Force of Nature

by Kim Baldwin

  Gable took several long, deep breaths.

  “Good. Very good.” The doctor reached for the junction of the tubing and unhooked it. “Okay, I want you to blow out a big breath for me.”

  She exhaled, wincing as the doctor withdrew the tube that had been down her throat. She started coughing as soon as it was out, and a spasm of pain rolled through her chest.

  “Easy,” the doctor said. “Try to relax.”

  The coughing abated and she sank back against the pillow. Her mouth and throat were swollen and raw, and her chest felt as though someone were sitting on it. “Thanks,” she croaked.

  “You’re welcome.” The doctor poured a paper cup of water as he pressed on a foot pedal to raise the head of the bed slightly. “Here, sip this. Just a little.” He put a straw in the cup and held it to her lips.

  She took a few tentative sips, which eased the soreness in her throat.

  The doctor glanced over his shoulder at a nurse who was hovering nearby. “Get some ice chips, will you, please?”

  “How long…” Gable coughed again. The doctor gave her another sip. “How long have I been here?”

  “The accident was yesterday morning. It’s”—he glanced at his watch—“about two-fifteen in the afternoon on Tuesday.”

  I’ve lost a whole day and then some. Where was I all that time? Gable couldn’t remember anything beyond deciding to finally let go of that last breath.

  “You’re out of immediate danger,” the doctor continued, putting on his stethoscope and warming it before he laid it gently against her chest. “But we want to keep you in here a couple more days and keep an eye on you. Make sure there are no complications with your lungs.” He listened for a moment, then took off the stethoscope with a satisfied expression. “Thank God the water was as cold as it was. You should make a full recovery.”

  “Great,” she rasped.

  “You got some frostbite on your hands,” he said, prompting Gable to glance down at them for the first time. Both were wrapped in gauze. “They’ll take a while to heal, but I expect no permanent damage. Your right hand got up cut up pretty good by the ice too, but no bones were broken. And you have some bruising around your waist from the rope.”

  Pretty minor stuff when you really should be dead. She glanced at Erin, and her heart filled with joy and gratitude that she’d been spared yet again. Thank you for giving us more time together, she prayed.

  “That was a very heroic thing you did.” The doctor rested a hand briefly on her shoulder. “If you promise not to talk much, I’ll let in a few of your visitors. But I’m going to tell them to keep it very very short. You need your rest.”

  *

  The doctor hadn’t been exaggerating when he said a crowd was waiting to see her. More than half the fire squad was there, including Carl and Tim, and June had called in sick at the pharmacy so she could be there when Gable woke up. The most tearful visitors were the parents of the boy she saved.

  The nurses enforced the doctor’s order and allowed them to visit only long enough to wish Gable well. Once the crowd had gone, Gable sent Stewart on his way too, under protest. He agreed to go home to Kalamazoo only because she insisted, and Erin promised to keep him informed of every development by cell phone.

  Once they were alone, Erin sat on the edge of the bed and put her hand on Gable’s thigh. “How do you feel?”

  “Mmm. Tired,” Gable answered. Her eyelids were drooping.

  “The doctor said you need to rest.”

  “Stay with me?”

  “You just try to get rid of me.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it,” Gable replied. “Come up here beside me?”

  “We shouldn’t.”

  “Don’t care. If you really want me to get some sleep…”

  “What about your hands?”

  “They’re all right. We’ll be careful.”

  Erin relented and climbed onto the narrow hospital bed next to Gable. She settled gingerly into her familiar position, lying on her left side with her head tucked into the crook of Gable’s shoulder. Gently, she draped her arm across Gable’s stomach.

  “Sore?”

  “S’fine. Thanks,” Gable mumbled drowsily. She was nearly asleep when Erin whispered her name.

  “Gable? You still awake?”

  Gable answered but didn’t open her eyes. “Mmm-hmm.”

  “All my life, I always dreamed I’d only get married once. Just once.”

  Gable struggled to rouse herself. Erin’s talking about marriage. This is important. You have to stay awake. She wanted to encourage her to continue, but she didn’t want to interrupt. Instead, she tilted her head and kissed Erin’s forehead.

