Love of Steele

by Ivy Raine

  Marta gripped his hand a little tighter. “When you took off, I thought all kinds of crazy things, but this definitely wasn’t one of them.”

  “Yeah? What kind of mischief did you think I was up to?”

  “A woman.”

  “What woman?”

  “The woman you were seeing, of course. At first I thought it was Lindi, but now I’m not so sure.”

  Stash chuckled and nestled further down into his pillow. “The only woman I’ve been seeing is the one running the dialysis machine.” He pulled Marta’s hand up and kissed it. “Why do you think I was so pissed when you made that date with Mirelli?”

  If it was humanly possible to feel any worse that she did, Marta wouldn’t believe it. “Oh, you big idiot! I would’ve gone with you!”

  Stash yawned again. “You’ve got your life ahead of you, beautiful. I don’t wanna be a millstone.”

  “Better than being a pain in my ass, Steele.”

  His eyes cracked a fraction of an inch. “Save the dirty talk for when I’m awake.”

  Marta slipped her fingers out of Stash’s hand. “I’ll go so you can rest.”

  “Hmm. Don’t go far.” His voice trailed off and Marta knew sleep was claiming him.

  Marta winced. “Right outside the door,” she whispered.

  Lindi sat waiting on a bench in the hall.

  “You know,” Marta said, sitting down beside her, “you’re not what I thought you were.”

  Lindi knew exactly what she meant. “It’s not that I didn’t try. He just wasn’t having it.” She looked Marta over. “He’s in love with you, you know. Oh, he won’t admit it, but he is. Stash wouldn’t admit that he loved anyone except himself.”

  Marta laughed. “Yeah. He has a habit of building up his own ego.”

  “Someone’s got to after the life he’s had. Did you know his mother died when he was eight?”

  Marta nodded. “He told me she drank herself to death.”

  Lindi lowered her voice and glanced toward Stash’s door. “That’s just the result. She drank because Stash’s dad was a womanizer and cheated on her with a new whore every other week.”

  That bit of information explained a lot: his attitude about women, his use and pitch tacticts – he’d learned them from his dad. As unfair as it was, Marta wondered if Stash had inherited that gene. “He never mentions his dad.”

  “That’s probably because he’s dead.” Lindi raised her brows. “That little revelation slipped out one day last week when he was at a really low spot. He kept going on about how he didn’t want to be like him and how he hated what his father had done to his mother. How he wished he could be a better person. How he didn’t think he was worthy of anyone.” The energetic pitch to Lindi’s voice suddenly shifted, and her next words, faraway and reflective, held a lifetime of weight. “His father committed suicide two years after his mother’s death. Bullet to the head. Stash is the one who found him face down in his pillow. He told me he couldn’t talk for almost six months. The words just wouldn’t come.”

  The empty spot in Marta’s stomach constricted. “Oh, my God!”

  All the crying around and self-pity over Kyle was dwarfed compared to what Stash went through as a child. She wanted to go to him and hold him and never let him go. The fog started to lift and Marta realized Stash wasn’t such a mystery after all. He was just terrified of loving someone – someone who might go away and leave him all alone. Marta understood this concept. She lived it on a daily basis. Stash was right. They were made for each other.

  “I know it sounds evil saying this,” Lindi said sheepishly, “but I hope they get a kidney for him soon.”

  Marta felt an internal pang. She’d thought the same thing, but felt guilty for thinking someone else’s tragedy would be Stash’s miracle. Lindi just had the guts to verbalize it.

  “Yep.”

  “Are you gonna be tested?” Lindi rubbed the spot on her arm where they’d taken blood.

  “I didn’t even think of that, actually.” The immense generosity of Lindi made Marta feel like a heel for not thinking of it on her own.

  “They might want a sample of skin tissue, too. I didn’t get quite that far because I’m not a blood match. Apparently Stash is type B and I’m A, and they’d rather have a better match considering his condition.”

  Marta’s heart did a flipflop. “I’m type B.” A strong, silent force jerked her off the bench. “Where?”

