EMBER - Part Two (The EMBER Series Book 2) Page 4

  "Bridget," she begins before she lowers the jar of mustard in her hand onto the counter. "I saw with my own two eyes how much he cares about you. He was torn to shreds in the waiting room that night but his last relationship isn't settled yet. I just want you to be careful."

  I stare at her back willing her to turn so I can look at her face but she doesn't budge. "I'm being careful, Zoe. I know what I'm doing."

  "I hope you do. Your body just went through hell. Don't let him hurt your heart."

  I don't respond. I can't find the words to tell her that I'm being as careful as I can be but I'm feeling things I've never felt before.

  Chapter 11

  "You're going to be on television?" Dane's dark eyes sweep over my face. "That's amazing."

  It's more terrifying than amazing, but I'll do what I've been doing all week. I'll fake it until I make it, or in my case, I'll pretend to be totally fine with the prospect of standing in the gallery being interviewed for one of the local morning shows, even though I'm doubting whether I'll be able to pull it off.

  I skim my hand over my forehead. "Can you still see all those cuts that were on my head?"

  He pushes the empty plate in front of him aside as he leans forward to rest his elbows on the table. "You're beautiful. There's not a mark on your face."

  He's not the best person to ask how I look since he's so biased. When I'd arrived at this Italian restaurant, my hair was drenched, along with most of my body, from the torrential downpour. I had thought about grabbing an umbrella before I left my apartment to stop by the pub to talk to Elliott, but since my hand still isn't as strong as I need it to be, I'd decided that I'd tempt fate and venture into the outdoors with little more than a light sweater and hope. I should have taken the weather forecast more seriously. I guess when they say there's a ninety percent chance of rain, they actually mean it.

  "This is a really important interview." I tap my foot against the tiled floor. "I want to showcase my work."

  "Your work speaks for itself." He shifts his body so his back is now resting against the wooden chair. "I told you that people would love it."

  He had told me that and it's one of the reasons why I'm about to go home to choose more images to frame for the gallery. Mrs. Boudreau called me earlier to tell me that two had been sold just today. As excited as I am to pick up the commission check she has waiting for me, I'm just as thrilled to know that my drawings are now hanging in someone's home or office.

  "I'm still shocked at how well they're selling," I say truthfully as I push the fork in my hand on the edge of a piece of pasta in the bowl in front of me. "I'm going to get more exposure when I do the news piece."

  "Is it just about your drawings?" He picks up the glass of red wine he ordered when he arrived. He's been nursing it slowly throughout our dinner. I finished my glass even before my entrée arrived. My nerves over the interview had craved the taste of it and before I knew it, I was feeling slightly light headed, but no less anxious.

  I cup the fingers of my left hand in my right. "The reporter wants to talk about the night of the accident too."

  "Are you okay with that?"

  I hadn't considered the question until now. When I first had to face my parents after being hit by the police car, I'd been overcome with raw emotion. I understood the gravity of what had happened to me. I know that if the police officer hadn't slowed when he did, that I might have suffered life changing injuries, or worse. I get that.

  Since that night, I've challenged myself to accept that I've been given a second chance. It may not appear that way to the people around me, but I'm stronger now than when I stepped off that curb. I can talk about it. I can recount it and I can honestly tell the reporter that my life has changed since that night.

  "I'm fine with talking about it." I am and I don't want Dane to view me as a wounded bird who has yet to find her wings again. I'm back on track and now that I'm going to therapy, I'm going to be back working at the pub soon. Once that happens I can tuck away all the money I'm making on my drawings into my rainy day fund.

  "Bridget," he says my name slowly before there's a thoughtful pause while he studies my face. "They're bound to ask why you were on the street. It was blocked off that night."

  Everyone is bound to ask that and they have. I've always answered honestly which meant telling my parents, Zoe and even the doctors at the hospital that I was running towards a man I'd been seeing.

  "I wanted to see you," I murmur, begrudgingly admitting that my overwhelming need to embrace him on the street that night had landed me in the ER.

  His eyes drop to his lap and I feel bereft from the lack of a smile. He doesn't say anything at all.

  "Dane?" I tap my right hand against the edge of the table. "What is it?"

  He shakes his head only slightly and if I had blinked in that second, I would have missed the motion. "I feel guilty. It tears me up inside that you got hurt because of me."

  "I got hurt because of me." I extend my right hand across the table. "I'm the one who stepped out onto the street."

  "I've never felt as scared in my life, Bridget, as when I saw that car." He reaches for my hand, pulling it into his. "I just wanted to protect you."

  I glance down at our hands, marveling in the way mine fits so perfectly in his. "We can protect each other. I'll help you and you can help me."

  "Deal," he says quietly as he leans forward to glide his lips over my palm.

  I smile at the sweet gesture even though inside I'm wondering if he's already protecting me from his past and the inevitable consequences it's going to have on our future.

  Chapter 12

  "I took some ribbing at work after the accident." He shakes the rain from the umbrella he'd held over our heads as we walked back to my apartment after dinner.

  I slide my wet sweater off my shoulders before I kick off my flats. "What do you mean?"

