Snowstorm Confessions

by Rachel Lee

  Jack struggled and managed to grab the ax again, trying to roll over beneath Luke.

  Bri forgot every vow she’d ever made never to hurt another person. Lifting the crutch, she jabbed the pointed end down on Jack’s upper arm with every ounce of strength she had.

  He howled and his hand flopped open. Oh, God, the nurse in her said, she’d hit his brachial artery. There was no mistaking the arterial spray. He could be dead in minutes.

  “The ax,” Luke said breathlessly. “I’ll hold him.” For good measure, he fisted his good arm and punched Jack in the side of the head.

  “The artery.” But he was right. Bending, she grabbed the pickax, ran to the front door and threw it out into the storm.

  Still running, she came back to the living room and found Luke still holding a struggling Jack.

  “You’re going to get hurt,” she warned Luke.

  “I don’t care. Hey, Jack! You hear me? Did you hear what Bri said? You’re bleeding from an artery. You stop fighting this instant so she can do something about it or you’re going to bleed out before I let you go.”

  Adrenaline still ruled her. Bri looked down at her handiwork and only automatic responses kept her from doing more damage. He’d wanted to kill her and Luke. That still seethed in her, a temporarily caged beast.

  Jack went still.

  She studied the side of his face she could see. “He’s weakening.” If she hadn’t seen it before, she would have been astonished by the amount of blood spurting nearly three feet into the air and pooling around him.

  “Not enough,” Luke said. “I can feel it. What’s it going to be, Jack? Death or help?”

  Bri didn’t wait for a response. She went for the emergency kit she kept in the bathroom. When she returned, blood was everywhere, even on Luke’s back, but Jack was looking pale. Very pale.

  Without a word, she knelt beside him and pried open the kit, pulling out a tourniquet.

  “Thank God I didn’t hit him any higher,” she muttered. “He needs the E.R., stat.”

  “I hope we can get some help.”

  She tightened the tourniquet until the spurting stopped. “Ten minutes, then release the pressure. I gotta try the phone again.”

  Luke gave a nod of his head. She noticed he was sweating, which meant he must be in pain. What kind of damage might he have done to himself?

  God, at that moment she could have cheerfully pulled off that tourniquet and let Jack go for good.

  But whatever her rage, her instincts remained. Save the patient.

  She raced to the kitchen and lifted the phone, hopelessness seeping through the adrenaline, fear and rage. It hadn’t worked all night. Why would it work now?

  She almost sagged to the floor when she got the dial tone.

  “Nine-one-one, what is the emergency?”

  “Hi, Stacy. It’s Bri. Arterial bleed at my place. I have a tourniquet on, but it’s bad. And you might need to send two ambulances. I think I have two patients.”

  “The roads are treacherous, but I have at least one unit within five minutes.”

  “We’ll start with the worst first.”

  “Hang in there. You want to stay on the phone with me?”

  “I have a patient to take care of. And I need the cops, too.”

  Then she hung up the phone and returned to the scene from hell.

  * * *

  Bri helped Luke back onto his bed when the EMTs arrived. She warned Tim and Ted that Jack was irrational and dangerous, so they strapped him safely to the gurney as soon as they established an IV and started him on a bag of lactated Ringer’s solution.

  “Back for you shortly, big guy,” Tim said to Luke.

  “Take your time. Those roads are bad.”

  “Tell me about it,” Ted said.

  “Remember,” Bri said before they got out the door. “He’s dangerous. He tried to pickax us.”

  They paused, exchanging looks of concern. “Got it,” Tim said. “I’ll warn them at the E.R.”

  “Thanks.”

  As soon as they were gone, Bri turned her attention to Luke. She still seemed to be running on automatic, which was probably a good thing. She’d have time for a nervous breakdown later.

  “Now we need to get the blood off you,” she announced. “I’m getting the bleach.”

  “Bleach?”

  “Routine. If Jack hadn’t been in such bad condition, Tim and Ted would have doused you. HIV.”

  “Oh.”

  She doubted Jack had any such thing, but until a blood test proved it, she was taking no chances. She poured some bleach in a bowl. “Sorry I can’t mix it with water,” she said as she returned, “but I might as well bathe you in ice. I don’t know how much shock you can take.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine. What were you thinking?”

  “The same thing you were. And what about the blood on you?”

  She ignored the question. His blood exposure seemed to be limited to his back, neck and good arm, so she stripped his shirt and set about working him over with a sponge. “They’ll do more at the hospital.”

  “I don’t need the hospital.”

  “You need it until I’m sure you didn’t dislodge that pin in your leg. My God, the way you fell on him...”

  After that he said no more, enduring her ministrations. Little by little reality began to sink in, and her hands started to tremble.

  “Luke?” she said quietly.

  “Yeah.” He sounded gruff.

  “You were...magnificent.”

  “I kinda thought you were.”

  Battering at the door told her round two had arrived. She let in Sheriff Gage Dalton and Police Chief Jake Madison. One look around the room froze them both.

  Gage spoke first. “Does this have anything to do with the pickax sticking up out of the snow?”

