Bill sighed. “I was flying back from Aspen, after visiting Katie and Will. We flew there to meet for a family holiday.”
“And how is Will?” she asked in an effort to introduce a lighter tone to the conversation, let him unwind a little. Bill smiled, and she was surprised at the sudden relaxation that stole over him.
“Oh, Taylor, he’s grown so much. He’s walking, and eating as much as Katie can give him. He’s a strong little thing.”
Taylor smiled. There was no denying the pride and love in the man’s voice as he talked about his baby son. Bill’s smile stuttered and died.
“We’d been in the air for maybe twenty minutes. It was just Jack and me on this flight, and I’d been working on some reports, so I got up to stretch my legs.” Taylor watched as he distractedly rubbed his thighs with his hands. “I remember walking up to the door of the cockpit, and chatting to Jack.” He reached into his jacket pocket, and pulled out a piece of paper that looked torn and burned around the edges. His hands shook as he showed it to Taylor.
She leaned forward to see. It was a photo of a baby, a girl, wearing a ribbon around her head. She took the photo from him, their fingers touching briefly. She lifted her gaze to his, and was taken aback by the sadness, the overwhelming grief she saw there.
“Who is this?” she whispered.
“Her name’s Chloe. She was born about a week after Will. She’s Jack’s daughter.”
Taylor gazed down at the image, and slowly traced a fingernail along the cherubic face in the photo. “She’s beautiful.”
Bill cleared his throat. “He was showing me this when it happened. He was so proud. She’d just started to crawl, he was telling me. We usually swapped baby stories when we flew together, if you can believe it.” He shook his head. “Two grown men, talking about drool and changing diapers.”
Bill’s hands were back on his legs, and she watched the denim wrinkle beneath his touch as he clenched his fists.
“And then what?” she asked quietly.
“He was looking over his shoulder at me, holding out the photo. My hands were on it when the first bird cracked the cockpit window. I can’t remember if it was the third or the fourth bird that actually broke the window. We flew right into a flock of geese. He didn’t know what hit him. One minute he was laughing and talking, the next he was dead, and the plane was diving.”
Taylor gasped softly, then composed her expression into a semblance of calm. Inside she was writhing in horror. What a terrifying experience.
“I grabbed hold of the controls. I remember trying to use the radio—and the glass and the wind.” He gestured to his head. “Papers were flying everywhere, and all these alarms were ringing, and lights were flashing on the console, but the wind—it felt like it was trying to suck me out of the plane.”
He turned to her. “It was the noise, though, that really got to me. The high-pitched whining noise, like a band saw cutting through stone. It just got louder and louder, and then I could smell smoke, and the trees were rushing up at me. I tried to pull up, but we hit the ground so hard, and kept bouncing along. I could hear everything breaking up behind me.” He shuddered. “That was the worst, just waiting for the cockpit to disintegrate. Or explode.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “We must have hit something, because I think I blacked out.”
Taylor blinked. “What happened next?” she asked, her throat dry from unshed tears. He wouldn’t want her tears—wouldn’t appreciate them.
“I woke up, and I could feel the heat. It was scorching. The plane was on fire. I remember seeing flames. The cabin, where I’d been reading my reports—it was all flames and smoke. The only way out was through the windshield. I barely got out before the engine blew.”
This time her shocked gasp was audible. She reached over to grasp the hand that was still tormenting his jeans. “God, Bill, you were so lucky.”
Bill hunched forward, but he held on to her hand. “Jack died, Taylor. I don’t feel lucky. It was my fault. He was facing me, talking to me.” He groaned in anguish.
Taylor shifted. “It wasn’t your fault, Bill. I don’t even know the odds of something like that happening.”
“About one in ten thousand,” Bill told her. “I checked—not many bird strikes result in a crash.” He made a face. “My accident was a statistical blip.”
“Did you also check out pilot error statistics with bird strikes?” she asked him.
