Dark Secrets: A Paranormal Romance Anthology

by Colleen Gleason

  Alix’s gentle expression faded. “I have to stay,” she told him. “I’m your doctor. I have to check you out now that you’re awake.”

  “No,” he said, more loudly. “I don’t want you to touch me.”

  “Why not?”

  He was starting to become very agitated. “Because… because you’re just doing it to score points with my dad!”

  Alix frowned. “That’s not true,” she said. “I’m a physician. It’s my job to take care of you and it has nothing to do with your dad.”

  Cole tried to move away from her across the small bed. “Leave me alone,” he muttered.

  Alix watched him, coolly evaluating his manner. She wasn’t going to force herself on him but facts were facts; she was his doctor of record. She knew the kid didn’t care about that, but it was important.

  “Cole,” she said evenly. “I need for you to listen to me. I know you’re upset and I can appreciate that, but it’s important that you understand something – I am your doctor while you’re here in the hospital. I know you don’t like it, but that’s the truth. I need to examine you and take care of you, and you’re just going to have to deal with it. You can’t always have what you want and in this case, you’re not going to make me go away just because you tell me to, so let’s try to get along so I can get you well and out of the hospital. Okay?”

  Cole’s head was turned away from her. He was staring at the wall. “Fine,” he growled. “You do what you have to do. Then you can be a hero to my dad and you can both run off and get married and forget about the kids, because that’s what happens when parents fall in love. I get it.”

  Alix sighed. “That’s not what happens,” she said. “We would never run off and leave you or your brothers, or my kids. You’re our children and we love you more than anything.”

  Cole shook his head and looked at her. “That’s not true,” he said. “You don’t love us more than you love each other. My dad would do whatever you said and forget about what I want.”

  “So you’re supposed to be allowed to tell your dad how to run his life?”

  “No,” he said, tears forming in his eyes. “I told you before that he was all we have left; you’ve seen my mom and see how she is. We need my dad because my mom doesn’t care about us at all. We need somebody to love us. If my dad loves you, who will love us the most? Not him, because he’ll love you the most.”

  Alix’s heart just about broke. She could see such a frightened, desperate young man underneath the animosity. “Oh… Cole,” she breathed. “That’s not true. He’ll always love you and your brothers more than anything.”

  Cole broke down in sobs. “He’s done it before,” he wept. “He had a girlfriend once and she took all of his time. We never saw him. He’d be gone with her and Chris would have to make us hot dogs for dinner all of the time because we weren’t allowed to use the stove. Chris walked me to school in the morning, too, and one time I had a school play and my dad didn’t even come because his girlfriend made him go to something with her instead. If my dad gets with you, he’ll forget about us completely. I love my dad. I don’t want him to go away.”

  Tears streamed down Alix’s cheeks and she wiped them away quickly.

  “He’s not going to go away,” she assured him. “I promise, Cole, no one will be going away.”

  Cole snapped at her angrily. “Last night, I called him at the station because he said he was working,” he said. “The guys told me he had taken the night off and I knew he was with you. He lied to us because he was with you, okay? So you know what I did? I didn’t trip on the dog; I fell down the stairs on purpose because I knew if there was an emergency, he’d come back to me. I had to get him away from you and I knew he would come if something was wrong. So I fell down the stairs and he did come.”

  Alix was stunned. “Cole,” she breathed, “you could have broken your neck. Do you realize how serious this is?”

  Cole shrugged, wiping at his running nose. “I didn’t mean to break my arm,” he admitted. “I thought I could catch myself and just make a bunch of noise, but it didn’t happen that way. I really did hit my head. I guess it was a stupid thing to do, but it got my dad back. That’s all I wanted.”

  Oh, my God, Alix thought. The boy was resorting to hurting himself just to get his father’s attention because he was so terrified of losing him to a new girlfriend. Distraught and heartbroken, Alix patted the young man’s shoulder gently and left the room to make a phone call.

  Cord was at the hospital in twenty minutes.

