One Summer in Santa Fe (12 page)

“For both of us. Taylor, you know I’m not what you need, even though there’s a healthy dose of passion between us. We had a beautiful experience together, and I’ll cherish that. But I think all you want is a temporary lover, and I’ve been there, done that before. The same story only ends in heartbreak for me, so I’m not really interested in going there again.”

“Coward.”

Shocked, Piper stared at him. “What?”

“Yes. You’re a coward. You’re afraid to experience your life. You’ve been so busy trying to manage Elizabeth’s life, and worrying about what’s going to happen to your aunt, that you’ve forgotten to live your own. Don’t do that, Piper. Don’t let go of something before you even know what you have.” He stepped closer, the light in his eyes dark, intense, and a little frightening. Leaning over, he pinned her between his hands braced on the counter behind her. “Don’t be afraid of me.”

Tears pricked her eyes. Though her chin trembled, she didn’t break down. “I’m not afraid to experience life. I’m afraid to have my heart trampled all over again. My last serious boyfriend was someone just like you. I was never enough for him. In his head he had ended our relationship, but only when I walked in on him in bed with another woman was it over for me. By hanging on too long I was humiliated and it’s not something I’m likely to forget.” She dropped her head and wiped her eyes with her fingertips. “I know I’ll never be enough for you, either, so it’s best if I walk away now, before we both get hurt.”

“Piper, you’re convicting me based on another man’s idiotic behavior. I don’t accept that.” His eyes turned cold, his lips pressed tight together and a muscle in his jaw twitched.

“Life lessons, Taylor. Hard ones. I don’t need another round in the classroom to know this isn’t going to work. I’ve graduated and don’t need a refresher course.” Piper broke out of the small trap of his arms, unable to bear the close intensity of him. “I just need to go. There’s no point in any of this.”

“No point? Piper—”

“No! I’ll just go my way, you’ll go your way, and find someone else suitable to your lifestyle, and we’ll both be fine. I’ve put my life on hold long enough.”

“Piper—” Anger hissed through him. This was
not
what he wanted at all. Was there bitter truth in her words? Probably, but he didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to accept it. Until he acted the fool, he didn’t want to be condemned as one.

“No. I can’t.” She held up her hand to prevent him from speaking. “Taylor. What in the world do you want
me
for? You’ve had seriously better offers, I’m sure. I’ve heard the gossip at the hospital, how you are a whirlwind of affairs, and I don’t want that. I can’t take it. I let myself take what you had to offer for a time, but I know it was just a fantasy, not real life. I want more than that. I need more than what I think you’re willing to give to a relationship. Really, Taylor, our lifestyles are so not suited for each other, it’s not funny.”

Taylor remained silent, but his eyes smoldered with anger.

“See? You can’t deny it.” She took a backward step toward the door and pulled out her car keys. “I think I
need to go now. It’s better for both of us this way, Taylor.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. Really.”

“Aren’t you going to say goodbye to Alex?” he asked as he turned away from her.

“’Bye, Alex!” she called.

“See you later,” he called back.

“That’s not what I meant. You need to tell him you’re not coming back.”

Opening her mouth to protest, she knew he was right. It wouldn’t be fair to Alex otherwise. “Fine.” She strode past him into the living area where Alex was playing his game.

Taylor watched as she stooped down beside him. By the shocked expression on Alex’s face, she was indeed saying goodbye, to both of them.

“But I don’t want you to go,” Alex said.

“I’m sorry, Alex. I have to. Your mom’s coming back and you won’t need me anymore.”

“But—”

“I’m sorry.” She reached out and pulled him into a fierce embrace, leaving both of them with tears on their faces, and the knife that had twisted in Taylor’s heart shoved deeper.

This wasn’t what he wanted. Wasn’t what Alex wanted, obviously. Telling himself that he
hadn’t
used her to help him with Alex, he took a step forward, then stopped. Dammit, he hadn’t used her, but she’d been seriously helpful to him with Alex. He scrubbed his hand over his face, trying not to think too hard, but that was impossible right now. He wasn’t about to reach out to her again when she’d made up her mind. He watched as she ran out the door.

