“Okay,” Melody said, her breath coming out with a wheeze that made her eyes grow even wider. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Nick said, forcing himself to back away, though all he wanted to do was cross the room and hug her tight. “And don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right. We’ll get you bandaged and head to the ER. They’ll know what to do.”
Calculating the time to the emergency room under his breath as he stripped off the gloves and scrubbed his hands for a full minute with soap and water—hoping to wash away every last bit of latex dust that might be clinging to his skin—Nick finished up and hurried back into the other room, trying not to let his panic show when he saw Melody.
Her hives had grown so large they formed continents of swollen flesh across her ribs and abdomen. Her eyes were so red they looked filled with blood, and the area below her jawline was way more swollen than it had been a few minutes ago.
“Nick,” she said, her voice scratchy. “I don’t feel so good.”
“I’m sorry, baby. Just a second and we’ll get out of here,” he said, hands shaking as he cleaned and bandaged her up as quickly as possible, then helped pull her shirt down and lift her into a seated position.
“Ugh,” she moaned as she sat up, bracing her hands on her knees to keep herself upright. “Oh my god, I might throw up.”
Thinking fast, Nick grabbed the mostly-empty wastebasket and dumped the contents on the floor before handing it to Melody. She took it, clinging to the edges with white fingers.
“Let me carry you,” he said, reaching for her.
She put a hand to his chest. “No, then I’d definitely be sick,” she said. “It’s okay. I can make it if you help me.”
She clung to him as he wrapped an arm around her waist and helped her down from the table and they began the shuffle toward the door.
“Just hold on,” he said, pushing through the door without bothering to lock it. Thieves could come and steal every damned thing in the store for all he cared. Melody was the only thing in Nick’s world that couldn’t be replaced.
“Almost there,” he said, half-carrying her down the sidewalk to the Midget.
Thirty seconds later, they were at his car. They would have been on their way to the ER less than five minutes after the start of the reaction if a voice hadn’t shouted at them from across the street, or, if a second after that, a fist hadn’t collided with Nick’s jaw.
Chapter Thirteen
Melody tried to scream as Seth charged onto the sidewalk, his fist aimed at Nick’s face, but her throat was too tight. The sound emerged as a strangled yelp, followed by a whimper as Nick’s arm was ripped from her waist and she fell to the pavement, the little plastic trashcan rolling from her hands.
“Your girlfriend’s a whiny bitch,” Seth screamed as he followed the punch to the face with an upper-cut to the gut, throwing Nick off-balance again before he could recover from the first blow. “My lawyer is going to tear that cunt apart.”
Melody rolled onto her hands and knees, willing her body to stop freaking out so she could get up and help Nick, but her legs refused to cooperate.
Her enraged, itching skin had broken out into a cold sweat and she was shivering all over, her arms going numb as her stomach turned into a nasty knot in the center of her body. Her head pulsed and her vision swam and her throat ached like a boa constrictor had wrapped itself around her neck.
There was no way she was going to be able to help Nick herself, but if she could reach her phone…
She fumbled for her back pocket, struggling to work the phone free from her jeans as Nick shouted for someone to help, that he had a medical emergency and a woman’s life was in danger. But everyone on this end of the street was inside The Horse and Rider, where the music was likely too loud for them to hear, and Seth obviously couldn’t care less if Nick and Melody both died slow, painful deaths.
In fact, he seemed pretty eager to help the process along.
Melody winced as Seth threw another punch that Nick ducked seconds before it connected, and dug her entire hand into her pocket, leveraging the phone free with an awkward flip of her wrist. Her cell fell to the concrete and Melody grabbed it from the warm sidewalk, tapping in nine-one-one with half-numb fingers. She heard the operator pick up and brought the phone to her ear, but when she spoke her voice emerged as a rasp too soft to be heard over Seth’s screaming.
“Your bitch should have kept her mouth shut!” The veins on Seth’s neck were standing out like swollen, blue worms beneath his skin, and his face was as red as the convertible parked in front of Nick’s car.
