shaking and his hand clenched tightly to mine. After he'd kissed me tenderly and told me he'd call me as soon as he could, he'd gotten back into the car and it had pulled quickly away from the curb.

  "In jail?" she asks in a hushed tone. Considering that the only other person in the room is Vane who is solely focused on the task of popping pieces of cereal into his mouth, I can't help but wonder who she thinks she's shielding that information from.

  "Yes," I say matter-of-factly as I take another sip of the now tepid tea. "He went there with his brother and his mom."

  "Why aren't you there?"

  I shrug my shoulder as I bring the teacup to my lips again. I wish I could answer that question but I have no idea why I'm sitting here while my fiancé faces the biggest challenge of his life.

  Chapter 4

  "You're staying here?" I glance around our small apartment. "That's...it's wonderful."

  The expression on her face is as easy to read as the shock in my response to Dane telling me that his mother is spending a day or two with us. Anja and I have found a common ground, that being her son and future grandchild. I resented her for a long time because of her friendship with Maisy, Dane's ex, but things have changed for us. She's accepted that he's moved on with me and judging by how happy she was when she came to see us in Paris, the baby is going to bring all of us even closer.

  I don't fault her for wanting to be close to her son right now. Their lives have been tossed and turned around by a man they thought had died years ago. It's just that since I found out Dane has decided to go back to work in two days, I wanted time alone with him, to not only plan for our wedding, but to reconnect. It feels like we were thrown into a tidal wave of emotion when we got back to Manhattan and I can't quite hold on to him for long enough to find my center again.

  I know it's selfish, but I wanted him all to myself and now I have to share him.

  "It's been a difficult few days," Anja says quietly. Her voice is barely audible. "I needed to be near my son."

  I gaze down at my stomach. Today in the shower I noticed the more pronounced curve of my belly. It's early for me to be showing, but I know instinctively that's what it is. The baby that is growing within me is part of me. I'm not even officially a mom yet and I already need its strength and love.

  "We can get the spare room ready for her." Dane brushes past me towards the hallway. "It's not a big room but there's a bed and a closet you can use."

  I fall in step behind him, mindful of the fact that Anja is right on my heel. "I'll need to move my portraits. I still have some on display in there. They're the ones I didn't take with me to Paris."

  As Dane rounds the corner and disappears into the room, I feel a light tap on my shoulder. I stop and turn. Before I can say anything, Anja's arms are wrapped around me pulling me into her chest. "Thank you for this, Bridget. I need my boy. I need you too."

  I don’t hesitate before I hug her tightly. "We're here for you. I'll do anything I can to help."

  ***

  "Don't do that."

  I look across the room to where Anja's standing with her hands firmly planted on her hips. Her stance reminds me of many of the stories that Dane shared with me the past few months about his mother when he was growing up. She took on the task of raising two teenage boys alone. She was spirited, strict and helped guide them both towards fulfilling futures. She'd essentially put her own life on hold to mourn the loss of her husband while she made certain that her boys knew the value of hard work and perseverance. It had paid off in spades.

  "Don't do what?" I ask gently.

  I had seen Dane watching his mother and I embrace before we let go of one another and walked into the room. As he helped her unpack the small suitcase she'd brought with her, I'd started to stack my portraits into a pile to take into the living room. I'd been displaying them on easels since I moved into this place months ago. It had become my makeshift studio but I haven't sketched in here since before we left for France. Soon, we'll be transforming it into a nursery.

  "Don't take those away." Her hand flies through the air towards me. "Why are you taking those away?"

  "My portraits?" I stop what I'm doing and glance down at the paper in my hands. It's a portrait I drew years ago of a young couple sitting in a restaurant. I'd been there alone and when I saw them walk in I felt their connection immediately. They were in love and as I sat at my table a few feet away from them and sketched them I thought about my own life and how one day I'd want to have a lover who looked at me the way they looked at one another.

  Her hands drop before she fists them together in front of her. "I don't want you to move them. There's more than enough room for me and them in here."

  I glance at her face before I look towards Dane. The empty expression on his face offers me no help at all. I suddenly feel a pang of guilt for rushing in to move things. How could that not make her feel as though she's a bother? "I need to move them anyways. We're going to turn this into the nursery."

  The only sound in the room is her quiet footsteps as she walks towards me. "They bring life to this room, Bridget. I need that. Your work is beautiful. Leave them."

  I nod as tears well in my eyes. "I'll put them back."

  "I'll help." She nudges her shoulder against mine as we work in silence carefully placing each portrait back where it belongs.

  Chapter 5

  "Move your legs. I need to taste you."

  I shake the sleep from my eyes certain that the words I just heard were part of a lust filled dream about the man I want desperately to marry. Dane and I haven't been intimate in days. My body craves his, but now, with his mother just a few feet away in the spare room, any thoughts I have of crawling on him and taking him inside me are going to have to wait.

  "Bridget, slide your legs apart."

