“Baby, what is it? Is it your throat? Are you in pain?” He gently grasped her upper arms and pulled her to his chest as her body began to shake, racked with soundless sobs. He felt tears in his own eyes at the pain and confusion he saw in hers. “Angel, please tell me what is wrong.”
Angrily, she pushed back from him and knocked his hands away, flinging herself violently to the other corner of the bed out of his reach. He stood and walked around the bed, frightened that she would re-injure herself.
He spoke softly to her to calm her, his heart breaking at the way her shoulders shook and the rasp of her soundless sobs in her chest. She held her hand protectively over the surgical site on her abdomen, really scaring him now. He held both palms up, trying to calm her. Clearly, touching her only upset her now.
“Angel, tell me what’s wrong. I came home right after your mom called me to let me know you were here. Has something happened?” She glanced at the denim work shirt and jeans he wore for his tower climbing work and seemed to become even more bewildered.
“I heard.”
“You heard what?”
“I heard you…and her,” she gasped, her voice vibrating with anguish.
“Who? I just got home. I came straight in here to check on you. Angel, tell me what’s wrong.”
Fresh tears overflowed her tumultuous, dark eyes, and she trembled as she repeated, “I heard you…and her. It’s no use, Eli. I know.” Her voice had all but deserted her. She hung her head and sobbed breathily.
“Baby, I’m confused, I—” he began, then paused and looked at the wall that adjoined his bedroom.
He let out a long groan because now they could both hear it. The unmistakable sound of a squeaking bed frame and a soft moan. He cringed as understanding dawned on him even as the bewilderment deepened in her eyes. She looked mystified as he shook his head and held up a finger, pulled out his phone, and dialed a number.
She looked on in bemusement as, through the wall, a cell phone rang. The squeaking persisted for a moment before finally ceasing while Eli waited for an answer. He put his palm to his forehead as the easily identifiable voice answered the phone.
“Yeah, man.”
Eli suppressed a chuckle, thinking Mike sounded a little pissed.
“Hey, Mike. It’s Eli. I’m just checking in.”
Rachel put her hands to her red-hot face, and he watched as realization dawned on her who it was she’d heard having hot sex next door. He could not imagine how it must have felt to think it was him she was listening to. “I’m going to be home in a few minutes and wanted to make sure the coast was clear.”
Mike’s voice was gravelly with frustration. “Oh, yeah. Um…we just got here a few minutes ago. How long do you think?”
“Maybe thirty or forty-five minutes.”
“Oh, that would be great.”
“Hey, Rachel’s coming home with me.”
“Oh, yeah? That’s good news. We’ll stop over there and bring you the key. We would have been long gone, man, but Rosa got called in to work this morning.”
“That’s fine, Mike. Don’t worry about it, man. I’m sorry you were delayed. See you, man.” Eli finished the call and slid the phone back into his pocket and held his arms out to her.
Holding her abdomen, she slipped from her perch on the bed, and he pulled her gently into his lap. As the squeaking of the bed next door resumed, he lifted her and carried her into the living room, pulling the bedroom door closed softly, and then sat down with her on the loveseat.
“I thought…” She laid her head weakly on his chest.
“I know,” he replied softly.
“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.”
“Don’t be sorry. I should have explained before now. You know how tiny Mike and Rosa’s house is, right? They’ve got five kids and her mother living with them, complaining about every little thing. Mike was starting to look a little desperate, so I offered my place to them to…take the edge off, you know? They had no idea you were over here.”
She nodded and closed her eyes. Then she sat up and turned to him and said, “Oh, crap! Kelly heard us when we made love while she was here, didn’t she? Oh, no!” She hid her red-hot face as Eli chuckled.
“Yep, but she handled it with her usual good humor. She teased me quite a bit when you weren’t within earshot, so don’t feel too bad for her. Let me get you something to drink. You’re hoarse.”
