by Mary Leo
Then RuthieAnn did something she should have thought more about, but she couldn’t help herself. She walked right over to him, slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him, hard, parting her lips to touch his tongue with hers. He pulled her in tight for a moment, moving his lips over hers, giving her a jolt of heat that she hadn’t felt in years, if ever, and causing her to feel as if she belonged to him, as if she wanted to belong to him.
She slowly pulled away and they both stared at each other for a moment.
“What was that for?” Chase asked, looking doe-eyed and innocent.
“I don’t really know, but it was nice, wasn’t it?”
“Very. Let’s do it again,” he chided, moving in closer, but she kept her distance, resting a hand on his chest.
“I want to see your shoulder and your arm, first.”
“Is that all?” A sexy grin danced on his lips.
She moved away. What had she done? This wasn’t what she planned for. This wasn’t something she was ready for, especially not with Chase Cooper. “For now, yes.”
“For now?”
“There’s something I have to tell you, but before I do, I’d like to see if I can help because once I tell you, everything is going to change.”
He slipped a strand of hair behind her ear, looking at her as if nothing was ever going to change how he felt at that exact moment. “I hate to burst your bubble, sweetheart, but everything has already changed. That kiss didn’t happen in a vacuum.”
“It was only a kiss,” she lied. It was one of those earth-moving kisses. A kiss that she would reflect on when she was older. A kiss that curled her toes and shot heat up her spine. Oh yeah, a big lie.
“Only?”
“Yes,” she lied again. It had been much easier to do the second time. No way did she want to admit she felt anything. Not with Chase Cooper.
“So, you kiss everyone like that?”
“Not everyone.”
“Then who?”
She couldn’t help the sly grin that stretched her still warm lips. “I don’t believe I’ve ever kissed anyone like that.”
And that was the absolute truth. She’d never felt like this before, as if their kiss actually meant something.
He folded her in his arms. “Then let’s do it again, just to make sure.”
As tempting as he was, she slipped away from his warm embrace. “Not until we talk. It’s important.”
He sighed. “Fine. Let’s talk, but can we do it fast? I want to get back to the kissing part.”
“We should sit down.”
He jumped on the sofa and patted the seat next to him, but instead she took the recliner a safe distance away.
“Just know that whatever you decide to do after I tell you my side of the story will affect Jayden, and now that you’ve gotten to know him a little, you probably realize that he needs me.”
This was going to be even more difficult than she’d ever thought it could be. When she’d imagined telling Chase Cooper the truth, she never thought for one moment that she would have gotten to know him first, and his family and their warm reception of her and her son. Never in a million years had she expected any of this.
“You’re scaring me. What’s this all about? Are you sick? Is Jayden sick?”
She shook her head, then reached for her glass and took a few big gulps of the delicious wine. “It’s about your accident five years ago.”
He sighed. “You don’t have to worry about that. I can still function just fine. I may have nearly died, and broken a lot of bones and torn a lot of muscles, but it seems in that department, nothing was harmed.”
RuthieAnn was glad to hear it, even though she hadn’t doubted it based on that perfectly sensuous kiss. “No. I mean yes, that’s good, but that’s not what I want to talk to you about.”
“You want to know what happened? Well, I can tell you that I honestly don’t know. I can’t remember the actual accident. I only know what they told me happened. That I was on my motorcycle and hit from behind by a driver who left me for dead. My mom told me something today that . . . well . . . it was nothing . . . nothing that could possibly be true. There’s not much to it. The roads were wet from the rain, so I guess I slid pretty far, but that’s it.”
“Believe me, there’s so much more.”
He slid to the edge of the sofa, as if wanting to get closer to her. “I don’t understand. How would you know anything about my accident?”
“Because I—” But RuthieAnn’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She couldn’t ignore it. When she looked down at the screen, a feeling of dread ripped her apart.
“Is everything okay?” Chase asked, standing now as if he too expected the worse.