  I reach down to glide my hands through my folds. If I can't be with Dane the way I want to be, I can at least find my own release while thinking about him. My hand stalls when it feels his thick brown hair resting against my thigh. This isn't a dream and the pleasure that races through me when his tongue lashes against my core is all the proof I need.

  "No." I arch my back to try and pull free. "We can't. Your mom is in the next room."

  He yanks my body back towards him with one easy movement. He buries his face in my wetness, his tongue tracing a path over my sensitive flesh. The only sound escaping him is a series of low moans.

  I try to stop my body from reacting but it's futile. My hips circle as my hands bury themselves in his hair, guiding his mouth. "Your mom will hear us."

  His movements stop as he looks up at me. The moisture on his lips a sign of how close I am to an orgasm already. "You slept in, Bridget. I had breakfast with her and then she left to have coffee with a friend. We're alone for at least a couple of hours."

  "Alone?" I don't try to hide the smile I feel inside. "We can do anything we want?"

  "I want to fuck you. After that we can do whatever you want."

  "All I want is this," I say before I lean back, wrap the soft strands of his hair between my fingers and let myself feel everything he's giving to me.

  ***

  "Tell me I didn't hurt you, Bridget." He's next to me now, his strong arms wrapped aro
und my waist, his chin resting on my shoulder. "I wanted you so much. I'm sorry if I was too rough."

  He wasn't. Everything we just did was perfection. He'd brought me to the edge twice with his tongue before he used his fingers to push me into an intense orgasm. I'd clung to him tightly, trying to find my breath again but he wanted more. He'd kissed me softly and in one quick movement his cock was inside of me. There was the same sharp bite of pain there always is and then nothing but pleasure. I'd come hard right before he found his own release.

  "I loved it." I press my back into his chest. "I love you, Dane."

  His breath stalls but only for the briefest of moments. "You can't possibly know what those words do to me. You can't know how much I need to hear them."

  I'm tempted to pull away from him so I can flip over to stare into his beautiful brown eyes. I want to but I know that he's feeling vulnerable. I've sensed it for days. As much as I want to push him to open up more to me, I know that I can't do that. Dane shares when he feels when he's ready. His soul is gentle, even if he appears strong and solid on the outside.

  "I'm going to miss you when I go back to work tomorrow."

  I sigh deeply. I'm still trying to adjust to the fact that the three weeks I thought we'd have together planning our wedding and my gallery showing have been taken away. Tomorrow when I wake up he won't be here. "I wish we had more time."

  "I thought we could spend the day today talking about the wedding." His lips graze over my neck. "You can tell me when you want to marry me."

  "Today," I whisper. "I want to marry you right now."

  "We'll make it happen soon," he says softly. "I promise."

  Chapter 6

  "I can't believe you'd tell me first," Vanessa taps her index finger against my chin. "I thought you'd just go to Zoe and talk to her about it."

  The thought had crossed my mind but my own lingering pain stopped me. When Zoe was pregnant we only talked briefly about potential baby names. I didn’t see a baby in my immediate future so I had clung to every experience she had. I'd listen intently when she told me about her doctor's appointments and I was overjoyed when she confessed that she'd found out it was a boy.

  It wasn't until after she delivered and I stopped by the hospital to visit her that I overheard her and Vanessa talking about the baby's name. I'd stood in the corridor, far enough out of their view that they couldn’t see me, yet close enough to hear the joy in their voices.

  The spoke about how Vanessa had known the baby's name for weeks. He was named after her. Vane. As they shared tender words about how beautiful he was, I'd walked away from the room, my emotions a tangled mess in my chest. I'd been excluded, pushed to the edge of being a mere acquaintance. As I passed Zoe's husband, Beck, on his way into the room that day, he'd hugged me tightly after I congratulated him. To this day, Zoe, Vanessa, and I have never spoken about any of it.

  "I didn’t want you to feel left out," I say honestly. "You and Zoe are both my best friends but I can only have one matron-of-honor."

  Her eyes scan my face before they lock on mine. "You actually came here to tell me so I wouldn't be hurt?"

  There's not a drop of sarcasm in her tone at all. She's touched. I can tell by the way her bottom lip is trembling.

  "You're both important to me, Van." I drop my gaze to the small circular table. "I've been friends with Zoe longer. It would mean a lot to me if she stood next to me when I marry Dane."

  She nods. "She's going to be over the moon when you ask her."

  "Promise you won't say a word. I want to tell her myself." I wince when I hear the words. The sound like the secretive confession a high school girl is making to a friend. "I just want to see her face when I ask."

  She pushes the plastic chair she's sitting in a few inches across the cafeteria floor until she's right next to me. She gently reaches for my left hand, holding it between both of hers. "I promise but I need you to promise me something too."

  "What?" I ask as I look directly into her eyes. "What do I have to promise you?"

  "Promise me that you won't tell Zoe that I'm having a baby too." Her voice shakes. "I just found out this morning. Garrett is the only person I've told."

