Who in the hell was he?
I held the door, white-knuckled, silent during the entire thirty minute drive. We were almost to his house when the phone rang.
“How is she?” He barked.
I watched his eyes narrow and his forehead crease, anguish washing over his expression. He ended the call without another word, tossing the phone to the tray near the console.
“Is she okay?” My thin, tentative words hung in the air.
“She had a miscarriage.”
The truck slowed; his breathing labored.
His suffering was too much for me to watch. I pinched the bridge of my nose, the burning tears threatening.
“I’ll secure him in the basement, and then we’ll go… to the hospital…”
I nodded as he pulled into his driveway. When he turned off the ignition, he remained unmoving, staring out the window into the darkness.
I thought back to the day that my mother disappeared, and the strangers surrounding me. Nothing made sense, and the heartache was only slightly less bearable than the fear of what was to come.
Reaching, I hesitantly touched his shoulder.
I expected him to stiffen…
Instead, he fell.
“I’m so sorry.”
My whispered words drew his attention. He turned toward me, and his watery, blue gaze met mine.
“I deserve this pain. Roam doesn’t.”
“You don’t deserve pain, West.”
“You have no idea what I’ve done… over all the years of this fucking life.”
His hurting words broke my heart. I struggled with my voice, finally raising my eyes to his.
“I can’t imagine going through an entire life and not making any mistakes… whether in one year, or in… hundreds... of years.”
He searched my face with his grief-stricken gaze. After a moment, he reached for my hand on his shoulder, squeezing it tightly in his fingers.
“Thank you for that.”
I decided, at that moment, that I might be able to accept him as my father… someday.
An hour later, Troy was chained in his basement, and a crew of workmen arrived at the door. West kept glancing at his watch and pacing. “I can’t go until visiting hours begin in the morning. I’ll make it look like I stopped on my way to the school.”
“She’ll understand. Logan is staying right with her.” I covered my stomach as it growled, shifting with embarrassment.
He left the path between the door and the table to move into the kitchen. “You’re hungry, and you need sleep, Vi. Sit down.”
“I’ll just have a bowl of cereal or something and lay on the couch.”
He reached for a high cabinet, pulling a cream colored ceramic bowl from the shelf. “I have three extra bedrooms upstairs, besides my own. You’ll sleep in a bed.” He reached for another cabinet, and I watched his hand skip over multiple boxes of cereal. “Do you need to call anyone? Your foster parents?”
I thought of my foster mother, Jen. The Corrigan house burst at the seams with their own five children, three foster children (including myself), two cocker spaniels, four cats, and two gerbils. I was lucky enough to have my own room… even though it was actually the laundry room. Either way, Jen and Bill went out of their way to make me feel welcome in their home.
“No, I’m almost eighteen. She knew I was going to visit friends. She doesn’t expect me to call.”
“How did you get here? To Ohio? Logan said you were in Virginia.”
“I got a ride.”
He froze with the milk carton in his hand. “Are you telling me that you hitchhiked? In 2012?”
I ignored him, eagerly reaching for the bowl of Cheerios.
“Listen to me.” He scraped the chair out from beneath the table and lowered to the seat. “Even though you are immortal, you are not immune to pain, Violet.”
“I remember.” I held up one wrist pointedly, and then filled my mouth with cereal. He looked at his watch again, and I jumped at a loud whirring from down in the basement. “It must take a lot of money to pull the strings that you do.”
“People have always done… immoral, illegal, and sometimes irrational things for money. I’m no exception.”
I lowered my spoon to the bowl. After eating in silence for a while, I lifted my eyes back to his. “Can you answer one question for me, before I go try to sleep?”
“I’ll try,” he promised, sitting back in the chair and stretching his legs out.
“Did you ever come find me? Just… to see me, even from a distance?” I focused on the cuff of his sleeve. “I used to pretend you were watching me. That if things got too… terrible,” I managed, swallowing hard, “you’d save me.”
