“I love you, Beth. Only you. I should have told you about Nikki and me a long time ago, but I kept putting it off. I figured that you’d probably heard the rumors and that all those things that happened back then didn’t matter. It was such a long time ago.”
“True. Oh, Tom, I’m glad you told me.” Relief flooded through her as she realized that at last she was free of all doubt.
“So am I.” He stared off into the distance for a moment, then seemed to pull himself back from whatever he was thinking. “I guess I’ve talked too much. Is there anything you want to say? Anything else I need to clear up?”
Beth shook her head mutely.
He slid a hand up and around the back of her neck, leaning toward her so that their foreheads touched. “Whew,” he said. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you know the truth. How about if you leave the door unlocked for me tonight and we finish our discussion then?” He smiled down at her.
“I’ll be waiting,” she said.
He stood, and she rose with him. He kept his arm around her as they walked toward his pickup. When they reached the truck, he hugged her. “We’re okay? You’re okay?”
She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against his chest. “Yes,” she murmured. This was her man. He was a decent man. That was all that mattered at the moment.
Mitchell zipped past them on his scooter. “Tom! Are you going home?”
Tom let his arms drop. “Yep, that’s right. Your mom’s going to fix your supper, and you both have things to do.”
Mitchell pulled up beside them. “I’m not ready to quit riding yet.”
“You can have about ten more minutes,” Beth said. “Then we’ll go inside.”
“Okay, Mommy. ’Bye Tom.” He started to get back on the scooter.
“Wait a minute,” Beth said hastily, restraining him. “Tom’s going to back out of the driveway, and you’d better stay right here with me until it’s safe.”
“He can watch out for me—right, Tom?”
“You’d better stay with your mother like she says.”
“It’ll take a while to get back into the swing of things here,” Beth told Tom with a meaningful flick of her gaze toward Mitchell. “Allen and Corinne have different rules at their house.” Spending time with them, as she had on several other visits, she’d noticed how lax they were about certain rules. In fact, she had grown to understand how Richie could have turned out to be so irresponsible; his parents hadn’t held him to any standards, and if Beth would allow it, they’d let Mitchell do anything he wanted when he was with them.
“You’ll handle it,” Tom told Beth.
Beth and Mitchell both waved as Tom turned onto the road, and after his pickup was out of sight, Beth went into the garage to sort a pile of carpet samples that she’d stored there. Only a few more minutes remained until it would be too dark to let Mitchell continue to play outside, and she figured she might as well put the time to good use.
As she tossed some pieces of carpet onto a pile to put in her minivan and another to send back to the manufacturer, she kept running Tom’s story through her mind. She could well imagine the scene with Nikki when she’d told Tom she was pregnant; it could have been Beth and Richie. That was where any resemblance to her story ended, however. She couldn’t condone Nikki’s attempt to force a man to marry her by getting pregnant by his best friend. This was deceit of the worst kind. Now that Beth knew the way it really was, she didn’t identify with Nikki at all. All her sympathies were squarely with Tom.
She gathered up the carpet samples. They’d better go inside so she could start supper.
Because of the way the minivan blocked her vision, she hadn’t realized that Mitchell was riding his scooter in loops at the end of the driveway and that some of them overlapped the road. As soon as she realized that he was in forbidden territory, she called to him sharply.
“Mitchell! Let’s put the scooter away.”
He looked back at her, all smiles. “Just another minute, Mom.”
She was all too familiar with that tone. It was the way he spoke when he knew he could coax and charm her into giving in. He was heading back toward the street.
“Mitchell—” she began, intending to tell him that he was to put the scooter in the garage right this minute. And then her heart stopped.
Barreling around the curve in the road was a red coupe. And her uttering Mitchell’s name had caused her son to turn his head so that he didn’t see the car bearing down on him.
Before she even heard the terrifying squeal of the car’s brakes, Beth dropped the pieces of carpet and began to run. If she could get there fast enough, she’d be able to pull Mitchell out of harm’s way.
