Reckless (Blue Collar Boyfriends Book 1) (16 page)

Waving to Fred and the crew, he climbed into his cab and headed out to meet Officer Reynolds, his police escort. He should feel humiliated at needing a babysitter to visit a sick woman in the hospital, but mostly he was just thankful for the chance to see Camilla face to face.

In those rare moments he could breathe past his guilt, he to
ok heart to know she was real. He couldn’t wait to lay eyes on her. Couldn’t wait to hold her hand and stroke her hair and give her back some of the comfort she’d given him. If she’d let him.

She could very well yell and scream at him instead
—well, she was on a breathing tube, according to Christy, so she wouldn’t be yelling—but she could hate him. She had every right. If that’s what this visit was about, it would kill him, but he’d take it if it would help her. Then he’d make her see how sorry he was. He’d make sure she knew he loved her. He’d never run from her again.

He parked his truck at the station and went in to meet Officer Reynolds, who turned out to be a heavy, middle-aged black woman eyeing him like a persistent spot of mildew on her bathroom tile. Deidre could learn a thing or two about judgmental looks from Reynolds.

“You the hit-n-run?” she asked.

He sighed and nodded.

“Mmm-hm. Come on. Let’s get this done with.” She ambled out the door and he followed. She made him ride in the back of her cruiser and cut disapproving glances to him from time to time in the mirror.

He didn’t let her get to him. He knew he’d messed up. He had no excuse for cutting Camilla off on Friday. But one bad decision didn’t make him a terrible person. Haley had taught him that.
And so had DG. Now it was time to turn things around and be a better man. Hell, maybe he’d even start taking some anger management classes. God and his refrigerator knew he needed a better way to deal with his anger.

“You sit over there,” Reynolds said
when they got to Mercy Med’s ICU floor, nodding at a back-to-back line of waiting room chairs. “I’ll let the charge nurse know you’re here.”

She might as well have said, “I’ll let them know someone tracked mud all over the waiting room floor.”

He didn’t sit. He paced, bouncing on the balls of his feet with nervous excitement. He’d thought about what he would say to Camilla when he saw her. He’d considered telling her he loved her, but didn’t want to risk making her uncomfortable. He’d settled on apologizing, then letting her set the pace. How much did she remember? What would she feel when she saw him?

If he had anything to say about it, by the time he left her today, she’d know he cared about her and would be there for her in whatever way she needed.

Reynolds had been gone for a while. What was taking her so long? He peeked around the wall of the waiting room to see her standing at the ICU reception desk. She had her hands on her hips, arguing with a tall blond man in slim-fitting, tailored pants and a lavender dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves. He had on a watch flashy enough to be a Rolex, and his shoes looked Italian.

He dressed just like Mark, Deidre’s pretentious partner at the realty firm.

“Ms. Arlington is not to have any contact with the defendant or vice versa,” he said. “Not under any circumstances.”

“I find it hard to believe your client is bringing s
uit, based on my talk with her yesterday,” Reynolds said. “What are you, an ambulance chaser? You talk her into suing or something? I can’t stand people like you. You give attorneys a bad name.”

Her words rolled off him without effect.
Casual bastard. Derek wouldn’t mind being able to keep his cool like that.

“I’m just looking out for Ms. Arlington’s best interest,” he said. “And interacting with the defendant before the trial is not in her best interest.”

“Defendant?” Derek asked, stepping up to stand shoulder to shoulder with Reynolds. Who did this ass clown think he was?

The man was about six-five and made the most of the three-inch diffe
rence in their heights when he looked down at him. “You must be Mr. Summers. Your meeting with Ms. Arlington has been called off. You’re free to get back to work or whatever it is you do. If I had known about this before five minutes ago, I would have picked up the phone to save you the trip.” He turned his cool gaze on Reynolds. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I’m about to meet with Ms. Arlington.” He turned to go.