Alex rushed over to him. “She said she’s leaving.”

“Yeah, I know.” He gripped his jaw shut.

“Did you have a fight? Mom and Dad fight sometimes.” He looked down.

“No. Sometimes things just don’t work out between adults, Alex.”

“I like her.”

“Me, too.”

“I’m gonna miss her.”

Pain squeezed his chest as he reached out to Alex’s shoulder, needing that connection with family. “Me, too.”

Piper drove away from Taylor’s house, then pulled over to a side street and stopped the car under a lamppost. Covering her face with her hands, she cried. Over and over she’d told herself, Taylor wasn’t right for her, wasn’t the one she would be able to have a long-term relationship with. Unfortunately, her heart hadn’t listened.

She plucked several tissues from a box sitting on the passenger seat and covered her face with them. The pain behind her eyes was so sharp that she thought she’d faint from it.

“Dammit,” she cursed aloud. Once again, she’d done it. Set aside her own life to help someone else in need. Taylor had needed help, and she’d served herself up on a silver platter. Was she the ultimate enabler or what? Maybe she needed a counselor to figure out why she did things like this. Was he right? Was she afraid to live life, to reach out and really take what life had to offer, the consequences be damned? No. She couldn’t do it. The responsibility gene was deeply rooted inside her, and she couldn’t just let it go.

She sighed, then took a few deep breaths. She liked people, she liked helping them through difficult times, whether that was an illness, an injury, or a personal crisis. All kinds of people needed all kinds of help. And
it helped keep her from thinking of how much help she needed in her own life.

Drying her tears, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes until the pain in her head subsided enough for her to drive home. Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. She was so stupid! Taylor and Alex were something that she craved so desperately. Or at least what they represented. She wanted a family, needed to belong, wanted all the complications that having a family required, and would cherish every minute of being a wife and a mother. Good times and bad. That’s what families were for, right?

Alex’s mother was going to come back, so he wasn’t going to need Piper. Taylor was going to move on to another woman, so he obviously wasn’t going to need her, either.

Couldn’t she live without being needed? Must she have some sort of earth-shattering chaos in her life to be happy?

Without fail, on every assignment, someone voiced envy for her lifestyle, the adventures, the travel. Sure, she was a traveler and moved around a lot, but all she needed was one good excuse to stay put somewhere. One good reason was all it would take, and she would stay.

One good man to ask her.

Now she knew staying in Santa Fe was pointless. As soon as she got home, she was calling her company to end her contract early. Since Taylor wasn’t officially in her life, there was no reason to include him in the decision. No reason at all.

This wasn’t going to be her last assignment after all. Wiping her face again, she checked her mirrors and pulled onto the road.

Staying now would only be more pain than she could handle.

D
AYS
passed with Taylor in a foul mood. He hadn’t seen Piper at work for most of the week, not even in passing. She was on a rotation of night shifts while he remained on days. He’d heard from his colleagues that this was her last week at the hospital. She’d obviously decided to cut short her assignment. He supposed that was for the best but, damn, it just didn’t feel right leaving things this way. He wanted to see her, even if it was at work. That didn’t sit well with him, either. He didn’t need anyone. He lived a single life and liked it that way. At least he had until Alex and Piper had burst into his life. The quiet that had once seemed therapeutic now created the opposite effect in him.

Restlessness as he’d never known plagued him night and day. The evening runs at the park weren’t enough to put his black mood to rest, even when he pushed himself harder than ever. Dreams of soft sighs and softer kisses haunted him.

He needed some action. Caroline would be returning in two days, so he could get back to his usual routine and perhaps that would be the answer he needed. He reached for the phone and called Santa Fe Jumpers. He hung up after a disappointing call. Full. Every damned
day for the next two weeks. Tourists filling up the dockets. So he’d put in a reservation for weeks away, but that wasn’t going to ease the emptiness in him. He needed action, and he needed it now.

