Chapter 45
forty-five
PRESENT DAY
brANDON
My pencil skates thin lines across the back of one of Mom’s forms. The scenescape of the ocean by Marisol Bay begins to take shape, a black and white horizon that does little to distract me from the beeping monitor looming over Mom’s head.
I wish I had the leather-bound sketchbook Kate gifted me in the airport.
Flipping through sunny memories topped with bunny ears might have loosened the panic knotting itself in my gut.
I flick the pencil in thin, wavy strokes, trying to capture the way ocean water moves, but the beeping monitor pulls my focus again.
Shouldn’t she be fully awake by now? All I’ve gotten in the past few hours is a few eyelid flutters and a cracked-lip smile before the drugs pull her under again.
I scan the thick cast covering Mom’s left leg for the hundredth time. It’s bulky, and I try not to think of the shattered fragments and pins and screws beneath it.
The pallor of mom’s face beneath her tan skin worries me. Scattered cuts litter her left cheek and forehead, and a gnarly bruise shadows her jaw.
Is her face a shade paler than ten minutes ago? Or do the fluorescent hospital lights make everyone look like they’re on the brink of death? I curse, dragging a hand across my stinging eyes.
The nurses gave me no information on Mom’s blood alcohol level. Surely they’ve already checked that kind of stuff. I can’t help but brace myself anytime footsteps pass by the door. Surely an officer would have been here by now, wouldn’t they?
My fingers begin to tremble around the stray pencil, drawing crooked lines across Marisol Bay.
“Hey.”
My focus snaps toward the parched voice coming from Mom’s pillow.
Her cracked lips thin into a smile, but it seems more lucid now. I watch awareness grow in her shadowed eyes as she takes in millimeter by millimeter of the room.
Her cast. The monitors. Me.
“What happened?” she whispers.
“You were in a car accident. Got t-boned on Stafford Avenue.” I grip her hand as firmly as I dare, as if I can distract her from whatever horrified scenes are flashing behind her stare.
“I remember.” She winces, shifting her left leg as if living the memory. A whimper of pain escapes her, and I fly to my feet.
“Don’t move,” I say, hovering and helpless.
“There was a bright light, but then everything went dark.”
“The first responders said your body passed out to protect itself,” I murmur, brushing her hair away from her forehead.
“Sally.” Mom says this name as her eyes grow wide. “I was leaving Sally’s house.”
I scrunch my brows. “Sally?”
Mom levels me with a look far too irritated for someone lying in a hospital bed.
“Yes. Sally. My AA sponsor. I must have told you about her fifteen times.”
My hammering heart skips a beat. “You were at your sponsor’s house?”
“Yeah. I’ve been sleeping there. I’ve needed more…support. Only her guest bed sucks.” She lays deeper against her pillows, eyes fluttering closed. “It’s just, I couldn’t sleep on that mattress for another night. I decided to drive home, but then…”
She falls silent, and I’m not sure if the cocktail of pharmaceuticals is stealing her away again. Soon, her chest rises and falls in an even rhythm, and I confine myself back to my chair. I stare at her deeply creased laugh lines like they are the only evidence of the life this woman has lived.
Of the life she’ll continue to live.
Relief shakes my body in tremors, tears coursing over my stubbled cheeks. She’s alive. She’s sober. And she’s fighting like crazy for both. Admiration heats my thumping chest, and every emotion I could ever feel plays a game of musical chairs.
“I should have told you.” Another cracked whisper emerges from her pillowcase.
“Told me what, Mom?” I wipe my face with the back of my hand, leaning closer.
“It’s my biggest regret,” she mumbles as if she didn’t hear me. “When those lights flashed…my only regret is not telling you who your father was.”
My eyes grow even as hers flutter closed.
“Mom, shhh… We don’t need to—”
“He wasn’t a good man. I was scared…” Her whimper makes my blood boil. “Wanted to keep you safe. So when he left, I let him. Wanted to erase everything. Everything but you.”
I glance up, surprised to see a small smile.
“You were the angel I needed, Brandon. I know I haven’t been perfect, but you…” She squeezes my hand, but I barely feel it. “You’re so forgiving. So loving. So very unlike him.”
I cast my eyes to the floor, but her squeeze becomes firmer. Insistent that I look at her.
“You deserve to know where you came from.”
“Mom, don’t.” I raise a finger toward her open mouth. “Don’t tell me.”
I’m not sure why I say it. Why I’m so opposed to hearing about the man that I’ve wondered about since I could remember. The one that I knew, just knew, would come back the second I was more like Tuck. More athletic. More worthy.
