Skin Like Dawn (12 page)

Damn it.  

She reached into her purse for her phone, and dialed his number.  No answer.  

It sounded as though he had turned his phone off completely.  

A booming defeat lulled in her ears, exacerbating her ache, making her long for him more.  

I could have made this better, she thought to herself, but he’s all gone now.  He’s finally sick of the charade.  

She crawled into bed, allowing a vehement tremble to cover her limbs into full submission of withdrawal.  

She wasn’t entirely sure how and when she’d finally allowed herself to sleep, but she was quickly awakened by a loud thud downstairs.  

She arose quickly, glaring into the darkness around her.  Her head still throbbed from her relentless tears, and she pressed the butt of her palm against her forehead to quell it.  

“Goddamn it!” 

She heard Brandon’s deep, rustic voice as clear as day.  

“Tallie!  Tallie, where are you?” 

He was calling for her!  Her Brandon wanted to see her.  

Sliding out of bed, she dashed down the hallway and appeared at the top of the stairs, flanked in one of his old shirts.  

He stumbled to the base of the steps, hair and clothes disheveled.  He peered up toward her and smiled. 

“There she is,” he sang in a languid slur. “There’s my fucking wife.”

With her brows furrowed, and her eyes narrowed, she murmured, “Brandy…are you drunk?”

“Hmm-hmm, my baby,” he began, crawling up the stairs.  “Do you want a prize for figuring out my secret?”

“Brandon.”

“Hush, baby,” he retorted.  “Haven’t you seen me like this millions of times before?”

“Not since we were still dating.”

“And how long ago was t—that? Feels like just yesterday, doesn’t it, baby?”

“Brandon…”

“I love when you say my name like that, baby,” he replied.  He stood before her at the top of the stairs.  He grabbed at her arms to steady himself. 

“Makes my dick hard.”

“Don’t talk to me that way…”

“Too dirty for you, baby?  Aren’t I your husband?  Shouldn’t I be entitled to speak to you that way?”

“I don’t know who you are right now…”

“You remember when you wouldn’t give it up to me, Tallie?  You remember when you were a good little girl who kept her legs closed to me?”

“Brandon, stop it.” 

He grabbed her face and forced a kiss over her lips.  

“I love you, goddamn it!  I fucking love you!  Why do you do this to me, Natalie?” 

He was yelling.  She’d never heard him so loud.  

“Is it not enough for you, baby?  Am I not enough for you?” 

“Brandon, you’re scaring me.”

“You deserve to be scared.  You deserve to know what it feels like to chase the same fucking person for ten goddamn years!” 

A tear ran down her cheek.  He laughed. 

“Don’t do me any favors…don’t pretend like you give a shit enough to cry.  Ten goddamn years, Natalie Chandler!  I’ve been an open book for you!  I’ve been hopelessly, achingly, madly in love with you!  And you give me nothing!  Fucking nothing of you!” 

“Brandon…”

She tried to reach for him.  He recoiled.

“No,” he sniped.  “Don’t you dare fucking touch me.  Just don’t.”

“I want to make it better…let me make it better…”

“You’ve been lying to me for a month!  A fucking month!  My own fucking wife! My best friend has been lying to me.  How am I supposed to feel about that, Tallie?”

She flinched when his voice cracked.  

She tried to reach for him again.  

“Baby, please,” she murmured.  “Let me make it better.”

She extended a hand, and cupped his jaw, sliding the tips of her fingers across his dry lips.  

“Natalie, I can’t…”

“Shhh…”

“Tallie…”

She pulled his face toward hers and kissed him passionately.  She absorbed the wetness, the smell of him, the vibration of his groan against her lips.

“Let me make it better,” she murmured again.  

Then, she dropped to her knees and reached for his belt buckle.  

An hour later, he lay in their bed naked.  Smiling, she rose from the bed to put all of their strewn clothes into a neat pile for laundry the next day.  

The argument wasn’t over between them; but it would be tomorrow. 

