Chapter Thirteen

Wade glanced up as his partner dropped down on the chair across from him. His face was grim, his eyes shadowed and dark. “The boy didn’t make it,” J.D. rasped, his voice raw and strained.

“Damn,” Wade whispered, useless anger curling within him. “Damn it.”

“Massive head trauma. If he’d lived he would have been a damned vegetable. The mother is still in surgery, but they think she’ll pull through. Hell of a piece of news for her to have to hear while she’s fighting for her life.” J.D. slouched in his chair and rubbed his eyes.

Their shift had ended well over two hours earlier, but neither had been able to leave until they heard the news. Wade was now wishing he had left. He wanted to rip something apart with his bare hands. Knowing he didn’t want to know, but unable to keep from asking, he gave in. “The driver?”

“Mild concussion. Mild lacerations. A few bruised ribs from his impact against the safety harness,” J.D. said, his voice flat. “Ain’t that justice?”

“You boys need to head home.”

Wade looked up as one of the ER nurses came into the lounge. A soft, comforting smile on her familiar face, Leanne Winslow settled into a chair next to Wade and took his hand. “You’ve had a rough night. You need to get some rest. This isn’t even your normal shift.”

“Saving money for Christmas,” he muttered, folding his cold hand around hers. “Any more news about the mother?”

“Some. And it could be good news. She’s about four and half months pregnant and the baby is hanging in there. She hasn’t spontaneously aborted yet, so that is definitely a good sign. If all goes well…”

Wade grimaced and shook his head. “Too many things can go wrong, especially that early in the pregnancy.”

“If she’d been much further along, much bigger, the baby’s chances wouldn’t be as good. As it is, the little girl is small enough that her mother’s body sustained much of the damage. She pulled through surgery but… Well, the pain meds and antibiotics, those are what’s worrying her OB right now. At least she’s past the first trimester. We’ve located her husband.”

A soft hand stroked over his brow and he fought off the urge to shrug it away. Wade never should have accepted her offer to dinner few weeks ago. But now any time he decided to call things off, he was struck with a bout of loneliness so strong he lost his resolve.

Leanne was sweet, gentle and unassuming. She looked at Wade as though she thought he was some type of god and made him feel like he wasn’t a walking disaster.

And Abby liked her. She hardly even mentioned Nikki anymore. The past three weeks had been easier, but he didn’t know if that was because Leanne was there or because he was adjusting to the fact that Nikki was gone.

“Wade, you need to go home,” Leanne ordered softly, gazing up at him with concerned blue eyes. “Get some rest before that little girl of yours comes home from daycare. With Christmas coming you’re going to need that rest.”

Rest. That had become a precious commodity in his world. On the rare nights Wade slept for more than four or five hours, he always dreamed of Nicole.

The tasks of working two extra shifts of a week, trying to get Christmas shopping done and dealing with a rambunctious four-year-old were an exhausting combination enough, but when the father couldn’t sleep, it made it even worse.

Rest? he thought cynically. Yeah, right. Not in this century. But Wade gave her a tired smile and nodded. “You’ll let me know about the mother?” he asked as he stretched his arms over his head and forced his stiff body out of the chair.

“Yes. But she’s going to pull though. She’s stable and she’s young. I just hope her baby makes it. Losing one child is hard enough,” Leanne murmured, rising gracefully to her feet. The baggy blue uniform rustled softly as she leaned close enough to peck him on the cheek. “I’ll call tonight once you’ve had a chance to get some rest. You too, J.D. Get some sleep.”

She smiled sweetly at him and left the lounge on silent feet. Her ebony hair, wound in an intricate braid, swayed as she walked away. That girl moved like a dancer. She was beautiful, sweet and intelligent, a perfect dream. She was happiest when she was fussing over people.

And, more often than not, two hours after leaving her, Wade could hardly remember what she looked like. Certainly couldn’t pull up her image in his mind, couldn’t remember how she felt against him, or smelled, or tasted.

“That is a fine piece of work,” J.D. murmured as he rose, sliding his rumpled jacket on as they headed out the lounge. “You two serious?”