“It’s from the hospital,” she said. Then RuthieAnn accepted the call, and held her breath.
Four
The hospital seemed to be exceptionally quiet when Chase and RuthieAnn arrived, as if everyone was whispering or asleep. Granted, it was relatively late, probably after visiting hours, but still the quiet unnerved Chase.
He hated hospitals. All they did was remind him of the worst times of his life. Nothing good ever happened in a hospital, at least not in Chase’s world. One of his best friends in childhood had struggled with leukemia and then died in this hospital. His own dad had died in this very hospital, down in the ER while the staff tried their best to revive him after his heart stopped for the second time.
Then there were the bits of memories of his own accident, of the ambulance ride, the sirens blaring. Of being wheeled down a corridor, staring up at an endless white ceiling buzzing with florescent lights, hearing muffled voices about his dire condition.
Chase hated hospitals, and wouldn’t have walked inside this one if it weren’t for RuthieAnn and her father. To Chase, Clark Dolan was his hero and there wasn’t anything Chase wouldn’t do for him. Clark had stood by him for those first few critical hours right after his motorcycle accident, and Chase believed in payback. He would stand by Clark no matter what it took.
“His room is at the end of the hallway,” RuthieAnn told Chase, taking his hand in hers to lead him. Her hand felt warm and fragile in his, like a delicate flower that he might crush if he squeezed too hard. Her touch moved him forward, giving him the strength he needed to keep walking, to put one foot in front of the other even though every part of him wanted to bolt in the opposite direction.
A different female nurse stood right outside Clark’s room, typing on a keyboard while she studied a monitor perched on the mobile stand.
“How is he?” RuthieAnn asked as she approached.
“Are you his daughter?” the nurse asked.
“Yes, I’m RuthieAnn Dolan,” she told the inquisitive woman with the sandy-colored hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. She wore pink scrubs, white sneakers, a bulky neon yellow wristwatch, and thankfully wasn’t anyone Chase recognized. He wasn’t in the mood for chitchat about his own health at the moment, at least not tonight. This visit was all about Clark Dolan. Nothing else mattered. “And this is my friend, Chase Cooper.”
“Fine. You can both go in now. We’ve managed to get him stable again. His pulse is still high, but he’s lucid at the moment.”
Chase walked in first, ready for the worst, but the stubborn old ox looked tired but seemed to be in good spirits.
“Look who the dog dragged in,” Clark said. “And you brought my girl. Didn’t know you two even knew each other.”
“We didn’t,” RuthieAnn said. “But Chase has been filling me in on a few things.”
“Hope it’s not any of the good stuff. I don’t want you gettin’ the wrong idea of your mean old man.”
“There was good stuff?” RuthieAnn asked.
“Ah, that’s my girl. Nice to see nothing’s changed,” Clark mumbled as Chase went over to him, grabbed onto his hand and shoulder for a moment. Clark’s normally firm grip felt weak and fragile, causing Chase to ease up on his tight grasp. Despite Chase’s best hope, Clark’s handshake revealed
the truth . . . Cantankerous, tough-as-nails Clark Dolan was slipping away and it broke Chase down to his very core. He struggled with holding back the emotion that threatened to pour out like the torrent of rain that pelted Wild Creek with a vengeance.
“You bastard. What the hell’s going on? Shouldn’t you be out getting drunk at your old haunt? I didn’t even know you were stuck in this place until RuthieAnn told me.” Chase tried his best to make light of an obviously dire situation.
“She always did have a big mouth. Never could keep a secret worth a damn,” Clark chided, but Chase suspected Clark was happy to see him. For all the good he’d done for Chase, he knew full well the old dog could be as thorny as a cactus.
“I didn’t know you’re being sick was a secret,” RuthieAnn told him.
“It is if I want it to be, and I want it to be. Don’t want any flower-toting, well-wisher visitors,” Clark told her. “All that nice shit might work on other people, but it won’t work on me. Just makes me meaner.”
