She understood on some level how selfish it was for her to go. Goodness knows, Maggie had had enough to say lately on Dinah’s tendency toward selfishness. She was leaving Cord here, knowing that every day would be filled with anguish and uncertainty and, perhaps in the end, nothing but heartache. All so she could prove something to herself, something she’d already proved a thousand times in the past. She’d been the best and brightest, the most courageous. She was worthy to be a Davis, even if she hadn’t done things the traditional way. She didn’t have to prove it over and over for it to go on being true.
Maybe the real courage—the real maturity—was in moving on, doing what was best for her and for the man she loved.
As the truth of that sank in, she began taking clothes out of her suitcase and tossing them right back into drawers. When everything was back where it belonged, when she’d called Ray and told him her decision, then listened to the genuine relief in his voice as he’d given her his blessing, she borrowed her father’s new motor cycle, spent a few minutes getting the hang of handling it in the driveway, and then headed for Covington Plantation.
She had a question on her mind, maybe the most important one she’d ever asked. And for once she was the one in a hurry for an answer.
Cord was working on a scaffolding at Covington Plantation. He’d never been fond of heights, but he’d learned to scramble around on the roof as surefooted as a mountain goat and, when it was required, he could spend hours on a scaffolding like this one scraping off paint or replacing rotting boards.
It was peaceful high up off the ground and there was a breeze stirring. He could barely hear the distant sound of hammers on the other side of the house, the faint strains of a radio from inside.
The mindless task of scraping paint gave him time to think, which on a day like today wasn’t the best thing in the world. The only thoughts spinning through his head had to do with Dinah leaving and, worst of all, maybe never coming back. He told himself he had to face it, but it made his stomach churn. The thought of never seeing her again, never making love to her or having babies with her left him with an aching heart. He’d sure as hell never expected to care this much about any one, especially an uppity woman like Dinah, who’d al ways struck him as being way out of his league.
The roar of a motorcycle broke into his troubled thoughts. He looked into the distance and caught just a glimpse of the candy-apple-red Harley coming up the winding driveway. The damn thing was going way too fast for the condition of that bumpy roadway.
Certain it had to be Marshall Davis with a death wish or maybe even Dorothy in some maddening attempt to recapture her youth, he was about to lower the scaffolding to the ground to ream out whichever one it was when one of the ropes holding the scaffolding broke. Taken by surprise as the boards tilted precariously, Cord tried to catch onto one of the remaining ropes, but he was too late. It slid right through his hand.
Next thing he knew, he was plummeting straight toward the ground in a dive that promised to hurt like hell when he landed. Just before he hit the ground, he realized that the woman who’d arrived on the Harley was Dinah. He caught one glimpse of her stunned gaze, slammed onto the hard ground and lost consciousness.
Every damn bone in his body felt like it was broken. Cord swam back toward consciousness, dimly aware of Dinah’s gut-wrenching sobs and the gentle, probing touch of her fingers, light against his pounding head.
“Don’t die on me, Cordell Beaufort. Don’t you dare die on me,” she said, her voice thick with emotion and anguish. “Oh, God, I can’t do this again. I can’t lose you.”
Cord recognized that there was something significant in her words, but he was too out of it to put his finger on it. He just knew she needed him to stay awake, needed him to reassure her.
“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” he managed to murmur, fighting the waves of pain washing through him.
Just before the world turned dark again, he felt her tears on his cheeks and heard her shouting for help. He wanted to reassure her that he wasn’t dying. He wanted to console her, but the effort was beyond him.
“Hold on,” she kept whispering in his ear. “I’m right here, Cord. Hold on to me. Don’t leave me.”
“Won’t,” he whispered, the one word a desperate struggle.
This time when he blacked out, he couldn’t seem to fight his way back.
The waiting room was filled with anxious men from the crew out at Covington. They’d all come running at Dinah’s shouts and taken charge. Someone had called the paramedics. Someone else had tracked down Bobby. They’d even called Dinah’s mother. She was sitting beside Dinah right now, her complexion pale, her hand tight around Dinah’s.
“He’s going to be just fine,” she assured Dinah. “Cord’s tough.”
“He certainly has a hard enough head,” Bobby commented from his place on Dinah’s other side.
“He was wearing a hard hat,” Dinah said. “But I think it fell off before he hit the ground. He landed right at my feet. I heard something snap, looked up and he was tumbling through the air.”
A sob bubbled up in her throat at the memory. “I tried to catch him, but I wasn’t fast enough.”
“And he would have broken half your bones, if you had,” Bobby said.
“But it would have been a softer landing than him hit ting the ground,” she lamented. Once again she had failed someone she loved. It was the only way to look at it.
Maggie and Warren came rushing into the waiting room. Maggie regarded Bobby with surprise, then turned to Dinah. “You okay?”
“I’m not the one who fell off a scaffolding,” she said.
Warren regarded her with understanding. “Want to take a walk?” he asked. “We can bring back some coffee for everyone.”
Grateful for his discretion, Dinah nodded at once. “Yes. That’s a great idea.”
Maggie regarded her with worry. “Need any extra help?”