  “My parents were married for fifty-one years. Devoted to each other until Dad died. And you know how it is, growing up Irish Catholic. No one we knew ever got divorced. It just didn’t happen. That’s the mentality I grew up with.” Erin paused for a long moment.

  “I guess I just always believed in the fairy tale that you find the person you’re destined to be with, and you live happily ever after.” She paused again. “But it didn’t happen that way for me.” She took a long, deep breath and let it out.

  “I was right out of college, and had just started teaching when I met Phil. I was thirty pounds heavier and hadn’t dated much. Very inexperienced sexually—thanks to all those years of parochial schools. Phil was tall, charming, and a year older than I was, and I had no idea what he saw in me when he asked me out.”

  Gable could feel her tremble at the recollection.

  “I didn’t have any self-confidence at all, you understand, back then. I was still a kid, really. I was flattered by the attention, and I wanted so much to fall in love that I got swept up in the relationship. We got married less than three months after we met.”

  She trembled again. Took another long, deep breath.

  “Things went downhill almost immediately. Phil was a very jealous guy. He hated to have me out of his sight at all, and if any guy dared talked to me…Well, he’d accuse me of all sorts of things for hours afterward. I didn’t know it right away, but I found out later he followed me when I wasn’t with him, spying on me to see if I was cheating on him. He even listened in on my phone calls.”

  Another long pause.

  “What started out as gentle lovemaking became constant demands for sex. Rough sex. Whether I was up for it at that moment or not.”

  Gable was wide-awake now; her anger at the thought of what Erin had suffered was pouring through her.

  “He told me from the beginning that he didn’t believe in divorce.” Erin laughed, but it was a laugh without humor. “I thought that was a good thing, at the time.”

  She took another deep, shuddering breath. Her voice, when she resumed, had the soft, fearful quality of a child’s voice relating a nightmare. “He started drinking more and more. And then he started hitting me, about six months into the marriage.”

  Gable clenched her jaw. A tear streamed down her cheek.

  “He broke my arm the first time. He cried and cried and promised it would never happen again. The second time he blackened both my eyes and gave me a concussion. That’s when I left him.”

  Erin shifted her weight and hugged Gable tighter. “Phil refused to give me a divorce. He went to the school where I worked and made all sorts of crazy accusations, until finally they had to let me go. I don’t blame them. They were worried about the kids, and he was clearly out of control.”

  She sighed. “Then he started showing up at the apartment where I moved. I wouldn’t answer the door, and he’d pound on it and make all the neighbors crazy.” Another pause. “One night he hid in the laundry room down the hall until I came home and pushed his way in behind me.”

  Erin was shaking again. “That was an awful night. And next day. During most of it, he kept me tied up and gagged and locked in a closet.” A tear fell and landed on Gable’s chest.

  “Oh, Erin.” Gable’s insides were twisted in knots.

 
“When he sobered up, he let me go, begging and pleading for forgiveness. I called the cops and got a restraining order and a lawyer. Phil was facing a lot of serious charges, but the prosecutor wasn’t optimistic the jury would convict him. I was still married to him, after all.” Another long pause.

  “My lawyer worked a deal. Phil granted me a divorce and agreed to leave me alone, and I agreed not to press charges. I moved again the next day.” She exhaled. A long, slow release of air, announcing her relief at finishing the story. “I looked over my shoulder for a long time, but I never heard from him again. So now you know,” she concluded. “I haven’t let myself think about those times very much. Too depressing. But Karen is helping me to get past the pain and move forward.”

  “I’m so sorry, Erin, that you had to endure so much,” Gable whispered.

  Erin shifted so that she could meet Gable’s eyes for the first time since she’d started her story. “I’m sorry I’ve been living in the past. I’ve let it haunt me much too long.”

  She kissed Gable—a sweet, soft kiss on the lips.

  “Ahem!” the duty nurse interrupted from the doorway. It was the same nurse who had flirted with Gable the last time she was hospitalized.

  They broke apart, both turning deep red in embarrassment, but the nurse just chuckled. She checked Gable’s IV and then turned to go. “Since you’re the talk of the hospital today, I’ll pretend not to notice that visiting hours ended a while ago. Call if you need anything. Although I would say you seem pretty content at the moment.” She winked at them and pulled the door closed as she left the room.

