by Liz Crowe
“Six.” She tapped her fingertips on tight drum of her stomach.
“Good luck and be sure to keep us posted on it.” His voice sounded unusually rough, and her chest constricted in a way that pissed her off so much she had to end the call.
She the phone down and drank a glass of water with her prenatal vitamin. Feeling wide awake and knowing she should take advantage of it, she decided to do a bit of work on the upcoming banquet hall schedule. After a few hours in front of the laptop screen, sorting through all the requests for events she couldn’t meet because Brantley’s got booked up something like a year in advance anymore, she took off her reading glasses and rubbed her eyes.
Baby-girl Tolliver bumped and rolled, making Diana have to pee again. After taking care of that business, she watched some late-night comedian and dozed on the couch, waking with a jolt of sudden, unexplainable terror.
It took her a while to get to her feet, go to the bathroom yet again, and wander into her bedroom. Lee’s dog, Jasper sat outside the door, his tail thumping nervously when he spotted her. Odd, she thought. Jasper would usually be curled up on the rug next to Lee’s side of the bed. But the lights from their bathroom cast strange shadows into the room.
She froze, immobile with fear.
Quit it. Just get a grip. You’re a hormonally-crazed almost-mother. No more jumping at everything that seems out of place.
But Jasper stuck by her leg, and was now whining in a way that forced panic up and down her spine, skittering with long, spidery legs. Her cat sat on the bed, sphinxlike, its gaze glowing in the light from the bathroom.
“Lee?” She took a step into the room. The silence pounded her brain like a sledgehammer. She set her jaw, determined not to freak out. Then she saw his foot, still in the goofy suede moccasins he wore in the house.
“Lee, what have you done?” she said, walking calmly across the room to find him sprawled on the bathroom floor. She touched Jasper’s head. The dog sat by his master, sniffed his arm, then started howling.
Diana pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed 911 before dropping to her hands and knees and crawling up next to him, placing her head on his perfectly still chest. She was numb, encased in a block of ice, but lay on the floor, whispering to her daughter that everything would be all right.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Dom fell out of the taxi, got to his feet and managed to pay the guy before puking all over the sidewalk. He wiped his lips and forced the two apartment doors to become one, unlocked it and stumbled into the pitch-dark kitchen.
The dog let out a loud bark, then jumped up on him out of nowhere, giving his typical greeting. Strange, since Dom figured he’d be sleeping in Jace’s bed by now. He poured and drank two glasses of water, hoping to wash the X or whatever the hell it had been out of his system.
After deciding the water would not make a reappearance, he worked his wobbly way toward Jace’s bedroom, wanting nothing more than to slide in next to his son and hold the boy while he slept. The lights blazed bright, which confused him for a second. He stepped across the hall, praying under his breath that Jace had gone to his bed. He’d been known to do that before. He gripped the doorway when he realized that his bed was messily empty.
“Beth,” he called out, trying to remember the damn sitter’s name. “I mean, uh, Jane?” But the couch was as deserted as the beds. He pulled out his phone and dialed the girl, going with Jane as the name he’d contaced about the time he’d gotten the evening arranged.
She answered, sounding sleepy. “Oh, hi, Mr. Love. No, I thought Jace had gone to see you. Chris came by. She took Jace. I thought…she told me she was your…. Jace tried to call you, but… Oh no, oh God, I let him go with her. I thought it was okay.”
He hung up, unable to placate her and sat at his kitchen table a beat before dialing Chris’ number. The call went straight to voice mail.
He groaned and put his head on his arms, trying to figure out who to call, what to do, what that stupid bitch had been thinking taking his son out of his house. He woke with a grunt, scrabbling for his phone, which was vibrating its way across the dirty table top. He grabbed it and blinked at the strange number.
“Yeah?” he answered getting slowly to his feet. “Chris? Is that you? Where the hell is Jace?”
“Is this Mister Dominic Love,” a woman asked.
“Yes,” he replied, terror slamming him right between the eyes.
