“Do you know anyone with a mom or dad who’d been badly injured?” Delsey kept going with her brilliant line of questioning.
“Just one. He didn’t lose his legs, but he can’t walk. Something with his back.”
I rubbed my forehead, wondering why none of this came up in conversation before. Not that it was dinner table material.
“That’s too bad,” Delsey said and nudged me in the thigh. “Right, Logan?”
A spark rocked through me just from her damn touch, or maybe because I was so raw. Every time we had to deal with Maddie’s leg, I felt like we were facing the results of that damn train accident all over again. “Yeah, definitely,” I responded in an even voice.
“They did this huge fundraiser at the fire department for my friend’s dad. You remember that, Uncle Logan.”
Another nudge.
“Oh, you mean Cody Chism’s dad?” I remembered seeing flyers everywhere. I didn’t go to the fundraiser. I may have had a date.
That was before the accident. Before my world turned upside down.
What was the girl’s name?
Shit. Ain’t that a kick in the head? I couldn’t even remember her name.
I was pretty sure whoever that had been, I’d had sex that night.
What an asshole I’d been.
Delsey
I ANSWERED EMAILS AND texts the rest of the way to the VA hospital when Maddie went quiet and stared out the window. I leaned in and whispered to Logan asking if she was okay.
He nodded and whispered, “She gets quiet sometimes.”
I figured either she was mentally preparing herself to have her disability put on display or, like me, sometimes too many thoughts ran at her at once and she needed quiet to sort them out.
Messages from Truitt were getting annoying. Was he this much of a pain in the butt when I was in the lab? Was being away from him stripping away his tough defenses that told him I’d meant nothing to him? That ship had sailed... Once a cheater, always a cheater.
I knew that thinking had to be set against the circumstance. Should a married couple with a child or children work out their differences for the good of the family? Absolutely.
My eyes drifted to Maddie again. Had Logan and I...worked out our differences?
“I think this is it,” Logan said, swinging his truck into a line of cars waiting.
“Hey, Maddie, honey, don’t stare at anyone, but don’t look away either,” I reminded her. In high school, I had both. Those who gawked at my acne and those who couldn’t even stomach to look at me. I hadn’t decided which was worse.
“I know.” Maddie nodded, confidence in her tone. She’d toughened up from her tragedy I’d bet.
“Everyone here is just like you.” I twisted around to face her. “These are your people.”
“My people,” she said softly and looked down.
“Yeah, Mads. Warriors, remember?” Logan backed me up.
“Exactly,” I said and felt a hand on my thigh. Logan... “And you know who the warrior princess is?”
Her face scrunched into an adorable questioning look. “You?”
“Oh, heck no.” I laughed and leaned into Logan, who smiled brightly. “Xena. But that might be before your time.”
“The only real lady warrior we know is Wonder Woman from the Justice League, right?” Logan joined in, meeting Maddie’s eyes through the rearview.
Oh, how she lit up when he looked at her. I know the feeling.
“You like those movies?” I asked him.
“Guilty.” He winked.
“Cool.” I smiled and our stare lingered for a moment.
After an annoying amount of time registering to get on the hospital’s premises since neither of us was military and Maddie’s appointment was a favor to me, we were finally strutting through the entrance. I hung back and let Logan take the lead. My control-freak instincts pounded me. The Mama Bear inside me wanted to walk with Maddie and stare down anyone who looked twice at her. Even in pity, since she was a child.
No, Logan had that covered with his caramel Stetson pushed down to the bridge of his nose, and his don’t fuck with us, cowboy strut. Yeah, I remembered that walk. It hadn’t changed much since high school. Only now his body was bigger. His shoulders wider, his ass... God, that ass looked rounder and tighter. The man was a god. I bet so many women in Wild Heart, or out-of-town visitors at that B&B threw themselves at him.
Now add the kid.
But he’d put Maddie ahead of his own needs in that department. We’d visited that department yesterday. Talk about heaven. I’d felt like the only woman in the world to him. The way he kissed me, devoured me, all the while he hadn’t touched another woman. Yet he kissed me. His enemy, in a way.
