A Steel Heart (Heart #2)

by Amie Knight

  I didn’t know if my words were for me or for her. Of their own accord, my hands checked her over. Her head was bleeding where it made contact with something, but it wasn’t bad. Her arms looked okay. Her torso fine. Her legs. I patted her thighs with my hands and they came away sticky and wet with blood. I looked down at my hands, frozen in fear. Where was she hurt? The thick red wetness coated my hands and as I held them up, drops eased down my hands and over my wrists. Sweat broke out on my brow and I felt light-headed.

  The thumping of the bird.

  Snipers shooting.

  So much blood.

  The deafening sound of a blast.

  Blink.

  Fuck, just get her out of the fucking car, Steel, I ordered myself, praying I could keep my shit together long enough to get her to safety. Adrenaline shot through my body like a bullet and I somehow managed to pry her from the car and carry her to the parking lot of the bar.

  I sat on the hard concrete of the lot, cradling her body, praying to God that she would wake up. Please, please wake up. I’d never make it in this world without her. She was my everything.

  “Someone help!” I shouted. “Someone call nine-one-one!” I shouted into the rain-filled sky. I didn’t know if anyone heard me, but I just kept shouting until my shouts turned to prayers and my prayers turned to whispers. “Please be okay. Please be okay.”

  I looked down at her lap where blood was spilling from between her legs right onto mine.

  It was hot. So hot.

  I flinched at the sound of gunshots and brought her closer to my body.

  A man approached and I stared at him confused. He wasn’t dressed for the desert. He held out a phone. “I’m calling the police. God, I didn’t mean to hit her. She pulled right out in front of me.”

  And she laid in my lap surrounded by sand. Why was I in the desert? I couldn’t protect her here. Gunshots rang out, and I pulled her closer to my body.

  The man near us stepped forward, studying Mae, and I crouched my body over hers. “Back the fuck up, man!” I yelled. My hands shook as I held her to me.

  He stepped away, a phone to his ear, and I held her close to me, rocking her. “Wake up, baby. Please wake up. I can’t protect you here. You have to wake up and go home.”

  She didn’t rouse. I looked over her face, checking her head again and noticed a large bump on the left side. “Fuck! Please.” Hot tears trekked down my cheeks as I pressed her face to mine, the smell of her vanilla scent the only thing keeping me relatively calm.

  Sirens. I heard sirens in the distance and looked around, but all I saw was sand and my Mae.

  “Oh, God,” I cried into her hair. I couldn’t lose her here, too. I’d already lost someone I loved.

  I rocked her, rubbing her soft hair, checking her pulse periodically. We would be okay. Someone would come for her. I’d wait on the medic or a helicopter.

  Two soldiers approached. “Sir, can you put her down so we can help her?” one of them asked.

  I couldn’t. I couldn’t put her down. They might take her. The same way they took away Davies and I’d never see her again. She’d be gone forever.

  “I can’t,” I choked out, pulling her even closer to me.

  “Please, sir, we can’t help her if you don’t put her down.”

  “I can’t!” I shouted, terrified of losing her. “I can’t.” It was so hot, the sun was burning me. I could taste the sand in my mouth.

  A warm hand landed on my shoulder, and I flinched away before looking up.

  “Let her go, boss. Let her go,” a familiar voice said from above me, drawing my attention.

  I blinked again, trying to focus. He was there. His green Kevlar helmet on his head, the straps tight under his chin. Davies. How was he here? But I knew he could save her.

  “You have to let her go. I’ll take care of her.” He smiled warmly down at me, holding his hands out for her. I had missed that smile. His bad jokes. Him calling me boss.

  My Mae would be okay with him. I kissed the top of her head and smelled her one last time before handing her over gently. Giving her to the one person I knew without a shadow of a doubt would save her. She had no place in the desert with me. He had to get her out of there.

  I ran through the hospital emergency entrance, Harper hot on my heels. She’d picked me up at the bar when I’d finally realized what the hell had happened. I didn’t know how long I’d sat there in that parking lot. I only knew that all of a sudden I was there, the man who had hit Mae’s car next to me, asking if he could call someone to come get me since my friend had already been taken to the hospital. I had no idea how long Mae had been there without me, and I was a fucking wreck.

