Her hands began to shake again, and panic rose in her chest.
Maybe now was the perfect time for her to leave Georgia. He’d come for her if he could, and not because he wanted her or Lucas. He’d come to hurt them.
Russell opened his eyes slowly. The day would come, soon, when he opened his eyes and the room would be his room.
He took a quick inventory of everything strapped to him before he tried to adjust for comfort. He knew he’d go home with his arm bandaged. Of course, he’d have that stupid bandage on his leg for weeks to come. At least he’d walk again, though he’d been told that would take some therapy. It’d be nice if he could walk out of that freaking hospital on his own two feet, but now he’d just like to get out.
Movement at the window caught his attention, and he turned to see a woman standing in the shadows. Her back was turned to him.
It wasn’t just any woman. It was Chelsea.
No matter how nasty they’d been to each other since he’d been there, something in his heart lightened when he saw her.
“Chelsea?” His voice was raspy and soft as it broke the silence of the room causing her to flinch and splash herself with the hot liquid in the cup.
She jumped back and wiped at her shirt. Then she looked at him.
“Hi,” she said setting her cup on the table.
“Which arm do you want to poke on?” he asked as he blinked heavily, realizing he hadn’t yet shaken his sleep completely.
“I’m here to visit. I’m not your nurse today.”
That got his attention as he shifted in the bed to look at her. “You’re here to visit? Another one of those ‘I’ll get another shift’ kind of visits?” The thought stung, and he realized it had quickly taken a slice at his mood.
“No. I need to talk to you, so I’m here to visit.”
He studied her in the dim light. “Open the blinds. What time is it?”
“Nine,” she said walking to the window, opening the blinds, and walking back to him.
“Nine? Damn. Whatever they give me knocks my ass out.”
“It’s meant to. You heal better if you’re rested and not in pain.”
At the moment, looking at her, the pain wasn’t in his limbs. It was in his heart.
“You have a son,” he said, and Chelsea sucked in a breath and held it before she spoke.
“Lucas. He’s almost three.”
“Does he have your father’s name as his middle name?”
He noticed her wince. They’d discussed that when they’d once planned a family.
Batting her eyes against the tears he'd seen well up, she nodded. “Yes.”
Russell raised his bed to sit up, and Chelsea adjusted the pillows around him. She might not be attending to him today, but it was in her to always comfort people, that much hadn’t changed. “Thank you,” he said. “Smythe told me your ex-husband is on parole in Texas.”
She bit down on her bottom lip. “Yes.”
“He hurt you.” His is voice was a curt whisper.
“He did. He wasn’t the man I thought he was. I made a mistake.”
“Doesn’t mean he should hurt you,” he offered shaking his head.
She batted her eyes. “He kidnapped Lucas.” The first tear fell, and she quickly wiped it away. “He had him for two days before they found them in Texas. He’d abandoned him in the back of a car and robbed a liquor store.”
“That’s what sent him to jail?”
She nodded. “Yes. They added the charges for domestic violence.”
“Violence?” Russell's voice grew sharp.
“Like I said, I made a mistake.”
Russell reached for her hand and held it in his. “No, he did.”
“I just wanted to tell you how sorry I was for everything I put you through.” She wiped at the tears that rolled down her cheeks. “I’ve wanted to say I’m sorry for so long, but I was embarrassed. I’ve lived this close to you for all these years and…”
“Shh,” he hushed her. He hated when she cried. “Water under the bridge.”
“Are you kidding me?” Chelsea’s voice cracked under her tears. “I can’t even tell you why I did it. I loved you so much, and I was so excited that you were coming home. We had so many plans, Russell. So why…what makes someone…I mean…”
“Chelsea, stop.” He squeezed her hand. “I’ve never been so hurt in my life.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“I’m just being honest.” He gave her hand a tug. “Get a chair and sit down with me. I’m getting a pain in my neck looking up at you.” He smiled, and she let out a quick laugh.
Chelsea pulled the chair up to the side of his bed and sat down. “I brought you a cookie from the coffee shop and a little carton of milk.”
He knew the grin on his lips had to match the lightness in his heart at the moment. “You know me pretty well, don’t you?”
“Well, I did,” she said reluctantly.
Russ pulled the bag to him with his free hand.
“Let me help you,” she offered.
Chelsea took the bag and pulled out the napkin. She laid the cookie on it and then took out the milk.
“Do you want it open to sip it or dunk?”
“Oh, dunk.”
Chelsea laughed as she opened the full top of the carton and set it on the table. She then pushed the table closer to him so that he could reach it with his good arm.
Russell picked up the cookie, broke it in half, and dunked one of the halves in the milk. When it was just right, he pulled it back and took a bite.
“That’s the best thing I’ve had in a week,” he moaned as he chewed. “Thanks.”
“It was the least I could do. I wasn’t sure how this visit was going to go down.”
“Because you came to tell me that you’re going to be my nurse when I get home?”
Chelsea sat back down and clasped her hands in her lap. “So you already know about that?”
