Her Best Friend's Brother

by Kay Stockham

  Luke straightened. “What did you do?”

  Anne-Marie twisted her hands in front of her, the move reminding him of Shelby. “I went to a party with him. I knew better than to mess with the crap they had laid out as favors, but I was feeling low and I did it anyway. When I woke up…Tony had taken pictures.”

  “Nice guy you chose there.”

  Hot color filled her face. “You don’t see the resemblance?”

  He stared at her blankly.

  She smirked, her expression sad, old for her thirty-four years.

  Shock came first, then anger. “Don’t you dare blame me. I never let you think we were more than friends.”

  “I know. But after my divorce when you were so nice…I guess I got it into my head that we could be.”

  He grabbed his bag. “I’m sick of feeling guilty for things I’m not responsible for.”

  Anne-Marie wiped away the tears and nodded. “It’s my fault. I know that. I was just…Never mind. Tony said all he wanted was a chance and if Sony liked his version over yours, that was it.”

  Luke grabbed his jump drive and portable storage to take with him for safekeeping. “You know as well as I do he’s lying.”

  “I know. Luke, please believe me. I regretted it, but by then it was too late. I didn’t want to tell you what I’d done so I went along with him. I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

  He was so tired of hearing that excuse. “But it did happen. Anne-Marie, you need help. Counseling. Something. Those pictures are probably online somewhere.”

  The trickle became a steady flow. “I know.”

  He couldn’t stand to see a woman cry. “Look, I know it’s tough but in today’s world, nobody will care.”

  “You do.”

  He thought that over a long moment, then shook his head. Maybe he would have cared once, but not anymore. When was it time to say enough? Time to walk away from a job and an employer who took advantage of him? She screwed up and it became his fault? He’d worked his ass off and because Sony had liked the presentation, Anne-Marie would reap the benefits. That was just messed up. “Do yourself a favor and call the police. Come clean, get Tony out of here, and get yourself some help. But whatever you do, leave me out of it. I’m done.”

  “Luke, please. You can go as soon as the team leaves, but—”

  “No game is worth putting my family second and not being with my wife when she needs me. I’m going back to Tennessee. It’s time I became the husband I should’ve been from the beginning.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  SHELBY STARED at Dr. Clyde and nodded her understanding at what the doctor had told her.

  “Shelby, I wish you’d let someone come in to sit with you. What about your mother?”

  “No.” She shook her head firmly, unable to deal with her mother’s drama now. Pat would need to be comforted, and at the moment Shelby didn’t have it in her. “Please, I need some time alone.”

  “Luke’s family is outside as well. They’re very worried about you.”

  “I’m fine.” Shelby moved the IV lines and tried to scoot up in the bed but gave up the effort when her head and body protested with a multitude of aches and pains. “Just really sore.”

  Dr. Clyde nodded. “You will be for about a week or so. You took a hard plunge into that ditch.” The doctor set the chart aside and sat on the bed at Shelby’s waist. “Right now you’re probably feeling overwhelmed, maybe even a little numb, like it didn’t happen. That’s all normal and part of grief. But I want you to understand that the miscarriage wasn’t your fault. Nothing you did made you lose the baby. Sometimes these things just happen. I know we only met briefly to confirm your pregnancy, but I’ve gone over your chart carefully. Your history doesn’t look conducive to getting pregnant easily but, with bed rest and special care, I see no reason why you couldn’t carry a baby to term.”

  But everything happens for a reason.

  Shelby stared down at the polka dots on the gown she wore, tired and angry and sick to her stomach. Did the gowns have to be so ugly? Why wouldn’t they let her leave? She’d already gotten up to go to the bathroom. If she could do that here, she could do that at home.

  “Do you have any questions?”

  She shook her head. Dr. Clyde had been very thorough. The pregnancy had happened once and it could happen again, but the odds were still against it. Scar tissue, her previous problems. She’d cleaned Shelby’s insides up as much as possible, but the endometriosis would come back, the same with the cysts, and the tumors lining her uterus were still there. Only a hysterectomy would rid her of the painful conditions.

