When she took a deep shaky breath, Declan moved to her side and put his arm around her. A week ago, she would’ve pulled away from the contact, but now she welcomed it, craved it. As her arm went around his waist, she realized how much she relied on him to give her strength to get through the tough times.
“I hear his EEG looked good this morning—lots of activity and no inactive spots. That’s excellent. But it’s not going to be like the movies. He’s not going to be asleep one moment and awake and talking the next. Waking up can take days. He may start off with a little movement. Or if he weren’t on the ventilator, he might make some sounds, mostly moans. He may open his eyes, but it’ll look like no one’s home, if you know what I mean, because he’s only semi-conscious.
“Then when he finally does become aware of his surroundings, he may not be able to get the pathways from his brain to his mouth to fire. It’s possible he may have to relearn to talk, to walk, to read, to feed himself, to tie his shoes. He may not have any coordination. And he’ll certainly be weak especially on the opposite side of the impact to his head.
“He won’t remember the accident. He may have lost a few minutes before or perhaps days. He may ask you repeatedly to tell him what happened. His personality may be altered. It’s all a crapshoot.”
Declan ran his hand up and down her arm twice. “I know that was hard to hear,” he said. “I just wanted you to be prepared. Do you have any questions for Dr. Bradley?”
Nyxie felt like a deer in headlights. A million questions flew through her brain like buckshot, but she couldn’t hold on to any long enough to form a question.
The woman stared at Nyxie, her head cocked to one side. “What just happened there? Dr. Stryker, I think your girlfriend just had an absence seizure. How old are you, Nyxie?”
“What?” Nyxie asked. “No, I was just….”
“She’s twenty-one,” Declan supplied pulling away and reaching for the small penlight in his pocket. “She’s too old to be having absence seizures.”
“No, not necessarily. The statistic says seventy percent outgrow them by age eighteen, which means thirty percent don’t. But then again, maybe I just imagined it—you know one of the hazards of the trade—always looking for neurological symptoms.”
“Can we please get back to Cody,” Nyxie said pushing aside the flashlight shining in her eyes. “How likely will his deficits be permanent?”
“It’s too soon to know.”
When Nyxie looked like she might cry, Declan gathered her up in his arms. “Look on the bright side, if you stay in Chimera Flats, I can write him a note to keep him out of P.E. for life.”
Nyxie chuckled in spite of herself. “God, I would’ve stepped in front of a truck if I’d known that was a possible result.”
Declan kissed her forehead. “It would have been better to push Coach in front of the truck. Think of all the needless suffering that could have been saved.”
She chuckled again and pushed him away. “What a horrible thing to say about your own father.”
Declan shrugged. “I don’t really mean it. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.”
Nyxie felt a strange tug on her heart and the way he casually said, “If you stay in Chimera Flats….” How easily he spoke of the time when she’d be out of his system. He’d be done with her and she could go back to her old life. With any luck, her life would be better for it.
It was heartbreaking to know her attachment to him was growing every day, while his goal seemed to be to rid himself of the crush he had in high school.
Nyxie marveled for the millionth time how Declan Stryker, star jock and hottest boy in the school, could have even noticed her, much less crushed on her. The fact that he still found her attractive after eight years, even though he became a doctor and she worked as a truck stop waitress, still left her in awe.
The woman shook her head. “He’s going to do it in his own time. Some people like to add stimuli, you know talking to him and touching him—maybe it helps. Every case is different so there’s no way to compare.”
Nyxie nodded to acknowledge she understood.
“Thank you for coming in and talking to me. I’m sure you were busy.”
“I’ll see you again when he’s awake.”
The woman stepped up to Cody’s bedside before she left and quickly checked his pupils then apply pressure just below his collarbone. “Kids are resilient. He’s probably going to surprise us all.”
After Dr. Bradley left, Declan picked up Nyxie’s overnight bag off the floor, putting the strap on the same shoulder his gym bag occupied. “Are you ready?”
“I want to stay,” she said quietly not sure how he’d take her going against his wishes. “I know you only slept four hours last night and you have to come back to the hospital tonight. That’s what you told me yesterday, isn’t it? Twenty-four on and twelve off—and now you only have ten hours and change before you clock back in,” she said looking at the clock on the wall.
She could see the internal debate flit across his expression. “Come have lunch with me and I’ll drop you off after—if you agree to let me take you to the house at 10:30 so you get a full night’s sleep yourself. In the morning, you can call a cab.”
Nyxie’s face lit up. “I’d rather take a bus. I need to learn to use public transportation if I’m staying with you for a while. You’re too busy to have to cart me around on your day off.”
“No, Nyxie. I’ve got too much on my mind to worry about you riding the bus.”
Nyxie crossed her arms over her chest and took a step back. She would’ve been upset if she realized she’d done it. But after a lifetime of trying to stay out of range of her father during confrontations, she did it without conscious thought.
“Please, stop treating me like a child. I know I’m not overly smart, but I think I’m smart enough to go online and find the bus route I need.”
