Beaten Paths, page 6
Sarah wanted to hide her fear. She wanted to mask her insecurity. Despite whether or not she felt strong, she needed people to continue to believe she was. I felt that in my soul. And then I realized, it wasn’t just the weakness she hoped to shadow; it was the disfigurement. Her fingers hovered over the black thread of stitches where her head had been shaved for surgery, and she held her head at just the right angle to camouflage the scars on the other side.
My hand twitched. Before I even realized what I was doing, I reached out to touch her cheeks. But when she’d flinched, I rested it against her knee instead.
“Please, don’t look at me, Charlie.” It hadn’t been an admission exactly, but the sentiment was still the same.
I hadn’t been prepared for it, and I tried not to show her just how taken aback I was by her request. “Okay.” I didn’t want to push the issue, but I didn’t want her to believe I agreed with her. “I don’t have to look at you if you don’t want me to. But for the record, I would like to.” There was no chance I’d ever be accused of being smooth around Sarah Adams. This version of me was worse than the pre-puberty one.
She huffed out a hard laugh under her breath. It was fast and barely audible and clearly not born from humor.
“I’m not exactly at my best.” Her words wavered with her insecurity, and they shook just like her spine did when she inhaled deeply. She licked her lips and then lifted her bright eyes to meet mine—like she dared me to see her flaws. “There’s nothing redeemable about my face, anymore.” She straightened her spine as if to brace herself for whatever harsh criticism she thought I might impart on her, and her words were strangled as her throat tightened.
I was so far out of my element that I didn’t have a clue what to say, but I knew I wanted to keep her talking…about anything. “Is that why you’re crying?” I asked. “Are you afraid someone might react to your face?” That hadn’t come out as eloquently from my mouth as I had meant it in my head.
She shook her head. “It isn’t just that. It is, to an extent. But,” she sighed, “every day is harder than the last. Nothing gets any easier, and every time I think I’m making progress, I realize that I’ve gone an inch in an endless stretch of miles. I’m trying to stay positive. I want to be thankful that I survived and have the chance to recover. But today—heck, every day—is hard. So hard. And what’s the point? The physical therapists’ intentions are better than their capability. They aren’t God, and they can’t perform miracles.”
I nodded and kept listening.
“I’m at the end of my rope, and I think I need to accept that I’ll probably never walk again.” She dropped her into her hands, careful to avoid the stitches and the abrasions. “I’m drained. I don’t have any more fight in me. I know that sounds like the biggest crock of bull you’ve ever heard, but…” Sarah stopped shaking her head long enough for me to really take her in—it wasn’t nearly as bad as she thought.
My heart melted. I wanted to reassure her, but I kept my distance. My hand remained on her knee, and I found myself stroking her soft skin with my thumb. The desire to pull her to me nearly overtook my willpower. God, I wanted to protect her like a runt calf, but I didn’t know this girl from Adam. And thus, I remained still.
“You wouldn’t understand,” she whispered. “No one does. Everyone keeps telling me that I’m lucky to be alive. And I know I am. No one is more aware of that fact than me. And when it first happened, that support was almost suffocating. But the world kept spinning for everyone outside these walls. The clouds rolled away, and the threat of my dying passed. People went on with their lives. They stopped panicking. But when the dust settled, it was just me.”
I squeezed her knee, and she stopped talking long enough to give me a meager smile that hurt me more than it helped. But I didn’t let her go, and I didn’t stop caressing her skin. She might not realize how much warmth and life she still had in her, but I could feel it in the pads of my fingers.
“Other than Daddy, it’s just me, the physical therapists, and countless doctors who won’t remember my name the day I’m discharged. All I’m left with is the grueling exercise that isn’t producing results. I hope you never know what it’s like.”
I wondered if anyone else had given Sarah the chance to vent, or if they expected the same woman in here that she had been on the outside. I didn’t know her well, but our families were intertwined. I knew how much she did for Jack and that she took care of Miranda after their mama left. She needed someone to take care of her for a change, and it didn’t seem she had that. So, I just let her talk and tried to commit every word she uttered to memory.
