by Various
Her body was at peace, eager for rest and healing, but her heart throbbed with sadness. She missed Derek.
He might not be real, but she couldn’t deny the reality of her love for him. Being with him had felt real, the focus of those precious hours so sharp the edges cut her heart.
As afternoon crept toward evening, she worried about him as if he existed. Who would comfort him through his nightmares? Who would encourage him to make things right when he made mistakes? Who would keep him company during the lonely weeknights when Haley stayed with her mom?
With the push of a button, she silenced the TV, and in the stillness that passed for quiet in an ICU room, the breathing machine sighed in incrimination. Fool…ish, it chanted. Fool…ish. Fool…ish.
She needed to let it go. Let him go. He wasn’t real.
She’d asked to see Derek Summers, and she hoped he would agree so she could see for herself the name was just a coincidence. Then the lingering thread of hope keeping her heart from plummeting into despair could finally snap, and she could let the tears fall and wash away the beautiful dream.
Chapter 15
After Lt. Christy’s call, Derek managed to put his nose to the grindstone and make significant progress on readying the site for Friday’s walkthrough. As an added benefit to keeping his head down and plowing through his workload, he didn’t have time to dwell on how much he hated himself.
When he stood from his desk to stretch his back, he looked out the trailer window to find the site abandoned and streaked with long shadows. Across the gravel lot, the last laborers were climbing into their cars and trucks, headed to their homes for big meals and good sleep.
Speaking of which, it was after six. He ought to go home for the night too, but every time he thought about his quiet, empty house, he felt a pull in his chest he’d rather not explore.
Instead of going home, he headed over to survey the three buildings himself so he knew firsthand what was ready to go for Friday and what they still needed to do.
The four-story concrete skeletons loomed cool and gray under a gold-blue sky. Late-rush hour traffic hummed along the east edge of the site and his boots crunched over the machinery-rutted ground. As he strode into the shadow of the first building, the scents of fresh concrete and welder’s dust permeated the hazy air. The day’s dying sun glinted off the cab of a crane and shot an unexpected memory of buckling metal and breaking glass into his mind.
No. Don’t think about that.
He stalked the bare concrete halls of the first building by the harsh light of strung-up halogens, jotting notes on electrical and plumbing fixtures and critical ductwork paths. He frowned at the unoccupied platforms where the chillers should be. Delivery was scheduled for tomorrow morning, and he’d prepared the laborers to stay late if needed to get them installed.
The schedule was tight, but it would have to work. Failure was unacceptable.
He made his way into the second building. Above him hung a network of ducts and copper pipes studded with set-point sprinklers, the naked guts of a building. The glare of artificial light off the hardware brought another unwelcome memory slamming into his mind, a car-filled stretch of sunny freeway, turned upside down, the burning smell of airbag explosives, the splat-splat-splat of blood dropping onto upholstery. He reeled with the sickening onslaught to his senses and steadied himself with a hand on the cold wall.
What the hell? Bad enough he had to deal with the accident in his sleep; now it was intruding on his waking hours? He should be moving past all this now that he’d turned himself in. The pit of guilt in his stomach should be shrinking, not sitting heavy like a damned boulder.
He wished Lt. Christy had kept the woman’s name—Camilla Arlington—to himself. It would be easier to face her tomorrow as some nameless face.
Shaking off his dread of tomorrow’s visit, he finished his rounds and headed back to the trailer as the sun sank below the horizon. That frigging lump wasn’t the only sensation in his stomach. He was hungry too. He needed to go home and eat dinner, but he resisted. Only after spending an hour on the busy work of clearing out his inbox and organizing his project files did he realize why he didn’t want to go home.
She wouldn’t be there.
He’d cleared his conscience today. He shouldn’t have the nightmare anymore. These fleeting images were its last hurrah. He knew it instinctively, just like he knew the nightmare’s exit from his psyche would render DG unnecessary.