“Hold it,” Derek said. “What’s going on? Is Camilla suing me?” She had every right, but it surprised him. If she needed money for her medical bills, he’d help her out any way he could, even if he had to remortgage the house. All this was his fault, after all. He also had no problem going to court for the traffic violation. He’d take his lumps willingly, and he resented this asshole looking down on him like he was going to fight every step of the way. “She doesn’t need to do that. I’ll
cooperate with her wishes, whatever they are.”

The other guy came to a stop but didn’t deign to turn around to face
him head on. “Ms. Arlington,” he stressed, like Derek wasn’t worthy of using her first name, “is considering a lawsuit, though she hasn’t made any decisions yet. When she does, you’ll be the first to know. Now excuse me.” His well-crafted heels tapped the tiles as he strode down the hall to the patient rooms.

Derek took off after him with Reynolds breathing down his neck. “Mister Summers,” she hissed, curling her fingers around his bicep. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m not clear on something,” he said, directing his voice at the man’s back. There was something strangely familiar about him, and something didn’t feel right about all this.

The guy stopped. This time, he turned all the way around, and lowered his head, like he was looking at Derek over nonexistent glasses.
Condescending prick. “I’m not sure what it is you don’t understand, Mr. Summers. You’re not welcome here.”

Derek put his finger on what was bothering him. This jerkoff had way more hostility in his voice than appropriate for someone with the emotional distance of an attorney. A pang of jealousy assaulted him. Could this man be more to Camilla than just her lawyer?
Boyfriend? No. That didn’t feel right.

He narrowed his eyes at the guy and realization struck him. He’d seen that blond hair before, only lightened with silver at the temples. The face was the same as the one he’d seen on the rainy roadside in his nightmares with a couple of marked differences. The eyes were darker blue, like Camilla’s, and there were no laugh lines creasing the corners. Here was a younger, more arrogant version of the man he’d mourned each time his attempts at resuscitation failed.

Which meant Camilla was the girl whose body and mind he’d shared in those nightmares.

Now that he saw it, it was so obvious. How could he have missed the connection? She’d found her way into his dreams; he’d found his way into hers.

“You’re her brother—”

A feminine squeal from behind him cut him off.

“Cade! Is that you?” A short auburn-haired woman with sunglasses perched on her head and a big purse on her arm dashed past him and Reynolds and pulled the other guy into a fierce hug. “You got my messages. Oh, thank you for coming. She’s just down the hall here. How was your flight? How’s the firm? Oh, Cami’s going to be so
thrilled
to see you. My, you’re looking fit. How’s LA?” Her voice faded as she ushered him away.

She’d been completely oblivious to him and Reynolds, just like a mom who hadn’t seen her son in a long time and had eyes only for him. The man
—Cade—shot a smug look over his shoulder as he draped an arm around his mother. The pair disappeared into a room halfway down the hall.

Derek
had half a mind to go after them. Camilla’s brother was throwing around his weight as a lawyer before he’d even talked to her. Asshole. Based on the exchange he’d just witnessed, he’d bet good money Camilla hadn’t even known her brother was in town. He doubted she was planning to sue him, although he didn’t rule out the possibility the jerk would try and talk her into it.

He
huffed a pent-up breath, releasing the pressure in his lungs. Try as he might, he couldn’t stay mad at Cade. Derek had put his sister in the hospital. If he ran into a person who’d hurt one of his brothers or Haley, he’d be hard pressed not to pummel them into the ground, let alone keep a civil tongue. At least Cade had been professional. Mostly.

And hell, maybe he was right. Maybe seeing him was the last thing Camilla needed. She had her family around her.
Which he hadn’t expected. In his bedroom, she hadn’t had anyone but him. She hadn’t even had a name. Despite her soft strength and her natural compassion, she’d been scared and insecure. She’d been utterly alone. She’d needed him every bit as much as he’d needed her those nights. When he imagined Camilla in real life, he’d imagined her needing him the same way. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

What an idiot he was for thinking he could just march into her life with an apology and they’d be able to pick up where they’d left off the other night. This wasn’t some dream. This was reality. Lt. Christy’s words came back to him as he’d summarized Camilla’s injuries, and he felt sick all over again. He’d caused all of it. Every stitch and bandage was on him.