“Thank you,” she whispered as she climbed from his lap and curled up, still looking tense. He brought her a glass of water, which she drained and set on the coffee table.
“Come here, angel.” She resumed her perch in his lap, and he caressed her shoulders. “You’re wound too tight. Lie back against me and let me hold you. Relax, I’ve got you,” he said as she laid her head against his chest. He pressed his lips to her hair and breathed in her clean womanly scent and the fragrance of her shampoo.
“I felt so weak earlier when they first got started. I couldn’t even stand up to walk away from the bedroom so I wouldn’t hear it anymore. Then, you came in looking so worried and concerned I thought I was losing my mind.” She shuddered against him, and he gently wrapped his arms around her and held her snugly. “I’m not going to be able to look Mike or Rosa in the eye for a while.”
Eli chuckled while he rubbed his palm up and down her back soothingly. “Angel, now is not the most romantic time to tell you this because I can still hear them on the other side, but let me tell you anyway. This love I have for you is it for me. There could never be anyone else that holds a candle to you. I felt so powerless when I thought of you hurt on the side of the road, maybe even dying, and I couldn’t get to you. I saw you when they unloaded you from the ambulance, baby, and I thought for sure I’d lost you. You were bathed in blood. I had to be held back.”
“Grace told me about that.” She quivered in his embrace.
“I thought I’d lost my one chance at a happy life. Being back in a hospital setting brought back painful memories and I felt like I was reliving them all over again as an adult.”
“Something like this happened to you before?” Rachel asked softly, her voice full of sympathy.
“I told you my mom died. But I never told you how. I also never told you about my own experience in the hospital as a four-year-old not understanding what had happened. My family was involved in a very serious car accident right before Thanksgiving. My mom was holding a cookie sheet with my toy magnets on it in her lap. I’d just made a picture with them for her, and she was going to make one for me, but I fell asleep. She was holding it on her lap when the accident happened.”
“I never knew you were in a car accident. Is that how your mom died, internal injuries?”
Eli nodded. “The official term is ‘unsecured objects within vehicle,’ but the collision forced the cookie sheet into her abdomen, doing catastrophic internal damage.”
Rachel looked straight into his eyes. “Eli, you know what happened wasn’t your fault?”
In theory, yes, he knew that, but it hadn’t eased him at all the day he found out years later when he finally had gotten the nerve to ask his father about it. His memories were sketchy of the time after the accident, but he remembered clearly the time leading up to it.
“Yes, I do. But it didn’t make it any easier to bear. Ace told us about the lamp and the picture frames. It was like reliving that nightmare all over again.”
Eli told her his story as he was transported back in time to those painful memories. He took long pauses here and there, and she rubbed his back comfortingly with her good arm. Her warmth seeped into him and eased the telling, buffering the pain of the memories as he shared them with her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Eli wanted to go see his grandma and grandpa. His grandpa said they were going to eat turkey and jellied cranberry sauce until they both popped then they would take a nap. He wanted to see Aunt Becky and tell her about his Legos and give her the picture of the helicopter with the monkey piloting it that
he’d drawn especially for her. He wanted to play with her long, long blonde hair and coil it until it looked like a long snake and loop it around his arm.
He wanted to climb Grandma’s tree in the backyard with his other boy cousins and hang upside down from his favorite branch. He hated sitting in his car seat for hours, but it was totally worth it when his grandpa would grab him from the car and hoist him up over his shoulder and give him a piggyback ride.
His grandpa was big and strong like his daddy and super tall like a big mountain, and when he laughed, it made Eli feel like the air shook around him. His grandmother would take him from Grandpa, and he’d loop his arms around her neck and wrap his legs around her waist as she held him and hugged him hard, and then she would say what a big boy he was getting to be and how he’d be tall someday like his daddy and his grandpa. She always made him feel special and important, and he hoped she was right about getting tall because right now he just felt short.