With the return of his sanity, he felt utterly bereft.
Half an hour later, he opened the door to his dark house. His gaze instantly darted to the hallway. His heart leapt with anticipation—the optimistic organ hadn’t gotten the memo that DG was gone forever.
Ignoring the soreness in his chest, he trudged to the kitchen and made himself a sandwich. His usual chair at the table beckoned him, but a stronger pull had him carrying his plate to the bedroom. He’d never eaten dinner in bed before—except in his stressed mind with DG—but for some reason, he couldn’t imagine eating anywhere else tonight.
He kicked off his boots and climbed on the rumpled bed. After putting a pillow at his back, he balanced his plate on his lap and reached for the beer he’d set beside his lamp. It was a cheap lamp with a brass base and a wire-and-fabric shade. Its mate was in the living room, the pair having come with the leather sofa and end table set he’d gotten when he’d moved in. His gaze fixed on the shade. It was flattened along one side. He lost his appetite.
DG had thrown the lamp at his door to wake him from his nightmare the other night. He’d righted it without noticing the damage, but he noticed it now, couldn’t look away from it.
Without a conscious command, his hand skimmed over the fitted sheet on his bed. His fingers found a stiff patch of dried semen, right where he remembered making love to DG last night.
It couldn’t be.
His mind must be playing tricks on him. He couldn’t really be smelling the melon scent of her shampoo on his pillow. He couldn’t have really spent a handful of glorious nights with a ghostly dream girl. Not only was it impossible; it was laughable.
Except he wasn’t laughing.
He was hurting. He missed DG with a vicious longing.
Suddenly, he couldn’t stand being in his bed without her. Growling out a curse, he went to the kitchen to eat his sandwich. It tasted like sawdust. He swallowed it anyway, bite by dry, tasteless bite. Finished with dinner, he dragged his laptop across the table and fired it up. In desperate need of some cheer, he logged on to Facebook and pulled up Haley’s page. At Deidre’s urging, he kept an account and checked it weekly to make sure Haley wasn’t getting into any trouble online. He rarely did more than scan. Tonight he took his time reading the dozens of get-well messages plastered across her page from friends and teammates, and let the innocent greetings warm his heart. He chuckled at a picture of her holding up her purple cast and shrugging dramatically. He wrote under the photo, Tough break, kiddo. Feel better. Dad.
Did the woman in the hospital have friends and coworkers leaving messages on her Facebook page? Get well soon, Camilla. I hope the jerk that cut you off rots in jail.
His gaze flicked to the search box. He could type in her name. If she was on Facebook, he could see what she looked like. He could see whose life he’d wrecked with a single stupid decision.
Bad idea. Knowing her name was hard enough. The last thing he needed was a face to put with the hard knot of guilt in his stomach.
Call him a masochist, but he typed Camilla Arlington into the search box, anyway. With a mix of dread and morbid curiosity, he hit enter. The page refreshed, and his vision tunneled to the avatar that topped the search results list. He clicked on the image to see it larger.
The woman had her face lifted to the sun. She wore an innocent, joyous smile. She had thick, shiny auburn hair, naturally beautiful fair skin, and eyes as deep and blue as the ocean. His chest imploded, shoving all the air out of his lungs in a violent burst.
Camilla Ar
lington was DG.
“No.” He slammed his laptop shut and pushed back from the table so hard his chair crashed to the floor. He gasped for air as he stood over his kitchen table.
Images ripped through him one after another. His beautiful, vulnerable dream girl lying in a hospital bed with part of her skull missing, DG gripping her steering wheel as his big truck cut her off, DG afraid, DG hurting.
DG knowing he was the one who had hurt her.
“No! Derek, you fucker!”
His entire body coiled with the urge to do violence. He wheeled around and laid hands on the first thing he saw. His refrigerator. With a murderous grip on each side, he rocked it forward and slammed it to the floor on its side. The shelves and contents banged around inside.
