“I can’t do anything for Gen!” Mark slurred out, lurching to his feet again with the gun. “It’s over. They know everything. There’s nothing I can do.” He stood there, wobbling.
“Yes, there is,” Roman urged him. Could he overpower him? Mark was pale in the stormy dark, blood oozing from his ears now. It was worth the risk. He would do anything to protect Leah. “You can not make it worse, Mark. No matter what it takes, I’m not going to let you hurt Leah again.”
He eyed Mark, waiting for the right second to pounce. The gun shook in Mark’s hand, and he seemed barely able to focus.
“Don’t do this to Gen,” he tried one last time.
Then Roman felt Leah shove past him, out of the cab. “It’s me he wants.”
Mark swayed in reaction, and terror washed Roman’s mind in the split instant the gun went off.
Chapter 15
Leah felt numb, listless, as the medical technician finished stitching the cut above her eye. Inside a historic church in Orchid Key, a staging ground for emergency personnel still in the islands, the sound of the lashing storm outside played on.
It was finally over. The aftermath had seemed neverending. Roman’s desperate 911 call had been patched through to emergency personnel nearest Thunder Key. But they’d arrived too late to change the outcome.
Mark was dead, by his own hand. The nightmare was only beginning for Roman’s family. Even in the midst of a hurricane, national news crews—on hand for the weather crisis—felt as if they’d bagged two birds with one stone when they caught on to the drama of a wealthy doctor on the run from federal authorities. From illegal drugs and health fraud to attempted murder and suicide, the story had everything the voracious twenty-four-hour cable news world fed on.
“You’re going to be just fine,” the technician said. “The cut goes right through the eyebrow line. The scar won’t even show.”
As if she cared about a scar. The nightmare was just beginning for her, as well.
You’re going to be just fine. Was she? Roman had talked to his parents and must have learned the shameful past she’d wanted to protect him from, learned that she’d lied about the kind of person she truly was. There were no more secrets between her and Roman. Except one—that she had regained her memory in the trauma of being forced off the bridge by Mark. All the pieces had fallen into horrible, heartbreaking place.
Roman had been devastated by Mark’s suicide, and in the shocking moments when he’d done everything he could to save his brother-in-law before police and emergency medics had arrived, there had been no time to talk.
She didn’t even know where Roman was now. They’d been separated in the stormy chaos while the police took Roman’s statement on the scene and medics diagnosed the chest pain she was experiencing as due to multiple rib fractures. She’d been on the verge of blacking out when they’d put her in the ambulance.
In the sanctuary of the solid rock church, families with sleeping bags and bottles of water and crying babies surrounded her. At nearly midnight, the hurricane was pounding its way toward them at a relentless speed. A direct hit on the Keys wasn’t expected, but it would be a long night nevertheless.
“They’ve closed all the bridges now,” the technician told Leah. “The wind and surf conditions are too dangerous. You’ll have to shelter here tonight.”
They’d had to cut off Leah’s shirt to wrap her ribs in an immobilizing swathe that kept her left arm strapped to her chest. One of the technicians had dug up a spare emergency medic’s shirt that buttoned down the front, draping it over her left shoulder since she could only move her right arm.
Helped by the technician, Leah slid carefully off the table the medics had brought in for their makeshift emergency area.
“If you’ll go out of the sanctuary and to the right, follow that corridor and there’s a fellowship hall,” the technician told her. “They should have some extra blankets, pillows and some food and water there.”
Leah wasn’t hungry, but she made her slow, painful way down the hall. There were several media vans with correspondents giving live reports in the fierce winds outside the church, but inside, the reporters were interviewing evacuees. If they knew who she was, they’d want to talk to her about Mark. And she didn’t want to talk to them. Thank God the medics had protected her privacy. For all the reporters knew, she was just another victim of the storm.
Her heart tripped in her already-painful chest as she entered the fellowship hall. Her gaze darted, hoping, praying… But she didn’t see Roman in the crowded hall.
How would he feel about her now? Whether she had wanted it to end this way or not, her persistence after Nikki’s death had apparently resulted in a full-scale investigation of Mark Davison’s practice. She was still overwhelmed by what had transpired in the past eighteen months. She felt like Rip van Winkle, awaking years later instead of only eighteen months, and lost in her new world.
She’d never guessed her suspicions and questions about all the pain pills she’d found in Nikki’s apartment would have had such far-reaching consequences. She ached for her friend who shouldn’t have died. And she ached for Roman and his family for their loss, as well.