She reached for his jeans, as her heart flickered at the sound of his soft breathing.  She loved to witness his vulnerability when he was a million miles away from her.  

Something hard fell onto her foot.  Reaching down, she picked up his cellular phone, which lit up at her touch.  

She was just about to place his phone on the nightstand, when she accidentally pressed a button and saw the last call he’d made: Sophia Baldwin.  

HER NEXT STEP SEEMED ILLOGICAL, passing in a blur.  She slid into the first pair of shoes she could find, shrugged into a jacket, grabbed her husband’s keys and was out the door and in his car within the next few seconds.

The tears sprung into the corners of her eyes, passing down her cheeks violently, hands trembling to numbness.

Damn him!

The brittle brutality of such an implied gesture on his behalf stung her way more than she would have ever imagined.  A bevy of stored and locked memories came flooding back, with the biting visage of those pixie features and pale green eyes. 

Sophia. 

The name alone, carving away at her brain, left her feeling empty.  The only other woman who’d ever managed to put Brandon David Greene in his place had seemingly been in the distant past, forgotten, stoic, idle.  

Now there she was again, breaking through the barrage that had held her at bay for so long. 

When the sun rose, Brandon would be looking for her again, and she didn’t want to be waiting for him this time, like a fucking fool. 

If Sophia is who he still ached for, then he should have her.  

But Natalie wasn’t thinking like herself, nor was she acting in the same manner.  She loved Brandon.  She fucking loved him.  Nothing felt more complete than him being in her life, inside of her, loving her to pure suffocation.

The tears veiled her vision a little bit, and the car rattled beneath her control.  It fishtailed, headlights shuddering before her, the branches of low-hanging trees smacking into the windshield.  

She pleaded with herself to get it together, but she couldn’t.  She wasn’t recovering fast enough.  Each time her cries hiccupped in her chest, the truck swerved once more, and she fought to gain control again.  

She grasped at her belly again, at her Harper, and silently vowed to get her shit together before it came into their lives.  

Don’t worry, my little baby, your mama will be your mama when you get here…

Then she thought about the audacity of the thing growing inside of her, and the growing distance between her and Brandon, and the idea that he used to make love to Sophia Baldwin the way he made love to her.  And she cried a little harder.

She didn’t see the oncoming, fast-moving headlights…

“Natalie, Natalie, wake up…”

She knew it.  She knew she’d been dreaming.  The whole tragic spat between her and Brandon had been nothing more that her own subconscious telling her that it was best to communicate with her husband.  

Her husband: who cried for her, yelled for her, threw temper tantrums at the thought of the silent distance she constantly created between them.  The sound of his deep voice, hailing above her head made her feel as though all the beautiful things in the world were happening to her all at once, in quick succession, tingling her brown skin, filling her to full, blissful capacity.  The tones of his voice as it called her name made her heart coil and sing an aching tune that only she seemed to understand.  

She’d chosen in that very moment not to be foolish anymore.  

Brandon David Greene wasn’t going anywhere. 

“Tallie, would you get up?” 

She opened her eyes.  She was facing skyward, breeze coddling her cheeks.  The clear blue sky was no match for the look in his eyes.  She allowed herself to get lost in them
for a while. 

“Hmm?” 

She instinctively reached for him, as she’d done hundreds of times before, longing for the same pleasurable outcome: the exuberant proximity of her Brandon.  She was safe with him; she knew nothing of the outside world.  

“We have to go,” he urged.  “Today’s the day…”

“Do we really have to?  What are you talking about?”

“My wedding day,” he replied plainly, reaching for her.  

But they were in their field.  They were alone.  They were them.  What made more sense? 

“What are you talking about, Brandy?  We’re married…” 

“Huh?” 

He glared at her; flushing down her general resolve with his baffled stare.  

“You and I,” she reminded him.  She gathered to her feet.  “We got married, remember?” 

“Have you lost it?  I’m marrying Sophia…remember?  My girlfriend for the past six years or so?”

