The Good Race: Book One of the Grayson Falls series

by A. M. Mahler

  Ryan was stunned. The look in Cooper’s eyes was deadly, and Ryan believed him when he said would try to kill McKenzie if he ever saw him again.

  He took a step back from Cooper, and then another, shaking his head. “You stay away from her,” Ryan said firmly. “She will be destroyed over this. This is not an opportunity for you or any other guy. My sister has had nothing but heartbreak this year, and you will stay far away from her. Do you hear me?”

  “Or what?” Cooper looked Ryan in the eye, and for the first time, Ryan was afraid of his friend. He was finally seeing what Cooper was capable of, and it was terrifying. How had he missed it all these years?

  “Or you’ll find out what the inside of a jail cell looks like,” Ryan promised. “I’ll slap a restraining order on you so fast, you’ll go down for just looking in her direction. Believe me, Cooper. You stay the hell away from her.”

  “Hey, take this outside or I’ll call security,” the resident assistant interjected.

  “Don’t worry, we’re done here,” Ryan said, making sure the full meaning of his words wasn’t lost on Cooper.

  Then he turned his back and left the room, mentally preparing himself to deliver more bad news to his sister.

  PART TWO

  Ten

  Present Day

  JACKIE WATCHED DANNY fight for consciousness as she ran her thumb over the back of his hand, where it lay in hers.

  Suddenly, a thought struck her. “Are you married, Danny?”

  “No,” he murmured.

  “Is there a girlfriend I should call?”

  Please, God, say no.

  She’d hate hearing that he was alone still, but she’d hate it even more if he were in a relationship.

  “The only person I know in New York is my partner.”

  “Got kids anywhere?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  She chuckled. A lot had happened to both of them over the past thirteen years. He could have been married and divorced, for all she knew. “What about your father?”

  “I think he’s still in DC.”

  “Things never got better with him, huh?”

  She gently pushed a lock of hair off his forehead as he opened his eyes and gazed at her. He definitely seemed lucid now.

  “I haven’t spoken to him since he pulled me out of school on prom night.”

  Jackie sighed and watched as he started losing the battle to stay awake. She wouldn’t talk to him any longer now. He needed his rest. She could see him fighting sleep as patients often did when they woke up from surgery, but the drugs were too powerful to let him stay awake for long. The bullet hadn’t hit anything major—thankfully—but he’d lost a lot of blood, and was transfused. He’d be laid up for a while, and she found herself unreasonably happy about that. He certainly had a dangerous job in a dangerous place.

  What had led him to being a cop, anyway? He had been the bad boy of the school. Sure, Jackie knew it was mostly for show, so he could get kicked out of the place he hated, but he’d done his share of reckless and stupid things when they were younger.

  He didn’t seem interested in any of that after he met her. She remembered their long talks late at night in the library, and the night they stayed out looking at the stars on the basketball court after he took her ice skating.

  She also remembered the night she had sat and waited in the killer dress he had requested she wear, ready for the best night of her life. And he’d never showed. Instead of going to the prom, she’d cried in her brother’s arms. Jackie had told him to go on and leave her to her misery, but he hadn’t been all that interested in the prom to begin with, so he had chosen to stay behind with her. His date hadn’t forgiven either one of them.

  Ryan had been livid over the fact that Danny never showed up. It was because of his anger that they had discovered what had happened. Ryan had grabbed Cooper and went to Danny’s room, intent on pummeling the life out of him. Then they had found half the room empty of any belongings, and a resident assistant had informed them that Danny’s father had taken him out of school.

  The commander had come with several enlisted men and simply packed everything up. Danny, standing there shocked in his tuxedo, had not been permitted any phone calls. He had tried for years to get kicked out of the school, and on the one night he had most wanted to be there, his father had finally given him his wish.

  Jackie had often wondered if Danny had mentioned to his father that he was going to the prom and whether his father had purposefully chosen that night out of punishment. It wouldn’t have surprised her.

  “Special patient?”

  She turned at the voice and saw her colleague and friend leaning against the doorjamb. Lexy Jones was one of the hospital’s staff pediatric physicians. She had just finished her rounds and gone to see Jackie when the ER staff had told her that Jackie was still upstairs.

  “Yeah.” She wiped a tear away and pushed herself off the bed. “This is Danny.”

  “Danny?” Lexy asked, her interest piqued. She walked into the room, closer to the bed. “The Danny?”

  “That’s him.”

  “Wow, he’s a babe.” Out of professional curiosity, she picked up Danny’s chart and perused it. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I am now.” Jackie ran a hand down her face and hugged her arms to her chest. “Scared the bejesus out of me when he came in, though.”

  “You should have handed him over,” Lexy said, giving her friend a you-know-better look.

  “I know that in hindsight,” Jackie admitted. “But I couldn’t do it. It had to be me there for him. He’s never really had anyone, Lex—only that brief time at school, after we met. He was my first friend, my first crush, my first love.”

  “C’mon, girl, he’s your only love,” Lexy retorted, returning the chart. “You’ve never been serious about anybody. It’s like you’ve been waiting all this time for him to stroll back into your life.”

