by Nancy Adams
Copyright
Fight For Love
Copyright © 2017 by Nancy Adams.
All right reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
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Published by: Nancy Adams
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Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
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1
How do you enjoy an evening with someone who nearly killed you, then abandoned you when your life was at its lowest point? How could it be possible to not only forgive someone for such things, but actually manage to get past them so that an evening spent reminiscing could be touched by gentle laughter and a sense of happiness?
Even more pertinent, at the moment, was the question of how she ended up in such a situation. She had been engaged, so wildly and madly and passionately in love that nothing on earth could possibly have interfered with her happiness. That was the certainty in her life, that she was living the dream she'd had since she was a little girl. She would be married, in a wonderful ceremony with many in attendance, and everyone there would be envious.
Her fiancé, Darren, was a great catch. She knew that. And with only three weeks to go until the wedding, she just couldn't believe that anything could go wrong. It was a beautiful weekend, and she and the love of her life were going to enjoy it.
But there were the memories of that awful day, when her life changed forever. Now and then, she would suddenly find herself reliving that day. She'd be thinking about how things had changed since then, and suddenly it was like she was back there again...
Darren's family owned a big pontoon boat that they kept on the lake, so big that they'd had some pretty impressive parties on it. It was easy to operate, though, and he and Katie had taken it out a couple of times before. They liked the peacefulness and solitude of being out on the big lake, all alone with nature. Darren would put a couple of lines out and do some fishing, and Katie liked to lie on the padded deck and soak up some rays. Somewhere along the way, they'd find themselves lying there together, just enjoying one another. Katie loved those moments, and did all she could to make sure Darren knew it. She was planning for this day to be one that he'd remember for a long, long time.
It was a wonderful day. The live well had four big, beautiful bass swimming around as they waited to become dinner, Katie Lou had a freshly enhanced tan, and both of them had smiles on their faces as Darren tucked the boat back into its slip and tied it off. He'd surprised her with a bottle of wine; they rarely drank any kind of alcohol, but it just seemed right, so they enjoyed a toast to one another and to their future, and the slight buzz it brought on made everything else more enjoyable, too, which was fine by both of them.
Katie Lou pulled her shorts and blouse back on, and they got into the car to head for Sosebee's Restaurant, where Darren had made dinner reservations. Katie chuckled to herself when he'd told her, because you didn't need a reservation at Sosebee's; the place was nice, but she'd never once seen it so busy that she couldn't get a table. Darren just liked to pretend they were already living in a bigger city, as they planned to do once they were married. He had his sights on moving to St. Louis, and while Katie was a little apprehensive about living in a big urban center, she was the type of girl who would go where her man went.
With Darren's plans for a future political career, staying in small-town Missouri just wouldn't work out, and she had accepted that. He'd been out of school for almost two years, working in his father's law firm there in Ralston, but he'd had offers from a couple of larger firms when he graduated near the top of his class. One of them, Matthews and Johnson, had agreed to a two-year delay, so that he could keep a promise he had made to his father to come and work two years back home. It was time for him to make the move, and Katie Lou knew that he was more than ready. The only thing that was holding him back was waiting for the wedding, and it was almost upon them. As soon as it was over, they would be flying off to Cancun for their honeymoon, and as soon as they got back, they'd be loading a truck and heading for St. Louis. They'd already made a few trips up there, and had chosen a beautiful apartment that would be their first home together.
Matthews and Johnson was more than just a law firm, though; it was also part of the Republican campaign network in St. Louis, and through some of his father's connections, Darren had already caught the eye of some of the party's top people. It was already planned that, once he was fully installed at the firm, he would be groomed for the House of Representatives, and that would be only a first step on a political career that had much higher aims.
Katie was letting herself dream about how wonderful it was going to be, her seat leaned back and her head resting against it. Darren was holding her hand in his right, as he drove with his left, and she loved the feeling of his grip. It reminded her that he would be her provider, her protector, and give her all the love and affection she needed, for the rest of her life. It made her feel warm and loved and secure.
