Authors: Shiloh Walker
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Contemporary Romance
No Longer Mine (27 page)
This trip had definitely deviated from his plan.
I had a son
, he thought bleakly.
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And he wondered what the little boy had looked like, how his laugh had sounded.
Grief for the child he had never known, and never would know, ripped through him. He paused outside the door of the cabin. Behind him, Nikki was settling in the truck. He pressed his palms to his eyes and dragged a deep, cold draught of air into his lungs.
How in the hell am I supposed to deal with this?
Hours later he pulled up in front of her house. “How much longer are you going to keep running from yourself, Nikki?” Wade asked, killing the engine as he stared up at her silent house. Moonlight gilded his features with a silvery glow, casting one half of his face into shadow.
“I’m not running from anything,” she stated coldly. “I just want to lead my life the way I choose to do so. I don’t want to have to live my life weighing every decision I make, wondering what next you’ll find to blame me for.”
She tugged on the door handle, only to discover it was still locked. “Let me out, Wade.” He ignored her as he quietly said, “The only thing I do blame you for is choosing to spend your life alone, miserable, instead of taking a chance. I’m sorry, Nicole. I don’t know how many more times I’ll have to say that before you can forgive me.”
Tossing him an angry glare, she said, “I had forgiven you. More the fool me. I came back here to try to give things a second chance. If I wanted to be alone, I would have stayed in New York. And that’s exactly what I should have done. Maybe I should thank you for that little trip to Smokies. It certainly brought me back to my senses.”
“Is there anything I could say that would explain that?” he muttered, speaking more to himself than to her. “If you came back to try this again, then why not go ahead and try?”
“Because you proved to me it would be a waste of my time, Wade. You’re not worth wasting any more time on. You were right about that, after all. You are not worth it. No man who does what you just did is.”
“What in the hell did I do that was so terrible?” he asked, refusing to think of what he had been planning to do, get her to admit how she felt and then walk away. “I didn’t make you any promises. And you knew my house had been sold. You should have assumed what I was up to.” Snagging her chin, he made her face him. “And you can’t say you weren’t willing.”
“Why should I lie?” she asked, shrugging her shoulders. “You’re right. I was willing. And I should have known better than to think it was all going to end happily ever after. But this is a better ending anyway. Now we both know where the other stands. I know you’ve turned into a using, lying, womanizing bastard. You know I’ve turned into the bitch who only looks out for number one.” With an icy glare, she said, “Now, let me out of this damn truck, get off my damn mountain and out of this damn town. I don’t ever want to see you again.”
Silently, he thumbed the lock mechanism, all the while staring at her with sad eyes. As she started to slide out of the truck, he spoke. Unable to stop herself, she froze and listened.
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“We didn’t have a choice last time. I took that away from us with my stupidity. We had a choice this time. And it looks like you’ve made yours.” He stretched out his arm, brushed his thumb across her lip.
“Find a way to be happy, Nikki. Believe it or not, I want that for you.” Moments later, her back pressed against the door to her house, Nikki started to shake. Gravel crunched outside as Wade turned his truck around and headed down the mountain. And out of her life.
Be happy.
Did he have to go and say things like that? Things that made her think? Made her doubt her decisions?
Was she doing what was right? What was best?
When was the last time she had ever really been happy?
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Chapter Nineteen
Three months later
A warm early summer breeze drifted past, catching the ends of her hair and tugging at them playfully.
As she sat next to the grave, knees drawn up to her chest, Nikki stared at the pale gray headstone.
This was the first time she had come here in over a month. Slowly, she had come to realize it had become an obsession with her. Forcing herself to stay away had been her therapy. It had been harder than she had expected at first, and then it had been so much easier than she could ever have hoped. The grief that weighed upon her like a stone was lessening, bit by bit, day by day.
Running a hand over the closely cropped grass, she closed her eyes.
Her baby wasn’t here. Not anymore. He was beyond where she could reach him and in a better place than this. A place where broken hearts and broken families were unknown. A place where rage, misery and betrayal didn’t exist.
