by D L Lane
“Okay. I will,” Dixie said, not going into twenty questions, something he always liked about her.
After rolling his head along his stiff shoulders, he got up, strode to the door of his office, grabbed his coat off the hook, and hurried for the back exit.
~
Less than fifteen minutes later, Gage was walking into the foyer of Danica’s home. Breckin let him in, with a weary expression on her face and fatigue showing in her posture.
“Is Danny awake?” He should have asked about her, how Breck was doing, but he went straight to the heart of the matter.
“She is.” Breck tucked some hair behind her ear. “Two detectives were here. They just left a few minutes ago with Marcus’ laptop.”
“Where is she?”
“In the family room, and won’t come out. I’ve tried to get her to eat something, but she shakes her head.”
“I’m going to go talk to her.”
“Gage?”
He looked into Breckin’s green eyes. “Yeah?”
“Try to get my sister to move. She’s been in the same spot since before the detectives arrived.”
He nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”
With a sensation of tightness in his chest, Gage made his way from the foyer, down one of the corridors, and into the family room. Complete and total silence filled the space as his gaze bounced from the large sectional, to an armchair, and finally came to rest on an oversized piece of furniture positioned by the window looking into the side lawn.
Danica sat there, staring out. Her hair was a mess; bare feet in the seat with her knees propped up, something in her hand.
“Danny?” he called softly, but she didn’t respond. Not even a twitch.
He went to her, squatting beside the bulky chair and taking her in from the side of her face, down her arm—to the fingers pressing so hard into the frame of a picture she’d cracked the glass—drops of crimson drip, drip, dripped onto her heather gray lounge pants.
“Sweetheart? I’m going to take this. You cut yourself.” Gage pried her fingers loose, taking a look at the photograph. A picture of her and Marcus kissing under the tropical-flowered arch on the beach where they had said, “I do.”
That stab of pain hit him dead center, but he pushed it aside, leaving it with the broken picture frame.
“I need to check your fingers,” he said, but Danica hadn’t budged, she was still gazing out the window, though Gage didn’t think she saw a single thing, nor was he sure she even knew he was beside her.
Pulling her hand closer, he studied the small wounds. They wouldn’t take stitches but should be tended to. “Danny? We need to get your fingers cleaned up. You’re bleeding.”
That roused her, and she turned her head to look at him. Nothing. No life in her eyes or on her face. “Huh?”
“You cut your fingers, and they are bleeding.”
She glanced at her hand as if she were seeing it for the first time. “Oh.”
Her flat tone and affect worried him. “Come on. Let’s go get that fixed, okay?”
She nodded, and he stood, helping her do the same, guiding her out the archway and into the first bathroom he came across. “Let’s put those fingers under some cool water, what do you say?”
She didn’t answer.
Like a lumbering zombie, Gage needed to steer her toward the sink, turn on the water, make sure it wasn’t too hot or too cold, then placed her wounded flesh under the stream. She didn’t jerk back from the sensation. Danny didn’t do anything. She just stood there, absently watching the lines of dark pink flow into the water and swirl down the drain.
Once her fingertips looked clean, he turned the faucet off, grabbed a hand towel, and started softly patting her hand dry.
Danica let him maneuver her like she was a life-sized doll, but never said a word.
Gage didn’t think his heart could break since it had been decimated, but the soul-deep pain Danny was in caused the small sliver that still functioned to fracture. With every fiber of his being, he wanted to take her into his arms, tell her everything would be all right, and never let her go. But she wasn’t his to hold, nothing would be all right, and he’d unwillingly let her go twelve years ago.
Placing the towel on the countertop, he swiped some hair back from her face, hoping she would look up at him. She didn’t. She just kept her gaze on his shoulder.
“Is everything okay in here?” Mrs. Lorry asked, worried lines on her forehead as she stepped into the bathroom with them.
“Danica cut her fingers,” Gage said.
