Kathy Smith walked out of the door without even a good-bye. Dave Sanders’s heart sank to his feet while his stomach churned and his mind tried to think of any way to make her stay. Never a man to beg, Dave realized that might be exactly what he would have to do in order for Kathy to open her eyes and see how he felt about her.
Coming around the bar he began closing up the Hungry Lion Bar-n-Grill for the night. Money in the safe, chairs up on the tables, bathrooms empty, all doors locked, lights off. Every night Dave wondered if this routine would get tiring, and to his surprise it never did. He knew where he wanted to be, and every day he came to work was another dream come true—another day that he wasn’t using drugs or becoming a statistic for dead drug dealers. Things were perfect for the first time in his life, except for the fact that the woman he wanted walked out after every shift and never went home with him.
The night air hung heavy with the promise that the following day would be stifling. The humidity, thick with dew, left a sheen of sparkling moisture on every surface. Dave swiped his arm across his forehead as he sauntered to the old beat-up truck that he just couldn’t part with. The paint had faded, and the body was slightly rusted but the engine purred with awesome power.
Hearing her laugh, Dave turned to see Kathy chatting with the evening waitress, Sue. They were standing next to Kathy’s car engrossed in conversation. His heart skipped a beat yet his mind split with opposing opinions. One said to walk over there, grab the chick, and kiss her. The other pushed for him to jump in his car and escape as fast as he could, ensuring his dignity. The meddlesome, internal argument came to a halt when Kathy spotted him. He’d been standing there like a fool, keys dangling from his fingers, staring at the two women. Sue waved him over with a smile.
God, I’m such a dingbat, Dave scolded himself then dragged his feet to join them.
“Dave,” Sue said. “You work too much. We were talkin’ about going out tomorrow night for a male strip review. Wanna come and perform for us?” she teased.
“Umm… not really my thing, Sue. But you could always try my brother. Jake seems to like taking his clothes off. Remember Sophie finding him in only boxers on the Lion’s office couch, Kathy?” He winked at her and from under the streetlight he saw color rush to her cheeks. Gosh, she’s so cute.
“I might just do that,” Sue answered. “You think Sophie would mind? She is his woman now, after all.”
Kathy gave a sweet little laugh. “To see Jake naked? No, I don’t think Sophie would mind.”
Dave shifted on his feet, awkward and wondering what else he should say. Kathy wrung her hands while Sue kept smiling at them both.
“You know, kiddos, I’m gonna run. The husband is waiting and the curtain climbers will be up in six hours.”
Dave nodded. “Okay, Sue. See you later.”
“Bye, Sue.” Kathy waved.
Together they watched her leave, the last lifeline to easy conversation between the two of them. They stood in the parking lot and stared at each other as if their very next words would determine if the sky would cave in and death would be imminent. Nervous tension prickled the air. Hypersensitive hormones made his body aware that a beautiful woman stood in front of him and mating was imminent. Yet something else besides hormones pulled at Dave. An urgency to have her in his arms, a yearning to be so close their bodies and minds would merge into one and drown in the abyss of pleasure, fulfillment, and understanding for what the other needed. His rapidly beating heart clenched from anxiety, as the roaring in his ears submerged the world around them to silence. The thick, suffocating air compressed his lungs, while one single thought repeated in his mind: Just friggin’ kiss her! They were so close their bodies brushed and she didn’t back up or try to avoid his touch when he reached out to her.
“You should go,” he told her while his eyes held hers. “It’s late.”
“You’re right.”
But she didn’t move. No, actually, she quirked her lips in the slightest way, casting a bewitching spell of lust over him. Dave could neither move nor think. A voice echoed in his head: Kiss me, Dave. Do it now! With the world around them diminished, Dave brought his lips to hers. Testing, tasting, and cautious. This one kiss was a risk and would open a new chapter in his life. She was the woman he had been waiting to meet for years. Her laugh, smile, understanding eyes, and quick humor were things he longed to see and hear.