Warren gave a subtle shake of his head. “We can manage. Right, Dinah?”
As soon as they were in the hallway, she stopped and leaned against the wall. “I don’t think I can bear it if he dies,” she told Warren.
“Have the doctors said anything about him dying?”
“They haven’t said anything, period, not even to Bobby. The nurses keep promising to have news from the doctors soon, but no one’s come to talk to us.”
“Isn’t it more important that they help Cord?” he asked reasonably.
“Yes, of course, but the waiting’s so hard.”
“Harder for you than the others?” he suggested.
“Of course not. Everyone in that waiting room cares about him.”
“Of course they do, but they haven’t had another man they love die right in front of their eyes, have they? You’ve been having flashbacks ever since Cord fell, haven’t you? His fall and Peter’s death have gotten all twisted together in your head, haven’t they?”
She nodded.
“It’s not the same, Dinah.” He tucked a finger under her chin and forced her to face him. “And you’re not to blame. You’re not some sort of curse to the men you love.”
She gave him a startled look. “How did you know that’s what I was thinking?”
“That’s why you pay me the big bucks, to figure out what’s going on in your head, sometimes even before you do.”
She sighed. “I rode out there to tell him I wasn’t going back to Afghanistan, that I was going to stay here with him.”
Warren smiled. “Best news I’ve heard in a long time. I imagine he’d think so, too.”
“What if…?” Her voice trailed off.
“You will get to tell him,” he said confidently.
“You can’t be sure of that,” she retorted.
“Sure? Maybe not, but I do believe in the power of prayer and positive thinking. Now let’s get that coffee and go back into the waiting area, so we’ll be there when the doctors finally do come.”
She slanted a look at him. “I
don’t suppose you have any pull around this place, do you?”
“What kind of pull?”
“Can’t you go back in there and find out what’s going on? Or better yet, take me.”
Warren gave her hand a squeeze. “Go get the coffee. Meantime, I’ll see if I can track down somebody who can give us news. Cord doesn’t need you to be underfoot while they’re trying to patch him up. He needs you out here thinking good thoughts.”
Dinah wanted to snap that it was going to take more than that to heal his injuries. She’d said a million prayers on that short walk toward Peter, but they hadn’t done a lick of good. They hadn’t brought him back, hadn’t made him whole. Like Humpty-Dumpty, some things were just too broken to be put back together again.
Her breath caught on another sob, so she forced herself to do as Warren had asked and go to the cafeteria for coffee. Doing something helped her to hold it together.
But when she got back to the waiting area just as the doctor was describing the extent of Cord’s injuries, she heard the words fractured skull and then touch-and-go. She promptly dropped the tray of coffees she was carrying. It hit the floor with a clatter that brought all heads turning in her direction.
Bobby got to her first. “Don’t you dare fall apart on me now,” he told her emphatically. “Cord needs you to be strong.”
Rianna appeared and slipped her hand into Bobby’s, but the look she turned on Dinah was filled with compassion. There wasn’t even the faintest whiff of jealousy. “Bobby’s right. Cord needs you. He loves you. I could see it in his eyes the day I came to the house.”
Bobby’s gaze searched Dinah’s face. “You ready to go in there? They want us to take turns sitting with him and talking to him. Just a few minutes at a time. Something tells me, it’s your voice Cord would want to hear when he’s coming around.”
“But you’re his brother,” Dinah protested.
“I’ll get my chance,” Bobby assured her. “Go in there and tell him you love him. Tell him you’re sticking around.” His gaze met hers. “You are, aren’t you?”
Dinah nodded.
“That ought to pull him out of this, knowing what he has to look forward to,” Bobby told her. He squeezed her hand. “You ready? I’ll walk back with you.”
Dinah sought out Warren, who was sitting with her mother and with Maggie. He gave her an encouraging nod. She turned back to Bobby.
“Let’s go,” she said, drawing on every last ounce of courage she possessed.
“He’s alive, Dinah. That’s what we need to hold on to,” Bobby said. “It’s up to the doctors and us to keep him that way.”
“Heap on a little pressure, why don’t you?” she retorted uneasily.
“You don’t have to do it alone, Dinah. You saw that roomful of people back there. And I’m right here beside you. We’ll do it together.”
She nodded slowly, feeling some of her distress ease. Having backup really did made a difference.
Cord heard Dinah’s voice in his dreams. She told him over and over that she was staying in Charleston, staying with him. He kept trying to fight his way through the fog in his head to tell her they were going to have a great life together, but he couldn’t seem to get all the way back.
And though he had no sense of time passing, he knew on some level that it had, because she kept growing more and more frantic as if she feared he was slipping away.
He felt her holding his hand, felt the dampness of her tears and ached for the pain he was putting her through. He had to get back to her, had to take away the anxiety.
“Dinah,” he whispered, his voice raspy.
He sensed her moving, getting to her feet, leaning over him as if she couldn’t quite believe that she’d heard his voice. He tried to whisper her name again, but it was beyond him. Instead, he just squeezed her hand.
“Oh, Cord,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “You are coming back. Let me get the doctor.”
“No.”
She looked into his eyes, which he was having to fight to keep open.