“Oh, my.” Her mother hurried over. “What happened?”
“She cut them on some glass.”
“Glass?” Her gaze lifted up to his.
“A picture frame she was holding a little too tight.”
“I ruined it,” Danica whispered, but he was just happy to hear her voice.
Mrs. Lorry went to the cabinet, pulled out a tube of Neosporin, and a box of Band-Aids. “Ruined what, baby-girl?”
“Our wedding picture.”
“No.” Carefully, Gage cupped her cheek, though she still didn’t look at him. “You didn’t. You’ll only need a new frame, that’s all.”
Ella Lorry glanced up at him and mouthed, “Thank you,” before she took hold of her daughter’s hand and said, in an upbeat tone he was positive she didn’t feel, “Now, let’s get those fingers fixed up, and then go get something to eat.”
“Not hungry.”
“Well, maybe not, but you need to try to eat something. Besides, Mrs. Beil is going to go home soon, and Ari and Aaron need their mommy.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Before
Standing in the shadowed corner of a balcony which overlooked the scene below, Gage knew he had gone insane, or perhaps he was a masochist. Either way, it wasn’t right. When he’d heard Danica finally set a date to tie the knot, it wasn’t hard to do a little bit of detective work and find out the particulars of the location, not sure why it had taken so long for her to do the deed. He found what he needed, then boarded a plane headed for Hawaii, where he booked a suite in the same hotel the Lorry’s were staying at and laid low.
As classical music started, the people who had been seated all stood, turning to see the bride walking in on the arm of her father.
Dressed in a long flowing white gown, her hair done up in some elaborate twist, tiny pink flowers woven within, Danica took his breath away. Everything in the world narrowed down to her, the sparkle in the fitted bodice of her gown, the way she moved with an innate sensuality and grace. The curve where her elegant neck met her bare shoulder. The shine of the sun hitting her pale skin. And as much as he didn’t want to pull his eyes from her, he did when a man stepped up to the pastor, or whoever was officiating the ceremony.
He was expecting to see the same guy she’d been with a couple of years ago, her dance partner, since he’d overheard her tell J.J., Ryan, that’s his name, had proposed, but it wasn’t Ryan. It was someone else. A man who was probably a few years, maybe four or five, older than her, with brown-blond hair, and looking like someone on the cover of GQ magazine, smiled as Danica came down the sandy aisle to him.
The expression on the groom’s chiseled face said it all. Danica Dawn Lorry hung the moon and the stars. Gage knew precisely how the lucky guy felt.
Then the person officiating said, “Who gives this woman to this man?”
The beating of Gage’s heart slowed as Mr. Lorry looked at his lovely daughter, smiled, then turned back to the gentleman who had asked the question. “Her mother and I.”
With that, he gave his daughter’s hand to the person she would marry, while J.J. and Breckin, who he hadn’t seen in years, stood beside the couple, with two other men Gage didn’t know on the other side as they all closed ranks.
That little voice inside his head said You should leave now, you’ve seen enough, while the crazy one countered with, You have to see this through.
So, Gage stayed, while those
multiple cracks in his heart all converged, collapsing into a mighty gulf containing the sorrow, as he listened to the woman he loved pledge her fidelity and devotion to another man.
It wasn’t until the pastor said, “Marcus, you may kiss your bride” that he turned to go, and left his spectators spot.
Walking into the hotel room he hadn’t slept in, across the floor, and then opening the door to escape, Gage experienced a pain so deep, so profound, he almost doubled over as he stepped beyond the threshold.
Without looking back, he went down the hall, into the elevator, exited into the lobby, strode through the front doors of the resort, then paused as he said two simple words—the hardest he would ever say. “Goodbye, Danny.”
Chapter Forty-Three
People had surrounded Danica for five days and still were as she watched her husband’s casket—the one her mother and sister helped her pick out because she’d been in a fog—being lowered into the ground.
