Dear Diary

by Nancy Bush

  With her heart pounding in her ears Rory didn’t battle her feelings. She let her fantasies take flight and dismissed the voice that told her she was in dangerous waters. When she felt Nick slip inside her, his hips grinding lovingly against hers, she urged him onward, touching and caressing and demanding, until he laughed in her ear.

  “Slow down. You’re making me crazy.”

  “Good,” she answered firmly and ignored his advice completely.

  She felt the sweat on his shoulders, the muscles that glided beneath his skin like oiled satin, the hard thrust of him deep inside her, pushing her upward, upward, upward. She had to clench her teeth together against an almost intolerable pleasure. The wave of pure sensation that poured over her made her cry out in ecstasy, wringing an answering moan from Nick as he reached his own climax.

  Afterward Rory lay gasping for breath. So much so, in fact, that she felt the silent laughter that rippled through Nick’s body.

  “Why didn’t we do this years ago?” he asked.

  “Because I was smarter than. Now I’ve lost all sense.”

  He braced himself on his elbows, staring into her eyes so closely there was nowhere to hide. “Sometimes you make me feel so alone,” he said with a poignancy that reached inside Rory’s soul. “Why do you do that?”

  She couldn’t answer.

  “I love you, Rory,” he said.

  Her lips parted in shock. She was certain she’d heard wrong. “What?” she whispered.

  His gaze drifted from her troubled eyes to her mouth and back again. “I want a life with you. Children. Marriage. I want it so bad I can taste it.”

  “No… I don’t believe you…”

  His voice gentled. “We’re good together, Rory. We always have been. We could make each other happy. It would work. I got to thinking about you being pregnant with my child, and I can’t get it out of my head. Marry me. I want you.”

  Rory was almost afraid to look at him. Her heart beat like a frantic bird in her chest. This wasn’t what she’d expected. She was afraid. Afraid of believing in him as she’d believed in Ryan, as she’d believed in her father. But he meant what he said, at least at some level. His eyes didn’t lie.

  She licked her lips and unwittingly drew his attention to them. Leaning in, he sucked her bottom lip into his mouth in an utterly sensual gesture, releasing her only to allow her to answer.

  When she couldn’t, he asked in a quiet voice, “Do you feel the same way?”

  “Nick, I’ve always loved you. You know that.”

  “I don’t mean like a brother,” he pointed out impatiently.

  “I know.”

  His fingers cupped her chin, forcing her face in his direction. There was a blue flame of simmering anger in his eyes. “I didn’t want to fall in love with you, but I have. Maybe I’ve always been in love with you. But you don’t give anything, Rory. Sometimes I think I’m wasting my time, but then I tell myself you couldn’t make love to me like you do without feeling something.”

  “Of course I feel something.” Her voice quivered.

  “What?”

  “You’re scaring me with this conversation, Nick.”

  “Am I?” He swore under his breath. “What’s so difficult about admitting how you feel?”

  “Everything! Maybe it’s easy for you, but it’s sure not for me.” She tried to slide off the bed, but he yanked her back, rolling onto his back and pulling her across his chest. Her hair fell down around them like a silken curtain.

  “I know you. No, don’t shake your head. I do know you, in a way that you refuse to admit. But I don’t know what happened to you? Whenever I ask, it scares the hell out of you. What is it?”

  She tried to twist her wrists free of his hands, but he held her tight. “Fine,” she declared. “I don’t trust men. Period. Ask Michelle.”

  “You wouldn’t be here right now, like this, with me, if you didn’t trust me.”

  “I don’t trust a man to be faithful. My father cheated on my mother. Michelle’s husband’s cheating on her.” She hesitated, then said, “Jenny said you cheated on her.”

  “We covered that,” he said tensely. “I told you I didn’t.”

  “Okay.”

  “You think I’m lying?”

  “No. I just think…”

  “What?”

  He was growing angry with her, but he was the one demanding to know why she felt the way she did. “I’m not convinced that, over time, you could be faithful. Jenny already thought you weren’t. Maybe she sensed what was going to happen.”