  ***

  “This shouldn’t hurt.”

  All Marta felt was a gentle tug at her arm, and by the time she mustered up the courage to take a look, the doctor was already putting a bandage over the spot where he’d taken a small skin sample.

  “It’ll take about a week,” he said, handing the sample to the nurse. “We’ll call you.”

  “You won’t need to. I’ll be here.”

  Lindi, still sitting in the waiting room, jumped up when she saw Marta. “How did it go?”

  “A lot better than I thought. I was expecting them to take a huge chunk and it was just a tiny, little spot.”

  Lindi’s cell phone vibrated. “It’s Brad doing his nightly check-in. Do you want to talk to him? ”

  Marta shook her head. “I’ll call him when I get home tonight. Just tell him I said ‘hi’.” She wandered away to give Lindi privacy.

  Nightly check-in. All those weeks had gone by with Brad keeping close tabs on Stash’s condition, ready to whisk Marta to the hospital at a moment’s notice if need be. He did it all knowing that Marta wasn’t really in love with him. What did he call himself? Ah, yes. A temporary distraction. Marta prayed that Brad would find someone worthy of his love and devotion, someone who appreciated it and could give back what he so selflessly gave out with little expectation of receiving anything in return. Glancing over at Lindi, who smiled while chatting with Brad, Marta felt an irrational pang of jealousy and yearned to be the one to hear his comforting voice. She had no rights to him. She knew this without a doubt, but it wasn’t romantic, lustful jealousy that she felt. It was more not wanting to let go of the only stable thing in her life at the moment, but knowing she had to – at least for now. It would be too easy, especially if something were to happen to Stash, to run to Brad and let him make everything better. No. He deserved more than that. He deserved the same thing she was searching for. He deserved true love. He deserved forever.

  “Come on.” Lindi’s voice brought Marta out of her trance. Pinching Marta’s sweater between her fingers, she tugged, leading her around the corner and into the cafeteria. “Let’s get some dinner.”

  “About Brad,” Marta said, toying with the strap of her bag cutting into her shoulder. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I’m not some fickle bitch who jumps from one to the other. Brad’s an amazing guy, he really is, but I’m just not in love with him. I tried, and I do love him, but not in a romantic way.”

  Lindi’s tired eyes echoed back what Marta was saying. “He’s easy to love, isn’t he?” Caught off guard at her verbal slip, Lindi could do little more than shrug. “Well, no use trying to hide it,” she said with an exhausted grin.

  “When?” A multitude of questions bombarded Marta, but this one was the most intriguing.

  “In the middle of this whirlwind.” Lindi waved her arms out from her sides. “He started out by calling to check on Stash in the mornings, and then it morphed into him bringing us something from the restaurant in the evenings when he could get away. We got to talking about things and life and…what can I say?”

  The matchmaker in Marta was about ten steps ahead. “Does he know?”

  Lindi shook her head. “Once again, you’re the apple of his eye.” She sighed. “You’ve got really good taste in men.”

  Marta couldn’t help but laugh. “Your dad doesn’t seem to think so.”

  Lindi looked confused. “My dad?”

  “I went to the garage to see you, but you weren’t there. That’s when he told me Stash was unreliable.”

  Lindi
grunted. “That’s not what he said when Stash was putting in fourteen hour days. That’s probably part of the reason his condition deteriorated so quickly.” Suddenly realizing what Marta said, Lindi stopped before her rant was complete. “Why did you come to see me?”

  Yes, why? Marta thought that one over herself, and she really didn’t know what propelled her to the garage that day. Desperation, maybe. Knowing that she would have to make a choice soon. A choice between the man she loved and the man that loved her. Had she found Stash and Lindi together, it would have made her decision easy. Maybe that’s what she was looking for – an easy way out. An exit path strewn with cotton and a heart wrapped in tissue paper to keep the pain away seemed to be the best way to go. Nothing would be her fault and nothing could hurt her.

  “I really don’t know.” Marta looked down, avoiding Lindi’s soul-pulling eyes. “A big part of it was just wanting closure so I could move on, I suppose.”

