Breaking Skin (17 page)

Emotion tugs at my chest. I had no idea Cole was grappling with something like this, but I was right. He has changed. The man I saw in those videos and photographs is still there, but if I look closely enough, the dents are apparent too, in the slight hesitation of his voice and the way he occasionally lowers his eyes when he speaks. The predator in him has been tempered by one too many battles.

“So, what do you think?” he asks. “Will you see my doctor?”

He is persuasive, and his story has rendered me unable to refuse. I nod my head and the left side of his mouth hitches up.

“Good. How does the knee feel now?”

I carefully straighten my leg and bend it again. “Better.”

He gives me a skeptical look.

“Really.” I push myself up from the chair and stand on it to prove it to him. “See?”

Cole stands too and looks down on me. “I’ll get you an appointment for next week when you’re back in the city.”

“Thanks.” As nervous as I am to see a doctor, it’s nice to have someone care enough to lecture me about it and want to help me. It’s a feeling I’m unaccustomed to.

“Is Renee still coming back this weekend?” he asks.

I nod my head with confidence I don’t feel.

Cole scratches his cheek and glances out the window. “I’m taking Derek camping.”

I smile. “That’s nice.”

He looks at me again. “I mean this weekend. I promised him. We leave in the morning and we’ll be gone until Sunday night.”

“Oh.” My eyes widen but my stomach sinks with understanding. He’s saying good-bye. I won’t see him again before I go home.

“If you want to give me your number, I could text you the information about the appointment.”

“Sure.” Foolishly, I wonder if he wants my number for another reason too.

After he enters it into his phone, he moves toward the door, and a moment of panic makes my heart pound harder because I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again. I’ll be gone when he gets back, and all I can hope for after this is a friendly hello from him when I come to visit Renee. As my thoughts race, he looks fine, like this moment has no undercurrent or significance beyond the obvious.

“Send Langley home, okay?” I ask, trying to appear unaffected the way he does, and not like this good-bye is anything more, because it isn’t. Why would it be?

He nods and pauses in the open doorway. Our eyes hold for a beat, and his gaze feels heavier than it did before. He looks at my lips and my breathing slows.

What’s he thinking? Why isn’t he leaving? It’s as if something is holding him there, and I hope it’s the unwelcome thought of never seeing me again.

Abruptly, he steps back into the kitchen and doesn’t stop until he’s directly in front of me. His hand comes up to cradle my cheek and I hold myself very still, bracing for the feel of his lips, anticipating it, wanting it, but it doesn’t come. His mouth brushes over my forehead instead, and his soft lips linger there.

“Take care of yourself, Nikki.” After he utters those words, his hand falls back to his side. Then he turns and leaves, closing the door softly behind him.

I lean back against the counter for support, disappointed, maybe even crushed. I know there are good reasons why we shouldn’t happen, but I can’t think of a single one right now.

I
force myself to put one foot in front of the other, growing the distance between me and Nikki, but I may as well be walking through mud. She’s the one who got away, and I’m letting her slip away again. I have to let her go for her own sake. She doesn’t need my bullshit, and she doesn’t want it either. Why would she? I’ve been a first-class asshole to her.

I don’t know what the gripe is between her and Renee, but I picked the wrong side, and deep down I knew that from the first moment I saw Nikki again. There’s something dark inside Renee, something that’s missing in Nikki. That kind of darkness would be as foreign to her as the sun is to midnight.

I scan the yard for Langley. Derek’s got her playing goalie now. “Langley! Your aunt says it’s time to go home.”

“Okay!” she calls back. She hands her stick to Derek and waves in my direction as she sprints across the grass.

As she makes her way home, I want to go with her. I want to turn around and tell Nikki I still want her. I want her even more now than I did the first time.

I remember how it felt two years ago when I lost the battle with myself and finally admitted I needed to see her again. It was more of a compulsion than a decision, and once I gave in to it, I was euphoric. I couldn’t wait to touch her, hold her, sink inside her. But it was too late, and I wasn’t surprised. My life was a series of disappointments then. If felt as if I’d fallen into a pit and the harder I tried to climb out, the deeper I sank.

But things are different now. Slowly, I’ve managed to pull myself out of that place, even though it keeps trying to drag me back down.

How long will it take to stop thinking about Nikki this time? I almost wish I could forget that night with her two years ago so the memory would stop following me into every other woman’s bed. But those aren’t the types of things I forget. It’s the small stuff I lose, insignificant things, not the pivotal moments. Not yet, thank God.

As the sun sets, the game breaks up. The neighborhood kids head home and the parents say good-bye. Except for Tara, who has been coming on to me all afternoon. Her son is Derek’s age, and he’s still here helping Derek put away the hockey gear.

“Thanks for having us,” Tara says. Her hand brushes over my arm as she talks.

With her Lycra-covered curves, I’d be lying if I said she wasn’t hot. But I can’t get big brown eyes and long dark hair out of my mind.

“Do you let Derek play with the Taylor girl often?” she asks.

“You mean Langley? Sure. They hang out sometimes.” I bend down to pick up some plastic cups the kids left lying on the grass.

“You’ve heard about the family, haven’t you?”

I straighten. “Heard what?”

She looks around and leans in closer. “There are rumors about who the girl’s father is.” She pauses for effect. “Rumors of incest.”

My thoughts screech to a halt. “What?”

Tara nods gravely.