  “Jenny said that just to get you. She was threatened by you. You know it,” he accused flatly.

  “Well, you can’t promise you’d never cheat on me,” Rory threw back incautiously. “That’s all I’m saying. That’s what I believe.”

  Nick’s breath came out in a rasp of frustration. “I can promise. I’ll never cheat on you, Rory, because you’ll never give me the chance!”

  Rory knew she was being ridiculous but she couldn’t help herself. She realized suddenly, calmly, that she did love Nick, loved him more than she’d ever loved anyone in her life.

  Witnessing the emotions crossing her face, he waited, watching her closely. Her heart beat painfully in her chest. This was the moment, she sensed, when she made her choice. Either trust Nick enough to take a chance, or turn away.

  “Come with me tomorrow,” he said urgently. “I want you with me.”

  She drew a breath. “I can’t. Michelle…”

  “Michelle can live without you for one day. Call your mother. She can be with Michelle.”

  “She won’t come. It would be too much for her.”

  “Then let Michelle stand on her own two feet for one day. Just one day.”

  In his eyes she saw the kind of need she’d always wanted to see in a man. The kind of vulnerability and open pain she was afraid to reveal in herself. Her heart responded. Her breath quickened. Rory’s lips parted. I love you, she thought, her face naked with emotion.

  “Tell me,” he urged.

  Her hesitation was too long. There was a roaring in her ears, a tidal wave of fear that she was following in her mother’s and sister’s footsteps. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t do it.

  From a long distance away she heard him say bitterly, “It’s not in you, is it? I never realized until now that you didn’t feel the same. God, what a joke. I’ve suffered from loving you for years, and you don’t even feel the same way.” With a muscular twist he was out from beneath her, pulling on his clothes.

  “That’s not true…” Rory’s voice shook.

  He glanced back, his shirt in his hands.

  I love you, she thought again, throat dry, working up the courage to lay bare the emotions she’d kept hidden for most of her lifetime. Perspiration broke out on her skin. Her stomach clenched.

  When she said nothing, he turned and left without another word.

  DEAR DIARY — NANCY BUSH

  Chapter Twelve

  I’m meeting Nick’s boat at the pier. Last night was the worst night of my life. He asked for a plain, simple answer and my throat just closed. just thinking about the look on his face makes me feel sick. I’m going to tell him the truth today. I love him. And I want him. And if he’s serious about marriage, so am I. I’ll risk it. Being careful doesn’t make me happy. It’s time to take a chance.

  The sun was so bright, the smell of the sound so dank and intense, that Rory was sure she would faint. Pinpoints of light danced across the water, mocking her. Nick. Oh, God, Nick. I can’t bear it if you’re gone.

  “Ms. Camden?” The Coast Guard representative glanced her way, cutting the fuzzy interference from his walkie-talkie with the flick of his thumb on the button. “The Aqua Knot’s been found.”

  He’d appeared almost magically, as if some divine presence had known she would need an answer. He’d told her that a Coast Guard ship had received the relayed SOS and had been dispatched from its dock. It had passed this pier, but it mos
t definitely was answering the Aqua Knot’s mayday call.

  “Survivors?” Rory asked in an unnatural voice.

  “Don’t know yet. Life flights been sent from Seattle Memorial. That’s where any survivors will be taken.” He turned to the captain of Camille’s Folly. “You were the one who took the call?”

  Rory didn’t wait to hear more. Dizzy, she stumbled back toward her car on rubbery legs. The doors were locked and she jerked on the driver’s door twice before realizing what was wrong. Reaction struck. She fell against the hot roof, burning her arms as she buried her face against them, certain she was going to be sick.

  It could’ve been eons later when she opened her eyes and looked around again. She breathed deeply three times, clearing her head. It seemed to take an enormous amount of energy to dig through her purse for her keys. The interior of the car was stuffy, the air so hot it hurt her lungs.