Declan narrowed his eyes at her and his mouth turned hard. “Who said anything about your intelligence? I’m worried about your safety. I don’t like the idea of you standing on the side of the street waiting for the bus to come much less riding with a bunch of lowlifes and bottom-feeders.”
“Tell me you’re joking,” she said in disbelief. The people who rode the bus were people she could relate to; people who worked low-wage jobs and couldn’t afford cars or their cars were in the shop, people down on their luck, and people with physical limitations. “So which am I, a lowlife or a bottom-feeder?”
“Take it outside,” Nurse Rachel interrupted. “For God’s sake, these people are sick. They need their rest.”
Declan grabbed Nyxie’s arm. The way she reflexively jerked away gave him pause. “After you,” he said releasing her. As she strode out, Declan scooped up her purse and overnight bag and followed her into the corridor.
“What the hell is your problem?” he said coolly walking to the elevator and jabbing his finger repeatedly at the button.
“My problem? My problem is that Sir is so fucking high above the rest of us commoners, he thinks us poor people are scum. You think because everything has come so effortlessly for you, it comes easily for everyone else and all poor people are that way because they’re lazy. Guess what—those janitors coming off the night shift and those fast food workers are busting their butts for minimum wage.”
“It’s not the people like that I’m talking about. It’s the drunks who lost their licenses and the criminals who can’t find a job and the homeless people who ride all day to stay out of the elements.”
The doors to the elevator opened revealing four people in the car. Declan entered first and stepped to one side and Nyxie followed but moved to the opposite side. They rode down in tense silence until the elevator landed on the ground floor and they could exit.
“Oh, yes and now that I’m not-your-girlfriend, I’m too good to get on the bus. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.”
Declan lengthened his stride as they approached the doors and held it open for he
r as she passed. The sun hit her in the eyes making her squint and sneeze three times.
“Photoptarmosis?”
“I prefer photic sneeze reflex.”
He looked at her like he saw her for the first time.
“What? I’m so dumb I can’t Google, ‘Why does the sun make me sneeze?’”
He grabbed her hand and continued walking. “You keep telling me you’re not smart but then you know random shit like that.”
She shrugged with a one-handed open-palm gesture. “I read a lot now. When your TV doesn’t pick up the stations anymore and you have little or no money to spare, the library is a cheap, easily accessible way to entertain three kids. We like to stop on the way to the Laundromat. It’s just a few blocks out of the way and it gives us something to do while were waiting on the clothes.”
Declan pulled his key fob out of his pocket as they approached his Jeep and the lights flashed as he unlocked the doors. He held the door open and waited for her to clamber inside. “How long are you going to pick fights with me when it’s time to be alone together?”
She glanced at him then lowered her head and mumbled, “I don’t even realize I’m doing it.”
Using one finger under her chin, he lifted her face until they were face to face. “You will not take the bus.”
“Fine, I won’t take the bus.”
Declan set her overnight bag and purse on the floorboard then buckled her seatbelt, leaning in when he couldn’t easily click it.
“Your brother has terrible timing,” he said just before his lips met hers. “I’ve been looking forward to having nothing pressing but you and my bed.”
His lips found hers making her breath hitch as wondrous sensations engulfed her core. It suddenly didn’t matter they had just been arguing. It only mattered that his lips were on hers, his tongue doing the most luscious and erotic things to her mouth. It felt as if the humidity level suddenly soared to one hundred percent because she couldn’t feel the air filling her lungs at all.
His hand slid between her thighs making her jump. The slight gap between her legs closed and she arched her back rolling her sex further beneath her.
He withdrew immediately not glancing at her and shut the door with a solid thud. Nyxie bit her lip as he climbed in and continue to ignore her. He synced his phone with the Jeep’s hands-free device and handed her the phone. “Call Junior’s number for me,” he said as he started the car and backed out of the parking place. “Use the office number.”
Before they were off hospital property, Junior’s voice came through the speakers, his East Texas drawl slightly out of place. “Afternoon, Stryker. I figured I’d be hearing from you today. You were right. The woman’s in lockup. How’d you know?”
“Hospital records. I was trying to clear up some confusion about Nyxie’s birthday and saw her sister had a DUI traffic accident about four months ago and she had been treated courtesy of the jail.”
“So you want me to draw up papers having her hand over guardianship of the two girls to Onyx?”
Declan tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel. “Well, that’s the first step, isn’t it? Nyxie needs to have the right to sue the state to have custody returned to her. I’ve got her with me now. We’ll run down to the jail and see if she’ll sign over guardianship.”
Declan smiled at Nyxie but the smile died on his lips as he saw the uncertainty in her eyes.
“Yeah, we’ll get right on that over here. We’ll draw up papers for both temporary and permanent. Just let us know which, and we’ll go over later this afternoon and get her to sign them.”
“Permanent?” Nyxie chimed in. “Does that mean adoption?”
“Yes, sweet thing, that’s what that means,” the lawyer’s voice said over the speakers. “That is what you want, isn’t it?”
Her faraway expression turned to a tentative smile. “More than anything. But I don’t think my sister will sign away her rights like that.”
