NO LONGER MINE

by Shiloh Walker

  A sheepish smile crossed her face and she said, “Sorry about that.” She would hit somebody whose cart was beyond full. Kneeling, she picked up a carton of cookies and Donald Duck orange juice. She placed them in the basket before stepping away.

  The guy had knelt in front of a dark child of four or five, his face hidden as he scooped up items from the floor. “No problem,” he said his voice belying his words, sounded slightly irritated.

  Nikki was about to make a quick get away, but then he stood up. And revealed his face.

  A very familiar face, one that haunted her dreams on a regular basis. His hair was shorter, cut at his nape, and his face had thinned out just a bit, the dimples at the corners of his mouth now slashes in his lean cheeks. But the eyes were the same, deep bottomless pools of brown velvet

  “Wade,” she whispered Her eyes, stricken, then landed on the child’s face. A little girl, a little mirror of her father.

  And of Nikki’s son. She wore a red T-shirt, decorated on the front with a sketch of a bright-eyed puppy. A baseball cap in that same candy apple red sat on top of thick black hair that fell razor straight her tiny shoulders. She held a stuffed cocker spaniel, a mirror image of the way Jason had carried his precious Mouse.

  A knife slowly imbedded itself in Nikki’s heart, started to twist.

  For a moment, his face was blank and then his eyes narrowed. She was unable to move as he slowly reached up, tugged her sunglasses off. “Nikki,” he breathed, his eyes lighting, as though from within He took a step closer, and brushed her cheek with the back of his hand.

  That gentle touch shattered her like glass. Flinching, she grabbed her purse and took off running down the aisle. She had her keys before she was even out the door. Swallowing a sob, she dodged around an elderly couple that glared at her with censure in their eyes.

  As she dove into the dubious safety of her truck, Wade came striding out the main doors of the grocery store. “Nikki!” he shouted, his little girl perched on his hip.

  She spared him only one glance as she started the engine and threw it into gear. The little girl was staring up at her father in confusion, her dark hair streaming around her face

  The sight of it sent tiny daggers plunging into her heart.

  Dear God, she thought.

  And unable to go home where she’d just sit and brood and cry, she ended up making the forty minute drive to town, tears streaming down her face the entire time

  ***

  What in the hell…

  Wade stood there, dumbstruck, as Nikki peeled out of the parking lot in a Ford Explorer, leaving a bit of rubber on the pavement as she went.

  His mind was a total blank. He didn’t know what to think. Nikki was here.

  She had run from him.

  The look in her eyes had reminded him of the way a doe trapped in the headlights of an oncoming car. Scared to death, knowing the end was near, unable to do anything about it.

  “Daddy, who was that?”

  Blankly, he turned his head to look at his daughter. Abby was staring up at him, her small dear face puckered with confusion. And his silence didn’t help. “Daddy, was she a friend of yours? Do you know her?”

  “Yeah, sweetie. I know her,” he finally said, talking not exactly easy, considering how his vocal cords seem to have frozen.

  “Why did she run away?”

  “I guess maybe she had somewhere to go,” was all he said, casting one last glance out at the highway, eyes following the path the black truck had taken.

  So what was he supposed to do now?

  * * *

  Later that night, Nikki stared dully into the freezer, eyes unseeing as she put away half-melted ice cream and nearly warm chicken breasts. She continued to stand there, staring woodenly, until the cold air on her already chilled flesh snapped her out of her daze.

  Finally, she realized she had been putting canned goods and dishwasher detergent in the freezer as well.

  After removing what didn’t belong, she shut the freezer and drop­ping to the floor, exhausted. “What’s he doing here anyway? Whatever happened to Texas?” she asked the empty kitchen. “He was supposed to have moved to Texas.”

  Folding her arms at her middle to ward off a very real pain brought on by her misery, she leaned forward as a sob built in her throat.

  Why now? I’m just starting to stand on my own two feet again.