  She’d heard of channeling one’s energy but had never fully understood what it meant until she made that drive to Seattle Memorial Hospital. Sweat started to run down her temples and prickle her back. She drove with intense concentration, repressing her emotions to a tiny burning core.

  Seattle Memorial sat on a hilly rise, the closest hospital to the sound. Still, it took Rory forty minutes of fighting the traffic and road construction and furnace-heat before she pulled into the white-lined parking lot near the emergency door.

  She walked slowly, forcing herself to move forward, her knees so unsteady she didn’t trust herself to stop for fear she’d fall. Above the door was an impersonal sign in red letters: EMERGENCY.

  She stepped inside. The place was as quiet as a tomb. Where was everyone?

  “Can I help you?” the woman at the reception desk asked.

  “The boat accident… I’m here to see if…” Rory couldn’t go on.

  “Please sit down, ma’am,” the woman said swiftly. “The helicopter hasn’t landed yet.”

  “But that can’t be. It’s been over an hour since I left.”

  “Sometimes it takes time,” was her response.

  Numb, she sank down in a chair. The pandemonium she’d been expecting began happening by degrees. She’d been first on the scene, she realized. Treated to the news before the rest of the world. Hushed, excited whispers filled the room. She recognized one of Seattle’s news station’s reporters.

  Her stomach heaved and she rose slowly. “The women’s restroom?” she asked the receptionist faintly.

  “Down the hall and to your left. Here. Let me show you.”

  Rory followed, the gray-tiled floor seeming to heave and buckle beneath her feet. She made it to the restroom and into a stall before retching violently.

  He can’t be dead, she told herself reasonably, washing her face at the sink. She took another deep breath and hazarded a glance at her reflection. Pale as death with black circles around her eyes. Automatically she pulled the tube of lipstick from her purse and colored her lips for lack of anything better to do. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes and she watched them fall unheeded to the bathroom counter.

  She dropped the lipstick into her bag, pressing her hand to her trembling stomach. The smell of the restroom sickened her. He can’t be dead.

  In the waiting room the crowd sat in quiet clusters. Eyes followed Rory’s progress to a chair in the corner. She knew there was something she should do to help. Someone she should call. But until she knew about Nick …

  Distantly, she heard the whir of a helicopter. All talk ceased. The air was filled with expectancy. The phone rang at the desk. Several doctors appeared, then disappeared. No one explained anything.

  The reporter walked to the desk. Rory was in earshot of snatches of conversation.

  “Three people were brought in,” a serious-faced intern revealed.

  “Alive or dead?” The reporters pen was poised over a notepad.

  “One dead, two alive.”

  “Do you have names yet?”

  “Not until we tell the next of kin.”

  “What about the ones who are still living? Men or women?”

  “Men. They’re all men.”

  The reporter scratched madly on his notepad. “Were there any others? I understand four people were on the boat”

  “I don’t know anything more.”

  Four people? Rory knew of Nick and John Marsden and the Aqua Knot’s captain who had already been reported as dead. That mayday report had been made by a woman passenger. Marsden’s wife? Oh, God, how she wished she’d paid more attention when Nick had talked about this boat trip.

  He is not dead, she told herself fervently, lashing herself with guilt. Oh, Nick, I love you. I love you. God, give me the chance to tell him.

  “He insists we give him a local,” the barrel shaped nurse said shortly, her chin thrust forward with injustice.

  Dr. Anthony regarded Nick with tolerance. “We’re going to have to put you under. You may have nerve damage in that arm.”

  “You can fix it with a local.”

  “We can, but we’d rather not.” He looked down into Nick’s face. “How strong is your stomach, young man?”

  “Strong enough.”

  Nick lay on a gurney in one of the recovery rooms next to the O.R. They hadn’t taken the boat accident victims through the emergency room doors since the helicopter had landed on the roof. But he’d be damned if they put him out now. His distrust of doctors and nurses and fear of hospitals in general ran right back to the time in high school when he’d been so sick with the flu.