But then my gaze swings to the cracked hospital door, toward the waiting room beyond, and tears burn my eyes.
They are my family, blood be damned. Eric Sanderson is the only father I’ll ever need, not some lowlife trash that terrified my mother. My fists clench just thinking about the types of men Mom used to date.
He was one of those.
Fierce admiration for the warrior lying in front of me streams in rivulets off my jaw. She gave me as much as she could. Her taste in men sucks as bad as Sally’s mattress, but she’s never stopped fighting to give me the life I deserved.
“I’m proud of you,” she croaks, feebly rubbing my hand even as an IV juts out of hers. “Of the man you’ve become. So many people love you. You’ve found a family, Brandon. And because of that, so have I.”
A brisk knock on the door has me sitting straighter and wiping the back of my hand across my eyes. A thick nurse with creamy skin and a gleaming smile bustles in once she sees that Mom is awake.
“How we doin’, darlin’?” She steps over to a computer monitor, scanning her lanyard badge and scrolling a mouse. “Seems we got ya on some real good pain meds.”
Mom nods as I rub the back of her hand.
“Good thing too,” the nurse laughs. “Your daughter-in-law is all but threatnin’ us if we don’t take care of ya properly.”
Mom’s eyes cut to me with a quizzical stare, suddenly more lucid.
“What?”
“That pretty lil’ thing in the waiting room.
” The nurse waves a mindless hand as she begins to wrap a blood pressure cuff around Mom’s arm.
She throws me a wink. “Spicy spitfire you got there. Good thing she finally fell asleep on one of them chairs after your other friends left to get to work on time.”
A stunned laugh escapes on my breath. Kate is still here? According to the pink filtering through the hospital window, it’s gotta be almost six in the morning.
Mom’s eyes are huge. “Brandon Jonathan Roberts, you got married and didn’t tell me?!”
I shush Mom with a tired chuckle, not sure how to explain. “No. That’s just Kate being Kate. She’s now my fake wife, apparently.”
“What? Kate’s here?” she asks. “Why?”
“I’m not sure. Not sure about a lot of things.” I circle my fists against my sleepless eyes.
“Okay?” Mom sounds confused, but another wave of relief soothes my soul. Mom’s here. She’s alive and discussing girls with me from a hospital bed, of all things.
I sigh. “Not sure if the nest I made for her is gonna last, I guess.”
After the nurse removes the blood pressure cuff and replaces the saline drip bag before leaving, a tinge of mischief tilts Mom’s smile.
“If someone like Kate”—she points to the door—“is willing to stick it out for some fake mother-in-law she’s never met, willing to stay for you, well…that might just be a nest worth keeping.”
I meet her gaze, and she gives a subtle lift of her chin toward the door.
“Go take that poor girl home. Regardless of what you decide, tell my favorite daughter-in-law thanks.”
I laugh. “She’s your only daughter-in-law, and not even that.”
“Don’t sass me. Can’t you see I’m lying in a hospital bed?”
My chuckle brushes the top of Mom’s head as I kiss her goodbye. Mom nestles further into the pillows and closes her eyes. I try to keep my footsteps quiet as I depart, but Mom’s voice stops me.
“Sneak me in a candy bar when you come back? Hospital food sucks too.”
“Got it,” I snort. “Now go to sleep.”
I’m pretty sure Mom is out by the time I reach for the handle.
The waiting room is empty other than a small Armenian family in the corner and a sleeping Kate.
The children scamper about, much to the mother’s dismay.
But the noise isn’t enough to wake the beautiful woman sprawled across the loveseat Tuck and Julia must have vacated before they had to leave for work.
Her pretty lips stay parted slightly as she lies beneath my leather jacket.
The nurse-provided blanket she shared with me is balled up beneath her head.
My heart squeezes in my chest.
She looks so tired. So very alone.
But she stayed so I wouldn’t be.
The sun lifts on the horizon, and I have every inclination to sink beside Kate on this loveseat, wrap her in my arms, and sleep until next week.
But we need to talk.
Guilt rises in my stomach as I interrupt what little sleep she has had in the last twenty-four hours.
“Kate,” I whisper, giving her shoulder a tiny nudge. Her dark lashes flutter before flying open. She bolts to a sitting position, gripping my hand.
“Is she okay? Did something happen?”
An exhausted corner of my mouth hitches up, and I can’t resist her any longer.
I heave myself down onto the loveseat, take her by the waist, and pull her onto my lap. Knees draped over the seat beside us, Kate rests her head against my chest.