  The adrenaline that had kept Bri going deserted her then. She sank onto the office chair, ignoring the fact that she was covered in blood, too, and tears began to roll down her face.

  “Jack,” she said. It was all she could say.

  So Luke told the story. She hardly heard him. All the emotions she had put in cold storage suddenly thawed out, leaving her an absolute mess.

  If there had been a dark, quiet corner, she probably would have curled up into a tight ball and hidden in it.

  Jack could have killed them both. Worst of all, he could have killed Luke. He had tried to kill Luke.

  She would have died if he had succeeded. Her heart would have shriveled into a lump of coal.

  The horror of it all came home.

  * * *

  Hours later, Dr. Trent finally let her get out of the hospital bed, don some scrubs and head for the bay where they had Luke. She’d heard them take him for X-rays. Heard that they needed to replace at least one cast, but that was it. She needed to know more.

  She had successfully fended off offers of sedation. She endured being bathed in bleach. She’d put up with being watched for delayed shock, but she had had enough of being a patient. She hated herself for collapsing, but she’d been through a nightmare, she had survived it, and at least she’d kept her head until she had done all she could.

  She found Luke in bay three. He didn’t exactly look like a happy camper, but at least he didn’t appear to be in pain.

  “Bri.” He held out his hand and she went to his side to take it.

  “What’s the skinny?” she asked him.

  “I’m fine. Just needed a new cast because I cracked the other one. How do I get out of here?”

  “You’ll have to ask the doc. What’s the rush?”

  “I want to go home with you and take care of you.” He peered at her with intensity, his gray eyes sharp. “How are you?”

  “I’ll survive. No damage, except I have a new nightmare to live with.”

  “God, it was awful. I was so frightened for you.” He squeezed her hand. “Let’s get home. You know those moments you talked about the other day?”r />
  “What about them?”

  “I watched them vanishing a few hours ago. You were so right about them. No guarantees.”

  “None.”

  “So let’s go home, Bri. We’ve got a lot of things to figure out.”

  “I don’t think my living room is going to be habitable for a while. Regardless, the roads are still a mess. They told me we shouldn’t leave yet.”

  “Hell.” He sighed and tightened his hold on her hand. “Then let me take you away.”

  “To where?”

  “Who cares? Just let me take you.”

  Chapter 14

  Luke had taken over, and for once Bri didn’t mind not being consulted. After all, he’d managed to get a small plane to get them out of Conard County, he’d arranged for a crew to restore her living room, and he’d swept her away for a vacation on a beach in the Florida Keys.

  She wasn’t sure where this was going. They hadn’t discussed much of a personal nature at all. They’d talked about Jack, though, and were still talking about him.

  She watched him crutch his way through the hotel dining room and thought that he looked more magnificent than ever. He accepted help from the waiter, who pulled out a chair across the table from her, and ordered a bottle of wine for them.

  “Did you learn anything?” she asked him.

  “Gage was very forthcoming. Your ex-handyman is under psychiatric observation to determine if he’s fit to stand trial.”

  “He needs help, Luke. Did you see the change in him? Something went very wrong in his head.”

  “I agree.” He sighed, then shook his head. His face hardened briefly. “But remember, this is a guy who poked holes in your ceiling so he could watch you whenever he felt like it.”

  That still creeped her out. She suppressed a shudder, and felt once again the sickness in her stomach. “None of that was normal.”

  “No, but as I understand, the question is not whether he’s normal, but whether he could understand right from wrong.”

  “True.”

  “He’s going away for a long time, darlin’.”

  “I hope so.”

  “And what I’d dearly love to see again is a smile on your face.” He extended his hand across the table, and she barely hesitated before giving him hers.

  “I’ll get there. I’m still shocked. Still baffled. I’m just so glad he didn’t hurt you.”

  “I’m glad he didn’t hurt you. That guy was awfully close to death from the moment he threatened you. Messed up or not, I’d have found a way to...” He stopped. “Enough. We’ve seen enough violence. I don’t want you to see me that way. Ever.”

  “I’ve never even thought of you that way. Not once.”

  “Good.” He sat back to taste the wine and waited until it had been poured and the sommelier had departed. “Are you ready to order?”

  “Not yet.” She looked out the window beside the table and watched aquamarine waves wash up on a white beach. “It’s beautiful here.”

  “I’m enjoying it. I wish you were, too.”

  Her gaze tracked back to his face. “What makes you think I’m not?”

  “Because I can feel it. You’ve gone away somewhere inside. You’re distant. You’re building walls. Do you want to be rid of me?”

  “Luke, I’m still trying to deal with all of this. A man I thought was a friend tried to kill us both.” But deep inside she knew he was right. She’d had enough, and she had hidden away. If nothing could touch her, there’d be no more pain, right?

  “Moments,” he said significantly.

  She got it. She just didn’t know how to get back. At least not yet. “Give me some time,” she asked.

  “All you want.”

  After a lunch involving a conch dish that was out of this world, they sat outside on the terrace, listening to the waves, but talking very little.

  The endless waves had a strong effect on her, soothing her with their constant susurration, while making her feel extremely small. The sea was eternal. Those waves would wash ashore forever. But she was insignificant, a mere blip on the time line. Her footprints in this world would wash away as quickly as they did when the waves rolled over them.

