by Christa Wick
She waggled her finger at him. "All the way on the bed."
Still not looking at her, he complied.
"Stay put while I get another IV catheter." She raised the safety rail then turned, mumbling as she brushed past me on her way out of the room. "And restraints."
Alone and knowing the nurse would be back any second, I had no idea what to say to Collin. He had saved my life and tried to save Evan's. No matter what I thought about Collin and how he had treated me, that made him a better person than me.
Too bad being around him wasn't any less toxic for my mind than the chemicals that had surrounded us in the stable. I wanted to know he was okay, but I didn't want to talk to him, not when my emotions were as raw as my throat, maybe rawer.
Catching the scent of the chemicals on his clothes, I huffed.
"I don't think these are supposed to be in here." Spotting a small box stuffed with latex gloves, I put them on then searched the cupboard beneath for something to put the clothes in. I found a big red plastic bag just as the nurse came in.
"I was going to do that before he started acting like a—" Stopping short, she glared at him then started to work on re-inserting the IV.
Except for one wince when the woman's hand brushed against a quarter-sized burn a few inches up from his wrist, he didn't acknowledge her but kept his attention focused on me.
"How did I get out?"
"One of your team pulled you out," I started.
He shook his head. "I don't have a team. Trent..."
He paused while the nurse finished. Done, she stared at him. He stared back, his expression wholly that of Collin Stark, Chief Executive Bad Ass of Stark International. I sort of felt sorry for her. Veteran nurses don't wilt easily, especially when pissed at a problem patient, but she withered in a heartbeat beneath that stare of his.
He waited until the door clicked shut behind the nurse before he finished. "Trent cut me off—my company, my accounts..."
I shook my head. "Two men rescued us. One restrained me from going back into the stable, the other one went in right before it exploded then carried you out. I think he's here, too, but he was conscious when the air evac took the two of you away."
"I called Gillie, those men—"
"Weren't cops," I interrupted. "The second one never pulled a badge out. Gillie didn't know them."
Collin wasn't ready to relent. "Trent cut me off. I've spent all this time in a sleeping bag outside your..."
Shaking his head, he closed his eyes, his only words more repetitions of Trent's disloyalty.
Picking up his jacket from the rack beneath the bed, I emptied the pocket onto the hospital tray then folded the jacket and put it in the red plastic bag.
"You know, when I was six and my mother started dating Evan, I told her I was running away." I wadded the ruined t-shirt and stuffed it in next to the leather jacket. "She helped me pack my book bag, had me say goodbye to my horse, explaining I couldn't possibly feed Corabelle on the road. Then she sent me down the drive with three different stable hands following me in discreet ways until I finally sat down on a stump a few miles from the farm and started crying."
Shoes, socks and underwear followed the t-shirt as I paused to dam the tears that threatened to flow. Setting the bag down, I picked the jeans up from the floor and began to empty the pockets.
"She showed up then and took me home. To this day I'm not sure whether it was a good lesson or bad." I placed what I had scooped out of the pockets on the metal tray, not paying any attention as I stuffed the ruined pants into the bag. "My father would have asked why I wanted to run away—she never did."
Not really sure why I started the story, except maybe to exculpate Trent, a man I didn't even like, I stopped and looked at Collin. He stared at the hospital tray like I'd just put a grenade on it with the pin already pulled.
I looked, my gaze first taking in the bigger items like his cell phone and wallet before it landed on what must have held his attention.
A ring—a woman's ring, with a large diamond solitaire and a platinum band.
"Why did you run away?" he asked, his raw voice barely more than a whisper.
The question broke my focus on the ring. Turning away, I sealed the bag of clothes, stowed it then removed the latex gloves before responding.
"Even that young, I knew Evan liked making people miserable." I turned toward the bed, realizing I had answered the wrong question when his gaze grabbed mine.
"I meant Florida." Collin tried to sit up again, grimacing as he pushed at the tray and looked for the locks on the safety rail so he could lower it.
I moved the tray back in place. The redness on his face had faded already and I didn't know where else I could safely touch him, so I placed my palm against his forehead and forced him back against the mattress.
I wanted to tell him he didn't deserve an answer, but that rang hollow after he had saved my life. I couldn't tell him the truth, either. The truth made me feel even more hollow. I had been able to spend four miserable months bouncing around the question of whether the doctors had lied to me in Dubai, but I couldn't stand another day at Stark International after I saw his new secretary touch him and heard the lurid speculation in the voices of the men around me.
"You need another bag for these." I gestured at the items on the tray, my gaze and outstretched finger avoiding the ring. I returned to the cabinet I had found the red bag in and located a smaller, clear bag marked "valuables." Returning to the tray, I started to put them inside until my finger brushed against the ring.
I dropped the bag onto the tray without finishing. "That second man on the team, the one they didn't admit to the hospital, he'll be able to get you fresh clothes."
I turned toward the door and managed one step away from the bed before Collin captured my wrist. "I told you, Trent cut me off."
His strength too worn down to contain me, I twisted free.
"He clearly hasn't," I pointed out, "Otherwise, we'd both be dead."
