Love Beyond Words (City Lights: San Francisco Book 1) (40 page)

Julian cupped her cheeks in his hands, his eyes boring into hers. “Look at me. David hurt Marshall, but he’s okay. He’s going to be okay. He’s at the hospital with Liberty and he’s going to be okay.”

Natalie sagged against him, and he did nothing but hold her for a long time.

The officer wrapped a blanket around Natalie. She moved out of Julian’s embrace long enough to pull the itchy wool around her, and then rested her head on his shoulder again. Another officer offered Julian a blanket as well, but he declined. They sat on a bench near the parking lot, at the top of the trail. A dozen officers milled about, talking in low voices in the beams of their squad cars. An ambulance added its spinning lights to the night that slowly became day. Behind her, down below, more officers were at the labyrinth, taking pictures, and waiting for the medical examiner to come and retrieve David’s body from the surf. Natalie didn’t look behind her, she looked forward, wrapped tightly in Julian’s embrace.

“We have to get some preliminary information,” said Officer Valdez, “while the EMTs have a look at you.”

Officer Valdez had a kind face and warm smile. He’d been the first to find them, the first to call Niko and tell him that everyone was all right, the first to explain how Jesse Tate had told another police unit at Club Orbit to send help here.
They came too late,
Natalie thought but it was okay. Everything was going to be okay.

“Full name and date of birth?” Valdez asked Julian as an EMT dabbed his chin with gauze and adhered a butterfly bandage to the split skin.

“Julian Rafael Melendez Mendón Kovač. June 2, 1986.”

There’s the big reveal,
Natalie thought.
A police report instead of a press release.

Officer Valdez’s pen hovered over his notepad. “Uh, would you mind spelling all that?”

#

At the hospital, Natalie’s bruised head was looked at and they administered a rudimentary test for concussion that she passed. Julian received six stitches under his chin and eight more at his brow, and then they were finally allowed to see Marshall.

His head was wrapped in gauze and he was groggy from the pain medication but he smiled to see Natalie and Julian come in. Liberty sat coiled in a chair beside his bed, gnawing on the sleeve of her ratty sweater.

Natalie hugged Marshall carefully, tears raining on his hospital gown, and then she and Liberty flew at one another, hugging and crying.

“Holy shit,” was all Liberty could say at first, over and over again.

Julian stood over Marshall’s bed, seeming at a loss for words.

“It was nothing,” Marshall told him, his words slurred from pain meds. “An elaborate ploy to get into your next book.”

They stayed until a nurse kicked them out so that Marshall could rest. It was after five a.m., she reminded them. Liberty wasn’t about to be budged, so she held Natalie close to say goodbye. “Tell me what happened. But not today or tomorrow. Someday.”

“I will. I love you, Lib.”

“Love you, Nat.” Liberty wiped her eyes, and then turned to Julian. “Get over here.” They embraced and Natalie saw Julian kiss Liberty’s cheek and whisper “Thank you” in her ear. She waved him off and returned to her post on the chair.

Julian and Marshall clasped hands. Julian’s face looked pained as he took in Marshall’s white bandages again.

“Don’t you fret,” Marshall said, his words bumping in to one another. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat…for her.” He winked blearily at Natalie. “And she for me and you for her and one for all, and we’re just the four fucking Musketeers up in here.”

“Right,” Liberty said, rolling her eyes, “and D’Artagnan’s had too much Percocet tonight.”

Natalie leaned over and kissed Marshall’s cheek. There was so much she wanted to tell him but all that came out was “I love you.”

“Love you. I love everyone,” he said, drifting to sleep. “Love everyone.”

#

Detective Swanson, a sharp-looking woman in charge of sorting out the case, permitted Natalie and Julian to go home and rest until later that afternoon. “It’s going to be a long day of making statements,” she warned them, “so be prepared to do a lot of talking.”

“I can’t stay here,” Natalie told Julian when they stepped into her place. The memories of David with his gun to her head haunted her little studio. “I don’t think I can stay here ever again. And David’s office at your place…” She shivered and Julian nodded grimly.

“I’ll call Detective Swanson and let her know we’re going to a hotel.”

Natalie packed a small bag of clothes. Julian was just getting off the phone when she came out.

“The detective says that they think Jesse is going to be okay. He had surgery for a ruptured spleen and it was a touchy night, but he’s alive.”

“We have to make sure they know how he helped us,” Natalie said. “If it weren’t for him, Garrett would have…” She shivered again.

“Did he touch you?” Julian asked, his eyes dark.

“No, love.”

“Swanson says he’s alive too. I thought I might have killed him. If he touched you, I will. I’ll kill him.”

“Then I’d lose you all over again.” She took his hand. “He didn’t touch me, I promise.” She didn’t yet know all that had happened in the time before Julian found her at Land’s End aside from what she’d heard him tell the police at the scene, and then she had been in a trance of relief, she’d hardly heard. “What about your book?” she asked, to pull his thoughts from Garrett.

“They found it. With that older guy…Cliff. I’m glad,” he said. “For your sake.”

“I’m glad too,” she said. “But not for me. I’m glad that beauty still exists in the world.”

“I feel that way about you. I thought I had lost you…”

He shook his head, his eyes heavy. Now that it was all over, he was filling the quiet spaces with regret for what he missed about David. He turned away to stare out of her window.