“Just you. Need to look at you.”
“I’m right here,” she said, a smile on her lips.
“Never left?”
She shook her head. “Not for a minute.”
“Leaving town?”
She touched a finger to his lips. “Sssh! No, I’m not leaving. Not ever.”
Even in his semiconscious state he could see that her complexion was pale and her eyes were haunted. He’d obviously scared her. Was that why she was staying?
“Because of me?”
“Because of us,” she corrected. “Now rest. I want to let the doctor know you’re coming back to us. I’ve got to tell you, Cordell, it was a revelation to all of us that that head of yours wasn’t as hard as we’d always believed.”
“No jokes,” he murmured. “Hurts to laugh.”
Since it hurt to do anything, Cord decided to go back to sleep.
Later he was awakened by Dinah’s cries, a whimper at first, then more of those gut-wrenching sobs that had brought him back to consciousness out at Covington the day of the accident. He forced himself awake and saw that she was asleep in the chair beside the bed, her head resting on the edge of the mattress.
Moving gingerly, he managed to reach out to stroke her hair, murmuring soothing words and coaxing her awake with reassurances. It took some effort, but he swung his legs over the side of the bed and pulled her into his arms.
When her eyes finally blinked open, she sucked in a deep, shuddering breath and swiped impatiently at the tears on her cheeks.
“You’re awake,” she said happily.
“You were crying.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t you dare apologize,” he said. “Tell me about the dream. It didn’t have anything to do with me, did it? And it’s not the first time you’ve had it.”
She shook her head.
“Tell me.”
The story he’d been waiting weeks to hear finally spilled out in fits and starts in his hospital room. The nightmare she had lived—hearing a car bomb explode, finding the man she’d loved blown to bits beside a road in Afghanistan, blaming herself for all those long months because she’d lived and Peter hadn’t—was even worse than Cord could have imagined.
“I was ready to die. I wanted to die,” she told him. “But I didn’t. I got another form of death sentence. I had to go on living with the memory.”
“So for all these months you’ve been dealing with the trauma of seeing him die coupled with survivor’s guilt,” Cord said. “I’m so sorry. If I had put it all together long before now I could have been more help.”
She regarded him with a wry expression. “How could you, when I refused to let you in? I’m sorry about that. I just couldn’t talk about it. It made it all too real. But when I saw you lying on the ground out at Coving ton…” She shuddered. “I came unglued all over again. I thought I’d lost you, too.”
“You’re never going to lose me.”
She met his gaze. “I’ve told you this before, but I’m not sure if you heard me or understood what I was saying. I decided not to go back.”
A whoop of pure joy was beyond him, which was probably just as well. Besides, he needed to know why she’d made the choice. “Because I fell?” he asked warily, knowing if that was it, he’d have to find the strength once more to encourage her to go as she’d planned.
“Well, it’s true that if you’re going to take these idiotic chances, someone needs to be around to look out for you, but no, that’s not why I’m staying. I’m staying because I love you. I was coming to tell you when you fell. In fact, I thought you’d get the message when I showed up on the motorcycle.”
The relief that flooded through him nearly overwhelmed him. Still he felt compelled to ask, “You’re sure about this?”
“As sure as I need to be. I can’t change the past. And you’re my future, Cordell. I’m not entirely sure who I am anymore, but I do know that I don’t need to be the in
trepid woman who wasn’t afraid to go anywhere ever again.”
Even though she seemed to have made peace with her decision, Cord wasn’t entirely convinced. He found the words to say a few things she needed to hear.
“Sugar, I want you to hear what I’m telling you. You don’t need to be that woman because you are Dinah Davis, of the South Carolina Davises. You are strong. You’re talented. There are lots of different kinds of reporting. If you don’t want to put your life in danger again, so what? That seems damn sensible to me. There’s injustice and corruption to be exposed any where, even right here in Charleston, I imagine.”
He tucked a finger under her chin. “You’re also the woman I love, and that makes you the most important woman on this earth to one man.” He searched her face. “Or maybe you don’t consider me to be that much of a catch.”
“Any woman would be lucky to have you, Cordell, but you know that.”
“I only care about one woman. Do you want me, Dinah? You say you’re not going back to Afghanistan, but are you ready to stay here in South Carolina and make a home and babies with me and maybe spend your spare time chasing crooks and criminals for a local TV station? Maybe dressing me up in a monkey suit and dragging me to a charity gala from time to time to keep your mama happy?”
Her expression brightened. “Is that a proposal, Cord ell Beaufort?”
“Yes, indeed it is, sugar. I’m no Bobby, but I think I’m offering a mighty fine backup plan. What do you think?”
“I think you’re crazy as a loon to want me in my cur rent state of mind and to propose when I must look like a train wreck, but I accept. And just so you know, you’re not a last resort, Cord. This is the smartest decision I ever made.”
“It’s for damned sure the best one I ever made,” he said. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to kiss you and crawl back into bed before I pass out cold.” He grinned. “But fair warning, sugar…give me a day or two and I’m dragging you into this bed with me. This old hospital can use a little scandalous behavior to shake things up. You with me?”
“Always.”
The Backup Plan Page 31