Collin reached again, his IV tube tangling so that I was forced to turn back and push against his forehead a second time. He gave me that look, the one he'd given the nurse, for all of a second before his gaze softened.
Snatching the call button, I paged someone to the room. He was their patient, they could sit on him or sedate him. I needed to escape before I left my heart and the last of who I was on the floor.
"He cut me off until things were settled between you and me," Collin tried to explain.
His hand moved restlessly along the safety rail, but he didn't make another attempt to grab me. He drew a long breath in and released it just as slowly, the effect of the chemicals still audible from the rattle in his throat. Finished, he blinked then looked at me with an expression I had never seen on his face before and couldn't hope to interpret.
"Are they settled?" he asked.
No tears escaped me as I nodded.
15
Mia
I walked out of the lion's den and down the hall to find myself staring at a few more lions. Trent Kane stood at the desk of the same receptionist who had turned me away, the heat simmering on his face indicating he'd made no more progress with her in finding out Stark's condition than I had. Beyond him, bodies tense as they tapped at their cell phones, were Reed Henley and the blonde woman who had wrapped her hand around Collin's shoulder at the security conference in Miami.
Spotting me first, Reed stopped talking into his phone and jostled Trent. Sucking a deep breath in, I braced myself. Three long strides brought Trent to me. His hands gripped my shoulders. He didn't shake me, but his fingers seemed to flex with the desire to do so.
"How is he?"
I looked over Trent's shoulder to the woman as I answered. "Well enough to give the nurses a hard time."
Her face relaxed, an indulgent half smile creeping up one side. Raising my hands, I brushed at Trent's arms. I appreciated his concern for a friend, but the time limit for him grabbing and holding me like that had expired five
seconds after it started.
"He'll need clothes brought to him." I stepped left.
Trent, no longer holding my shoulders, moved with me.
"Hold on..." He started to reach for me again then raised his hands, his palms open and facing toward me. "Just answer a few questions for me. Please, Mia."
Four months ago, the entreaty would have worked. But Collin hadn't been the only one to flip switches inside me. Trent had flipped at least one on the plane ride out of Dubai and the first forty-eight hours in Florida as he detailed my new position within the company. The anger and disgust I had seen in Collin's face before I passed out in Dubai had been reflected in Trent's in Florida. So, too, had the remote indifference I would come to associate with Reed. A request from Trent meant nothing, just as my pleas to him had fallen on deaf ears.
I turned to the receptionist who stared at us, her chin in her hands, her lips slightly parted as she watched our improvised theater. "Mr. Stark is awake. I'm sure if you give him a message, he'll authorize these visitors."
I couldn't help but look at the blonde as the final word left me. I spun, hoping I had done enough for Trent to let me pass, but he held his hands up again.
"Just give me a minute? Please?" He grabbed the blonde by the arm and walked her several feet away to the set of windows that looked over the parking lot. He leaned in, whispering to her as he pulled something from his wallet. He handed it to her and she nodded, her hand coming up to cup his cheek as her lips met his.
Shocked by the unexpected intimacy, I looked to Reed. He looked just as incredulous for a moment, then confused, then blank as he realized I was watching him instead of Trent and the woman.
Something was off. I didn't know what, but I didn't need to. I just had to realize that I couldn't stay in an environment where I had to second guess everything and everyone.
That was Collin's world—not mine.
Taking advantage of the distance Trent had opened up, I started down the hall, walking as fast as I could without looking like I was running. The next hand I felt on me didn't belong to Trent. It belonged to Reed.
"That was theater, Mia," he said. "Those two don't get along. But he wants you to think there's nothing going on between Vivian and Collin without actually telling you—or the hospital—who she is."
I kept going, his words only solidifying my intent to escape all their damn game playing. Why would the hospital care who the woman was. She was either family, or on a patient-approved list, or she was no one.
"If you won't stop for that, please stop a second so I can apologize to you."
That slowed my steps. Someone at Stark International wanted to apologize? Not move me around like a chess piece or demand that I give them something after months of being invisible to them?
Of course Reed could be playing his own game, softening me up.
I shook my head. "The receptionist will—"
"I don't care about that," Reed persisted. "Trent will get in and you're not in any state that would indicate Collin is in terrible shape."
"He was shot," I relented. "In his bicep. Some chemical burns and fumes..."
"We know that." Reed punched the button on the elevator then spotted Trent stalking our footsteps and waved him away. "I said I want to apologize."
"He had pulled his IV out and was trying to get dressed." I was babbling by that point, confused by Reed's earnest tones and ready to cry. "But the pants were ruined and the chemicals were on everything."
Reed tugged me into the elevator, waiting until the doors closed to thumb away a tear that had escaped my eye. He punched one of the elevator buttons, but I couldn't read which one through the remaining tears that were seconds from spilling down my cheeks.
"There's a cafeteria in the basement. Let me get you a coffee."
I shook my head and pointed at my throat. "They gave me a list, nothing that hot..."
"Right." He rubbed his thumbs against my shoulders, not grabbing me like Trent had. "You almost died today. Trent wasn't thinking when he went after you like that."