But she couldn’t. Forever engraved on her brain would be Mitchell’s expression of shock and fear when he saw the car, the ashen face of the driver as she swerved to avoid the inevitable, and the horrible thud of Mitchell’s body before it flew through the air.
Chapter Seventeen
Mitchell’s small frame was dwarfed by the big hospital bed, and he was so pale. He was hooked up to a variety of machines in the intensive care unit and had an IV needle in his arm. Beth felt as if she were living a nightmare, but at least she wasn’t alone. Tom had arrived at the emergency room almost immediately; Patty Holcomb, who worked in the hospital’s pediatric unit, had called him as soon as she’d heard from a friend in the ER that Mitchell had been admitted. Chloe hurried over and Leanne stopped by.
Don Weiss, a local doctor whom Beth knew from church, had been grave. “Beth, I’m afraid that Mitchell has a brain concussion. We’ve done X rays and a CT scan. The good news is that he doesn’t have a skull fracture, only a contusion of the scalp that required sutures. He’s not out of danger, of course. We’ll be watching him so that if he develops a brain hemorrhage, we can deal with it promptly. Brain damage is also a concern.”
“Brain damage,” Beth repeated, devastated.
“We’re hoping for the best. He also has two broken ribs. We have a good team taking care of him, and we’re doing our best. Of course, if necessary, we can always move your son to Austin for medical care, but right now we’re confident that we can deal with his problems.”
Though his words didn’t provide her with any certainty, Beth had taken heart from his reassuring manner. Dr. Weiss was a highly respected physician in the community, and she trusted him.
Now she sat amid the machines and the tubes that were supposed to save her son’s life and tried not to panic. She’d knelt beside Mitchell seconds after the car hit him, and by that time the shaken driver had already been dialing 911 to ask for help. An ambulance had arrived within minutes, and the crew, two of whom were acquaintances, had been professional and kind. She’d ridden beside Mitchell all the way to the hospital while the medical techs worked to keep him alive. He hadn’t regained consciousness, and she was terrified that he never would.
She couldn’t seem to take her eyes off his face. Mitchell was as beautiful as a sleeping angel, and if not for the large bandage on his head and the fact that they’d had to shave off some of his hair, he might have been merely sleeping. If only he’d give her some sign that he knew she was there—if he’d just open his eyes! But maybe that was asking too much. She prayed that he’d go on breathing, that none of the monitors would start beeping to signal something terribly wrong, though at the moment, nothing was right. Mitchell was just a little boy. He wasn’t supposed to be lying here all waxy pale and silent. He should be laughing and running around and making too much noise. And now she didn’t know if he would ever be able to do those things again.
“Beth.” Someone touched her shoulder, but she was so numb she almost didn’t feel it. She looked up blankly, expecting Mitchell’s doctor.
It was Patty Holcomb, who couldn’t have been more kind and caring during this ordeal.
“Why don’t you go out for a while and get something to eat, Beth. Tom’s brought you a sandwich from the cafeteria.”
“I couldn’
t,” Beth whispered, stricken at the thought of leaving her son alone in this frightening environment. What if he woke up and she wasn’t there? What if he needed something?
Patty smiled reassuringly. “Go on. I’ll stay right here with Mitchell, and his nurses are nearby. You have to keep your strength up.”
For whatever ordeal is to come. Beth silently finished the sentence for Patty.
“Come on.” Patty slid an arm around her and helped her to her feet. For the first time, Beth was aware of her bloodstained clothes.
She cast a worried glance back at Mitchell. “You’ll find me if—”
“Yes. Tom is in the private waiting area near the elevator. You can be alone there.”
Beth made herself move her feet toward the small room at the end of the hall. She went directly into Tom’s arms to be comforted by his stalwart presence.
“Oh, Tom, I’m so scared.” She sighed, and he smoothed her hair and said that everything would be all right. Beth wasn’t sure that it would be, but it was good to have someone to tell her so.