With her eyes still closed, she pulled up an image of him, his sweet laughing face as he had toddled though the stream not very far from where she sat, tiny fish darting between his little feet.
Over the past few months, since Wade and his little girl had packed up and left, she had come to realize a person didn’t have to be there physically. Jason was still with her, tucked safely inside her soul where he couldn’t be hurt.
The memories of his father and sister he had never known were with him.
With a sigh, she rose to her knees, pressed her hand flat to the headstone. Silently, she said her goodbyes.
It was time to let go.
And it was time to get on with her own life.
She made her way to the little church. Her SUV sat parked in front, black paint gleaming under the sun. She paused, one hand resting on the hood as she stared back at the cemetery. A breeze drifted by, bringing with it the unmistakable scent of honeysuckle. Tipping her head back, she drew the air in and smiled.
Saying goodbye didn’t hurt as much as she had thought it would.
Something tickled her hand and she looked down. Perched there, on her index finger, was a tiny butterfly. Pale yellow wings marked with traces of blue.
Cautiously, she lifted her hand, waiting for it fly off.
No Longer Mine
It didn’t. She held it up to her face as her smile bloomed.
Jason.
Vividly, she remembered the picnic. How her little boy had chased after butterflies and found a dead one, one with wings the color of the sun and the sky. The scent of honeysuckle on the air. The pleasure of the early summer sun shining down on them.
He had come back to say goodbye.
Sometimes she had thought his loss had been so devastating partially because she hadn’t been able to say goodbye, had never been able to find the closure she so badly needed. Maybe she had spent all these hours by the graveside searching for him just so she could say goodbye.
But he had never been there.
Until now.
She could feel him all around her. Maybe it was her imagination, but at this moment she heard a deep baby chuckle, smelled the soft scent of his skin.
Suddenly the butterfly fluttered its wings and took off. As it flew away from her, the dragging, heavy weight of grief fell from her shoulders.
And Nikki understood what it was like to be free.
If only she’d been able to do this months ago, she might not have lost Wade.
Smiling a sad little smile, she climbed into her car. She had come to grips with the pain, the way she had so desperately needed. It had finally eased. It was still there, but it had distanced itself from her, become more bearable.
She had come to grips with losing Wade.
You simply couldn’t have everything in life you wanted. You just had to make do with what you had.
Shrugging off the memories, she started the SUV and headed for home.
The little red light on her machine was blinking. For once it didn’t occur to her to ignore it until the poor machine could hold no more messages. She hit the play button as she kicked off her sandals.
The voice that filled the room was unfamiliar.
At first.
“Hello. I’m trying to reach a Nicole Kline. I’m not sure if I have the right number.” Silence. “This is Louise Lightfoot. I was asked to try and contact you.” There was more silence, followed by a deep shuddering breath. As she waited, frozen in dread, listening to that voice from the past, Nikki prayed. Like she had never prayed before. “My son…Wade… There’s been…an accident, Ms. Kline. He was asking for you. He’s in…”
Nikki’s legs folded beneath her as the woman named off the largest trauma hospital in Louisville.
“Please, God,” she whispered softly, weakly. “Please, God. Not again.” For a few moments longer she
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knelt on the floor folded over, her face buried in her hands as her all-too-vivid imagination painted the worst possible pictures.
Then she saw Abby’s little face.
And shot to her feet.
In less than ten minutes she was on the road to Louisville, speaking rapidly into a cellular phone she rarely used. It was several years old and dusty. She kept it out of habit more than anything else. This was the first time she’d used it in months, if not longer.
She listened to the standard tripe handed out to non-family members. She hung up on the bored nurse, called again, listened to the same crap from a more understanding nurse who offered to get a family member.
The voice that came on the phone was another blast from the past. Wade’s older brother Joe. “He was working—trying to patch somebody up and some idiot ran the red light, didn’t see the ambulance, bunch of stupid, lame-ass
shit
and he’s in a coma. We’ve been trying to track you down ever since. He was…he was asking for you when they brought him in. It was touch and go that first night. They didn’t think he would make it. Mom finally got in touch with your dad earlier today, but he wouldn’t give her your number. She called back again later and your brother gave her your home phone number.” Nikki stored that little piece of information to deal with later and asked the question she hated to ask.