  She closed her eyes, feeling the sun and breeze on her face, hearing the lullaby of the sea, feeling the large hand that held hers so gently.

  And little by little she focused on that hand. It held her, it was real, and it was asking her to come back. To leave some more footprints. Footprints that would matter.

  All of a sudden, her heart seemed to crack open. The shell that had been protecting her was gone. She felt pain again, but she also felt something more.

  Opening her eyes, she looked at Luke. He was watching her with concern. “You really want to try again?”

  “Our marriage?”

  “Maybe. Let’s start with relationship.”

  “Fair enough. What brought this on?”

  “Footprints,” she said enigmatically. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  They took the elevator to their room with its balcony view of the beach and water. Beyond the glass doors, a cruise ship was sailing out toward the sea. Tonight there’d be the sunset celebration at the dock. They hadn’t gone yet because she hadn’t really wanted to, but again it struck her that she was wasting precious moments.

  Moments that she ought to be turning into memories.

  Luke stretched out on the bed with a pillow under his broken leg. She joined him, sitting cross-legged beside him, studying him.

  “I don’t want another broken heart,” she said.

  “Me, neither.”

  “But I don’t know how much I can change myself.” She thought back to all the times she’d dismissed her own feelings. It was still her inclination as she knew all too well.

  “How about we do this, then?” he said. “I won’t ask you to change. I’ll just drive you crazy with questions instead of ignoring it when you seem bothered. Can you live with that?”

  “We could try it.”

  “Just promise me you won’t get mad every time I prod you.”

  The faintest of smiles curved her mouth. “I can promise to try. But I’m still not a very good judge of my own feelings.”

  “They don’t need to be judged. They just are, and are an integral part of all of us. Spew away so we can talk about it. Then you’ll have a basis for judgment.”

  She thought about that and realized she could probably manage it. But her awareness had begun to focus on him and him alone, driving everything else away.

  “Luke?”

  “Hmm?” He squeezed her hand as if to offer reassurance.

  “I would rather have died than see you hurt.”

  His grip tightened so much that it became nearly painful. “I felt the same way.”

  “That means something, doesn’t it?”

  “It probably does.” He sounded cautious.

  She couldn’t blame him for that after all she’d put him through in the past. What a vague way to describe what she had felt: that means something. Something? God, she needed to be clearer.

  The tear in her heart was opening wider with each passing minute, bringing back pain, but bringing back a much more important feeling. “It means,” she said, “that I never stopped loving you.”

  Then before she could start thinking she was foolish, she broke into the tears she had been withholding since the incident with Jack. Luke might have died. The words seemed to be stamped in fire across the universe. She might have lost him for good, and while a few weeks ago she had been telling herself she was glad they had divorced, now she faced the fact that she had never been glad, and had never stopped missing him. All she had done was compound the things that had bothered her into a full-blown case of loneliness. Because life would always be lonely without him.

  He tugged her down until she lay curled on her side, her head pillowed on his shoulder. One arm held her near while his other hand stroked her arm and back.

  “It’s been hard,” he murmur
ed. “So hard.”

  She managed a nod, but she was sobbing so strongly that she couldn’t speak. She had always hated crying, had considered it weak, and then she understood where that feeling had come from. Her mother had never let her cry, at least not where anyone else could see. She’d had to hide it away or get yelled at, until she stopped crying altogether.

  “Oh, God,” she choked out. “Oh, God.”

  “What?”

  “I wasn’t allowed to cry, either.”

  He swore then, succinctly and with a great deal of variety. Oddly, the words and his evident anger began to soothe her. Her sobs eased into hiccups, and finally stopped.

  “I’m messed up,” she said brokenly.

  “No, you’re not. Well, everyone’s messed up, so why should you be any different? This is hard on you. It’s wrong. You can always cry with me. Whenever, however.”

  She lifted her hand and laid it on his chest. “I’m so glad I didn’t lose you.”

  He shifted onto his side and pulled her close. She knew what was coming, what had always come for them when they were together. Instead of fighting it, instead of thinking it was a distraction, she welcomed his kiss, drawing his tongue deeply into her mouth. The fire and passion began to build. Familiar, yet fresh, she began to ache for him. She needed him. This way and every way. How could she have ever thought otherwise?

  He was doing a lot better, but she still needed to help him get out of his clothes. Her own she tossed aside carelessly, desperate for the feel of his skin against hers.

  He still couldn’t mount her, but that was okay, too. She rolled on top of him, and looked down into the gray eyes that had lingered in her memory all these years like a promise not kept. She could have been patient, but he was impatient and made no secret of it. Seizing her hips, he lifted her onto his rigid manhood and brought her down swiftly, filling her, piercing her, reaching her heart.

  Then he lifted his hands to cup her breasts. Rubbing his thumbs over her nipples, sending wildfire along her every nerve ending, he demanded in a thickened voice, “Hard. Fast. Let’s soar.”

  Soar they did. Propping herself on her hands, knowing he could see her and titillated by it, she rode him, rocking her hips against his, taking him deep again and again.