“This is Suburban Hospital Emergency.”
He slid to the floor, back to the wall and listened to the woman say words like car accident, broken arm, and your wife is fine. He leapt to his feet at those last words.
“That woman is not my wife. She kidnapped my…my s-s-s-s-son.” He tried to form more words but his mouth no longer took orders from his brain.
“Well, she’s saying something different and was the one who gave me this number to call. You’d better get over here.”
He shook so hard his teeth chattered. “Okay,” he managed before ending the call and quickly dialing Kieran before he lost his nerve.
“It’s Jace,” he blurted out. “Put Mama and Daddy on a plane out here, arrange a taxi to Suburban Hospital, Fort Collins. They have to come get Jace and take him home with them.”
“Wait, Dom, what the hell happened?”
“Just do what I’m telling you, all right?” He ground out the last words. “They have to take him, to get him the hell away from…here, and from me.” He hung up, dialed a taxi service and went outside to wait.
Dom had never liked hospitals and had spent far too much time in them during his mother’s cancer treatment and post-fall hip replacement surgery. They smelled like rubber, piss and defeat to him, no matter what. And a busy ER on a weekend night did little to dispel his aversion with its sniffling, bloody, drippy, miserable population
A surly nurse finally pointed him to an elevator, which took him to the fourth floor. The other passengers gave him a wide berth and he realized that he reeked of booze and had flecks of his own vomit on his shirt. When the doors opened, he ran out in front of everyone else and up to the nearest nurse’s desk.
“ICU, uh, little boy? Car accident?”
The woman’s eyes flickered up and down his messy front, picked up a phone and spoke into it. He spotted a couple of guys in scrubs headed in his direction. He gripped the edge of the desk.
“Mr. Love?”
He nodded. They pointed to some chairs. “Let’s go sit over here.”
He focused carefully on their faces and voices as they informed him that Jace had been thrown from the car, which had likely saved his life. But in the process had landed on his arm, breaking it in two places, plus three of his ribs. He had bad road rash all down the left side of his body.
Dom nodded, trying not to breathe heavy so they couldn’t smell the booze on him.
“He’s a lucky little boy, Mr. Love. One of the few times not having on a seatbelt saved a life. Your wife— “
He shook hid head. “Not my wife. A crazy…girl…friend. She took him, without asking me.”
“Ah, well, all right.” The doctor glanced at something on the tablet computer in his arms. “Well, then you should know that she’s been placed under arrest now that we stitched her up a bit.”
“Can I see him?” He stood, knees shaking, mouth coated with disgusting ooze.
“Yes. This way.” They propelled him down a short hall and opened a door, revealing myriad blipping machines surrounding his son, who seemed for all the world like a baby in the middle of the giant hospital bed. Most of his left side was covered in gauze, his arm invisible from shoulder to wrist.
Dom stumbled in, unsure what to do. The boy’s eyes fluttered open.
“Daddy?” His voice was barely audible, but music to Dom’s rattled eardrums. “That Chris lady is bad.”
Dom went over to Jace’s right side and crawled up in the bed, wrapping himself around his son.
“Shew, you smell bad. Did you have an upchuck? I’m slee
py. Will you stay here with me?”
Dom had no words other than the ones he thought, sending out a prayer of thanks on autopilot, his time spent in church making that reaction a reflex. “Yes,” he whispered, tears blurring his vision. “I always will.”
“I’m sorry about the TV, Daddy.”
Dominic swallowed around the lump of emotion choking him and tried to find the right mix of relieved the kid was alive and still pissed about a stupid television. While he was doing that, Jace fell asleep in his arms. Dom stayed awake, keeping his gaze on the boy and waiting for his parents to arrive.
“Dom?” Someone shook his arm. He brushed them away, pulling Jace closer.
“Dominic, honey, it’s Mama.”
His fell off the bed, got up and folded her into his arms, chest heaving with relief and terror. She held onto him, then pushed him away. “You look godawful, son. And you reek. Were you hurt in the accident?”