He frowned at her. “There was nothing Jack could have done, Taylor, it wasn’t his fault.”
“Exactly, just like it wasn’t your fault. It was a freak accident, Bill.”
“But I was talking to him, I distracted him.”
“It was a flock of geese. At that speed, I don’t think he would have had time to dodge them. It was an accident, Bill. It wasn’t anybody’s fault.”
“There is a little girl out there who’s going to grow up without a father,” he said quietly.
She rubbed his shoulder. “That’s not your fault, either. Her father was a pilot. That’s a risky occupation. He died in an accident.”
He sucked in a shaky breath. “Loving our kids—it’s something Jack and I had in common. It’s hard, Taylor, knowing that, in a split second, your life can change. You could lose everything. You could leave your kids without a father.”
Taylor tilted her head to the side, and her hair slid over her shoulder. Perhaps this was the source of Bill’s anxiety. “Your family is important to you.” It was an observation, not a query.
Bill nodded. “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for my family. I always want to be there for my sons. My father wasn’t around much when I grew up. I don’t want to be some photo on the mantel to my kids.”
Maybe Bill had some abandonment issues—so much of his behavior, his past actions around his family, was beginning to make sense to her.
“What kind of relationship did you have with your father?”
“It was … strained. I didn’t really know him, as a kid. He was distant. I finally got his attention when I started working.”
Taylor’s eyebrows rose. “And how did that work for you?”
Bill grinned. “Well, let’s just say we never achieved a healthy, working relationship. We didn’t see eye-to-eye on anything.”
“What about your mother?”
“Well, we had our issues, too. She wasn’t your ordinary mother—let’s leave it at that.” His expression was implacable.
She nodded. “Is that why you’re so protective with your sons?”
“You call it protective. I just call it parenting. I want the best for my kids, but I want a relationship with them, a good, powerful relationship. I want them to be proud to have me as their dad.”
“Do you think they’d be proud of you, now?”
Bill remained silent. Then he shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
Taylor frowned. “If—if it had been Liam or Wyatt who survived the crash, and not you—how would you think of them? What would you say to them?”
He eyed her for a moment. “I’d say get over it. This stuff that’s going on in your mind is just that—all in the mind. You can control it. Get proactive and deal with it.”
Taylor blinked. “Do you think it’s that easy to deal with PTSD?”
Bill’s laugh was humorless. “No. I know it’s not that easy. But you can’t spend all the time thinking ‘why me?’ You have to move forward, and move through it. There’s no shame in what happened, but you get to decide whether you let it knock you down, or whether you knock it down.” He shrugged. “It’s not going to be easy, but life isn’t easy. You can’t control what life throws at you, but you can control how you react to it. Walk through the fire.”
Taylor leaned back in her chair, stunned. It was like the old Bill had surfaced: dynamic, confident, determined.
“If you could say that to Liam, why can’t you say that to yourself?” she asked him quietly. “PTSD is a real condition, Bill. Tell me, since you started therapy—has it helped?”
Bill’s mouth twisted. “Maybe,” he admitted grudgingly. He sighed brusquely. “Yes, yes it has. Apart from my little—” he waved his hand casually, the firelight glinting off his silver bracelet, “—episode tonight, I haven’t had a flashback since—well since I was with you. I can even get in an elevator.”
She frowned. “What’s wrong with the elevator?” He’d had to ward off a flashback in one, and she’d never thought of how it had been triggered.
Bill moved his shoulders, as though shrugging off a chill. “They remind me of being stuck in the plane,” he said.
Her jaw dropped and she shook her head. She’d never considered that for him. “You work in a skyscraper. Have you been taking the stairs every day?” He nodded. No wonder his legs looked so muscular and strong. “I’m truly astonished by you. I realize that in your position, you’re probably experiencing frustration and impatience, but you have already come along in leaps and bounds.”