“Last year,” he said quietly, “when he told me he had feelings for me, I was torn. I couldn’t imagine working closely with someone I cared about but who didn’t care for me in return. I wondered if it would be better if I let him go. For his sake. But I couldn’t do it. He was my only true friend and had been for five years. He assured me it was okay, that
he
was okay. But obviously he wasn’t. He needed help and I didn’t see it, and it cost him everything.” He looked at Natalie, his eyes cloudy with regret. “And you and Marshall nearly paid the same price. I don’t know that I can forgive myself for what happened to you—”

“Julian, don’t,” Natalie said, moving into his arms. “It’s over. It’s okay.
I’m
going to be okay. I’m not going to let any of this haunt me. There will be dark moments…emotions I can’t predict. But I’m going to face them head on. No more hiding.” She smiled faintly. “It’s what my parents would want for me, I think.”

The pain came as it always did, but it was a dull ache instead of a sharp stab. It would never disappear altogether, but she knew it would get easier with time. Natalie went to the bookshelf and took up the photo of her and her parents at the ski resort.

“Julian, this is my father, Curtis,” she told him. “See that tired smile? He took his family for a nice vacation, intending for everyone to have a good time, and is instead is met with complaints at every turn. He was so patient. And kind.”

Julian smiled faintly. “I can see it in his eyes.”

“This is my mother, Tammy. She hated to fail at anything, and had never been skiing. After falling on her rump more times that she could count, she wanted to call it a day.”

“She is beautiful.”

“She was,” Natalie agreed “And this is me. I’m not smiling because I was thirteen years old and tethered to my parents for two straight weeks. But I told them I loved them, every day, since I could talk. Including the day they died.”

“I’m proud of you,” Julian said. “You’re so brave. To face this…and David.”

“I had to, for you,” Natalie said. “And for them. And for me.”

“It’s good to meet them.”

She smiled at the picture and tucked it into her bag. “I know they would have loved you.”

#

They took a cab to the Handlery Hotel on Union Square, and once alone in the elegant suite, Julian drew the blinds closed against the morning sunlight. He started to turn down the bed so that they might get some much-needed sleep. But Natalie shook her head.

“I want to take a shower,” she said. “Will you help me?”

“Of course.”

She ran the hot water and got undressed. He followed, stood behind her and ran his fingers through her hair, rinsing the memory of David’s yanking grip. He soaped her back and shoulders, and the bruises on her wrist were Garrett had grabbed her.

She turned to face him. “My turn.”

His back was dark with bruises, and the two lancing purple streaks on his left shoulder looked terrible. As the soap ran off, she ran her hands over these, and traced her fingers along the dark splotch on his abdomen. He’d fought hard with Garrett, she knew. It was a miracle he wasn’t hurt worse. Much worse.

They said nothing, but she could feel ugliness and terror of the night slipping away, leaving exhilaration in its stead. These sensations, the hot water, Julian’s hands where they touched her, and his warm skin under her own…Even the fading pain on her brow. She relished it all, reveled in it, felt it try to burst out of her. She wanted to laugh or cry or both.
No, I want more…

She turned to Julian and he was there, his mouth on hers, his body pressed against her, wet and warm.
Yes,
she thought. Yes to all of it, to life, to the good and the ugly, the pain and the love. But especially yes to him, to this moment that almost never happened.

The kiss was hard and deep under the water that fell like warm rain. Natalie’s eyes fluttered open once, and she saw the white of the bandages on his temple. “Your stitches can’t get wet,” she breathed.

“I don’t care.”

“I do.” She reached behind her to shut off the water. “Take me to bed.”

He carried her to the bed and they were joined effortlessly, one movement of many that fused them completely. He lay over her and the water streamed out of the dark curls of his hair, down his cheeks, like tears. She broke their kiss to look at him, to take him in. His eyes captured her in prisms of blue and her breath caught, unable to look away.
Let me stay here forever…

He nodded, as if he could hear her thoughts. “I’ll never let you go.”

She gave herself up to him, sharing her vitality with him and taking his into her until she felt saturated with love and the sheer joy of being alive. The pleasure built and then peaked for them at the same time, an affirmation, a reward. A laugh burst from her and her heart soared to see his brilliant smile, for she knew then that everything was going to be okay.

When the searing pleasure subsided into a warm glow, they remained as they were, unmoving but for their mouths that whispered and smiled and kissed until the need awoke again. They celebrated a second time then slept dreamlessly, haunted by nothing.

“I’m free.” Eduardo stared across the wide vistas outside the city walls. “You’ll come with me?”

“I’ve never been past the gate,” Sara said. “I’m afraid.”

“So am I.” He took her hand. “But now I feel invincible.”

“Me too.” She laughed. “How can we feel both at the same time?”

Eduardo smiled. “That’s love.”

--The Origin of Silence,
Rafael Melendez Mendón

Natalie sat at the pool’s edge, on the rooftop terrace of the Gritti Palace, and trailed her fingers in the water and basking in the glorious Italian sun.

Her cell phone buzzed and she smiled to see Liberty’s number.

“It’s got to be six a.m. in California!”

“Actually, it’s five a.m.,” Liberty said with a yawn, “but waking up at ass o’clock is just one of the many sacrifices I make for my friends.”