NO LONGER MINE

by Shiloh Walker

  * * *

  Nikki came awake slowly, stretching her body and smiling at the pleas­ant aches that made themselves known. She didn’t know exactly what was going on, but it was looking fairly promising.

  Maybe they were going to get that second chance after all.

  She hummed deep in her throat as she rolled to her back, hugging the pillow to her chest. Her eyes caught a motion outside and she turned her head.

  Wade.

  He stood outside, staring off into the distance, his head bent, shoulders slumped, looking utterly defeated. She had only seen him look that two other times. That day he had come to her home after that fight in the grocery store parking lot, over a boy whose face she barely remembered. And that day when she had learned about Jamie and the baby.

  Dread filled her.

  Nikki sat up slowly, tugging the blanket around her.

  Maybe they were going to get a second chance.

  But they were going to have to be honest with each other first. Starting with her. Eventually, Wade would find out about Jason. And if he found out from somebody other than her, it would ruin whatever they had made.

  Her pleasure faded to a dim glow as she drew in a shuddering breath. How did one go about telling a man that he had a child he had never known, and never would know? That the child had been killed in an accident years earlier?

  Clutching the blanket tighter, Nikki was amazed to discover that be­neath the dread, she felt relief. She was scared about his reaction, hated the pain she knew this would cause, but deep inside, she wanted to do this, had to do this. She wanted to tell Wade all about his little boy and she wanted to grieve with him.

  But how did she tell him? How did she explain why she didn’t tell him before now?

  You’re a writer. Finding the right words is what you do, Nikki reminded herself as she slid from the bed and stood.

  Hopefully, when it was most important, she would be able to do just that.

  “Wade?”

  Her voice, soft and sleepy, came to him over the roaring in his ears. Unbelievably weary, he turned his head, to see her standing in the doorway, the blanket clutched around her naked shoulders by a thin hand.

  His voice rough, he said, “It’s too cold out. You ought to be inside.”

  With a slight smile, Nikki glanced at him, from the bare feet tucked inside boots, to the naked chest revealed by his open shirt. “You’re one to talk,” she said, smiling at him. Then she held out her hand. “Come inside”

  Slowly, his cold hand came up and closed over her warm one. Despising himself, hating himself, but unable to deny the need to be close to her, to be warm, for just a little while longer. He was going to have to be without her soon enough.

  He would need this time, to get through the empty years ahead.

  Nikki silently urged him onto the sofa, curling her body next to his. Wade buried his face in her hair, breathing her in, his arms locked tightly around her. It wasn’t right. How could he have found her again, only to have barriers come between them that would be impossible to break?

  “Wade, I think it’s time we had that talk,” Nikki said, breaking into his thoughts.

  He raised his head automatically when she spoke but quickly lowered it again, mumbling something under his breath. Even he wasn’t sure what it was he had said.

  Quietly, Nikki told him, “There’s some things you need to know, Wade. Things I should have told you months ago.”

  His body went rigid. Now? was all he could think. Why is she going to tell me now?

  Over the pounding of his heart, he realized she was speaking to him, and her words were slow, almost awkward. “I was in pretty rough shape after you told me about Jamie. A part of me died that day and I just lost interest in life. I wasn’t interested in eating or writing or reading. All I wanted to do was sleep. So that’s all I did for the longest time. I never went back to school, never did anything.

  “I ended up selling my book, but Dylan kind of helped me through that. Got me to through the mess of contracts, talked to a couple of agents, helped with everything. Hell, he could probably be an agent at this point, he handled so much for me.

  “He was so damn proud of me. I wasn’t all that concerned about it. When they read the third book I’d written in the Chronicles line, they offered be contracts and money on the spot. So I was able to buy dad and them the house I’d always promised. I didn’t much care, but I wanted to keep my promises. Once we moved, all I did was wander around inside those four walls day in and day out.” Her voice faded, growing distant as her eyes turned inward. “I was sort of fading away, losing weight, losing myself.