She shifted forward in her seat. “When your mind remembers these horrors, they seem so real, so present. To face that horror again, and to deal with it—it’s truly one of the most courageous things anyone could do. Talking about it, doing the therapy, and making a concerted effort with your treatment—it shows a spirit and commitment that takes real strength.”
He gazed at her for a moment. “How do you do that? I feel like an idiot, like a dud, I talk to you, and bam, instant hero.”
Her brow wrinkled. “Well, you are a hero, of sorts. You’re facing some really tough issues, and you’re dealing with them. I think you’ll find that the more you talk about the crash, the less frightening it will seem, in time.”
Bill nodded, then folded his arms. “Okay. So now it’s your turn. What is this thing between you and Brooke? And what happened with you and Eric?”
Taylor gaped at him, surprised. “Oh, I hardly think this is the time—”
Bill wagged a finger at her. “Come on. Spill it. I told you mine, now it’s time you told me yours. You know pretty much everything that has happened with my relationships. We’re friends, remember?”
Taylor eyed him, then stood and walked toward the mantel. “We didn’t see eye-to-eye on a number of issues,” she said quietly. That was an understatement.
“Tell me something new.”
Taylor folded her arms in front of her, and turned to face him. “Okay. You know Brooke and I have some … history.”
Bill shot her a bored look, and she waved a hand at him. “No, it’s all part of it. For as long as I can remember, almost every relationship I’ve had with a man has been ruined by that woman. I was married to Ridge—”
“Yeah, how many times? Aren’t you supposed to learn from your mistakes?”
She placed her hands on her hips. “I loved Ridge, and I know Ridge loved me. We had children together, a family.” She looked pointedly at him. “You, of all people, should understand how important family is.”
Bill eyed her for a moment, before inclining his head.
“You’re not the only one who is prepared to do anything for your family,” she told him. “I took my vows very seriously. Especially fidelity and honor, yet it seems to me that Brooke doesn’t have that same commitment and respect when it comes to honoring another person’s relationship.”
She sighed as she sank down on the settee next to him. “I know everyone thinks I hate Brooke, and that I’ve got it in for her. I don’t. There have been times when we’ve helped each other, when we’ve supported each other, and I try to remember that. She has had a great impact on my life, though. My family was destroyed, and she had a part in that. She’s hurt me so much.”
Taylor clasped her hands together and took a deep breath. “We are completely different. She is impetuous. I consider the consequences. Sometimes she’s so blinded by her own needs, she doesn’t realize the impact she has on others, and I can see that, at times, she sincerely regrets the pain she causes.”
She met his dark gaze. “I understand Brooke, I just don’t excuse her, like everyone else seems to. But more than that, I know the woman.” She leaned back. “When I first started to notice the connection between you and her, everyone told me I was crazy, that I was creating a situation that didn’t exist. But I wasn’t. I knew from personal experience, and I could recognize the signs.” She rose to pace in front of the fire. “Do you know how frustrating it is to see the writing on the wall, to see the train wreck that is about to happen, and nobody listens? Nobody believes you?”
Bill sighed. “My marriage was fast on its way to imploding before Brooke and I slept together. Katie had actually returned her rings and told me it was over, before we did anything.”
Taylor stopped pacing to look at him. “I understand, but affairs don’t start overnight, Bill. It’s not just about a physical act. The emotional intimacy started between you two long before it culminated in a physical expression.” She lifted her arms. “I should know. She used the technique on Eric, too.”
He frowned. “How do you mean?”
Taylor rested her hands on her hips. “Brooke made a conscious decision to try to get Eric back.” She shook her head. “She divorced Eric so long ago, but as soon as I moved in with him, I think she had this impression that I was trying to take Stephanie’s place. When Eric made Thomas CEO, instead of her son, Rick, she felt threatened.” She smiled derisively. “She even dared to say she could get Eric back, just like that,” she said, snapping her fingers.