  “I should let you get some sleep,” Erin said, settling back against Gable’s side.

  “Thank you for telling me,” Gable whispered.

  “I trust you, Gable. In a way I’ve never been able to trust anyone before.”

  “That’s the way I feel about you too,” Gable said.

  “I know that, honey. You’ve been very patient with me, and I appreciate it. I know that you’d never do anything to hurt me.” She began caressing Gable’s stomach with her hand.

  It was lulling. Gable’s eyes closed.

  “And I know I couldn’t imagine life without you,” she said.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Gable replied drowsily.

  “Still got that ring?”

  Gable was instantly awake again. Did I hear what I just thought I heard? “Yes.” She held her breath.

  “I’m ready to talk about that now. Well not now, necessarily. Maybe we should wait until we have a little more privacy and all, and you’ve had a chance to think about whether you still want to. I mean, if you don’t still want to, I’ll understand…” She rambled on, uncertain.

  “Oh, I want to, love. I want that more than anything,” Gable said, her voice breaking as they held tight to one another.

  “I love you,” Erin said. “And I like saying it.”

  “Good.” Gable kissed her very softly. “Because I want to hear it forever.”

  About The Author

  Kim Baldwin has been a writer for three decades, following up twenty years as an executive in network news with a second vocation penning lesbian fiction.She has published five other solo novels with Bold Strokes Books in addition to Breaking the Ice: the intrigue/ romances Flight Risk and Hunter’s Pursuit and the romances Force of Nature, Whitewater Rendezvous, and Focus of Desire. Four of her books have been finalists for Golden Crown Literary Society Awards. She has also published two books in the Elite Operatives Series in collaboration with Xenia Alexiou: Lethal Affairs (translated into Dutch as Dubbel Doelwit) and Thief of Always. The third book in the series, Missing Lynx, comes out in February 2010.

  Kim has also contributed short stories to five BSB anthologies: The Lambda Literary Award–winning Erotic Interludes 2: Stolen Moments; Erotic Interludes 3: Lessons in Love; IPPY and GCLS Award–winning Erotic Interludes 4: Extreme Passions; Erotic Interludes 5: Road Games, a 2008 Independent Publishers Award Gold Medalist; and Romantic Interludes 1: Discovery. She is currently at work on her tenth novel. She lives in the north woods of Michigan, but takes to the road with her laptop and camera whenever possible. Her Web site is www.kimbaldwin.com and she can be reached at baldwinkim@gmail.com.

  Books Available From Bold Strokes Books

  Fever by VK Powell. Hired gun Zakaria Chambers is hired to provide a simple escort service to philanthropist Sara Ambrosini, but nothing is as simple as it seems, especially love. (978-1-60282-135-4)

  High Risk by JLee Meyer. Can actress Kate Hoffman really risk all she’s worked for to take a chance on love? Or is it already too late? (978-1-60282-136-1)

  Missing Lynx by Kim Baldwin and Xenia Alexiou. On the trail of a notorious serial killer, Elite Operative Lynx’s growing attraction to a mysterious mercenary could be her path to love—or to death. (978-1- 60282-137-8)

  Spanking New by Clifford Henderson. A poignant, hilarious, unforgettable look at life, love, gender, and the essence of what makes us who we are. (978-1-60282-138-5)

  Magic of the Heart by C.J. Harte. CEO Susan Hettinger and wild, impulsive rock star M.J. Carson couldn’t be more different if they tried—but opposites attract in ways neither woman can resist. (978-1- 60282-131-6)

  Ambereye by Gill McKnight. Jolie Garoul is falling in love with her assistant. The big problem is, Jolie is a werewolf. (978-1-60282-132-3)

  Collision Course by C.P. Rowlands. Tragedy leaves Brie O’Malley and Jordan Carter fearful and alone. Can they find the courage to take a second chance on love? (978-1-60282-133-0)

  Mephisto Aria by Justine Saracen. Opera singer Katherina Marov’s destiny may be to repeat the mistakes of her father when she becomes involved in a dangerous love affair. (978-1-60282-134-7