“You really think you have the kind of friends who’ll bring you flowers?” Chase teased.
“You mean to tell me I’ve got friends?” Clark shot back with a twinkle in his eye.
“Not so that I can find,” Chase told him, joining in on Clark’s sarcasm.
“That sounds more like it. I did everything I could to make sure I died alone. So what the hell are you two doing here? Neither of you are part of my plan.”
Clark always had an acerbic, dark sense of humor that reflected his inner demons. Chase could appreciate that. Even now, Chase knew there was a lot of truth to what Clark had said. “We’re the only two left standing. Apparently, you didn’t alienate us quite enough.”
“Give me ten minutes.”
“That might be all the time you have left, Dad. Are you sure you want to spend it making me dislike you even more?”
Chase caught the hurt in RuthieAnn’s voice. He liked the old guy, but he didn’t get why he insisted on alienating his daughter. Obviously, she’d had to withstand his dour personality all of her life, and it must have weighed heavily on her. Why Clark purposely chose to push her away even now when it seemed like he might not pull through was just foolish.
“You mean you still don’t hate me?”
“Not yet.”
“Then you’ve given me reason to live . . . at least for a few more minutes.”
Chase rubbed Clark’s shoulder. “Hey, old man, let’s lighten up for a while. You might miss an opportunity to say something important.”
“You’re assuming I have anything to say.”
Chase gazed down into Clark’s eyes, then leaned in closer and whispered. “I think you do . . . as a matter of fact, I know you do. There’s nothing you can do to change my mind. I’ve seen the other side of your ornery self, and I know deep down inside, you’ve got something you want to say to your child. Don’t let this time pass. Not now. Not when I’m here to help you through it. You were there for me when I needed you. When I thought I would die, but you helped pull me through. Now I’m here for you. Don’t let me down. Do what you know is right. Do it for me. Do it for your daughter.”
Chase could feel the tension in Clark’s shoulder dissipate as a slight grin threatened to stretch his thin lips into a full-blown smile. Clark must have known that Chase could see right through his cold shell, down to his well-hidden warm underbelly—an underbelly that Clark must have learned to hide years ago, probably before RuthieAnn started school, maybe even before that. Something bad had happened back then, something that put Clark and his family on a dark path that had killed his wife, and kept both his children from ever feeling happy in his presence. Chase wished he knew what had happened back then, but he was stubborn as a mule and kept the truth of things well hidden. All Chase could hope for at this moment was that Clark might have the fortitude to let his daughter off the hook so she could move on with her life and not have to constantly be looking back for answers.
Chase straightened up again, and waited, waited for Clark to man up when it mattered most. It was in that time of waiting when Chase spotted a deep sorrow in Clark’s eyes.
He released Clark’s hand and sat in the provided chair next to the bed, while RuthieAnn moved into Chase’s position next to her father’s bed, her arms at her sides.
“What’s the use?” RuthieAnn mumbled, turning to Chase as they locked eyes for a moment.
“There was a time when we were happy,” Clark finally said in a whisper, his eyes moist. “You, me and your mom. We would laugh for no reason at all. I think it was pure unbridled happiness that caused us to continually chuckle. To your mother and me, you were the funniest little girl we’d ever known, all full of surprises. You loved rainbows. Had them plastered all over the walls in your room. And whenever you saw one, you thought we’d painted the sky just for you. We tried to tell you the truth, but you didn’t seem to care. You were set on believing in magic and no amount of logic could change your mind.
“You were a silly little thing, and smart as a whip. You could read before you were four, and knew all your numbers at two. We didn’t know if the local schools would be good enough for you. Thought about moving to Phoenix where your mom found a school with all those brainy kids. She thought you’d do better there. We were gonna sell everything and go. I was ready to do it, too, then we found out she was carrying another baby. We decided to put the move off, at least until after the baby was born. But the pregnancy was hard on your mom, and after your brother was born, well . . . things were never the same. Then she had that bad accident. Damn doctors. I hate all doctors. They’re the ones. They did it to her. To us.”