  Remembering the beautiful little girl drove a dagger into her already bleeding heart. A healthy beautiful, alive little girl. The pain was more than she could bear.

  Then…

  “Nikki?”

  She looked up from her keyboard, eyes bloodshot and weary.

  Shawn was slumped against the doorframe, hands shoved deep in his pockets. “Your boyfriend’s at the door. Want me to tell him you ain’t here?”

  Wryly, she thought, I must look worse than I thought. Shawn was almost acting protective. Then she turned her mind to the matter at hand. She had to see him sooner or later. “He can come on up, Shawn. But, thanks.”

  He only shrugged and walked away. She swiveled in her chair to face her mirror. Yep. She looked like hell. Bloodshot eyes, face pale and strained, hair messily shoved into a ponytail. Her ripped sleeveless sweatshirt had certainly seen better days, and her cut off shorts weren’t much better. Not only that, they bagged slightly at the waist, evidence of her lack of appetite in the past week.

  She turned back to her keyboard as footsteps echoed on the steps, tapping away at the keys, putting half-formed ideas into words. She worked a few minutes more, even after Wade slowly entered the room.

  Still too still too angry to make the first move, she continued to work.

  Finally finished, Nikki skimmed the rough draft and then she saved the file on the slow word processor. What she wouldn’t give for a computer…

  She spun around in her seat and found Wade staring out the window, his posture slumped, head bent. Finally, he voice sounding rusty, he asked, “Did you make it home okay?”

  He was, of course, referring to the night a week earlier when he driven away from the store in a fury unlike anything she had ever seen in him. Cocking her head, she coolly said, “It looks that way.”

  He sighed, looking even more miserable, if possible, and flung himself on her unmade bed, his arm over his eyes, hand clenched so tightly, his knuckles were bloodless. He looked utterly dejected, Nikki thought with mild amusement.

  If she didn’t know better, she would think he was feeling guilty for picking a fight over nothing. And he damn well ought to. However, Wade never felt guilty about anything. Feeling guilty meant you had done something wrong, made some sort of mistake. Things like that were below him.

  She couldn’t gloat for too long, though. He looked too awful. “I caught a ride home with Connie,” she said, diplomatically declining to tell him that Jared McNeil had offered a ride home. Dinner, a movie. And more.

  Wade’s lower lip was still puffy.

  Nikki still couldn’t believe she had hit him. But, damn it, the way he had acted…

  Wade’s hoarse voice broke the silence when he said, quietly, “I’m sorry. I had no right to do that, no right to jump all over you. I don’t know what in the hell came over me.”

  “Don’t you?” she asked, her voice remote.

  With a sigh, he lowered his arm and sat up in bed, swinging around to sit on the edge of it. Looking her right in the eye for the first time since entering the room, the corner of his mouth quirked in a grimace. His skin was unnaturally pale, dark blue circles under his eyes. “I was jealous,” he said simply “And worried that maybe you might be curious as to what it felt like to actually date. You and I’ve been together so long, you didn’t have a chance to play the field the way your friends did. You would have every right to wonder.”

  “I never have wondered,” Nikki said quietly. “The girls my age think I’m damn lucky to have found myself somebody. The guys my age aren’t worth the trouble But that’s beside the point. You came in
with guns blazing and attacked me simply for talking to a guy I work with.”

  “He’d like to do more. I know what a guy looks like when he’s interested. And he’s definitely interested.”

  Sighing, he scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “But that’s not the point either. You weren’t encouraging him and that’s all the matters. I should have had more faith in you.” Then he stood up abruptly.

  Startled, Nikki was slack when he pulled her out of the chair and into his arms. Wade then yanked the rubber band from her hair and buried his face in it, breathing deeply. Silently, she locked her arms around his waist and stood there, feeling vaguely as though something was wrong. Something else was going on, but what it was, Nikki didn’t know. Her internal radar was sending out signals.