Mom had buckled him in his car seat after he’d gone to the potty and gave him his favorite big animal picture book and a cookie sheet with bunches of magnetic figures stuck all over it. That was his special toy she saved for long car trips. His daddy loaded the luggage in the car while she buckled his baby sister into the car seat next to him and tucked a fuzzy blanket around her and adjusted the neck on her fuzzy sleeper.
He looked over at his baby sister, and she grinned sleepily at him and blew a bubble with her spit. He loved when she did that because it was so gross and awesome. He loved gross stuff. His mother playfully called him the King of Gross and said she always wondered what she’d find in his pockets on laundry day. She’d gotten on him the day before about the earthworms, but he thought it had been totally cool when she showed him the bits and pieces they’d become in the load of laundry she’d just done. She didn’t think it was so funny, but he thought she hid a smile behind her hand when he told her he loved gross stuff. She’d shaken her head and sent him outside.
After sis was loaded and he had all the magnets off and piled in his lap, his dad started the car and they were on their way to Grandma and Grandpa’s. He made a picture with the magnets and handed it to his mom so she could look at it. He settled down to look at his big animal book, and she said she would make a picture for him with the magnets.
He woke up hurting badly, and people had been talking and shouting all around him. It was too much, and he fell asleep. He woke up again and hurt even worse. It was dark, and he couldn’t see at all. He began to cry and scream because he couldn’t see right, and someone picked up his hand and held it. A baby was crying loudly, and he thought it sounded like his sister. He thought that his mom would never let her cry like that and reached out to pat her, but she wasn’t next to him anymore.
He fell asleep and woke up, feeling woozy, in a hospital bed. An old lady he’d never seen before sat next to him, holding his hand, and she looked up from her book when he moved. He realized he was all bandaged and it was nighttime. He could see now, but one of his eyes was all covered up. When he moved, his chest and sides ached bad. The old lady got his dad, who thanked her nicely, using her name like he’d known her forever. He leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, and he saw the terrible hurt and pain in his daddy’s eyes. It frightened him to see that. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days and days, and tears spilled from his eyes as though he hadn’t seen Eli in as long.
Daddy said they had a crash and Mom and Sissie were hurt real bad, and so was he. Daddy said he was going to pray and would he like to come along? He went with his dad and that was how he found out that hospitals had little churches inside them. Once he knew it was there, though, he liked coming alone better. When the nurses discovered him missing from his room, they always came there first. He only saw Dad a few times, but each time he looked worse and worse.
He went every time he could to pray for Mom, Dad, and Sissie. He promised God that if he could see them, he would be so sweet to Sissie and kiss her and hug Mom’s neck and kiss her, too. He even promised to not be gross anymore if it would make Mom happy.
He went up where it was brighter from the soft lights and kneeled down on the steps to pray. He cried until the carpet was wet with his tears because Mom wasn’t getting better and he was scared. He prayed to God, asking him to help her feel better so they could go on to Grandma and Grandpa’s.
He woke in a daze as soft hands smoothed his hair and touched his cheek. He looked up into deep blue eyes and knew he was dreaming again.
“You can’t stay here, sweetheart. Come with me so you can rest.”
Gentle arms picked him up, and he was carried back to his room, tears spilling from his eyes. Soft lips touched his cheeks, kissing the tears away. Hands as soft as butterfly wings swept over his cheeks, soothing him as strong arms laid him on his bed and covered him with his blanket. He looked up at the tall angel with the cool white-feathered wings and smiled, thinking this must be a really cool dream and how he felt a little better now. The angel smiled down at him and stood watch over him as he fell asleep.
His daddy came in his room and found him alone on his bed. His father had been crying and, holding back sobs, told him that his mom had gone to heaven, and she didn’t hurt anymore. Terrible pain seized his chest, and he began to breathe hard, sobs ripping through his chest as his dad held him.