He knocked on Alex’s door on Saturday morning. “Hey, sport. Let’s get out of here and go do something.”

Alex opened the door. “Like what?”

“How about mountain biking? Or we can to go Tetilla Peak. I need to get out of here and go do something physical—how about you? Exercise your muscles a bit and get some fresh air. Shake off the cobwebs.”

With a vague shrug, Alex said, “I guess.”

“A little enthusiasm would be nice,” Taylor said with a sideways smile.

“I’ll get my hiking boots.”

“I’ll get the rest.”

No sooner had they set foot on the trail than a summer storm struck, soaking them to the skin in minutes. They raced back to the car and climbed in.

“How about Plan B?” Taylor asked, and wiped his wet face with a hand. Normally, the rain wouldn’t bother him, he’d faced worse weather over the years. But with Alex along, he couldn’t take the chance of him getting sick when his mother was due to return in two days. He was in the home stretch and didn’t want to screw anything up now.

“What’s that?”

“Dry clothes. Pizza. Movie and arcade.” What almost-teenager wouldn’t jump at that?

“Awesome, especially the dry part.” Alex shook his head like a wet dog and sprayed them both with water.

Taylor laughed at the kid’s antics. He was going to miss him. The laughter dropped right out of him and the smile faded from his face.

This was what Piper had been talking about.

This is what he had resisted for so long and now, right here, slapping him in the face, was his own admission that he was going to miss it, miss Alex. He glanced at Alex as he started the car. How had this happened? He was a confirmed bachelor. How had he succumbed to the lure of home and hearth? Piper, that’s how. Alex, that’s how. He’d never opened his eyes to the possibilities until they had overtaken his life, and he’d allowed them to without much in the way of resistance. Maybe subconsciously he’d wanted it and not known it? Psych 101, here we go. Self-analysis. Closing his eyes, a pang of remorse shook him. He just couldn’t be what Piper needed. Maybe he was broken inside and was unable to have a normal relationship, to see it through to what it could be. The word
commitment
apparently wasn’t a part of his vocabulary.

Now, he knew, it was best to let her go as she wanted. When you cared for someone you didn’t ride roughshod over them, or try to change their minds about something they were quite certain of, did you? Who was he trying to kid? In the end, they would probably go their separate way anyway. Piper had been right, he just hadn’t wanted to admit it.

But, dammit, he missed her. He blew out a sigh and turned on the wipers, then put the car in gear, but kept his foot on the brake. The windows fogged up on the inside, and he used the flat of his hand to wipe away the condensation. Having a car crash and ending up at his own ER was not going to be a way to spice up the weekend.

“Are we going, or what?” Alex asked.

“Yeah, we’re going.”

So they spent their afternoon a different way than anticipated and both of them loosened up, waiting for Caroline to return home.

“This is almost your last night with me,” Taylor said as they drove home, a pang of surprising longing spiking through his chest. What had begun as a nuisance and a favor to his sister had turned into a surprisingly good experience for him. For Alex, too, he hoped.

“Yeah. I kinda liked hanging with you, Uncle T.” Alex gave a quick glance at him.

“I liked hanging with you, too. I’ll have to make arrangements with your mom to have visitation weekends or something,” he said with a smile, reaching over and ruffling Alex’s hair. “I know I’m not your dad, but maybe you could spare me some time now and then.”

“My dad doesn’t really like me, I don’t think.” Alex shrugged and looked away.

A pang shot through Taylor as memories of his own father sprang to life. The man had taken the loyalty and commitment thing to the nth degree and had soured Taylor on life ever since. “Why do you think that?”

Alex fiddled with the hem of his shorts. “I don’t know. He kinda yells a lot, and when I’m at his house we don’t do anything. Just watch sports on TV.”