He leaned forward, pausing between breaths. Finally, he met my eyes.
“No, Violet. I won’t lie to you. The last time I saw you, you were four months old.”
I blinked rapidly at the instant sting in my eyes, nodding. He stood, and I pulled myself to my feet. “Thanks for being honest.”
“I didn’t want to lead Troy right to you.”
“I understand.” Whatever. A thought occurred to me, and I narrowed my eyes. “Are there... more like me? Do I have brothers and sisters who are… immortal?”
He had the courtesy to look down. “Maybe.”
Great. My father, the immortal man-whore. “So you just… spent centuries… fathering a bunch of twenty-seven year old, undying… bastards?
“Violet.” He cringed. “I don’t know.”
“They could be out there, right now, wandering through time, never aging, not knowing why?”
He sighed. “I already answered you. Maybe. I have no way of knowing, or finding them, if I did.”
The tortured ocean in his eyes satisfied me- a little.
With respect to the kindness he showed me now, I dropped the subject. At least he married my mother. “I need to look for a place to stay.”
“This is just as much your home as it is mine. I can send for your things in Virginia, if you’ll stay.”
I traced the table’s edge. “Let me think, okay?”
He nodded slowly, gesturing to the stairs. “Any room is fine. Just get some rest.”
I made it up three steps before stopping and turning back to him. “I’ll go with you to the hospital, West. Just wake me up.”
“Okay.”
He tucked his hands into his pockets, staring out the darkened window.
Chapter Six
Logan
“She’s on suicide watch.”
I watched his face carefully, but needed no subtle clues. He was ready to push past me into the hospital lobby and go to her.
“West, you can’t.” Violet caught his wrist, and he jerked his hand away heatedly.
“The police finished questioning us both about the ‘mugging.’ We both just described Troy.” I shrugged. “Morgan is in there. Her dad is in there. I already told her dad I’m spending the night.” I stretched my arms behind my head, trying to open the muscles in my back. I never wanted to see the blue plastic-upholstered hospital chair in her room for as long as I lived.
“Did she try to kill herself?” he demanded, clenching his fists at his sides.
“No, she’s just crying all the time, and she pulled her IV out of her arm. They took that to mean she’s cool with hurting herself.”
“Do you think she will?”
I threw him an annoyed glare. “No. It’s Roam.”
He nodded, rounding the corner outside the hospital. Handing Violet the keys to his car, he gestured to me. “Can I talk to Logan alone for a minute?”
Violet lifted her eyes to me. The deep, V-neck of her red sweater disappeared behind her silver jacket, and her jeans traveled with her curves. Every time she looked at me, I wondered if she was replaying the way that I choked her in that basement. Taking a tentative step toward her, I nodded toward the car. “Hey, can we do something tomorrow? Before you leave?”
“Sure.” She shrugged, jostling
the keys and looking back at her father. “I’ll be in the car. Just call me when you want to get together tomorrow, Logan.”
“I will,” I promised, unable to peel my eyes off of her as she crossed the parking lot.
“Hey.” West’s commanding voice snapped me out of the stupor that her body had sent me into. “Violet’s going back to finish school. Don’t change her mind.”
I scowled. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
He tucked his hands into his pockets, moving more fully around the corner in front of the hospital. The wind picked up, but was unseasonably warm for December. His face fell, and he cleared his throat twice. I waited impatiently, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Can you tell me… what happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“With Roam. The baby.”
I realized that while I had been listening to every single detail of Roam’s medical report, he had no idea what was happening behind the closed door of the hospital room. I focused on a yellow leaf dragging along the sidewalk. “She had some kind of operation- a D and C.”
“Okay.” His short, emotional response drew my attention. His face turned a shade of white I’d never seen on him.