Seething with self-loathing, he kicked the side-by side doors until they dented and the lower one fell open. His fridge was wrecked, but the damage didn’t satisfy the monster within. Maybe if he’d had his steel-toes on, but despite the pain shooting through his stocking feet and ankles, he needed more. With a roar, he ripped the upper door off its hinges and threw it across the kitchen. It crashed against his stove, making the oven door drop open.
Panting, he surveyed the wreckage and pulled at his hair. Condiment jars and bottles of beer littered his floor, some of them shattered. A pool of water and foam spread from the battered corpse of his fridge across the linoleum, and tracked toward the back door. And still, his hands shook with the need to hit.
He didn’t recognize himself. Not even his father in his worst fit of temper had ever looked quite as crazed as he felt just now.
Tracking sticky debris down the hall, he strode to the basement and laid into his heavy bag without pausing to put his gloves on. The seventy-five-pound bag danced, making the rafters groan against the bolts. He hit the bag until sweat soaked his shirt and dripped into his eyes. He hit it until his knuckles swelled and cracked. Then he hit it some more.
Sweat blurred his vision. Tears too. He sobbed out his misery with every punch.
Finally, he stumbled back and landed on his ass with a pillar at his back. “Derek, you fucker,” he repeated, this time in a voice as small and pathetic as the man he was.
He’d wondered what had ripped DG away from him too many hours before dawn last night. Now he knew. He had. When he’d put her in a coma.
He’d nearly killed his dream girl before he’d even met her.
* * * *
The trailer door squeaked open, but Derek hardly heard it. He was in the zone. Phone calls, emails, scheduling meetings, approving plans, putting out fires. It wasn’t fun, but it sure as hell beat thinking about last night. Or later today.
“Jesus, Summers, what’d you do to your hand?” Fred tossed his hardhat in the extra chair.
The hand in question tightened around a pen, making the bruised and scabbed knuckles throb. “None of your goddamned business, that’s what.”
As soon as he said it, he wished he could take it back. That had been harsh, even for him.
Fred had busted his ass this week to help pull the site together for the walkthrough while Derek took care of Haley and turned himself in. The construction engineer deserved a pat on the back, not a verbal lashing.
He threw down the pen and wiped a hand down his face. “Sorry, Fred. It’s been a rough week.” Funny how the S word was free flowing out of his mouth these days. He’d said it to Haley. He’d said it to DG. Now Fred, who waved away the apology.
“No wonder, what with your kid breaking her arm. That’s the worst. You wish you could take it for them, you know.” Fred had five kids, all grown now, but over the years, Derek had heard stories about each one.
He had Haley on his mind, of course, but she wasn’t the reason for his short temper today. “Yeah,” he said. “You need something, old man?” He whipped out the nickname, hoping to get back on familiar footing with the CE.
“Just coming in to let you know the chillers are in, one and all. Good job, boss.”
His lungs relaxed a fraction. At least something in his life was going right. He snorted at Fred’s praise. “Like I had anything to do with it. You’re the man, Fred.”
Fred sauntered out of the trailer, and Derek glanced at his computer clock. Almost two o’clock. That left several hours for the crew to get everything connected. They’d be good to go for the walkthrough. Now if he could just pull his personal shit together.
If he could stop hurting the females in his life, that would be really good. Figuring out how to make up for the mother of all hurts, that would be even better. What he’d done to DG—Camilla—went beyond hurt feelings. Way beyond. It went beyond the forgivable.
He’d spent most of the night going back and forth between chomping at the bit to see her, and dreading it. It had been tempting to call off the visit to the hospital today. She probably didn’t even remember him. She’d been in a coma when they were together. If she remembered him at all, he probably seemed like a dream to her. He had probably faded from her memory, like the nightmares were finally fading for him.
But Camilla had asked to see him the very day she’d woken up, right after the officer gave her his name, according to Christy. It’s not like he’d ever been in a situation like this before, but it struck him as unusual for a victim in a car accident to request a meeting with the perpetrator. She had to remember him. Why else would she have asked?
