“You’re a rotten liar,” he said.
Lexi had the good grace to look a little ashamed. “Okay. So maybe I’m a little tender. But you don’t hear me complaining, do you?”
“That’s all?”
“Well, I think I’ll have to skip the pony rides at the fair, but other than that...”
Amusement glinted in her eye, and Ian breathed a sigh of relief. “You know, I could help you with that soreness.”
Lexi scooted off the bed, beyond his immediate reach. “Oh no you don’t, mister,” she scolded with a grin. “You promised me a county fair.”
Ian smiled back, even if he was a little disappointed. Not too much, though. He could give her a couple of hours to rest. “That I did. And I always keep my promises.”
* * *
The fair was as wonderful as Lexi remembered, even if it didn’t seem quite as big as it once did. There were still dozens of food booths, games, shows, bands, and rides. Truly something for everyone.
The entire Callaghan clan was there. For community-wide events such as this the Pub closed its doors, all of the men taking an active part in the festivities. Lexi got to meet some more of their extended family as well – the Connelly cousins. Johnny (whom she’d met), his brother Michael (not to be confused with Ian’s brother Michael), his sister Lina, and their spouses. They’d taken over a pavilion at the far end of the grounds for their annual reunion.
Ian got dragged into a few spirited games with his brothers and cousins, while Lexi watched with the rest of the “wives”. Taryn, she knew. Celina, Stacey, and Keely – wives of Kyle, Johnny, and Michael (Connelly), respectively, were a riot to be around, and Lexi found herself enjoying the afternoon more than she ever thought she would. Odd as it seemed, she felt comfortable around these women, and they, in turn, seemed to accept her among them easily. It made it that much more difficult to do what she had to do.
“Uh-oh,” muttered Taryn. “Here comes trouble.” As one, the women turned where Taryn was looking and saw Kayla approaching.
“She is trouble,” Lina agreed.
They watched in silence as Kayla approached the pavilion, keeping to the far side, out of the line of sight of the men.
“Lexi,” Kayla said, pointedly ignoring the others. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”
Lexi hesitated for a moment. Despite the smile, whatever Kayla wanted wouldn’t be good. Still, there was no need to put these ladies through one of Kayla’s outbursts.
“Sure,” she said, rising from the picnic table. She looked out at the field where the pick-up football game was in full swing. Ian was currently at the bottom of a pile, with more jumping on.
“You don’t have to do this,” Taryn said quietly, her eyes shooting daggers at Kayla.
“Yeah,” Keely agreed, speaking so only Lexi could hear her. “She can’t take all of us.”
Lexi bit back a smile. They would never know just how much their words meant to her. But this was her fight, not theirs. Especially not when three of them were very clearly expecting.
“It’s okay. I’ve got this.”
Lexi met Kayla at the far end of the pavilion and they walked off together toward the woods.
“I don’t like this,” Lina said, rubbing her large belly.
“Me neither,” agreed Stacey. “Maybe someone should tell Ian.”
“I don’t think Lexi would appreciate that,” said Keely. “I know I wouldn’t. Let her handle this. We’ll keep an eye on them and if things look like they’re getting out of hand we’ll call in the cavalry.”
* * *
Kayla moved farther into the shadows of the trees, away from the others. Lexi followed along several paces behind, but was smart enough to remain in sight.
“What did you want to talk to me about, Kayla?”
Kayla stopped and crossed her arms over her chest, pinning Lexi with a hard glare. “You need to leave Pine Ridge. You don’t belong here.”
Lexi didn’t argue. That was a given. She nodded. “Anything else?”
It took Kayla a moment to respond. Her eyes widened, her lips parted slightly. Clearly she’d been expecting more of a fight, but there was no point. “And you can’t have Ian.”
Again, Lexi didn’t argue. She glanced down at her watch, silently calculating the time she had left before she had to leave for the airport. She didn’t want to waste it by listening to one of Kayla’s long-winded rants. The sooner they moved this along, the better. “Is that it?”
