“I should be back by five,” she said. She was clutching a little black purse.
Stefan nodded. “Your car is in the driveway. When you’re gone I’ll put my car back in the garage, so park on the street when you get back.”
Renee nodded. “What do I do about the stroller?”
“Buy it,” Stefan said. “If it’s what you want, and it does everything you need, bring it home with you. I’m sure the store will have someone who can put it into the car for you.”
Renee nodded again. “And my hair?”
Stefan looked up at her blankly. “Your hair?”
“Yes. What do you think I should do with it? I was wondering how it would look if I had it cut short and styled.”
Stefan stayed silent for long thoughtful moments. Renee might as well have held up a sign that read, ‘Caution! You are about to enter a minefield.’ Finally he nodded his head and said slowly, “Whatever you decide, I’m sure it will look fabulous. You can’t look any more beautiful in my eyes, so go for whatever feels best for you.”
Renee liked the answer. She smiled and blew him a kiss. “Bye!”
* * *
Renee was comfortable in the car. She liked driving and so far the pregnancy had proved no problem. She set the little hatchback onto the road to Bishop’s Bridge and fiddled with the radio.
She had heard that playing music to unborn babies was good for them. She couldn’t recall the reasons, but it didn’t matter right then. She was happy. She was in love. And she was excited about the arrival of baby Storm. They would be a family.
The radio went to static as the car wound deeper through the dense forests, and then suddenly burst back into life as she crested a rise and caught a glimpse of Bishop’s Bridge, nestled under a grey afternoon sky in the distance. There was an old Beatles song playing.
Renee began to sing.
Six.
Stefan heard Jeffrey barking and he looked up from the wall he was painting and frowned curiously. He set the brush down and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. In the hallway he suddenly realized his cell phone was ringing. Jeffrey wagged his tail and turned around in tight, excited circles. Stefan patted the dog absently on the head and snatched up the phone at the last possible second from the bedside table.
“Hello?”
The voice on the other end of the line was unfamiliar to him. “Is this Stefan Blake?” It was a man.
“Yes.”
“Mr Blake, I am afraid I have some very bad news. I am calling on behalf of Bishop’s Bridge Hospital. Your wife, Renee Blake, has been injured in a motor vehicle accident.”
Stefan went cold. The color drained from his face. For a split-second time froze still. Stefan felt his hand begin to shake.
“Will she be alright?”
“Yes.”
Stefan swallowed hard, the wave of relief swamped by a greater dark and sudden dread.
“She was pregnant…” he said, the words not his own, his voice strange and hollow in his ears, his senses numb and the pain in his heart beginning as an ache.
“I’m sorry,” the man said softly. “Your unborn daughter died in the accident.”
Stefan swayed on his feet. He felt an icy clutch of horror grip his heart and squeeze so that he could not breathe.
“Oh, God…!” he whispered. The room around him began to spin, and he felt his legs collapse beneath him as he crumpled to the floor. The phone fell from his hand and went spinning across the carpet.
Renee was injured.
Baby Storm was dead.
Seven.
Stefan threw the car into the tight twisting bends with a detached remoteness that seemed to make his driving instinctive. The car hurtled towards Bishop’s Bridge as he pressed the accelerator flat to the floor and his feet danced on the pedals while he changed up and down through the gears grimly without thinking.
The road ahead was a grey haze, misted and blurred by his tears. The woman he loved was injured – and Stefan’s heart was breaking.
His unborn daughter was dead.
Outside the car the afternoon light was fading prematurely as the grey clouds blocked out the sun and cast the forest in deep brooding shadow.
Why? God, why?
How can this be happening all over again?
Stefan’s mind went back to another time. Images he had tried so hard to forget came hauntingly out of the darkness of his past. He remembered the sight of his dying first wife Tiffany, frail and wasted in a hospital bed. He remembered the sudden darkness that draped itself like a black pall over his world when the light of her life had finally been extinguished.
Stefan remembered the anger and the hurt and the aching pain that pieced his heart and left him cold and numb for years.
He remembered the funeral; carrying the coffin.
But more than anything else he remembered his sadness and his anger.
The sadness had become a dark tunnel of despair that he had never fully emerged from until he had fallen in love with Renee. And even then, Renee’s love had been a mask for the wounds he had never truly confronted and come to terms with.
His anger had been a simmering rage at a God who would take such beauty before her time. In a world so flawed and with so many faults, how could someone so loving and sweet be stolen away?
And now – at the moment when he had rebuilt his life and re-discovered true love and heart-felt joy – it had been taken from him again.
A baby. An innocent, unborn child.
How could God allow such a thing?
Haven’t I suffered enough?
Haven’t I been through enough pain and sadness and despair?
Stefan came back from the darkness of his pain, and switched on the car’s headlights. The road ahead was wet. He stabbed his foot down harder on the accelerator, and the depth of his gut-wrenching despair suddenly became something cold and reckless.
And self-destructive.
The car skidded into the next turn, sliding on the rain-slicked tarmac. Stefan felt the blood pound like a drum in his ears. He took the next turn even faster. The car’s tail swung wide on the bend, swished from side-to-side in loose gravel, and then the tyres found purchase again.
