Summer Dreams

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events or locales or to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  First edition: September 2016

  Copyright © 2016 by Cheryl Bradshaw

  Cover Copyright © 2016 by Indie Designz

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any print or electronic form without the written consent of the author.

  VEGAS DREAMS NOVELLA SERIES BY CHERYL BRADSHAW:

  Sweet Dreams – Rae’s Story (Book 1)

  Shattered Dreams – Sasha’s Story (Book 2)

  Stolen Dreams – Callie’s Story (Book 3)

  Summer Dreams – Kenna’s Story (Book 4)

  My name is Kenna Bradley, and this is my story.

  For me, life had always come easy.

  Stable home life. Check.

  Good parents. Check.

  Good friends. Check.

  No broken bones. Check.

  Amazing husband. Double check.

  I was happy. Really happy. And I couldn’t imagine life would ever be any different.

  It was a nice evening. Scratch that. It was a perfect fall evening for a backyard barbecue in Sin City. I was sitting on a lawn chair on my deck, holding a martini in one hand and my husband Robert’s hand in the other. I looked around at all our friends and smiled. Life was good—really good—and to me, it couldn’t get any better.

  Robert squeezed my hand, then leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “You all right?” He tilted his head toward my empty glass. “Want me to get you another drink?”

  I shook my head. “I’m fine. I’ve already had three tonight. One more and the only thing I’ll be interested in is sleep.”

  “I’m cutting you off then.”

  My voice went up a few octaves. “Cutting me off? Why?”

  He ran his hand down the side of my short blond hair and winked. “I need you to save some energy for later when I have you all to myself again.”

  We were one week away from celebrating our wedding anniversary with a trip to the Bahamas and had decided to celebrate the occasion early by having a barbecue with some of our closest friends. We’d been married five years, and yet the love I felt for him that day was stronger than it had ever been. In a society where divorce was becoming second nature, our bond had never wavered. I didn’t know why our marriage lasted while others didn’t. All I knew was the man sitting next to me wasn’t just my husband—he was my best friend—the love of my life.

  Two fingers snapped a few inches from my face, and my attention shifted to my friend Rae, who was hovered over me. She had a towel draped around her waist and wet hair that was dripping water all over me.

  “Hey, you’re leaking,” I said.

  She backed up, twisted her hair around her hand, and a stream of water splashed all over the deck. “Okay, you guys. How about the two of you stop pawing all over each other and join the rest of us in the pool? We’re thinking we should toss a ball around before we go, play a little water volleyball. You in?”

  Robert laughed as he stood.

  I joined him. “Oh yeah. We’re in.”

  Two successful volleyball games later and our get-together had almost wound to a close. With the exception of Rae, Sasha, and Callie who’d stayed to help me put my back yard together again, the rest of my guests had called it a night.

  Robert was gone too, on a quick errand he’d been a bit cryptic about before he left, except to say he wouldn’t be gone long. Not long had been more than an hour already. I’d texted him a few minutes before, letting him know the girls were leaving and we were a go for alone time. But he hadn’t texted back in over twenty minutes, which was unusual for him.

  “Well,” Rae said, “thanks for an amazing party Kenna.”

  She leaned in, hugged me. Not to be outdone, Sasha and Callie followed suit, and then the four of us walked together to Rae’s car. Along the way, my cell phone buzzed in my back pocket. I picked it out, glanced at the number. I didn’t recognize it. Thinking it was a telemarketer I ignored the call. Less than a minute later, my phone buzzed again. This time I pressed the call button and then the end button. When my phone rang a third time, I sighed, then answered it. “Hello?”

  A female voice said, “Hello. Is this Kenna Bradley?”

  “Yes? Who’s this?”

  “My name is Kathryn. I’m calling from Hilltop General.”

  “Hospital?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry. I should have said that. Your husband is Robert Bradley, correct?”

  “Robert’s my husband. Why?”

  “He was brought in a short time ago.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He’s been in an automobile accident.”

  I gasped so loudly all three of my girlfriends stopped talking. Rae placed a hand on my shoulder and whispered, “Kenna, what’s going on?”

  I held up a finger in the air, continued the conversation with Kathryn. “What do you mean he was in an accident? What happened? Is he all right?”

  She paused for too long—much too long—and I realized I was no longer breathing. My chest felt like a deflated balloon. Empty. If he were okay, she would have said so. She would have put my mind at ease. But she didn’t. A sick, numbing sensation ripped through my body, a nasty combination of fear and shock all pulsing through me at once. My head throbbed—my body ached—every pore breaking out in a chilled sweat.

  I thought about the last words he’d spoken to me before he left, and how he’d kissed me goodbye, released his hand from mine. I thought about his cherry-flavored Chapstick-coated lips kissing me. I thought about how I’d stood there watching him open and close the gate, watching him whistling the tune of an old Fleetwood Mac song, pausing just long enough to glance back at me and wink before bobbing his head inside the car and waving as he backed out of the driveway.

  “I’ll be right back,” he’d said. “I promise.”

  This wasn’t happening.

  It couldn’t be happening.

  But it was.