  “Miranda Jacobs. Where is she?” I barked to the nurse behind the desk.

  “Are you family?”

  My teeth gnashed together. I didn’t want to walk right past this polite, diligent nurse, and right through those doors next to her desk, but I fucking would.

  “Yeah, I’m her husband.” My eyes dared her to argue with me.

  She nodded toward the seats in the waiting area. “Have a seat and I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “Just let me fucking back to see her—”

  “Whoa there, buddy. Calm it down.” Harper grabbed my arm and pulled me to the waiting area.

  She pushed me down into a chair and knelt down in front of me, grabbing my big hands in her small ones. “Look at me, bud.”

  So I did and it was a mistake. My eyes burned under her stare. I blinked, but she still looked watery. Fuck, I didn’t want to cry in that waiting room.

  I sucked on my bottom lip, willing the tears away.

  “Listen, we gotta play nice with these people if we want to check on Miranda. Okay?”

  I nodded because I couldn’t speak. I just needed to know if she was okay.

  “What happened?” Harper asked.

  “We had a fight.” I ran my hands through my hair, stressed, knowing what I had to tell Harps. “She left upset,” I choked out. “And then the car…” I couldn’t finish my sentence, but I didn’t need to. Harper had seen the wreckage that was left of Mae’s Beetle.

  She pulled me to her and hugged me. I held her small body to mine and the tears came. I couldn’t stop them. They poured down my face and into her T-shirt. “I’ve lied, Harper. I’m not doing good. I sometimes think I’m back in the desert, but I’m not. I’m here and it’s fucked up and I don’t know what to do.”

  She pulled away from me, stunned. “What?”

  “I’m fucked up in the head and I only have one leg, and now I’ve ruined everything with Mae.”

  She pulled me back to her, holding me tight, pressing my head with her hand into her shoulder. She brought her lips to my ear, whispering, “No, Hold. You haven’t ruined anything. It’s going to be okay, honey. We’ll figure this out together. I promise.”

  She rocked me and petted me and held me in that waiting room for God knows how long before the nurse finally called us over.

  “You can go back. She’s three doors down to the left.” She pushed a button on her desk and the doors next to her swung open.

  I raced through the doors, Harper’s hand in mine. I didn’t need to count three doors down because I saw Adrian pacing the hallway, looking pale as a ghost.

  It scared me that when he saw me he didn’t immediately look like he wanted to kill me. He looked sick for me, sad for me.

  My heart clenched painfully in my chest. “Where is she? What happened? Is she okay?” The questions poured from my mouth before I could even think. I just had to know she was okay.

  “She’s fine, man. Just a bad bump to her head, possible concussion.”

  Then why the fuck was his face so devastated? Why did he look so sad?

  I motioned toward the door he stood in front of. “She’s in there, then? I can go in?”

  He shook his head, looking at me like I was pathetic. I was, but I didn’t like him looking at me like that. “The doctor’s in there now. Ma
ybe you should come back later, Holden. It’s not a good time.”

  Was he out of his fucking mind? I wasn’t leaving this hospital until I saw Mae’s gorgeous face alive and well. I stood up straight, bracing for a fight. Harper’s fingers clenched tightly around mine in warning. I looked at her and she shook her head.

  I took a deep breath and met Adrian’s gaze dead-on. “I’m not leaving here until I see her.”

  He nodded solemnly. “That’s what I figured.” He moved aside and I let go of Harper’s hand and stepped into the room quietly, the doctor speaking stopping me dead in my tracks.

  He stood to the side of Mae’s bed, making it impossible for me to see her face from this angle. Ainsley was sitting in a chair on the other side of the bed holding Mae’s pale hand. “These things happen sometimes. It was an early pregnancy and we don’t see any reason at all that you won’t be able to get pregnant again.”

  The blood all over her thighs flashed in my mind. I froze. No. God fucking no. This wasn’t happening. Surely, I’d blacked out again and was immersed into a different kind of nightmare now.