Stefan punched the steering wheel with his fist.
He screamed out as the car went into the next tight right-hand turn, shouting his rage and futile frustration as the tarmac flashed across the windscreen and he felt the car begin to spin out of control. He shouted until his throat was shredded raw and his lungs ached. The car was sideways.
And then, at the last possible instant, Stefan slammed on the brakes, twisting the wheel against the slide, and double-shifting down through the gears. The car brushed against a guard-rail, and the rending scream of metal roared in his ears as sparks flew like fireworks. The car bounced back off the rail and came to rest in a cloud of gravel and dirt on the shoulder of the road.
“Why me?” Stefan screamed. “Why always me?” He groped for the door and stumbled from the car. He fell to the ground but got to his feet again. Wind was howling through the treetops and blowing a wet spray of drizzle into his face.
“Why have you done this to me?” He screamed his agony into the dark night. Then he fell back to his knees.
His heart was breaking and the pain was unlike anything any man should be expected to endure. It seemed to sear a hole in the fabric of his soul and he wrapped his arms about his shoulders. Tears, warm and salty as blood, spilled down his cheeks and dripped from his chin. The despair was so crushing he could not breathe. The helplessness and the hopelessness ravaged through his memories.
The crushing sense of loss broke his heart beyond repair.
Thunder rumbled overhead and then a sudden wicked jag of lighting tore the clouds apart. Stefan turned his face to the sky, and the tears that streamed down his cheeks mingled with the spatters of warm rain.
* * *
The hospital parking lot was not full. Stefan parked the car and ran towards the warm light
s of the reception area. Behind wide glass doors he could see nurses going about their work behind a high counter.
The doors slid open before him and he kicked clods of mud from his shoes. His legs were trembling. He thrust his hands deep into his pockets. He felt cold; numb. The blood in his veins was like ice. The roar in his ears left him dazed. Everything around him seemed misty and unreal.
A young dark-haired nurse wearing a pale blue uniform was sitting behind the information counter. She was talking quietly on a telephone. She looked up and saw Stefan. She didn’t smile. Her voice became more hushed as she spoke quickly into the receiver.
Stefan waited for three seconds. Then he leaned across the counter and stabbed his finger down hard on the cradle of the receiver, cutting off the call. The nurse looked up at him, a sudden flare of outrage in her eyes. There was an angry rebuke on her lips.
Stefan stared at the woman, his eyes like black daggers. “Renee Blake,” he said. His voice was soft but there was menace in his tone and there was a wild fury in his expression. “She was in a car accident that also killed my unborn daughter. Where is she?”
The nurse froze for a split-second and then her face softened and became compassionate. She didn’t consult a list or computer screen. She knew.
“Room 103,” she said softly. “The doctors are with your wife right now.”
Stefan strode down the corridor, his eyes scanning the numbers on the wide painted doors on either side of the aisle. Stainless steel trolleys full of medical supplies, and carts stacked with empty plates, were parked against the walls. Through the waist-high windows of the wards, Stefan saw patients in high beds. None of the patients looked like Renee.
He went down the wide corridor quickly, counting the numbers off. The passage ended at a T-intersection. Stefan turned left.
Room 103.
The door was closed, the blinds pulled down over the windows. Stefan stood outside, alone in the passageway. He caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection of the glass. A stranger’s face stared back at him. The face was haggard with dark purple smudges of fatigue below eyes that were red and raw. The lines around the mouth were deeply etched, and the skin pale and bloodless, stretched across the gaunt bony frame of his jaw. He stared at himself a moment longer, shocked but numbed, and then he closed his eyes, felt himself begin to sway.
Overhead the hospital paging system chimed and a call went out for a doctor. Stefan heard the door open in front of him and he blinked, suddenly alert once more. A tall man in a dark grey suit was coming quietly from the room. He had wispy grey hair combed across a high forehead. The man’s eyes were serious and thoughtful. He had a clipboard in one hand. He saw Stefan and stopped.
“Mr Blake?” he asked kindly.
Stefan nodded.
The man reached out gently for Stefan’s arm. “I’m doctor Raynor. I’ve been attending to your wife since she was admitted. Come with me, I think you need a coffee.”
Instinctively Stefan flinched. “No. I need to see my wife,” his voice sounded shaky and loud in his own ears. He shrugged free of the doctor’s grip and glared at the man belligerently.
The doctor seemed to take no offense. “You will,” he promised. “But not just yet. We’re still running some tests. In the meantime, there are some things I want to tell you.”
Eight.
There was a small private room at the end of the hall. Doctor Raynor held the door open and Stefan stepped inside.
The room was painted in soft pastel shades. It smelled of antiseptic. There was a long brown sofa along one wall, the upholstery faded and worn. In the opposite corner was a stainless steel coffee machine on a long bench covered with cups and cutlery. The doctor poured two black coffees and handed one to Stefan. He accepted the cup absently, his eyes never leaving the tall man’s face.
“Will my wife…?”