Dave’s eyes closed, heightening his other senses and increasing his anticipation. With hands gentle and soft, Kathy cupped both Dave’s checks then glided her fingers into his hair. Oh, he felt about to come undone. This fantasy, now a reality, was scarcely leaving room for turning back to sanity’s door. His mind told him to loosen the stronghold he had around Kathy’s body but she felt so right in his arms. And as the kiss went deeper, Dave found his body pressed between hers and her Prius. When she hooked one leg on his hip, he accepted the gift she offered by grasping her thigh and lowering himself so their most intimate points met to create a fierce inferno. Touching her wasn’t enough; he wanted more. He needed more.
Tearing his mouth from hers, Dave couldn’t deny what was happening between them. “Come home with me,” he practically begged.
Kathy opened her mouth and replied in serious honesty, “Beep… beep… beep… beep.”
“Oh, what the hell!” Rolling over in bed, Dave slapped the alarm. “Every time I get the balls to make a move on her, I’m interrupted! Damn it!” He threw the alarm across the room where it slammed against the wall, and fell broken to the floor. Hard and sex-deprived, Dave covered his eyes with his arm. “You’re pathetic. A pathetic man with a crush.” She’s a gorgeous woman who hardly notices you’re alive and seems to avoid you as much as she can.
Showered and testy, Dave headed out into the frosty air. The ground, frozen and slick, welcomed him as he slid into his driver’s side mirror. Great, this has to be the worst winter in New England history! He rubbed his elbow fast, to help with the pain, then climbed into his truck. The day will get better, the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and the truck is fired up.
Dave kept those happy thoughts in mind as he scrolled through the radio for something to listen to. Turning right on Main, he made his daily stop at the local convenience store. Another coffee for him, one for Kathy, a paper, and Ring Dings—the breakfast for future Olympians. The clerk greeted him with gossip and obituary news, then gave a “See you tomorrow, Dave” before moving on to the next customer.
Back on the frozen road, the old truck gave a lurch and then a belch. Dave didn’t pay it much mind because with a twenty-degree blast of frigid air, the old vehicle tended to get temperamental and he couldn’t blame it. The weather sucked outside and everyone was coming down with the winter blues.
Cautiously Dave slowed to a crawl at the next intersection and waited for the cars in front of him to move. To his left he could see Kathy in her vehicle waiting for the red light to change. Shaking his head Dave pondered the shy red-haired woman. She was so well put together, mentally as well as physically. He had seen nothing rattle her over the past five months she had worked for him as the Lion’s manager. Everything he asked of her, she did. Every blindsided problem, they solved together. Kathy was reliable, smart, and a good person. Dave stepped on his accelerator to catch up with the cars in front of him. His vehicle coughed but began to move through the four-way intersection. His thoughts wandered back to Kathy as he watched the vehicle in front of him pull out of a fishtail. Yesterday she had laughed at his lamest joke, the one about a hippo and the lion. Any woman who laughed at that understood his humor and could capture his heart. Kathy had everything he looked for in a woman and yet she never seemed to have as much interest in him as he did in her. She wouldn’t even share an appetizer with me. It pained him to think he didn’t have what she was looking for in a man.
Dave’s truck did a slow slide toward the side of the road. While compensating for the skid he wondered what she would think about his sordid past. Would she be compassionate or do as so many others had? Act as if it didn’t matter and then gradually withdraw from him. Heck, maybe she already knew and that’s why she never returned his small advances. And maybe—
The crash came first—metal bending, cracking, splitting. Then the jolt—Dave’s body twisting, snapping, tearing. With a solid whack, Dave’s head hit the driver’s side window. For a moment his mind felt stunned from the piercing pain.
Then everything went black.
* * *
As if waking from a dream, Dave’s mind told him to move because it felt uncomfortable. However, as he began to shift, he found a restraint across his chest holding him in place. As his body hung toward the right, Dave suddenly realized he wasn’t in bed like his psyche had been tricking him into thinking. In reality he was in his now mangled truck that was turned over on its passenger side.
“Dave! Dave! Oh my God!”