“No. All I know is my mom is excited to have you at the house with your son. And she thinks it would be a good thing to have you there when I get home. I can only imagine that’s so you can take care of me.”
“And what do you think of that?”
He pushed the table away and took a deep breath. He’d had all night to think about it.
“I don’t think it’s a good thing at all.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve been so mad at you for the past three years. I mourned us. I was pissed as hell. Confused. Then I wake up in the hospital, and you’re here. Suddenly…I don’t know what to think.”
“So, I should let your mom know this isn’t going to work.” She stood and pushed back the chair. “I’m going to go pick up Lucas and…”
“Sit down,” he ordered, and he noticed how gruff it sounded.
Chelsea stood there frozen. He kept his eyes locked on hers then looked back at the chair as if to direct her back to it.
Slowly she sat back down, twisted her fingers together, and kept her eyes to the floor.
“Russ, there’s no reason for me to stay if you think this is all a bad idea.”
“Look at me,” he demanded quietly. Chelsea lifted her eyes. “You’re leaving me hurt. I didn’t know about Lucas until yesterday.”
“That’s why I was in such a hurry the other day. I had to pick him up.”
“I just wish I’d known.” He reached for her again. “My mom wants to protect you and Lucas. She thinks that having you around our family will do that.”
“I know. I’m very thankful for her generosity.”
“Chelsea, I’m so mad that you were involved with a man that would hurt you.”
“I know. I think about it every day.”
“I never would have done that to you.”
Chelsea bit down on her lip. “I know. I hate myself for what I’ve done to you—to me.”
“Don’t say that. I suppose the part of my mother inside of me knows that it was fate. We weren’t meant to be together, but I guess it doesn’t mean w
e can’t be friends.”
She sniffed back the tears. “Friends is a good start,” she said as she sniffed. “I don’t know that I deserve your friendship, but I’d like to be your friend.”
“Good,” he said rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. “So you’re going to be living in the house? Both of you?”
“Yes. Your mother has arranged for me to finish my training, supervised, while helping you recover.”
His smile widened. “I think you’re exactly the medicine I need.”
“Russ, I’m so sorry.”
“You have to stop saying that.” Her apologies were making him nearly as mad as the act of losing her. “And I have to stop being mad,” he said, realizing it was a two-way street. He rested his head back against the pillow. “I told you I loved you the other day, didn’t I?”
Chelsea wiped away the rest of her tears. “You did. You were heavily sedated.”
Russell nodded. “I guess that means it came out of sincerity, right? Truth serum?”
She laughed. “I suppose. You also said you wanted to apologize to me, though I can’t imagine why.”
He turned his head to look at her. “I wanted to apologize for being wrong for you. Somewhere I must have done something that drove you to love someone else. I’m sorry for whatever that was.”
Chelsea pulled her hand from his and stood with her back turned. He could see her shoulders rise and fall. She was crying. Perhaps he’d done something horrible to drive her away, though he didn’t know what that was.
“Chels…”
“I was afraid you were going to die in combat, Russ. I had it in my head that you wouldn’t come back to me. I got angry about it, and I pushed myself away from your family.” She turned back frantically wiping at her tears. “It’s stupid. I get that. But I’d met a few girls who had husbands and boyfriends who were deployed, and they felt the same way. One of them told me her fiancé had cheated on her with a woman who was stationed with him. It made me worry. Then the other woman said she’d started drinking because she worried about her husband so much. When I thought about it, all I could think about was how much we would fight. You and I were always at each other, so how were we going to be fine when you got home?”
She covered her mouth and walked back to the side of his bed. “It’s stupid. It’s all so stupid. I worked myself up so much over it that lost all common sense. Then my family moved away, and I was alone.” She sucked in a breath. “I knew Dominic for a week before I let him take me home. I thought maybe that’s what I needed. I needed someone who was here for me.”
Russell squeezed his eyes shut. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear this, but he knew she needed to say it.
He opened his eyes and looked at her urging her to continue with a nod.
“Russ, you never did anything to push me away. I let my mind do that, and it did a good job. I was wrong.” She moved to her purse and pulled out her phone. “I got pregnant three months before you returned. In fact, the day I got your message that you’d be coming home was the day I found out.”
She sat back down in the chair and scrolled through her phone. “I had decided to admit that I’d had an affair and face the consequences. I didn’t plan to get pregnant. Dominic and I got married a week later.”
Chelsea lifted the phone so that he could see the screen. “This is Lucas.”
Russell looked at the little boy in the picture, and his chest tightened, and it pained him to look at him. He had her blond hair and blue eyes. The smile on his face was contagious, and he knew he’d begun to smile just looking at him.
“He’s a beautiful little boy,” he said, and she looked down at the picture and smiled.
“He’s amazing, Russ. He’s my entire world.”
“As he should be. Chelsea, I’m okay with you being at the house when I get home. I don’t know that I’ll be a very good patient, but…”
She laughed. “You’ll be horrible, but I’ll take that as payment for what I’ve done.”
