“Just speak quietly, and don’t move him around, please. I’ll be back in a few minutes, I’m just going to check on another patient while I’m here.”
John took a seat, staring at his friend with moist eyes. I took the seat on Galen’s right side, and took his hand in mine. For some reason, I was surprised to find it warm. I don’t know why I thought he’d be cold.
“Galen, we’re here, darling. John and I are here.” I waited to see if he’d open his eyes but he didn’t. “Everything is going to be alright now, baby. Everything. Even all of this stuff with Rikki. It’s all going to be okay.”
Galen didn’t move but for a moment his blood pressure went up, and that made me feel like he knew I was there. It broke my heart to see him like that, and all I wanted to do was hold him, but I was afraid to touch anything more than his hand!
John sat in his chair, his gaze locked on Galen’s face. I went quiet, not knowing what else to say, and not wanting to pour my heart out with John sitting there. The doctor came back in a few moments later.
“I’m afraid that’s long enough. Mrs. Elliot, you may stay, of course, as long as you follow the rules on the wall there. I’m afraid you’ll have to leave us to it though, sir.” The doctor didn’t look as if he liked telling John to go, but we both understood.
“I understand. He’s going to be alright, that’s all I needed to know. I’m going to get home to his little girl and do what he’d want me to do. If he needs us or anything changes, let me know. Tara, you too, honey. Just call me when you’re ready to come home. You know Amanda and I will take care of Rikki. Don’t worry yourself about that.” He gave me a quick hug, the first time he’d ever really touched me like that, and left before I could even say thank you.
I wasn’t upset, I knew he was just emotional because of Galen’s condition. I turned to the doctor and stopped him from leaving.
“How long do you think it’s going to be before he wakes up?”
“It might be a few minutes, or a few hours. He’s got some pain medicine in him now, and that might keep him out for a while. Head injuries are hard to judge, Mrs. Elliot, but try not to worry too much. He’s in good hands.” The doctor gave my shoulder a slight brush and flashed a reassuring smile.
“I think he is, thank you.” I’d read the tag on his white coat, Dr. C. N. Angel. I took it as a sign. Doctor Angel.
He left and I was alone with Galen. I remembered when my grandmother got sick, how quiet her room always was, how the ventilator would whoosh as it rose and fell, the sound of her blood pressure monitor always an irritant. I’d lost her just when I needed her most, but Galen had come along and helped to heal the hole she’d left behind. And Rikki, and Amanda.
“You’ve brought me so much, Galen. You can’t leave me now.” I know what the doctor had said, and what his words had meant. He didn’t think anything more traumatic was going to happen to Galen, but he wouldn’t rule it out either. I had to remind him what he was fighting for.
“I think I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw you across my lawn. The sun going down behind you made it look like you were standing in a halo.” I could hear my voice shake but kept going. “You were this blond god, or maybe an archangel. I know the rumors, I’ve heard your own admissions, but to me, you were perfect and still are, Galen. I need you to make me live life. If you leave me now, I’ll go back to the old me, too disinterested in the world to know it’s even there.”
I don’t know where the words were coming from but they flowed out as I watched his face, my eyes taking in every red mark and purple bruise.
“Rikki needs you too. Now that Sarah’s confessed she lied, the whole thing is going to fall apart. I can almost understand why your in-laws wanted Rikki now. They wanted her to take Kayla’s place, I think, to fill that hole. I watched her that day you know, Kayla’s mother, at court. She was so full of pain. She doesn’t realize that you can’t take that pain away. You have to learn to live with the loss of a loved one or you’ll drown.”
I went quiet, stunned at myself. Where was all of this coming from? My heart, I decided.
“I can’t fill the hole in Rikki’s life, or yours, but I can make it better, just as you’ve both done for me. You gave me something to embrace when I was trying to live around all of the hurts in my heart.”
