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“Yeah, that was Beth Jackson’s house. Did she ever marry Todd? I can go there and then just walk home.” She turned to look out the window. So much for her telling him why she ditched her wedding. Not that it mattered, that was her business.
Nodding, he knew she wasn’t looking for an answer as he drove the short distance. Pulling into his garage to get out of the rain, he closed the garage door. He could tell she didn’t want anyone to know where she was. Both soaking wet when they walked into the main part of the house, they kicked off their shoes but still dripped water everywhere.
Sam looked at his new light tan carpet and said, “I’ll close my eyes, and you can get out of your dress and go take a shower. I’ll bring you clothes when I get out of my wet stuff.” It sounded like a decent plan.
“Okay, but I can’t get out of this dress alone. Can you do the buttons and stuff on the back?” She turned her back to him.
Taking a breath, he looked up at her, all smooth olive skin in contrast to the white dress she wore. It was a tight dress and took some strength to get the first few buttons undone. He tried not to touch her bare skin, but it was impossible with the tiny buttons. Her skin was as smooth and soft as it looked. Each button revealed more and more of her perfect back until he got to about the fifth one, then fine white lines started to appear.
Button after button revealed more scars. His heart hurt as they became more numerous and obvious. After a few more buttons, he couldn’t stop himself from lightly touching one of the lines with his finger to see how it felt.
She flinched and turned away from him. “Sorry, skin graft scars,” she explained. Not that he didn’t know all about her surgeries; Patrick had kept him informed as it had been happening. Surgery after surgery.
“No need to apologize. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have touched them.” He wished he had been strong enough not to need to touch them. Feel how real they were.
“Too many not to, right? Now close your eyes.” Her words were filled with sadness.
“Okay.” He closed his eyes with regret.
He could tell by her reaction that the scars bothered her. Didn’t she know by now it was the scars that made people more interesting? Some have scars that show, some don’t. Natalie had spent a year in Hell to get those scars. She shouldn’t be ashamed of them.
Listening to her quietly walk across his living room, he wondered if she was naked. Which made him picture her naked, which he shouldn’t. She had been his student, he reminded himself as he took off his shirt while keeping his eyes closed. Dropping it on the floor then pulling his T-shirt off, he wondered if she was in the bathroom yet. He hadn’t heard the door close.
“Looking good, sexy Sam. I’m gone.” With a laugh as enticing as it had been years before, she called him the nickname she had given him his first day of teaching history at Landstad High School, a nickname he sometimes still got called. She was still annoying.
After opening his eyes to make sure she was gone, he peeled off his wet jeans and left them in a pile on the ground with her dress. Along with a white, lacy strapless bra and a scrap of underwear that made him realize she had been completely naked when she walked through the room.
He pulled off his socks but left his underwear on in case she came out before he could get to his bedroom, not at all because he wanted to hide how her being naked in his house had affected him. Walking down the hall, he didn’t hear the shower running in the guest bathroom, but as he entered his master bedroom, he heard the shower running.
She was naked in his shower. Natalie Beckett was naked in his shower, using his soap on her tall, sexy body. And he was standing in the middle of his bedroom with a full-on erection for one of his former students. This wasn’t how he thought this day would ever go.
He needed to get his mind off naked women, or at least this naked woman. Finding sweats and T-shirts for them both, he slid a set into the bathroom for her and then closed the door again. But the hot steamy air that had escaped the room smelled like her—vanilla and citrus—making him think of senior history.
By the time she came out of the bathroom, he was in the living room sitting on the couch, flipping through channels. The wet clothes were stuffed into his laundry room since he had no idea what to do with them. It had taken time to get his body back under control. Dealing with a muddy, wet wedding dress helped.
How she managed to make a baggy orange Landstad Tigers T-shirt and oversized black sweatpants look so good, he didn’t know. Her hair ran down her back in long black waves, still wet from her shower. Her bright green eyes were less wary than they had been on the drive over.
Slumping down onto the other end of the couch from him, she said, “Thank you for saving me, Mr. Sullivan. I just needed to get away from there.”
“I just did what anyone would have done. Damsel in distress and all.” He smiled at her.
“I guess I did need saving.” The phone rang in her hand, and without looking at it, she hit a button, shutting the sound shut off. It rang again.
“You should call your dad.” He watched her glance at the phone again and ignore another call.
She cringed as she said, “No, he is going to be so mad.”
“No, he would like to know that you are okay. Patrick has never been mad at you. You can do no wrong in his eyes.” Sam told her the truth of what he had seen of his friend over the years. Natalie had made some big mistakes, and Patrick would just let it go. ‘It’s Natalie,’ was his favorite saying.
“Usually, but this is maybe too much, even for Perfect Patrick.” She read a text that had come in.
“Perfect Patrick?” His eyebrow raised.
“Mom used to call him that. I always thought it was cute that she called him out on his non-faults. She wasn’t there today.” Natalie put her phone down on the coffee table and looked out the window; the rain had finally stopped, but the day was still dreary beyond the glass.
“I bet your dad had his camera out recording the day for her.” Sam reached out and put a hand on her shoulder in comfort and squeezed.
Every event in Natalie’s life had been captured by her father’s video camera. All for her mom to see one day. Though the woman had died years before Sam came to town, he knew all videos started with her dad saying, “Look, Mom, look at Natalie today.” From ball games she had played to big and small events in her life. Sam had seen a few of them after the accident, but he hadn’t seen many since then.