“You should have kept your hands to yourself, you piece of shit,” Nick shouted back, dodging another fist intended for his face. “You deserve to rot in jail.”
“Fuck you. It’s that dumb cunt’s word against mine,” Seth said with an ugly laugh, as he and Nick circled each other and Melody laid the phone down on the pavement with the call still active, hoping the operator would be able to trace their location.
“There’s no evidence,” Seth continued, “and even if there were, I’d walk. I’ve fucked a girl, and walked away from it without a day of jail time, let alone this shit.”
“You mean raped a girl. When a woman says stop, a real man stops,” Nick said, the rage in his voice enough to make Melody shiver.
If she were Seth, she would have run right then, but instead Seth said—
“Your girl’s mouth said stop, but her body said go. Even when she was fighting me I could feel how hot she was. The way she was squirming all over, I—”
Seth’s words ended in a grunt as Nick rushed him, knocking the breath out of the shorter, burlier man as Nick grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and spun in a tight circle, slamming Seth into the brick wall of the tattoo shop.
“You don’t talk about her! You don’t even think her name!” Nick shouted, slamming Seth into the wall a second time before shoving him away.
The moment Nick released him, Seth charged again, fists flying at Nick’s midsection. Nick shifted to the side as his right arm swung in a circle to collide with Seth’s jaw. The blow connected with a sickening thud and Seth fell to the ground and stayed there for a moment, obviously dazed.
The second the other man was down, Nick ran back to Melody. “Hurry,” he said, gathering her under the arms. “We’ve got to get you to the hospital.”
“My phone. I called nine-one-one,” Melody said in a hoarse voice, pointing back to where her phone still lay on the ground, the world spinning as she turned.
She was hot and itchy and dizzy and her head had begun to pound so hard that for a second she thought the blaring that filled the air was coming from between her ears, the final death cry of her brain as it exploded into a thousand tiny pieces.
But it wasn’t her brain exploding, it was a siren. Many sirens. Sirens that got increasingly louder as they closed in on this end of Main Street just as Nick scooped Melody’s phone off the concrete.
Out of the corner of her eye Melody saw Seth surge to his feet and start to run—a blur of white t-shirt and black jeans—but she couldn’t turn her head fast enough to follow him.
She couldn’t turn her head, couldn’t tell Nick she was dizzy, couldn’t even pull in a deep enough breath. Her chest just got tighter and tighter, while her stomach twisted like a towel being rung out, and her head throbbed with an unhealthy heartbeat that grew slower and slower as her vision went fuzzy.
Melody heard Nick cry out her name, but then she was falling, swallowed into a dark, soft blackness that shut out everything around her.
***
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Melody awoke to the comforting rhythm of a heartbeat monitor. It took her a few minutes of staring at the white tile ceiling, listening to the hospital noises in the near distance, to realize the heartbeat was her own.
She swallowed, relieved to feel how easy it was now that her throat was no longer swollen, and shifted beneath the cool, white sheets. She took a
deep, cleansing breath, catching the familiar scent of her mother’s perfume.
“Mom?” she asked, lifting her head from the pillow long enough to see her Mom startling awake in the hospital recliner in the corner of the room before letting her head drop back to the pillow.
She was feeling much better, but she was still a little woozy.
“Honey, you’re awake,” her mom said, rubbing her make-up free eyes as she hurried to Melody’s bedside. Behind her, pale, early-morning light caught her mussed blond hair, emphasizing the wild fly-away strands sprouting up all over her head.
Her mother was out of the house without make-up or her hair brushed, leaving no doubt just how worried she must have been when she jumped in the car to come to the hospital.
“How are you, baby?” Mom took one of Melody’s hands in both of hers, cradling it like a treasure.
“I’m feeling much better,” Melody said, squeezing her Mom’s hand in reassurance.