The truth was he couldn’t stand being away from her. He’d run from her once when she’d been hurting and terrified—his dreams had shown him that. He refused to run a second time. And he would be damned if he’d let his dream girl down.
Never again.
He owed her the biggest apology he’d ever uttered. He owed her a lifetime of love to make up for putting her through what she’d experienced last Friday and the weeks and maybe months of recovery she had in front of her. He’d be there every step of the way if she’d let him.
Waving to Fred and the crew, he climbed into his cab and headed out to meet Officer Reynolds, his police escort. He should feel humiliated at needing a babysitter to visit a sick woman in the hospital, but mostly he was just thankful for the chance to see Camilla face to face.
In those rare moments he could breathe past his guilt, he took heart to know she was real. He couldn’t wait to lay eyes on her. Couldn’t wait to hold her hand and stroke her hair and give her back some of the comfort she’d given him. If she’d let him.
She could very well yell and scream at him instead—well, she was on a breathing tube, according to Christy, so she wouldn’t be yelling—but she could hate him. She had every right. If that’s what this visit was about, it would kill him, but he’d take it if it would help her. Then he’d make her see how sorry he was. He’d make sure she knew he loved her. He’d never run from her again.
He parked his truck at the station and went in to meet Officer Reynolds, who turned out to be a heavy, middle-aged black woman eyeing him like a persistent spot of mildew on her bathroom tile. Deidre could learn a thing or two about judgmental looks from Reynolds.
“You the hit-n-run?” she asked.
He sighed and nodded.
“Mmm-hm. Come on. Let’s get this done with.” She ambled out the door and he followed. She made him ride in the back of her cruiser and cut disapproving glances to him from time to time in the mirror.
He didn’t let her get to him. He knew he’d messed up. He had no excuse for cutting Camilla off on Friday. But one bad decision didn’t make him a terrible person. Haley had taught him that. And so had DG. Now it was time to turn things around and be a better man. Hell, maybe he’d even start taking some anger management classes. God and his refrigerator knew he needed a better way to deal with his anger.
“You sit over there,” Reynolds said when they got to Mercy Med’s ICU floor, nodding at a back-to-back line of waiting room chairs. “I’ll let the charge nurse know you’re here.”
She might as well have said, “I’ll let them know someone tracked mud all over the
waiting room floor.”
He didn’t sit. He paced, bouncing on the balls of his feet with nervous excitement. He’d thought about what he would say to Camilla when he saw her. He’d considered telling her he loved her, but didn’t want to risk making her uncomfortable. He’d settled on apologizing, then letting her set the pace. How much did she remember? What would she feel when she saw him?
If he had anything to say about it, by the time he left her today, she’d know he cared about her and would be there for her in whatever way she needed.
Reynolds had been gone for a while. What was taking her so long? He peeked around the wall of the waiting room to see her standing at the ICU reception desk. She had her hands on her hips, arguing with a tall blond man in slim-fitting, tailored pants and a lavender dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves. He had on a watch flashy enough to be a Rolex, and his shoes looked Italian.
He dressed just like Mark, Deidre’s pretentious partner at the realty firm.
“Ms. Arlington is not to have any contact with the defendant or vice versa,” he said. “Not under any circumstances.”
“I find it hard to believe your client is bringing suit, based on my talk with her yesterday,” Reynolds said. “What are you, an ambulance chaser? You talk her into suing or something? I can’t stand people like you. You give attorneys a bad name.”
Her words rolled off him without effect. Casual bastard. Derek wouldn’t mind being able to keep his cool like that.
“I’m just looking out for Ms. Arlington’s best interest,” he said. “And interacting with the defendant before the trial is not in her best interest.”
“Defendant?” Derek asked, stepping up to stand shoulder to shoulder with Reynolds. Who did this ass clown think he was?