  A sob bubbled up out of my chest and past my lips, drawing the doctor’s attention. He backed away from the bed, looking at me sadly, but all I could focus on was Mae. She looked so small, so pale in that hospital bed.

  A bandage covered a portion of her head and silent tears rolled down her cheeks. She saw me standing there, but it seemed like she looked right through me. Another choked out sob flew from my chest, and a tear slipped out the corner of my eye.

  The doctor laid his hand on her sheet covered leg. “I’ll leave you. I’ll check back on you later tonight.”

  He left the room and I stood there, feeling like I’d lost something even more valuable than my leg. Ainsley kissed Mae’s forehead and slipped out after the doctor, her face dark and ashen with grief.

  Wake up, Holden. Wake up, and maybe you’ll be back at that bar where you should tell Mae that you’re sorry and that you love her and that you’ll go home with her. Wake up! And you’ll have Mae and your baby.

  My Mae who loved children, who went to hold the babies every fucking Friday, rain or shine, had lost our baby. It wasn’t fucking fair. I wanted to scream and I wanted to throw shit, but I knew she needed me, so I walked to her slowly. Only she looked away, her eyes toward the dark window. Tears slipped down her cheeks, but she didn’t scream. She didn’t sob like I expected. It scared me how eerily calm she was.

  “Baby,” I said, trying to garner her attention, but she still didn’t look at me. She only stared out the window into the night, her face wet, her spirit ravaged.

  I stood right next to the bed, willing her to look at me. To let me share her grief. I’d carry it for the both of us. It would kill me, but I would do that for her.

  “I’m so sorry,” I sobbed out. “I’m so sorry. I love y—”

  “No.”

  That single word obliterated me. “Baby, please.”

  “No,” she said again a little louder this time. But she never gave me her eyes. She still just stared out the window, looking at nothing.

  And then it hit me, because this was my fault. I’d done this. I’d pushed her away one too many times and now I’d lost it all. She’d lost it all because of me. She was looking out that dark window because she’d rather look at nothing at all than look at me. My knees hit the hard hospital floor, my grief too heavy to hold.

  “Leave, Holden.”

  “I can’t leave. I love you.”

  Her eyes finally flew to mine and they were filled with the kind of disgust and hate I thought I’d never see in my girl’s eyes. It destroyed me.

  “You don’t get to say that now! Get out! Leave me!” she screamed at me, tearing at the sheets around her, violent sobs ripping from her body.

  I tried to grab her hand. I needed to touch her. She needed to be held, but she only snatched her hand away.

  “Please, Mae, I wish you would—”

  But she cut me off. “You know what I wish?” she said too quietly, so angrily, through clenched teeth.

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to hear her wish. I knew it would hurt me. She wanted to hurt me like she was hurting.

  “I wish you were a better man. We were on the cusp of greatness. We could have had it all and you threw it all away because you were scared. Get out!” she screeched at the top of her lungs.

  I fell forward, my knees still to the floor, my head in my hands, the force of her words knocking me low. So very fucking low.

  Lower than the day I’d lost my best friend, my leg, my career. I’d never been so low. So very fucking broken as I was in that moment. I didn’t think I’d ever recover. I couldn’t bear her hatred of me. I couldn’t bear the loss of a child I didn’t even know I could have had.

  Would it have been a boy? A girl? Would she have had caramel eyes like my Mae? Would she have had a straight mane of jet-black hair like mine or a wild mass of tangled red waves?

  It hurt. It hurt so bad. I rocked forward on my knees, trying to get up. Trying to leave, but I couldn’t move, my grief too great, my sadness heavier than any rucksack I’d ever carried on my back for days in the hot desert. But I couldn’t listen to her screeching for me to leave any longer. I needed to get up and walk out because I couldn’t stand her cries another minute. Every bone in my body told me to stay, but my Mae needed me gone.

  I rocked forward again and this time I felt hands helping me up. “Come on, man. I got you. Let’s get you out of here for a little while. Okay?” Adrian helped me from the floor, and I’d never been so grateful to see him. I couldn’t do this alone.

