Fresh Ice (36 page)

It could have been seconds or hours when a knock on the driver’s side window startled her. She looked up to see Nathan standing next to
the car, peering in.

When he saw her red, swollen eyes,
Nathan’s face registered concern and he pulled on the door handle. It was locked. He hurried around to the passenger side and swung the door open before she had a chance to lock it too.

“What happened?”
He got in and put a hand on her shoulder.

S
he shrugged away from his touch and began to sob.

Her body trembled and Nathan panicked. Had that bastard
from L.A. tracked her down and hurt her? If so, where was he? Nathan looked through the windows but the neighborhood was a ghost town. A thousand questions swirled around in his head. “Sarah, please talk to me. Tell me what happened.”

She shook her head, mumbled something he couldn’t understand and made an excruciating sound followed by another sob.

“Honey, please. You need to tell me what happened. Did someone hurt you?”

“Don’t call me honey!” she yelled and jerked her head up to look the lying cheater in the face. “How dare you.
You’re
the one who hurt me!” she shrieked between hiccups. She balled her hands into fists and started hitting him.

He grabbed hold of her flailing arms. “Sarah, how did I hurt you? I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Please calm down and tell me what’s going on.”

S
arah broke free from his grip and swung again. He ducked the punch.

“You cheated on me! With…with
that woman
!” she spat the words, hoping he’d choke on them as she had.

“What woman?” He was frantic now, trying to figure out what in the hell she was talking about. He’d been at
the Razors Store all afternoon and then drove straight home.

“The woman in your house
right now
!”

Nathan
blinked. “There’s a woman in my house?”

“Don’t play dumb with me
, buster.”

“I don’t know why there would be a woman in
my ho--. Oh.” He calculated the days in his head. “Veronica.”

“Don’t tell me her name!
Oh God, I don’t want to hear her name,” she whimpered.

“Sarah, Sarah. Look at me.
No, stop hitting me. Listen, she’s my housekeeper. Veronica is my
housekeeper
.”

“You…you let a woman into your house to clean?” If she’d been thinking clearly,
Sarah would have noticed the cleaning supplies by the door. The cleaning van parked in front of the house. The vacuum in the middle of the living room. The mop she nearly tripped over.

“Yes.
She comes over once a week. She’s usually here in the morning but I think her son had some kind of school function she wanted to go to or something.”

“And she cleans your house?”

Sarah was getting preoccupied on the wrong details but at least she wasn’t hitting him anymore.

“Yes,” he answered patiently.

“You trust her in your house with all your stuff?”

“Yeah.
She’s paid enough to where she doesn’t have to resort to stealing. But that‘s beside the point. The point is why would you think I was with some other woman?”

“
I…I don’t know,” she mumbled and wiped her eyes. “I heard her singing in the bedroom and I just…”

He shook his head in disbelief. “You just jumped to conclusions and assumed the worst of me.”

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about
Veronica. To tell you the truth, sometimes I forget about her. I leave in the morning and come back and the house is clean. I rarely even see her. What can I do to finally make you trust me?”

She wiped her face with her sleeve.
“You can forgive me for being an idiot.”

* * *

Dwight walked out of the county jail with nothing but a suspended license and a renewed hatred for the law. Not only had he taken the fall for the beer but the dope in his pocket as well.

Luckily, Troy and Dottie were parked on the curb waiting for him when he got out. At least Troy had been with him during the arrest so poor Dottie didn’t have to be impounded.
That might have been more than he could bear.

It had been
too many hours since he’d had a drop of alcohol and his hands were shaking to prove it.

Troy held out the keys and Dwight growled. “You’re driving. They suspended my license.”

Troy blinked. “I get to drive us, Pop?” he asked like a kid being told he could get a puppy.

“Just until we get some distance between us and the jail.
Then I’m gonna kick your ass from here to the moon for that little stunt you pulled with the beer.”

Troy’s face fell and his neck folded mak
ing him look like a Shar Pei.

Dwight folded himself into the passenger seat and hated how foreign it felt being on the wrong side of the truck.

Troy wedged himself behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition. “We gonna go get Sarah now?” Troy asked.

“After I have a drink.”
He would have wrapped his lips around the bottle of whiskey behind the seat, but he needed to put some distance between them and the police station first.

“I bought some whiskey while you were in the slammer, Pops,” Troy said proudly.

“I’m gonna need a helluva lot more than
that
,” Dwight said, eyeing the half empty bottle.

Up ahead, a
sign said ‘Liquor’ in big red letters and it was one of the purtiest sights Dwight had ever seen. He pointed it out to Troy and told him to pull in to the liquor store when they came to it. “We’ll stop in and get some booze and then get a motel room. I’ve got to get some sleep.”

He’d let Troy drive to a motel, but after that Dwight would take over the reins again. It was almost painful to see Troy’s beefy sausage fingers grip Dottie’s steering wheel as it was. The consequences didn’t matter.
If the cops threw him back into the slammer, then so be it. Nobody but him would drive Dottie as long as his lungs took in air and his wrist had a pulse.

After a good night’s sleep and a bottle of Jack, he’d be good as new and ready to deal with Sarah and her bullshit.
If he saw her now, he’d probably rip her limb from limb he was so angry. And he needed her in one piece for what he had planned.