“Good. I’m going to get the nurse to check on you again now that your eyes are open,” she said, leaning down to press a kiss to Melody’s cheek before hurrying from the room.
She returned a minute later with a bright-eyed older woman wearing blue scrubs with tiny beagles all over them and a nametag declaring her Candace Carter, LPN. Candace fussed and clucked over Melody like a second mother hen for several moments—checking her vitals and asking how her head and chest were feeling—before making reassuring noises about Melody’s progress. She helped adjust the bed so Melody could sit up comfortably and promised to come back with a big mug of water in a few minutes.
Melody thanked her, and waited until the nurse left the room before turning back to her mother. “How did you know I was here?” she asked. “Did Nick call you? Where is he? Is he okay? I saw Seth hit him before I passed out.”
Her mother’s smile dropped from her face so suddenly Melody could almost hear it hit the floor. Even before Mom opened her mouth, Melody knew all her cats were out of their bags.
“Why didn’t you tell us that you were attacked by that man at the bar?” her mom asked, ignoring Melody’s questions. Her frown emphasized the tiny wrinkles around her mouth, making her look every one of her fifty-five years. Most days, Sue looked young enough to be her daughters’ older sister, but the rough night had clearly taken a toll on her, making Melody feel even guiltier.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just didn’t want to talk about it with family. I knew how upset y’all would be, and I… I didn’t want to relive it. If that makes any sense.”
“But you told Nick and Nash,” her mom said. “I had to slip your father a Xanax when he heard that the Geary boys knew his daughter was in danger before he did.”
“I didn’t want to worry Daddy. You know how he gets.”
“I know, sugar,” her mom said, her expression softening. “But he loves you so much, and he’s just devastated. In his mind, he could have rallied all his old buddies and had that animal run out of town. He’s sure he could have kept you safe, and hates how helpless he feels right now.”
“But he hates that I went to Nash even more,” Melody said, a hint of bitterness in her tone.
She loved her dad, but when it came to Nash she just didn’t get what her father’s problem was. Nash was a great guy, and he loved Aria and Felicity so much. In Melody’s mind, Dad should have welcomed Nash with open arms, no matter what happened between Aria and Nash when they were teenagers.
Her mom sighed. “Yes. I have a feeling Bob and Nash’s truce is going to be a thing of the past, at least for a few months. Aria is pretty upset, too. She hasn’t said anything except that she’s concerned for you, but I can tell she’s hurt that Nash kept this from her.”
“But it was police business,” Melody said, beginning to resent how attacked she felt.
She should at least have a chance to fully recover before getting the “you shouldn’t keep things from family” lecture from her mother.
“He can’t share anything about a sexual assault case unless the victim gives him permission,” Melody continued, “and I didn’t give him permission. This isn’t Nash’s fault. He made me feel safe and listened to and had a police car drive by my house every night. He was wonderful.”
“I’m sure he was,” her mom said. “And I’m so glad he got to you and Nick in time to take that animal into custody, but—”
“He did?”
“He did,” her mother confirmed, making Melody’s breath rush out in a sigh of relief.
She knew things with Seth weren’t totally over—there would still be a hearing and maybe even a trial, and she would have to look into his repulsive face as she testified against him—but she felt much better knowing that he was behind a thick set of bars. At least for a little while.
“And I guess the nine-one-one operator recorded your call,” her mom continued. “She got everything Seth said on tape. Nash thinks that’s going to be pretty damning evidence, and we’re already working on getting a restraining order so this asshole can’t come within a hundred feet of you.”
A surprised smile spread across Melody’s face. “Are you sure you’re my mother? I don’t think I’ve ever heard my mother use two curse words in one sentence.”
“You’ve never heard your mother after a man tried to rape her daughter,” her mother said, smoothing Melody’s hair from her forehead with one cool hand. “I’m so sorry, sugar. I wish I could take that pain away from you and make it all better. I guess I’m feeling pretty helpless, too.”