Russell shook his head. “You’ve already paid enough. It’s time to forgive yourself. You have Lucas. He should be your priority. I’m just your job now.”
“You could never be just that.”
Their eyes lingered on one another, and he knew that he had spoken the truth that first day. He did still love her.
She leaned in and pressed a lingering kiss to his cheek. “Thank you,” she said as the door opened and she quickly stepped back from him.
The nurse walked in and began her charting of his vitals. It was obvious to him that the women didn’t know each other.
Chelsea picked up her purse and her coat. “I’m going to head out. Phillip said he’d meet me at my house so I could collect a few things.”
That told Russell that things were a little more serious than anyone had let on. They were worried enough to have her leave her house and not go back without an escort.
“Are you working tomorrow?”
She shook her head. “I’m only in-house for now. It’s better that way.”
“Right. You’d better get back before my mom spoils your son.”
She laughed. “He could use some of it. He loves her,” she said, and her eyes lit up.
“What’s not to like? My mother is magic.”
Chelsea nodded as she walked out of the room and Russell rested back.
Yeah, his mother was magic. Who’d have thought she’d somehow manage her magic between him and Chelsea.
He closed his eyes, let the nurse finish her job, and he thought of Chelsea and her son. Somehow he’d gone from despising the woman to being her friend again. But nothing had hurt as much as seeing her son’s face. That might just be a betrayal his heart couldn’t overcome. They could be friends because he believed she truly needed one. But that feeling of love that kept creeping into his heart—that needed to go. He never wanted to be hurt like that again.
Chapter Seven
The music on the radio seemed a little cheerier, and the holiday decorations that hung on the lamp poles brought happiness to Chelsea.
The very thought of being surrounded by the Walkers for Christmas made her smile, alone in the car.
When she pulled up in front of her house, Phillip Smythe was already parked there. As she parked behind him, he climbed from his patrol car and walked back to her.
He looked in the backseat as she slipped out from the car.
“Where’s Lucas?” His voice tremored with worry.
“Glenda Walker has him.”
Phillip eased. “Good. He’s safe there.”
“You seem concerned.”
Phillip took off his hat and ran his hand over his hair, which always was a sign he was upset about something. “I haven’t talked to Russ yet, but they found evidence of the other blue pickup’s paint on his truck. He was pushed off the road.”
Chelsea stepped up to him and placed her hand on his arm. “That’s horrible. Why would someone do that? I know he runs his mouth but…”
“The pickup we tracked down belongs to Dominic.”
She felt the blood drain from her head, and she leaned against the car for support. “He wasn’t out when Russell got in his accident.”
“You’re right. And we’ve confirmed that he’s still in Texas. A deputy even went out and saw him at his residence.”
“I don’t understand,” she pleaded as she eased from her position against the car. “Why would someone do that? Why would they use Dominic’s truck?”
“I’m looking into that. But, Chels, if they were willing to hurt Russ that badly, and he hadn’t even been in contact with you, it worries me now that you have been with him.”
“You think Russell is in some trouble?”
Phillip shrugged. “He’s not a troublemaker. Sure, he has a short fuse, but he’s not a problem. There has to be more to it. We’re trying to find who was driving the truck that night.”
“How did you know it belonged to Dominic and not know who was driving it?”
; Phillip pointed across the street to where a blue pickup truck sat parked at the curb. “We found the truck two hours ago, right there.”
Her head began to spin, and she must have swayed because Phillip’s arms came around her. “Let’s get you inside and get you some water.”
“You’re sure Dominic is still in Texas?”
“I’m sure,” he assured her as he helped her into the house.
~*~
The news had finally come in. They would plan to send Russell home in two more days. He wasn’t sure he could make it two more days. All he wanted was the comfort of his own bed.
When the door opened to his room, he couldn’t help but hope it might be Chelsea, but then he quickly reeled that thought back in. No, he’d have plenty of time with her. It wasn’t going to do him any good to be hoping for her, if he was going to try and keep his heart at a distance.
So when his cousin Jake rounded the door, he was pleased to see him.
“Oh, you look a lot better,” Jake said as he pushed the door closed.
“Yeah, I feel better. They said two more days, and they’ll send me home.”
“Good for you. Damn, I was in traction for weeks.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t going two hundred miles an hour.”
Jake laughed as he pulled the chair up next to the bed and sat down. “It took me a year to walk. It looks like you’ll be up and running soon.”
“I’d like that,” Russell said as he adjusted the sling on his left arm.
“So…Chelsea?” His cousin grinned. “What’s that story?”
“She’s my nurse.”
“No kidding?” He laughed as he leaned his forearms on his knees. “You land in the hospital, and your ex is your nurse. Do they do regular checks on that IV to make sure she doesn’t add anything to it?” He sat back in the chair as he laughed. “Damn, if that were one of my ladies, they’d have poisoned me for sure.”
Walker Revenge (The Walker Family Series Book 5) Page 5