“I didn’t sleep for shit in there,” Dwight complained. “It was too damn noisy.” Between the clanging sound of cell doors and voices shouting every two seconds it had been impossible to catch any shuteye. No wonder they called it the slammer.

A loud boom interrupted Dwight’s thoughts of cuddling up with a bottle of Jack and a twenty dollar hooker.

The truck pulled toward one side and Troy panicked. “Jeez, Pops, they’re
shootin’ at us.”

“Pull over!”

“I paid the bail, Pops. Why are the cops shootin’ at us?” Troy’s head bobbled between the three rear-view mirrors. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Pull over,
ya nimrod!” With his right hand, Dwight hung onto the door handle for dear life and with his left, he reached over to steady the wheel. The last thing he needed was Troy crashing Dottie into a figgin’ fire hydrant. “Pull over, dammit!”

Finally, Troy eased up on the gas and pulled to the curb.

Dwight looked in the rearview mirror and instantly saw the problem. Nobody was shooting at them. Dottie had a flat.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Butterfly

After a relaxing dinner of enough Italian food to serve a small army, Sarah read in bed while Nathan watched SportsCenter. Eventually they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

A few hours later, Sarah woke up
and thought she was alone. Nathan’s arm no longer rested on her hip and there was no breath tickling her ear and neck. The warmth from his body pressed up against hers was gone.

She sat up and looked over to find Nathan sprawled out on his back on the other side of the bed. He looked different when he slept.
Less intense when those steel gray eyes weren’t focused on her. Curiosity kept her from looking away. He had a nice straight nose and a strong jaw. There was a light dusting of hair on his chest and the robe was pulled back just enough to reveal a flat, brown nipple.

Something made Sarah want to run her hands over his chest, but she didn’t. That would definitely wake him up. The hair
continued below his belly button and then there was a trail down to…oh… The robe had come open and was precariously draped over his thighs. He made a noise in his sleep and shifted his leg. The fabric of the robe hung on as long as it could and then finally fell away to reveal, well,
everything
.

Before she could stop herself, Sarah found herself reaching out to touch him. He wasn’t frightening or ugly or any of the things she associated with a man. Up until that point, she thought, she
knew,
men were dirty and smelly and disgusting. But Nathan’s body was smooth and beautiful.

Maybe he wouldn’t notice if she followed the trail of hair down his stomach…

* * *

One minute Nathan was sleeping like a baby and the next he opened his eyes to find Sarah staring at his crotch.

“Sarah?” he asked, his voice still gravely from sleep.

She jumped back, startled by his voice. “
Wha..?” Her cheeks blushed a furious shade of red. “I was just…. I was just going to cover you up. Your robe must have come open when you were sleeping.”

“Right,” he said skeptically.

“I was admiring your chest. It’s…nice. And you have nice muscles here.” Her fingertip barely touched his abs and that was all it took to bring him to life below the waist.

Her eyes grew wide as he…grew and she snatched her hand back like she had touched a
hot stove. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Please.” He brought her hand back to his chest and rested it on the soft patch of hair there. “It’s okay.”

“But I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“Sarah, I’ve never been more comfortable in my life.” He tucked the robe closed around him and scooted
closer.

Sarah got out of bed and Nathan thought she would flee again. But instead of leaving, s
he turned on the bedside lamp. The light cast a soft glow throughout the room. She wasn’t afraid anymore and she needed Nathan to see her for who she was. Scars and all.

“I’m ready.”

Nathan sat up and ran his hand through his hair. “For what?” He needed to hear her say the words out loud.

“I’m ready for you to show me how
it’s supposed to be…between a man and a woman.”

“
Okay.” This was the moment he’d waited for. These past few weeks had been the ultimate test in self-control.

She let her hair down
from its ponytail and it tumbled around her shoulders. Then she took off her panties and pulled the oversized t-shirt over her head. The bruises had faded to yellow and all that was left were the scars. But everyone had scars. Some skin deep, some not.

Nathan swallowed and stared at the woman in front of him.
Her body was marred by scars and covered with bruises in various stages of healing. Her arms were dotted with round, discolored scars from cigarette burns. There were long, thin slashes on her legs and thighs from a blade of some kind.

Nathan’s
fists clenched at the thought of someone mutilating her beautiful skin with their ugliness.

He got out of bed and went to her.
“You’re beautiful, Sarah.”

Her breath caught and she couldn’t swallow down the tightness in her throat.

At that moment, Nathan realized he’d gladly spend the rest of his life proving to her how special she was.

The marks were a
gruesome timeline of her life and Nathan tried his best to soothe them with his kisses. He slid the robe from his shoulders and pressed her body to his. Her skin was unbelievably soft against his.

She ran her hands over his chest and liked how the sprinkling of hair there tickled her fingers.
“Can I touch you?” She searched his eyes and he gulped.

He nodded.

She reached out her hand and cupped him in her palm. His breath caught in his throat as she ran her fingers over and around his length. He gripped her shoulders and his breathing went into overdrive as she relished the feel of him.

To her surprise, it wasn’t scary at all. After nearly a lifetime of being afraid of sex and men, the reality finally dawned on her. She was the one in control. All the power in the world was in the palm of her hand. The power was hers all along she just didn’t know it at the time. With a touch, or even a look, she had the power to render a man into Silly Putty.

Nathan picked her up and laid her on the bed as if she were made of porcelain.