Wade shrugged. “We’ve gone out a few times.”

“About time. That girl’s been practically begging you ever since you moved here. Nice to know you finally developed a brain.”

Wade shot his partner a dour look. “That’s not a brain you’re thinking of, buddy.” His steps slowed as he passed by a man being wheeled outside with an armed escort. He was sobbing theatrically and waving his arms in the air as he begged and pleaded with the officers.

“Damned murdering son of a bitch,” J.D. whispered under his breath as the two men slowed to a halt. “Listen to him, saying he wasn’t drunk at all. That bastard had empty beer cans all over the back seat.”

The bastard in reference had kept trying to grab his treating paramedic the entire time she was with him. He had been singing loudly and begging for “a special performance” while Wade and J.D had been laboring over a tiny three-year-old boy, trying to pump life back into him. Bastard was so damned drunk he hadn’t really realized he had been in a wreck.

As he sang merrily, unaware of what was really happening, Wade and J.D. had struggled to make that boy live.

They had succeeded only to have the boy die in the ER.

“What’s likely to happen to him? In Louisville, some fancy-ass lawyer would get him off with a suspended sentence and community time.”

J.D. grunted and raised his shoulders. “He’ll be tried for manslaughter. And unless his family is rich, he won’t get a lawyer fancy enough to even try to talk down a thing like this. Even then, folks around here don’t take too kindly to bastards like that. This isn’t his first offense either. Multiple DUIs. He’ll do time. But that won’t bring that little boy back,” J.D. finished savagely, glaring in the direction of the cruiser.

“But maybe it will save another one,” Wade said, holding onto that thought. That helped. Not a whole hell of a lot, but it did help. “You have to remember that. If he got away with a slap on the wrist, this would be a hell of a lot harder to handle.” He cast a glance up at the cold winter sky as they resumed walking to the ambulance. “Hell of a Christmas that family is going to have.”

Once home, Wade shed his clothes on the way to the bathroom and turned the water to as hot as he could stand it. His uniform was saturated with blood and he felt as though his skin was as well. So much blood for such a small child. Sharp needles of water pounded his face and chest as he scrubbed at his flesh.

How was that poor boy’s family going to make it? If he lost Abby…

His little girl was all he had. Losing her would kill him.

No parent should ever have to bury a child.

Exhaustion kept him from dwelling too long on that thought. Stepping out of the shower, water sluicing off his body, Wade forced his mind not to go down that road.

He fell face first on the bed without even drying off. Wrapping up in the comforter, he prayed for oblivion.

 

Waking shortly before Abby was due home, Wade climbed out of bed, his stiff muscles protesting as he stretched. The dull ache of grief resided in his chest but he pushed it aside. His little girl was on her way. And with Christmas only four days away, she was becoming more and more hyper and required every bit of his energy.

Every other word out of her mouth was “Christmas”. “Have I been good?” ran a close second. Even without the extra hours he was putting in she would have worn him down. And in two days his parents were coming in to spend the holidays with him and Abby. Which meant he had to clean the damn house.

To top that all off, he couldn’t get Nikki out of his mind.

Is she home yet? He hadn’t gone up the mountain in two weeks, and he’d finally stopped hounding her family.

How much longer was she going to stay away?

Not that it mattered. Wade had finally given up waiting. He had accepted that this was her way of making a clean break. It was over for her.

But not for him. And that was the most pathetic part of it. Because he was the reason she had decided to make that break. Him and his damned pride. If he had been a little more patient he would have had her back.

And then he had gone and screwed it up.

Again.

Later that night, Abby sat scrubbed clean and dressed in pink and blue flannel pajamas, her eyes focused on the Christmas special on the television. The Small One, Wade thought. It was a sweet cartoon, and Abby was enamored with the donkey.

Her reached blindly for the phone when it rang, knowing automatically who it was. Leanne’s slow southern drawl sounded in his ear and he tuned out the television as he listened. The mother was fine. The baby was hanging in there. He sent a silent prayer heavenward and thanked Leanne for letting him know.

“Are we still on for Christmas Eve?” she asked softly.