  “You had married Jamie and I thought my life was over,” Nikki whispered, straightening, gently shrugging his arms away. Clutching the blanket around her shoulders, she rose and walked to stare out the window.

  Wade could picture all too well what she was describing. It was the shadow of the woman he had found on the road several hours ago. Had somebody come along and taken away the loneliness for a little while?

  Or God, no, had something else happened? Why in the hell hadn’t he thought of that before now? Anything was possible, especially in that hellhole she had lived in. She was so small, and while she could mostly likely hold her own against a lone man, what could she do about a number of men?

  He shook his head to clear his thoughts she started to speak again.

  “I was probably just a few months away from my own funeral. I had stopped eating. I hadn’t taken a bath in God only knows how long,” Nikki continued, one hand straying up to touch shiny strands of hair. “My hair was so filthy, so matted. I wonder how anybody was even able to tolerate being in the same room with me.”

  Eyes full of bemusement, Nikki turned to look at him. “And then, the oddest thing happened. It was in the middle of January and Dad came home late one night, drunk, of course. I was sitting on the couch, staring at the blank TV. He started talking to me, blubbering about what a wreck his life was. I said something to him, I think it was, ‘That’s nice, Dad,’ and I got up to go to bed. He shut up and gave me the strangest look.

  “The next morning, he was awake and cooking breakfast. I think he had been up all night, telling himself he had just imagined how horrible I looked. But there he was, sober as a priest, and he really looked at me. He didn’t say a single thing as he poured every bit of alcohol he had down the drain. Then he started his truck, came inside, picked me and up and took me to the doctor. He’s been sober over five years now. I think he realized he was going to need all his wits about him just to keep me alive.”

  A grim look entered her eyes as she described how pitiful she looked, hair unkempt and gummy from weeks without washing, loose skin hanging off her bones, face hollow. And slowly, Wade began to realize that if she was telling the truth and he knew she was, she couldn’t have been out carousing with another man, erasing him with another man’s touch.

  A niggling little doubt was making itself at home in his mind, darting out of reach any time he tried to latch on to it.

  “He dragged me into the doctors’ office. I had on an old pair of Dylan’s sweatpants and this nasty T-shirt that stank to high heaven. Daddy put me in front of the doctor and told them that they were to get me well, even if it meant being hospitalized. The doctor took one look at me and shook his head. At first, he thought I was just anorexic and talked about counseling and various pharmaceutical treatments for depression.

  “I had starved myself so badly, my body was no longer doing what it was supposed to do. I’d developed an arrhythmia because my electrolyte levels were so badly out of whack. My blood pressure was erratic. My stomach had started to atrophy and I had to learn how to eat all over again. And the doctor very bluntly told me that if Dad hadn’t done what he did when he did it, if he had waited just a few weeks more, I’d would have been dead, probably from a heart attack. I had damn near destroyed my heart. As it is, it can’t function on its own any more.” She had wandered over and picked up her
purse, pulling out a brown prescription bottle, which she held out to him.

  Wade took it, his hand closing convulsively around the brown bottle. Lanoxin. The type of medicine a person could die without. “I’ll probably be on heart medication for the rest of my life.”

  Wade had long since gone cold, was staring at her in some numb kind of shock. She wouldn’t have let that happen, not over what he had done. And in a shocked tone, he whispered that to her…

  Sadly, Nikki just stared at him and shook her head. “I wasn’t me any more, Wade. The girl you knew wasn’t there any more. I had let her go, and ended up getting lost inside myself. I couldn’t find my back”

  She paused long enough to take a deep shaking breath before meeting his eyes. “And that wasn’t all. Bad enough that my heart was a wreck and my body was about ready to shut down. A complete physical for a woman of child bearing ago includes a pregnancy test. They had almost forgotten it, since it was so highly unlikely, considering my condition. But…but they were wrong. I was four months pregnant, Wade.”