  * * *

  Alix was in the corridor when he arrived.

  Cord burst out of the elevator and came charging down the hall into Pediatrics, spying Alix in the dim lighting near the door to Cole’s room. He went right to her.

  “What’s wrong?” he demanded. “What happened with Cole?”

  Alix was pale and drawn as she gazed up at him. She’d spent the last twenty minutes preparing what she was going to say to him and she wasn’t looking forward to it. The truth was that it was tearing her up.

  “Physically, he’s on the mend,” she said. “But his mother was here earlier. He didn’t like that one bit.”

  Cord’s tense features relaxed in understanding. Then, he took a long, deep breath, reaching out to take her arm as he slumped back against the cold, white wall of the corridor.

  “Oh,” he said simply. “Christ, you scared the hell out of me telling me I’d better get over here fast. I thought something was really wrong.”

  Alix looked at him seriously. “Something is really wrong,” she said. “Cord, I’m not going to beat around the bush with this so I’ll come out with it. We can’t see each other anymore.”

  At first, her statement didn’t register with him but when it did, his eyes widened and he came up off the wall. “What are you talking about?” he breathed.

  Alix sighed sharply. “Look,” she said, lowering her voice. “Last night, we met in secret because we’ve got two kids between us who aren’t thrilled with the fact that we’re dating. As a result, you weren’t home when Cole fell down the stairs. Do you know what he just told me? He did it because you told him you were working last night so he called the station only to be told you had taken the night off. He knew you had lied to him about where you were so he staged that fall down the stairs because he knew you’d come home if it was an emergency. Trouble was, he actually ended up hurting himself even though he hadn’t meant to.”

  Cord was pale. “He did that on purpose to get my attention?”

  Alix was starting to choke up. “He did,” she said. “Cord, we need to stop seeing each other for a while, at least until the boys can come to better terms with it. You can’t have Cole pulling stunts to get your attention every time you’re out with me and I can’t have Sean bottling it up inside of him because he doesn’t want to deal with it. We need to be unselfish about this and think about our kids.”

  Cord’s expression was tight with grief. “I am thinking about my son,” he said. “But I’m thinking about you, too. I can’t let my fourteen-year-old son tell me how to run my life, Alix. I love you and he’s just going to have to deal with it.”

  Alix’s tears were breaking through. “You can’t make me a priority over your son,” she said, stifling sobs. “You would hate yourself for doing it and eventually, you might hate me, too, and I couldn’t deal with it.”

  “I could never hate you,” he breathed. “Please… Alix, there has to be another way.”

  She shook her head, wiping at her eyes and struggling not to openly weep. “There isn’t,” she whispered tightly. “It’s not right to choose me over your boys and you know it.”

  Cord’s chest was so tight with emotion that he could barely breathe. When he reached out to touch her, she pulled her hand away. He nearly shattered. “Alix,” he murmured. “I love you. I will always love you. I want to be with you forever and you know that. Cole will come to terms with us. He’ll see that….”

  “And what if he do
esn’t?” she turned on him, wiping at her eyes. “What if the next time, he runs in front of a car or does something stupid like that? You will absolutely hate me for the fact that your son injured himself because of me.”

  “It wouldn’t be because of you,” he countered passionately. “I’m going to take Cole to a therapist or someone who can help him deal with these feelings. I can’t let the fear of him doing something idiotic control me. I can’t let him make a prisoner of me because he’s afraid of losing me.”

  Alix just shook her head. “Just… settle things with him,” she said, struggling to recover her composure. “I need to settle things with Sean. Until we do, please don’t call me. Don’t send me flowers, and don’t come visit me at the hospital. I want you to stay away from me completely and deal with your son. Okay?”

  Cord’s eyes were filling with tears. “Please don’t do this, Alix.”

  She couldn’t say anything more. Hand over her mouth to fight off the sobs, she turned and walked away from him down the long hospital corridor. Cord stood there, tears in his eyes, until she turned the corner and disappeared from sight. His heart was in a million pieces, fragmented into shards so small he was sure he would never be able to put it back together again. His entire body hurt with emotion, from head to toe.

