Me: No.
Kale: You’re right. It’s not. But tell me one thing. What’s the second-best thing that’s happened to you? I’d bet my bank account it went down on that balcony.
Redness flushed my cheeks, and I typed out my response and hit send before I could think better of it.
Me: No man has ever made me feel the way you did.
Kale: That’s because you deserve a man who will treat you right. Guessing that fucker didn’t come close.
Wow.
I shouldn’t have been surprised.
I’d seen it in Kale’s eyes when I’d watched him come to the realization in the office earlier today. When it dawned on him exactly what was at stake.
Rage had burned across his face and tightened his hold, as if he didn’t want to let me go.
Then he’d realized he had to. That we might be drawn to each other, but our paths couldn’t connect.
Me: I can’t do this with you. There’s too much on the line.
Someday.
Someday, I could let myself get lost in the sea of a brilliant, beautiful man. Swept away. No need for solid ground because he would be my footing.
It took the longest time before a response came through.
Kale: I know. I know better. I’m sorry. I keep crossing that line when it’s clear neither of us are allowed to have what’s waiting on the other side. But you make it really damned hard not to try to jump over it.
Neither of us.
I frowned at that, wondering what he meant. What would hold him back—his own circumstances or my baggage? Maybe he didn’t have the capacity to be with someone like me.
Even if I weren’t in the middle of a divorce, my life would always be hinged on the most perfect complication.
The center of my world a red-headed, freckle-faced boy.
A bunch of texts blipped through in quick succession behind it.
Kale: Shit.
Kale: I’m sorry.
Kale: I’m fucking this up.
Kale: I just wanted to check on you both. Tell you, you have an amazing kid.
Kale: See what you do to me? You make me lose control.
An affected smile lit on my face. I had the unsettled feeling this man could be the completion of my joy.
I let the feeling take me over, gaze moving back over his words, wishing for a way.
Then I did what I knew I needed to do.
Me: Good night, Kale.
Kale: Good night, Hope.
I started to set it aside, but it blipped again.
Kale: Good night kiss?
Oh, this man. I was right all along. He really was trouble.
Me: I don’t think that’s a good idea.
I hoped it came across as stern and he couldn’t tell there was a giddy grin threatening to light on my mouth.
Kale: Boob shot? I’ll reciprocate.
It was no longer a threat, affection racing out, twisting my lips in a ridiculous smile, my heart beating overtime.
Me: You’re out of your mind.
Kale: I was thinking more along the lines of blowing yours.
Sitting in my bed, I laughed, out loud. It was as if I could actually feel his playfulness behind it. That easy confidence that had slipped into his tone.
Me: Go to sleep.
I was still wearing that silly grin when I hit send.
If only Jenna could see me right then.
Kale: If you won’t blow me a kiss, tell me you’ll at least dream of me?
I would not be admitting to that, though, the chances were good.
Me: Stop it.
When the next one came through, my heart grew heavy.
Kale: You’re beautiful, Hope. Seriously. That’s the last thing I’m going to say. Now I’m gonna back away.
I held his message to my chest and looked toward the ceiling, cherishing the words, fighting the urge to beg him not to.
Finally, I forced myself to set my phone aside.
I flipped off the lamp and curled on my side, hugging the comforter to my chest.
And it shouldn’t have been possible.
Not with everything that was going on.
But that night, as I drifted to sleep, I did so with a smile on my lips.
12
Hope
I tucked a receipt into the register and glanced up to the next customer in line. “Can I help you?”
The man stepped forward. “Harley Hope Gentry?”
It was instant.
The apprehension that bolted through me, forcing me back a step. The fact that he used that last name, the one I was trying to purge from my conscious and my life and my reality, set off a deafening scream of warning sirens in my ears.
Still, I was nodding, a painful lump growing up in my throat, obstructing any words that might have passed. He shoved a large envelope my direction. “You’ve been served.”
Tears burned, and the room spun. Violent trembles rolled through my body because this was so much like that day six months ago when Dane had rocked my world, contesting my divorce claim that would grant me full custody without support.
All I wanted was to cut ties.
Be done with it.
Give Evan the life he deserved.
I could barely clutch the envelope, my hands were shaking so bad.
“Jenna,” I tried to call but my voice cracked, coming out as little more than a whisper.
She was in the seating area wiping down tables, and she jerked her attention to me. As soon as she caught sight of my expression, she started moving toward me.
What had to be fear and dread and hate contorting my face in pain.
“Can you take over for me?” I all but begged, angling my head toward the long line of customers waiting at the counter.
“What’s going on?” she demanded instead.
“I don’t know . . . I just . . . I need a minute so I can find out.”
Her attention dropped to the envelope. Her brown eyes turned sharp as daggers, as if her glare might set it on fire.