He produced a canvas bag that Chloe had dropped off, and it contained a change of clothes for Beth. She went into the nearby rest room and put them on, sure that she’d never wear the bloodstained slacks and shirt again. Then Tom tried to convince her to eat, and she managed to force down half a chicken sandwich. After she’d finished eating and drinking a cup of hot tea, Allen and Corinne, grim expressions on their faces, had arrived, and Beth was able to describe Mitchell’s condition without breaking down.
After Richie’s parents excused themselves to get coffee, Tom took Beth aside. “I want to be with you,” he said. “Right there with you and Mitchell.”
“They don’t allow anyone but his immediate family in the ICU,” she told him doubtfully.
“Don’t be so sure.” A determined expression settled over his features.
Shortly after she returned to Mitchell, whose condition hadn’t changed, Tom slipped into the room.
“I pulled a few strings,” he said, and she smiled gratefully up at him as he brought a chair closer to the bed.
She thought Mitchell’s eyelids flickered when he heard Tom’s voice, but even though she called to him and tried to get him to repeat the movement, she wasn’t successful.
“He’s got to be all right. He’s got to!”
“He will be,” Tom said, and when she glanced at him, she saw that even he was shaken by Mitchell’s appearance.
Her eyes filled with tears, but she knew she had to remain strong. She held Mitchell’s hand in one of hers and Tom’s in the other, and they sat like that for a long time, until a nurse arrived and asked Tom to leave.
“Your son has another visitor,” she said with a meaningful lift of her brows, and through the glass window that allowed a view of the hallway, she saw Richie.
Tom squeezed her hand and left, walking slowly past her ex-husband and making no secret of his curiosity. As soon as Tom had passed, Richie brushed past the nurse.
Beth merely nodded at Richie, whose eyes were rimmed by dark circles; he appeared as upset as she was. She had no doubt that seeing their son in this condition affected him deeply.
“Has he awakened at all?” Richie asked. Like her, he didn’t seem able to stop gazing at Mitchell’s face.
“No,” she said.
“Has the doctor shown up since Mitchell’s been in the ICU?”
Beth shook her head. “He’s going to stop by later.”
Richie sank onto the chair beside her, the one that Tom had so recently vacated. She wondered if Richie had brought Starla, and then she realized that it didn’t matter. The most important thing at the moment was for Mitchell to get well.
BETH MOVED INTO THE HOSPITAL, and she rarely left Mitchell’s side. At night, she slept on a reclining chair near his bed, waking every time someone turned on a light or wheeled a cart past the room. During the day, she attended conferences with Mitchell’s doctors and fielded inquiries from friends, all of them concerned, all of them asking if there was anything they could do to help. Chloe brought her fresh clothes every day and carried the ones she’d worn home to wash for her. Allen and Corinne commuted from Stickneyville and made themselves available to run errands for Beth. As for Richie, he was beside himself with worry.
Beth felt like a zombie, and even though everyone urged her to go home once in a while, she refused. Sometimes she took a break from her constant vigil, but she always ended up wandering the hospital corridors aimlessly, fretting about Mitchell.
One day, when she couldn’t cope anymore, she stopped by the hospital chapel to pray. There she found Richie on his knees behind one of the pews. Beth hesitated before joining him and adding her prayers to his. When Richie stood, she did, too. In that moment, with all her resentment over the divorce stripped away, when she could relate to Richie as the father of her son rather than the husband who had betrayed her trust, she dismissed all the things she might have said. In light of the horrible tragedy that they were both facing now, nothing mattered except that Mitchell recover.
So she only gazed up at Richie with tears in her eyes, and he gathered her into his arms. The gesture was one of solace between two human beings sharing a common interest in one little boy who needed both of them now more than ever. Their embrace didn’t last long, but it ensured that no bitterness would be allowed to interfere as they did their best to recover, along with their son, from the disaster that had taken over their lives.
They broke apart self-consciously, but Beth realized that she and Richie had rounded a corner in their relationship. She could let go of the sadness and anger that had accompanied her divorce and replace it with understanding. By forgiving Richie and even Starla, she was creating an atmosphere in which they could, perhaps, work together as an extended family for the good of all.