  Slowly, his gaze moved to the door to Cole’s room. What he did was intentional. Forcing himself to move, he headed into Cole’s room. He had a few things to say to his son.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It had been a long shift, longer still when the fire department brought in three car accident victims right before Alix got off shift. She found herself in Exam One with a guy whose chest had been crushed by the head-on collision. Even as she and her team lifted the guy onto the hospital gurney and she began her trauma assessment, she could hear more people being brought in as a result of the multi-car accident. She could hear the fire department radios going off in the corridor outside.

  Although she was professional on the outside, on the inside, she was dying. She hadn’t talked to Cord in five days and every one of those days was like living in hell. Especially at work; his fire station was assigned to North Shore so anytime there were medical calls, there was a huge likelihood he would show up. Every time she saw a fire engine or heard a radio, her stomach twisted in knots.

  The injured man was going downhill fast so she ended up cracking the man’s chest and doing an open heart massage as they cleared a surgery room. Alix jumped up on the side of the bed, bracing herself and doing the heart massage with her left hand as her team wheeled the gurney out and headed down the hall towards Surgery. She was so involved in watching the heart monitor propped on the bed that she didn’t notice when the gurney wheeled right past Cord, who was standing at the nurse’s station.

  Bloodied up to her elbow, like she was doing battle surgery, Cord watched Alix jet by and disappear down the hall. His heart sank, the weight on his chest so heavy that he could scarcely breathe. Already, he was having difficulty functioning without her, but seeing her after five days of not laying eyes on the woman had him physically ill. It was too much of a blow to his battered heart. He’d never been so miserable in his entire life. Once the rig cleared the hospital, he went back to the station and went home sick for the rest of the night.

  Only he didn’t go home. He went back to the hospital and drove around in the parking lot looking for Alix’s car. It was still there, parked in the staff lot, so he parked his truck over in a corner of the lot with a bird’s-eye view of her car, and sat there, waiting, all night. He couldn’t go home. Not until he saw her.

  People came and went out of the hospital staff entrance and every time the door opened, he strained to see if it was Alix. But the night went on and she didn’t appear. It was just before dawn when he caught glimpse of someone emerging from the staff entrance and, as luck would have it, it happened to be Alix.

  Cord bailed out of the truck, making his way towards her car as the other vehicles in the lot camouflaged his approach. Heart racing, he reached her car just about the time she did.

  Alix froze when she saw him standing by the trunk of her car, looking exhausted and pale. Having been awake almost twenty-four hours, and in a very brittle emotional state, one look at him was all it took for her to burst into tears.

  “No,” she sobbed miserably, moving to the other side of her car to get away from him. “Please, Cord… please, don’t… please, just go.”

  Cord followed her, equally as emotional. Tears filled his eyes as he rounded the car to cut her off so she couldn’t get away from him.

  “Alix,” he begged, his throat tight. “Please, honey, don’t run from me. Please, I just… I just can’t take this anymore. It’s killing me.”

  She saw that he was blocking off the door so she backed away from him, slumping against her car. She sobbed into her hand, trying not to look at him.

  “I know it is,” she wept. “It’s killing me, too, but we can’t… Cole is your flesh and blood, and he’s more important than our relationship. We discussed this; if you choose me over him, you’ll never forgive yourself. He’s your son, Cord.”

  He reached out and grabbed her. “I know he’s my son.” He tried not to hurt her as she struggled to pull away. “He’s my son and I love him, but I love you, too. I love you more than anything, Alix. I’ve had five long days to think about this and I’ve decided that I’m a horrible, horrible father because I want to be happy. I want it more than I want Cole to be happy. He’s afraid you’re going to take me away from him and the only way we can prove him wrong is to show him. Alix, I swear, I can’t live without you. I don’t want to try. Please don’t break up with me. I’ll never recover, honey. Please.”