“Does your mom know?” Not that his own mother had been able to do anything to ease relations with his father. But Caroline would want to know, if she didn’t already.

“Yeah. She can’t do anything, though. The judge said I have to go.”

Taylor wondered if
he
could do something about it. If he could have a talk with Alex’s father. He snorted. He’d never liked the bastard, so he doubted that would go over well. If José didn’t want the kid, then he should give up his parental rights to Alex. That would be better than a parent who didn’t want his child and treated him like garbage. With his gut churning, he fought the urge to stick a fist up the guy’s nose and
perform a lobotomy the hard way. Alex was a great kid and needed a better dad than the one he had. Taylor had survived because his uncle had helped him. He wanted to do the same for Alex. “Well, you can come to my house anytime you want to, okay? I’ll make sure you have a set of keys of your own.” This was a commitment he could make, one he vowed to never fail at.

“Okay.” Alex remained silent for a few minutes as they returned to town. “Can we have a party for Mom? I mean, like a welcome-home kinda party?”

“Sure. Got any ideas?”

“Cake for sure.”

“What kind?”

“Are you kidding? It has to be chocolate.”

Taylor laughed and let the tension of his past fade back to where it belonged. “Chocolate it is.”

They worked out plans for the next evening. They shopped and bought party favors, even a cake that Alex was sure she would like. Caroline was scheduled to have a late-afternoon flight into Albuquerque, then rent a car for the sixty-mile drive home to Santa Fe, declining Taylor’s offer to pick her up.

As they waited for her to arrive, Alex danced around in anticipation, unable to settle down for more than a second at a time. “Where is she? Can I call her cellphone?”

“Go ahead. Maybe she ran into traffic or something. There’s always construction in the summer.”

As Alex called his mother, Taylor’s cellphone rang. “Maybe that’s her now.”

“Hello?”

“Taylor? It’s Piper.”

His heart paused a beat as her voice filled his mind. “Hi. How are you?” Maybe she’d changed her mind,
and he gripped the phone tighter, anticipation thrumming through him. Maybe she’d decided to stay on. Wasn’t this going to be her last night on assignment? Maybe she was calling to say goodbye or even say she’d extended her stay a while. What he wouldn’t give to spend another night with her. Another day. Another—

“I’m in the ER, and we just had a bad trauma come in.”

Immediately, his anticipatory mood deflated. Business. Nothing personal. “Isn’t there enough staff on?” He only got called when they were swamped, but right now he just didn’t want to go in. He wanted to have a nice evening with Alex and Caroline. The “Welcome Home” banner they had made hung precariously from the archway, and he reached up to secure it better.

“There is, but…God, Taylor. It’s Caroline!”

“What?” The happiness that had been inside him turned to a rock of dread.

“It’s her. She’s suffering multiple trauma and a possible head injury. We’re on the way to Radiology. You need to come now.”

Without another word, he snapped the phone shut and grabbed his keys from the counter, then stopped in mid-stride. Damn. What the hell was he going to tell Alex?

“She didn’t answer, so I left her a message.” Alex returned to the room and looked up at Taylor, stopping at the look on Taylor’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s your mother.”

“She called? Is she almost here?”

“No, Piper called.”

“Can she come to the party, too?”

Choked by emotions, he took Alex by the shoulder and led him to a chair. Taylor needed to sit down, as well. God, how was he going to say this with his throat
closing off? “She’s been in a car accident, and she’s at the hospital now.”

“Wh-what happened?” Alex began to tremble, and his wide eyes filled with tears. “Is she okay?”

“I don’t know. Piper’s taking care of her, and we need to go see her now.” Thank God Piper was taking care of her. At least that was one small consolation. He trusted Piper as no other.

“Okay.” Alex nodded, in obvious shock, his breathing quick. “Okay.”

“Let’s go.” Taylor kept his hand on Alex’s shoulder and led him to the car. Ten minutes later they raced through the ER doors and found Piper waiting for them.

