Fresh tears hovered at the back of her eyelids, but resolutely she shoved them away. What was done was done. She couldn’t rewrite history.
“Great, now you’re giving yourself pep talks with platitudes,” she muttered. “You have lived in Valentine too long.”
What she needed was a plan. And first on her list was finding her daughter. It was almost lunchtime. The chances of her being at Higgy’s Diner were good.
As was usual for the Monday blue plate lunch special — meat loaf, garlic mashed potatoes, garden-harvested corn on the cob, buttered biscuits, sweet tea, and peach cobbler; all for just six dollars and ninety-five cents — the parking spaces up and down both sides of Main Street were filled to capacity.
Hoping someone was only running a fast errand inside the Mercantile Bank and would be pulling out soon, Selina steered the Caddy around the next block. And just happened to glance down the alley behind Higgy’s.
Two people, a man and a woman, were sneaking out the back door like illicit lovers. The woman went left, the man went right, headed in Selina’s direction.
She did a double take and slammed on the brakes.
The man was Michael.
And the woman was that hussy Vivian Cole.
Anger and hurt and the aching need for vengeance slapped her like a wet rubber glove across the face. It was one thing to suspect your husband was having an affair with his high school prom-queen ex-sweetheart.
It was quite another to have it so blatantly confirmed.
Twenty-seven years of doubts about a marriage she’d pretended was perfect coalesced into one stunning moment of utter betrayal. Her deepest, darkest fear had just come to pass.
Michael had never truly loved her. He’d just married her because she was pregnant with Rachael. And he’d spent almost three decades lying and pretending. Before she had time to fully think her actions through, Selina shoved the Caddy into reverse and stomped the accelerator. The tires squealed like mating bobcats as she whipped the car around.
Michael spotted her. He stood frozen in the middle of the alley, eyes wide, mouth falling open in disbelief.
Vivian was long gone.
Selina glowered through the windshield at her husband.
Michael raised his palms.
Twenty-seven years of loving him with all her heart, fearing, dreading that he did not love her the way she loved him, robbed her of any rational thought.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Selina gunned the engine and aimed her Cadillac straight toward her rat bastard, soon-to-be ex-husband.
THE FOUR FRIENDS were deep into their meat loaf when a loud, booming impact sounded behind the diner and shook the building.
Rachael’s head jerked up, her fork halfway to her mouth. What was that?
It sounded like a car wreck.
Immediately half the people in the diner were on their feet and headed for the rear entrance. The first one out the door was Audie Gaston.
“What’s going on?” Delaney asked.
Rachael tensed as a weird feeling of impending doom came over her. “I don’t know.”
“Hey!” Audie yelled. “Someone call 911. Selina Henderson just smacked the hell out of Higgy’s Dumpster with her Caddy and she’s bleeding all over the air bag.”
HEART THUMPING SO fast he thought it might pound right out of his chest, Michael yanked open the passenger-side door of his wife’s car. A minute ago, she had been aiming to run him down, but at the last second she’d swerved and demolished Higgy’s Dumpster.
The air bags had deployed and he couldn’t get to her via that route, so he pivoted and wrenched open the back door. He crawled in and leaned over the seat. “Selina, sweetheart, speak to me!”
From behind the wheel of the crunched Caddy, Selina could barely turn her head to look at him. “Fuck off, Michael.”
Startled, he drew back. Never once in twenty-seven years had he heard his wife use such language.
Okay, she was seriously mad. He could respect that but he wasn’t going to let her anger stop him from checking on her.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“That’s none of your damned business.”
She had a cut on her forehead and blood was slowly oozing down the left side of her face. People came pouring out of Higgy’s Diner, but Michael had eyes only for his wife. He reached out a hand.
“Touch me,” she said, “and the next time I try to run you down, I won’t swerve.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“You think I’m blind?” she shrieked. “I saw you with Vivian.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“That’s what you said on our wedding day. And you know what? I believe it is exactly what I thought it was. I think you’ve been lying to me for twenty-seven years.” She grimaced.
He didn’t know how badly she’d injured herself in the accident, but he knew her real pain was emotional. And he knew he was the cause. What in the hell was wrong with him? Why had he been having lunch with Vivian?
In public, in front of the whole town.
Well, because it was in front of the whole town. No one would think they were having an affair if they were out in broad daylight together.
We aren’t having an affair.
Maybe not yet, but his thoughts had been running along dangerous lines. Why else had he sneaked out the back door when he realized Rachael and her friends had come into the restaurant?
He’d been hiding from his daughter.
Shame flamed in Michael’s chest. What in the hell had he been thinking? He’d had a great marriage, an unbelievablely wonderful wife, and he’d pissed it all away by flirting with Vivian in those damnable e-mails she’d sent him after she’d separated from her husband. It was stupid. It was a middle-aged man looking back down the road of his life, wondering what might have been. And it had been a grave mistake.
Fool. He was an utter fool.
“Selina, honey,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. “You’re bleeding.”
He tried to reach for her again, but Audie Gaston was wrenching open the driver’s-side door and diner patrons were spilling out of Higgy’s and encircling the car. The squealing sound of the siren atop what passed as an ambulance in Valentine — a refurbished old World War II Red Cross vehicle — vibrated the air.