I could only wish.
“Excuse me,” the lady called at the counter, patience clearly not her strong suit.
Jenna gave me a regretful look. “Go on. I’ll be right here.”
With a jerky nod, I fumbled through the swinging door and staggered toward the small office area set up at the very back of the kitchen.
Barely able to stand.
I set my hand on the desk to steady myself, drawing in a few deep breaths before I forced myself to rip open the letter. My eyes raced over the words drawn up by Dane’s attorneys.
Terror ridged my spine, that dread igniting in the worst kind of horror.
“Asshole,” I gasped, choking, my vision turning black.
Scrambling for my purse I’d left on the desk, I dug for my phone. I could barely get my hands to cooperate enough to pull up the number I needed.
I squeezed my eyes closed as I pushed send.
I didn’t have to wait long.
Dane answered on the first ring. “Ah, I see you got my present.”
Present.
What did he think? That this was a joke?
Fun?
A competition?
I swallowed around the razors that lined my throat, forced out the words that scraped and ground. “Why are you doing this?”
“I told you I was finished playing your games, Harley. I warned you that if you didn’t come home and stop this foolishness, you were going to regret it.”
“This isn’t a game, Dane. The furthest from it. I’m giving you an out. You and I both know you don’t want Evan.”
I flinched just saying it.
The years of silent abuse.
The rejection.
The disgust.
Everything was hoarse and choppy as it flooded from my mouth. “And now you’re asking for full custody and a review of his medical records? Stating I’m an ill-fit mother? You don’t have the first clue what his care requires.”
“Hirin
g help has never been an issue, Harley. I think you know better than that.”
Sickness roiled. “Help.”
He wanted strangers to raise my son.
God. Knowing Dane, he would probably lock him away. Hide Evan and pretend he didn’t exist. Put him in some institution as if he were shame.
Humiliation.
When my son was beauty and life and joy.
“When you married me, you promised you would be mine for all your days, and be clear, all your days belong to me. You think I’m actually going to let you walk away from me? You knew you had a role as my wife . . . now stop being foolish and fill it.”
“I didn’t marry you for that role. I married you because I loved you. And you promised to cherish and love me in return. In sickness and in health.”
The words crawled from my throat, venom and a plea. Not for him to have a change of heart. But for him to let us go.
Dane laughed a morbid sound. One that echoed with his own grief. “I never stopped loving you.”
“And you never started loving him.”
Silence moved through the line, and the tears I’d been holding broke free. Hot veins streaked down my cheeks. Years of holding out for this man and the hatred that loss had left in that void.
I could feel the shift, the detached control that filled his voice. “You know how to resolve this, Harley.”
Bitter laughter rumbled somewhere inside me. The disbelief. “Do you not know me at all? Do you think I will ever give in? Allow your disgusting, vile demand?”
The final stake had been driven into my faith in him that day a year ago when I’d opened our front door to find a mailman, holding out a certified letter. One that had to be signed for.
A DNR that had been drawn up for Evan. Without my knowledge or consent.
“It’s time to stop propagating his suffering.”
That was what Dane had said when he’d tried to force me into signing it.
Evan and I were gone the next morning.
“Why fight the inevitable?” he said indifferently, as if it didn’t matter at all.
Pain leeched into my pores. Because I knew he wasn’t talking about my losing Evan to him. He was talking about me losing him forever.
“I will never, ever give up hope on my son. Never. I’ll die first.”
I rushed to end the call, unable to listen to him for a second longer. Slipping from my shaking hands, the phone clattered to the desk, my weak knees finally giving. Back pressed against the wall, I slid to the ground. My face in my hands.
It didn’t matter how hard I tried to contain them.
Sobs broke free, ripping from my throat, fed from my soul. And I swore, I was right back in the hospital on the day my entire world was ripped apart.
I shivered when the door to the private room we’d been whisked to on the maternity floor edged open.
I had no idea what was happening, though every cell in my body warned it was bad.
I’d been waiting for hours. Days, I thought. I wasn’t sure. The only thing I knew was my world had stopped the second they’d taken away my infant son.
The doctor who came through the door was older, hair gray and thin, his expression stoic. Yet, I could read people well enough that I could see beneath it.
To the grim lines that had been checked. Held. As if it might make the delivery of horrible news more bearable.
Slowly, he sat next to me.
My husband was on the other side of me, the heel of one of his expensive dress shoes bobbing incessantly.
Waiting silently. Swimming in his own turmoil.
“Mr. and Mrs. Gentry . . .” the doctor broached.
I clutched my trembling hands on my lap.
“I’m sorry I don’t have better news. We’ve discovered a severe abnormality of your son’s heart.”
Dizziness whipped through my head, whooshing through my body. A vortex of dread and fear and grief. The man continued to speak, attempting to explain the deformity.
