Too Beautiful to Break Read online

  She closed her eyes and thought of Belmont walking into the sealed-off, airless darkness. A nightmare that had recurred so many times, she’d refused to let it happen in real life. No. She’d made the only decision her love allowed. She had.

  Sending one final look down the endless tracks, Sage stood on lifeless legs, retrieved her suitcase, and took her seat.

  * * *

  Belmont stared through bloodshot eyes at the man behind the counter. The motel clerk was wearing a Santa hat and smoking a cigarette. If Belmont grabbed the lit object and applied the red, glowing end to his arm, it would allow him to feel pain somewhere other than the decaying center of his chest, but it wouldn’t solve anything. It had been a long time since he’d engaged in that kind of destructive behavior. Drugs, fistfights. Long before he’d discovered the serenity of water, he’d turned to those things to distract him from the memories of being trapped inside the ground. Everything that had come with it. Betrayal. Cold that had never fully fled his bones.

  The water had given him purpose. A way to resume his role as the oldest brother and make his siblings confident in him again. Working with his hands on top of a rhythm that never ended kept him centered. When he met Sage, though, “centered” took on a new meaning. One boat and a handful of salvage contracts to meet his most basic needs was no longer sufficient. No, he’d felt a new drive to earn. To make expansion plans and hire more crew members. He’d been in the middle of purchasing another vessel when the road trip put everything on pause. But since the day they met, his motivation had been a dream that one day he could provide for Sage.

  Resuming those plans without her? His mind couldn’t make sense of it.

  Gritting his teeth against the agony of not knowing her whereabouts, Belmont silently begged for the man to hurry up and find an available room. Somewhere he could stash himself while he figured out how to move forward. There was no thinking beyond that. He just needed a place where he could exist awhile.

  Blinking red and green lights snagged his attention. They were wrapped around the man’s computer screen. Christmas. It was almost Christmas. How would Sage spend the holiday with her family? Decorating a tree, drinking egg nog. Normal things. Good things.

  Discomfort seared his throat as the clerk handed over a room key. “You’re in one-oh-nine, buddy. Ice is two doors past that. Pool’s closed.”

  He started to turn away, but the prospect of a bleak, empty room made him pause. “And if I wanted to party?”

  Silence stretched. “You a cop?”

  “Cops don’t give a shit about places like this.”

  “True enough.”

  A drawer slid open and Belmont turned back toward the front desk, watching as the man drew out a variety of baggies, laying them on the computer keyboard. “What’s your poison, big man?”

  All of them. That’s what he wanted to say. He wanted to hand over every green bill inside his wallet and fill his pockets with methods of dropping out, numbing himself. It would have been so easy. Too easy. Nothing would be able to reach him. That’s what stopped the idea in its tracks. Hadn’t he told Sage that if she needed him, he would be there before she knew it? He wouldn’t be able to keep his promise if he were high or passed out. And the world would have to end before he broke his word to that woman.

  “Well?” The clerk picked up a bag of pills and shook it. “What’ll it be?”

  Belmont was already halfway out the door before the man finished posing the question. He moved without feeling anything, a swirl of leaves slithering around his boots. The air was frigid, but he only knew that because ice patches dotted his path as he walked toward his assigned room. The pool caught his attention just up ahead. No lock. Just a sign that said, No Swimming. Unnecessary, he decided absently. What would anyone want with a pool in the middle of December anyway? Unless they wanted to freeze themselves to death.

  His booted feet carried him closer. He stripped off his shirt and shouldered open the flimsy gate, tossing the garment onto what looked like a covered barbeque pit. With methodical movements, he lost his boots and jeans, making sure the cell phone was secure inside the pocket.

  Then he dropped in and let the blistering cold suck the air out of his lungs.

  Opening his mouth, he released a strangled shout unsuitable for the surface, bubbles rioting around his face and obscuring his vision. It seemed to go on forever, the cold snapping at his Adam’s apple, the sound growing less and less natural. By the time he’d finished, his muscles almost ached too much from the strain to swim upward, but he managed it through sheer force of will, remembering his cell phone was above. In the real world. Not down in the depths that threatened to pull him farther and farther into their murk.

