Authors: Shiloh Walker
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Contemporary Romance
No Longer Mine (19 page)
“But,” Kris said, smiling softly. “I don’t think that’s going happen. He loves you, has loved you for years. He isn’t going to give up that easily.”
A soft, muffled cry came from Nikki and Kris shifted, wrapping her arms around her, whispering,
“It’s okay… Just let it go.” She stayed there as the sobs ripped out of Nikki’s throat.
The storm passed quickly and Nikki swiped a hand over her eyes, smearing already ruined make-up.
Sheepishly, she hugged Kirsten. Then she sat back and heaved a ragged sigh. “I haven’t told him about Jason. If…if he wants to try this one more time, he’s going to have to know about his son.”
“Damn it, Nik.” The words came out on a huff. “Why haven’t you told him yet?” Grimacing, Nikki said, “Stubborn. I kept telling myself I didn’t want him back, that my past wasn’t any concern of his. I guess I figured if I told him, that I’d forgiven him and was ready to try again. And…” Her voice trailed off as she stared past Kirsten’s shoulder, her eyes distant.
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No Longer Mine
“I was scared to,” she finally admitted. “I still am. I…I don’t think I can take being hurt like that again, Kris. It’ll destroy me.”
“He hurts you again, I’ll destroy him,” Kris promised. “But something tells me he’d sooner chop off his arm than hurt you again. If he was the jerk I wanted him to be, he wouldn’t have hung around as long as he did when you kept being a cold little bitch to him.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Nikki murmured, dashing the back of her hand over her eyes. Then she eyed the black smears on her hand. “I’m a mess.”
“I’ve told you that already,” Kirsten reminded her. Gingerly, she got to her feet and heaved a sigh of relief when she did so without hearing material ripping. “I don’t know why I chose this dress. I can’t even sit down in it.”
“That’s probably why you chose it. You like seeing eyes pop out.” Nikki gave a weak, watery smile as she rose to her feet as well. “The person who designed it must have been a man. They don’t think of things like that. But you look great in it.”
“I’ve been told several times tonight that I’d look better out of it,” Kirsten quipped, flashing a smile at the younger woman. “I know I’d certainly feel better out of it.” She slid a sideways look at Nikki and asked, “What about you?”
“I don’t think it matters to me one way or the other, but for propriety’s sake you ought to leave it on,” Nikki replied, her voice droll.
“I meant, do you feel better?”
“No,” she replied honestly. “But I will.”
103
Chapter Fourteen
On January 9, Nikki went home to face the music. The flight to Lexington passed uneventfully and much, much too fast. As she disembarked, she set her shoulders, mentally prepped herself, reminded herself of the talks with Kris. Wade had spent months trying to get her to open up to him—if he had been at all serious, one bad fight wasn’t going to dissuade him.
And even if it had, that just proved things never would have worked out between them and she’d be better off knowing.
Blah, blah, blah, blah…
Her long leather coat swept her ankles as she entered the terminal, looking for familiar faces. Shawn’s face was the first she saw. Or rather, she saw his head as he bent it to whisper in the ear of a girl who would stand a good six inches over Nicole. Behind him stood her Dylan, leaning against a pole and gazing into nothingness. Her dad stood to the side, searching the crowd with impatient eyes.
They hadn’t seen her yet.
Nikki resisted the urge to melt into the crowd and take off running. Ireland. Australia. Scotland. Any place. The Arctic Circle would be fine. Afghanistan would be fine. The Bering Sea.
But she didn’t. She was getting tired of running.
Tugging off the loose gray beret, Nikki shifted her way through the flow of people until only ten feet or so separated her from her family. She was five feet away before they recognized her.
Jack’s eyes glanced over her absently before drifting away. Seconds later they returned to her thin face and he sighed, shaking his head in resignation.
The thin, sad little waif before them bore little resemblance to the healthy woman who had left. Only the sad eyes were the same. Sadness had eaten away at her literally, until she was just a shadow of herself.