To my relief, we were ushered down a quiet hallway. The idea that we’d pass dozens of beds lined up with mangled warriors all over the place worried me. I hoped we ran into some other amputees. I just didn’t want Maddie too jarred and be afraid to come back. She was still just a kid.
The waiting room outside the prosthesis lab looked cold and bland. Soldiers deserved a much nicer place to deal with their medical issues. The next time I reviewed my annual charitable donations, I’d have my accountant divert money to this hospital. It needed a makeover and no one did a makeover better than moi.
Next, a man hiked over dressed in jeans, a blue pea coat, and a baseball cap. He looked young, but kept to himself. Maddie didn’t pay him any mind and watched her phone, playing a game. Logan leaned forward and filled out paperwork which included a grant request. I stood up and checked out the magazine rack. Not that great a selection. Nothing really for women. Nothing at all for kids. Good thing Maddie had her games and I started wishing I’d brought a book.
I spun around and the extended leg of one of the plastic chairs caught my foot and next, the floor was coming up at me. Fast.
My stomach flipped as I expected to feel a hard crash on my knees. Except, through my blurry vision, a flash of navy blue came at me and caught me by the waist.
“I got you, ma’am,” the young man said.
“Thank you.” Who are you calling ma’am!
Because I’d just resigned myself to the fall, I didn’t cry out. Mr. Flash had been so quick, Logan hadn’t noticed, lost in what had to be intense paperwork. When he saw another man had me in his arms, oh yeah, that woke him up. His one leg had been draped over the opposite knee, the clipboard resting on his ankle. Next, I heard boot soles slapping the linoleum, harder than my knees and my face would have hit the floor.
As the man lowered me in a seat, Logan was there. “What happened, are you all right?”
“You should keep your eyes on your lady, sir,” the guy said.
“My eyes were on all these dang forms,” Logan answered, not disputing the ‘your lady’ comment.
“Delsey, what happened?” Maddie asked, wobbling over.
“Hey, you. You here for the same reason as me?” the guy said to Maddie.
“I don’t think so,” she answered. “What are you here for?”
“To get my leg adjusted.” He lifted a pant leg to show his calf.
As far as prostheses go, it had to be the sharpest looking fake leg I’d ever seen. Glossy black and sparkling steel.
“Wow,” Maddie said and reached out. “Can I touch it?”
“Maddie, I don’t think the guy wants...” I started while Logan sat there in shock.
“Sure. It’s cool, right? They made it just for me.”
Logan gripped my hand, needing to hold on to something watching Maddie navigate this.
“That is cool. Mine’s not so cool.” Maddie’s shoulders slumped. “You don’t want to see it.”
“That’s fine. I see you’re favoring it way too much. That’s why you’re crooked. You have to trust it.”
“Trust it,” she said quietly. “I don’t trust it.”
“Mads, why not?” Logan asked.
“I don’t trust anything, really.”
O
h good Lord. My heart broke. “We’re gonna fix that, sweetie.” I looked at the young man. “What’s your name?”
“Kevin.” He looked at Maddie. “You?”
“Maddie.”
He crouched down. “What happened to you?”
When Logan grunted, I leaned forward and whispered in his ear. “Let her talk about it.”
“I was... My mama and my grandparents and me were in the truck. Pop Pop’s truck got caught on the train tracks.” Her voice sounded surprisingly strong. “Pop Pop tried shifting and then, I don’t know. The truck started moving sideways and...” She stopped and held her breath.
“It’s okay, Maddie,” Logan said and moved to hold her.
“Yeah, it’s okay, Maddie,” Kevin repeated, taking a step back sensing Logan’s protectiveness.
Maddie fell into Logan’s arms. “She was screaming.”
“Who was, honey?” he asked her.
“Mama. She was screaming my name.”
I clutched my throat.