For some reason, Lexi’s lack of response enraged Kayla. Without warning, her hands shot out and grabbed Lexi, shoving her hard into an oak tree. Caught off-guard, Lexi felt the hard wood all along her spine and a sharp, sudden pain along the base of her skull.
“Ian. Is. Mine,” Kayla hissed, her hands on Lexi’s shoulders, pushing her back repeatedly into the tree with each word.
“He’s not,” Lexi managed, trying to push Kayla away, but she wasn’t strong enough. Kayla was bigger and healthier and filled with rage; Lexi was struggling with barely enough energy to make it through the day.
“Yes. He. Is.” Kayla spat back. “At least he will be when I tell him I’m pregnant.”
Little fireflies flitted across Lexi’s vision with the next hit, but she was lucid enough to have heard the words. “You’re... pregnant?”
“Yes,” Kayla said with a cruel smile. “Ian was drunk, and I forgot to take my pills. Oops.”
Kayla’s smile faded when she saw the first tiny drops of blood fall from Lexi’s nose, and the side of her mouth. She got downright scared when it started to seep from the corners of Lexi’s eyes, so that it looked like she was crying tears of blood. She quickly let go of Lexi as if she’d been burned, and Lexi was barely able to get her hands underneath her before she went down on her knees.
Lexi tried to wipe the blood from her eyes; her white sleeve was now heavily streaked with red. “I won’t stand in your way, Kayla,” she said, pausing to spit out some blood.
“Jesus, Lexi, I didn’t mean to - ”
Lexi was shaking her head to clear it, her eyes unfocused as she tried to get her bearings. When she began to cough up blood, Kayla panicked, running back toward the pavilion for help. Lexi collapsed. Her cell vibrated with an incoming message.
“Oh, thank God,” she whispered, her fingers tapping out a hurried response, praying she was hitting the right keys.
Chapter Twenty-One
Ian knew something was wrong the moment he looked up from the fields and saw Kayla running frantically from the woods, yelling for help. One quick look toward the pavilion showed that Lexi was not among the women now scattering. Keely was moving hurriedly toward the men – as fast as a woman pregnant with twins could; Taryn was taking off like a bat out of hell toward the tree line. Stacey was pulling out her cell phone.
Panic shot through him, and he knew with certainty that Lexi was in trouble. Shaking off his brothers, he rushed toward the pavilion as they all began to realize that something was very wrong.
“Where’s Lexi?” Ian yelled, grabbing Keely. The look she gave him sent icy daggers into his heart. “The woods... Kayla...”
Ian felt his heart drop into his feet. Before she could finish, Ian was sprinting across the fields toward the woods. Several yards in, the coppery scent of blood hit him. “Lexi!” he yelled desperately. “Answer me!”
He found her another fifty feet or so in, lying face down in the scrub, Taryn crying by her side, trying to get some kind of response from her.
“Lexi, baby. Jesus Christ!” He turned her over, her face and shirt covered in blood. “MICHAEL!” he screamed, all pretense of control gone as he lifted her into his arms and carried her out of the woods.
He was met at the edge by a small crowd. Stacey broke down in sobs. Ian refused to let her go, forcing Michael to do a quick examination while Ian held her. When he pushed up her sleeve to check for injury, a collective gasp rippled among them. Michael lifted her shirt slightly and saw the same thing. Black, purple and
blue blotches. Lexi looked like she had been thoroughly beaten.
Bright flashing lights and a wailing siren announced the arrival of an ambulance. Ian climbed in as Michael barked orders at the paramedics, while the others promised to follow along.
Ian paced the small waiting room with the look of a man possessed. His eyes were wild, his face as hard as if it had been carved in stone. Blood covered his torso and arms, big smears of it across his neck and jaw where he had tucked her head into him for the ride. None of it was his. He wished to God it was.
Michael had gone with Lexi into the examination room, and Ian was grateful for that. Michael was a great doctor; he would fix this, whatever “this” was. He still had no clue what had happened.
Within minutes the rest of the family began arriving. Kieran was the first one through the door, looking almost as wild as Ian. His eyes found his older brother’s. “How is she?”
“Mick’s with her now.”