“I—I’d better get back to Mitchell,” Beth said.
“Me, too,” Richie replied.
They left the chapel together, riding the elevator silently upstairs. As they made their way to Mitchell’s room, Patty Holcomb came flying around the corner.
“Beth, Richie, hurry!”
Beth’s heart almost stopped. “Mitchell—is he—?”
Patty appropriated Beth’s arm to hurry her along. “I stopped in to check how he was doing and he opened his eyes. I called his nurses and came to find you.”
By this time, they’d rushed into Mitchell’s room. His eyes were closed, and at first, Beth was sure it was a cruel hoax, that Patty had been wrong, that nothing had changed. But when she curved her hand around Mitchell’s, his eyes fluttered open.
“Mommy, I want to go home,” he said. The words were no more than a whisper, but there was no mistaking them.
And in that moment, Beth’s fractured world came back together again. She bent low to brush Mitchell’s forehead with a kiss, her joyful tears falling on his cheeks. “As soon as we can, sweetheart. As soon as we can.”
Behind her, Richie made a strangled sound, and when she turned, she realized that he was crying, too. He gripped Mitchell’s other hand in his, and Beth knew that their prayers had been answered. Their son was back.
THE NEXT FEW DAYS proved to be difficult, and Mitchell wasn’t always in the best of moods. His ribs hurt, and he kept pulling at the bandage on his head. Still, he developed a hearty appetite, didn’t require an IV anymore and began to agitate to leave the hospital.
“When am I going to be able to ride Captain again?” he pestered.
“Soon, cowboy,” Tom told him.
He visited every morning and every night, even though he was deeply involved at the ranch now that the ATTAIN kids had arrived. Beth couldn’t have managed without Tom. He made Mitchell laugh, he sat in on her conferences with Mitchell’s doctors. He even got along with Richie. When Beth discovered Tom and her ex engaged in a deep conversation about NCAA basketball, she realized that the two men had conquered whatever animosity they initially might have felt for each other.
On the night b
efore Mitchell was scheduled to go home, when Richie, Allen and Corinne were eating dinner with him, Tom stole Beth away from the hospital and drove her to Zachary’s, where he ordered steaks with all the trimmings. Beth dug into hers with gusto, also polishing off a huge salad with Gorgonzola dressing and scarfing down half a loaf of Zachary’s special cheese bread.
Richie had told them earlier that he was planning to spend the last night of Mitchell’s hospitalization in his room, so Beth allowed Tom to take her home. There he propelled her straight into the bedroom, where he sat her on the bed and slipped off her shoes for her.
“Let me pamper you. You’ve been through hell and I want you to relax completely for a change.” He started to massage her feet.
“Tom, I—”
“Humor me.”
She started to laugh, not sure if he was removing her clothes more for her benefit or his, but she let him ease her out of her blouse and slacks, then her bra and her panties. He led her into the bathroom, where he adjusted the shower to a fine spray. He stepped in beside her, and then she was standing warm, wet and naked in his arms, with the water running off their bodies and nothing between them. She’d thought once or twice that she’d be smelling like a hospital until Mitchell was released, but as Tom soaped her all over, the scent of lavender and vanilla from the soap began to replace the antiseptic odor that she’d grown to dislike so much. After he rinsed her off, he soaped himself, and then he kissed her lingeringly.
“Relax,” he murmured in her ear. “This is going to be a night of pleasure for both of us.”
“No loudspeakers squawking all night long? No carts with squeaky wheels trundling through the halls?”
“No bright lights in your face in the middle of the night, and no one asking if you want anything when all you need is a good night’s sleep.”
“It sounds lovely” was her heartfelt reply.
He dried her with a fluffy towel, swept her into his arms and deposited her on the bed. Then he slid beneath the covers and cradled her close. She fell asleep with Tom’s body curved protectively around hers, and felt, for perhaps the first time in her life, completely and utterly cherished.
Breakfast With Santa Page 21