Holding Maddie, Logan looked back at me with tears in his eyes. I’d have bet they’d never talked about the play-by-play. The moment of impact. The horror of mangled steel, crushed bodies, and the screaming. Good Lord, she had to remember her mama screaming and the hopelessness in those cries.
My own little jet skidding off the runway mishap was nothing. How pathetic of me to feel afraid from that.
“Madeline Grady?” A woman in a lab coat called out from the door.
“Can you give us a minute?” Logan asked, holding Maddie against his stomach.
The woman came over. “I’m Miss Campbell. The lead technician. Is she okay?”
“Yeah, just a little upset.”
“That’s understandable. Hi, Madeline.”
“Hi,” she said, backing off from Logan’s hold. “Maddie. Call me Maddie.”
“Let’s get you looked at, okay, Maddie?” The woman was probably used to pushing people. Getting patients past their pain and trauma to move on was something she probably faced every day.
She gave people back their life, their abilities. She was a hero. The real hero.
“We can talk about the accident anytime you want,” Logan said, moving Maddie’s blonde hair away from her face. “Remember the doctor told us that.”
In a flash, I saw Janey. How pretty she was. Of course, she was pretty, she was Logan’s sister and he was breathtaking. Especially holding a little girl? The way she grabbed on to him. He was her world. All she had. And every sense of him had stood up to that challenge. She was his. And he owned that responsibility. I got choked up watching it.
Maddie nodded and turned to follow Miss Campbell. Right away, I noticed the shift in how she took a step. Leaning down on the right more. Confidence coming off her. Her left leg popped into place without being favored, allowing her to lean more on the right. Her walk straightened more and she looked less lopsided.
Just that one hint by another amputee had changed so much.
I turned to Kevin and whispered, “Thank you.”
Chapter Nine
Logan
In a therapy room, Maddie went back to square one working through the feel of a different prosthetic. But the technician assured me it would work out better in the long run. Being thrust back to when she had to learn to walk again wrecked me, but I kept a solid smile on my face. God, those painful days rushed back, quick and strong. I’d felt so alone and wondered how in the world I would get through it.
Alone because I’d pushed everyone in my life away. All my friends. Cam, Jamie, and Walker.
This time around with Delsey, who saw right through me, she made it clear she wasn’t going to be pushed away. And heck, by then, I was just worn down.
The physical therapist put Maddie between two bars and she had to walk through the center. Delsey and I stood on the opposite sides of the bars, but even before my hands were there to steady Maddie, Delsey’s were and many times they overlapped with mine. Neither of us flinched or pulled away, not one bit.
The looks Delsey laid on me watching Maddie struggle suggested her heart had been wrenching as much as mine. For a moment, I hadn’t felt so alone, the hollowness closed up and I felt strong.
“You’ve got this, Mads,” I kept whispering in her ear. “You didn’t run off with the first prosthetic. It will just take time.”
“I don’t have time,” she whined.
“Of course, you do, sweetie,” Delsey said.
“I have to be able to walk by tomorrow night.”
My head shifted to the side and I caught Delsey’s, huh? face. “What’s tomorrow night, Mads?” she asked.
“The dance.”
“Dance? What dance?” I said, my tone too edgy based on how Delsey shook her head at me.
“The fall festival dance. A... A boy asked me.”
“No,” I blurted.
“No, what, Logan?” Delsey asked before Maddie could.
“She can’t go to a dance.”
Miss Mackenzie put her hands on her hips, ready to open a can of whoop-ass on me. “What do you mean she can’t go?”
A growl rippled through my chest. “Madeline... And I’m talking to Madeline,” I gritted through my teeth at Delsey. “Who’s...who’s having this dance?”
“The school. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t think I would go. But then Marco asked me this morning.”
Marco?
Shit. I’d stifled Delsey and now I needed her. Now I was really out of my depth. Dealing with Maddie and...boys. I only wanted to protect her and keep her innocent and safe. Boys break girls’ hearts. I was one of those sumbitches. And a woman I’d hurt again and again stood inches from me, looking like keeping quiet was killing her.