The familiar voice penetrated the haze in his mind and forced his eyes to open. A kaleidoscope of color blurred his vision, then the hues slowly melted together to form objects his mind tried to grasp. “Kathy?”
“Yes. I’m right here.”
He turned his head to look up, and through the driver’s side door he saw her. “Jesus. Am I dreaming?”
“I’d say it’s a nightmare.” She reached down and touched his check. “The ambulance is on its way.”
“Never a nightmare if you’re in it.” His head became too heavy to hold up. “I think I’m gonna vomit.” And he did. The sound of sirens in the distance only made it worse as he reached for the belt that pinned him in place. “I need a napkin and to get the hell out of here.”
“No.” That one forceful word stopped him.
“Kathy, I’m hanging in my truck and I just upchucked on myself.”
“Dave, you may have serious injuries from the jerk who ran the light, maybe even a concussion. Please, don’t.”
“Agh.” Dave brought a bloody hand to his aching head.
“You rolled a spin and a half. The paramedic will help you out, just hang there a little longer.” She gave a small chuckle. “No pun intended.”
“Are you trying to get a laugh out of me when I was only trying to get your attention?” Dave closed his eyes.
“Well you got it, Dave,” she told him in that sweet voice.
He could hear the emergency men asking Kathy to step back, then more glass breaking and a man talking.
“Hey, buddy. How’s it hanging?” he asked Dave.
“Not very comfortably right now,” Dave told him with a smirk. “You wanna watch your step. I lost my stomach in here.”
“I’ve seen worse.” The man supported Dave’s neck with a brace before assisting Dave’s body with his own. When the seat belt was opened, the man slowly lowered Dave from his elevated position in the truck cab. “What’s your name?”
“Dave.”
“That pretty lady out there your woman?” As his rescuer talked, he and another man pulled Dave out of the battered truck.
“Future girlfriend if I have it my way,” Dave replied.
“Well, I don’t think that’s a problem now.” An icy stethoscope moved around Dave’s chest. “Hurt anywhere?”
“My back.”
“Move your toes… good. Fingers… good. Now look at the light… follow it… good. Okay, Dave, you’re gonna be taking a trip to the hospital. There’s room service and nurses—”
“I’m fine.” At the sound of a female huff beside him, Dave opened his eyes. “Hi, babe.”
“Don’t ‘babe’ me. You have to go. You could be seriously injured. You could have—”
She looked as if she would break into tears at any moment so he reached a hand out to her. “Okay, I’m gonna go. But really, I’m fine. It’s just a bump on the head and… and… a—”
Blackness.
* * *
Kathy’s body began to tremble the moment she saw the car heading for Dave’s truck. Her heart lurched forward in her chest as the inevitable happened. Terror streaked through her as she watched his truck roll over and over then come to rest against a tree. Jerking her car off the road, she slammed on her brakes then sprinted toward the wreckage—and Dave.
“Please don’t be dead. Please be okay.” Kathy repeated the chant again and again, in hopes the words would make it true.
With one strong jump Kathy leaped atop the overturned truck and looked down through the driver’s side window. His body had just been hanging there. No movement, no sounds. She reached out to touch him as her mind reeled with the memories of the man who dangled quietly in the chaos around them.
On her first day of work, Dave brought her flowers. Feeling enchanted by him and the blossoms, she had kissed his check—a daring move for a woman who preferred solitude. Growing up with parents as eccentric as hers made being the center of someone’s attention an uncomfortable and foreign place to be. She had never been anyone’s sole focus before and started finding herself slowly pulling away from the man who seemed to be trying to woo her. The man who made her heart flutter every time he said her name; the one who evoked in her a curiosity to know more about him and pulled at her heart to be with him. Every day Dave was considerate with little gestures like coffee and bagels in the morning. And once again Kathy had started to feel the slippery slide of yearning for a husband and a home. But after her one big mistake—no, mistake wasn’t the right word—catastrophe. Disaster. Humiliation. How could she trust herself to make an astute decision when she hadn’t been able to see Todd for who he really was? Abuser, cheater, pedophile.
