Besides, he wasn’t totally wrong. If I’m honest, I am playing an angle of my own I suppose. Where at first it was just to keep Vanessa off my back, it’s now turned into something more, something pathetic. I like coming here. I like not being alone all the time and I like being…kissed and cuddled and yup, I’m a loser.
I throw off the blanket and get up. The bottle we were drinking from is still sitting in the middle of the table so I unscrew the top and take a couple of gulps straight from it and then put it back. I’m not a big drinker but there are times when self-medicating just seems necessary. I turn to go back to the couch but my eyes land on the long blinds covering the patio door and without thought, my feet take me over to them. I stand in front of the closed blinds and take a few deep breaths.
My therapist has harped at me about controlled exposure to lessen the impact and reaction to this trauma. Everyone’s asleep, I’m safe and warm here and I know what to expect so I should be okay to take a look. I reach out and pull the strings to make the long vertical blinds slide to one side. I suck in a breath and slowly let it out as I stare out into the storm. Visibility has increased and I can now see almost to the back fence but the snow is still falling. The storm is no longer a whiteout blizzard. I force myself to stay there for a few more minutes and then close the blinds and go back to the couch. The Jack does the trick and my eyes close as sleep takes me.
“No, no daddy, please, please don’t leave me.”
“Come back, come b-back. I’ll be a good girl, I promise!”
“Someone help me!”
“Daddy, oh, daddy.”
“Savy! Savy, wake up!”
“No!” I gasp as I come awake with a jerk and suck back the pleas that want to cry out of my mouth. My chest is heaving and my breathing is jagged as a warm hand gently brushes the hair back from my face. I swipe the tears from my eyes and face and blink rapidly, trying to make out who’s kneeling beside the couch.
“Easy, it’s over. You’re okay. You should have slept with Tate again so he could take care of you like last night.” Ash tells me without any trace of the usual harshness in his tone.
I swallow down the last of the tears. “He, he did? Was taking care of me I mean? I, I didn’t know.”
“After your attack yesterday, we thought having company would help you sleep. We were worried about after effects.”
He leans over me and clicks on the lamp on the end table causing me to squeeze my eyes closed to adjust to the brightness. When the spots finally leave my eyes and I can see him clearly, I swallow hard again for a different reason. He’s not wearing a shirt and there’s a muscular chest covered in black ink inches from my face.
When I force my eyes up to meet his green ones surrounded by thick black lashes, I catch him studying my face and hair that’s in a huge cloud surrounding me. His hand comes up and captures a strand of it and he rubs it between his tattooed fingers.
“Ash, thank you for waking me up and, um, about what I said, before…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
He smooths my hair back into place and I can’t read his expression but I do get a small nod so I look down and my gaze goes to the only spot of color in the map of black tattoos on his chest. I suck a breath in and can’t stop my fingers from reaching out and tracing the blue butterfly hiding under black ivy that looks like a cage directly over his heart. His head drops down to watch my fingers move.
I already know but I have to ask, “What…what does it mean?”
My whispered question breaks the trance he seemed to be in and his eyes go hard. His hand snaps up and knocks my fingers away as he pushes to his feet.
“It means I was drunk and nobody stopped me. Try not to wake me up again.”
I clutch my fingers against my chest like they were burned and hear Ash say something to someone else in the shadows before I hear his feet climb the stairs. Beckett steps into the light and freezes as he too studies me and I realize that none of them have ever seen me with my hair down and glasses off. It makes me feel vulnerable and bare. He moves towards me and bends over to scoop me up, blankets and all. The woman in me swoons a little because I’m not a skinny girl but he doesn’t even lose a breath doing it.
“Come on, Peaches, you can sleep in my room for the rest of the night.”
I want to protest but I remember how good it felt to be held by him earlier and I know this will probably never happen again so I stay silent while he carries me up the stairs like I weigh less than a feather and gently slides me down into his bed. Warm cinnamon fills my nose as his scent surrounds me and I breathe it in deeply. Beckett climbs into the bed, drags me up against his side and lays my head against his hard chest, and then flips the blankets over the both of us. It feels so good when his big hand slides into my hair and he starts rubbing my scalp that I almost purr.
“Will you tell me what happened? Why the snow scares you?”
I sigh against his shirt and my hand comes up to smooth the wrinkles in the soft material. Other than the police and my therapist, I’ve never told anyone about the details of those two days. Something about this man though and the way he holds me, even if it doesn’t really mean anything, and the steady beat of his heart under my ear makes me trust him enough to share some of it.
“There was an accident when I was twelve. My dad, he…he died.”
“Did you have fun at the bookstore, princess? Get everything you wanted?”
I beam a smile at Daddy from the back seat with the bags of books filling the seat beside me. “Yes! I love going there. I could live in a bookstore. I wish Nessa and Celeste had come with us, though.”
I meet his eyes in the rear-view mirror and all I see is love in them. “Me too, princess, but it’s okay. This is our birthday tradition so I’m good with it just being me and my special girl.”
The wipers thunk back and forth to clear the heavy snow that started falling while we were in the huge bookstore that we go to every year on my birthday. I look out the window and see a perfect winter wonderland. I love that my birthday is so close to Christmas because it feels like the whole month of December is special just for me.
“What type of cake do you think Martha made for…Hold on, Savy! Hold on!”