  “You know what’s funny? He found out I was in New York and was going to come see me, but he said he wanted to do it differently.”

  “There are less life-threatening ways to get a girl’s attention,” Lexy agreed. “But, Jackie, aren’t you’re supposed to be in New Hampshire right now?”

  “I called them and told them I had an emergency, and that I’d be delayed for a few weeks.”

  Lexy sighed in response. “Do I have to call your brother?”

  “Ryan would totally understand.”

  “According to you, Ryan never liked Danny. I doubt he’d understand you putting your life on hold for him now while you—pardon the pun—play doctor with your old high school flame.”

  “Danny was my life, Lexy,” Jackie hissed. “He understood me during a time that nobody else did. He was always there for me, and he never pressured me. It wasn’t his fault that we parted the way we did, and I haven’t been able to find him again. I tried calling his father, but I never got through to him. I want to take Danny to New Hampshire with me.”

  “Take him to New Hampshire? Are you listening to yourself? He’s not a puppy. He’s a full-grown man with a life and a career!”

  “He can’t go back to his job for months. He needs to recover, and he has nobody here but his partner. What’s wrong with staying with a friend? A friend who’s a doctor and can take care of him? I can’t stand the thought of him being by himself.”

  She also couldn’t stomach the thought of not having him in her life any longer. When he left Trent, he had left a gaping hole inside her that could never be filled; not by another man, not by any activity she could come up with.

  She hadn’t had many relationships in the time they were apart, and the ones she did have were always ended by her. Maybe she knew that they would eventually find their way back to each other. The one thing she knew in this moment was that fate had finally stepped in, and she wasn’t about to turn her back on it.

  “What if he were married?”

  “He’s not; I asked him.”

  Lexy rolled her e
yes. “But what if he were? You’ve been holding a torch for him all this time. What if his wife were by his side now?”

  “Then I’d be happy to have seen him again and would hope that we could be friends and keep in touch going forward. We were friends first before we were anything else, you know.” Jackie knew deep down that Danny wouldn’t have gotten married. She’d imagined him searching all this time for his other half, just like she had been.

  “He might not be the same guy you knew then,” Lexy argued. “He’s a city cop now. You have to be a little nuts to do that job. It’s really dangerous, and they see things nobody should. It messes them up. You sure you want a piece of that?”

  “Don’t make him into a stereotype.”

  “He could be a stereotype.”

  “And he could be exactly the same guy I knew,” Jackie snapped.

  Of course, she knew that her friend could be right. She’d spent thirteen years thinking about the Danny she knew—romanticizing him and their time together. Had their time apart hardened him? She’d seen on examination that he’d been shot before. What had he been through? How had it changed him for the worse? Did he only remember her as she was when she was sixteen?

  She had changed, so why wouldn’t he have as well?

  “I’m sorry,” Lexy said quietly. “I know I don’t sound very supportive. I’m just worried about you. First, you give up a promising career here to run a one-doctor hospital in middle-of-nowhere New Hampshire. Then you bought a house in the woods. You don’t even know anyone there—”

  “That’s exactly the point,” Jackie murmured. “And I do know someone there.” She walked back to the bed and ran her fingers lightly through Danny’s hair, but he never stirred. “I didn’t find what I was looking for in emergency medicine. The answer isn’t here, but I was happy in New Hampshire. And I was happy there because of Danny. If nothing else, Lex, he’s my friend. He needs someone now, and I’m going to be there for him. If he doesn’t stay, he doesn’t stay. But I have to try. If I don’t, I’ll always regret it. I don’t want to be defined by my career. I never wanted to be defined by my career.”

  Lexy walked over to Jackie and put her arm around her shoulders. Together, they looked down at Danny.

  “He is seriously hot, girl.”

  Lexy smiled and Jackie let out a light laugh.

  “He’s even more beautiful on the inside.”

  “I hope so,” Lexy said softly. “I don’t know how you can say you didn’t find what you were looking for in emergency medicine, though. Looks like the answer’s right there.”

  Lexy hugged her briefly, then left the room.

  She stood where she was, watching Danny sleep. He was part of the answer she was looking for, but not all of it. Maybe she had to take this road to lead her back to him—or in this case, lead him to her.

  Was she being presumptuous thinking he’d want to go with her to New Hampshire for his recovery? Maybe there was somebody, and he hadn’t wanted to hurt her feelings. But if there were, then why wouldn’t he want her to call them? No, she was confident that he hadn’t lied to her—he never had before. But Lexy’s words played over and over in her mind. Perhaps he was no longer the man she thought he was.

  She sat down on the edge of the bed and faced him. The nurses must have thought she was crazy. She’d kept a constant vigil at his bedside since she’d finished her last shift. Technically speaking, she didn’t even work for the hospital anymore. Sooner or later, someone would not-so-gently remind her of that fact.

  She had no idea how long she sat there looking at him, but when her eyes filled up with tears again, she leaned forward and rested her head on his uninjured shoulder. She was so tired. She was always tired. She’d been at the end of a double shift when he was brought in, and she’d had precious little sleep since then—but she was used to that.