  He began rocking back and forth, and instinctively, she tightened her arms. Turning her head, she pressed a kiss to the side of his neck, cuddling against him, trying to ease some of the tension that was rolling of him in waves.

  She gasped out a breath as Wade swept her up in his arms and went to the bed, cradling her in his lap.

  That internal radar was screaming now. They’d fought before and he hadn’t acted like he was afraid she would slip away.

  “Wade, what’s going on?” she asked, cupping his face in her hand and forcing him to look here. Nikki searched his eyes for some clue but all she saw was torment and guilt. She was almost afraid to ask, but knew she had to. “Is there something that I need to know about?”

  He closed his eyes and Nikki felt her stomach drop. She waited for him to tell her, but all he did was bring her hand to his lips and kiss it. “I just don’t want to lose you,” he said, raising his head and staring at her intently

  “I’m not the one who left,” she reminded him softly. Then she shrugged. “It was a fight It’s not the first and it won’t be the last. I…I shouldn’t have hit you”

  “You’ve got a mean right hook, Nikki,” he said, a ghost of a smile on his face. “But I deserved it. I’m sorry. The entire thing happened because I’m an ass.”

  With a forced a smile, she replied, “You are an ass.” Then she forced aside her misgivings. Everything was okay. “It’s all right, Wade. It’s over.”

  “It’s not all right,” he insisted, cupping her face in callused gentle hands. “It’s not, baby. I’m sorry for everything I’ve done that hurt you. I’m sorry for things I said and did and thought that weren’t fair to you.”

  She only tucked her face against his shoulder, looking away from those intent eyes. Meeting them only made her vague feelings of wrongness return.

  Nikki had to bite her lip to keep from asking, “What things?”

  * * *

  A month had passed since that day. Buried in her writing and studying, Nikki was also preparing for classes to begin in just a few weeks. On top of that, she was taking an additional college course on correspondence She was going to be busy, but she had to get it all finished.

  September was close and she had to get things squared away by then. She’d be starting her third year of nursing school at U of L when they returned from the honeymoon.

  Nikki looked up from the screen, eyes tired and unfocused. Wade lay sleeping in an exhausted sprawl on the narrow couch. He didn’t sleep here much, but when he did, it was always on the couch. In fact, he almost seemed to avoid the queen size bed they would share in a few weeks. He was only here tonight was because she had decided to go ahead and move her word processor over and wanted to get some work done.

  Nikki had thought he liked the little ranch house as much as she did, but maybe she was wrong. He ended up at her apartment every morning after work, and slept there on her narrow twin bed until she got home from work.

  To top it off, his sleep was fitful. Often he’d wake the minute she got home and tumble her down onto the bed within, holding her tightly against his side as he drifted back into uneasy slumber. Wade insisted nothing was wrong, just that he was working too hard, busting his ass to save more money for the honeymoon.

  Her mind drifted around in circles, trying to pinpoint if she had done something or said something, to make him act this way. There had been that fight, two months ago but it wasn’t the worst they had ever had.

  Since then, they hadn’t fought about anything. Wade, in fact, went out of his way keeping things quiet between them.

  She didn’t even realize he had woken until she heard him whisper, “C’mere, Nikki”

  She smiled and rose, somewhat stiffly, from her chair. Stiffened muscles protested as Nikki stretched and forced them into action. She bent over from the waist to touch her toes briefly before she went to couch, perching on the edge.

  Watching her with burning eyes, Wade waited for her with an outstretched hand. As she settled against him, his arms closed around, pulling her down next to him. With a turn of his body, Wade neatly tucked her under him. “I love you,” he rasped, his voice intense. “I always will. If I ever lost you, I don’t know what I’d do.”

  She opened her mouth, determined to find out what was going on with him, but then he settled his mouth over hers, and the question, like all thought, flew out of her head.

  Later, wearing only her T-shirt, she mentioned that she had seen Jamie Sayer in the store earlier that day with her father. “She looked like hell,” Nikki commented. “Sick or something.”