“Yeah. And don’t forget you’re welcome to come by Christmas night when you get done working your shift.”

She chuckled. “I may not be in the mood for celebrating by the time my shift is over. You know how holidays are in the hospital. Even here in the country we get our share of folks drowning their holiday blues with Jack Daniels and sleeping pills.”

“Cheerful thought,” he muttered. And it wasn’t one he really wanted because it reminded him of Jamie. She’d drowned her blues all right. But it hadn’t been Jack Daniels. It had been Jose Cuervo and sleeping pills. When he’d found her, she’d been in their bed, wearing blue silk, her face perfectly made up. She hadn’t written a suicide note, but then again, he hadn’t needed one. He knew why she had killed herself… It was his fault. She blamed him for never loving her.

“You sound tired. Didn’t you get any sleep?”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t feel like it now,” he replied, closing his eyes against the glare of the television. The six hours of unconsciousness might as well not have happened. “The extra work is catching up.”

“Do you think maybe you should slow down?” Leanne suggested hesitantly.

Nikki would have told him to stop working himself into the ground, or she’d stop him herself.

Leanne wasn’t Nikki. She was the exact opposite, which was why he was dating her. “This was the last one. I was only doing it for Christmas.”

“Good. You need to take better care of yourself.” The way she said it, her words sounded more like a question than a statement.

Cursing himself, he promised, “I’ll try,” before hurriedly getting off the phone. He was too damn tired to listen to his evil twin berate Leanne for being everything he had decided he wanted in a woman. Or everything he should want in a woman.

But damn it all, he didn’t want a southern belle who hung onto his every word and couldn’t make a decision on her own unless it had to do with the job. She even asked him what she should cook when he came over for dinner.

What he wanted was an acid-tongued transplanted Yankee who would tell him to go to hell before she’d offer to come and cook breakfast for him on her day off.

“Damned fool,” he told himself softly as he settled back against the couch.

 

 

Nikki stood in the shadows of the alcove, watching the festivities with weary eyes. Everybody at Kirsten’s party was having a blast, save for Nikki. She could only think of one place she wanted less to be. Home.

Shawn had told her yesterday that he’d seen Wade going out with a woman he vaguely knew from the hospital. A pretty young nurse Nikki remembered all too well.

Leanne Winslow had been the one holding her hand when she woke up briefly in the ER after her accident. When she had asked about Jason.

Coal black hair, porcelain smooth skin, eyes the color of the midnight sky. She had been kind and comforting in the ER, and the few times Nikki had encountered her since then she had always been sweet and concerned, asking how she was. Mother Teresa in the flesh—that was Leanne. There was something almost ethereal about the woman.

She would be a prefect mother to Abby. A perfect wife for Wade.

Now that is a cheerful thought…

The third man of the evening to approach Nikki got within three feet before she noticed. Turning her icy eyes his way, she gave him her most obnoxious glare, hoping he’d get the point. The invisible wall of ice she had around her didn’t seem to even faze him.

Nikki accepted the offered champagne flute only to set it down untouched on the elegant Queen Anne table behind her. He hardly noticed.

He was too drunk to notice. He didn’t notice the way Nikki was edging away from him, didn’t notice the look of utter distaste on her face. All he noticed was a streamlined body in a crushed velvet dress of crimson and the pouting, sulky mouth.

As he backed her farther into the corner, he also failed to notice the flash of temper that sparked in Nikki’s eyes.

But he did notice the cold champagne that was flung in his face when he slurred out an invitation to go find an empty room somewhere.

As he sputtered and swore, Nikki dodged him, moving quicker than she had in weeks. She dodged dancing couples and gaily laughing groups of people.

All around people were celebrating. Not celebrating Christmas, the holiday season or even the weekend.

They were celebrating life.

No wonder she didn’t want to be here. She didn’t have any life left in her.

Shutting herself in the library, Nikki settled in a huge leather chair overlooking the estate and wished she had not wasted the champagne. She could have used a drink.

