Flesh & Bone - a contemporary romance: The Minstrel Series #2 (24 page)

Eva twisted her finger around the hem of her skirt. “What do you want to know?”

“Who was driving the car?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was it your mama or papa? A friend?”

“No, it wasn’t anyone I knew.”

Sebastian’s brow furrowed. “You were with someone you didn’t know?”

“I wasn’t
in
the car, Sebastian. I was
hit
by a car.”

Sebastian’s voice hitched. “I thought you were in a car accident.”

“I was in an accident involving a car, but I never said it was a car accident. I was hit while riding my bike. It’s common knowledge in my circles. I just assumed you knew.”

The light from the street lamp shed a ghostly glow on Sebastian’s constricted face. He looked like he was choking.

His expression frightened her. “Are you all right?”

“When, exactly, did this happen?”

“Five years ago, on the ninth of May.”

“Were you wearing a red coat?”

Eva blinked. “Yes. Why?”
And how did he know?

Sebastian leapt off the bed and raced to the bathroom. Eva grabbed at her heart and shivered with foreboding. Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong.

Oh, sweet Jesus
. It was
her!

Five years ago. The timing. How had he not put two and two together before? Oh God, what was he going to do?

He flipped the toilet lid up and vomited. He twisted the sink tap on to try to cover the sound of his heaving. He slunk to the floor and wiped his mouth with toilet paper and flushed the toilet.

He ran both of his hands through his hair and leaned his forehead on his knees. This was bad. Oh God.

His mind flashed back to the day after that rainstorm. A strip of red fabric in the grill of his car. He remembered plucking the piece of fabric, torn from something, and wondering what it was and how it had gotten attached there.

He had to tell her. She’d hate him, but he had to tell the truth. And he’d probably go to jail. So much for Hollow Fellows. The guys would really be pissed at him now.

A light tapping on the door was followed by Eva’s voice. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he called. “I’ll be right out.”

He brushed his teeth and washed his face. He could just pretend it was food poisoning. Not tell her at all. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her and all that.

But she was bound to find out one day. Some sleazebag journalist would eventually decide to look for dirt on Sebastian and find the skeletons in his closet. It was just a matter of time. If she found out he knew and didn’t tell her, she’d never forgive him. Ever.

He opened the door with a shaky hand. Eva stood in the middle of the room—she had turned on one of the lamps—and leaned on her cane. Sebastian forced back a sob. He’d done that to her. He’d given her that scar, put her through the pain of rehab. He was the one who had stolen simple joys like hiking and bike riding.

“I’m sorry, Eva.”

“What’s wrong, Sebastian?” Eva’s eyes were wide and glassy. “You’re scaring me.”

Tears ran down Sebastian’s face, and he pushed at them with the back of his hand. “I thought it was a dog. I thought I hit a damn dog.”

Eva’s free hand went to her chest. Her face contorted like she knew what he meant but didn’t want to believe it. She took a small step back. “What are you talking about?”

“It was me. I was the driver who hit you and ran.”

No, no, no.
This couldn’t be happening. Black spots swirled around her peripheral vision and her legs gave out. She landed on the carpeted floor with a thud.

“Eva!” Sebastian raced to help her.

She held up a palm in warning. “Don’t touch me!”

He jumped back like he’d touched an electric fence.

“Eva.”

“Don’t you dare touch me.”

She wrestled to get herself off the floor and into the closest chair, wincing at the pain that seared up her leg, an echo of the shattering of her glass heart. With three hard breaths and eyes pinched closed, she relived the night she was hit. Dusk had fallen and she’d forgotten her bike lamp. She was riding home from a friend’s house, having left later than she intended. It was before her family had moved to the
Neustadt
and taken the flat above the soup kitchen. Back then they’d lived in the outskirts of the city. It grew dark and started to rain, pointy drops that poked her face as the wind picked up. The road wasn’t well lit and she’d kept as far right as she could to allow the occasional vehicle to pass. Water splashed up from their tires, soaking her left leg. She remembered being cold and wet, and pedaling hard, just wanting to get home.

She’d told everyone that she never felt a thing—that one moment she was riding her bike along the road and the next she was lying in a bed in the hospital.

But that wasn’t true.

The truth was she clearly remembered the moment of impact, and the fear that whipped her like a cat of nine tails when her back wheel skidded out from beneath her. Her breath stopped and her pulse pounded loud and heavy in her ears for those long, surreal seconds as she hurled through the air, and her mind registered,
I’ve been hit
. She cried out in agony as she landed on a jagged rock, her leg twisting beneath her. Her hand reached for the source of her pain and sprang to her chest when she realized she’d touched her own broken femur
bone,
jutting through her skin. She heard the unbearably loud thudding of her heartbeat in her temples as she passed in and out of consciousness. The certainty that she was dying. Would die. The twisting, stabbing, choking
fear of death
.

Then blackness.

She woke up three weeks later in the hospital and remembered every terrifying detail, but they were too horrific to share. Her parents’ faces and Gabriele’s, they looked so fragile when they peered down at her. Eva couldn’t add to their pain. She wouldn’t soil the obvious relief and joy they were experiencing at her awakening.