This time I stopped speaking because Galen shifted in the bed, and then his beautiful eyes opened. He looked at me blearily for a moment, gave a glimmer of a smile, and then shut his eyes again. I thought he’d gone back to sleep, but he spoke.
“Love you too, Tar-wah!” He said it as Rikki did, his playful voice a whisper. Tears filled my eyes and I sobbed before I stood up to kiss his cheek.
He’d gone back to sleep, real sleep this time, not the unconscious state he’d been in.
I sat back down in my chair to wait. I’d sit in it until I was fused to it if I had to, but I wasn’t leaving him. Not when he’d said he loved me.
27. Galen
“So they’re dropping the suit then?” I heard Tara’s voice from a distance, the deep rumble of my lawyer’s voice followed, quiet and low.
“Yes, and the police have stated they’re no longer interested in pursuing Sarah’s claims. I think Kayla’s parents are in for a time of it though. I hope that she-cat of a lawyer of theirs is a good criminal lawyer.” I heard Bill’s chuckle and wondered what he was doing in our bedroom.
Then I wondered what exactly they were talking about, and why I couldn’t move my leg, and what was wrong with my head? Why did it feel so fuzzy inside and out? I moved my left hand up to touch my head and felt the gauze covering it. That explained that, but why was there an IV in my arm. Was I in the hospital?
“Ahem. Help?” I opened my eyes, my vision blurry for a moment before it cleared, and saw a very bedraggled Tara and an immaculate as usual Bill.
“Galen, my boy!” Thank fuck he didn’t bellow that in his usual voice! “Glad to see you awake, son!”
“Glad to be awake, I guess? What’s going on?” I looked from him to Tara waiting on an answer.
“You had some kind of an accident, Galen. We’ve been waiting on you to tell us. Even the police are waiting in case you were assaulted!” Tara came to my bedside and took my hand. I clasped my fingers in the warmth of hers, clinging to her presence.
“I remember going to the park.” I thought back, trying to remember it all but a lot of it was still just black moments of nothing. I’d only just woke up, give me a break! “I think I slipped on a rock or something. There wasn’t anyone around when I woke up. I had to crawl back to the car.”
“It’s a wonder you managed to get that far! You’ve been out for two days!” Tara looked relieved, and there was a look in her eye, one I recognized, one that made me feel warm and loved. Then her words sank in.
“Two days? Wow, I split my head open or something?” I used my other hand to feel around the gauze on my head until I found a sore spot in the back and stopped. “Oh, that’s not good.”
“No, it’s not. But it will heal. Your ankle doesn’t need surgery, either, but it may later. You’ve done some damage to the ligaments but the swelling is going down now.” Tara gave it to me straight at least.
“The other good news is the custody case against you has been dropped. The judge dismissed it when Sarah confessed she lied. And your new wife presented an argument that an expert backed up by looking through Kayla’s autopsy record. She needed to be on insulin but wasn’t, and on the day of the accident, her blood sugar went off the charts. Tara theorized that Kayla likely went into shock of some kind, she can explain it better than me, and passed out.”
“Meaning, I couldn’t have caused her death.” My brain was starting to work again and I was now processing what Tara and Bill said. “I wasn’t responsible at all.”
“No, son. She refused medical care, I spoke to her gynecologist about her last appointment. She refused to believe the tests were correct. Her psychiatrist even tried to get her to see reason,
but she wouldn’t. She knew she was depressed and having some other issues, but she refused to believe she needed insulin. She wasn’t overweight and for whatever reason she had it stuck in her head that she couldn’t have Type 2 diabetes.”
“Do you think I neglected her, Bill?” I needed to know, even if Tara was in the room. Bill was the lawyer after all, he might be the only one that could take that burden away.
“I think you were a new father, overworked, and trying your best, Galen. That’s not just the lawyer talking, that’s a man that knows what it’s like to be a new father. You were doing the best you could with the hand you’d been dealt.”
Poker talk, I could understand that.