Did he really want to see her like that? Could he stomach it? Would she really give a rat’s ass about his apology? Would her brother? Her mother?

And knowing this wasn’t her first car accident, he felt even worse. No wonder he’d been so freaked in his dreams when he’d relived Friday’s accident from her perspective. She’d been terrified of driving on the freeway, and now he knew why. It made her think of her father, and the guilt she had no business shouldering but clung to anyway.

Shit. He’d dodged a bullet just now, or rather, Camilla had. Her brother had saved her from coming face to face with her worst nightmare.

Reynolds grunted. “Well, looks like you’re off the hook.”

“Yeah,” he said, and he followed her out of the ICU.

The sounds of her door clicking open and muffled voices becoming clear brought Cami out of a light doze. One of the voices belonged to her mother. The other was deep and male.

An explosion of butterflies stormed her stomach. She instantly thought of Officer Reynolds’ email stating she’d be stopping by with Derek Summers this afternoon. She’d finally get to lay her dreams to rest when she saw the man who had cut her off was not her imaginary Derek.

Her dreams would live a little longer, it seemed. She didn’t know what the man who had cut her off would look like, but the man with her mother was not him. She knew this man and would never have expected to see him at her hospital bedside in a million years.

Her brother.
Cade.

“Look who it is,
Cami!” her mother said. “Cade! Isn’t this a nice surprise?”

A surprise, definitely.
Nice? The jury was still out.

Cade was five years older than her and an attorney in LA, a prosecutor. He was crazy good. That likely had a little to do with him being one of the smartest people she knew and a lot to do with him being one of the most intimidating. At a fit six-five and with golden hair, like her father’s when he’d been younger, he looked like an athlete in Armani. She wasn’t immune to the intimidation factor, but not because of her brother’s confident good looks or the way his impeccably-tailored wardrobe emphasized his height and broad rower’s shoulders. The last time they’d been face to face, he’d told her,
“I wish you hadn’t come. It’s because of you Dad isn’t
here.”
It had been his college graduation, three months after the accident.

They’d spoken on the phone a few times a year since then
—always because she’d called him—and they followed each other on Facebook, but they never discussed their father, and they never brought up Cade’s hurtful words. Their relationship hung by a thread.

She mustered a smile, though whether it translated past the tube and tape was anyone’s guess.

Cade stopped two feet from the bed and looked her over, his gaze touching her face just long enough for him to wince. “Mom said you looked bad in her messages. I thought she was exaggerating, but I guess not. You look awful.”

Gee, thanks,
she wrote on her notepad.
When did you get in?

The
rolly-bedside table was positioned across her lap. Lined up on top, she had her cell phone, which she couldn’t use to make calls in the ICU, the TV remote and her notepad. Cade’s long fingers made a tee-pee over her notepad. He swiveled it to read her writing, then turned it back.

“A couple hours ago.
Sorry I didn’t make it out sooner. I had a bear of a case to wrap up, and I’ve got a full plate back in LA, so I can’t stay long.”

She was surprised he’d come at all. She looked back
and forth between him and her beaming mother, trying to wrap her head around the three of them all being in the same room.

Cade kept in touch with her mother only slightly more frequently than with her, but
Cami knew the tone of their correspondence tended to be tense. Her mother always urged him to come home for a visit. Cade always promised he’d get around to it soon, but he never followed through, not even for Christmas. He always gave one excuse or another—things were too hectic at the D.A.’s office, his girlfriend’s family wanted to meet him, he was heading to Burma to do a pro bono case. He really did all those things, but Cami suspected he planned his schedule for maximum sister avoidance.

Cade moved around the bed and sprawled into the visitor’s chair, looking out of place in
their mother’s spot.

“Cade was just telling me he’s been promoted.” Her mother practically bounced up and down on the upholstered bench under the window. “Tell
Cami your news, Cade.”