“What the fuck happened?”
Ian gave him a pained look, one of shock mixed with fear. “I don’t know. I don’t fucking know.”
“What’s taking so long?” Ian asked, continuing his relentless pacing back and forth across the room. It had been an hour at least.
The door opened and a new face entered the crowded waiting room. “I’m looking for Alexis Kattapoulos. Where is she?”
Ian stopped his pacing at the sound of the unfamiliar voice. At the entrance stood a man with the looks of a movie star – golden blonde hair, cut short at the neck but rakishly long across the forehead and sides. Sculpted, well defined features. Dark brown eyes that were sharp and keen. He was dressed casually, but everything about him screamed wealth and power.
“Who are you?” Kieran asked. Not surprisingly, he was the first to approach the stranger. But Ian already knew who it was.
At that moment Michael came in to the waiting room, his face grim. The room became instantly silent.
“Ian,” Michael said. His voice was carefully controlled, but his eyes gave him away. Michael was shaken, and that was not a good sign from a man who had seen the horrors he had. “Anything you want to tell me?”
Ian’s blood froze. “How is she?”
A tick worked along Michael’s jaw. “She’s bad. Real bad. She’d bleeding from the inside out, drowning in her own blood.” His eyes grew ten degrees colder. “Her body’s covered in bruises, like she’s been severely beaten. We can’t stop it. We can’t stop the bleeding.”
“You fucking son of a bitch!” Kieran roared and launched himself at Ian, knocking him down to the ground landing blow after blow. It took several of the men to pull him off, pushing him back to the far end of the room.
Aidan stepped forward and addressed Michael. “You are Lexi’s doctor?”
Michael nodded.
“She has a disease that makes her bleed easily. Like hemophelia, but worse. It’s genetic. Very rare, passed from mother to daughter. Meds usually control it – she must inject herself several times a day – but still she must be very careful.”
“What meds?”
“These.” Aidan handed Michael a small cooler-type bag. Michael looked inside, his eyes widening as he read the vials. He and Aidan shared a knowing glance, before Michael took off toward the exam room.
“Excuse me,” Jack Callaghan said, pushing off from the far wall. “I don’t believe we’ve met. Jack Callaghan.”
Aidan turned and accepted the hand the older man offered. “Of course. Lexi talks of you all the time. Aidan Harrison.”
“You are Lexi’s boss.”
Aidan smiled slightly, as if the thought amused him. “No one is Lexi’s boss, Mr. Callaghan.”
“Why are you here?” Ian asked gruffly, wiping at his bloodied nose.
Aidan studied him carefully before answering. When he did, he leveled his gaze. “Because Lexi asked me to come for her.”
“You lie.”
Aidan shrugged his shoulders elegantly, as if he could care less whether or not anyone believed him. “When she was not at her hotel, I used the GPS on her phone to locate her here.”
“How did you happen to have Lexi’s medicine?” Jake asked.
Aidan considered him thoughtfully before speaking slowly and carefully. “Lexi and I are very close.”
“Meaning?” There was something far too intimate, too knowing in Aidan’s manner. Ian didn’t like it at all.
“If she did not share the details of her illness with you, I am not sure that I should.” He ignored Ian’s lethal stare and glanced around at the packed waiting room.
Michael came back through the doors. Before he could say a word, Aidan began walking toward him, already rolling up his sleeve. “Take mine,” he said. “We are compatible.”
At Michael’s skeptical look, he added gravely, “I’ve done this more times than you can imagine, Doctor.” Michael nodded, indicating that Aidan should proceed back toward the exam room.
“What’s going on, Mick?” Ian asked.
“Lexi needs a transfusion. The meds are helping, but her blood is so thin it’s not enough.”
“Then take mine!” Ian said fiercely, but Michael shook his head. “Sorry, Ian, but your blood type’s not an exact match, and she’s not strong enough for anything else right now. It would kill her.” He looked away from Ian’s pained eyes, scanning the room until he found the one he sought. “Taryn? I could use a second donor. You up for it?”
Taryn was on her feet in seconds. “Like you even have to ask.”