  When he breached the surface and heard his cell phone ringing, Belmont almost swallowed half the pool trying to drag in lungfuls of air and swim for the edge at the same time. Rigor mortis setting in on a corpse. That’s how his body felt as he propelled himself up and over the concrete lip of the pool, dragging himself on elbows toward the barbeque pit. He shook, head to toe, the cold burning like a flame, sending pain screaming through his system.

  Commanding his fingers to function, it took an iron will to dig through his pocket and extricate the cell phone, answering it without looking at the screen. “Hello?” he shouted through chattering teeth into the receiver. “Sage?”

  When a handful of quiet seconds passed, Belmont was horrified he might have missed the call, but a familiar voice filled his ear. A welcome one, but not the one he craved with his very soul. “Bel?” Aaron. His brother. “What’s wrong?”

  He fell forward onto the icy concrete, laying his cheek against it. “She’s gone.”

  “Sage?” More silence. “Christ. Where did she go?”

  “I don’t know.” He recalled the way he’d stormed the ticket counter after her train departed, grabbing the man by his collar and demanding information. “The train she took was headed south, but it was stopping at a hub in Charleston. From there, she could have gone anywhere. She’s gone.”

  Aaron’s voice grew louder, more forceful. “Bel, where are you?”

  He wanted to answer. Wanted, as always, for the only family he knew to be near. Even if they weren’t communicating, they were a comfort. His people. But he couldn’t allow them to see him like this. It was too reminiscent of the first time. Their shocked horror as he was dragged out of the well, soaked in piss and unable to explain how he’d gotten down there.

  Never. He would never tell them.

  “I don’t know.” His words were distorted because he could barely move his lips. “My heart, Aaron. I don’t think I can keep it beating without her.”

  A sound left his brother. It was fear. He didn’t like hearing it and had no way to fix it. Not when he was letting the cold take him. “Belmont,” Aaron shouted. “You listen to me, asshole. You listen. Get the fuck up from whatever ditch you fell into and go find Sage.” Labored breaths. “I know how you’re feeling right now. Like you have no direction or purpose. But you do. She’s your purpose. Whatever happened, there’s nothing that can shake that. We all know it. It seems like we’ve all known it forever.”

  “I smothered her. She told me.”

  “She was lying.” In his mind’s eye, he could see Aaron yanking at his tie, turning in circles. “I know you’ve never told a lie, so it’s hard to understand, but take it from a reformed master. It’s easy when you have a good reason. Or what you think is a good reason.”

  “Sage wouldn’t lie. She’s so good.” Was he starting to fall asleep? The sky was darkening. How long had they been on the phone? “I have no way to find—”

  It hit him like a bolt of electricity. Her scrapbook. She’d left her scrapbook in the foot well of the passenger seat. He could see it. The clean silver edges of it, the burgundy lettering. Classy, just like her. Maybe…maybe she’d meant to leave it for him? It was too much to hope for, but in a world where her light had been stolen away, he would grab on to any sliver of
illumination he could find. Purpose. Sage. Without them, he might as well lie there forever. So he would take hold of this chance. Hold on for dear life.

  “Bel?” Aaron shouted. “Tell me where you are. Me and Grace will come meet you.”

  Belmont slapped his free hand down on the concrete and pushed to his knees, shaking so violently, his head ached from his teeth grinding together. “I’m glad you called, Aaron. I’m always glad. I love you. I’ll be fine.”

  Before his brother could answer, Belmont hung up the phone and stumbled for the parking lot, wearing nothing but underwear and socks. Absently he registered the motel clerk emerging from the front office and gaping at him, along with two rooms full of guests.

  “Damn, bro. What did you sell him?” one of them said. “I’ll take some of that.”