  He shouldered my weight all the way to the door of the room where I chanced one last look back at my Mae. Ainsley was seated on the bed, her arms wrapped around Mae. I wanted that to be me. I wanted to hold her, but I knew she wouldn’t let me.

  At least she had Ainsley, I told myself. At least she let someone comfort her. That was the only solace I had as I left that room.

  Harper waited on me in the hallway, but I didn’t go to her. I slid down the wall and buried my head back in my hands. I’d done this. Harper’s arms wrapped around me as she kissed the top of my head.

  “I wish you were a better man.” Her words echoed back at me, haunting me, brutalizing my already wounded heart. And I knew what I had to do. I had to be better.

  Three Months Later

  I stared at the computer screen, not seeing the words on it. I did that a lot the last couple of months. Not even my romantic books could keep my attention anymore. I was adrift, just floating along. Not really living, but not dead either.

  A knock at the door sounded, and I was relieved. I needed a break from the editing that felt more like the job it was instead of the fun it used to be.

  I checked the peephole and smiled. “Adrian,” I said as I opened the door.

  He swooped in past me, Chinese food in his hand.

  “You brought lunch! You’re my hero!” I exclaimed.

  “I did,” he said, glancing over my midsection. “You keep losing weight. I need to make sure you’re eating.”

  I knew he was worried. Truth was, I had dropped ten pounds. I ate, I just didn’t eat like I used to. I didn’t make donut runs or head out to eat much. I didn’t really go anywhere.

  We went to the kitchen where Adrian pulled two plates down and started spooning food onto them.

  I unwrapped an egg roll and took a bite, leaning on the counter next to him. “So, to what do I owe this unexpected visit and feast today?”

  He smirked at me. “I just wanted to have lunch with you. We don’t see you enough lately.”

  Guilt ate at me. I didn’t do movie nights with Adrian and Ainsley like I used to. I didn’t see them much at all anymore unless I went to my momma’s or Jessi’s for dinner. I just wasn’t feeling sociable yet. I was getting there, but it was taking time.

  I still felt like I was grieving most days. Not just the loss of the baby that I didn’t even know I was carryi
ng. I was grieving the loss of Holden, even if in my heart I knew it was best. I still missed him every day. I sometimes would think of calling him and asking him where he was. Because he certainly wasn’t at that apartment across the hall. I hadn’t seen him since I’d screamed at him. Since I said things to him I knew I’d only said because I was so angry and hurt. Things I regretted but couldn’t take back. They’d been too awful. I’d spent every day for the last three months devastated. The first month I’d cried for my lost baby every day and while my chest still hurt anytime I thought of that baby, now I cried for Holden. Every day.

  “Have you heard from him?”

  “Who?”

  “You know who, Miranda panda.”

  He always asked me if I heard from Holden whenever I saw him. My answer was always the same.

  “No.”

  He nodded. “Do you think it’s time you called him? Talked to him?”

  Well, this was new.

  I took my plate and sat down at the dining room table. Adrian followed, looking a little scared, like he was expecting an epic meltdown any moment.

  “I’ve thought about it, but, Adrian, he left that hospital room and never looked back. He hasn’t even been back over to the apartment. I think he’s done.”

  And who could blame him? You told you him you wished he were a better man.

  I hadn’t meant it. I’d just been so terribly sad and angry. I knew it wasn’t Holden’s fault. Sure, he’d sent me away, but I’d gotten in that car in the pouring rain, sobbing my eyes out, and pulled right out in front of that car.

  It was no one’s fault really, just a terrible, terrible accident.

  “Maybe he’s giving you time. Time to heal. Does he still send Harper around?”

  “Harper doesn’t come around because he’s told her to.”

  No, Harper came around at first to check on me and now she came around because we were friends. I smiled thinking of my newfound friendship with Holden’s sister. Every Saturday night she came over with dinner and we watched old movies. We talked. We ate, but we never discussed Holden. I wouldn’t make her tell me anything Holden didn’t want me to know. I wouldn’t put her on the spot like that, no matter how I was dying to know where he was. What he was doing.