Not for the first time, she hoped someone would wake her up from this nightmare, tell her she was having a horrible dream. But no one ever did. It all just continued.
Shifting her attention to the bruised sky, she wondered, apropos of nothing, if the sun would shine again, then looked at some of the solemn faces who came from the church to the graveside service. She’d seen them all before—the pastor’s wife, Mr. and Mrs. Beil, Dixie Newberry, Berta Collins, Kasey Albright, Phillip Granger, Jake, Maggie and Alli, Darnell, Frank Guymon, Doctor Harrison and his wife, some of the staff her husband worked with at the hospital, and Gage. He was dressed in his dark uniform, those silver eyes trained on her.
Reaching up, she placed her cool hand over the top of Breckin’s who was standing behind the metal folding chair she was seated in, palm resting on her shoulder. J.J., sitting next to her, held her other hand. She glanced to her left, where her stoic in-laws were, each of whom held one of her fussy twins.
Unsure of why she was looking at anyone, she glanced to her right, past her best friend. Mom, dabbing tears from her eyes—Dad, with his arm around her. A movement caught her attention, and she tried to focus on what it was, catching the back of a tall woman walking away, weaving through old headstones. Something about her looked familiar, but it didn’t matter who it was or why she was leaving before Pastor Kyle said the final words.
Nothing mattered anymore.
~
Gage’s old injuries were making themselves known, probably because he had put his body through the paces in the gym the night before, brutally punching the heavy bag, then lifting weights until it hurt, pushing past the burn. But even if every part of him was aching, and the slight hobble that only showed when he was fatigued cropped up, he ignored it all as he made his way through the crowd, his singular focus on getting to Danica.
“I’m so very sorry for your loss,” Clarise Kyle said, taking hold of both of Danny’s hands. “You and the babies are in my prayers.”
“Thank you.” Danica’s voice was robotic, nothing, no emotion discernable.
It was that lack, her being devoid, that bothered Gage on a level he couldn’t shake, even if he had wanted to.
“Danny?” Gage stepped up where the pastor’s wife had been.
Her eyes lifted to his shoulder. Since the night of her breakdown in his arms, it had only ever been his shoulder, except for a brief moment during the ceremony when she looked at him—there and gone.
“I know saying I’m sorry doesn’t do a thing to help you, and never will. But I’m here, and I’ll be here for as long as you need me.”
“You have things to do,” she said, still in that same flat, lifeless tone. “You should go.”
His heart almost seized. “Danica, look at me.”
Slowly, her lashes lifted, her chin coming up, and, at last, she locked her gaze with his.
Not caring who saw them or who heard him, Gage pulled her into his arms, her smaller body enveloped by his bigger one as he placed his lips to her ear. “I’m not going anywhere, Danica Dawn, do you hear me? I’m not leaving you.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Before
Danica tootled through the door of her apartment, the luxurious high-rise she and Marcus were living in until their custom home in Cedar Point was built. They were through the planning stage, and Carter Construction would be breaking ground on a perfect lot not too far from the lake sometime next week. It had been four years of living in Seattle, and as lovely as it was, she missed home. Though she was there a lot, since Marcus agreed they would attend the church where she’d gone her whole life, and for the most part, he tried to follow through with taking her. But on the days he was stuck at the hospital, she took herself to church and then spent the afternoon with her parents.
Tossing her keys on the table by the front door, she took off her sunglasses and made her way into the kitchen, placing them and her purse on the breakfast bar before going to the fridge to grab a bottled water. She’d been working on a part-time basis at Vibes, her old dance studio, helping Madame Doucet with her beginner’s class, but Marcus didn’t want her to work, so this two day a week thing was the compromise they’d come to.
With her hand on the stainless-steel handle of the refrigerator, she stopped, interrupted by the ringing of the phone. She took the few steps it required to get to it, picked up the handset on the cordless, and answered, “Hello?”
“Danny…” There was something not quite right with her mother’s voice.