Her wish was granted when the door opened to reveal Kirsten, clad in a floor-length figure-hugging gown of sparkling emerald green. A slit that went all the way up her thigh was the only thing enabling her to walk. Without that strategically placed slit all she would have been able to manage was a shuffle.

In her elegant, ring-clad hands, she held drinks. A flute of champagne for herself and a Bloody Mary for Nikki.

Nikki accepted the drink with a smile and toasted her hostess. “Hell of a party,” she said before taking a drink of the spicy concoction.

“Yes, I noticed your enthusiasm as you threw perfectly good champagne at one of the junior editors. He’s being escorted home as we speak. Donald doesn’t appear to hold his liquor all that well.” She tossed Nikki a catty little smile before adding, “He swears up and down you propositioned him, and then when he accepted, you threw your drink at him. You little tramp.” Kirsten settled herself against the desk and took a delicate sip of champagne as she studied her friend.

Nikki’s only reply to that was a snort.

The girl looks like hell, Kris decided.

Some might think the weight loss was an improvement. She now had the model-thin look that was so popular, particularly in New York. The hollowed cheeks made her eyes look larger and the rich material of her dress clung lovingly to her torso before ending in a flirty little skirt inches above her knees. The dress, deep red and flattering to Nikki’s svelte new figure, actually belonged to Kirsten. It had been altered only the day before.

Kirsten’s attempts to take her shopping had failed, even though she knew very few of Nikki’s clothes fit her anymore. And she owned nothing that could be worn to Kirsten’s annual holiday bash at her parents’ house in Long Island.

Not that she really wants to be here, Kirsten thought wryly. Hell of a compliment. She was boring her best friend out of her mind.

Of course, Kris had known this party would hold no interest for her.

No. This wasn’t an improvement. Kirsten saw only despair in that face, pain in those sad eyes. That sleek body was a result of her appetite fading into nothingness. Nikki didn’t look slim and sexy. She looked ill.

Nikki forced herself to eat regularly, but she couldn’t down more than a few bites out of any meal.

“Is your dad upset that you’re not going home for Christmas?”

“A little. We’ll celebrate when I go home in January.” Nikki drank again, emptying the glass and setting it aside as she shifted her body to face Kirsten.

“Have you set a date? Got your ticket?”

“Yes, mother. I’m going home to face the music.”

Kirsten shook her head and sighed. “Nik, you’re welcome here as long you like, but we both know you’re miserable. You’re going to be miserable anywhere until you put this behind you. And you can’t do that here.”

“I’m aware of that,” Nikki said, her voice quiet. “I just need a little more time.”

“Time isn’t going to help this. If you’d put it to rest it would, but not until then. You hardly eat. You hardly sleep. You walk around looking like a damned zombie.” Kirsten sat her champagne flute down with a snap and moved closer. “You have got to either let him go or go back and fight for him. But this has got to stop. Or you’re going to end up the way you did five years ago.”

Nikki lowered her lids slowly over her shadowed eyes, tipping her head back to meet Kirsten’s angry glare. “I’m not that bad off.”

“Yet.” Kirsten started pacing back and forth, her heels sinking into the thick piled carpet.

Where had the anger come from? she wondered. Nikki was hurting. Kirsten knew that. She had reason to. She wasn’t sulking over nothing.

But Kris desperately feared this was just the beginning of another downward spiral.

That thought not only angered her, it frightened her as well.

“You’re not that bad off yet, but you will be. Before much longer you’ll be in the hospital again, hooked up to IVs, tubes running this way and that. Your dad is going to be sitting there, begging you to fight and I don’t think you have much fight left in you, Nicole. He’s already come home once to find somebody he cared about dead. He wasn’t able to save your mother. He doesn’t deserve to lose another woman he cares about.”

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Kirsten paused long enough to blink away the tears burning her eyes, “Damn it, Nik. He isn’t worth this, Nik. I don’t think any man is, but if he’s worth this much grief, then why aren’t you fighting for him?”

“That’s easier said than done,” Nikki murmured, her voice thick with tears. She failed to notice the angry and frightened tears that glittered in Kris’s eyes. “And he doesn’t want me. There’s no point.”

Wrong words.