“How is he?”
“Unresponsive,” Joe said quietly. “Swelling on the brain. More medical crap than I can understand.
We, ah, we don’t know…we don’t know if he’s going to come out of it or not.”
“The doctors?”
“They keep saying we have to keep hoping for the best, but you can tell they’re losing faith that anything will happen. There’s no physical reason for the coma. It’s been a week, Nik.”
“He’s gonna be fine,” Nikki said, her voice rough. “Talk to him, okay? He will hear you. Tell him…tell him I’m coming.”
She could only hope he really wanted her there.
Wade was floating in darkness. Occasionally a familiar voice would break past the thick cloud that seemed to envelope him. Mom, Dad and Joe. Lori and Zack. It was funny those two being married. Most often it was Abby’s sweet little voice that called to him, telling him stories the best she could remember.
The longer she spoke the closer he came to getting out of the dark well, but always, her voice would start to falter, then tremble and break, and then she was gone and he was adrift again.
The one voice he wanted to hear, kept waiting for, never came. He thought he remembered calling out for her after… After what?
Had he been in an accident? He didn’t feel like it. But then again, he couldn’t feel much of anything.
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Occasionally the darkness was relieved by lights. Two different lights. Confused, he would freeze where he was, afraid to move toward either one. He knew what those lights meant, but why would there be two of them? He didn’t want to die. He wasn’t ready.
Why were there two lights?
Another voice floated to him, soft, female, familiar, but then Wade recognized his mother’s voice, her scent. Losing interest, he withdrew.
Nikki stood at the foot of the bed, staring at the figure lying limply under white sheets. Not so long ago she had lain in a bed much like this in a small country hospital, tubes running this way and that. A thin tube had been inserted through his nose to feed him and the faint outline of another tube led toward a catheter bag. Yeah. She had been there before.
One arm was turned up, exposing his inner elbow where an IV line was secured. Clear fluid fed into the line from a bag hanging at the bedside.
He was thinner, paler. Weaker.
“Are you going to talk to him?”
Slowly, she turned. Standing in the doorway was Abby, clad in a pink top and blue jeans. She had grown quite a bit from when Nikki had last seen her. With a start Nikki realized it had been almost a year.
“Yeah,” she answered, her voice tight and rusty sounding. “I’m going to talk to him.” She nodded politely at Louise, feeling vaguely uncomfortable and ashamed. Wade’s mother had always made her feel that way. She held her hand out to Abby and offered, “Why don’t we both talk to him?” Slowly, Abby reached out her hand, leaving her grandmother’s side. In her oddly adult way, she said,
“I think my dad loves you. He was so sad when we left.”
“I was sad too,” Nikki admitted, passing a gentle hand down the inky black hair. Why did adults always think they were hiding their problems from children? The little kids always knew.
“Then why did you let us leave? We could have stayed if you’d asked him,” Abby whispered, her large brown eyes filling with tears. “We could have stayed.”
“Maybe we both needed some time to figure out what we really wanted,” Nikki said.
“I know what he wanted. I know what I wanted. We wanted you to be our family,” Abby said, her eyes straying to the figure in the bed. “Was it because of me? Didn’t you like me enough to be my mom?” Nikki didn’t think her heart could hurt any more than it already did, but she was wrong. “Oh, sweetie,” she murmured, pulling the little girl into her arms. “Baby, it wasn’t you. It was me. I’ve been all messed up inside and I’m just now starting to get myself straightened out.” Over Abby’s small shoulder, Nikki saw Louise Lightfoot standing guard. Protecting son and grandchild. Seeing the woman in front of her as someone who hadn’t measured up, hadn’t been good enough for her son. Nikki reckoned Louise blamed her for Wade’s indiscretion with Jamie. If she had been the type of girl she should have been, Wade wouldn’t have strayed. Nikki also knew she certainly wasn’t