Roam and I had known each other all of our lives, and I vividly remembered the day she got her period in the May’s pool. She was only eleven and completely mortified, and Ally (who apparently hadn’t gotten hers yet) had yelled at her to hurry up and get out of the water. I helped her to the edge, promising her that it wasn’t that gross (even though it was really gross, all cloudy in the water) and finding Morgan.
Uncomfortably, I thought back to the nurse’s checks. “She’s not bleeding a lot,” I said softly, fighting my natural compassion. “But one minute she’s trying to smile, and the next she’s bawling her eyes out. Her throat is bruised, but getting better.” I kicked at the leaf, waiting.
“Morgan is being supportive?”
“If it wasn’t for Jason, Morgan wouldn’t leave her side. Jason convinced her that if I’m there or her dad is there, she’s fine.”
“Has she asked for me?”
Oh. Weak. Interesting. “She cries for you. In her sleep. I know Morgan has heard her- but I don’t know what she thinks.”
He raised his eyes to the parking lot, and I shifted uncomfortably to see the hint of moisture in his blank stare. “Please tell her that I love her.”
I nodded, looking up at the windows of the hospital. “I do. I tell her that you wish you could be in there with her.”
When his hand came down on my shoulder, I stiffened. “Thanks.”
He headed for the Pilot, and I sighed, pushing back into the lobby. “Wait- Logan take this.” He turned back to me, handing me a credit card. “There’s five thousand on this, and the pin is Roam’s birthday. Take it all-”
“I don’t want your money.” I recoiled from the card, watching the muscle in his jaw tick. “Don’t ever offer me that again.”
West’s face, controlled, went blank. “It’s there if you want it.”
When he left, I checked in on Roam. She lay in the bed, staring out the hospital window, expressionless. “I’m here… try to hold back your excitement.”
She blinked and shifted her eyes to me, failing at a smile. “Logan, go home. Don’t sleep in that chair.”
“I’ll fight you for that chair. And I’ll win. I’m not too proud to tickle.”
She closed her eyes and turned back to the window.
Sometime in the middle of the night, her quiet sobbing woke me. I saw her folded over in the bed, my phone on her lap, and I jumped to my feet. All the blood rushed back to my left leg, and I winced. “Cam.” I gathered her small frame into my arms, realizing she felt frailer than ever.
“She was real?” She cried, those emerald eyes lighting up in the darkness. Over and over her fists curled over the collar of my shirt, and I sat on the bed, crushing her to my chest.
Eva. A baby she’d known for less than a week. Whatever maternal heartache she was feeling, I couldn’t fathom, but I knew she was suffering. “She was real,” I whispered. “You fed her. I held her. We watched her sleep. She was real,” I promised, cradling her in my arms.
“I’m on suicide watch?”
I pulled away, stunned. How could she know…? I glanced at my phone again, fury igniting in my chest. Scrolling through the phone, I saw West’s text message. “Asshole,” I hissed, unable to hold back my revulsion.
When she asked for my phone, I dialed and handed it to her, furious. Settling back into the chair, I tried not to listen to her tearful words, staring at the mini blinds on the window. Her controlled voice jerked my attention back to the bed. “It’s me. You were right… you were right from the beginning, West. Nothing good… nothing good comes of us. We have to find another way.” Her tears consumed her voice, and I gripped the arms of the chair, listening. “I don’t want to see you… for a while. I need things to be how they were… before. For a while.”
He was talking, and I couldn’t resist not comforting her. I held her, hearing his voice through the phone as he begged. “Stop,” she cried, pressing her hand over her forehead. “I love you, too.”
She’s done with him? Finally. I held her, thinking through the best way to help her heal. Get her mind back on college… get her back to school, back to a normal life…
Back to me?
Automatically, I pressed my lips to her hair, the nightmares rolling over my betraying brain. The realization was there, but I buried it again and again deep into my mind until, finally, it ruptured through, unwilling to be unrecognized.
You don’t love her that way… not anymore.