“No point,” Kirsten repeated slowly, her cat green eyes narrowing.

“No point? So you’ll just mourn yourself into the grave this time?” Kirsten snapped, whirling to face the younger woman. “That’s where you are headed this time, little girl. Your heart can’t take the kind of abuse you heaped on it last time and I’m not talking about the emotional heart. Damn it, it’s a wonder it didn’t give out on you last time. It can’t take that strain again and you know it.

“It’s been five years since you pulled yourself out of that hole, and you’re still popping Lanoxin every day. You will never be able to stop taking those drugs, Nikki. They are your lifeline and one more little injury to your heart could kill you. It will give out if it’s put through much more strain, honey. You’re going to end up having a heart attack or worse.

“And you don’t have Jason to latch on to this time. He’s not here this time to keep you going.”

“I’m not that far gone. I’m still perfectly healthy—”

“Bullshit,” Kirsten said succinctly, her voice hard, sharp as shards of broken glass. “You’re a damned mess. Over him, a jackass that slept around on you, had two women knocked up at the same time. He got some woman pregnant one night, drunk out of his mind, angry over a fight he started. Doesn’t that strike you as kind of stupid, being that upset over it? How many times have you told me about how angry you were with your mother when she put up with this kind of shit from your father? Why is Wade any different?”

Nikki didn’t answer, just stared at Kris with haunted eyes.

“I can’t believe you waste your time and your love on such a pathetic bastard, Nicole. Not just once, but twice. You’re letting him put you through hell all over again. I can’t help but wonder how many others he’s got on the sly while he’s been chasing you. Why do you even bother with him?”

Quietly, Nikki said, “Wade isn’t like that.”

“Oh, the hell he isn’t,” Kirsten replied, slashing at the air with a sharp gesture, rings flashing fire. “He’s a no good, lying, cheating, hick of a bastard who wouldn’t know a good thing if it bit him in the ass.”

“I love him, Kris. He’s not a bad man,” Nikki snapped, her own eyes narrowing this time.

Kris managed to suppress the pleased smile. “Then damn it, go back and fight for him. He spent months chasing after you. Do you think he’ll give up that easily?” That spark of anger settled her a little. Nikki hadn’t shut down quite as much as she wanted people to think.

“He’s seeing somebody else,” Nikki reminded her, the hollow ache in her chest spreading. “He’s found somebody else.”

Kirsten snorted. “So he up and got married already?”

“They’re dating.”

“Oh, the sacred covenant. Dating.” Sarcastically, Kirsten said, “And here I am encouraging you to go break up this happy union. Oh, wait a second, this is the man who got another woman pregnant while he was engaged to you. Oh, yes. He’s definitely a man who honors his commitments.”

“If he’s dating somebody, it’s because he’s lost interest in me.”

“You left,” Kirsten said, spacing each word out slowly. “You’ve been gone for months. He might think you’re not coming back, so he’s probably trying to get on with his life. Hell, your dad said he’s been asking about you all over town. He even had the nerve to approach those lunatic brothers of yours. That right there shows how desperate he is. If he could afford it, he’d probably be hunting you down.”

“I doubt that. You didn’t see him that day, Kris. He’s fed up with me.”

Kirsten rolled her eyes. “He’s a man, sweetie. When men don’t get what they want when they want it, they pout. That’s how men are. But they get over it.” Kneeling in her dress wasn’t a wise thing to do, but she did it. Emerald green silk stretched but held as Kris caught hold of Nikki’s hand and whispered, “You need to go home, baby. He’s got to be worth fighting for, or you wouldn’t be such a mess.”

“And if he really doesn’t want me?” Nikki asked, her voice ragged. She clenched Kris’s hands tightly as the tears welled up in her eyes and spilled over. “If I go back and he doesn’t want me, what do I do then?”

“You’ll go on,” Kris whispered, freeing her hand and brushing back the younger woman’s tousled hair. Her eyes were swirling masses of pain. If this was what love could do to you, Kirsten wanted nothing of it. “Honey, you’ll just have to go on. You’re strong, stronger than you think. You’ll be just fine.

“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.

“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.”