Love On Tap (Love By Design 8)

“He’s also pledged to a pretty girl name Julia when she returns from Ohio.”

Leave it to Sierra to find someone as equally unattainable as herself.

“The cat?”

“No, that was my parting gift. Emmett found me in a corn field.” She fingered the long scar that ran up her thigh not yet covered in a colorful tattoo and my hand found hers tracing the web of white tissue broken and healed over stronger than her tan skin. So many scars cut deep with her, and the worst ones remained unseen.

“Emmett told me I needed something to care for. A reason to get up in the morning and a demanding squalling kitten was the only thing he had handy.”

This Emmett guy figured out Sierra better and faster than I ever could.

“I guess it’s better than a goat or a pig.”

She snorted rolling her eyes, “We sort of bonded over our runt status and I took him with me.”

“Makes sense. You know, I could use some taking care of.” I stretched yawning and she jabbed me in the stomach playfully.

“You’re not a motherless cat.” She smirked.

“No, but I could be pretty demanding. Tell me about your time with Emmett.”

“He tempered my storm. Showed me how to harness the wind and ride out the flood.”

I nodded remembering how Sierra had been too wild, too impulsive to control. “Things you couldn’t do here.”

“At the time, no. I was so destructive. I still am. Most of the time I don’t know what to do with that energy and not hurt the people I love.”

“No one is asking you to be perfect. Just don’t walk out the door.”

“I don’t know how to not runaway.”

“Then let me anchor you.”

I rolled us over and pinned Sierra underneath me. Her pale face reflected her pain. Pain I couldn’t take away, and didn’t have a right to or an explanation for. This beautiful woman endured more abuse that I knew about and she was still here. I called that a blessing and a success. I wanted to be her safe place, the soft place she could fall apart and land on but I wasn’t sure what I had to do to earn that place within her hurt soul. This was completely uncharted territory for me and I still harbored a decent amount of anger and guilt over her leaving without an explanation or a second glance.

Sierra wasn’t budging and I could be stubborn enough for both of us. I mean I hadn’t in all these years filled the divorce papers and I had ample time and reason if I wanted to. I just couldn’t let her go. I held her grandparent’s hands at each of their passing and I fought her uncle for the winery when the will was up for probate. I defended her to my family who couldn’t understand my allegiance or the thin band of gold I wore on my thumb when we couldn’t afford decent wedding rings. I waited ten years for her and I knew I’d wait a hundred more to have her again.

I loved her still, my crazy, reckless girl.

13

Sierra

It had taken me years to realize the bridges I had burned in leaving New Paltz were irreparably damaged. There was a time I would have taken whatever accelerant I could get my hands on just to watch it burn. I didn’t care who I hurt. I was convinced that I was only hurting myself. Oh I had casualties a plenty along the way, bodies carelessly pushed out of my path in favor of the bite and pain of being alone. My wrecking ball cut a swath far and wide obliterating my reality until denial set in heavy and hard.

Andy had been one of many who thought he could save me from a past he didn’t know would haunt me for the rest of my life. I didn’t deserve his love or forgiveness. I often wondered if things fell apart because Andy loved me too much and I didn’t have it in me to love him enough. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to love him, that couldn’t have been father from the truth. I didn’t know how love and the hurt that burned within me like acid took precedence in healing before I could be any good to him or anyone else.

Destruction was the only thing I knew and I dug deep.

I was a mess.

An utter destroyed mess.

My life had been nothing but a series of crawling out of those messes, most of my own making only to fall into much bigger and more complicated ones. Usually those were made by the people I aligned myself with and who freely took advantage of me. I was hell on wheels. I was hell on his heart.

I couldn’t fault Andy. I’d broken the boy he’d been, I just didn’t realize the monster I created within the man. This idyllic town I’d been forced to grown up in had become my dystopia I ran scared from. I hoped now that the dust settled I could find more than one way to cross that river back to him… back to us or whatever carnage was left. I’d take the scraps over having nothing. Even if he never looked at me again I would have taken his hate because then I would have known I still meant something. It was the void of feelings that left me hopeless.

Andy would always be the sweet boy of my past but I lost us both somewhere in the middle. He looked at me now with eyes full of disgust and mistrust. Who could blame him, really? Right out of high school when my immigration papers where being filed he offered to marry me and what did I do? I slept with someone who meant nothing in the grand scheme of things but who I knew would hurt Andy’s ego sending him running far and wide from me.