  Battle Scars by Meghan O’Brien. Returning Iraq war veteran Ray McKenna struggles with the battle scars that can only be healed by love. (978-1-60282-129-3)

  Chaps by Jove Belle. Eden Metcalf wants nothing more than to flee from her troubled past and travel the open road—until she runs into rancher Brandi Cornwell. (978-1-60282-127-9)

  Lightbearer by John Caruso. Lucifer dares to question the premise of creation itself and reveals that sin may be all that stands between us and living hell. (978-1-60282-130-9)

  The Seeker by Ronica Black. FBI profiler Kennedy Scott battles ghosts from her past, deadly obsession, and the evil that haunts her. (978-1- 60282-128-6)

  Power Play by Julie Cannon. Businesswomen Tate Monroe and Victoria Sosa are at odds in the boardroom, but not in the bedroom. (978-1-60282-125-5)

  The Remarkable Journey of Miss Tranby Quirke by Elizabeth Ridley. When love enters Tranby’s life in the form of a beautiful nineteen-year-old student, Lysette McDonald, she embarks on the most remarkable journey of all. (978-1-60282-126-2)

  Returning Tides by Radclyffe. Insurance investigator Ashley Walker faces more than a dangerous opponent when she returns to the town, and the woman, she left behind. (978-1-60282-123-1)

  Veritas by Anne Laughlin. When the hallowed halls of academia become the stage for murder, newly appointed Dean Beth Ellis’s search for the truth leads her to unexpected discoveries about her own heart. (978-1-60282-124-8)

  The Pleasure Planner by Larkin Rose. Pleasure purveyor Bree Hendricks treats love like a commodity until Logan Delaney makes Bree the client in her own game. (978-1-60282-121-7)

  everafter by Nell Stark and Trinity Tam. Valentine Darrow is bitten by a vampire on her way to propose to her lover Alexa Newland, and their lives and love are placed in mortal jeopardy. (978-1-60282-119-4)

  Summer Winds by Andrews & Austin. When Maggie Turner hires a ranch hand to help work her thousand acres, she never expects to be attracted to the very young, very female Cash Tate. (978-1-60282- 120-0)

  Beggar of Love by Lee Lynch. Jefferson is the lover every woman wants to be—or to have. A revealing saga of lesbian sexuality. (978-1- 60282-122-4)

  The Seduction of Moxie by Colette Moody. When 1930s Broadway actress Violet London meets speakeasy
singer Moxie Valette, she is instantly attracted and her Hollywood trip takes an unexpected turn.(978-1-60282-114-9)

  Goldenseal by Gill McKnight. When Amy Fortune returns to her childhood home, she discovers something sinister in the air—but is former lover Leone Garoul stalking her or protecting her? (978-1-60282-115-6)

  Romantic Interludes 2: Secrets edited by Radclyffe and Stacia Seaman. An anthology of sensual lesbian love stories: passion, surprises, and secret desires. (978-1-60282-116-3)

  Femme Noir by Clara Nipper. Nora Delaney meets her match in Max Abbott, a sex-crazed dame who may or may not have the information Nora needs to solve a murder—but can she contain her lust for Max long enough to find out? (978-1-60282-117-0)

  The Reluctant Daughter by Lesléa Newman. Heartwarming, heartbreaking, and ultimately triumphant—the story every daughter recognizes of the lifelong struggle for our mothers to really see us. (978-1-60282-118-7)

  Erosistible by Gill McKnight. When Win Martin arrives at a luxurious Greek hotel for a much-anticipated week of sun and sex with her new girlfriend, she is stunned to find her ex-girlfriend, Benny, is the proprietor. Aeros Ebook. (978-1-60282-134-7)

  Looking Glass Lives by Felice Picano. Cousins Roger and Alistair become lifelong friends and discover their sexuality amidst the backdrop of twentieth-century gay culture. (978-1-60282-089-0)

  Breaking the Ice by Kim Baldwin. Nothing is easy about life above the Arctic Circle—except, perhaps, falling in love. At least that’s what pilot Bryson Faulkner hopes when she meets Karla Edwards. (978-1-60282-087-6)