  Lindi bent down and looked up and into Marta’s face. “And did you find it?”

  “I thought I did – until I got home and found a note from his ex waiting for me.”

  Straightening up, Lindi crossed her arms. “Let me guess. Devon.”

  “How did you know?”

  “She stopped by the garage about two weeks ago. I hadn’t been there for a while, so I figured I’d help out with paperwork for a few hours to get Dad caught up.”

  “You actually saw her?” In pure feminine form, Marta burned to know what she looked like, but she held back.

  “Did I ever.” Anger clouded Lindi’s tired face. “I’m thankful a wrench wasn’t handy, or I might be sitting in jail right now for assault and battery. That woman’s unfiltered evil wrapped up in silk.”

  “And Stash?”

  “He doesn’t even know she was here, and he’s not going to. I sent Miss Perfect home with a sob story about how he left me and went to Arizona.”

  “Arizona?”

  “Yep. Tempe, actually.”

  Marta wrapped her arms around Lindi and pulled her close. “I think I love you! But, we’ll have to tell him, you know.”

  Lindi raised one brow. “Eventually.”

  The dinner line finally started to move. Marta bobbed her head, straining to see past the six foot five guy dressed in blue scrubs.

  “At least it looks hot.” Lindi nudged Marta. “Hey. None of that rabbit food,” she said, noticing Marta eyeing up the salad bar. “You haven’t had a bite of real food since you got here early this morning, and you look like you’re about to drop. Besides, I don’t want to stuff a full course meal down my throat all alone.”

  Marta couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re a stick figure, Lindi. What’ve you got to worry about? Besides, I eat salad because I like salad, not to lose weight.”

  Lindi tensed just a tiny bit, but Marta couldn’t help but notice.

  “Did I say something wrong?” Marta hated pissing people off. The words that offended would forever ring in her ears – even years later something would remind her of it, bringing the entire scene to the surface once again.

  “No.” Lindi smiled, but Marta could see the pain on her face. “It’s just that I’ve been battling various eating disorders since I was a preteen. I was a fat kid, and it didn’t help that my mom died when I was six. My dad did his best, but with the garage taking up most of his time, he fed me a lot of processed food. Not his fault, and I’ve never once blamed him, but I knew I had to do something and the easiest thing was to just not eat.”

  The irony of their reverse situations struck Marta. “I’m sorry about your mom.” She thought of Stash. “There seems to be an epidemic of that going around.”

  “Yep. You don’t realize just how many kids lose their parents until you lose yours. Once you do, you get the knowing glances from the others. Almost like a silent initiation.” Lindi grabbed two napkins and handed one to Marta. “The eating issues are pretty much behind me now, but I still find myself inching in that direction and feeling it pull at me when things get stressful. As crazy as it sounds, it’s almost like a comfort thing for me, something I can control.” She smiled and brightened up. “But I’m getting better and better as the years go by. I had a baby four years ago and now she’s way more important than anything else in this world. And the funny part is I don’t even have to try to diet. With all the running around after her, I burn everything I take in. This is her,” she said, shifting her silverware and straw to one hand and pulling out her cell phone. “I named her Josephine after my mom.”

  “That’s a pretty name for a very pretty little girl.” Marta smiled at the cascade of blonde curls framing her tiny face.

  “Thanks. She looks just like her dad, and she’s smart like him, too. He’s in college right now. When the baby was born, he dropped out to get a job, but I convinced him to go back for her sake. When he graduates and gets a job, he promised we’d take a family vacation.”

  “But, I thought-.” Marta stopped herself.

  “We’re not together anymore, if that’s what you were going to ask, but we made a promise to stay friends for Josie’s sake. So far, it’s worked out pretty well.”

  “Wow.” That was the only word Marta could muster to describe the situation. She’d seen what breakups can do to people who didn’t have kids, and couldn’t imagine the self-control it took to have a relationship like that. “That’s great.”