  “Hello?” Kathryn said. “Mrs. Bradley, are you still there? Can you hear me?”

  My mind was so cluttered I hadn’t realized she was still talking. Whatever she’d just said, I hadn’t heard it.

  “I’m here,” I said. “Can you repeat yourself one more time?”

  My friends stood there, helpless, all of them trying to piece what was happening based on what I’d already said.

  “Your husband was brought in several minutes ago,” Kathryn said.

  “Can I talk to him?”

  “Well, no. Not right now. He’s ... not conscious, and they’ve just taken him back for surgery.”

  “What do you mean? How can you perform surgery without my consent?”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bradley. There wasn’t time, and when it’s a matter of life and ... what I mean to say is ... he had to be operated on as soon as he arrived.”

  “I need you to tell me what’s happening. Right now.”

  “The surgeon will give you all the details. Please get here as soon as you can.”

  The line went dead, and I stood for a moment, unable to move, my throat dry and scratchy.

  “Kenna,” Rae said, “talk to us. What’s going on?”

  “It’s ... umm ... Robert. He’s ... umm ... he’s been in a car accident. He’s at the hospital. He’s in surgery. I don’t know why or what’s—”

  Everything around me started spinning. The phone slipped from my hand like my palm was coated with butter, and my knees buckled beneath me. I went down, and just like that, my bright, beautiful, easy w
orld turned into a canvas of black.

  Sasha hovered over me. Her mouth was moving, but it took me a moment to grasp what she was saying. Then I understood.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  No. No I wasn’t.

  I glanced around, pressed a hand onto the concrete surface of the driveway. Apparently that was where I’d just collapsed. I tried to push myself up, but my arm was limp. Sasha’s hand reached for me. She gripped my hand, lifted me to a standing position. Rae’s and Sasha’s arms draped around me on both sides, helping me to the passenger seat of the car, then reaching around me and buckling me in. Callie and Sasha got into the backseat. Rae got behind the wheel, jerked the car into reverse, and tore out of the driveway.

  “Kenna, what did the lady on the phone say?” Callie asked. “Can you tell us more about what’s going on with Robert? How bad is he hurt? What kind of surgery are they performing?”

  “I don’t know. She acted like she couldn’t say, like I had to wait to talk to the doctor when I get there. She only said they needed to perform surgery on him right away, and the doctor will tell me more when I get there.”

  With every twist and turn of the steering wheel, my stomach contents shifted, the cocktails I’d had, along the food I’d eaten struggling to stay down. Rae raced through one red light, then another, and then the car came to a stop in front of the emergency room door. Callie and Sasha hopped out, flung my door open, helping me out, while Rae parked the car.

  The hospital doors slid open automatically. I ran to the reception desk. The receptionist was on the phone. I wanted to yank the phone from her ear and slam it down. “I’m Kenna Bradley. I’m here to see my husband Robert.”

  The woman glanced at me for a second and frowned, then returned to her phone call.

  Sasha stepped in front of me, poked the woman in the shoulder, and said, “Excuse me, we need someone to talk to us. Now.”

  The receptionist gave her a nasty look but ended the call. She pressed a button on the phone and paged Dr. Grant over the intercom. She then turned toward me. “Ma’am, he’s just out of surgery, so it’s going to be a few minutes. Why don’t you all have a seat? The doctor should be with you shortly.”

  “Can you tell me anything while I’m waiting? Do you know how my husband’s doing? How the surgery went?”

  She bit her lower lip, but didn’t speak. Her eyes darted back and forth from one object on her desk to another like my question had put her in an awkward position. Her inability to look me in the eye made me feel like she knew something.

  Does she?

  Or am I panicking, expecting the worst?

  I wanted to grab her by the collar of her stupid pink polka-dotted shirt and say: What aren’t you saying? Why can’t you just tell me?

  But I didn’t.

  Twenty minutes passed. From the end of a long white hallway, a man dressed head to toe in teal-colored scrubs made his way toward the waiting room, the rubber soles of his shoes squeaking along the vinyl floor as he walked. He stopped at the receptionist’s desk for a moment, leaned over, and said something I couldn’t hear. She used the pen in her hand to point in my direction. He nodded, walked over, and stuck a hand out. “Are you Mrs. Bradley?”

  I shook it even though I didn’t want to do it. “My name’s Kenna. Are you Dr. Grant?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s my husband? Can I see him?”

  Dr. Grant crossed his arms in front of him. “I’d like to talk to you for a moment if I can. Would you follow me please?”

  I didn’t want to follow him.

  I wanted to scream and hit something and tear my hair out.

  Rae, Callie, and Sasha stood beside me, hands on hips.

  “We’ve been waiting for a while now,” Rae said. “Kenna’s been through hell tonight. She wants to see her husband. She wants to know what’s going on. So how about you stop delaying things and help her out?”

  “I’m trying,” Dr. Grant said.

  I turned toward Rae. “It’s fine. Really. Let me just go with him and talk to him, okay?”

  She shrugged. “We’re right here if you need us.”

  I nodded and followed him to an office. He gestured to a chair. “Why don’t you sit down?”