“Mom? What’s wrong?”
“Something came through on the prayer chain.”
“Oh, no. What happened?”
“Gage,” she said.
The name struck her hard enough she had to take a seat at the bar.
“What about him?” Her hands started to shake.
“He was involved in a horrible explosion.”
“Is he—” She clamped her mouth shut, tears falling down her face as she licked her dry lips. “Is he dead?”
“Lives were lost, but Gage is in critical condition at Cedars Sini. You need to pray.”
All the blood seemed to leave her. “I will,” she managed past the numbness.
The moment she disconnected the call, she stood on unsteady legs, made it a few steps, where she didn’t know, then went to her knees. “Oh, God. Please don’t let Gage die. Don’t take him home. Not yet, Lord. He has so much life to live. Spare him. Help him. Heal him. Send Your angels down around him…”
Unable to speak any longer, Danica cried heart-wrenching, body-shaking sobs, her moaning lament of sorrow spilling from her as she bent forward until her forehead rested against the Brazilian hardwood.
Help him, Lord. Please, please, please, help him.
~
The continuous beep, beep, beep, of some machine had Gage fluttering his heavy eyelids open, everything around him a blur.
“Son?”
“Dad?” he rasped, his throat too dry as he tried to focus on the shape looking down at him.
“Oh, Sean. He’s coming around, praise the Lord!”
“Mom?” Gage turned his head, but it hurt, and the light was killing his eyes, so he closed them.
“I’m here, my beautiful boy,” she said. He thought she patted his leg, but he couldn’t be sure. “I’m here.”
“Where am I?”
“In the hospital,” Dad said.
“Hospital?” His head swam with a jumble of stuff that didn’t connect. “Where?”
“In L.A., son.”
“You’re in L.A.?”
“Yes. We are here.”
“What happened?”
“You were severely injured. But… try to go back to sleep if you can. You’re still in recovery.”
Recovery from what? He didn’t have the strength to ask. Sleep sounded good. I’ll make sense of things later when I’m not so....
His coherent thought faded before everything went away.
Chapter Forty-Five
A week after the funeral, Danica had managed to pull herse
lf together enough to drive into Seattle. She left the twins with Mrs. Beil, telling her sister and her mother that she needed to be alone when they both insisted they go with her. She loved them, she did, but the quiet solitude seemed to be something she needed; so they gave in, letting her leave without them.
Pulling her Escalade into the designated “Doctor’s Parking” spot Marcus had at Harborview, she took a deep breath before she shut off the ignition. She had a lot of business to attend to, like going to check on his Mercedes, which the police had impounded, stopping by the bank, and going to start the paperwork process to collect on his life insurance policy… But she thought she would start by going to the hospital to gather Marcus’ things from the office he kept there. For some crazy reason, she figured that might be the easier of the things to do.
Why? She had no idea since nothing was easy, not even getting out of bed in the mornings.
Leaving her vehicle behind, she made her way into the building, then down the familiar halls, breezing past people she recognized who had strange expressions on their faces—mouths agape, shock evident, almost as if they were surprised to see her.
Danica kept her focus on the task at hand, which was getting to her husband’s office door. Once inside, she could shut it and fall apart if she needed to, but until then, she was just happy she’d put her Dolce & Gabbana’s on. The sunglasses would hide the dark circles under her bloodshot eyes.
“Mrs. Harding?”
She turned to the sound of a deep, familiar voice. “Doctor Forsyth. Hello.”
“My dear,” the white-haired chief of staff said, “what are you doing here?”
She frowned. “I thought I would come to collect my husband’s things from his office.”
The man just looked at her as if she’d lost her mind, and maybe she had, but she wasn’t sure why he thought so.
“You don’t know, do you?”
Danica shook her head. “I’m sorry. Know what?”
“Oh, my.” The older gentleman rubbed his chin. “Perhaps you should come with me.”