And then he saw Rachael in the crowd, pushing forward to get to her mother.
“Let me through, let me through,” she said.
Michael backed out of the car.
“Daddy?” Rachael’s eyes widened when she spotted him. “What happened?”
“Your mother . . . ” He shook his head, unable to trust his voice.
“Tried to run down your father.” Selina finished his sentence just as the ambulance pulled into the alley behind them.
The EMT rushed forward.
“I’m okay, I’m all right. I don’t need an ambulance.” Selina struggled to get out of the car around the air bag. Audie was holding out a hand to help her up and Rachael was standing beside her, nervously shifting from foot to foot.
Michael ducked his head back into the car. “Honey, you hit your head. You need stitches.”
“You don’t get to call me honey,” Selina snapped and got to her feet.
“Mom,” Rachael cautioned. “Be careful.”
“I’m okay, I’m fine, really —”
Selina swayed and her knees buckled. The EMT caught her before she hit the ground. Michael raced around the back of the Caddy to help the man get her onto the gurney, but Audie Gaston was already there, filling in his role.
“I’m riding in the ambulance with you,” Michael said as Audie and the EMT loaded her into the back of the ambulance.
“No, you’re not,” Selina said. “You gave up your right to do that when you took up with Vivian again.”
“I didn’t take up with her, I —”
“Daddy,” Rachael said, muscling past him to get to her mother and shooting him a darkly accusing glance. “I th
ink you’ve done enough damage for one day.”
“Me? I . . . I . . . ” he stammered, trying to think up a defense but realizing he had none.
Rachael climbed into the ambulance beside her mother and the EMT shut the doors.
Hurt and bewildered, Michael stood there watching his family drive away, and it hit him like a sucker punch to the jaw. Selina was serious. She wasn’t going to try to work things out. There would be no counseling, no couples therapy, no relationship-enhancing retreat.
Clearly, in her mind, their marriage was over.
VALENTINE HOSPITAL BOASTED only twenty beds, fifteen full-time nurses, one under-equipped operating room, and two doctors on staff: Dr. John Edison Sr. and Dr. John Edison Jr. The ambulance pulled up outside the emergency room — such as it was — at the same time as the sheriff’s cruiser.
The minute Rachael spied Brody she felt both relieved and anxious. Her heart punched strangely against her chest. She was so happy to have him here. She didn’t know how to handle the fact that her mother had tried to run her father down.
“What are you doing here?” she asked as he came over to help the EMT unload the gurney.
“Checking on your mother.”
She raised a hand to her heart and wondered what it meant that he was checking on her mother. He’s the sheriff. Your mother smacked her car into a Dumpster. He’s just doing his job. It’s got nothing to do with you.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Rachael shrugged and tried to appear nonchalant. “Sure, fine, why wouldn’t I be?”
“You’ve had an eventful weekend.” His eyes darkened with concern.
“Hello, Brody.” Selina smiled at him. “You look handsome today.”
“You flirting with me, Mrs. Henderson?” he asked, pushing his Stetson back on his forehead as he and the EMT wheeled her into the emergency room.
“Well, if my daughter won’t do it . . . ” she said. “You know I’m single now.”
“So I heard.”
“Mother!”
“Settle down, Rachael. Brody knows I’m just teasing.” Her mother said his name like they were the best of friends.
Brody’s gaze met Rachael’s, his eyes crinkled up at the corners. A slight smile tipped his lips. It was a knowing smile, a smug smile, and for some reason it bugged the hell out of her. She didn’t like what his smile insinuated.
Why did it feel as if he knew her mother better than she did?
She’d been so clueless about her parents’ marital problems. Probably the entire town of Valentine knew more than she did. She’d believed they were so happy and now she’d found out they’d been miserable enough to consider divorce. How was that possible? It made her reconsider everything she’d always believed about her family, and that tore her up inside. She felt betrayed by her own expectations and foolish to have accepted a fantasy as reality.
“Mom’s going to be okay,” Rachael said, struggling to fight her attraction to the man standing beside her. “So you can go now.”
“I’ll stick around,” he said. “I don’t have anything else to do. Besides, it’ll give us a chance to set up your community service hours while the doctor examines your mother.”
“Community service?” Selina asked. “What’s he talking about?”
“I’ll explain later,” she said to her mother.
A nurse came into the room. “Hey, Selina, is it true you tried to run Michael over?”
“I tried,” her mother said. “But I chickened out at the last minute and swerved.”
“Didn’t want to get blood on the Caddy’s grille?” the nurse joked.
“Something like that.”
Rachael hated hearing her mother talk this way. “Mom . . . ”
“Brody,” her mother said, “would you take Rachael out to the waiting room?”
Brody put a hand on her shoulder, but she twisted away from him. “I’d rather stay.”
“Well, I would rather you would have stayed in Houston and talked things out with me,” Selina said. “But you didn’t.”
Guilt grabbed hold of her and shook hard. This was all her fault. If she hadn’t gotten so upset, hadn’t run away, maybe her mother wouldn’t have tried to run her father down. Rachael raised her palms. “Okay, fine. I’ll be outside if you need me.”