  “Yeah. I’ve missed her a lot being here at the hospital, but this is temporary. Once Stash gets better, we’ll get things straightened around again.” She grabbed a plate and handed one back to Marta. Lindi fell silent for a minute as they made their way through the line, then abruptly, she turned to Marta. Her eyes betrayed the guilt she felt inside. “I’ve called Andrew.”

  Marta’s heart did a flip flop and the ladle she was holding slipped from her fingers and dropped into the gravy with a plop. “His brother? He hadn’t called him yet? What’s wrong with that man?” At least Marta knew she was in good company.

  Lindi skewered a big slice of beef and topped it off with gravy. “Apparently Stash thinks it’s perfectly fine. He made me promise not to tell and I really tried, but I just can’t do it anymore. He didn’t want me to call anyone – even if he died. Pretty messed up, huh?”

  “Yeah. Really messed up.” Marta wondered how one man could be that disenchanted with the entire human race. “Is he coming?”

  “Don’t know. I told him what was going on and that Stash was okay for now.” Lindi grabbed a fresh-baked roll on her way to their table. “He said he’d get things organized at work, but that was three days ago, so who knows.”

  Stash’s description of his brother nagged at Marta. Surely he wasn’t really as bad as Stash portrayed him.

  Settling in at the table, Marta picked up her fork and poked around on her plate. “God, I’m tired. These last two months have been pure hell.”

  Lindi reached out and touched her hand. “Why don’t you stick with me and Josie tonight? My apartment’s less than four miles from here. We’ll come back together in the morning.”

  The genuine concern in Lindi’s eyes melted a little part of Marta’s heart. She hadn’t seen that much love in one woman’s eyes since she left her mother standing on the porch the day she left home. Marta laid her opposite hand on Lindi’s and nodded.

  “I’m so sorry if I’ve ever been anything less than kind to you.” She delved deep into Lindi’s eyes, feeling a comradery that can only be felt when you’ve suffered with someone. “Stash was right. You have an amazing personality.”

  The blue of Lindi’s eyes became a little brighter. “He said that?”

  Marta nodded. “Yep. You’ve also got great legs, fantastic teeth and you cook like a pro.”

  Lindi teared up. “Thanks for that, Marta.”

  The love of Stash Steele was a powerful thing. It was a web made of superglue, pulling you in and holding you fast. Lindi’d once been on the strands of sticky silk, and even though she’d extracted herself, the allur
e of the spider kept her close at hand.

  “When your dad told me you went after Stash, I thought -.” Marta stopped. This could be a rotten can to open, especially now. “Well, let’s just say I was concerned.”

  Lindi looked a little surprised. “Seriously? No need to worry about that man. He’s loyal to a fault.”

  Loyal to a fault. Marta rolled the words over and over in her head and tried to apply them to Stash, but for some reason, though she desperately wanted them to, they just didn’t want to stick. Now she was going to have to reassess, yet again.

  When the day began, the absolute last person in the world Marta thought she’d be going home with was Blondie with the tight pants and six inch claws. Now, she was just Lindi, a mother who put everyone else ahead of herself. Though they were nearly the same age, Marta felt safe with Lindi. Maybe it was Lindi’s worldly experience that made her seem older and motherly, or maybe it was just the simple fact that she was a mother. Whatever it was, Marta liked it – and liked Lindi. She completely ‘got’ what Stash saw in her. She was real.

  Marta prayed – really prayed, for the first time in many months when she went home with Lindi that night. She prayed for Stash’s health, she prayed for her family, heck she even prayed for Devon in her long-winded make-up session with God. Looking back, she figured the praying is what kept her sane that night. It kept her mind occupied until sleep snuffed out the light.

  Chapter 16

  Two hours late. Marta broke every speed limit from the cottage to the hospital, not once thinking of her spotless driving record. Those two hours lost were like pure gold swirling down the drain.

  “I go home for one stinking night and I’m late,” she grumbled, looking at the dash clock for the tenth time in twenty minutes. For the last two days, Marta’d spent every waking hour at the hospital keeping Stash company in between his frequent naps. The one night she decided to go home for a shower and a change of clothes, she’s late.