I knew there were rumors circulating about Renee, but I never tuned into them. I figured they were the usual small-town bullshit, nothing like this.

Tara puts a hand to her chest. “Normally I would never repeat gossip, but if your son is associating with that family, I thought you should know.”

She’s lying through her teeth. I can tell by the spark in her eyes that she’s dying to gossip, and I don’t stop her. Not because I’m interested in gossip, but because I want to protect Langley from whatever it is.

Tara lowers her head and moves in closer. “They say the father sexually abused the two girls and that the older one’s daughter is his. She was only seventeen when she got pregnant, and she would never say who the father was.”

I grimace at the rumor and at the way Tara relishes telling it. “You’re spreading these lies? Langley is only eight years old, for Christ’s sake.”

She gives me a measured look. “I didn’t start the rumors, and how do you know they’re lies?”

It takes all my self-control not to shout at her. “I don’t know what the hell they are, but you need to stop saying shit like that and pretending you’re doing it as a public service to the community. We both know
that’s
a lie.”

Tara’s eyes widen. “Excuse me?”

I take a breath to keep control of my temper. “The Taylors are friends of ours and that’s not going to change. Anyone who spreads nasty rumors about them is not welcome at my home.

She rears her head back, insulted. Her eyes narrow and spark with anger as she calls her son over. Tara never looks my way again before she leaves.

“Good riddance,” I mutter under my breath.

“What was that about?”

I turn to see Lily walk down the steps from the deck. Derek runs by her on his way inside and tosses out a quick hello.

“What are you doing here?”

She puts a hand on her hip. “Nice to see you too. I told you I would come by to pick up those bags of clothes for the clothing drive.”

Clothing drive?
I rack my brain, sift through the cobwebs, but come up empty.

“You forgot,” she says softly. “It’s my fault. I meant to put it on your calendar.”

“It’s not your fault.” A familiar sense of frustration comes over me.

“I’m sorry, Cole.”

Great. Now she’s apologizing because
I
forgot. “I told you it’s not your fault.”

Lily tilts her head and looks at me for a long time. “What is it? You were upset before I even mentioned the clothes.”

Tara’s malicious gossip still rings in my ears. Langley a product of incest? Does Renee realize this is what people are saying? Just the thought of Langley overhearing this somewhere makes me sick.

“Cole?” Lily’s hand is on my arm.

“It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

“Is it Langley’s aunt? The one who came to dinner the other night?”

I eye her sharply. “Why would you say that?”

“Because you weren’t yourself that night either. You were rude to her, and that’s not like you.”

I sigh and rub my forehead.

“Do you have a headache coming on?” Her expression creases with concern. “You have too much stress in your life, Cole.”

Her mothering grates on me, but I know her intentions are good. She’s right about the headache. The pain started in my temples a few hours ago and now it’s radiating down my neck.

“Do you have your medicine?” she asks.

“It’s inside.”

“Go take it. Before the pain gets any worse. Do you need me to watch Derek for the night? I could bring him home with me.”

“No. I don’t want to miss any of my time with him.”

I only have Derek for two weeks. There’s no way a headache is going to take one of those nights away. I start for the house, then something makes me stop and turn back.

“Remember the day Celeste served me with divorce papers? I told you I went out that night and met someone.”

She shrugs a shoulder. “You picked up a girl in a bar. I remember.”

“She wasn’t just a girl.”

Lily shakes her head and laughs softly. “That’s right. You said she was an angel or something. I figured you’d had a few drinks by then.”

“It was Nikki I met that night. Renee’s sister.”

Lily stares at me. “Nikki?”

I nod.

“Wow. That’s quite a coincidence. She’s the angel you were talking about?”

“Stop saying it like it’s ridiculous.”

Her lips press together. “Sorry. I never said it was ridiculous. But if she’s your angel, why were you so rude to her?”

“It’s complicated.” I exhale in frustration.

“What’s complicated about it?”

I give her a hard look because her skeptical tone doesn’t exactly invite an explanation, but she must see something in my expression that hints at what I’m feeling.

“You’re interested in her.” Lily’s mouth forms a straight line and her eyes fill with worry. “Oh, Cole. She’s so young.”

“It doesn’t matter how I feel since I’m not going to do anything about it.” I turn for the house.

She says my name again but my back is already to her, and the pity in her voice doesn’t make me want to turn around. Lily knows what I know. When I want something, I go after it, and I don’t stop until I get it. I’ve been that way my whole life.

But not this time. This time I have to be selfless enough to let go of what I want. I just don’t know how I’m going to do that.

“C
an I lick the spoon?” Langley asks with lips already lined in chocolate.

“Sure, sweetie.”

She grins and runs her tongue through the thick coating of batter on the wooden spoon.

“Will Mom be home soon?” she asks as she smacks her lips together.

It’s the third or fourth time she’s asked that question in the past two days. She knows Renee said a week and that this weekend marks the end of that time. But there’s still no word from her and no sign of her either. I’ve left more texts and messages, but she remains silent.

As I smile at Langley, I work hard to hide my concern.

A quick glance at the clock tells me it’s after eight. The last bus leaves for San Francisco at nine and I won’t be on it. Each time my anger at Renee flares, it’s tempered by guilt. If she’s staying away on purpose, I’m furious. If she hasn’t come home because she’s hurt or something happened to her, I’m terrified and guilt-ridden for being so angry.