“Thanks, Bill. That’s all I needed to know. Oh, except for when do I get out of this place? I want my own bed.”
“That will be up to the doctor. Tara promised.” He gave Tara a wink and moved to the end of my bed. “Now, you do as they both tell you and get better. I’m going to let you get back to resting. Tara, when he feels better and his head is clearer, tell him to give me a call. We’ll discuss all of this again.”
“I will, Bill, and thanks for dropping by. It means a lot.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek which made the man blush! He spluttered his way out with a wave after that, before Tara came to sit on the side of the bed.
“You know you’re stuck with me now, right?” She looked at me with love in her eyes and a memory came to mind. Tara in the darkness of the room, her face lit only by the machines, tears in her eyes, as I told her I loved her.
“I think you’re stuck with me, Mrs. Elliot!” I took her hand, pulling her down to stroke her face, her eyes shining at me. “It’s not like I’d let a woman that knows what it is to live around pain get away.”
“How did you... you heard that?” She looked startled but pleased.
“Indeed, I did. Along with a few other things.” I brushed a finger down her jaw, loving how beautiful she was with her face clean of makeup.
“Do you remember waking up?” she asked timidly.
“If you mean when I told you I love you, of course I remember. And I meant it.”
“Did you?” Rather than popping up to stare at me, she leaned her head on my chest, her arm going around my lower abdomen.
“I did, baby. Every word. There’s never been a woman like you in my life and I know there never will be again. You’ve changed me, Tara. You’ve woken me from a nightmare I’d forgotten I was living in. You and Rikki, you’re all I need in this world, you know? I love you and I can never thank you enough for what you’ve brought me.”
I felt actual tears in my eyes and blinked them away, but then one fell on my cheek. I swiped the little bastard away and grumbled at myself. Crying like a girl? Fuck, what had that knock to my head done to me?
“Good,” Tara said from below my chin. She sounded like she was about to fall asleep and I wondered how much rest she’d had the last few days. “I love you back, Galen. Always.”
Then she began to snore, and it was alright, because I had the woman of my dreams in my arms, and if she was exhausted because she’d spent three days terrified for me, well, who could blame her for falling asleep when she knew I was out of the woods, literally.
28. Galen
Three Years Later
“You know son, you’ve done a pretty good job with her!”
I looked over at my former father-in-law, Ben Miller, and wondered if he meant it. We stared up at the stage in the dark school auditorium, both of us proud of the girl grinning on the stage.
“Thanks, Ben! That means the world to me!” It really did. After I’d been released from the hospital three years ago I’d met up with the Millers in a mediation attempt, an attempt to give us all some closure and peace. We’d agreed a visitation plan for the Millers and they’d finally become the kind of grandparents I’d hoped they’d be for my pretty little Rikki.
“I guess you’ll be having another little one soon, what with Tara finishing her education now?” That came from Ruth Miller, on my other side.
“No, actually she has plans for med school now. She was the valedictorian at the last graduation, you know that right?” I’d been so proud of my wife, a scholar and a step-mother, handling it all like it was nothing. She’d had her moments of tears and frustration but now the work was paying off. She was achieving her dreams.
“Oh, I thought that might be why she wasn’t here tonight,” Ruth murmured, staring as Rikki performed in her first school play, her angelic little face making her a star already. “I thought she might be feeling under the weather.”
“Not at all. She’s with her friend Amanda. She’s getting married tomorrow, so they’re having a little bachelorette party. I’m recording this for her, though.” The pair finally went quiet and we continued to watch the play.
* * *
A few hours later, my little star was in bed and my wife was drunkenly telling me about her party.
“Can you believe she’s pregnant? She’s putting her career as a teacher aside to have a baby! How crazy is that?” She sounded as if she was upset with her friend as we settled down into the bed together for the night.
“Come now, Tara, you know not every woman wants to have a career. Some just want to be wives and mothers! There’s nothing wrong with that, darlin’!” I pulled her to me, her gorgeous breasts in the black negligee too tempting to resist.