“Take care of her, Brody. She’s fragile right now.”
“I’m not fragile,” Rachael muttered. And she damn well didn’t need any man looking out for her, especially one as tempting as Brody. She gave in to temptation way too easily and her emotional wounds were raw. Her mother was right. She was fragile.
Crap.
“Can I offer you some advice?” Brody asked when they were sitting side by side in the waiting room.
“No.”
“Don’t blame what’s going on in your own life on your parents,” he said.
“You don’t listen so well, do you?”
His grin widened. “I have a hard time keeping quiet when I see someone headed for trouble.”
“I’m not headed for trouble.”
“You’re letting your emotions color your perspective. You can’t make rational decisions when you’re under the influence of powerful emotions.”
“I’m beginning to get that. Thanks for your sage advice.” She stepped away from him. Who was he to tell her how to run her life?
Brody trod closer, closing the gap of space she’d just opened, his gaze assessing her. The corners of his mouth curled up, his arms crossed over his chest. He was close. Too close. If she raised her hand, she would graze his upper arm.
He had such broad, straight shoulders. His uniform fit like it had been tailor-made and Department of Public Safety tan was definitely his color. He looked sharp, smart, and in control.
Not to mention his mouth. Her gaze hung on his lips. He looked like he would be a great kisser. His mouth was just the right size. Not too large, not too small. And to think that she’d slept in the same room with this potent, masculine male. Involuntarily, she swallowed against the memory. She’d also acted a little irrational and she didn’t want to remember that, either.
“Do you want to talk about your community service schedule?”
“No.”
“It’s court ordered. Plus, you’ve got to scrub down the Valentine sign and repaint it. That’s not going to be a cakewalk.”
“I’ll get started on it tomorrow. That soon enough for you?”
“Why are you mad at me?”
Because, she thought. You epitomize everything I’ve ever wanted in a man and I know I can’t have you. I shouldn’t even want you, after all I’ve been through. And yet I do. And I know it’s all just a symptom of my affliction.
She had a serious problem. She couldn’t stay away from thoughts of romance no matter how hard she tried.
Rachael didn’t answer him. Instead, she plopped down in an uncomfortable metal chair and picked up a well-thumbed copy of Texas Monthly. Brody settled in beside her.
She heard a faint whirring sound. Like gears turning. “What’s that noise?”
He paused a long moment, then said, “My leg.”
“Your leg?”
“It’s computerized.”
“Your leg has a computer chip in it?”
“My prosthesis, to be exact.”
“Your prosthesis?” She sounded like a parrot.
He looked at her. “You didn’t know?”
“I knew you were hurt in Iraq. I didn’t know you’d . . . ” She dropped her gaze to his knees.
“Lost a leg.” He said it so matter-of-factly.
“But how? I mean . . . you climbed a ladder after me yesterday.”
“Courtesy of the Power Knee. It’s state-of-the-art. I’m part of a special test group. I couldn’t afford the thing otherwise.”
“I didn’t see it when I slept in your room. Even when you got up in the middle of the night to reassure me.”
“Because I didn’t want you to see it.”
&
nbsp; “Are you ashamed?”
“No.”
“Self-conscious?”
“A little, maybe. I don’t want people thinking I can’t do my job just because I’m an amputee. I don’t want people judging me, lauding me. Or feeling sorry for me because of it.”
“It must have been horrible. In Iraq.” She shuddered. She could not imagine the awful things he’d seen, done.
“After the Twin Towers, it was nothing. It was what I had to do in order to justify what happened to Joe.”
“Joe was your friend that got killed?”
“Yeah.”
“But going to Iraq cost you your leg.”
“Small price to pay for freedom.”
A strange feeling came over her. Sadness, wistfulness, and an odd aching sensation that made no sense. She didn’t know what else to say to him, so she said nothing at all.
She was supposed to be in Fiji on her honeymoon sipping mai tais and making love to Trace. Not sitting here in the hospital emergency waiting room in Valentine, Texas, beside a sexy Iraq War vet with an artificial computerized leg, waiting for her mother to get stitches after a car smashup in which she’d tried to run down Rachael’s father.
So much for best-laid plans.
A laundry cart laden with freshly folded sheets squeaked as a member of the housekeeping staff wheeled it from the laundry room; the smell of bleach, fabric softener, and the slightly singed odor of overheated cotton trailing the corridor.
“Is that why you’re divorced?” she dared to ask. “Did your wife leave because of the leg?”
He got up without answering, heading for the coffeepot and Styrofoam cups on a stand in the corner. “You want a cup of coffee?”
She shrugged, but inside she felt weirdly disturbed. Was he still so hung up on his ex-wife he couldn’t even talk about her? “Sure.”
“How do you take it?”
“Lots of cream and three sugars.”
“Sweet tooth,” he commented, tapping three packets of sugar into the coffee and two spoonfuls of creamer. He dropped a red plastic stir stick into her cup and handed it to her. He sat back down, took a long sip of the coffee, and then said, “Belinda left before the leg. While I was still stationed in Iraq.”
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