  “Seriously? I’m about ready to lose it. The last thing I want to do is have a seat.”

  “I understand.”

  “How were you were able to perform surgery on Robert without my consent? Isn’t it my decision?”

  “Normally you’re right. We’d need his consent or yours. However, your husband’s injuries were substantial, and we couldn’t wait.”

  “Substantial? What does that even mean?”

  “When the ambulance brought him in tonight, he had internal bleeding as well as multiple fractures. I had to operate right away if there was any chance at all of saving his life.”

  “So you’re saying because you made the call to operate, he’s fine. You saved him, right?”

  “I tried to save him.”

  “What do you mean you tried to save him? Is he ...” I couldn’t finish the rest of the sentence. The words wouldn’t come, wouldn’t leave my mouth. I couldn’t say them out loud, because saying them out loud made what was happening real. And I didn’t want it to be real. “You’re saying he’s ... no ... you’re not, right?”

  Dr. Grant removed his glasses, pinching his fingers together on the bridge of his nose. He averted eye contact with me, then took a deep breath in, and looked me in the eye. “Mrs. Bradley, I’m so sorry to tell you this. Honestly, it’s the one thing I wish I never had to do. I did my best to stop the internal bleeding, but there was nothing I could do to save him. His injuries were too great. Your husband didn’t make it through the surgery. What I’m trying to say is—”

  “Your trying to say my husband is dead.”

  Four days later I sat in a pew in the front row of a church I hadn’t attended since high school. My hand was in my skirt pocket, wrapped around a bracelet I couldn’t stop fiddling with. In the pocket of the pants Robert was wearing the night of the accident, I found a small box. Inside the box was a bracelet, which was engraved: To Kenna. I’ll love you forever. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to wear it, but ever since I’d found it, I’d kept it with me.

  Rae called the jeweler and learned the night Robert died the errand he said he was running was to the jeweler’s shop. The jeweler said he’d called Robert and told him he was going out of town for several days. He’d offered to mail the bracelet, but Robert didn’t want to take any chances it wouldn’t arrive before we left on our anniversary trip. On the way back from the jeweler’s shop, a drunk driver ran a red light and hit Robert head on.

  I shifted my focus from the bracelet to Robert’s father. He was standing behind a podium at the front of the room, speaking to those in attendance about memories he had of his son. His focus seemed to be on lightening the otherwise somber mood, and based on the smiles on many of the faces around me, it was working. On them, at least. Not on me.

  Several people laughed when Robert’s father recounted the time Robert fell off his bike when he was four and then stood, brushed himself off, and curtsied like he’d meant to do it. A few more laughed when his father talked about taking Robert fishing when he was nine, and how Robert had taken a nose-dive off the boat into the water, trying to catch the fish he’d lost after it slid off his line.

  While a moment of lighthearted joy filled the room, tears swelled around my eyes, and I did nothing to stop them from falling. I didn’t care what I looked like, or how smudged my makeup was, or what anyone thought of me. I was so numb from the antidepressants I’d been given, I was surprised I felt anything.

  Rae tilted her head forward, glanced past me at Callie and Sasha, giving them “the look.” The three were positioned on both sides of me—Rae to my left and Sasha and Callie to my right. I knew the look they exchanged, and I knew what it meant. They were nervous for me. Worried. I could see it on all of their faces. I didn
’t blame them. I was nervous for me too.

  Robert’s father concluded his talk, and the priest walked to the podium. “Now we’ll hear a few words from Robert’s wife Kenna.”

  Up to that morning I hadn’t decided whether or not I wanted to speak. I’d finally agreed to it, but now wished I hadn’t. My thoughts and experiences with Robert were personal, meant for no one else but me.

  Rae whispered, “You’re so pale. You don’t have to do this, Kenna. I can do it for you. You said you were going to write a few things down. Did you?”

  I nodded.

  “Why don’t you give me what you wrote and I’ll read it?”

  I shook my head, took a deep breath in, and stood. The distance from where I was sitting to the front of the room was less than ten feet, but staring at it now, it seemed like it would take me forever to get there.

  Put one foot in front of the other, Kenna.

  You can do this.

  I made my way to the front, turned, and faced the packed room in front of me. I should have felt some kind of warmth and comfort, appreciation for all who were there, for the love they’d shown my husband, the love they’d shown me. But I didn’t. I felt nothing.

  “Thank you all for coming to help me say goodbye to Robert. I know he’d be grateful to you all, not just for the love you’ve shown today, but for all the things you’ve done to help me during this time. I appreciate your phone calls, the food you’ve brought over, and all the support I’ve received. I ... umm ... met Robert when I was fourteen. I was a freshman in high school, and he was a junior. The first time I saw him, he was walking out of the gym. His eyes were glued to his cell phone and he didn’t see me coming. He smacked right into me. I dropped everything—my books, my cell phone. When I picked my phone back up I noticed my screen had cracked. Robert offered a quick apology, but then he kept walking, so my first impression of him was that he was ... well ... not a very nice guy. The next day, he showed up to my house with a brand new phone wrapped in a blue ribbon, and then he asked me on a date. Ever since then, we’d been together almost every single day.”