Lexi was in a medically induced coma until her body had a chance to recover from the damage and assimilate the meds. Jake and Shane escorted an exhausted, bloody Ian back to the Pub for a quick shower, but only after Michael swore that there was nothing anyone could do and refused to allow Ian anywhere near her for a few hours.
He showered. He shaved. He put on clean clothes. And it was all done automatically, without thinking. Because the only thing Ian could think about was the realization that he almost lost Lexi, and the possibility that he still might.
What the hell had happened? She’d been fine the morning of the fair. Hadn’t she? He thought back, recalling the purplish bruises he’d seen forming as he bathed her. But afterward... she’d been wearing jeans that covered her legs to right above her ankles, long, loose sleeves that extended to her wrists and tied right below her collar bone. Sonofabitch.
He still had some time before they were heading back to the hospital. He sought out Taryn, found her resting in her and Jake’s room, looking almost as worried as he felt. It didn’t take much to convince her to tell him what had happened that day in the kitchen.
Using that information and what he had managed to pick up in the ER, Ian sat down at the computer. Moments later, Ian stared in shock as he finally broke through as screen after screen filled with data. Much of it was in medical terms and beyond his area of expertise, but he knew enough to get the gist of it.
He sat back, stunned, glad there was no one else around because what he found scared the shit out of him. Lexi had a rare blood disease, a form of hemophilia that kept her blood from clotting properly. It was hereditary, inherited from her mother. She’d been undergoing treatments for years, each one more risky than the last by the look of it. Daily injections allowed her to live a fairly normal life, but even the smallest cut could be life-threatening.
It was all beginning to make sense, not the least of which was why Kieran had been so overprotective. No wonder Kieran had been so freaked out over the raspberry bushes. He was one of the few who knew that one good scratch in the wrong place could make her bleed out. Kieran had also apparently figured out what happened in the kitchen that day, and confronted her with it. For the first time, Ian began to understand the pain and worry his brother must have been feeling all along.
And he had been so rough with her. He felt sick to his stomach, remembering the way her body had been battered. Kayla had admitted to shoving and pushing her, but it hadn’t been Kayla that had done all
that damage. It had been him. Barely managing to make it to the bathroom, Ian fell to his knees and threw up. He’d almost killed the woman he loved.
Lexi remained unconscious for the next two days. They all took turns sitting with her, though Ian and Aidan put in the most time, each reluctant to leave her alone in the company of the other.
“Why, Lex?” Ian asked for the hundredth time as he sat beside her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Aidan snorted derisively as he stood by the window, staring out over the park below. It was such an uncharacteristic action from the smooth, composed man that Ian turned to look at him. “What?”
“You are an idiot.”
“Excuse me?” Ian stood, power radiating from every limb.
“Do you know how many times I’ve been in hospital rooms like this? How many times I’ve stared out the window, waiting for her to wake up?” Aidan turned from the window, looking at Ian as if he was a child. “This disease is life-threatening, Mr. Callaghan. Lexi knows exactly what she must do, knows that even the slightest deviation could have devastating effects. Yet here she is, her body battered beyond limits, and not enough medicine to see her through the week. Why do you suppose that is?”
Ian didn’t have an answer to that as the gravity of Aidan’s words fell over him like a heavy shroud. Aidan. The one with whom Lexi had entrusted her secrets. The one whose timely arrival had probably saved her life.
“You are in love with her.” It wasn’t a question.
Aidan smiled slightly. “Yes. But not in the way you think. She is family to me. And she is in love with another man; I have always known this.” He paused briefly. “I always wondered what kind of fool would let a woman like that go. Now I know, don’t I?”
“I never knew.” But he had, hadn’t he? If he was honest with himself, he had to admit that some part of him knew. Some part of him recognized her feelings for him, and capitalized on them without reservation.
Aidan shook his head. “That makes you even more of an idiot then, doesn’t it? Even now you still don’t get it. Lexi risked her life. And for what? To spend a few more days with you.”
First and Only: Callaghan Brothers, Book 2 Page 17