The doctor nodded. “Yes. She will be fine,” he said and there was the touch of a smile on his lips, but it was mingled with a deeper, sadder expression. Stefan saw the pity and concern in the man’s eyes. “Your wife will recover,” doctor Raynor said. He led Stefan to the sofa and they sat down. Stefan hunched on the edge of the cushion, his eyes intent and searching.
“She has some cuts and contusions, mainly on her forehead and face. She also has a concussion, but it’s nothing to worry about. We’ve taken x-rays of her arm and shoulder. I don’t think there is a break, but she has some heavy bruising and swelling across her chest where the car’s seatbelt restrained her.”
Stefan nodded. Said nothing.
The doctor glanced down at the clipboard in his hand and flicked through several pages of paper, then glanced up at Stefan again. “It’s too early to be sure, but there appears to be no major internal damage. Overall, she was incredibly lucky. If all the tests come back negative, she may even be discharged in a couple of days.”
“I understand.” Stefan nodded his head with a jerking motion and wiped his face with his open hand. It was a gesture of weary defeat. He sighed, and then closed his eyes. His chin sank down onto his chest. The room was silent. The doctor watched him with quiet care.
At last Stefan opened his eyes again and stood up slowly. He tried to smile but his lips trembled and would not hold the shape. He felt tears filling his eyes again and he cuffed at them irritably with the back of his hand.
“I’m sorry about your baby. There was nothing we could do,” doctor Raynor said.
Stefan heard the man’s voice as if it came from far away so that the words only just penetrated his despair. He tried to respond but it felt as though he was crushed under a great weight. He hunched forward over his hands, and he felt himself beginning to tremble.
The doctor rose from the sofa. His arm went around Stefan’s shoulder. “Your wife is going to need you now, Mr Blake. More than ever before. Her physical injuries are slight compared to the emotional trauma of everything that has happened. I can mend broken bones – but this is beyond my skill. It might be wise for you both to consider counseling at a later stage. But for now, you need to be with her. You need to turn to friends and family and draw strength from each other to endure the sadness ahead. Most of all you need to give yourselves time to grieve.”
Stefan nodded. “Thank you for everything you’ve done.” His voice was strained, sounding rusty and thick with his pain. He swallowed with an effort – and took a deep shuddering breath.
Doctor Raynor led him towards the door, stopping just before they stepped back into the hallway.
“I am sorry for your loss, Mr Blake. The heartache will never go away – but it will fade a little in time. Give yourself that time. Do whatever it takes to heal, and to help your wife heal. She has lost her child, but she hasn’t lost the ability to have more children in the future. If nothing else, take some small comfort from that.”
The doctor reached for the brass door-handle but suddenly Stefan’s hand lashed out, locking around the man’s wrist, his grip a fierce over-reaction.
“How?” he asked, and there was a trace of menace in his voice. “Do you know how the accident happened?”
“No,” the doctor shook his head. He flexed the fingers of his hand and Stefan’s grip loosened. “The paramedics who brought your wife in said it was a single car accident, Mr Blake. The vehicle veered off the road and collided into a tree about five miles outside of town. Luckily a passing motorist saw the incident and called 911.”
Stefan listened, the words muffled in his ears through a haze of rage that flared bright and blinding for a single instant, and then turned to cold ash.
“There’s no one to blame,” the doctor said sympathetically, understanding Stefan’s need to focus his frustration and give vent to his futility. “It’s just a cruel twist of fate.”
Nine.
The blinds had been pulled away from the windows when Stefan reached the door to room 103. He glanced through the glass. He could see Renee laying on her back on the hospital bed under a single crisp white sheet. The sight
of her frail shape under the cover was a shock to him. Beside the bed were metal frames holding plastic bags filled with fluids. Long tubes poked from Renee’s pale arm. In one corner was a machine, filled with blinking lights and displaying red digital numbers.
Stefan took a long deep breath that sounded as a ragged sob, and then he eased the door open quietly and stepped into the room.
Renee turned her head at the sound from the doorway and their eyes locked.
Stefan felt a vice seem to close around his heart and restrict his breathing.
Renee’s face was swollen, a smudge of darkening bruises along her cheek and beneath her eyes. Her hair was lank and matted damp against her forehead. Her top lip had been split. Now it was puffy, distorting the shape of her mouth.
She made a heart-breakingly feminine gesture of vanity – prodding the tendrils of hair from her face, and her eyes brimmed and glistened with sudden tears.
It was Renee’s eyes that shocked Stefan the most. They were dark sunken hollows in her face, made huge by the bruising around them. The dazzling blue of her iris had dulled and lost their sparkle. They were empty eyes; dark and haunted.
He crossed to the bed slowly and Renee turned her face to his, looking up from the bed at the deeply ravaged lines that despair had etched around his mouth and brow. His skin looked grey and ashen, drawn tight across his features.
Stefan reached for her hand, careful of the tubes that jutted from her wrist, and he gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. And then the tears came, and there was nothing Stefan or Renee could do to hold back the deep desolate anguish that crashed over them like a wave and left them broken and shattered, clinging to each other.
Her Master's Kiss 4 (Erotic Romance) Page 3
