by Audra North
Her father’s eyes crinkled at the corners, even though his lips didn’t smile. “I should hope I would recognize my own daughter, sitting in our living room. Where’s your mother?”
Her breath whooshed out of her. The doctor had said his memory might return in bits and pieces, and some might never return at all, or he might make progress for a day or two, only to forget again.
“She’s not here,” Nina replied evenly, not wanting to agitate him by telling him the truth. “How are you feeling?” She gestured to the cast on his arm, the last outward sign of the injuries he’d suffered.
He looked down at the cast as though surprised it was there. “Doc set it so well, I forgot I was wearing it, I guess.” Now his lips smiled, but there was a furrow between his brows.
He doesn’t remember. He doesn’t know how he broke his arm.
“Do you—do you remember the explosion?”
He hesitated, then shook his head and laughed. “Not a damned minute of it. I guess that’s a blessing, though. Was it bad? Was anyone else hurt?”
She nodded, then told him some of the details from the report the Army had given her. Dad’s face grew solemn as she shared the news that several of his troops had been killed.
“I was over in Afghanistan. I remember it now, sort of. Those were good boys. It’s a shame…” He trailed off, staring down at his cast. After a minute, he looked up at her and said softly, “I’m glad you’re here, Nina. I don’t understand how you grew up so fast, but something tells me not remembering your childhood has very little to do with my injuries.”
A lump settled in her throat and all she could do was nod in response.
He cut his eyes over to the window, where the late autumn sun was streaming in. “Looks like a lovely day. Do you have some time to go for a drive with your old man? Seems like we have a lot of catching up to do.”
* * * * *
They drove into Greenbriar to walk around at the open market, which would close in a couple of weeks. Nina and her father passed by tables of handmade jewelry, locally grown vegetables and cheap plastic toys, while she told him what she had been doing for the past few years.
As much as she faulted him for never being home, he had made a point of calling her every week when he’d been away. But after she’d left home, she hadn’t done a good job of staying in touch with him, and a pang of guilt hit her as she realized, even if he hadn’t been injured, they’d probably be having the exact same conversation.
She liked talking to him. She hadn’t realized until now how like her he was. Before Mom died, when he had been at home, it had been like this too. Easy, natural. He was smart and gave good advice, and despite the distance between them for decades, she felt the connection of family. That was probably one of the reasons it had hurt so much every time he left again.
Suddenly, he stopped and turned to her, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Your mom passed away, didn’t she?”
Dad’s forehead was furrowed, but his eyes were clear and sharp.
She nodded. “Over eight years ago.”
He squeezed her shoulder, then dropped his hand. “It just came back to me,” he murmured, looking away.
After a moment, they walked on, this time silent and lost in their own thoughts.
At the end of the market, an opening in the fence around the square where the vendors had set up their booths led them out onto one of the main streets in town. Just as she and her dad stepped out, a man who was passing them, coming in, stopped abruptly and turned. “Mike Lang?”
The man was older, about her dad’s age, and looked vaguely familiar.
Where do I know him from?
Nina was usually good with remembering names and faces, but for some reason she was drawing a blank. Of course, she’d thought she was good with voices too, and look how long it had taken her to place Ben.
Her dad turned and looked at the stranger, his gaze sharp. “I know you,” he said.
The other man looked confused, but before Nina could say anything, realization dawned in his eyes. “I’d heard there was an accident,” he said softly. He took a step forward and held out his hand. “I’m Warren Davis. We knew each other when we were young.”
Of course. Davis. She’d met his son, the scowling older brother of Kelly. This guy’s son worked with Ben.
She missed Ben.
Mr. Davis shook her dad’s hand and they exchanged pleasant conversation—though her dad was clearly struggling to remember the man. She wondered if something had happened to Mr. Davis, too, because his speech was a little shaky, and she’d noticed as he walked in that he had a slight limp.
As she listened with half an ear, it occurred to her that even after several hours with her dad showing marked improvement in his memory, it hadn’t once crossed her mind that soon she might be free again to leave and go back to work.
A small smile tugged at her lips as she thought about the fashion story she’d turned in yesterday. Instead of focusing on the trend itself, she’d written a detailed article about how the dyes for some of the bright colors were turning out to be toxic to the low-paid labor in the foreign countries where garments were produced. She’d included information she’d already gathered for previous stories on the lives of textile workers and the process of sewn goods manufacturing.
She’d called it, “Back to Somber Black Might Give Workers a Brighter Future”.
Jerry had read it and frowned, but he’d agreed to run the article, muttering all during their meeting about how he should have known she would never be able to write entertainment, and it served him right.
And then he’d told her, “It’s good work, Lang. You might have more of a place here than either of us expected. Headquarters wants to start a talk show for their television programming division, you know. They’re talking about running it out of Greenbriar.”
That had been yesterday afternoon, and she’d gasped when he’d told her. It had gotten her thinking, wondering whether she might be able to apply to be the show’s host. She would ask Jerry about it on Monday.