“All the medication zaps my energy and makes me foggy, but without the pain meds, there’s no way I can do the physical therapy. It hurts. All of it hurts so much.” A tear slid down her cheek, but she didn’t collapse. “What if I never walk again? What if this is the best any of this will ever get? I haven’t managed a single step. Not one. I’m just ready to throw in the towel.” And with that, she finally stopped. Her shoulders rounded, the tears streamed, and she appeared utterly defeated.
For a moment, my heart refused to beat, and I just stared at her. The absolute hopelessness created a fissure in my chest that cracked open. I ached for the woman in front of me, so much so that I reacted instead of thinking. My hands found her face, and I cupped her jaw without touching any injuries. My thumbs brushed away the tears she couldn’t stop, and I couldn’t have torn my eyes away from hers if I’d had to.
“Hey,” I said. “Listen to me.”
She didn’t say anything. But she didn’t look away, either. Her eyes held mine like she could see through them and into the very essence of me, deeper than anyone else had dared look.
“You can’t give up, Sarah.”
Her expression softened, but it changed, too. I couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but if she weren’t riddled with pain, I’d guess it was a hint of elation. I hadn’t said anything earthshattering. Hell, I hadn’t even said anything poetic. I started to pull away, but before my touch left her skin, she lifted her hand. Her braced and bandaged fingers rested on top of mine, and she leaned into my palm.
Her eyes smiled, but the tears came faster than they had since I’d walked in the door, and the salty brine seeped under my hands, captured against her cheeks. “What?”
I’d never heard someone sound so panicked in one word—much less myself. “What did I do?” My erratic heart had started beating again, and now my racing pulse was the only thing I could hear. I didn’t have a clue what I’d said to upset her, but whatever it was, I’d move mountains to fix it.
She hiccupped in what had to be the cutest display of vulnerability I’d ever witnessed. “It’s just…” Her blue eyes sparkled with the first glimpse of hope I’d seen since I stepped into her room. “I didn’t even think you knew my name.”
My lips turned up in a grin I couldn’t resist. Despite the stitches and the scabs, the scars and broken bones, she was the most adorable thing I’d ever seen. Every fiber of my being wanted to pull her in close, to hug her, hold her. But for the first time in my life, I was afraid to touch a woman for fear of hurting her body and my open heart, so I just held her face in my hands.
I planned to stay there as long as she’d let me. Over the conversation that followed, I determined that there were several things about Sarah that I hadn’t realize before. First and foremost, she was beautiful. And it was so blatant and obvious that I wondered how I’d never noticed it before. Of course, she had those big, beautiful, doe-like blue eyes that were like pieces of the sky. But there was so much more to it than that. The scars and the bruises, the stitches and casts—they all faded away the longer we sat and talked. Her heart-shaped face came to a point at her cute little chin, and her dirty-blond hair had streaks of sunshine running through it. It was the way she crinkled her nose, the way her mouth moved when she tried not to smile and even worse when she actually parted her lips into a full-blown grin. Christ, she had sensuous lips…as pink as summer flowers and probably just as soft.
Sarah Adams was gentle at her core. And somehow, I’d managed to miss all of that for twenty-four years.
“Knock, knock.” One of the nurses peeked her head in Sarah’s door. “I hate to interrupt, but we need to take you for a scan.”
I glanced at the nurse and then back to Sarah. I hated to leave, but I had work to do, and so did she. “I’ll get out of your hair.”
“It was good to see you.” Her tone was fragile as if my response to that statement might somehow break her, and my heart leaped at the notion that I might hold that significance in her life unknowingly. “Daddy should be back soon if you want to stick around. But I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
I rubbed the back of my neck and ducked my head. “Oh, yeah. Well, I’ll catch him eventually. I know he’ll want to talk to you more than he’d like to talk to me.” I smiled sheepishly. “But tell him I stopped by. I’ll catch you both later, yeah?” I was already backing out the door too fast; I was going to trip or something on my way out.
