Frank
A week passes. Then another. Sarah gets her first paycheck and presents me with an installment toward paying off the money I lent her for the repairs to her car. I take it, pleased she’s created a budget that will allow her to pay me back over time, irritated that her insurance company continues to drop the ball, and worried about what might happen once she doesn’t owe me money anymore.
Sarah doesn’t actually live in Denver. When she set off west, she never intended to stop in this city. The only reason she’s here at all is because of the accident. While I’ve known that on some level since the moment I told her about the job at McDougan & Kent, it’s only recently that I’ve really taken the implications into consideration.
I like Sarah.
A lot.
The longer she stays in Denver, the more I get used to her as a part of my life. But the woman is living in a hotel. There’s been no talk about looking for an apartment, nor has there been any talk about what happens when it’s time for her to leave. There hasn’t been one conversation about the future at all, nothing but a whole lot of enjoying the present. Up until recently, I’ve been fine with that. Why initiate a talk that might ruin what we have when things are so good in the right now? We’re too new for me to ask her to move to Denver permanently. Hell, we’re too new to know if I even want to ask her to move here permanently.
I don’t want her to go, but I don’t know if I have a right to ask her to stay.
So what happens when she’s paid off her car?
Will she leave?
Will she pack up her things and finish her trip west? Sit on a beach in California and forget all about me? Will she head back to Ohio?
Or will she stay?
Should she stay?
The thoughts are prickly and I do my best to avoid them for the better part of an hour, but finally give in and wander out to reception a little before five because her smile makes everything better.
Except Sarah’s not smiling. She’s standing, her long fingers gripping the edge of her desk so hard her knuckles turn white, her cellphone pressed to her ear, color draining from her face.
“Is he gonna be okay?” she asks in a thin voice and then listens with wide eyes to whoever’s on the other end of the line.
Her fear sets off a nuclear blast inside me. A possessive need to swipe the phone out of her hand. End the call. And wrap her in my arms and make her feel better.
“Damn it, Colton. Don’t feed me a line of bullshit.” Sarah draws her brows together and pinches the bridge of her nose. “What are the doctors saying?” Her eyes meet mine and her nostrils flare as uncertainty wavers in her gaze. I stand on the other side of her desk and cover her hand with mine. The gesture says whatever it is, I’m here. You’re not alone.
“Okay.” She squeezes her eyes shut and drops her chin. “Thanks for letting me know. Please call if anything changes. Please.” Her voice cracks. “I love you.” She opens her mouth as if to say more, but the call ends before she can speak.
The phone clatters to her desk and Sarah drops into her chair. She stares at me without seeing me, then reaches for her purse and pulls out a bottle of pills. She blinks rapidly and lets out a breath. “Dad’s in the hospital. He had a stroke.” Her hand wraps around the bottle, tightening into a fist. “It’s not his first,” she adds and I realize how little I know about the woman I might be falling in love with.
I navigate to her side and pull her to her feet, wrapping my arms around her and swaying back and forth. She freezes momentarily before melting into me, one hand gripping my back, the other still a fist, pressing a prescription bottle into the muscles along my spine.
“I don’t know what to do,” she whispers.
I rub her back and hold her close and then reach behind me and retrieve the pills. “Don’t do this.” I hold up the bottle and then put it on her desk. “I know it hurts. It’s scary. It dredges up all the years of worry and pain you have around your dad, but don’t dull it. Don’t run from it. Feel it. Face it. We have to experience the bad stuff to appreciate the good stuff. And I’m here, Sarah. I want to help.”
She nods, blinking back tears. “It was instinct. Grabbing them. I don’t really want them.” She gestures toward the bottle. “I don’t know what to do,” she says again.
“About what?” I listen as Sarah explains what little information her brother had for her.
When she’s done, her thoughts rush out in one long breath. “Should I go home? Part of me wants to go see my dad, but I don’t know if he’s ready to see me. I don’t know if he ever will be. What if me showing up out of the blue after all this time is too much stress on him and he gets worse? Would it be better for him if I stayed away? Honestly, it might be better for me. But what if he…” She shakes her head, unable to finish the thought. The elevator dings and she steps out of my grasp, sniffs, and paints a smile across her face as a draftsman strides by.
Part of me—a very selfish, very ugly part—wants to tell her to stay here with me. That now isn’t the time to have such a difficult conversation with her father.
That she should wait until he’s stronger.
Wait until she’s stronger.
That she should just wait.
That selfish voice reminds me that I don’t want her to leave because why in the world would she come back? And if she doesn’t come back, where does that leave me? She’s the first thing that’s not work-related that I can remember caring about.
Thankfully, I learned a long time ago not to listen to that little voice, the one that leads me to drink, to quiet its painful whispers with whiskey and beer. I brush Sarah’s hair from her face and wipe away the single tear trailing down her cheek. “I never told you my dad died when I was twenty-three, right in the middle of the worst of my drinking.”
“I’m so sorry.” Her words are reflexive and I shush them away.
“I never got to say goodbye to him. Never got to tell him about this job. Or thank him for giving me the background that led me to a career I love. He and I were never as close as I wanted us to be. I kept thinking there was time for all that later. That I could focus on my life now and then really show him what he meant to me later. Really find a way to build the relationship I always wanted. Then a car accident took him from us. The time was up, just like that.” I snap my fingers for emphasis, lost in the memories of the phone call from Chet. The sinking feeling of irrevocable loss. The realization that time is precious and life changes in the blink of an eye and the most important bits are also the simplest. “Go to him, Sarah. Go to your dad. Talk to him if you want to, but more importantly, just be there.”
Sarah nods, those ice blue eyes locked on mine as someone walks past us, talking loudly into his phone, pausing to lift a hand and smile on his way to the elevator. “I don’t want to have this conversation here,” Sarah says when he’s gone.
I draw her into my arms and run my hands up her shoulders. “Then let’s get out of here. It’s basically quitting time, anyway. We’ll go to my place and sort everything out.”
I’ve already come to the conclusion that she needs to go back home to Ohio. She needs to be with her family. She needs a chance to talk to her dad in case the worst happens. It’s the best thing for her. Even if it ends up being the worst thing for me.
Sarah nods, then takes a moment to collect herself before swiping her phone and her pills off the desk and tossing them into her purse. After she slides her chair into place, I wrap an arm around her shoulder and hold her close as we work our way out from behind her desk, stopping short when we come face to face with Bree, her arms crossed, her eyes wild.