“I thought it was a dog, I swear.”

Eva cut Sebastian with a glare. “And you left a family pet to die?”

“No, I wasn’t sure. It could’ve been a raccoon, or a rock. It was raining hard and it was dark. I couldn’t see.”

“But you didn’t think to check to make sure? If it weren’t for a farmer caught in the rain while walking his dog, I would’ve
bled out
.”

Sebastian collapsed onto the bed. “I’m so sorry. I’ve regretted not going back more than you can know.”

“When did you know it wasn’t a dog you’d hit, but a person?”

“The next day. I found a piece of red fabric stuck in my grill.”

“From my coat.”

“I checked the news and read about a hit and run. But they said the injuries were… survivable. I couldn’t see the point of turning myself in. I couldn’t change what happened. And I didn’t want to go to jail.”

“That is the most cowardly thing I’ve ever heard.”

Eva’s heart hardened to stone. A switch snapped from on to off, from hot to cold. Whatever love Eva thought she’d had for Sebastian Weiss seeped out with his confession. She no longer loved him. She hated him.
Hated him
. He’d left her to die in the dark and in the cold rain. She could forgive anything but that.

“I want to go home.”

“Eva…”

“Now!” Eva handled her cane with a shaky hand, eyes focused on anything but the stricken look on Sebastian’s face. Good. He hurt. It was nothing compared to the pain she’d endured these last five years. She pushed by him to the bathroom to collect her toothbrush. Thankfully, she hadn’t unpacked anything else. She stuffed it in her suitcase and zipped it shut.

Sebastian let out a long hard sigh. “There aren’t any flights until morning.”

“I’ll take the train.” Eva didn’t fly. The autobahn was scary enough. The thought of traveling through the air in a steel tube made her blood freeze.

“There won’t be any trains leaving until early morning either.”

Eva speared him with an icy glare. “Then I’ll wait at the train station.” There was no way she was spending the night here. With him.

Another heavy sigh came from Sebastian as he grabbed her suitcase. He held the door of their room open, and she limped by him. The ride down the elevator was unbearable. Standing side by side, she could feel the heat of his body next to her, a hot invisible wall of separation. The elevator beeped, announcing their arrival to the lobby. Sebastian walked ahead and Eva heard him order a taxi.

Eva continued to the waiting area outside where a taxi pulled up. Sebastian put her suitcase in the trunk as she crawled into the backseat. She couldn’t contain her surprise when he got in next to her.

“I don’t need a chaperone,” she snapped.

“I’m not leaving you alone overnight at the train station.”

She spoke through tight lips. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’m sure you will. I’m still coming.”

Eva huffed and stared out the window. The oncoming traffic blurred by in white and red ribbons of light. Her chest squeezed with the heaviness of a steel drum locked tight. Her face pulled down like hard leather. The back of her eyes burned as she held back angry, resentful tears. She wouldn’t let Sebastian see how deeply she was wounded, how lethal his injury was to her. She carefully stitched up the festering sore in her soul, ignoring the poisonous pus.

Eva insisted on pulling her suitcase when they arrived at the station, but she didn’t fight him when Sebastian refused to let her buy her own ticket home. He owed her that much anyway.

“I’m checking your suitcase through,” Sebastian said, “but you have to change trains in Munich and Nuremburg.”

Eva swallowed. What if she got lost? What if she couldn’t find the right platform in time and missed the connection?

Sebastian seemed to read her mind. “Just follow the directions on the ticket,” he added gently. “The platform numbers are listed there.”

Eva snatched the tickets and slipped them into her shoulder bag and followed the signs overhead to the appropriate platform number. See, this was easy. Whatever trial lay ahead of her as she made her way home alone would be a million times easier to face than staying on tour.

Eva had hoped for a crowded waiting area with only a single empty seat that would force Sebastian away from her, but the platform was nearly empty. Not many people opted to spend their nights on uncomfortable plastic chairs waiting for the 5:00 am train.

Exhaustion ripped through her being and she slumped into an empty seat and closed her eyes. She heard the sound of another body easing into a chair opposite her and she knew it was Sebastian. She could feel his eyes on her, staring. Remorseful.

A lump formed in her throat, soft and gooey. The burning in her eyes felt wet and a tear escaped. She jumped to her feet, turning her back to Sebastian. She didn’t want him to see her cry. She left for the restroom she’d spotted on the other side of the platform. Her leg felt like a dead weight, a ball and chain she dragged with her everywhere she went. A middle-aged man with greasy hair and dirty jeans watched her until she disappeared behind the restroom door.

She double-checked to ensure she was alone before allowing the tears to flow. She pressed a papertowel to her mouth to suppress the sobs that escaped from a deep place, like lava bubbling stubbornly to the surface. She thrashed at her chest. Her heart hurt so much!

The one person she dared to love was the only person she’d vowed to hate. And she hated him even more for putting her in this impossible situation.