Chapter 24 #2
“You are truly an odd woman.”
She gripped my chin. “And yet you said you wanted me. Who’s the crazy one now?”
“Art has been my escape. I come here, find a canvas and use the demons as inspirations.”
She giggled. “Such a tortured artist.”
“Don’t you forget it. Now, get back in that position. I’m not done with you yet.”
She relaxed a little, her legs spread a little bit as I settled between them to reach back to the canvas. It was quiet torture for her, and I was loving every bit of it. “Tell me a secret, Amelia.”
“A secret? Don’t you know all of mine?”
“Maybe I do, but I want to hear something that I’m not going to find in the papers, but from your heart.”
“Gah, you are sounding like a romantic. Why is that such a scary turn on?”
I trailed a kiss on the inside of her thighs. Not too close to her wet heat, thinking I wasn’t going to find out.
“Maybe I just want to hear you talk, telling me a story. Something that not everyone knows.”
“Like what?”
“Like how you look at the little ones in your hospital like you long for it.” When I came to see her, she looked into all the rooms with little ones in them and her body relaxed like she was in a daydream.
Like an angry cat, she tensed up throwing up the protective wall. “That’s a bit personal.”
“We’re well past that” I dropped the brush, and grazed my knuckles along her inner leg, “You can trust me. I hold no judgment. I mean you could tell me about your fantasies.”
She wiggled from my touch. “You’re a very strange person.”
I straightened up, looming over her, she watched my movement. “Takes one to know one.” I kissed the tip of her nose. “And it’s called charm.”
“It’s called becoming a pain in my ass.” She huffed. “It’s not really a fantasy. Just a painful, dark memory that hurts when I yearn for something for a long time.”
“Peaches, there’s nothing dark about you other than horrible taste in ex-husbands,” I tried to joke with her, but she didn’t hum or laugh at it.
“I guess your file didn’t cover medical records.”
“That would be HIPAA.”
“It’s a good thing you’re cute sometimes.” Her sass started to come out. “I meant, maybe about the police reports from Greene or something. I had a miscarriage during the first year of the so-called marriage.”
I tensed, that wasn’t in the file or anything I specifically read when I phoned Greene for previous police reports.
My heart dropped. She was going to be a mother.
She was carrying a baby that she would have loved until the ends of the earth.
I pulled away from the canvas; my attention was back on her.
I pulled her down to my level, the chain from the cuff still dragged onto the floor.
Her eyes grew heavy with sadness. This is why she was making me feel soft, why she called to my heart and woke it up. Her pain was real and it went beyond physical pain.
“Chris had come home, furious, screaming that he couldn’t hold a job and he wasn’t feeling like the man of the house.
I tried to comfort him, tried to be the wife that I thought he wanted, he needed.
” Her head hung low. “But you know the trouble with words, is that people misunderstand and twist them to turn them back to you. My words of comfort were to him full of pity and discouragement. When he didn’t like what I apparently said, he lashed out and to be honest, even after years of therapy, I can’t recall what happened after the first hit.
I woke up in my own hospital, my supervisor at the time at my bedside with tears in her eyes.
She was the one to tell me that I had lost my baby. And Chris was nowhere to be found.”
Rage surged through me, like a new kind of spark ready to take revenge. Men like that don’t deserve women. Especially kindhearted, beautiful women like Amelia. I reached out to her, as she brought her knees to her chest, resting her head on top of her knees.
“I tried to figure out what happened, what I said, and put so much blame on myself. I thought I didn’t fight hard enough or I wasn’t going to be a good mother if I couldn’t protect my own baby.
I remember Maria cradling me, Jennie and Sarah surrounding my bed, never leaving my side.
And when I returned home, he said if it wasn’t for me not being a good wife and actually being there for him, the baby would have survived. ”
“Amelia, it wasn’t your fault.”
She tilted her head. “Oh, I know, sugar. It still didn’t matter at the time.
But I sought out therapy, grew stronger.
It’s just hard some days, when I see little babies and kiddos in the ED and the daydreams start to take over.
I hold on to some hope that if I find love again, actual love, maybe through that I’d have a child.
But if I’m under the same roof with that man, and he can try what he tries, I can’t take the chance. ”
A light bulb went off in her head. “Which reminds me, I need to put on another patch tomorrow.” She trailed off in a deep thought to remind herself to protect herself. Hopefully not for long.
“Do you know how incredible you are?” I pulled her back into our conversation. I saw those walls finally come down with no sign of rebuilding. She opened up. And for the moment, I saw a beautiful future with her, and it caused my dick to stir awake, knowing what I really wanted to do.
A smirk appeared at the corner of her mouth.
“I mean, some days I’m a damn superhero, but thank you.
” She reached out to cup my cheek. “You’re not too bad yourself, when you’re not dark and moody.
” She pulled me closer, caressing a soft kiss to my lips.
She pulled away, letting out a gentle hum, “I stopped believing in fairytales for a long time.”
“Is that why you kept me at arm’s length?” I asked, resting my forehead on hers.
“Perhaps.” She shrugs. “Hard to try again when there has been nothing but darkness every time I turn around. You just survive and take in the moments where you can feel the sun on your face.”
I held her gaze. “When I see you, I don’t see darkness. I see a bright light that just wants to be loved. You, Amelia, have been that to me. Whether you see that or not. Like a little saving grace, a beacon. Just having you near me has been like a breath of life.”
She smiled, though she tried to hide it. “Is that also a play on my name?”
“Well, Amelia Grace Brooks does have a nice ring to it.”
She blushed so beautifully as I jerked her to my lips, devouring every inch of her kiss.
She didn’t fight my last name next to her name, she accepted me.
If that was her dream to one day find love and grow love, then she’d already found it.
I’d have her knowing that she is it, my dream.
One day I’d see that belly grow with our child.
She was mine, she had been mine since day one. And I wasn’t letting her go one more day thinking otherwise.