  Belmont ignored them all, prying open the Suburban’s passenger door. Whatever breath remained in his body whooshed out at the proof that Sage had once sat there, beside him. Back straight, hands folded in her lap, legs crossed. God, he missed her so bad. Everything felt wrong and incomplete. How was the world still turning?

  Clutching the scrapbook to his chest, Belmont passed the crowd of onlookers, let himself into his motel room, and cranked up the heat. Holding Sage’s handiwork close, he collapsed on the bed, vowing to scour it cover to cover, as soon as he woke up.

  Chapter Four

  Sage set down her suitcase and stared across the unkempt lawn, the house from her nightmares looming at the end of the dirt path. She’d run fast and far, vowing never to set foot inside it again. Funny how she’d believed her own lies. One phone call from her mother. That was all it took for her to cave. Maybe deep down, she’d always known the new life was temporary. A fraud. That a daughter who’d taken the easy way out and left the people who depended on her didn’t get a fresh start.

  Oh, she’d needed time to build up the courage to return to Sibley. That’s why she’d seized the chance to ride seventeen hundred miles with the Clarksons, Belmont’s grounding presence at the wheel. She’d watched them take leaps of faith and push one another to their limits. Armed with those memories, now it was her turn to face her family obligation. No matter how awful that connection had treated her in the past, it refused to be ignored.

  What would she find inside the house after five years? She hadn’t been around to scrub the floors, beat the rugs, or kill the mice since leaving for California when she was twenty. No one would have done it in her stead, so she feared for the sight that would greet her on the other side of the door.

  Her arm ached from carrying her luggage from the bus station—she’d had no choice but to walk. Her parents didn’t own a car, and a cab would have cost money. She needed every penny right now. Shaking out the fatigued limb, Sage plucked up the case and put a measure of steel into her spine. Careful not to step on any of the broken glass along the path, she sailed toward the house, trying desperately not to think of Belmont. Impossible, though. It would never be a feat she could accomplish, so she might as well let the inevitable happen.

  If he were walking on the path beside her, he would sense her nerves. He’d give her just a brush of his shoulder or a low hum in his throat. And she’d know there was an invisible shield around her that he wouldn’t allow anything to penetrate. She’d told him he’d leaned on her too much, but it went both ways. That fact was never more obvious than right now.

  I fought my own battles before and I’ll do it again.

  The steps creaked as Sage climbed them, the porch groaning as she moved across it. She held her fist aloft a moment, before rapping loudly on the door. “Mom?”

  When the door opened, Sage held back a sound of alarm. Her mother had aged. More than five years warranted. Most of her light brown hair, once the same shade as Sage’s, had turned a delicate gray. It threaded through the mousy color in an almost graceful way. Graceful. That was how people in Sibley used to describe her mother. Or so Sage had been told.

  Bernadette Alexander had been a ballet dancer once upon a time, but wifehood and motherhood hadn’t allowed her big-city dreams to flourish. In the earliest stages of Sage’s life, Bernie had been satisfied with the path her life had taken. But being a miner’s wife wasn’t easy. Her husband’s long hours meant solitude. Time to think about what she’d passed up. And even more hours to lament her decisions over too many glasses of Crown Royal whiskey. When Bernie was sober, however, she was an angel. A doting wife. The most hospitable of Southern hostesses, if you overlooked the mess.

  Sage was relieved to see she’d caught her mother on one such afternoon.

  “My girl.” Bernie’s hands flew to her mouth where she pressed them tight enough to turn her knuckles white. “I knew you would come. Thank God. Thank the good Lord you’re home.” She threw a glance over her shoulder. “Your father is sleeping just now and I’m grateful for it. We’re long overdue a girl chat, just you and I, aren’t we?”

  “Yes, Mama,” Sage murmured, her Louisiana accent flowing back like she hadn’t spent years learning to hide it. Not because she was ashamed. But because she needed the past completely tucked away, where she wouldn’t have to think of it every time she opened her mouth. “We’re long overdue.”