  “We can give you something stronger for the pain. The local anesthesia has worn off.”

  “No. I don’t like feeling drugged.” And this was a pain she felt she deserved.

  Dr. Clyde frowned her disapproval. “What about the hives? I understand they’re your normal stress reaction, but maybe some Benadryl would help?”

  She shook her head. “I’m used to them.”

  Shelby could feel the woman staring at her, trying to judge her state of mind. What did Dr. Clyde want her to say? Did the good doctor want her to freak out?

  “Shelby, listen to me. You will be okay. It might not seem like it now, but one day you’ll feel like your old self again.”

  She highly doubted that. She hadn’t wanted the baby, said it was a mistake how many times? It wasn’t until Luke had kissed her stomach and named it Gigabyte that she’d really and truly—

  “I’m going to do rounds but I want you to have a nurse page me if you need anything. And if you change your mind about the meds, just speak up. I’ll leave instructions with them, okay?”

  Shelby nodded her head, the pillowcase scratching her bruised cheek. “Will you keep them out?” she asked softly, throat sore from where she’d screamed during the accident. “All of them. Tell them I’m fine. I’ll be fine. I just…need to be alone.”

  “I’ll let them know.”

  The doctor left and Shelby carefully rolled onto her side, feeling every muscle and bone in her body despite the aftereffects of the medication they’d given her for the procedure. She stared at the wall in the darkened room, the moon high in the sky and visible outside the open blinds.

  Rosetta’s saying ran through her head over and over again. One thing becoming more and more clear. If everything happened for a reason, she was obviously not meant to be a mother.

  Or a wife.

  BY THE TIME he arrived in Beauty, Luke had accumulated two speeding tickets and had paid a college kid five hundred dollars for his standby seat from Chicago to Atlanta. Thank God for ATMs.

  Phone calls to Nick had kept him posted. He knew about the D & C procedure and Pat Taylor’s arrival. Pat had informed Jerry, according to Nick, and Jenn had called the rest of the family to let them know what had happened so Luke didn’t need to worry about that.

  Now he ran through the hospital, took the stairs because the elevator was too slow, and arrived at Shelby’s room out of breath and at a complete loss for words. What do you say after something like this?

  “Luke, wait.”

  He turned and found Nick and Garret hurrying toward him from the waiting area. Beyond their shoulders he spotted Jenn and Darcy still sleeping in the chairs. “Who’s in there with her? Her mom? Gram?”

  His brothers exchanged a look.

  “She wouldn’t let any of us in,” Nick told him.

  Luke swore. “Not even Alex?”

  Garret rubbed at his red-rimmed eyes. “She’s in a remote part of Canada at a bed-and-breakfast. I got her voice mail. Mom said Alex told her service was iffy there, so we don’t know when she’ll get the message.”

  Anger poured through him even though he knew it wasn’t their fault. “Shelby’s been in there all night by herself?”

  Nick’s face mirrored Luke’s frustration. “Shelby had the doctor post an order to keep us out. She told the doc to tell us she was fine but needed time alone. I snuck in a couple ti
mes and she was asleep.”

  Luke’s instincts screamed. He stared at the occupants of the waiting room. “Didn’t you say Pat was here? Where’s Shelby’s mother?”

  Nick turned and looked, too. “She was here earlier. Maybe she went for coffee.”

  “She could’ve snuck in like we did to check on Shelby,” Garret added.

  Luke turned and entered the hospital room as quietly as possible, his brothers on his heels.

  The bed was empty.

  MOST MISCARRIAGES OCCURRED in the first three months of pregnancy. Shelby knew the statistics, knew that the doctors thought the three-month time frame was good because at that stage the mother hadn’t felt her baby move. But Shelby had recently passed that three-month mark, the shock had worn off, and it had finally begun to sink in that maybe having a baby wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

  Wouldn’t have been such a bad thing.

  But now not only was her baby gone, the very reason for her marriage was gone as well. The honeymoon was definitely over.

  “Shelby? He’s here.”