Jack doubted she’d weigh a hundred pounds. Violet half moons lay under her eyes and Jack wished that for five minutes he could be alone with the boy who had done this to his little girl. Again. He pulled her into his arms, stifling the second-nature instinct that had him wishing for a drink.
“How are you, baby?”
Nikki forced a smile and promised, “I’ll be better now that I am home.” She hoped she wasn’t lying.
Dylan was scowling at her when she turned to him. “You look like hell. Doesn’t that rich girl in New York know how to feed people?” he demanded. His mouth was compressed to a tight thin line, his eyes narrowed. “You were supposed to come back better, not worse.”
No Longer Mine
“She knows how to feed people. I just forgot how to eat,” Nikki told him, her mouth quirking in a slight smile before she moved away, letting him shoulder her carry-on.
The animosity between her brother and friend was a long-standing one. Kirsten had taken one look at her brooding baby brother and steered far clear of him. Dylan simply ignored her, never speaking more than five words to her unless he had no other choice.
Nikki suspected Dylan had noticed the elegant lady from the first moment he had seen her.
Really
noticed.
She also suspected she knew exactly why Dylan avoided Kris so completely. Kris had only been a junior editor when she had met him the first time, but she was far more successful than he would ever be He was a street punk from West Louisville. She was a classy educated business woman.
And if she knew her brother at all, the fact that he had what could be considered a crush on her that wouldn’t go away would only add fuel to the fire.
She arched a brow at him, unable to keep from wondering how long those two would avoid each other. The inevitable would happen sooner or later. Under her patient stare, Dylan scowled and repeated himself. “You look like hell.”
He hugged her close and Nikki sighed, relaxing for just a minute. But then he straightened up and stared down at her with shrewd, knowing eyes. “You didn’t outrun it, did you?” Dylan asked quietly, studying her shadowed eyes. “But I don’t guess you expected to.”
“No. I guess I didn’t,” Nikki agreed, turning away from him and introducing herself to the Amazon who stood hand in hand with her baby brother.
And as she spoke to the sweet-natured girl who handled her brother like an old pro, she fought off the feeling of dread that was rising within her.
She was home.
It was time to pay the piper.
Wade wasn’t one for resolutions, but this year he’d decided to make one and had actually started well before the New Year even rolled around. It wasn’t one he had any intention of breaking.
He had finally figured something out. Nikki had left her home to get away from him. She couldn't be around him, didn’t want to be around him.
Whether it still hurt her too much, whether she no longer cared, he just didn't know.
Although part of him remembered the pain he saw all too often in her eyes and it made him think…it just hurt her too much. The girl he remembered would have happily danced on his grave for what he’d done to her, but obviously that wasn’t how Nikki had spent the past five years.
She wanted him out of her life and he needed to let her go. He needed to move on with his life so she could move on with hers.
105
Shiloh Walker
That was his resolution.
Leanne was a part of it.
She gazed at him over the golden glow of the candles, her eyes smiling shyly into his. Soft violin music played over discreetly hidden speakers and ubiquitous waiters answered every wish before it could even be spoken.
January was almost a memory now. He’d spent the month putting his resolution to the test. His past with Nikki needed to be put to rest.
She was back in town. Had been for nearly two weeks. He hadn’t seen her yet but would eventually.
He had to convince her, and himself, that when he saw her, it was over. As though there was nothing between them.
Sooner or later he would convince himself it was over.
Sooner or later maybe Nikki would move on with her life.
And maybe sooner or later he could feel something for Leanne besides this vague affection. Abby loved her and Leanne adored Abby. Leanne wanted a family… Maybe in time…
Wade was giving himself a much repeated pep talk as they waited for their meal. He had just taken a sip of the wine Leanne had sweetly asked he try when he looked up and saw her.
His throat tightened. His stomach clenched as though he had just taken a particularly viscous sucker punch.
Nikki.
She walked past about twenty feet away, her head bent as she followed the hostess around the corner.
His eyes landed on her family and he cursed the sense of relief that rushed through him when he realized she wasn’t here with a date. Or a lover.