The next day, his father looked like a ghost when he saw him, but the nurses told him Sissie was doing better. He snuck back to the chapel again even though they told him not to go alone, and he curled up on the steps in front of the pews again and prayed. He thanked Jesus for helping Sissie get better and asked Him to take care of Mom and help him be a good little man and help his dad to not feel so sad. How was he gonna do this? His mom had always been there for him.
Then he sobbed and sobbed until all his tears were gone. He laid his head on the carpet and felt the tears run from his eyes endlessly. Soft, warm arms lifted him from the steps and cuddled him close. He opened his eyes and looked up into the same deep blue eyes again.
“Sweetheart, I’ll watch over you for her.”
He turned his face into soft, silky, dark hair and put his hand over his face and shut out the world, safe in his angel’s arms as she sat with him in the pew and rocked him, comforting him with a soft tune. He woke in his hospital bed as Grandma and Grandpa came through the door, looking tired and much older. They packed his few personal belongings in a small suitcase, and Grandpa carried him gently from the room. He never had a chance to go back and thank the angel for watching out for him and hoped maybe she could come with him now or visit him later.
* * * *
Eli felt like a ton of bricks had been lifted from his chest after relaying the story to her. “Sometimes I dream about her holding me while I cried. Those aren’t bad dreams, though they used to make me sad, but not anymore. You know why?” he asked, tears welled in his eyes.
“Why?” she asked softly, wiping her own eyes as the tears spilled.
“You have her eyes. Deep midnight-blue and sweet. I noticed them when Mike first introduced us to each other. I already knew I wanted you, but your eyes were the reason I asked you out the moment I met you. Now all I want is to wake up each morning to your beautiful face after sleeping cuddled up to you all night.” He squeezed her soft form to him gently as she blotted the tears from his cheeks with her tissue. “I’m sorry I never told you that I let Mike and Rosa use my place when they need some time alone.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you more.”
He shrugged. There was no reason for her to apologize. He’d had good intentions, trying to help out a friend. Sometimes good intentions backfired. “The assumption you made was a pretty safe one, considering that’s my place and my bed next door,” he replied, chuckling. “No one could love me the way you do, angel. I’m ruined for all others. That bed belongs to you now, and Mike and Rosa will understand about needing to find another place to be alone.”
“Will you stay with me tonight?” she asked
softly.
“Need a little distance from this bizarre situation?” He nuzzled her throat.
“Just a little.” She grinned as she tilted her head for his kiss.
“We’re having more company this Saturday.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Dad is driving in from San Antonio. He says he can’t wait to meet you. I hope you don’t mind, but I told your mom, and she invited us all over for supper on Saturday night.”
“Oh, that will be fun. He and my dad will have plenty to talk about.” She laughed.
“Government, taxes, and healthcare?”
“Once they get started, we’ll never get them to shut up. How did your dad cope all these years?” she asked.
“Well, we kept him pretty busy growing up, and there was always work. He dated a few times, but he told me once that no one could hold a candle to my mom. I reckon there’s someone out there for him. They just have to find each other, I suppose.”
“Is he tall and handsome like you?”
“He’s tall like me, but I take after my mom in my coloring and features. She had Native American blood in her. When I was little, I used to imagine him in a horned Viking helmet and wrapped in furs with long blond braids. He cut his hair a long time ago, but he always reminded me of Thor from the Marvel comic books. You’ll have to judge for yourself whether or not he’s handsome. Maybe I should call Kelly and invite her down, too. They could stay over here if you wouldn’t mind staying with me.”
She chuckled. “I don’t know. You might have to twist my good arm, honey. Remember what the doctor told us?”
“I’m trying.” He shifted her on his lap and tried to make more room behind his zipper for the erection that was now pounding for release. “But having you in such close proximity makes it hard.”
She snickered. “I’ve noticed.”
The Divine Creek Ranch Collection, Volume 1 [Book 1 - Divine Grace, Book 2 - Her Gentle Giant, Book 3 - Heavenly Angel] (Siren Everlasting Collection) Page 86