He waved away his success with a tan hand. “It’s not a big deal.” He swiped the remote off the table and began flipping through channels. “A promotion just means you’ve got more work to do. Were you really in a coma for four days?” He settled on a basketball game and turned up the volume until the commentator’s voice made her head throb.

That’s what they tell me,
she wrote, but her mother answered for her, and Cade never bothered to look at her notepad.

“One hundred and four hours! And the nurses say it’s unlikely, but I swear I saw her start to come to a few times on day three. She is so strong. She’s always been strong, don’t you think, Cade? You both are.
My two strong babies. I’m just so proud of you both.”

Cade
threw her an affectionate look over his shoulder and returned to watching the game.

Cami
rolled her eyes. She wasn’t strong. She was a wreck. Feeling guilty all over again for her father’s death, missing an imaginary man with an ache that bored through her chest. Not voicing any of it because the former would only upset her mother, and the latter was too personal.

Funny how her mother interpreted her silence as strength.
And how in her giddiness over having the family together she ignored the eight years Cade hadn’t shown his face in Redding.

Anger spun through her and petered out, replaced by a superficial kind of peace. Her mother’s smile looked beautiful. It had been a long time since she’d smiled like that. And despite Cade’s aloofness, it felt kind of nice to have him here. She didn’t want to ruin the moment with accusations and demands that they work on their problems. Having a degree in mental health helped her identify problems in her relationships, but it didn’t guarantee things would be perfect.

Sometimes upsetting the apple cart wasn’t worth it. Sometimes it was better to set aside the difficult conversations in favor of getting along.

She relaxed into her pillows, did her best to ignore her headache, and listened to her mother’s chatter and Cade’s mumbled responses. It was no Norman Rockwell painting, but it was her family, and she loved them. And they must love her, too, even if only a
little, or they wouldn’t be there with her.

Dinnertime came too soon. Her mother offered to buy
Cade a cafeteria meal, but he insisted on taking her out to dinner at Laughlin’s, a high-end seafood place downtown, instead.

They left with promises to return in a couple hours.

Alone in her room, she watched the hour hand creep up on seven. Officer Reynolds had never come by with Derek Summers. Disappointment weighed her down, but she shook it off.

The emotion didn’t make sense. She should be relieved. It had been crazy to ask to see the man. Besides, visiting the woman he’d be going to court for cutting off probably didn’t make his top ten list of things to do on a Thursday afternoon.

If it felt like someone precious to her had let her down, that was just a lingering effect of the coma-dreams. She needed to check back in to reality. She needed to let Derek go.

* * * *

With the site mostly ready for tomorrow’s walkthrough, Derek headed home for dinner, even though food was the last thing on his mind. When he opened his front door, the smell of rotting food steamrolled him. Oh yeah, the fridge. He’d purposefully ignored his kitchen this morning, stopping at The Donut Stop for a sugary breakfast, which was way out of character for him.

He didn’t have much experience with depression, but maybe he had some going on. He used to
love coming back to the old castle after a long day at work. Now he dreaded it. The house was too quiet, the nights too lonely.

Lethargy pulled at him as he stood, hands on hips in the kitchen, all but gagging over the consequences of his tantrum. He didn’t feel like cleaning it up. He felt like taking a nap. But the thought of his big empty bed made his chest hurt. Draining a six-pack would numb the pain just as well, but the only beer in his house was either stinking up his kitchen or lying in warm bottles on the floor. The idea of punishing his heavy bag had some merit, but he needed his knuckles to heal up or he’d have to explain to Haley that he’d lost it and hurt himself in his anger. That would be a pretty bad example to her.

He just needed to hang on ’til tomorrow night. Haley would brighten his mood and distract him from the stone of guilt in his gut. And the looming regret that he might have let something special slip through his fingers today. But he needed to clean up his kitchen before she came. Whether he felt like it or not, he’d spend tonight fixing the damage his anger had caused.