  January…she said January… Four months pregnant…it had happened in August. His heart simply stopped beating. He stared at her, dismayed and deeply shocked, for the longest time. Pregnant. Four months pregnant. “…how?”

  “That last time in the woods.” She turned away now, resting her forehead against the cold pane of glass while she struggled to speak around the knot in her throat. “By all things logical, there was no reason for me to have carried the baby that long. It was deprived of everything that was so important during the first few months. A miracle from God is the only way I can explain it. I’d lost you, but He had given me something else to hold onto. And that saved my life.”

  Nikki dashed away a tear with the back of her hand, started to drop her hand and then she paused, studying it, seeing how thin and pale it was, realizing how very weak she had become. How tired. She was doing it to herself again. Grimly, she swore to herself, No more. She was nowhere near as far gone as she had once been, but this wouldn’t happen to her again. No matter what.

  “The doctor strongly advised me to abort the baby. Told me I’d never make it to full term, and if by some slight chance I did, the baby would be severely handicapped and may not survive delivery. He had been starved and neglected when he needed caring the most. He was so small. I didn’t even way a hundred pounds, but somehow, this little life was inside me and trying to live.

  “A part of you,” she whispered, her voice hot and intense. “And that was all that mattered. The doctor told me I was crazy, that having a baby in my condition was suicide He tried to make Dad see his side. Neither one of us would listen. Dad was ready to support whatever decision I made. We found a doctor who was willing to try.

  “Dr. Gray said from the beginning it was likely that I would miscarry at any given time. If I did make it to full term, the baby could die in delivery or be born severely handicapped. And I might not survive the pregnancy. I was unbelievably weak. He wanted to make sure I knew what I was saying, what I was up against. I told him I wouldn’t give up my baby.

  “So he put me in the hospital right away. Rode with me in the ambulance, walked me through the admission process. He wasn’t leaving anything to chance. I couldn’t be upset, couldn’t be scared about anything. He explained what the IV was for and supervised it being put in and started. It was for the electrolyte imbalance and the dehydration, to give my body some nutrition while I learned to eat again. Dr. Gray explained the medications to me, vitamins and digitalis, to regulate my heart rate. The heart monitor was to make sure the meds were working. Bed rest, he said, was necessary because of how weak I was. I was in a very precarious position and it was nothing less than a gift from God that my baby had made it this far.

  “I was in the hospital two weeks. I gained back four pounds and my heart rate returned to normal I had to stay on the medicine, though, throughout the pregnancy. I was out of the danger zone, gaining weight and eating regular meals. But… but my baby wasn’t doing so well. He had been neglected during the most important time and he wasn’t growing or moving around the way he was supposed to The ultrasound showed him to be half the size he should have been.” Her mouth trembled briefly before firming.

  Her next words were cut off with a yelp when hard arms closed tightly around her, like bands of iron. Wade buried his face against her neck, shuddering, rocking her back and forth. His baby. Not another man’s. His. She had been too busy grieving herself to death to go to another man.

  Wade didn’t even realize she was speaking until he raised his head, his eyes diamond bright with unshed tears, and saw her mouth moving. Sorry. She whispered it, over and over, “I am so sorry.”

  Sorry…?

  Wade shook her slightly, his voice low and rough. “Don’t you apologize to me. I’m the one who screwed up. It was my fault—”

  She covered his mouth with her hand and shook her head. “No, Wade.” Her voice was determined and firm. “No. It was my fault. I put myself in the hospital and I let myself wither away. I almost killed our baby. I had screwed up and I was going to fix it.”

  She leaned forward then, settling into his arms briefly, steadying herself. “We pulled through, somehow. He was born normal and healthy, just a little small for his age. I went overdue a month, while his body played catch up. He was so beautiful,” she whispered, her voice soft and lost in thought.