Bill’s eyebrows rose, and Taylor nodded. “Yeah. She virtually told me that the battle had begun. I discovered she’d made some special arrangements to remind Eric of their time together.” She lifted her hands in an expression of disbelief. “Can you believe it, she organized a dinner with my boyfriend, and had their honeymoon night decor replicated. When he was in a committed relationship with me.”
“Uh, wow.”
This time it was Taylor’s turn to wag the finger. “Imagine you were living with a woman, and her former lover tried something like that.” She gazed at him. “You’d blow your top.”
Bill frowned, then nodded. “Yeah, I guess I would.”
She crossed over to him again. “This is going to sound juvenile—but she tried to take him from me. But that wasn’t the worst part, although it was bad enough. Brooke has done some bizarre things in the past. It was the fact that Eric hid it from me. I found out through a party planner, of all people. And when I’d confronted Brooke before about her relationship with you, Eric told me to back off.”
She met Bill’s gaze squarely. “He protected her and her secret, which was that she was pregnant with your child. She asked him to claim your baby as his, while he was living with me! He kept her request secret from me, too.” She shook her head.
“I am done with her interfering in my love life. I am done having the man I’m with being so blinded by her that he’ll protect her at my expense. At Brooke’s birthday party, when everyone was going on about how wonderful she was, what a fine woman she was—I was screaming inside. It seemed so fake.”
She rubbed her arms. “And then for Eric to criticize me for the situation, because in his eyes, my telling the truth was so much worse than some single dalliance—his words, not mine. It was pretty clear who had his support, and who he was prepared to stand by—and it wasn’t me. He had Brooke’s back, not mine. He kept secrets from me—her secrets. My God, it still hurts when I think of those times I shared my suspicions with him, and he brushed me off, or told me to drop it, when he said I was being paranoid because of my history with Brooke, when he knew—he knew.” She bit her lip, taking a moment to compose herself. “That’s why I left Eric,” she said, calmer. “I wasn’t going to put up with it anymore, or go through that heartache of having Brooke’s alliance with my man interfere with our relationship all over again. It was over.”
“You took a stand,” Bill commented, and she saw a spark of admiration in his gaze. She lowered her chin.
“I did.” She plucked at the edge of a cushion. “
I’m not going to be Brooke’s doormat any longer.”
Bill raised his hand and slid it under the hair at the nape of her neck. “You’re a strong, disciplined woman, Taylor. That’s why I like you so much.” He pulled her closer, and Taylor’s breath hitched as he lowered his head.
Chapter Eleven
Bill breathed in her scent, heard her slight intake of breath.
“No, we can’t,” she said, blinking. She braced her hand against his chest, her touch burning a hole in his restraint.
“Yes, we can,” he said. Oh, they could, and it would be so good. Listening to her, her views, her integrity, he’d come to realize just what a strong, attractive woman Taylor was, both inside and out.
“No,” she said emphatically, and slid out of his arms.
He gazed up at her, confused. Her cheeks were flushed, and she clutched her hands together. “Why not?”
She twisted one way, then the other. “Brooke was right, the other day.”
Bill sat up straight. “What?” He couldn’t keep the incredulity from his voice.
Taylor gestured between them, and Bill focused on her hands. He wanted those hands on his body.
“We can’t be anything more than friends,” she told him, and he could see the regret etched in her face. Did she seriously think she could deny their passion?
“I don’t understand.”
“I treated your wife, Bill. It would be beyond inappropriate for me to have anything more than a friendship with you.”
Bill rose to his feet, trying to wrap his head around her comments. “You’re not my doctor, Taylor. I made that very clear from the start.” He was more than relieved at his previous insistence. He wanted Taylor, and it wasn’t in a professional capacity.
“I know, and—and I really do think of you as a friend, now,” she said.
He frowned. She sounded surprised. “So if we don’t have a doctor–patient issue, what’s the problem?” What did he have to do to get past this stumbling block and to convince her that they were good for each other, and could be even better, given half the chance?
Collision Course: The Bold and the Beautiful Page 10