But the only thing I could hear was my soul screaming, “No, no, no!”
“What does that mean?” I finally whispered through the anguish.
“We are going to have him transported to Camden Children’s Hospital in Tennessee. One of the best in the nation. He’ll need to undergo surgery as soon as possible. We hope to repair the abnormality, which may make it so a heart transplant isn’t required.”
I blinked as the term penetrated.
Heart transplant.
I jarred forward.
Unprepared.
How could this be happening? It couldn’t. It couldn’t.
The doctor continued speaking, “Not all of the tests are back, but we believe this is due to a genetic defect. If he survives, this will most likely present itself in other ways in the future.”
If he survives.
Horror burst in my blood, and I curled in on myself, no longer able to remain upright, the overwhelming joy and love inside me shattering.
Splintering out.
I squeezed my eyes closed as the tears fell. And I issued up a million prayers. Begging for this not to be real. To go back to hours ago when I held my tiny, healthy baby boy in my arms.
“Evan,” I rasped, clutching at my chest as I whimpered his name.
“I’m sorry,” the doctor offered, pulling himself back to standing. “A case manager will be in to talk with you about making arrangements to get him transported by air to expedite his care.”
The door swung shut behind him.
Dane jumped to his feet, the first reaction out of him since the doctor had begun speaking. But I was unprepared again, jerking in fear and surprise when I heard the crash.
The punch of his fist against the wall and the sound of his guttural shout. Then his dark head of hair dropped between his shoulders as he gasped for the air that had been sucked from the room.
I forced myself to stand. To go to him. I set my hand on his back, needing to comfort him, desperate for it in return. Needing him to hold me, support me, whisper that it would be okay.
We had to have faith. We had to. Otherwise, we’d have nothing left.
But he shocked me again when he twisted away from my touch, spinning into the middle of the room and facing me. Hatred glinted in his eyes. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
“Dane,” I gasped, eyes pinching, a terrified kind of confusion sinking like lead to land with the fear and grief.
He hesitated for a moment before he pointed at me. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
He whipped away, anger and fury in his stride. He flung open the door and didn’t look back before he disappeared down the hallway, leaving me standing there by myself. Knees week. Foundation gone.
I slid down the wall and onto the ground, my hands clutching my chest that ached and moaned.
And I was sure, never in my life, had I ever felt so alone.
“Finally got the last of the customers out of here,” Jenna said as she blew through the swinging door.
Shaken from the horrible memory, I jerked my head from my hands. Through bleary eyes, I stared at her. The second she saw my state, she rushed for where I was crumpled on the floor.
“That asshole. What is he spoutin’ this time?” she demanded, sinking onto her knees beside me.
Unable to answer, I gasped over another sob.
“Fuck,” she muttered, shifting to sit on her butt. She pulled me to her chest, wrapping me in her arms. “What did he do now?”
“He’s trying to take him from me.” It left me on a coarse, whimpered cry.
Anger ripped through her body, and she hugged me tighter, her mouth at the top of my head. “What’s he sayin’?”
“That I’m not a fit mother. That he wants full custody.” The last broke. “Oh, God—” I choked, burying my face in her neck.
“That’s not gonna happen, Harley Hope. I promise you, there is no way any court is going to give that man custody.”
“Why is he doing this?” I whimpered.
/> She squeezed me. “Because he’s scared. Because he knows you have the upper hand. He’s a pathetic rat bastard who’s scared he’s gonna look bad. That you’re gonna expose him for the kind of man he really is. That, for once in his life, he’s not gonna win. You know he can’t stand the thought of that.”
Unease spun through my spirit. I couldn’t escape the feeling that it was more than that. That his intentions were different from what I could see.
Crueler.
Uglier.
He wanted me back in that house, and I didn’t know why. Not when I knew he wanted us gone.
Swallowing hard, Jenna drew me closer. “I promise you that those courts are going to see him for what he is. You have given up your entire life for that little boy, and that piece of crap hasn’t given up a damned thing. And every single person who knows is gonna sit up on that stand and testify to it, including your son. And where do you think he’s gonna want to be?”
I knew it. I knew all of it.
“What if he finds out what we did?” The words were nothing more than the gasp of a breath.
Wisps of terror that spun through the atmosphere and clawed at my spirit. My spirit that burned to be set free. Gone to a place where I might land in the arms of a man who would hold me up rather than beat me down.
God.
It was stupid for me to even be thinking about another man when I was in the midst of mayhem. But every day that’d passed since Kale had last texted me made me wish for him a little more.
Someday.
Someday.
“He won’t,” she said vehemently, though there was no missing the spark of fear in her eyes. “He won’t. Okay?”
Follow Me Back (A Fight for Me Stand-Alone Novel Book 2) Page 12