A totally graceless exit.
5
Sarah
That moment—time with Charlie—stayed with me long after he had left. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. The way he had touched my face, how his gaze almost caressed my soul, and when he parted his lips and my name flowed past—I didn’t even realize he knew my name.
He’d been under no obligation to stay. I wasn’t delusional enough to believe he’d been there for me in the first place. Heck, he’d flat out asked for Daddy, but he hadn’t left. Charlie Burin had seen me at my lowest, yet instead of turning up his nose in disgust at my injuries and the aftermath of what the accident had left behind, he’d been tender, gentle, kind. It was a side of Charlie I didn’t know existed, and I fell that much harder for the boy whose heart I’d never win. Either way, it had been enough to carry my spirits through the rest of the day, and I woke up today filled with more hope than I’d had since I came out of the coma.
And then, there he was. He appeared early in the morning with two cups of coffee in his hands, fresh from the cafeteria. The smile that spread across my face was almost embarrassing, but there was just something about Charlie Burin that had always pulled me in, enticed me. Before yesterday, I’d believed it was simply his good looks, incredible body, and Southern charm, but now, it was so much more.
“Is one of those for Daddy?” I teased, hoping he hadn’t come to find my father.
He chuckled and shook his head, his sandy brown hair falling into his soft brown eyes. “No, one of these is for you.” He extended it to me. “I didn’t know how you took it—but I took a stab in the dark and went with black. I can go back down if you want cream and sugar.”
“Black is perfect.” I was thrilled that he had guessed correctly. I wasn’t one of those twelve-creams-and-six-sugars types. I accepted the coffee, nearly dropping it when my hands wouldn’t wrap around the cup normally. As I tried to make an accommodation for that malfunction, the immobilizer on my back kept me from reacting quickly.
Charlie didn’t miss a beat when he reached out to steady my grasp until I had control of the drink. The cup heated my palms while the simplicity of his action warmed my heart. I knew he wasn’t here for me, but the fact that he was here kind of made all of this a bit more bearable. His Mama would be proud.
I didn’t know what to say when Charlie didn’t make himself comfortable. I mean, it was a hospital; there weren’t a lot of options for lounging around. I’d give him the bed in favor of being discharged any day, but I didn’t think that was going to happen anytime soon, either.
I brought my gaze back to his and peered at him through my lashes as I blew on my coffee. “Daddy stopped by last night and said he was sorry he missed you. He swore up and down that he’d catch up to you.” I pursed my lips and made a face that caused him to grin. “Of course, I guess by your being here that I can assume that hasn’t happened.” I felt bad. I knew Charlie needed my dad’s attention to keep Cross Acres running, and our ranch wasn’t even his responsibility.
“Not yet, but he’s busy. I get it.” Charlie took a seat in a chair beside my bed and blew the steam away from the surface of his cup. “I’ll pin him down eventually. But I didn’t come here looking for Jack.”
I lifted my brows in surprise, and I tried to keep my eyes from going as wide as my brows had high.
Charlie didn’t miss my shock. He took a sip of his drink, swallowed, and then held his cup on the armrest of the chair—cool as a cucumber and casual as could be. “I came to see you.” He was smooth and experienced. Charlie Burin was a practiced flirt, while I, on the other hand, was a novice at best.
Heat rose in my cheeks, which meant a pink blush did as well. And then the vein in my neck began to throb as my heart rate increased at the thought of Charlie Burin driving from Mason Belle to Laredo to check on me. “Oh.”
He had game that I didn’t know was possible to play. Watching him eye me with confidence almost made me uncomfortable until the right side of his mouth lifted into a sexy smirk. Charlie ran his hand through his overgrown hair and responded like he hadn’t just rocked my world. “Yeah.”
That was it? I needed way more than one word to carry on a conversation, especially when that one word had not only rendered me stupid but speechless as well.
“I wanted to check on you. You looked pretty bad yesterday.”
Insert needle, pop balloon. “Oh.” And that one word said more than his “yeah” had implied.