If only he could fix Camilla. He’d never made a bigger mess than he’d made with her, and he’d never been
so lost as to how to fix things. This afternoon, leaving her in peace had seemed like the smart thing to do. But tonight, he couldn’t help but feel like he’d fled the scene…again.

Frigging coward.

He took out his anger on his kitchen, shoveling up broken glass, sour milk, and spilled beer with the dustpan and flinging it in the trash. While he worked, that stone of guilt pulsed in his stomach. The frigging thing was really starting to piss him off.

He’d faced the music for what he’d done. He’d turned himself in. He’d tried to go see her like she’d asked, but her brother had shot him down. What else could he do to get that knot to go away?

I love you, Derek…you need to make it right.

How did the mere memory of her know exactly what to say to him? Camilla’s words penetrated his funk like rays of sun through the clouds. That sunlight illuminated something he should have realized a while ago. By turning himself in, he’d only begun to take responsibility for what he’d done. He still had lots to do. Starting, of all places, with his ex.

While he wrestled his busted fridge onto his deck to wait for a trip to the dump, He formulated a plan. Feeling hopeful for the first time since Camilla had disappeared on him, he headed to Sears. Half an hour later, with the moon high in the sky and a shiny new fridge in the bed of his truck, he headed toward the tidy subdivision where Deidre kept a spotless, tastefully-decorated, two-story house alongside other spotless, tastefully-decorated, two-story houses.

Pulling up to the curb, he saw the light on in Haley’s room. He’d never been in it, but he knew it was hers because crystals hung in the window and lavender colored walls showed behind. He glanced at his console clock. 9:54. Almost her bedtime. Perfect. He didn’t want her to know he was there. He needed to talk to Deidre. Alone.

At ten on the dot, Haley’s light went out. He picked up his phone and texted Deidre.
We
need to talk. It’s important. I’m outside.
Then he took his time going up to her front door, giving her a minute to get the message.

The sound of his boots on the flower-box-lined front porch must have alerted her to his presence. The door opened and she peered out. She looked him over and said, “That was about the creepiest text I’ve ever gotten. What’s going on? It’s not like you to make a social call.”

He’d only ever been here to pick up or drop off Haley. Deidre had never invited him inside. And it didn’t look like she was going to start now. She stepped out, pulling the door silently shut behind her. “Haley just went to bed or I’d invite you in,” she said.

“I know. I got here a few minutes ago. There’s something I have to tell you.”

Her eyebrows attempted to lift in an expression he thought of as
Botox surprise
. She motioned to the porch swing. “Want to sit?” she asked.

He took her up on the offer, and she sat down beside
him. She smelled like wine and scented candles. Neither of them started the swing rocking. That would have felt too intimate.

Their rocking-in-the-porch-swing days were over.

He stared into the dark yard, where Deidre’s latest boyfriend probably played catch with Haley after dinner on weeknights. “I got arrested yesterday,” he blurted.

“You what!”

He faced his ex-wife, feeling lighter already for getting it off his chest. “I caused an accident Friday on the way to Haley’s game. My truck wasn’t hit, but I put a woman in the hospital. I just kept driving. I went to the game like nothing happened.” He eyed her, waiting for her to explode and wondering how big the eruption would be.

“Jesus, Derek.” There was disappointment in her voice. And shock. And concern. The last came as a surprise. He felt oddly touched by it.

When it seemed she was too stunned to say more, he went on. “I’m charged with reckless driving and hit and run.
Court date pending.”

She blinked at him a few times before finding her voi
ce. “So are you out on bail or something?”

“Own recognizance.
I’m a free man until the court date. After that, who knows.” He summarized Christy’s best-case scenario and sat quietly while she processed everything.

“I need a glass of wine,” she said, getting up. A minute later, she returned with a glass of white for her and an open bottle of beer for him. “I would have picked up your brand if I’d known you’d be stopping by.”

Old Derek could have picked at least three separate fights over the last couple of things she’d said, but old Derek was a dick, and he was frigging tired of him. “Thanks,” he said, taking a sip of the hoppy microbrew and rolling the bottle between his palms.