A cocky little beret sat atop curls shorn to chin length, her long leather coat swept her ankles as she disappeared from his sight.
Wade nearly choked on the excellent wine as he automatically inhaled at the sight of her. A fist closed around his heart and he could have sworn he smelled the subtle alluring scent of lotion-slicked flesh. Blood pounded in his head and muscles tensed.
He had been deluding himself.
Maybe he could let her out of his life but never out of his heart. And he could never let another woman take the position that should have been hers from the first, that would have been hers if he hadn’t been such an ass.
She was his first love. His only love.
And if he couldn’t have her at his side…he’d go it alone.
A gentle cough had him looking up to see Leanne studying him with sad, wise eyes. Thick lashes briefly shielded her dark blue eyes as she lowered her wineglass to the table with hands that shook slightly.
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No Longer Mine
Her mouth trembled once before firming as she asked, “Is she the one whose memory I’m competing with?”
Wade remained silent, closing his eyes as he tried to calm his racing heart. She was back. After more than four months she had really come back home.
“I wasn’t sure if that was the Nikki that Abby kept talking about all the time, but I guess I have the answer to that now, don’t I?” she murmured, crossing her hands in her lap. “I didn’t know you two had met. Looks like you’ve done a little more than that.”
Wade murmured something. What, he didn’t know. He stared into his wineglass at the deep red liquid as his mind raced and chased itself in dizzying circles. The flickering candlelight only added to the effect, making his head spin as blood roared in his ears.
“Was it love at first sight?” Leanne asked, watching him. “Or did you know her from before she moved here?”
“Yes. And yes,” he whispered, his voice slightly hoarse.
“I see,” Leanne replied, her eyes stating clearly that she didn’t see at all.
She wanted to know. It was written all over her face.
And he wanted,
needed
,
to tell somebody. Five years had passed and nobody but him knew the whole of it. He had been ashamed to talk to any of his old friends, and Lord knew he couldn’t talk it over with his best friend. That had been Nikki, and he had lost her. He had hurt her, broken her heart. His parents weren’t viable candidates for purging his soul either.
Hadn’t he kept quiet about it long enough? If nothing else, maybe telling it out loud would exorcise her from his heart and soul and he could let her go, the way he needed to.
“I…met Nikki before I got married. I’ve known her for years,” he said, his voice sounding rusty. His hand clenched tightly around the fragile stem of the wineglass before he made it relax. He loosened the tie at his neck, released the top button of his shirt.
“How many years?” Leanne repeated.
“A little over eight years now,” he said softly.
“She would have just been a kid.”
Wade snorted and said, “I don’t think she was ever really a kid, not like we were.” He grabbed his wine and tossed it back and wished it were something stronger. The words started to pour from him. The meals were served but hardly touched as he told of the first few awkward dates and the furious fights. The final fight that caused Wade to destroy what was most important to him in the world.
“I don’t even remember it,” he whispered. “I lost everything that mattered to me because of that night and I don’t remember it. I sure as hell don’t know why I let it happen. I never thought of her like that, never. She was just…Jamie, this girl I had grown up with.”
107
Shiloh Walker
He told her about the last night when he had told Nikki about what he had done, how that had ripped his heart from his body. Of the months of depression that followed, depression that was relieved only by the arrival of his newborn daughter.
“I don’t regret her. I couldn’t. She’s everything to me,” Wade said, his harsh face softening as he thought of her, that sweet smile, the mischief that glinted in her eyes, her unfaltering love. “I didn’t know it was possible to love somebody like that. But to get her, I had to lose Nikki. Had to hurt her.” Leanne listened in silence as he told her about Jamie, how his wife had slipped away and how he hadn’t been able to help her, hadn’t been able to care enough to do it.
“She killed herself, you know.” His voice was conversational, his eyes bland, showing little emotion.
He could have been discussing the weather. “Took a bottle of sleeping pills and never woke up. A few days before she did, I was napping in the lounge at the hospital. I dreamed it but didn’t think anything of it. I was always having really odd dreams. But I came home one day after picking up our daughter and she was gone.”