“You didn’t answer me,” she mumbles against my black tank.
I stroke her long hair down her back. “She’s fine. I mean, she’s physically demolished, but emotionally…” I blink hard, recalling the resilience I witnessed in that hospital bed. “She’s stronger than ever.”
“She wasn’t drinking?”
I shake my head. “No. She was driving home from her sponsor’s house because she couldn’t sleep and was hit.”
Relief sags Kate’s body against mine, but then I realize she’s crying.
“Kate.” I try to pull back, but she burrows in tighter.
“I was so worried,” she chokes. “About her, about you… I wasn’t there for you last time this happened. I wanted to… This time, I wanted…” She hides her face against my chest.
“Shhh…” I resume my stroking pattern down her long hair until her body stops trembling. “I know. And I’m grateful you’re here, Kate. It means more than you realize.”
Her breathing steadies beneath my palm, but she keeps her face tucked away.
“I love you, you know,” she whispers against me.
I grow roots at the words whispered in such close proximity to my heart. They crash down through the floor, weaving and knotting themselves until I’m cemented in place with this woman in my arms. It’s an unbelievable feeling. There’s such power, such commitment in those words.
Ever so gently, I lift Kate’s head away from my chest, uncovering her beauty until it’s staring me in the face. Her full lips quiver, but she doesn’t look away.
She’s bold. She’s unafraid. She’s stunning.
I take her by the chin.
“I want you to look me in the eyes when you tell me you love me,” I say.
Her mouth quirks, but her gaze stays chained to mine.
“I love you, Brandon. I love you when you infuriate me, I love you when you tease me, and I love you when you make me feel like I can conquer anything. I made the mistake of letting insecurity drive me away before, but I’m over it.
I’m not perfect, but you’re it for me. I choose you, Brandon. I’m not going anywhere.”
Moisture lines my stare, but the beat in my chest is deafening.
I shouldn’t believe her. Shouldn’t trust that a love like Kate’s will last. Shouldn’t feel worthy of that.
Only, I do.
I believe it. It sings from every fiber, every cell of my being. I deserve goodness in my life. I deserve the Sanderson life. I am worthy of a love like Kate’s.
I crush my mouth to hers with a searing promise. With every press of my lips, I mold another scene of our future together. Lazy Saturday mornings. Blisteringly passionate nights. A household so full of love and dark-haired, sticky children that we will never be bored a day in our lives.
Kate is breathless by the time I break the kiss. Her strawberry lips are swollen, her expression dazed.
A tiny smirk teases the corner of my mouth.
“In case you didn’t get that,” I say, sweeping a long strand of hair back and tucking it behind her flushed cheeks, “that means I love you too, Kate.”
Her expression is nothing short of rapture. A glow of a woman loved.
I drag whispering kisses across every inch of her face, her forehead, her eyelids, the corner of that sassy mouth of hers. The words I utter as I go are meant for her ears only.
Declarations of love. Vows of adoration for years to come.
Kate trembles beneath the weight of my affection. Her hands cling to my shoulders, my pecs, my waist. I’m never letting this woman walk away again, and I’m going to kiss her senseless until she knows it.
The sound of chuckling wafts from the nurse’s station, and I turn to find the cream-skinned woman from Mom’s room surrounded by other amused staff. One man gives a wolf-whistle, and Mom’s nurse calls, “Go get a room, you newlyweds!”
I laugh at Kate’s blushing cheeks, tugging her against me and tucking her away.
“Don’t you worry,” I say. “My bride and I will be getting a room in no time.”
Kate swats my chest with a laugh, but her eyes are shining.
Not going to lie, picturing her in a sleek white gown does something primal to my blood. I scoop her up, groom-style, as I stand. Tuck’s baggy UIC hoodie puddles around her, almost matching the same shade of the splotches high on her cheeks.
“Come on, my wife,” I murmur against her ear. “I’m getting you home.”
The nurses cheer as we pass, but it’s probably part relief because Kate is finally leaving. She must sense this too, because she points a finger at them with her final threat.
“You better take care of my mother-in-law until my husband gets back!”
A possessive growl emanates from my throat at her so publicly declaring me hers, and I have half a mind to make a pit stop in one of these supply closets.
“Cut it out, or I may actually have to put a ring on your finger,” I mutter.
Her challenging gaze meets mine and she smirks. “Make me.”
I shut her up with a quick kiss, and she dangles from my cradled arms the whole way to the parking lot, laughing the entire time.