An alarm on one of his monitors shrieked and his nurse came in.
“Damn doctors!” he yelled. “I hope they all burn in hell! The whole medical community should burn in hell. They’re all bad. They’re all evil as the devil himself.”
“Mr. Dolan, you need to calm down. Mr. Dolan,” his nurse told him.
Two more nurses came into his room, one of them a male nurse. He turned to Chase and RuthieAnn. “Maybe you should wait out in the hallway for a while or the waiting room down the hall. I’ll come get you when he’s calmed down.”
Chase went for RuthieAnn’s hand, but she’d already folded her arms across her chest and looked as though she didn’t want to be touched. She moved in front of him, and made her way down the long hallway, head bent, walking quickly as if she wanted to get as far away from her father as possible.
Chase could still hear Clark yelling as he followed Ruthie, but once they entered the waiting room, Clark’s demanding voice finally faded away.
Fortunately, the waiting room was empty.
RuthieAnn sat on a hard chair, while Chase sat next to her on the sofa. “Can I get you anything? Maybe something to drink?”
She shook her head. “No, thanks. I’m fine.”
“Do you know what your dad was talking about in there? He seems really angry about doctors. What’s that all about?”
“He’s always angry. I’ve never known him any other way. That stuff he said about he and my mom being happy . . . I’d never heard any of that before. It sounded almost normal. As if we were a regular family.”
“What kind of an accident did your mom have?”
She squeezed her arms in tighter. “I don’t know. That’s the first I ever heard about it.”
“I wonder why neither of them ever mentioned it to you before? Do you remember anything about that time, before your brother was born?”
“I wish I did. It might explain a few things, but I was pretty little…under five.” She paused for a moment, then her face lit up. “Wait. I can remember my feet were always cold when they dangled from my highchair. Do you think that’s a real memory?”
“Might be.”
She shook her head. “That’s too weird. And I remember I liked dried raisins, but not regular raisins, they had to be from a cereal. I used to pick them out one by one while the cereal was dry, because once milk was
added they weren’t any good anymore. How crazy is that? For the longest time, I couldn’t remember anything from those years, and now when I finally do, it’s about cold feet and cereal raisins.”
“Maybe he triggered some memories. Now that you know there was a good time with your parents, you can relax into your past.”
“Wouldn’t that be something . . . memories of a happy time? Never thought there was such a time. Not with my parents.”
“Maybe when your dad calms down, you can ask him more about it.”
She sat back in the chair, suddenly looking tired. She even yawned, excusing herself afterwards.
“He won’t talk to me. The only reason why he said anything about that time was because you were there. He seems to really like you. What’s the connection? You supply him with free whiskey, or what?”
Chase didn’t know if she was kidding or serious. Either way, he knew she wanted an answer.
“Maybe he feels responsible for me. Hell, I don’t know. Your dad’s a hard one to figure out.”
“I stopped trying to figure him out a long time ago. But maybe you can get him to talk . . . to tell you more about my mom’s accident, if there was an accident. My dad tends to exaggerate the truth. Who knows what really happened.”
She yawned again, and Chase noticed the dark circles under RuthieAnn’s eyes. She looked dog-tired, as well she should be. It was going on midnight. “Why don’t you stretch out on this sofa for a while and rest. I’ll go in and talk to your dad when they say it’s okay to.”
“Thanks,” she said, as a yawn captured her words making her eyes water.
Chase reached out and took her hand in his. She followed him over to the sofa, and went down on her side. He slipped out of his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders.
“Maybe just for ten minutes. But you’ll wake me if anything happens, right?”
“I promise,” Chase told her, as he slid her hair off her beautiful face. The woman did something to him like no other woman ever had. She stirred up a fire within him that he’d thought had all but gone out. He tried to ignore the intense desire for her, but he seemed doomed to experience it no matter where it led them. He hoped she felt it too, but so far there had been little indication that she had.