  He rests the umbrella's handle against the door of my apartment and then he slips his own shoes off. "The guys at the station tease me about not saving my girlfriend."

  My heart stutters at the mention of the word 'girlfriend' so I labor on, trying to find some words that won't sound like the mottled mess my emotions are right now. "You're not a superhero."

  His hands are around my waist before I can react. "I'm not a superhero? Is that what you just said?"

  I giggle at the playful tone of his deep voice. "You think you are but you're not."

  "I might be." He spins me around quickly. "I would have jumped in front of that car to save you, Bridget."

  I swallow hard from the palpable emotion in his voice. "You tried to help. I saw you running."

  He presses his lips to my forehead. "I wasn't fast enough. I can't outrun a speeding car."

  "That's true but it was a valiant effort," I say through a half-smile.

  He slides his hands down my body to the bottom of the simple blue blouse I'm wearing. "Lift your arms up."

  I do, not just because I love the authoritative bite that sometimes takes over his voice, but because I'm freezing and every inch of my skin is damp. I watch his expression as he unclasps the front of my bra before lowering himself to his knees to rid me of my wet jeans.

  "Your body is so beautiful." He brushes his moist lips across my stomach. "Have I told you how beautiful I think you are?"

  He has. He says those words to me almost every time I see him. I doubt that I'd ever tire of it. It was the first thing he said to me the morning after my accident when he came to my hospital room to see me. I'd cried then, not because the words were so meaningful but because I saw one lone tear in his eye. We've never talked about it, but it's a memory I'll carry with me forever.

  "You tell me all the time." I shiver from the chill in the air.

  He pulls me close. "We can take a hot shower to warm up."

  "I'd like that." I snuggle into his chest, knowing that it's a prelude to the pleasure he's going to give to me later tonight.

  "Come with me." He wraps his arm
over my shoulder as he guides us both down the hallway of my apartment to the bathroom and the warmth that waits.

  ***

  His jaw tightens as he absorbs what I just asked him. He doesn't respond so I repeat the question.

  "I asked if you have a picture of Maisy."

  He ignores me again in favor of pushing his cheek into the pillow next to mine. I'd studied his face in the shower while he washed my hair and carefully soaped my body before rinsing me under the warm water.

  I'd let him brush out my hair while he talked about a fire he had been called to a few days ago in Brooklyn. The excitement in his voice was a window into why he's a fire fighter. His breathing quickened and his cheeks flushed when he told me about the family who had lived in the townhouse and how they had escaped with just the clothing on their backs.

  It's a job that I can't imagine wanting to go to each day. The destruction and inevitable death that he must be witness to has to bear down on a person over time, much the same way being a doctor or police officer does. I couldn't do it. My emotional fortitude would give out under the weight of the dark parts of the job.

  "Do you have a picture of your last boyfriend?" he counters with an underlying anger woven into the tone.

  I'm not about to be bullied by a man who told me, when we were walking back to my apartment, that he was going to fuck me senseless. "No, I don't. I deleted every picture of him."

  "Why don't you ever talk about him?"

  It's a fair tactic but it's not going to deter me from the subject at hand. "He's part of my past. There's nothing left between us."

  I know the words are a veiled jab at the fact that he's still immersed in a legal battle with Maisy. I watched the way his expression shifted from happy to sullen when a text message came in on his phone right when we walked back into my bedroom. It might have been her, or it could have been from someone else, but it shifted his mood in such an abrupt way that he pulled an obvious fake yawn from somewhere within him and told me that he was too tired to make love.

  I'm not asking about her as a means to punish him for denying me pleasure. I'm asking because I'm tired of feeling as though I'm being kept in the dark about an integral part of his past.

  "I don't have a picture of her." He slides his body up so he's resting on his right arm. "I thought you understood about Maisy."

  "Before the accident," I say as I sit up in the bed. "That night… the night of the accident, you said that you were meeting with her to iron things out. That was weeks ago."

  "I was called to work half-way through that meeting." He scrubs his hand over his forehead. "She hasn't been willing to talk to me since."

  "What if she never talks to you?" I ask out of a desperate need to understand. "This could go on for years."

  "Sooner or later I'll have to let it go…" his voice trails. "I'll just have to walk away and lose my house."

  "I don't understand." I swallow hard hoping that it will help me broach a subject I haven't brought up to this point. "I know that in New York State that there are no laws in place in common law relationships. How does Maisy have a claim on your house?"

  "How would you know that?" I can not only hear the defensive tone in his voice, I see it in his face.

  "My friend is studying to be a lawyer," I say quietly even though Zoe wasn't the one who told me about the law. I'd researched it myself online. "We talked about it the other day."

  I stall my breathing waiting for him to launch to his feet but he doesn't. He closes his eyes briefly before he reaches to touch my cheek. "It's a complicated situation, Bridget. I don't love her anymore but I can't throw her out on the street. I just want it to be over so I can move back in and get on with my life."

  It's a gallant statement that fits exactly with who he is. "Do you think she's taking advantage? Is she staying because she hopes you'll give in and go back to her?"