That was wrong. Trent had been thinking—but only about Collin.
Despite the comfort flowing through them, I didn't want Reed's hands on me any more than I had wanted Trent's. I shrugged them off and pushed the button for the main level before the elevator had a chance to take us down to the basement.
"Mia..." He gripped my elbow as the doors started to open onto the hospital lobby. "I lost a baby, too."
That stopped me cold, my feet so frozen to the floor it would have taken a blow torch to unstick them. The doors closed, we stayed on and the elevator carried us down to the basement, where I heard the heartbreaking story of Reed's wife, Katherine.
His voice cracked with each word. His hands shook too much to drink the coffee. By the time he finished, I was able to wrap my arms around him in a hug. I understood why he had been so distant. I understood Trent's aversion to me after Dubai.
And, at least a little, I understood Collin.
Overflowing with understanding and tears, I still walked out of the hospital intent on never seeing any of them ever again.
With Evan dead, I had no idea what would happen with the horse farm. I spoke with an attorney who assured me my life estate in the guesthouse would remain intact, but the farm itself would go to the bank, which might sell it whole or break it up into parcels. With that information, I went to the bank where I met with the loan officer to discuss taking over the mortgage.
That conversation lasted less than ten seconds. It started with his "no" after finding out I worked for Mr. Keppler and had a savings account no bigger than a quarter of the remaining mortgage. It ended with my "no" after he inquired whether I wanted to relinquish my life estate for an amount little more than half of what I had in said savings account.
The answer to my pressing question of what would happen to the farm started to materialize a week after I left Reed Henley crying in his coffee in the hospital cafeteria. Leaving for work, I saw the loan officer, Mr. Richards, standing outside one of the remaining stables, his car blocking the lane so that I had to drive on the grass to get around him.
I would have done just that except for the woman with Richards. It was the blonde who had touched Collin's shoulder on television and who had kissed Trent in the hospital. Reed had called that theater so I wouldn't think there was anything between her and Collin. But his explanation didn't cover the way the woman had looked at Collin on camera or the lines of stress on her face at the hospital when no one on Team Stark knew Collin's condition.
Reminding myself I didn't care whose she was, I stopped my car anyway and got out because her presence at the farm could mean one thing only—Stark, for whatever reason, wasn't done torturing me.
As soon as he saw me, Richards' spine went stiff. By the time I was within speaking distance, sweat had popped out along his top lip and brow.
"What's going on?" I demanded.
I didn't intend to sound like a bitch, but I did. Richards had all but laughed in my face at the bank and now he was about to sell my family home to the man who had savaged my heart, all but crushed my spirit and had me second guessing every last thing I thought I knew about myself.
Richards snorted and turned away, his gaze on the stable as if it had turned into a painting by Picasso. "I explained to you already, your offer was ridiculous and you aren't credit worthy."
Shocked by his bluntness, especially in front of a witness, I stood there for a few seconds, my mouth slightly ajar. Next to him, the blonde straightened. She gave him a smile that was all teeth. The red-tipped fingers she had wrapped around Collin's shoulder found Richards' bicep. This time, when they dented the fabric, they seemed to go deep, searching to make an impression on flesh.
"Start over," she said through the smile.
Richards blanched. From what little I could see of his expression, I was certain the man's balls had shriveled up inside him. He looked at me, his imperious gaze gone and replaced with a pleading look.
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"It's just...you see...the bank has the right to sell the property at market value," he started, stumbling at the edges of the words when he tried to pull away from the blonde and she tightened her grip. "That's...uhm...one-point-five million even with your possession of the guesthouse."
I repeated the sum and he nodded.
"Are you interested in a competing bid?"
I shook my head although we both knew his question hadn't been asked in earnest but in fear of the woman standing next to him. I looked at her, still uncertain what to think. My first impulse, fueled by the footage of the Miami conference, was to hate her. But she was sticking up for me, something I didn't think a rival would do.
I closed my eyes for a second, reminding myself I had no rival for Collin's affection because I was through with him. Except I wasn't because he seemed intent on buying the property.
Ignoring Richards, I looked at her. "Does Mr. Stark intend to be in residence?"
Letting go of the man's arm, she shrugged. "He didn't say anything."
"Trent—" I started, but she cut me off with a shake of her head.
"Not the type of conversation we share." The smile came up again, not as frightening as when she had turned it on Richards, just final. She tilted her head, her gaze studying my face for a second before her smile thawed completely. "Collin will be discharged today if you want to ask him. They moved him to room 322b."
She wanted me to see him?
My head moved along a path that started as acquiescence before it faded to rejecting the idea of a visit to Collin. Without saying another word, I returned to my car, jammed the key in the ignition and took off, my tires chewing the grass along the lane as I maneuvered around Richards' vehicle.
Not thinking, I drove until I realized I was five miles past the Keeling city limit, which meant I was quite a bit more than five miles past my destination of the hardware store. Digging my phone out, I called Mr. Keppler and asked him for a few hours off to visit the hospital.