  Alix looked at him, then, seeing tears streaming down his cheeks. She stopped fighting him but she didn’t fall into his arms. She just stood there and trembled.

  “I’m not sure if I can let you make that decision,” she sobbed. “You’d hate yourself, Cord, you really would. And then you’d hate me. You can’t choose a woman over your son. That’s just not right.”

  His lower lip trembled as he looked at her. “It’ll all work out if we just stay together and stay strong,” he begged. “I can’t let this go, honey. I just can’t walk away from you. I’ve never loved anyone so much in my entire life.”

  “Neither have I,” her sobbing had lessened but her entire body ached. He was still holding on to her arms and she crumpled, trying to pull away from him. “Cord, please let me go. It hurts… my entire body hurts when you touch me. You need to let me go.”

  His voice cracked. “I can’t. I won’t. I’ll follow you forever, Alix. I can’t ever let you go.”

  Her tears returned and she couldn’t hold out against him any longer. With a big sob, she threw herself into his arms and together, they wept openly, holding one another, so very devastated by the circumstances. Cord began kissing her head, her cheeks, tasting her salty tears, drowning himself in the feel and taste of her. Their lips came together in a clash of flesh and passion and emotion before Alix ripped away from him, violently, and ended up stumbling. As he reached down to pick her up, she scrambled away from him and ran around to the other side of the car.

  Cord followed, listening to her loud sobbing as she jumped into the car and slammed the door, locking it. He tried to open it, pleading with her, but she shook her head and turned the car on. He was still trying to open the door as she backed up and drove away, screeching out of the parking lot and tearing off down the boulevard.

  Cord ran to his truck, tears all over his face, as he jumped in and followed.

  * * *

  Alix spent the rest of the day in her bedroom, unable to sleep, sobbing intermittently. She was so exhausted but her emotional turmoil prevented her from sleeping. After her run-in with Cord in the parking lot, she’d come home and he’d followed, parking his truck outside her house and just sitting there. Once she realized he was parked outside, she couldn’t bring herself to look out of the windo
w but eventually, she did look later in the afternoon and the truck was gone. She collapsed in tears.

  When Sean came home from school, he went to tell his mother hello but entering her room, he could see she was a wreck and he was distressed. He offered to make her something to eat, but she declined.

  Increasingly upset, he simply left her alone, feeling guilty, as if he had contributed to this somehow. Maybe he hadn’t accomplished her misery single-handedly, but he’d definitely been a part of it. So had Cole. They’d made their wants known to their parents and, like good parents, they had decided in favor of the kids. But that had been selfish. As Sean sat in his room and listened to his mother sniffle, he got on the phone to Kyle. Something had to be done about it. He just couldn’t take her misery any more, no matter how hard she tried to keep it from him.

  It was near sundown when there was a soft knock on Alix’s door. Thinking it was Rose and Hester having returned from the playground, she sat up in bed as the door opened and Sean entered. But he wasn’t alone; Chris and Kyle were behind him.

  Shocked, Alix sat up in bed and tried not to look too shattered, but the truth was that seeing Cord’s sons had tears on the surface again. As she grabbed for a sweat jacket to cover up with, one more person entered the room.

  Alix found herself looking at Cole. The tall, blond kid remained by the door and wouldn’t come any further into the room. Kyle, the biggest of the three brothers, stood next to him as Chris and Sean faced Alix.

  “Mom,” Sean began. He looked so very serious. “The guys and I have been talking and… well, we know you’re sad without Mr. Trevor. I know how miserable you’ve been and it’s just not right. You were so happy when you were with him and now… well….”

  “My dad’s miserable, too,” Chris said. “All he does is sit in front of the television and watch the weather channel. He doesn’t do anything else. He just sits there and stares. We’ve got all these football practices during the week and even though he’s there, his mind isn’t, if you know what I mean. Dad’s just going through the motions these days. It’s like… like something went out of him when you broke up with him. He’s just lost.”