  He wanted out.

  “Any word on John Marsden?” he asked as the nurse began cutting off his shirt. His left arm throbbed and burned. Glancing at it, Nick understood why they wanted to put him out. It was a bloody mess. The explosion from the engine had sent pieces of wood flying like shrapnel. He’d been thrown face first to the deck, dazing him. Sea water boiling from the hull had sloshed into his eyes and nose, wakening him. The rest was a surreal nightmare. Marsden was knocked unconscious. His wife was stricken with fright.

  The captain was dead from the onset.

  He felt the jab of a needle as a minor discomfort. The nurse glared down at him, angered that she’d lost authority.

  Nick was too tired to care. He closed his eyes. Thank God Rory hadn’t been there. If something happened to her …

  “We’re going to give you a general after all, Mr. Shard.” The doctor’s voice sounded wavy and distorted. “Because you’re going under all by yourself.”

  Rory must’ve fallen into some kind of trance. Her muscles suddenly jerked awake, and she gasped, trying to get her bearings. She blinked. Outside the windows she saw the news van. Inside, the emergency room had grown quiet with dread.

  The doctor appeared, looking briskly efficient. He glanced around, and Rory realized he was about to make an announcement of some sort. The news people went to work, their man holding out his microphone for the doctor.

  “The three people brought in by life-flight from the Aqua Knot were Mr. John Marsden, Mr. Nick Shard and Mr. Giles Wilkes, the boat’s captain. Mr. Wilkes was dead on arrival. Mrs. Mary Marsden, also a passenger, was brought in by the Coast Guard and has been admitted for shock and exposure, but she’s in good condition.”

  Rory climbed to her feet. Fear filled her heart.

  “Mr. Marsden is in critical condition. He sustained head injuries and we’re still checking the extent of those injuries. Mr. Shard is in the operating room to repair damage to his left arm.”

  Alive! Hope surged through Rory, and the relief hit so fast she felt faint. She dropped her head to her knees as the doctor finished his interview, then shakily stood a few moments later and went to him. “Excuse me, but I’m a friend of Nick Shard’s. When will I know how he is?”

  “When he’s in recovery.”

  “And when will that be?” Rory asked, hands trembling uncontrollably.

  “Fairly soon.”

  “Do you know how serious his injuries are?”

  He ga
ve her a long look and gently pulled her to one side. “No. I’m sorry. You’ll just have to wait and see.”

  It was nine o’clock and the skies had deepened to a bluish gray, nearly the same shade as Nick’s eyes, Rory thought miserably when she decided she could wait no longer. “I need to know about Nick Shard, one of the boat accident victims,” she told the woman at the desk.

  “You’ll have to wait—”

  “I won’t. I won’t wait.”

  The receptionist examined Rory’s determined face through eyes that had seen it all. With a sigh, she said, “Dr. Anthony will be down soon.”

  “Who is Dr. Anthony?”

  “Our surgeon on duty.”

  “Can I wait for him somewhere else?”

  “I—” The line rang and she picked it up, but her eyes were on Rory. When the call ended, she said, “Just a moment.” After punching out a number, she asked into the receiver, “When will Dr. Anthony be available?” A pause. “There’s a woman here who is very worried about one of his patients‌—‌a Mr. Shard.” Another pause. She glanced up at Rory. “Are you related to Mr. Shard?”

  Rory drew a breath and prayed she wouldn’t be struck by lightning. But she wasn’t going to be deterred. “I’m his sister.”

  The receptionist relayed the information and suddenly Rory was whisked into the inner sanctum. Dr. Anthony came striding toward her, still in surgical greens.

  “We didn’t know he had a sister here, ma’am,” he said by way of introduction. “Your brother is fine. His left arm was severely lacerated, and it took a few stitches to put him together, but the nerves look fine and there are no broken bones. He was lucky.”

  Reaction turned Rory’s legs to water. “I‌—‌I need to sit down.”