As far as Kathy could tell, Dave didn’t have a malevolent bone in his body. He was as trustworthy and straight-arrow as a man could be. Immediately a sense of sadness draped its heavy arms around her. Kathy had pretty much blown him off yesterday after he had made her laugh with some silly joke then asked if she’d like to share some food. On a huff, she looked to the hospital’s waiting room ceiling for divine understanding but only received the intercom calling to a doctor.
I’m so stupid! Now he could be dead and I missed my chance at telling him that I care, that I would take a chance at being more than friends. Agitated, Kathy let her head fall in her hands. Of course now she was ready to make that leap, and not a minute before. No, Dave had to be put in harm’s way before she would take that risk.
“Kathy! What the hell happened?” Jake, Dave’s younger brother and business partner for the Hungry Lion Bar-n-Grill, stormed into the waiting room. “Where is he?”
She stood slowly and gave her best friend Sophie—Jake’s girlfriend who was also a ballet instructor—a hug. “It was awful!” Tears she’d held back spilled down her face. “I saw the guy coming. Dave pulled out in front of me at the light and…” Her throat burned as she tried to relate the nightmare. As their faces changed from shock to concern, Kathy’s heart shredded to pieces from worry.
Stomping away and back again, Jake asked, “What about the asshole who hit him?”
Kathy shook her head. “I don’t know. He seemed really drunk. When he climbed out of his smashed car, he stumbled over to Dave’s truck and started yelling at him, me, and the EMTs.”
“Jerk,” Sophie said.
Kathy could feel her breath quickening as her heart raced with panic; her soft, quiet voice rose a pitch higher. “There was so much blood on that jerk’s face and he didn’t even know it. How could a person not know they’re bleeding like that? I mean… it was everywhere.”
“Sit down, Kathy.” Sophie took her by the shoulders and directed her to sit. “Have the doctors come in and told you anything?”
“They’re observing him right now. He definitely has a concussion and maybe a broken arm.”
“I’ll be back.”
Kathy and Sophie watched Jake bolt out of the room. Never known for being a calm man, they could hear him demanding the receptionist get him information on Dave. With a little giggle, Sophie turned back to Kathy.
“Isn’t he the best?”
“He’s probably intimidating the heck out of that poor woman.”
“Naw. He’s all bark.” Sophie eyed Kathy, as if searching for something she hadn’t yet told her.
“What?”
“Are you okay? I know if I saw something like that happen to Jake, I’d freak out.”
“I’m all right. Just shaken, is all.” That’s an understatement. Kathy looked down at her unsteady hands. She hadn’t been this scared, this upset, since the night she left her ex-husband. His temper was something to be feared, and when he found Kathy packing… she wasn’t going to think about it. The past is where it should be and that’s where she was going to keep it.
Jolting from the soft touch on her shoulder, Kathy went from examining her hands to looking helplessly into her friend’s concerned eyes. “Yeah?”
“You sure?” Sophie asked.
“Yeah. It’s just that he’s such a nice guy—”
“And you’re not used to that,” Sophie interjected.
“He brings me coffee every morning.” A small smile lifted one corner of Kathy’s lips. “He’s really sweet.”
“He likes you Kathy.” Covering one of Kathy’s hands with her own, Sophie said, “Dave’s not Todd.”
“No, he’s not.” Exhaustion forced Kathy’s eyes closed as she tried to block out not just the world happening around her but also the one that never seemed to allow her to move on. “I hope he’s okay, Soph. He’s a good guy.”
“Me too, Kathy. Me too.”
They sat quietly for what seemed like forever. People rushed in, people rushed out. Every time a doctor would poke his or her head in, every waiting body would jolt to attention. The purgatory became nerve-racking—to get so hopeful and then find the physician was there for someone else.
Jake finally returned to the waiting room. “Bad concussion. Whiplash, sprained arm, dislocated shoulder and lucky to have been wearing his seat belt,” Jake informed them.
Both women let out a long breath.
“He’s staying the night and we’ll be able to see him in a few.” Jake’s lips twisted in disgust. “In hospital time I think that means about an hour.”