“Come on, she’s over here,” Piper said, leading them to the first trauma room. Before she opened the curtain, she needed to prepare them. Somehow. She looked at Taylor, but couldn’t speak for a moment. How was she going to tell him? Tight-lipped, he gave a curt nod and stepped behind the curtain. In that brief visual exchange between them, he knew it was bad.

Piper knelt and hugged Alex, trying to offer some comfort to his trembling little body. “Your mom’s been in a bad car accident, and she’s not awake yet. She has some tubes and things hooked up to her to help her breathe and give her medicine, so it’s going to be a little scary when you first see her. I’ve checked everything myself and it’s all okay.” Nothing had been as difficult as telling this little boy his mom was near death. “I’ll go in with you so you won’t be scared.”

He sniffed and pulled back from her, obviously trying to be brave. “Okay. I’m ready.”

From experience, Piper knew that no child was ready to see their parent laid out on an ER stretcher hooked up to life support. She’d been twenty when it had hap
pened to her, and sometimes she felt she still hadn’t recovered from the shock of seeing both her parents that way. “I’ll be with you, and Taylor’s here, too.”

Pale and silent, he only nodded, and Piper led him into the room.

Grim faced, Taylor stood on the opposite side of the room in deep conference with his coworker, Dr. Tony Santiago, who had stabilized Caroline. Piper spared them a glance, then concentrated on leading Alex forward.

Caroline was still unconscious, both eyes swollen shut, her nose broken and multiple lacerations on her face, neck, arms and hands. “She’s not awake right now and will have to go to surgery to fix her broken leg.”

“Why won’t she wake up?” he asked, and hung back, staying close to Piper, his voice thin with fright. “Tell her to wake up.”

“I can’t, darling. Sometimes after an accident, people kind of faint, from being jolted around. I think that’s what happened to her. You need to come over and talk to her a minute so she knows you’re here.”

“But she can’t hear me if she’s not awake.” Tears overflowed Alex’s eyes, and he seemed unaware of them.

Tears dampened her eyes as she spoke. “She hears you. She needs to hear your voice and know you’re with her. She’ll know. Mothers always know.” Piper looked up at the monitor. Vital signs were stable, so Caroline was probably okay to undergo surgery now. She sent up a quick prayer that Caroline could feel Alex beside her and know she was loved.

“Mom? It’s me. Alex,” he said, and his voice cracked.

“You can touch her hand.” Piper took Alex’s hand and placed it over Caroline’s, careful to avoid the IV site.

“Mom? Uncle T. took me rock climbing, and I’m in camp and everything,” he said.

The monitor showed that Caroline’s heart rate skipped a beat, then raced for a few before settling down again. “I think she hears you. Good work, Alex.”

Piper looked up at Taylor, and her breath lodged in her throat. Longing, such as she’d never seen in him, was etched on his face. She rose from her knees beside Alex. “Keep talking to her,” she whispered in his ear. She approached Taylor and placed a hand on his arm. “Taylor? Are you okay?”

Turning his attention to her, he nodded, then shook his head, then gathered her against him. Piper held his trembling body tight to her, hoping to instill some of the comfort she’d shared with Alex. It wouldn’t be enough. It was never enough, but perhaps it helped just a little.

She pulled back and touched her hand to his face. “Can I get you some coffee? Some juice for Alex?”

He nodded and released her. “I want to talk to the surgeon and see what they have planned, see if I can scrub in with him.”

“Oh, Taylor. That’s not a good idea. He probably wouldn’t let you anyway.” Piper bit her lower lip, knowing Taylor was desperate to do something, but this wasn’t it. He couldn’t sit idly by while someone else fixed his sister. Sitting on the sidelines wasn’t going to satisfy him.

“I know, dammit,” he said in a low growl. “But I have to do something. I just can’t sit here and wait.” Sitting and waiting weren’t what he did. It wasn’t his way. His way was to charge forward, take control of a situation and make it right. Frustration rocked through him, and he clenched his jaw.