“—went to school with Kelly?”
She blinked as Mr. Davis turned to her. What was he talking about? Oh yeah, Kelly. “Yes, we were in different middle schools but I went to high school with her for a couple of years,” she said evenly, trying not to remember the day when she’d told Kelly that police officers were all hypocrites. She was so embarrassed about it now, though at the time she had been running off a combination of fear and anger. That had been the first time her father had been injured on the job, and while she had found out the following day he’d simply sprained his ankle after falling from an embankment during a routine drill, the message she and her mom had received said he was wounded, and to stay tuned for more details.
It had been a terrible thing to say. Nina’s mom had made a conscious choice to marry a military man. She shouldn’t have gone on about how policemen kept the peace everywhere but in their own homes.
“You’re welcome to drop by whenever you’d like, now you’re back in town.” Bill was talking to Dad again. “You too, Nina. I’m sure Kelly would love to see you. Her boy is nearly thirteen now, so she has more free time and could use some smart, beautiful friends like you.”
Nina blushed and demurred politely, and Mr. Davis finally headed off after shaking her father’s hand and giving her a wave goodbye.
“I remember him now,” her father said as they turned to walk away. “Halfway through our talk, I remembered him. We used to raise hell when we were younger.” A smile stretched his mouth, and a soft laugh escaped. “I always thought he’d make a great MP and had wasted his talents on the local force. But he had his priorities right all along. At least I can be thankful that despite my mistakes, somehow I managed to hold on to the person who matters the most in my life.”
Her dad wrapped an arm around Nina’s shoulders and squeezed he
r close, briefly, before letting his arm drop away.
“Who would have thought, after how hard your mother worked to convince me to marry her, she would be the one to go first?”
What?
Nina frowned. “What do you mean, she had to convince you to marry her? She always told me the two of you had an electric connection and couldn’t live without each other. There was no mention of convincing.”
Dad chuckled, smiling as though in fond memory. “That sounds like Adriana.” He shook his head. “She was right. We did have an unparalleled connection, to the point where it was painful to be apart. I tried to break it off. I told her it would never work. Because what if something happened to me? What if I was killed while on tour? What if I was killed and she had nowhere to go because we moved around all the time?”
She was surprised to hear her father had been the one to raise these objections, since it had always seemed like he had been the one to abandon them in Greenbriar without a care.
“We fought about it all the time. It was the only thing we ever disagreed on, and it nearly split us apart for good. But one day, she came to me with a compromise. She said she would settle in my hometown and make friends there, so if anything ever happened to me, she’d at least have a group of people who would help her through the grief. But I told her it would still mean I had died, and in my job, there’s a much higher risk of death happening than in most. I told her I didn’t want to do that to someone else. I’d rather be alone.” He laughed. “I was an idiot, by the way.”
“What did she say?” she whispered, feeling suddenly breathless.
“A lot of things. But the gist was I could either spend whatever time on I had on Earth loving the person I was meant to love who would mourn me when I died, or I could simply…waste it.” He gave a wry chuckle. “I thought I was doing something great with my work. And I was, don’t get me wrong. I’m proud of what I accomplished in the Army. But anyone could have done what I did. Hell, done it better. Whereas only one person could have loved your mom like I loved her, and only one person could have loved me like she loved me. And in the end, I chose not to waste that.”
Chapter Fourteen
I chose not to waste that.
Dad’s words haunted Nina.
After they’d returned home from their walk downtown, he’d taken a long nap, and when he had woken up again, he’d still remembered her, Mom and Mr. Davis, but he didn’t remember what they had done earlier in the day.
At least he hadn’t asked her who she was, like he’d done the first time he’d seen her when she had arrived at the hospital to bring him home. But she hadn’t forgotten anything. Just like she couldn’t forget Ben. It was too eerily similar to what Dad and Mom had gone through.
Except it wasn’t likely Ben would seek her out and try to convince her she would be wasting her life if she let him go. And even if he did, what would she say? She certainly wasn’t ready to say yes to marriage, like her parents had been, but she’d never forgotten him after that night in the hospital when they’d first met. And after spending even this short amount of time with him, she felt as though she’d found something she’d been missing her entire life.
Could life without him be as happy and full as it might be with him?
She was no longer so sure.
The rest of the weekend had flown by, and she’d worked a twelve-hour day upon returning to work on Monday. The big shots at Excelsior headquarters were planning to visit the office on Thursday to view the space. That was now only two days away, and she was getting nervous. It had taken a long talk with Jerry over a couple of margaritas, but she’d decided to throw caution to the wind and approach the president of the media group about being the host of the new talk show they were planning.
Which would mean permanence. Something she’d never had, but even though Dad was getting better, she couldn’t imagine leaving again. She wanted time with him. She wanted to know her own father.