“It’s okay, Mama,” Melody said, tears pressing at the backs of her eyes. “I’m really okay. I got away before Seth could do anything but scare me, and I’m not going to stay scared. I’m going to be fine. Mostly I’m just worried about Nick. Is he okay? Has he seen a doctor?”
Mom pulled her hand from Melody’s forehead, crossing her arms at her chest with a scowl even stormier than the one she’d shot Melody a few moments ago. “That reminds me—Melody Anne March, what in God’s green earth were you thinking? Getting a tattoo? A huge, scary, gaudy tattoo all over the side of your beautiful, God-given body, and your blessed clear skin?”
Melody swallowed and tried to smile, but her mother’s glare curdled the grin before it could reach her lips. “It’s not scary,” she said. “It’s a phoenix. It’s a symbol of renewal and rebirth. It’s going to be beautiful when Nick finishes it up.”
“No one is finishing anything up,” her mom said in the same tone she would use when Melody was little and being ordered to keep her elbows off the table or refrain from running down the aisles at church. “That boy almost killed you.”
“He didn’t almost kill me,” Melody said. She wasn’t a baby, and she wasn’t going to let anyone, even her mother, talk about Nick in that tone of voice. “I have an allergy to latex, like Aria, and I started having a bad reaction when Nick put on the latex gloves to do the tattoo. It’s not his fault, and I think you should just be glad I didn’t find out about the allergy the same way Aria did.”
Her mother’s face went pale and her lips pressed together, the memory of having to fetch sixteen-year-old Aria from a fishing cabin where she’d been going “all the way” for the first time with her boyfriend and discovered her deathly allergy to latex when the boy rolled on the condom, obviously enough to make her physically ill with shame.
“I’m not going to dignify that with a response, Melody Anne,” her mother said. “You are not your sister.”
Melody frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you are not like Aria. You are a level-headed girl with a kind, gentle heart who knows better than to run off and do impulsive things without thinking about them first.”
“Aria has a kind heart,” Melody said, now angry on her sister’s behalf.
“I never said she didn’t,” Mom said. “But she’s impulsive. She always has been. When she was little, she’d climb a tree first and figure out how she was going to get down later. You would stand at the bottom of
the tree and tell me exactly how many branches you thought it was safe to climb. You had your course plotted before you even started. So if you had made the decision to break your promise to yourself, and be with someone before marriage, it would be a much more serious betrayal.”
“It’s not a betrayal, Mom. I just…” Melody trailed off, shame and anger weighing on her equally.
A part of her thought Mom was talking sense and felt terrible for the impulsive way she’d been behaving lately, but the other part argued that it was time for her to have her own life, without her Mom and Dad weighing in on every choice. That part of her felt that it was okay to loosen up and color outside the lines, especially when accompanied by a man who made her feel so special and loved and happy.
Melody sat in silence, remembering the way Nick had leapt into action the second he realized she was having a bad reaction to the latex, his concern for her obvious in every gentle touch, every calming word. She remembered the rage in his voice when he’d told Seth the other man wasn’t allowed to think her name, and felt the last of her doubt fade away.
Nick loved her, and she loved him. So what if she was a little different since they’d been together, and if half their dates seemed to be cursed to end in disaster? She refused to feel ashamed of the way she felt about him, of the way her body and heart and soul all longed to be closer to him in every way. When she and Nick made love for the first time, it would be special and right, whether they were engaged or married or just living together without any rings involved.
“I’m growing up,” Melody said after a long pause, knowing better than to announce her intention to move in with Nick at this exact moment. Her mother obviously had enough on her mind. “I may not always be the girl you knew when I was little, but I hope you’ll trust me to make decisions that feel right for me.”
“I know you’re growing up, honey, and I’m so proud of you,” her Mom said. “But just remember the values that have served you so well in the past, and don’t let a boy change who you are.”
Wild For You (Always a Bridesmaid 3) Page 13