“I wasn’t in the accident, Mama. I…I…I left him alone with a sitter and the woman I’ve been….dating came to get him because she got mad at me or something. I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I failed him, Mama. You gotta take him home. Get him away from me.”
“We will take him home, but you have to come, too.”
He saw his father standing in the doorway, his brother Aiden by his side. Anton ran to the bed and glared at Dom. “A dang barn cat does better by her kittens than you.”
“Anton,” his mother began, warning in her voice.
But Dom nodded, agreeing, and dying a little inside. He pushed past his brother without acknowledging him and ran down the hall, out the door and all the way home, five solid miles without even slowing. He took a long shower, packed up Jace’s stuff and wondered how they’d get Skywalker home on the plane, before dropping onto the messy couch, head in his hands. The dog whined and shoved at his leg with his wet nose.
“Dominic.” A voice spoke from behind him. Dom turned and observed his younger brother’s gaze taking in the room. He registered that today should have been the day they cleaned together. The place must seem pretty shocking to someone normal, and the face-down TV didn’t help. “Uh, Daddy’s in the car. He….” Aiden began.
Dom rose when his father appeared at Aiden’s shoulder. “You are a sorry excuse for a human being, Dominic Love. You have shamed me with this….” He gestured at the chaos of the small apartment.
“You were hardly a model parent.” He surprised himself by having the wherewithal to reply. “Don’t act like you were.”
Aiden’s eyes darted from him to their father and back. “Listen, we’re all tired. Let’s not do—”
“Shut up,” Dom and his father said simultaneously.
“Jace’s stuff is in that bag.” Dom pointed at the suitcase. “That’s his dog. Take them all. Prove yourself right, Anton. That’s what you always wanted to do about me, isn’t it? To be right about what a colossal screw-up I am?”
“Don’t you dare sass me, boy.” Anton advanced on him.
But Dom no longer cared. “Fuck you, old man. And the horse you rode in on. I don’t know how my mother puts with you, but you can consider me off the radar for you, permanently.” He kept his arms at his sides, even when his father came at him, catching him under the chin with his hand, shoving him up against the wall so hard he saw stars. “Go ahead, choke me. Then you can blame me for killing myself,” he managed to blurt out before needing to preserve his oxygen. His father’s eyes narrowed and he pushed harder.
Aiden reached for their father’s arm. Dom held up a hand. “No, stay put, you brown-nosing little fucker. I never liked you either.” When his father released him after only a few seconds, he dropped to his knees, gasping for air. Anton left the apartment without another word.
After a while, Dom managed to get to a seated position up against the wall. Aiden perched on the couch, his hazel eyes intent but thankfully non-judgmental. “I never liked you much either, for the record.”
Dom shook his head, rubbed his throat and shoved the dog off him. “Oh, Lord you’re so dramatic, Leonardo.” Aiden smiled at the use of his over-the-top Italian middle name. “Why didn’t he take Jace’s stuff?” Dom got slowly to his feet. Aiden didn’t move, but his expression was serious in a way that sent alarm bells ringing in his head. “What?”
“Pack a bag, Dom.” Aiden got slowly to his feet. “I got your plane ticket. We have to go home for Lee Tolliver’s funeral.”
Dominic froze on his way to the kitchen. “For…what? Who…Diana’s…but she’s about to have a kid.” He blinked, absorbing what he’d just been told. “Oh, Jesus….”
Aiden nodded. “Yeah, so, if you can round up some clean clothes in all this crap, pack them. Is there a kennel or something we can use for the dog?”
Dom nodded, remembering that several of Jace’s babysitters dog sat as well. But his chest hurt and he couldn’t focus on anything.
“I should call Diana.” He fumbled for his phone.
“No, she’s with her sister right now. I haven’t seen her, but Mama spent all day with her yesterday before she got word she had to fly here and sort out your latest fuck-up.” Aiden grinned at him and smacked his shoulder a little harder than necessary. “Mama and Daddy are gonna stay here with Jace. You and I are flying home in,” he glanced at his phone, “two-and-a-half hours. So get a move on.”