“But…”

“Sophie told me you had too much to drink last night,” he chuckled.  “But she insisted on making you her maid of honor…”

“What?” 

“Do I need to get you some water?”

“Why are we here then?”

“Where?” 

“In our field?”

“Our field?  We’re in my truck on the way to the store to pick up some stuff.  But we need to hurry though.  Sophia’s going nuts without you…”

“Sophia?”

“Yes,” he replied with growing agitation.  “She’s only been your best friend for some years now.  I promised I’d bring you back in one piece…”

“But…you called me ‘Tallie’…”

He bounced his shoulders with irreverence.  “Yea…she started calling you that a long time ago.  I guess I sort of liked it.” 

“Brandy, seriously, where are we going?” 

He looked at her crossly.  “Brandy…what sort of nickname is that?” 

“The one I’ve been using since I was nineteen years old…”

He chuckled warmly.  She’d always fallen victim to the sound of his poorly hidden nervous laughter. 

“Oh, Natalie…you sure you’re feeling okay?  Let me know now.  Sophia wants you in tip-top shape for this wedding.  She specifically chose you as her Maid of Honor, because if she faints, throws up, or gets too drunk, or gets a heart attack, you’ll be there to provide medical care…”

“I can only do so much,” she replied.  “I dropped out of medical school, remember?” 

“You did?  When?  I’ve seen all of the pictures from your white coat ceremony, your graduation, your acceptance into the residency program.  You know Sophie’s a digital camera fiend.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, don’t be modest,” he replied, tapping the top of her arm gently.  “We give you permission to brag about being a pediatrician, Dr. Chandler…just as long as it’s tastefully done…” 

“I need some air. I think I’m going to be sick.” 

“Don’t worry…we’re almost to the church.”

“The church?  Since when did you want to get married in the church?” 

He bounced his shoulders again.  “Oh, hell, I don’t know.  I sort of love the tradition of it all, you know?  Sophia’s the perfect girl…she deserves the perfect wedding. Anybody that comes between that, I’ll kill ‘em…”

Natalie remained silent, subtly clawing at her throat for air.  It took her several seconds to realize that Brandon was still talking. 

“…I’m going to have to drop you off in the front.  I don’t want Sophia seeing me.”

“I get it,” Natalie replied, feeling the tears buzz to warmth in her cheeks.  “Tradition…” 

Someone was yelling at her, well into the distance.  A loud beating sound followed.  They didn’t know her name.  Only that she was a woman.  The person sounded distressed.  The yelling made her head hurt.  She couldn’t speak.  She saw nothing but a hazy shade of gray. 

“Can you believe it, Tallie?  Can you believe that today’s the day?” 

She stood behind Sophia Christine Baldwin in a quiet room with a large oval mirror.  It was just the two of them, in close proximity.  Natalie wrestled with a bobby pin in Sophia’s perfectly coifed curly up-do, her gilded hair, shining unnaturally.  

She was beautiful.  She smelled of citrus and peppermint, and her skin was perfectly darkened by the sun’s light.  

“No,” Natalie managed to breathe.  She tried a smile, gazing into the reflection, grasping at her own envious resolve at the sight of Sophia’s clear emerald eyes.

“I’m so nervous,” she answered, her sweet southern voice a little shaky. 

“You haven’t a reason to be.”

“Tell me I’m doing the right thing…”

“You’re doing the right thing, Sophie.”

“He really is kind of perfect, isn’t he?” 

“One of the best.”

“Handsome.”

“Very.”

“Sexy.”

“Most definitely.”

“Aggressive.”

“He has no competition in that category.” 

Sophia chuckled and sighed thereafter, adjusting a pendant around her neck.  It was the dragonfly pendant, right there before her, beautiful and unique.  

“I’m promised I’d wear it for him,” she murmured, smiling.  “Can you believe it’s been so long since he gave it to me for my twentieth birthday?” 

Natalie recoiled her impending response, resisting the urge to cry. 

“He’s always been so good to me,” she continued.  “I can be quite difficult to deal with…”