Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
SAbrINA
I would suck as a mom. The calves told me that—well, one in particular, and that calf knew because he was rejected by his mom. She even kicked him. Then he was handed to me, and he was not happy going from one bad mom to another. Obviously, I cared more than his mom did, but this calf knew I would probably drop him or feed him the wrong food or something just as heinous.
Cal said it was because I needed to relax. But it was hard to relax when one person said, “Oh shit, the calf is breech,” and a second person said, “Is it breathing?” when the calf came out.
The answer was no, it was not breathing. Brynna did some crazy rubbing and cleaning out the mouth, and then the calf was breathing, and I was crying. Cal put the calf in the pen with the mom to nurse, and she went all Mommie Dearest on him. So I tried to feed him, and the calf freaked, and Cal took him, and I backed away, embarrassed because I was no help, then tripped over a bale of hay, because those were large and obvious, and twisted my ankle and landed in a small pile of poo. Brynna had to help me back to my room.
Freshly showered, I thought I could still smell the poo as I tried to put on my jeans. I was lying on the floor because it hurt to bear weight.
I was contemplating crying when Cal banged open the door. “Sabrina, I want to look at your ankle.”
“Dude, ever heard of knocking?” My hands were on my waistband, pulling up, when he barged in. I only had a bra on. No shirt. My jeans were at my knees.
He stood at my feet and smirked down at me. “I said I would help once I got things situated in the barn.”
I sat up to lean on my elbows. “I’m not incapable. I can do a lot. I told you that.” I pulled my jeans the rest of the way up.
“I can see that.”
He was staring at the small swath of red fabric exposed by the open fly. He watched me fasten the button on the jeans, and then his eyes traveled up to my bra. The charge had been stoked when he braided my hair, then primed when he’d walked in, his eyes sweeping over me and going dark blue with desire. I wanted him too.
“Red’s always been a good color on you. I like that you still match everything.” He moved to stand between my legs, towering over me.
I knew what he wanted, and I wanted it too. Just the touch of a kiss. He’d always been a good kisser. I wondered if that had changed. But the thing with us was that just kissing had been hard to do. Once we started hitting the bases, both of us always wanted a home run.
I cleared my throat, but my voice came out husky. “You left the door open. What if someone walks by? And I just got these jeans on. Do you know how much effort that took?” I looked between him and the door.
He knelt, his hands going to the floor beside my hips, and like every time before, I felt that invisible string that connected us, pulling us together. I hooked my legs behind him.
“I just want to know?—”
“So do I,” I said.
He moved to crawl over me, holding himself in a plank position, keeping our bodies apart but close. Those strong corded arms didn’t even look like they were straining. I slid my legs up to his waist and dropped back off my elbows.
“The door,” I said.
“No one will come by. One of the hands came to relieve me. Brynna went to her barn to work, said she was inspired by that mean mom cow, and my mom is in the kitchen. Lord, you are beautiful.” He dropped a kiss onto the top of one boob that the bra was pushing up and out. Then he did the same to the other.
There was no hesitation. No trying to talk the other out of it. We’d both silently agreed and moved forward. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him to me. When our lips touched, it was like going through a portal, spinning with craving, a yearning that had never waned.
He scraped my lips with his teeth, and when his tongue touched mine I gave it a quick suck. This sent him into a frenzy and me into a tailspin. He kissed me like there was no tomorrow and we might not get the chance again, which maybe was true. Each kiss he delivered was a declaration as he moved across my neck to the spot behind my ear. I was hungry for him, his touch, and from the way his hands swept over me, I knew he felt the same. I tried to draw him to me with my legs but ended up bumping my ankle and crying out in pain.
Cal jerked up and looked at me in question, a twinkle in his eyes. “That’s never happened to me before.”
I swatted his shoulder. “I hit my ankle.”
He ran his hands down my thighs as he sat back on his haunches. He slowly moved toward my ankle. His touch was like silk, and I thought my eyes would roll back in my head from the sensation. I wondered what it said about my feelings for Cal that I found the swipe of his hands nearly orgasmic.
He swiveled and looked at my ankle. “Let’s get you downstairs and get it elevated with some ice. Here, I’ll take you down.” He stood, scooped me off the floor, and headed for the door.
“I need a shirt first.” I laughed.
Cal swiveled again and set me on the bed. He picked my T-shirt up off the floor and turned to toss it to me but then stalked toward me instead. He slid his hand behind my head and bent to taste me one more time, his lips sweeping over mine, his hand pressing me to him.
I put my hands on his waistband and pulled him closer. Kissing him was like everything I remembered and all that I had forgotten. I remembered how much I loved his touch and wanted to be with him, the feeling of being right where I was supposed to be. But I’d forgotten just how witless he rendered me. How small the world got because he was all I needed. How I sometimes felt like I could only breathe because his kisses were giving me air.
I pushed him away for a brief rest and took my T-shirt from him. His face was close, his breath on my cheek.
“Reenie?” He sounded uncertain, maybe scared and wondering if he’d gone too far.
“It’s okay.”
He moved to sit next to me. “Is it?”
“I just remembered how much I depended on you. How much I asked of you.”
“It was never too much.”
I slipped on my shirt. “Wasn’t it?”
“Not for me.” He met my eyes, and I knew he was telling the truth. Which made me want to ask the why again.
But I knew I’d get nowhere. He wasn’t ready to tell me. And in this moment that didn’t matter as much as the lesson I’d just taught myself, that I had depended on him for so much. Maybe more than I should have.