Dom stood in the middle of the floor, wrapping his brain around what Aiden had told him. His brother prodded him to the bedroom, helped him pack, threw him in the rental car and drove them to the airport while Dom called to get dog coverage.
“Where will they stay?” Dom asked at one point before he boarded the plane.
“Hotel. I was sent to scout the suitability of your place. It failed. Go sit down.”
Once they were belted and airborne, Dom turned to study his younger brother’s profile. The kid had been a nuisance to him his whole life. He’d resented Aiden’s very existence, and the attention he stole from their busy, frazzled parents.
“How old are you now, anyway,” he asked, attempting to sip his coffee with a trembling hand.
“Almost thirty-three. Here.” He dropped Dominic’s tray and plunked three prescription bottles on it. “Get your ass with the program. We’re all sick of rescuing you.”
Dom picked them up and read their familiar labels. “Then how come you look like you’re still twenty?” He opened the two he took in the morning, and swallowed coffee to hide their metallic taste.
“Good genes. Same as yours, they tell me.” Aiden settled down and tugged his baseball cap over his face. “Sleeping now. I recommend you do the same thing.”
“I’m sorry. For everything.”
Aiden opened one eye. “I wish I could believe you.”
“Well, I’m not sorry for trying to sell you that one time. I almost got enough to buy a bicycle, you know.”
Aiden chuckled. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Why did Daddy come into my apartment?” Dom gripped his coffee. “If you were the ambassador of suitability?”
“He’s worried sick about you. You can drop the obtuse act. It’s getting really old.”
Dom turned to the window, noting the mountains he’d grown to love fading under cloud cover.
“For the record, they have no intention of taking Jace from you. And I don’t hate you either, so you can quit using that as an excuse to be a dick.”
Dom leaned his forehead against the cool window and exhaled with relief.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Diana kept her gaze pinned on the horizon, using every trick in her book to keep from screaming. But it lurked, right under her surface. The un-voiced shriek pressed against her vocal cords and filled her brain, willing her to let it loose with a deep breath. She rubbed her knuckles into her sore eye sockets and swallowed hard.
The baby shifted again, making her squirm in her seat. It annoyed now where it had once thrilled. She hated it for being here when Lee was not. She touched her stomach, which
she would swear had ballooned in the last three days since she’d found her husband dead on the bathroom floor.
Aneurism, the doctors told her.
Fate, she knew.
She simply wouldn’t be allowed happiness.
Diana, Lee’s voice echoed in her head. Don’t talk like that.
Fuck you, Lee. You’re the one who…left me.
“Fuck you,” she said out loud. “Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.”
Jen glanced over at her.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, clenching her fingers together. The blur of ambulance, declarations of death, funeral homes, and managing it on her own since Lee had no living family as an only child of long-dead parents crowded her memory banks, shoving out anything good she’d experienced with him.
She’d been able to recall every single one of their fights in the past few days for some reason. Irritating, but true. The man could easily out-stubborn even her. She bit her lip, guilt over being so single-minded about getting pregnant and letting it color everything about their brief relationship making her head spin. But his lean, strong body, his voice—so calm when dealing with frantic animal owners in the middle of the night—the fact that the baby, his baby, would never experience any of it made her breathless with anguish every time it penetrated her fog of devastation.
Damn doctors. This kid is about to be born yet they still won’t let me have anything to dull the edges.
She sent a silent apology to Lee’s baby girl for the fact that she’d never get the pleasure of knowing her amazing, darn-close-to-perfect father.
“Come on, honey.” Jen’s voice made her blink. They’d managed to get to the funeral home, her home away from home lately. Her sister had parked, gotten out and was now waiting for her at the open passenger-side door.
“No.” Diana’s heart pounded and her throat had gone bone dry. The baby gave her a whack in the kidneys. “I’m not going in there again.”
Jen crouched down beside her. “Diana, we have to.”
“No, we don’t. Leave me alone. Just go away.”