“You can chime in here now,” I said to Delsey.
“Marco is in your grade?” she asked in a breathless rush like a balloon letting go of air.
Damn. I didn’t even think to ask how old the kid was. In my head, Marco was a thirty-year-old in tight leather pants, an open satin shirt, stunk of Aramis, and only had one thing on his mind.
“Yeah. He sits behind me in homeroom. I’ve known him for... He knew me before this happened.”
“Do you want to go with him as a...friend? Or do you have a little crush on him?”
Maddie shrugged. “What’s the difference?”
I coughed through my panic. Did I seriously have to have that kind of talk with her? Had Jamie been the one to tell Chloe where babies came from? I’m guessing her Aunt Sierra, Cam’s sister helped him out on that one. Or Jamie’s wife, Harper. Crap. Maddie didn’t have an aunt. She’d only have the woman I chose to be my wife. I couldn’t help but stare at Delsey and it hit me square in the chest. Her. She’s the one, stupid.
Delsey answered the question when my tongue rolled to the back of my throat. “At your age, there isn’t much of a difference. Is he a nice boy?”
“He helps me with my books. His locker is next to mine.”
“He sounds very nice.” Delsey dug her fingernails in my arm. “Logan?”
I looked at her with my eyes narrowed. “Yeah?”
“What do you think?”
Hmmm. She put the ball in my court because she got it. It was my call. Maddie was...mine. She was my responsibility.
“Madeline Grady?” A woman with an iPad walked up to us.
“That’s me,” she answered, steadying herself against the rail.
“How’s that leg feeling?”
“It feels good, but I’m wobbly all over again.”
“It has a different center of gravity. It’s an adjustable sample and the smallest one we have right now. We’ll build one made specifically for you. When it’s ready, you’ll be more comfortable. You can take that one home in the meantime.”
“Are you sure?” Maddie asked the woman, then looked at me.
Christ, I’ve traumatized her every time I flinched about money.
“Of course,” I said firmly. “Whatever she needs, make it happen.
”
“Come with me, Maddie. We’ll take more measurements.” The technician held out her hand.
“Mads, are you okay going by yourself this time?”
Maddie turned around and looked at me, then Delsey. Her smile was sneaky. I hadn’t said she could go to the dance yet, and she had to know Delsey would talk me into it. “No problem.”
I was amazed at how the technician assisted Maddie, not by steadying her, but by allowing Maddie to lean against her. And every few steps, Mads let go. Each time she got stronger and stronger.
When I faced Delsey, she started talking fast. “I’m sorry. I misspoke. I’ll own that. I...” She shrugged. “I never did this, Logan. I never dated someone with a kid.”
Date? Is that what we were doing?
I cleared my throat. Without asking her to clarify, I said, “I haven’t dated anyone since Maddie came to live with me. So, I don’t know how to share.”
“But I’m nobody here. I have no business. I’m sorry. I just couldn’t help it.”
“You’re not nobody, Delsey. She’s admired you for a long time. I just never knew it. She knew you were from Wild Heart, so that’s probably what she found exciting about you.”
Me? There was much more that excited me about Delsey. “It means a lot to me that she has someone like you. You can have so much influence on her. For everything. A strong businesswoman. Smart. Real smart like her.”
“And then there’re the scars,” she said, rubbing the right side of her face.
“I didn’t even think of that. I don’t see them. They don’t matter. It’s what’s on the inside that matters. And...” I got breathless. “Jesus, Delsey here it is. It was never the acne. It was never the glasses. Or that you were so smart and won all those awards. It was nothing. It was me. I was an ass. This is a piss-poor excuse, but things were bad in my house for a few years during high school. My dad was out of work on and off, he was drinking, giving everyone a hard time.” I stopped and took a breath because I was shaking, the epiphany hitting me. I’d lashed out back then because I’d been in pain and didn’t tell anyone.
The Cowboy's Rebel Heart: An Enemies to Lovers Second Chance Romance (Wild Texas Hearts Book 4) Page 9