I took his hand. “I think I could use some meds too. My ankle is throbbing.” And so were my head, my heart, and my girl parts. But Tylenol wasn’t going to help me there.
I stuck out my hand. “Here, help me up.”
He stood. “Piggyback or…?”
“Just fling me from the top of the stairs and put me out of my misery. This throbbing is wearing on my nerves.”
He squatted down, his back to me, and I climbed on. He was like a powerlifter, standing right up as if it was no biggie that I was on his back. I really wanted to see the man’s thighs. I would have bet they were the size of tree trunks. Instead, I closed my eyes and stuck my head into the crook of his neck to enjoy the comfort of his body and smell.
“Don’t get too fresh there, or we won’t make it downstairs,” he growled roughly.
I giggled as he grabbed me behind the knees. Then he looked at my ankle and gave a low whistle as if saying Ouch . He carried me downstairs and set me gently on the couch, then put a pillow under my foot as he raised it to rest on the coffee table, using the most tender of touches.
CAL
She looked around the living room, then shook her head. “Can you take me to the kitchen? I’m starving.”
Her voice was breathy and soft, as if maybe my touch did to her what hers did to me. I wanted to test that theory. I met her gaze and watched her pupils dilate when I ran a finger down her arm.
“I can get you food. I can get you whatever you want.” My eyes flicked to her lips. I saw a flash image of her lying on the floor in her panties and bra, jeans pulled up to her knees, her hair a black halo surrounding her. “I just got you here.”
“Yeah, but what am I supposed to do?” she asked.
“You are supposed to let your body take time to heal. What’s wrong with you? Can’t you be idle? Sit and relax.”
Earlier, when I was braiding her hair, had been the first time I’d seen her slow down. I thought she stayed busy because she was avoiding all the sadness the last few days had delivered. When the calf had rejected her, anguish had flashed across her face, the same anguish she’d shown when the adoption agency dropped her. It was the hurt of a loss. And she hadn’t wanted to talk about it after that day. Even Cricket was worried, telling me Sabrina had clammed up and would tear up whenever Cricket pushed.
“Says the workaholic.” She frowned at me.
“Touché. I can go get your laptop or something.”
She pursed her lips like she was thinking about her options. Chances were high that she’d find something on the internet that would hurt her.
“If you actually let your ankle rest, it’ll heal faster,” I said.
She sat forward like she was going to push off the couch and opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted when the front door slammed and someone squealed.
“Where is everyone?” my sister cried out from the foyer.
“In the living room. What’s wrong?” As I started toward the foyer, Brynna rushed into the room, holding a small glass bowl in the palms of her hands.
“Look, I did it. I finally did it. That evil cow mom helped me have a breakthrough.” She thrust the colorful bowl toward me. The colors looked like various crayon strokes: bold and childlike with lines of gray and black woven in between.
“You made a bowl?” I teased, knowing she had made dozens of bowls of various shapes and sizes.
“No, jackass, it’s the colors. I finally was able to make the pattern I wanted.” She beamed at me.
Mom came into the room from the kitchen, wearing an apron and wiping her hands on a towel. “What’s all the screaming for? Oh, Brynna, you made a bowl. It’s lovely, dear—perky and fun?—”
“But with a hint of sadness,” Sabrina said.
“Yes.” Brynna pointed to Sabrina. “You get it.” She handed her the bowl. “I call it The Disturbed Childhood.”
“Oh, Brynna,” Mom said, a hitch in her voice. “That’s so sad.”
“But it’s not meant to be fully sad,” Brynna said.
Sabrina adjusted on the couch so she was on her knees, looking over the back, the bowl in her hands. “I see it. I see the happy and the sad. And the title The Disturbed Childhood to me means everything. Could be anything. A pet dying. Moving. Or like for me, losing my mother. Something that breaks from the norm. A disruption.”
Brynna held up her arms in victory. “Yes, that’s exactly the message I wanted to convey. It’s the mix of those colors and dark lines that make us this smooth and round bowl open to taking in more. Filling us. We should put memories in this bowl.”
My kid sister was impressive. We’d grown up in the same unhappy house, yet she had found a way to channel it into something beautiful. I was the first person she’d made something for. I dug into my pocket and pulled out my keys. From my keyring, I took off a square piece of metal with a multicolored glass circle in the middle and placed it in the bowl.
“That was one of the first pieces you made, Bryn. I carry it everywhere to remind me to look for the beauty in life like you do.” I gave my sister a side-arm squeeze.
Mom walked up and put a small rose-gold band in the bowl. “We got that on our trip to Europe after you graduated, remember? It was the first piece of jewelry I bought myself after moving out of the house. It was empowering.” She kissed her daughter on the cheek.
“I remember that because I met you both in Switzerland,” I said. That trip had been enjoyable, something that was not the norm in our family.
The three of us shared the memory briefly before Brynna looked at Sabrina.
Sabrina shrugged. “Sorry, I don’t have anything from my past here except your brother, and he’s not a memory I would l put in the bowl anyway.”
She said it teasingly, but there was an edge in her voice. She looked between the three of us, and I knew she wasn’t speaking about our past but about her present. Once I saw it, I couldn’t not see it. I’d lived with it for years. It was loneliness. Here I was, standing in a room with my family, sharing a memory, and she no longer had that. For the first time, it dawned on me how alone she must feel at times like this.
Mom rested a hand on Sabrina’s shoulder. “I think I can help with that.”
Then she went to the giant bookcase near the fireplace and pulled out a large leather-bound photo album. She handed the book to Sabrina.