And she couldn’t stop thinking about Ben. Today, she should have been pulling together her resume and portfolio, but all she could do was stare at her computer screen and think of him.
You’re wasting it. You’re wasting your chance at something good.
Her dad had made the choice not to waste his chance, and even though he and Mom had made mistakes when it came to Nina, she could no longer hold on to the belief that being with a guy like Ben was bad. They had something special, she couldn’t deny it.
But she couldn’t quite bring herself to call him, either, and admit she had been wrong.
Because she was still afraid.
She sighed and pushed back from her desk. Maybe a walk outside would do her some good. It was still early in the day, and the autumn sun would be a nice contrast to the cool air. She shrugged into her jacket, slipped her wallet into her pocket and headed for the stairs.
But as she stepped into the hallway, the elevator doors opened and a man in uniform stepped out. Nina’s heart lurched, racing, then slowed again when she saw who it was.
That surly police officer. Davis. After having met his father, she couldn’t understand why the son of such an amiable, understanding man always looked so angry. Despite his scowl, she plastered a smile on her own face and waved hello. “Hi, D—”
Before she could even say his name, though, he cut her off. “Grab your purse. You need to come with me.”
“Am I under arrest?” she joked, but the smile on her face died quickly at his next words.
“Ben’s in the hospital. He’s been shot.”
* * * * *
Voices were floating through the air like dandelion seeds, landing softly on Ben’s ears, tickling as they swayed over his skin. He felt like he was floating too, weightless, limbs dangling at his sides as he flew around the sky. But something was strange about this sky. There were no clouds and no sun. And there was no ground regardless of which way he looked. Just an eerie gray nothingness.
The voices came and went, and at one point he realized his eyes were closed, but when he opened them the light was too painful, and so he closed them again and let himself drift in the gray sky.
Until he heard a voice he couldn’t ignore.
The voice.
“—stay here. You’re going to make it through and when you do, I’ll be by your side. I’m not going anywhere this time. Not now. Not ever.”
She sounded awfully determined. He smiled. He liked her.
He gave a mental shrug. If she could be this tenacious, he supposed he could too. He focused on trying to find his body and make it move, to open his eyes despite the pain. But before he could manage it, sensation returned in his body and he grimaced. Had someone punched him in the leg with a jackhammer? And what the hell was jabbed into his arm? Felt like one of those disposable chopsticks from the Twin Garden restaurant by the station.
Shit.
He was in the hospital. He had to be. Wow, his whole body hurt. Felt like he’d been shot.
You probably have been shot, dumbass.
His mind was clearing too, joining his body in full-on, excruciatingly painful consciousness. They must have given him some serious painkillers for him not to have noticed the fiery stabbing sensation in his thigh.
Wait wait wait. Was Tania here? The last time he’d been in the hospital, Tania and the voice had both been there. Was this still the same hospital stay? Holy fuck, that would suck. He needed to break up with Tania. She didn’t love him like Nina did…
He came fully awake with a gasp, opening his eyes and wincing at the resulting sharp pain in his head. Fortunately, this time there wasn’t much light in the room, and he adjusted quickly after blinking a few times.
Empty.
Had he imagined Nina had been here? He’d heard her, but he’d also had a fleeting, nightmarish thought he was still with Tania. And his brain knew who the voice belonged to. He was convinced Nina
loved him, which was why he’d bothered to wake up at all.
But she wasn’t here, and he nearly sobbed with the disappointment.
Best get used to it.
Except he didn’t want to. Since the night last week when he’d held her and never wanted to let go, he hadn’t been able to accept she had let him go, and there was nothing to hold on to anymore.
Brewer was right, though. She could have given him all the hope in the world, but what would have happened tonight if they had decided to stay together? Would she have broken things off with him? He’d already been dumped by one woman who couldn’t cope with the dangers of his profession. That hadn’t been so bad, since he realized a long time ago that he and Tania wouldn’t have lasted, anyway.
But if Nina had ended things with him after he’d been shot…he probably would have fallen back into the gray void and never come out again.
He wondered if she would even know he’d been wounded.
He stole a look down his chest. He was covered in a blanket, so there wasn’t much to see, but he could feel bandages around his upper left leg. At least his dick hadn’t been shot off. He could feel the weight of it against his other thigh.
But was that really any consolation? With Nina out of his life, it wasn’t like he had any use for it.
Quit being such a baby.
He sighed and fumbled for the nurse call button on the bed remote. Apparently, getting shot made a man thirsty. But as his hand closed around the hard plastic, a shadow crossed the doorway.
She might have been backlit by the fluorescent hall lights, but he would know that silhouette anywhere. He’d held those hips, caressed those curves…
“Nina,” he croaked out, surprising himself with the sound. The way he was feeling, he’d expected her name to come out in a deafening shout.
The silhouette gasped and rushed forward, and her features came into focus piecemeal, as though he were watching a slow-motion reveal of the woman he loved.
The woman he loved.