“Probably,” Sophie said.
Two hours later Dave appeared doped up on pain meds. His heavy, black-ringed eyes, pale coloring, and slurred speech made it impossible to think otherwise. The heart monitor beside his hospital bed beeped with a consistent lulling rhythm.
“Hey, guys,” he said with a lopsided grin.
“Hey, yourself.” Jake sat on the bed next to his brother. “You scared the hell out of Kathy.”
He turned his cocoa eyes on her. “Sorry. Wasss only trying to get your attention.”
She laughed a little at his impaired speech. “You’re slurring, Dave.”
“Done worrrse.”
Jake snapped his fingers in Dave’s face. “Yes, you have. How many fingers?”
“Leave him alone, Jake.” Sophie laid a kiss on Dave’s forehead. “You’re a lucky man.”
“I know.” Dave gave a little smile and moved his eyes back on Kathy. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“Being there.”
Kathy swallowed the lump that attempted to choke her. “You scared me.”
“And me… myself.”
“Okay, everyone out.” Dave’s nurse announced. “Time for the patient to get poked. You can come back later.”
“Tomorrow,” Dave told them. “I’m taking the day offff.”
Unable to resist the temptation to touch him, Kathy brushed some of his wild hair away from his face. “No problem. But I’m docking your pay.”
“I’ll tell the boss.”
Why did her heart always beat just a little faster whenever he teased her? “Well, good luck with that. I hear he’s not gonna be available for a few.”
As Kathy walked out of the room with Sophie and Jake, her stomach churned and the sensation to curl him up in her arms then cry thankful tears he was alive almost overcame her. She wanted to stay with him no matter what the nurse said. The emotional pull was as unfamiliar to her as her parents’ hippie lifestyle—something she would never understand. When she was married to Todd, she wouldn’t have given a second thought about leaving him in the hands of another. Yet concern over Dave’s well-being consumed her with the need to stay.
“Kathy? Are you sure you’re okay?”
“What? Why?”
Sophie stopped walking and examined her friend. “Because you don’t look so good.”
“Gee, thanks.” Her short defensive answer brought an apology right away. “I’m sorry, Sophie. I guess I’m still a little upset. I really just want to go home and climb back in bed but I have to get to the Lion.”
“If you’re sure. You know Sue is more than capable of handling things there.”
Uneasy confusion brought Kathy’s hand to her head to ease the spinning. “I know.”
“I’m here if you need to talk. Anytime is never too late or early. I know you care about Dave, and this was—”
“I’m fine, Sophie. Really I am. And Dave and I are just friends. That’s it. Nothing more.”
“Whatever you say, Kathy.”
Kathy’s breath whooshed out of her lips. “It’s already been a long morning and—” Sophie’s surveying eyes caused Kathy to pause. “I’m sorry I don’t mean to be snippy. I’ll talk to you later. Okay?”
“Okay. But you have to promise you’ll call me if you need me.”
She hugged her longtime friend. “I promise I’m good, Sophie.”
But she really wasn’t. Her stomach wouldn’t stop turning and her mind’s eye kept reenacting the moment of impact. She had a hard time concentrating on the road, that is, once she was finally able to get her car unlocked and the engine started. It wasn’t long before Kathy gave up and pulled over to the side of the road just as tears of relief overcame her. She cared for Dave. Kathy realized the enormity of admitting it to herself and the fact that she had been trying to stop it from happening right from the moment they met.
Finding a rough napkin in her glove compartment, Kathy wiped at her tears and the mascara running down her face. Damaged, used goods. That’s what she was and Dave deserved much better than that. He was a good man who gave back to everyone he cared about. Not like her who had only caused heartache and uncertainty in her own life and others’. Oh, why can’t I be one of those strong women who go after what they want instead of cowering away? Why can’t I just say, “Damn it all!” and…” And what? What would she do?
“I’d kiss him,” she told the empty car knowing her secret would be safe. “I’d kiss him and make love to him,” she repeated after a long defeated sigh.