“Can’t hurt to ask,” Junior said.
“One more thing, Stryker; I noticed her sister was being represented by the public defender. Did you want us to step in?”
Declan turned to Nyxie, but before he could answer Nyxie spoke. “No. My sister is a drug addict. She is safer locked up than out on the streets. Besides, the more likely she is to go to prison, I think the more likely she will be to sign the papers.”
Nyxie didn’t care if it sounded cold-blooded to let her sister sit in jail so she could get her girls. Melinda had run away from home, leaving Nyxie to fend off their parents and take care of Cody who wasn’t even two at the time. And then she just abandoned her daughters with her a year ago. They were strangers to each other. With their father gone, Nyxie’s income covered Cody’s and her needs, but with two more mouths to feed and clothe and the price of everything going up, Nyxie’s finances were backsliding.
Fuck her.
She hadn’t called once in that whole year. Melinda knew Mrs. Jones had a line going into their apartment. She knew Nyxie worked at the truck stop. She didn’t have the decency to call to let her girls know she was alive. She couldn’t even call to say she loved them and hoped they could be a family again nor did she warn Lotus and Reina that she wanted them to stay with Nyxie for a prolonged visit.
Nyxie was so lost in thought she didn’t know when Declan got off the phone with the lawyer. She wasn’t even aware he was in the car until he touched her hand.
“Are you okay?”
Nyxie exhaled a deep breath through her mouth. “Not really. I-I’ve been so mad at Melinda for everything, I hoped I’d never see her again.”
“Damn. That’s pretty mad,” he said lightheartedly.
“You don’t know how hard it was on Reina and Lotus when she dumped them off.”
He laced his fingers between hers. “But they were better off with you and your life has been enriched because they’re in it.”
Nyxie nodded her head reluctantly. “They are the best gift, besides Cody, that anyone has ever given me.” She turned her head toward the window. “You know when you don’t have much, I think you can really appreciate the true value of the things that are most important and those things are my kids.”
“Do you want to have lunch first?”
She turned and smiled at him. “I’d probably just puke it up. Do you have an old T-shirt in your gym bag?”
“Old? Probably not, T-shirt, yes.”
“May I borrow it? I’m afraid she’ll see me dressed like this and want me to bail her out.”
“Help yourself.”
Nyxie reached behind Declan and pulled his bag through the gap in the seats. After a quick rifle inside she pulled out a Tech T-shirt.
“It just had to be a forty dollar T-shirt, didn’t it?”
“Turn it inside out. You’ll be talking over a monitor. She’ll never know the difference.”
With a quick look around, Nyxie unbuckled her seatbelt, and pulled her blouse over her head. Declan’s head pivoted on his shoulders first as he looked at her then darting around to traffic as she pulled his inside-out shirt over her head.
“Trying to make me wreck?”
“What?” She drew out the word with an innocent intonation.
“If you’re going to strip in my car, warned me so I can watch.”
“You got it,” she said smiling widely at him.
“Seatbelt, Nyxie.”
As they pulled off the Marsha Sharp Freeway onto the interstate, it occurred to her he had been to the jail before. “Were you required to volunteer at the jail during medical school?” she asked wondering if he had ever been arrested but was not bold enough to ask.
“I didn’t go to medical school at Tech. I did my undergrad studies here but I went to medical school in Connecticut. There’s this whole national program to hook you up to a school for residency. I wanted to come here and may have helped my chances with a little donation to the Garrison Center. I figure it couldn’t hurt when I applied for the fellowship program for them to
already know my name.”
Nyxie didn’t really understand about residency and fellowship but was too embarrassed to ask him to explain. She made a mental note to do an internet search when she had time to look it up.
“So, how do you know so much about the jail?”
“A friend got arrested on a DWI once. His parents refused to bail him out.”
“Did you bail him out?”
“Hell, no. He shouldn’t have been smoking pot in a public park. I did put twenty dollars in his commissary account.”
She shoved his bag into the back seat. “I don’t know what that is.”
“You know if they need extra stuff like deodorant or snacks, they can buy it with the money in their account. Maybe if you put money in your sister’s account, it would buy a little goodwill. Use your debit card and put fifty dollars in there.”
Nyxie gave him a face full of attitude. “I am not putting fifty bucks in her account. She’ll want to know where I got the money. If she knows about you, she’ll come looking for me when she gets out. She’ll beg me for drug money, come back into the girls’ lives and then abandon them again.”
Or worse take them away.
29
The paper driver’s permit proved problematic for Nyxie. The deputies required a picture ID, but they never dealt with a state-issued paper license now that it had a picture on it. But after calling the lieutenant and the captain they decided if DPS could accept it so could they.
Nyxie sat nervously for at least fifteen minutes waiting for Melinda to appear on the screen. While she waited, she tried to decide how much to tell Melinda. In the end, she decided to tell her about everything but Declan. How could she explain their agreement? She’d be mortified if she tried to get money from him.
The Love She Craves: Selling Her Soul to Declan Page 25