Morgan took over around five AM, and I dropped into my bed at home, dead to the world in seconds. Sometime around noon, my ringing phone pulled me out of the first few moments of an impending nightmare. “Rush.”
“Hey, Rush.” Violet’s voice sent me into full consciousness. I blinked at the sleep in my eyes, glancing at the clock.
“Hey… hey, what’s your last name?”
She laughed, and I grinned into the phone, fully aware that the reflection in the mirror over my dresser revealed Total Tool. “It’s Perry.”
Of course. I yawned. “Hey, Perry.”
“Are we… hanging out today? I have to leave this evening.”
I threw the blankets aside, nodding to no one. “Yes! I mean- I’ll take a quick shower, and I’ll be over to pick you up in twenty minutes. Is that okay?”
She laughed again, and I contemplated skipping a shower to get to her faster. No, you’ve been sitting in a hospital for two days. Nasty. “That’s fine. West is dealing with Troy. Trying to question him. I just… can’t wait to get out of here.”
“Well, I’m on my way.”
“I only have jeans… is that okay? Where are we going?”
I closed my mouth, considering. I don’t care, as long as we’re together. “Have you ever been… to a batting cage?”
“I… no,” she admitted.
“Then jeans are perfect, Vi. Especially on you.”
I could hear her smile into the phone.
An hour later, I pulled into Strike, dreading the conversation I was about to have with my soon-to-be ex-boss. “Are you sure you don’t want to just quit over the phone?”
“I didn’t show up for two days- and over Thanksgiving weekend. I owe him an apology- face-to-face.”
She waited in the car while I spoke to my boss. He wasn’t happy, but thanked me for apologizing. “You know you’re fired, right?”
“I know, sir. I’m going to pay for a cage for an hour.”
Violet watched as I pulled the batting helmet on, grinning. “Are you good?”
I winked, fastening my glove. “I’m fucking amazing.”
She bit her lip, and I closed the step between us. “And so modest.”
Her wild, blonde curls almost grazed her hips. Ask her. Do it. I slipped my hand over her neck, behind her hair, and her smile fell, her ey
es clouding.
“I’m so sorry for what I did to you, Violet. Can you forgive me?”
She leaned into my hand, and the warmth of her skin set me on fire. “I already did. I told you that.”
I ran my thumb over the line of her jaw. I loved the shape of her face, her chin… and especially her mouth. “I wish you could stay.”
Her arms wrapped around my waist, and the flowery scent of her hair reminded me of early spring. “Only a few weeks. And then we find my mom.”
I nodded, wussing out of a perfect kiss opportunity at the last minute. I grinned at the cage. “I’m going to hit some hundred-mile-an-hour fast balls. This will be incredibly impressive, so I’ll need you to try to control yourself.”
She flattened her palm against my lower back. “I’ll try to prepare for extreme awesomeness.”
I gave her my best demonstration, missing the first two swings as I tried to tear my gaze away from her. When I finally focused, I hit every mechanical pitch, pumped by her encouraging cheers.
When it came time for her turn, she took a steadying breath. “I’m afraid of how fast they’re coming.”
“I won’t make them that fast for you.” I secured the helmet over her head, brushing her hair away from her face. She lifted her gorgeous eyes to mine, and I immediately detected the amusement. “Wait. Are you about to act all girly, and then blow me away with some secret talent?”
She smirked. “I’ve played a little.”
I laughed, kicking myself in the head with how fast I was falling for her. “Go on then.” I couldn’t resist delivering a light slap to her perfectly rounded ass. Before I had time to regret the traditional send-off, she cupped her fingers over her lips to blow me a kiss.
Holy shit.
She hit every ball, and I watched her form, impressed by her follow through. “I never stayed in a school long enough to play on a team,” she called, cracking another eighty-mile-an-hour pitch at the netting.
“That is a sorry waste.” I gestured toward the small restaurant in the sports complex. “Come on, I need to feed you before the Hulk arrives.”
Rush (Roam Series, Book Four) Page 5