She felt his grip on her hand loosen, and opened her eyes to see what had drawn his attention, but for a second she couldn't figure out what she was seeing. Darren's head was leaning forward, and his eyes were closed as if he were praying, or sleeping, and suddenly she realized that he'd fallen asleep behind the wheel, and she called his name as she looked forward…
The road curved to the left, but the car went straight, and suddenly she felt the impact as the front end of the long sports car struck the tree. Everything went into slow motion, and she saw the plastic and fiberglass begin to crumple, saw the spider web of cracks appear to slither across the windshield, saw the airbag explode out toward her, but something snapped, and she felt herself launched forward, felt the airbag on her chest as she seemed to slide up and over it, and then the glass was everywhere as she went through the windshield. She lost consciousness then, and never felt herself flung through the air. She barely missed hitting the trunk of the tree that had stopped the lightweight car dead in its tracks;
she flew past it and, by some miracle, turned over as she flew and landed on her back when she finally hit the ground. She bounced a couple of times, skimming across the ground and finally coming to rest in the middle of a clearing.
The driver of another car that was not far behind them saw it all, and called 911 immediately, then stopped to see if he could help. When he found Katie Lou lying on the ground fifteen feet in front of the car, his first assumption was that she was dead, so he turned his attentions to the man behind the wheel.
Darren's seatbelt had held, and his airbag had deployed properly. He was badly bruised, his nose broken and a couple of ribs cracked, but in general, his injuries were minor. When paramedics arrived a few minutes later, they found Darren conscious and sitting on the ground beside the car, though he seemed dazed and incoherent. He knew his name, but couldn't remember who had been in the car with him at first.
Though she wasn't dead after all, Katie Lou was in far worse condition. The first thing the paramedics did was stabilize her neck and spine, with braces and a backboard. When they couldn't get a consistent pulse and found her blood pressure to be dangerously low, the decision was made to call in a Life Flight, and Katie was loaded into a helicopter that landed in the road, right there at the scene, twenty minutes later. She was flown to the University of Missouri School of Medicine, at Columbia, where she was immediately rushed into the trauma unit on life support.
Things did not look good.
Yes, those questions were valid. After what she had been through, they were valid. Not long after that, Darren had suddenly changed, as well, when he called her on the telephone to tell her that he was breaking off their engagement. He couldn't risk havng a wife who was crippled, he said, because no olitician wanted to win with a sympathy vote…
How could you ever spend an enjoyable evening with someone who would do such a thing? How could you ever consider giving him another chance?Katie Lou didn't know the answers to those questions, but somehow, she was living them. In the weeks since her near-fatal accident, thrown through the windshield of ex-fiancé Darren Allsip's car, she had run a gauntlet of emotions that ranged from terror to grief to heartbreak, and then come around again to love and hope, as she dealt with Darren's betrayal and her own burgeoning feelings for her physical therapist, Doctor Rob Christopher. She had been certain that there was no way she could ever spend any pleasant time around Darren again, especially after he and his father had literally paid her off to make her go away—and yet, when he had called and begged for a second chance, she had been shocked to find a part of herself that was willing to consider it.
Part of it could have been the timing. The week before had brought tragedy into her life once more, when Rob's mother, who had suffered a severe brain injury years before and was more like a child than an adult, passed away without warning. In the aftermath of his loss, an old flame of Rob's had shown up, and thanks to a number of errors and misunderstandings, and an unfortunate – but innocent – kiss that happened to take place just as Katie Lou entered the room, she had come to believe that Rob had also betrayed her. She had walked away from him, unwilling to even listen to explanations, until she came face-to-face with “the other woman.” She had learned that the kiss she had witnessed was a kiss goodbye, as Rob told his old girlfriend that he was in love with Katie Lou.
Still, there was that part of her that harbored feelings for Darren, as much as she wanted to deny them. When he’d called and asked her to have dinner with him, she had agreed, and had driven all the way to Ozark to meet him at the famous Lambert's Café.
“I haven't been here since I was a kid,” Darren said as they took their seats in a booth. “I think there was a family reunion or something, and we all came here for dinner. Everybody wanted to see the place where they throw the rolls to you.”
Katie grinned. “I was here a couple of times my senior year in high school,” she said. “We had our prom down at Branson, on the big Showboat. It's like one of those old riverboats, and the senior class rented it for prom. When we were planning it, we stopped here a couple of times to eat. I'd never even heard of it, before then.”
Darren was just sitting there looking at her, his eyes wide and his face a strange mixture of happiness and fear. He swallowed once, then picked up the menu. “So, do you remember what's good here?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Everything!”
Darren grinned, and started to respond, but a waiter suddenly appeared. He took their drink orders and promised to be back in a moment, so that they could decide what they wanted to eat.
Conversation stuck to dinner choices for a few minutes, with Darren choosing a steak while Katie Lou went for the pot roast. They gave their orders to the waiter, and then they were finally alone.
“Katie Lou, I can't tell you how much it means that you're willing to sit down and talk with me,” Darren said. “Like I told you, I would've understood if you had just told me to get lost.”