  I swallow hard past the sudden lump in my throat. "You're having a baby?"

  "About six weeks after you, if all goes as planned," she whispers as tears well in her eyes. "I wanted to be farther along before I told anyone but since our kids are going to grow up together..."

  I pull her into a tight hug. "I'm so happy for you. I won't tell anyone. I promise."

  ***

  "You weren't planning on us going on a honeymoon, were you?"

  I can hear the smile in his words even before I round the corner to the living room to see the grin on his handsome face. We've been talking about the wedding since Dane came home from work. I'd asked him twice how his first day back to the fire station was but each time the only response I was able to get was a sweet, soft kiss. He's not hiding the fact that he has no interest in talking about work tonight, and I'm on board for that. The only thing I like talking about more than our approaching wedding is our baby and now that Anja has gone back to Boston, things are finally settling back into as normal as they can be given the cloud of uncertainty about his father that is hanging over all of our heads.

  "It feels like the last three months in Paris were our honeymoon," I snap back in a giggle. "I loved it there. Didn't you love it there?"

  "If I could take you there and live the rest of my life with you and our baby, I would." He pats the soft spot on the sofa next to him. "Come sit beside me."

  I scoot quickly across the floor, pulling on the thighs of the sweatpants I put on once I got home from visiting Vanessa at the hospital on her break. I'd stopped briefly at a bookstore on my way home to buy her a journal. I've been chronicling each day of my pregnancy in writing so that one day, when my child is old enough, I can show him or her what our days together were like before they were born. I want to give Vanessa a journal so she can do the same for her baby.

  "You're wearing my pants again." Dane pulls on the waistband of the sweatpants. "I like them so much better on you than on me."

  "They fit me better than some of my things," I admit cautiously. I've been concerned by how much fuller I feel around my stomach. I haven't gained more than a couple of pounds but I feel more comfortable in loose fitting things. Maybe it's just my lack of patience in wanting to meet the baby, but I do feel as though my body is already changing.

  "Your body is beautiful." Dane runs his hand along my stomach over the fabric of the t-shirt I'm wearing. "You looked gorgeous when we were making love the other morning. I couldn't take my eyes off of you."

  I felt that. When he was buried deep within me, I'd opened my eyes briefly to find him staring intently at me. The tenderness that I saw there had brought tears to my eyes. I blamed it on my hormones then but I know now that it was more than that. I feel more connected to him in that moment than I ever felt before and a large part of that was the baby growing inside of me.

  "We're going to go see the doctor next Friday." I glance towards where Dane's smartphone is resting on the arm of the chair next to us. "I stopped by her office on my way home from the hospital today and made the appointment in person. It's all she has available. I added it to your calendar when you were in the shower."

  "Why were you at the hospital?" The concern in his voice isn't masked at all. "If you weren't feeling well you should have called me, Bridget."

  No, I should have chosen my words more carefully. I know how concerned Dane is about this pregnancy. He wants it to go as smoothly as I do. "It wasn't anything like that. I went to see Vanessa during her break."

  "Is she good? I haven't spoken to Garrett since we got back."

  I stare at his face. The worry about what's going on with his father is still etched on his brow. I see it whenever I look at him now but he's calmer than he's been in days. Telling him about his cousin's baby can't hurt. It may actually brighten
his spirits even more.

  "She told me a secret. It's something she's not ready to share with everyone just yet." I nod, hoping that gentle gesture combined with my words will be enough fuel to get Dane to guess what's going on.

  "What kind of secret?" He leans back on the sofa, his bare chest on full, and very welcome, display. "Can you tell me?"

  I can tell him anything. I've told him everything. He's the one person in this world that I know I can confide in completely without any fear of abandonment. I doubt that there's anything I can do or say that would push Dane away. "You just can't tell your mom yet. It would upset Vanessa if Garrett's mom found out from Anja and not her own son."

  His hand leaps to his mouth. I see the exact moment when the realization hits him. "They're having a baby too?"

  "They are." I sigh as I snuggle in next to him. "We're all going to be parents."

  Chapter 7

  "My mom asked if we were going to postpone the wedding."

  Dane's shoulders tense as the words leave my lips. After we'd shared a plate of scrambled eggs and toast for dinner, I'd taken a call from her. I'd sat on the edge of our bed trying to explain to her that Dane's father was going to be in the news. The questions she had all tumbled into one another and as I tried to answer one, she bombarded me with three more. I finally told her that I had to go but I'd call her back in the morning.

  "What did you tell her?" He doesn't turn from where he's busy near the counter, cutting up fruit for dessert. "Do you want to postpone our wedding?"

  As much as I know I shouldn't be surprised by his question, I am. I haven't pressed Dane on the subject of his father's miraculous return from the dead. I've only listened when he's offered me details. I've sat back while he's thrown himself back into his work in an effort to numb the pain he's feeling. I've been attentive, understanding and as loving as I can be. I've never once wavered on the fact that I want to be his wife.