  “Stomach virus going around,” he said, his voice curt. “It’s been a hell of a week because of it. Everybody and their brother thinks death is just around the corner Using the ambulance because their belly hurts, instead of going to the doctor.”

  “Does she still call you?” Nikki asked, her voice mild.

  “No,” Wade snapped, tossing aside a magazine he had been flipping through. “Look, I really don’t want to talk about Jamie Sayer.”

  Eyes narrowed, she rose. “Oh, well, pardon me. You don’t want to go eat. You don’t want to see a movie. You don’t want to talk to me about anything, much less Jamie. Today is the first time we’ve had sex in nearly a month. You’re always too tired,” she cooed, voice sugar sweet with mock sympathy, batting her eyes at him.

  “What in the hell do you want, Nikki?” Wade growled, his own eyes narrowing. “I’m working five or six twelve hour shifts a week. Of course I’m tired. I don’t feel like wasting money on going to a movie and God forbid you actually cook something for a change.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she glared at him, anger streaking through her. Enough. Turning on her heel, she stalked out of the room, into the kitchen.

  Behind her, she heard him mutter, “Aw, shit. Nikki, wait a minute.”

  Ignoring him, she stormed into the kitchen, her own temper raging.

  Wade caught up with her as she was pulling food from the refrigerator. “Look, Nikki. I’m sorry. We can go eat, do whatever you want.” His voice was cautious, conciliatory, as he said, “You know what an ass I am when I’m tired.”

  Nikki didn’t even glance at him as she set about slamming pots and pans about. Fuming, she threw some sausage into a skillet to brown while she started water boiling for pasta. Finally, he retreated to the living room while she dressed in between draining the sausage and adding the sauce.

  Within thirty minutes, she held a plate full of steaming pasta. She found him staring morosely out the picture window in the living room, clad in jeans, his unbuttoned shirt and rumpled hair. The despondent look on his face only added to the tragic romantic air about him.

  Wade turned to find her standing behind him, hazel eyes glinting. “You didn’t have to cook. I know you’ve been working hard and you’ve got to be just as tired as I am. We can go do whatever you want,” Wade said, testing the waters carefully.

  Not careful enough. Even the way he was looking at her was enough to make her mad all over again. Like she was a ticking time bomb.

  Tick, tick, tick.

  Sauntering up to him, she moved the plate to the side and traced a hand up the golden muscled wall of his chest. Gently, she tr
aced a path down his chest and abdomen and back up before hooking a hand around his neck. “What I want?” she whispered in his ear. “What I want is for you to stop acting like an ass. What I want is for whoever took my fiancée’s place to get out. And I want him to come back to me.”

  And with that, Nikki shoved the plate of hot food at him, not caring when he didn’t catch it in time He bobbled, then lost control. His yelp was muffled by the sound of plate striking wooden floors and breaking. She was out the door before Wade recovered and mounting her bike before he came raging out the door.

  “Damn it, Nikki, get back here. You can’t ride your bike home. It’s going to be dark soon,” Wade roared, lunging over the porch rail.

  She paused to look at him, her eyes narrowed. “Go to hell. And stay the hell away from me until you start acting like yourself again. I’m tired of you not being you.”

  Then Nikki was furiously pedaling toward home. It took less than thirty minutes what normally took her forty-five.

  A dozen pale yellow roses appeared at her work the next day, along with a handwritten apology.

  If she wasn’t still so pissed, she would have cried. He hardly ever sent her flowers.

  Three hours later, she left work to find Wade out in the parking lot, lean­ing against the hood of his car, looking more relaxed than he had in weeks.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be working tonight?” she asked, irritably, the roses tucked under her arm like they meant less than nothing.

  He shrugged and said, “I called and said I was done with twelves. They didn’t need me for it any more anyway. Got some new people trained and hired.”

  “Well, if your attitude isn’t going to improve, I really would rather you be at work,” Nikki snapped, moving around him.