Katie smiled softly. “Darren, for the last few weeks, I just about hated your guts. I mean, put yourself in my place; sort of seemed like I must've only been important as long as I could make things look perfect for you. As soon as it looked like I was going to be crippled for the rest of my life, you were gone. What was I supposed to think?”
Darren was nodding his head. “I know, I know,” he said. “And I can't blame you, not a bit. I blame myself and the stupidity that made me think being important was better than being happy. All I kept hearing about was how every great politician in history has had to make sacrifices, and that the last thing in the world I would ever want would be a sympathy vote. It all seemed to make sense, when I was looking at it from their point of view, but the longer I was without you—the more I knew I had made a mistake.”
Katie just looked at him for a long moment. Then she slowly shook her head. “Darren, I am actually pretty shocked at myself for agreeing to be here tonight. There's this part of me in the back of my head that is screaming at me to run, to get as far away from you as I possibly can, but then there's this other part that remembers the good times. That part wants to be sure of whether there's any hope or not for us, because if there's not, then I need to move on. I just don't want to make any more mistakes.”
“Katie, I…”
“Hold on, I'm not done. I just said I don't want to make any mistakes, but that includes making a mistake by taking you back. Darren, I was lying in a hospital bed and had just been given some of the worst news of my life, that I might never walk again, and you, you sonofabitch, you called me on the phone to tell me that things weren't going to work out because of your political ambitions! We'd been dating for over two years, we'd been engaged for more than a year, you told me over and over how much you loved me, but then—Darren, when you love someone, you don't run out on them at their lowest moment! You want me to believe you still care about me, but look at what I have to deal with! You ran out on me, right when I needed you the most! How can I ever trust you again?”
She ran out of things to say and her voice trailed off, but Darren only sat there and looked at her. She saw that there were tears brimming over from his eyes, and then realized that she had tears running down her own cheeks. “Well? Aren't you going to say anything?”
“I honestly don't know what to say. I have to admit that you're right; there's no way I can deny it. I did exactly what you said I did: I ran out on you. I can blame my dad and the political committee all I want to, but the truth is that I made the choice to walk away.” He reached up and ran a hand over his face, as if trying to wipe away the pain that was showing in it. “I've tried to think of some way that I can describe to you how I have felt since I made that decision, and the only thing I can come up with is this. I want you to imagine that you're out riding around with some friends, and they stop at a little store in the middle of nowhere. You all go inside, and that's when you find out that your friends are there to rob the place. One of them hands you a gun, and while you don't want anything to do with the r
obbery, you instinctively want to protect your friends. Can you imagine that?”
Katie's eyes were narrowed, but she nodded. “Yeah, I can.”
Darren nodded back. “Okay, then all of a sudden, you see some guy come out of the back room of the store, and he's got a shotgun in his hand. He's aimed it right at the head of your best friend, and nobody sees him but you. If you yell out, it may startle him and he'll pull the trigger, so the only thing you can do, without even thinking clearly, is pull the trigger on your own gun. You shoot the guy and you kill him, and then everybody runs out of the store in a panic. You go out to the middle of nowhere and everybody agrees to keep it all secret, so that no one will ever find out what you did. The trouble with that is that no matter how you try, you can't forget! You made a choice, and you have to live with the consequences, no matter what they are. If you could go back and do it all over again, you'd make a different choice, and you know you would, but there isn't any way to undo what's already been done.” He sat there and just stared at her for a long minute. “That's how I felt. I felt like I had just killed someone, I had done something unforgivable, something that would destroy my life forever, because I didn't think it through. I knew that if I could go back and do it again, I would stand by you no matter what, I would be in the hospital room twenty-four hours a day, and every time you had to go take a test, or have some kind of therapy, I would be right there with you. Without you, nothing else seemed to matter anymore. I couldn't concentrate on my career, I couldn't concentrate on my political ambitions, nothing. I went to St. Louis to take the new job, spent a week there, and told them I couldn't handle it. I quit and came home.”
Katie Lou blinked, her eyes wide. “You quit the firm? Darren, that was the best job you could ever hope to get at this point, why would you do that?”
“Because it wasn't supposed to be just for me. I was taking that job so that we would have the money to live the way I want us to live, and without you, none of it mattered anymore. My dad is letting me work back in his firm, for now, until I can find something else.” He grinned, but it was hollow. “I can tell you he isn't happy with me. If he knew we were here together, right now, he'd be ripping me a new one.”