  "It honestly doesn't matter why she's doing it." He drops his hand onto the sheet. "If I have to walk away and give it to her, I will. It's just a house. It's not everything to me."

  With that, he skims his lips over mine, turns over and falls asleep.

  Chapter 13

  "You were amazing, Bridget." Tex Henderson pats me on the back. The man is old enough to be my father and I doubt that he cares an ounce about my drawings, but when the cameras were rolling, he was my biggest supporter. He pointed out the detail in my portraits and he enthusiastically insisted that people come down to the gallery to purchase my work to support an up and coming artist.

  I smile softly as I glance back at my drawings hung on the wall. "When will the segment air?"

  He nods towards the cameraman he brought with him. "It looks like that will happen on Friday. It'll be in the second hour, so around half past eight. I'll text you the exact time so you don't miss it."

  "That would be great."

  He plucks a wayward piece of lint off his grey suit jacket. "I didn't bring it up on camera, but is there any litigation between you and the NYPD?"

  Garrett, Vanessa's fiancé, had asked me about this very subject a few days after my accident. It wasn't that he thought I could pursue a civil lawsuit against the police department or the officer driving the car that hit me. He wanted to explain to me that since I had walked past a barrier and stepped onto a blocked street that I'd be facing years of expensive legal fees if I launched a suit against them. It was never my intention. I know that I was wrong and according to Garrett, I'm lucky that they didn't arrest me for failing to stay behind the police tape.

  "There's nothing like that," I answer honestly. "I'm just grateful that I'm getting better."

  "This has been pretty incredible, hasn't it?" He tips his chin in the direction of my portraits. "You've become an overnight sensation."

  I wouldn't go that far. More than half of the drawings I kept in the box under my bed have sold since the accident, and I'm still hoping to sell more before my story becomes one of the hundreds that becomes forgotten when a new, fresh tale takes its place.

  "Are you working on any new portraits?"

  I glance up at his face as he asks the question. "I'm hoping to start back this week."

  He gazes past me to the door of the gallery where the cameraman just exited. "I have a question but let's keep it between us, okay?"

  I take a half-step back when I realize that we're the only two people left in the space. Mrs. Boudreau had run out under the guise of getting something for lunch when the camera arrived. I can tell, just by the few times I've been in her presence, that unless she's donning full make-up and styled hair, she doesn't want to be within shooting distance of any camera.

  I twist my fingers together as I look towards the door. "What's the question?"

  "Can I commission one of these?" He brushes past me and points at one of the framed images of a woman I drew last year outside a laundromat on the Lower East Side.

  "What do you mean?"

  "My wife is an angel." He taps his hand against his chest. "She's put up with me for thirty years. Can you draw her for me?"

  It's the first time I've ever been asked to capture someone's loved one in my sketchpad. I've always just ventured out of my apartment with an open mind and pencil in hand. I've let my imagination and curiosity guide me. "I've never done that before."

  "Are you willing to? I'll obviously pay you for the trouble."

  I pull on the long silver necklace hanging around my neck, before I adjust the front of the black dress I'm wearing. "I'd be happy to. I'd love to do that for you."

  "I'll call you to set it all up," he says as he takes a measured step towards the door. "You're a special girl, Bridget. I'm glad you pulled through."

  It's too dramatic given the fact that anyone passing me on the street wouldn't know that I'd been hit by a car. "Thank you but I wasn't that seriously injured."

  "My daughter was killed by a drunk driver." He only turns slightly towards me. "She would have been your age."

  There are no words to capture what I
should say to him. "I'm sorry."

  "Don't waste your second chance." He holds his phone in the air. "I'll call you next week to set up a time to talk about the drawing."

  I only nod as I watch him walk out of the door and into the pedestrian traffic on the crowded SoHo sidewalk.

  Chapter 14

  "I thought about the drawing." Harper tentatively touches my wrist. "I've actually been thinking about it since you brought it up."

  That was more than two weeks ago. Since then, I've been back to see her three times and I haven't broached the subject again. I saw the hesitation in her eyes, and even though I know her portrait would be stunning, it's not my place to pester her just to fuel my creative need.

  "Does this hurt?" She pushes on the top of my wrist.

  I shake my head. "No. There's a bit of discomfort but it's not pain."

  Her brow furrows slightly. "Did you follow all the instructions I gave you? Have you been doing those exercises I showed you the last time you were here?"

  I have been doing everything she's told me to do, religiously. I've been mindful of the fact that I can't pick up anything too heavy with my left hand yet so I'm still juggling my purse, my sketchpad and any groceries I pick up on my way home in my right arm. "I've done it all."

  "You're a dream patient, Bridget."

  I smile at the compliment. It's not that I need any reassurance from her that my arm is getting better. I feel it myself. It's not only providing me with a sense of accomplishment, but it's also helping to heal the emotional wounds of that night. I haven't given in to the need I feel to cry. I have yet to do that. Each time I go online and see that image of myself sprawled over the hood of the police car, with my eyes closed, I feel my emotions cresting. I push them back down. It's not because I'm afraid to acknowledge them. I know that I need to. It's more that the picture represents what might have been and I'm grateful for every moment that I now have to pursue my goals.