  Her mother’s voice came from the living room, her words knifing into Shelby’s soul. She wasn’t ready to face Luke, wasn’t ready to see the hurt and pain in his eyes. Her hands stilled on the spatula, the air bubbles in the glob of blueberry muffin batter left in the bottom of the mixing bowl popping in slow motion.

  The image of Luke talking to her stomach over the weekend appeared out of nowhere. Baby Gigabyte. Something so small and fragile but so very important. How could she not have wanted it?

  The kitchen door opened.

  Shelby stared at Luke and wished she’d gone to bed like her mother had wanted her to. But why bother when she couldn’t sleep? She hadn’t been able to close her eyes since she’d woken up from the procedure. She’d lain awake, staring at the wall, and heard someone enter her hospital room during the night, knew it was Luke’s family sneaking in to check on her. The second time it had happened she’d waited until they were gone, then forced her feet to the floor and opened her hospital-room door, dressed only in the ugly gown and blanket.

  The first person she’d seen was her mother. Pat had opened her mouth to call out, but Shelby had shaken her head, her expression pleading for silence, for help. And for the first time in Shelby’s memory, her mother hadn’t made a scene. Pat had taken a long look at Shelby’s face, grabbed her oversize, shiny gold purse, and crept from her chair a slight distance from Luke’s sleeping family.

  She’d reluctantly driven Shelby home, but her mother hadn’t left and Shelby hadn’t asked her to. Sometimes a girl just needed her mom and nobody else would do.

  “Shelby? Thank God.” Luke crossed the floor in three strides and swept her into his arms. She felt him bury his nose in her neck, the trembling deep inside him breaking through her battered senses.

  “Luke, why don’t you take Shelby in the other room? I’ll finish up here.”

  Shelby pulled away and shook her head at her mother. “I want to do them. Why don’t you go to bed, Mom? You look tired.” Her mother looked to Luke for guidance, which totally pissed Shelby off. “Mom, it’s okay.”

  Luke nodded, his gaze never leaving Shelby’s face. “I’ll take care of her, Pat.”

  She didn’t need anyone to take care of her. If she’d taken care of herself in the first place, none of this would be happening.

  Her mother wiped her damp eyes and stepped close to give her a hug. “I love you, baby.” Her voice dropped. “Please don’t do anything drastic. Not right now.”

  Shelby kissed her mother’s cheek. “Thanks for driving me home.”

  Sending Luke a nervous glance, her mother left the room and headed down the hall.

  Shelby picked up her spatula and began stirring the rapidly thickening glob again.

  “You should be in bed.”

  She ignored his attempts to take the spatula away from her and slid the bowl farther down the counter away from him, adjusting her position in the process. “The doctor said the soreness would lessen if I moved around.”

  “I doubt they meant for you to do it as soon as you stepped out the hospital doors—early, I might add. Do you know how I felt when we realized you were gone?”

  “Sorry.” She glanced up at him from beneath her lashes and noticed his suit. “You shouldn’t have come. I’m fine. You walked out on your presentation, didn’t you? You need to fly back tonight. That way you can give it tomorrow.”

  Luke stared at her and fought for patience, incredulous. They were surrounded by a good six dozen muffins and she was fine?

  “I mean, the baby’s gone.”

  “Sweetheart, come here.”

  “So I was thinking,” she continued determinedly, “since it’s the only reason we got married, there’s no reason for us to stay married anymore.”

  Shock poured through him. “Shelby—”

  “We’ve barely been married a month, and most of it has been spent apart. Phone calls and Internet chats don’t really count, you know?” She poured the mix into muffin pans, acting like they were discussing something as inane as the weather, and set the bowl aside. “Garret can handle it without a lot of fuss.”

  “Handle what?” He had to hear her say it.

  “Our divorce.”

  She said it without any hesitation. Just like that. A part of him wondered how she could be so cold and unfeeling, so detached, but when she lifted her hand to her chest and rubbed hard, he focused on the bright red hives. She wasn’t as blasé about this as she wanted to be. She was scared and sad and trying to stay on her feet even though she’d been kicked.