  A pleased smile spreading across her lined face, Bernie ushered Sage inside. “Don’t mind the clutter. I haven’t had a chance to tidy up yet today.”

  Sage held her breath out of conditioning, but the smell of cat urine caught her too fast to avoid it completely. Every few feet there were newspapers along the floor, covered in wet spots, probably weeks old. Maybe longer. Dirt caked everything. Paint peeled off the walls. It looked as if her mother had attempted to hang wallpaper at some point but stalled halfway through, leaving long strips hanging like a sad palmetto tree in the hall.

  They entered the kitchen and it only got worse. Dishes stacked to overflowing in the sink, cats on the counter licking at the dirty plates. And all the while, her mother smiled as if nothing was wrong. As if they’d just walked into the pristine parlor of one of the big estates on the other side of town.

  Thank God she had a place to sleep outside the house. The cottage might require some clearing out and shining up, but she couldn’t abide a single night within her parents’ walls.

  Knowing how perceptive her mother could be, despite her seeming lack of awareness, Sage kept her features schooled and set down her suitcase near the archway. She watched as Bernie planted her hands on either side of the sink and dropped her head forward. And just stayed that way, exhaustion evident in the slope of her shoulders.

  “Mama?” Sage winced at the way her voice suddenly sounded so young. “How is Daddy doing?”

  “Terrible.” Bernie turned and slumped against the sink, moisture coating her cheeks. As far back as Sage could remember, her mother’s moods had changed with the wind, but it never failed to set off a rhythmic pounding behind her breastbone. “I told you over the phone, daughter, that man is being run into the ground. Your daddy can hardly walk up the steps by the day’s end, all hunched over like he is.” She sucked in a long breath through her nose. “He won’t see retirement at this rate. And it’s only two months away. I live in fear of him keeling over or killing himself with that machinery.”

  Guilt packed a powerful punch. Nothing in this life came without a cost and here was the proof. Sage hadn’t escaped this place free and clear. Oh, no. Her father had been paying for the agreement she’d made the whole time. “I won’t let that happen.”

  There. Now that the words had been said, Sage had to make them true. Make things right. A scream built up in her throat, but she swallowed it down and focused. She centered her attention on a spot above her mother’s head and thought of Belmont. The smell of his neck. Ocean and salt and eternity. She’d stolen one of his shirts yesterday before they’d set out on the road. As soon as she was alone, she intended to wrap herself in it. How long would the smell last? A couple weeks if she was lucky.

  The spot above her mother’s head wavered, but she bl
inked and it came back into focus. She’d been raised in this squalor. No, she hadn’t been raised—she’d reared herself, instinctively knowing from a young age that her parents weren’t capable. That they were dissolvable people who turned to the bottle at the first sign of strife. She’d tried to live so small they wouldn’t notice her or use her as an excuse to drink more, but they’d drowned themselves anyway. Drowned and drowned and drowned again.

  So as soon as she was old enough, she’d struck a deal with the devil to get out.

  For a short time, she’d enjoyed the illusion of being free, cultivating a career that she loved. Wedding planning. Who knew she’d have such a knack? It had even led Sage to a friendship with Peggy, her best friend whose spunk she already missed. Yes, she’d had it good for a short time. Better than good.

  Perfect. Too perfect.

  The devil never really left a person in peace, once hands had been shaken, though. In her heart of hearts, she’d known the fallout would eventually rain down. She’d been waiting for the call home to face the desperate decision she’d made, so she’d spent the last five years playacting. Pretending to be someone other than that poor Alexander girl. But that’s who she was. Not some fashionable wedding planner with a perpetually sunny disposition. No, sometimes Sage was selfish, too. And now she would pay for the last five years of freedom with her future.

  Sibley was where she was needed. She wouldn’t abandon her parents again. Even if she survived what was to come, they would never stop needing her. And she couldn’t leave it to chance that the devil wouldn’t find another way to hurt them.

  “I’ll go to see him,” Sage whispered.