  She stretched her legs out, thinking only that she didn’t want to be laying in an awkward and uncomfortable position. When her eyes closed, she thought she’d only rest them for a few minutes, then she’d go home. She needed to go home. She needed to make arrangements for a medical transport, just in case Danny said yes.

  What if he didn’t say yes? Why wouldn’t he say yes?

  Of course, he hated New Hampshire, so maybe he wouldn’t want to go. On the other hand, it wasn’t like she was asking him to stay there for the rest of his life, just to recover somewhere with fresh air and quiet. Someplace he could take it easy and not feel like he was being rushed back to work.

  A place she could possibly convince him to stay in.

  She drifted off to sleep and never felt his hand come up and rest on her hip. He opened his eyes just briefly, buried his face in her hair, and inhaled as deeply as he could, though, with his injury, the breath wasn’t all that deep. Then he kissed her hair and closed his eyes, thinking getting shot wasn’t such a bad deal after all.

  WHEN DANNY NEXT woke, Jackie was still curled into his good side, sleeping soundly. He pressed a light kiss to her forehead and considered his luck. How was it that he’d come to New York to see her again and had ended up being a patient in her emergency room?

  Fate, he thought, definitely had a sense of irony.

  She smelled different now than she used to. He supposed this new scent came with the new woman he would have to get to know. How much of her had changed while they were apart? Did she still hardly listen to music, or had she finally developed an appreciation for it? What had made an introvert like her decide to go into medicine? More importantly, how was he going to keep her in his life this time?

  Seeing her and touching her now felt even better than he had imagined it during his darkest hours. He thought he had remembered her pretty accurately, but he hadn’t. How could he forget how soft she was, how perfectly she fit against him? Being here with her, touching her, reminded him of how good he had once had it.

  How would she react when he told her the thought of her—the memories—had gotten him through every bad time he’d had since he was ripped away from her?

  They hadn’t known each other all that long before the night his father had taken him out of school—just a few months, really, but they’d known each other well. Did she consider him worth getting to know again? Perhaps he was merely a passing memory she gave a rare thought to now and then?

  No, he couldn’t believe that of her. Even then they’d had a strong attraction to each other. He was her first love, and that meant something. His connection to her was still strong. He simply had to be with her. From the moment he’d laid eyes on her, there hadn’t been a choice for him. He was unequivocally hers, in whatever capacity she would have him.

  He brought his hand up to stroke her hair and she began to stir against him.

  She turned her face into the crook of his neck and breathed in deeply.

  His reaction to her was instantaneous. It was a relief to realize that all his important parts were still in working order.

  She brought her hand up to his chest, and he linked his fingers with hers. When her eyes opened, he leaned down and kissed her forehead.

  “For once, the reality is better than the dream,” he murmured.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “Like I can leap tall buildings in a single bound,” he smiled.

  “Well, you can’t yet, big guy.”

  She started to sit up, but he held her there. She was impressed with the level of his strength.

  “Not yet, please.”

  She settled back down and he went back to stroking her hair.

  “If you close your chart on me, Doc, I’d at least like this to remember you by.”

  Jackie closed her eyes for a moment and was quiet for a bit before she answered. “I don’t want to close anything on you, Danny. Just the opposite.”

  This time, he didn’t fight her when she sat up and looked at him.

  “There’s so much I want to talk to you about and so much I want to ask you. I feel as if you never left, but at the same ti
me, it’s like this big void has been filled again. We haven’t seen each other in twelve years, and I probably sound like the world’s biggest fool for admitting any of this. But just when I get you back, I’m the one who has to leave.”

  “Leave?” Danny’s heartbeat increased, something the monitor attached to him betrayed immediately. “I don’t understand. What do you mean, ‘leave’?”

  “I took a job in a small hospital in Grayson Falls, New Hampshire,” Jackie smiled sadly. “I was supposed to be there at the end of the week, but I called and extended my start date by two weeks. I told them I had a family emergency.”

  “But I came to New York to find you,” Danny said.

  Leave? Leave? He had just found her, and now she was leaving?

  Oh, hell, no.

  “I was picking up my life here and moving it to New Hampshire,” she continued. “I don’t like this fast-paced life. I don’t even know what I was doing here, or what drew me here in the first place. Everything here is a race to finish, but you never actually get to the line. New Hampshire is peaceful, so I bought a house. It’s a big log cabin with tons of space and two barns on the property. I didn’t expect you to fall into my lap again. And I know you hate New Hampshire, but I thought…”

  Jackie trailed off and looked down at her lap. Then she felt the familiar feeling of Danny’s finger under her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. He’d never allowed her to be shy around him. As soon as she looked into his compassionate eyes, she found the strength she needed to ask the most mortifying question of her life. “I thought maybe you might want to recuperate there?”

  Whatever Danny had thought she was going to say, it wasn’t that. He’d thought he was going to get the heave-ho—that she couldn’t forgive him for leaving her—though it hadn’t been his fault.

  And that he didn’t think he could survive.

  He could hear the heart monitor begin to beep faster again now, so he tried to take deep breaths to calm down.

  “Jacks,” he said softly.

  She closed her eyes and let the sound of his voice as he said her nickname—the one only he and Ryan ever used—wash over her.