  He reminded himself that Shelby had not only lost the baby, but crashed her car, had a medical procedure performed, a slight concussion and was probably still medicated. She wasn’t thinking straight. It didn’t make her words any less painful, though. “We can talk about this in the morning.”

  “What’s to talk about? There’s no reason to be married now.”

  No reason? He’d told her he loved her. Maybe not in so many words but he’d definitely implied it with that whole trust thing, lame though it was. “I love you.” The words came out gruff because his chest was so tight, but he cleared his throat and tried again. “There is a reason to stay married, Shelby. I love you.”

  She wouldn’t look at him. “I’m sorry. The baby’s gone, Luke.”

  “Our vows haven’t changed.”

  She grabbed the muffin pan and yanked the stove door open, sliding it onto the racks with a clatter.

  “Shelby, it’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to cry. We lost something precious tonight.”

  Her gaze lifted to his, completely dry. “We lost something that wasn’t meant to be. Haven’t you figured that out yet? I didn’t want to be pregnant in the first place. Why would I cry?”

  Despite the sight of her obvious pain, the words sent shock waves through him. It was one thing to be cold, another to be cruel. “Don’t say things like that. You’ll regret them later.”

  “Just stating a fact.”

  “A fact? You said you liked the name Gabriella for a girl or Gabe for a boy.”

  She set the timer on the stove, her hands quaking. “And now it doesn’t matter. The reason why we got married is gone. It’s over, Luke. How many times and ways do I have to say it? The pregnancy was a fluke and the odds are it’ll never happen again. The night I slept with you? The only reason I did it was because I’d been told I needed a hysterectomy. You know that and yet you’re still trying to twist the truth into some romantic fantasy when it was sex, simple as that.”

  Shelby had gone into detail about her health problems over their time together. He’d also spoken with Dr. Clyde before coming to the house. He knew the odds, the risks. Knew they didn’t matter to him. Shelby did. “You got pregnant once. If you want a baby, who’s to say it won’t happen again?”

  Shelby washed the mixing bowl in the sink, her whole body moving because she scrubbed it so hard.

  “Sweetheart, mir
acles do happen.”

  She stilled, her hands in the sudsy water, her body tense and tight, her eyes clear but bleak. “And everything happens for a reason.” Shelby pulled her hands from the sink and dried them with a towel. “We kidded ourselves into thinking we could make it work, but this is proof that it was never meant to be.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “I’m right. You know I’m right.”

  He moved toward her, wished she’d let him hold her. They could get through this together if she’d just let him try. “Just because things are tough right now—just because the baby didn’t make it—that doesn’t mean we have to give up on each other.”

  “What are we giving up on? How does a person give up on something they never believed in in the first place?”

  “I believed in it, in us.”

  Shelby laughed. Laughed. And it was her laughter that finally got through to him. Luke stared at her and grew angrier with the sound, the grating edge transporting him back to the days when he’d been the butt of wimp jokes and cheerleader ridicule. After the day he’d had, after what Anne-Marie had done and said to him about not being the guy with the pretty girl, he felt like a fool. Was it all a fantasy in his head? A game he couldn’t win?

  “Luke, you need to know something about me. When the going gets tough? I get going. I have a lot more of Jerry Brookes in me than good old Zacharias. That’s the truth. Whenever the guys I dated wanted more? I dropped them, just like that. A few dinners, some nights out, some fun,” she said suggestively, her tone sending Luke’s blood pressure soaring because of the images it evoked, “and I was done. The moment they so much as started describing their family, I ended things, no matter how nice they might have been, no matter how much I might have liked them.”

  “Alex always said you didn’t want to be tied down, but she thought it was the guys you dated.”

  A bittersweet smile touched her mouth. “Alex thought that…or you? Did you hope you were special?”

  A hot flush rose in him. She was striking out, hurting. He was hurting, too.

  “What we had was a few fun weeks that life just shattered all to hell. We were playing at marriage, playing at being a family but…it wasn’t real.” She made her way to the door, slow but with measured, decisive steps. “Go home to California, file for divorce and sign the papers as soon as you get them.” She held his gaze, not so much as a flicker of regret in her eyes. “Goodbye, Luke.”