  Nikki shifted, turning around so that her back was against Wade’s front. He remained wrapped around her, his face buried against her hair, while she continued to speak. “He looked just like you. He was the light of my life. Everything was going to work out okay for me. I bought my own house, and we moved in it the day after he turned six months. Spent our first Christmas there.”

  Wade closed his eyes, not wanting to hear any more. He knew the rest of the story, vividly, had a nightmare or two of his own about it. But she was determined to finish telling it.

  “He would have been just four months younger than Abby,” she whispered. “Would have started school next year.”

  A shudder racked her body from head to toe before she could stop it. Anger edged her voice as she started to speak of the stormy day three and a half years earlier. “Shawn was staying up at the house for a few days; Dad and Dylan were fighting some and he wanted to get away from it. This storm came up.

  “We were going to my dad’s. I knew better than to drive home in that kind of weather. We were less than a mile away and this car came of out of nowhere. I heard this horrible noise, this loud crash and there was this terrible jolt. Then the world started to spin. I had tried to jerk the wheel to the right, away from the drop off.

  “I wasn’t able to.” Her voice shuddered and broke, hands clenched into fists. “The bastard hit us again, trying to go around us on the side of the shoulder. The safe side. I lost control and we went tumbling over the hill, broke through the guard rail. When I came to, the rain had stopped. And my little boy was gone.”

  Once she finished talking, she fell silent and Wade just there while his eyes burned and his throat ached from the knot inside it. A hot, greasy ball of shame settled low in his gut. My son. Already dead and buried and Wade hadn’t even known he existed. He was shaken and confused, angry at both himself and at her. Why hadn’t she told him?

  It was ironic. He had married a woman he didn’t love because she had been pregnant and years later, he learns the woman he did love had been pregnant as well. It sounded like something that belonged on a talk show.

  Do you know a man who left his fiancée to marry a woman he didn’t love because she was pregnant with his child? Did this man unknowingly leave his fiancée pregnant?

  Wade carefully shifted Nikki aside, not trusting himself to speak. He got to his feet and walked to stare out the window, hands tucked into the back pockets of his jeans. Damn it all to hell.

  What am I supposed to do now? he wondered. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the cold pane of glass, a weary sigh escaping him
. Grief, black as night, swirled within his heart, mixed with impotent anger. What was he supposed to say?

  And beneath it all, the anger, the grief, the confusion, and the guilt, he felt relief. It hadn’t been another man. He wouldn’t have to let her go in order to save her from his own anger.

  The grief mingled with happiness, making it bittersweet. He had lost a son he had never known existed. But he would be able to keep her. They could make more children, other sons.

  He’d never know this one.

  But there will be others, he thought, his mind racing from one thought to the next.

  Why hadn’t she told him before now?

  Why hadn’t she come to him when she had learned about the baby? He would have helped her.

  Do you really think she would have wanted your help?

  No. Probably not.

  But why hadn’t she told him before now? There had been plenty of times she could have mentioned. Wade, by the way, a few months after Jamie had Abby, I had a baby myself. He looked just like you.

  He heard the brush of fabric across fabric, then the shift of wooden planks being walked on. Her footsteps were soundless, her heat warming his back from a few inches away. Turning, he stared into her eyes, seeing his own torment reflected there.

  “Why didn’t you tell me before now?” he asked quietly, keeping tight control of his own anger. It was, after all, rather poetic justice. He had come seeking retribution and had ended up finding out he was his own worst en­emy. He was the nameless faceless bastard that had haunted his dreams.

  Her shoulders lifted and fell in a weak shrug, the corners of her full mouth turned down in an unhappy frown. “I didn’t want you back in my life. I was determined to keep you out of it. I told myself that you didn’t have the right to know, even though I knew it wasn’t true.” Nikki moved away as she spoke, snagging his shirt from the floor and pulling it over her head. It fell quickly to cover her pale flesh and fragile body. “And I try not to think about it much. It hurts too much. Telling you wasn’t going to bring him back, so I told myself there was no reason to put myself through it”