Charlie’s smile wavered at my deflated tone, and he realized what he’d said.
He leaned forward and wrapped his fingers around mine, and when I winced, he dropped them as quickly as he’d sat up. “Shit, Sarah.” He stared at my hand like it was on fire and he didn’t know how to extinguish the flames. And then when he made eye contact with me, he stumbled even more. “That came out wrong.” He ran a hand down his face before his shoulders sagged, and he gave me the most innocent look I thought I’d ever seen from Charlie Burin. “I meant I thought you could use some company. Damn. Did I hurt your hand?”
I shook my head and remembered his hands on my jaw, and the temperature in my cheeks rose as I drank from my cup and imagined all the things I wanted those calloused fingers to do to me. I wanted to talk about it—to find out if yesterday meant anything or if it was just a sympathy visit—but I also desperately wanted to stuff down the feelings. Drowning that emotion would cause me far less pain than addressing it. Charlie Burin had made it painfully clear throughout high school that I was not the type of girl he took an interest in, and that likely hadn’t changed eight years after graduation. I settled on focusing on my expression, stilling it. The less emotion I showed, the safer my heart would be.
Unlike Charlie, I had no experience with any of this. I didn’t know if he was flirting or if I was reading his signals wrong. I had never dated. I’d spent my high school years raising my sister after Mama had up and run away. Between that, school, church, and my community obligations, I didn’t catch boys’ eyes. And at twenty-four-years old, never having been on a single date, I was more like the town spinster. Men didn’t look twice at me unless they needed something, and it was never my company.
“Do you have physical therapy today?” He kept his tone light, conversational. Charlie didn’t seem to sense my discomfort or chose to ignore it.
I felt a little defeated just by the thought. “Yeah. There are a couple of different people that come in every day.” I’d been shocked by how fast the physical therapists started showing up. “They don’t want me to get comfortable doing nothing.” I giggled, but my chuckle was more of a nervous laugh than brought on by anything funny. “They work my arms, legs, my back—although that’s a tough one with the spinal cord injury.” I thumbed over my shoulder as if Charlie didn’t know where my spine was located and immediately felt stupid.
“Doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, but I’m sure the faster they get you moving, the sooner you’ll be up and walking. Right?”
The sigh escaped before I could stop it, and my eyes filled with the same stupid tears he’d witnessed yesterday.
As soon as the first one slid down my cheek, Charlie raced to find a safe place to set his coffee and moved to sit next to me on the bed. He used his thumb to swipe under my lashes gently. “What’d I say?” He searched my eyes, clearly confused. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. Shit.” His strong hand lingered on my jaw, and I leaned into his touch, selfishly soaking up his attention. “Talk to me, please.” Charlie had never been this flustered in any situation I’d been privy to.
I took a deep breath and readied myself to admit my truth out loud for the first time. Once these words passed my lips, I couldn’t retract them, and I feared it would make them true. “There’s no guarantee, regardless of how many hours of excruciating therapy I endure, that I’ll ever walk again.”
He huffed, and a smile replaced the frown on his lips. The muscles in his tanned forearms pulled tight, and I wanted to trace the vein that bulged as he moved. His hand slid from my jaw to the nape of my neck; then he held my stare for one beat longer than was comfortable and leaned in to kiss my forehead. And when he pulled back, there was something—an emotion I’d never seen—glimmering in his chocolate eyes. “But there’s no guarantee you won’t, either.”
I wondered what the nurses had given me in my prescription cocktail this morning. I had to be hallucinating because Charlie’s Burins lips just touched my body, and it wasn’t due to a dare or a drinking game gone wrong. Yet, when I blinked, he was still there, and the coffee on his breath tickled my nose he was so close.
This had to be a dream. Not even Daddy had pretended to be optimistic. He played the role of the realist, following the doctors’ and nurses’ lead on expectations. He hadn’t discouraged me, but he hadn’t signed me up to run a marathon, either. Charlie was the first person who’d foolheartedly believed in me.