“I know that!” she said as she straddled my hips, her face a pout aided by alcohol. “But, it’s Mandy! She has to have some life under her belt before she does that.”
“Why? If she’s happy, why force her to change? You have it all. Why can’t she? Give her a year or two and she’ll get into the swing of things. If not, I’m sure she’s happy with that.”
“But—”
I didn’t let her finish. I pulled her down to me, kissing her deeply, swiping my tongue over hers, gathering up the taste of rum from her. Sweet.
She moaned as she pressed down into me, my dirty little girl on fire already.
She squirmed her way down my body, making me moan her name as she pushed my robe open to find me naked. When her hand wrapped around my cock, I buried my fingers in her hair, tensing on her head.
She’d learned to take far more of me than she had that first time, but sometimes she still struggled. Tonight she was relaxed and opened, taking me down her throat easily.
“Tara…” I sighed her name, loving the way she touched me, how she always wanted to please me. “You suck my dick so good, baby.”
She still loved it when I talked dirty to her too. Then she stopped sucking and sat up, looking kind of sad.
“Galen?” she asked, sounding lost. I sat up, pulling my legs up to cross them. She did this sometimes when she’d had a drink. It was going to be a few minutes before she got back to sexy time.
“Yes, my love?” I took her hand as she looked sad for a moment, a tear streaming from her eye. Since my accident we hadn’t spent a single night apart, and we were each other’s world. She’d even won over my buddies and had taught them a thing or two about playing poker. Now she was sad, and I knew why.
“Should we have a baby, for Rikki?” She looked at me with those doe eyes of hers and I just wanted to hold her tight.
“That’s up to you, Tara. It’s your body. I think we can handle another child between the two of us, but if you want to wait, or if you’re happy with having only Rikki, then that’s fine too. Don’t do it for me, and don’t do it for Rikki.”
“I don’t know if I could love another child as much as I love Rikki,” she admitted, staring down at the hands that were on their way to healing ailments. She’d already decided she was going into gynecology to help women like Kayla.
“Of course you could, babe.” I didn’t want to push her, but I’d love to have a child with her, but only when she was ready.
“It’s only what, 3 more years? Rikki will be 8, maybe she won’t want a sibling then?”
“As I said, babe, it’s
up to you. It’s your body. You decide.” I pulled her close, loving the way she fit into my arms.
She’d cared for me after the accident, and when I’d had to have surgery on my ankle a year later. Now she needed a little care. I didn’t mind giving it to her.
I found her wet and hot, ready for my fingers now she’d gotten her questions answered, and the way she panted in my ears… fuck, how did that still make me so hard?
Her fingers found me, and we worked together, not rushing, just teasing, building each other up to the kind of heat we knew how to create only for each other.
Tara’s legs opened and I moved, finding her sweet and ready for my tongue.
“Open more, Tara.” I urged her, my fingers biting gently into her thighs.
She resisted and I looked up at her, my eyes giving her that look of domination she loved. She grinned at me, biting her bottom lip, and opened her thighs for me.
“Fuck!” It wasn’t a scream, just a sigh, because Rikki was older now, and curious. We’d had to learn to lock the door when we were making love, and knowing my wife, she’d done that already.
I found her clit and licked it hard, running my tongue flat across it. She loved that part, the heat an exquisite torture for her. Her fingers wound into my hair, and she began to fuck my face, her girlish shyness now gone, as she took what she wanted, moved the way she knew worked best.
I let her have her way until she exploded, drinking in every drop of her pleasure, my fingers deep inside of her to ready her for what came next.
As her panting calmed and her head fell back, I thrust into her, hard, fast, our skin slapping together the way she’d told me she liked. I thought it might hurt her, but she loved it, especially how I pushed her knees up to her chest, sinking deeper into her with each driving thrust of my hips.
Professor next Door Page 14