And most of all, she just ached. Her heart was torn apart. She remembered their marriage, every last detail. Their whirlwind courtship and the struggles of meshing their very different lifestyles. He thought he’d been a bastard to her, but she was the one who’d kept so many secrets from him. She’d never given him a chance. Would he give her a chance now? Could Roman ever forgive her for her role in his sister’s devastation? On top of that, could he forgive her for the secrets of her past she’d kept from him during their marriage?
She didn’t know how to find him, and worse, she didn’t know if he wanted to find her. The night stretched ahead interminably.
The church fellowship center was crowded with families. Children sat on metal folding chairs at long tables, eating cookies and clasping teddy bears, or curled up in corners with pillows and books or electronic handheld games, their parents by turns talking or fitfully dozing. Emergency relief workers handed out food and drinks and blankets from the church kitchen. The atmosphere was part lock-in sleepover party, part funeral wake. She was surrounded by strangers, and completely alone.
As she walked through the packed hall, she passed a reporter giving a live report.
“Davison fled to Miami after federal authorities moved in on his Manhattan clinic. At least ten deaths have been linked to illegal narcotics distributed through the clinic. The doctor faced life in prison and millions in fines before going on a shooting rampage in the Keys, only adding to the chaos authorities are dealing with here as the hurricane closes in.”
Shooting rampage? Leah kept going, wanting to get as far away as possible from the correspondent and the sensational reporting that could only hurt Roman and his family more.
Then the heavy door to the outside banged open.
Roman stood there in the Orchid Key church building, soaked, exhausted, desperate. Then he found her.
He couldn’t swallow, couldn’t move, for the longest pulse beat of his life. If there were a hundred strangers in the hall, he didn’t notice them. Only her. Roman went straight toward her. She looked tired and hurting and like hell, but beautiful just the same.
A media correspondent started toward him, followed by a cameraman hefting heavy equipment. He’d already dealt with the groups of reporters outside, and he was in no mood for more. Unfortunately, as a Bradshaw, his family appeared on the pages of the national newspapers enough for his face to be instantly recognizable to the cable press.
“I have no comment.” He followed up with a hard glare, and the reporter backed away.
Roman reached Leah.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he said. “I looked around and you were gone.” She was wearing a medic’s shirt, and he could see one of her arms was strapped to her chest. Dammit. Why hadn’t he known she was hurt?
“My ribs were fractured in the
crash. I didn’t realize that was why I was in pain. They put me in the ambulance so quickly, I didn’t have a chance to find you.” Her voice sounded timid.
“Are you all right?” He reached out for her, then dropped his hands, not sure how to touch her. Not sure she wanted him to touch her.
“I’m fine,” she said, and her voice came out thick.
She was trying to be strong again. Trying not to cry.
“This is my fault,” he said. “I should never have left you in Thunder Key this morning. I should never have—”
“Roman, no,” she whispered. “You couldn’t have known. You thought I was safe. I thought I was safe.”
“He hurt you.” He sounded—and felt—devastated. “I’m the one who told him you were alive. And he could have killed you…”
“But he didn’t.” She reached out now, touched him with her free hand. Her fingertips grazed his face. “And you didn’t know. Couldn’t have known. I’m so sorry. About Mark. And Gen.”
He took hold of her hand, squeezed it in his. “It’s going to be painful for her, and for my parents,” he said roughly. “But nobody’s blaming you. Not anymore. I just got off the phone with my dad. He called the cell when I was on the way here in the police cruiser. The feds were there at the apartment again this afternoon. There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind now that Mark knew what he was doing. It’s hitting my family pretty hard. I think they’re pretty much going through what I went through eighteen months ago when I lost you. Realizing that the things they thought were important really aren’t. Money and power… It just doesn’t matter when you’re facing life and death. God, Leah, I was so afraid when I looked around and you were gone.”
A dark anguish crossed Leah’s face.
“You know I’m responsible for the investigation into Mark’s practice,” she said. “If I hadn’t pushed so hard after Nikki’s death—” She stopped, swallowed, pulled her hand away from his. She was distancing herself, and it was killing him. “And that’s not all. You must know about my past now.”
He started to speak, but she cut him off. “I remember everything now, Roman. Just before the crash—it all came back. I haven’t even had a chance to sort it all out. I feel—” she shook her head “—out of place, you know? I don’t know how to explain. It’s like I woke up on a different planet, and yet it’s the same. I’m the same person, but a stranger.”
What the hell did this mean? He was terrified suddenly.
“Leah.” He reached for her again.
“No,” she whispered brokenly. “I just want you to know that I didn’t want to divorce you. Not ever. I didn’t have those papers drawn up. I would never have given up on our marriage. Mark brought those papers to me and told me what your parents had found out about my past. He told me I was going to ruin your life. He wanted me to stop talking to the police about Nikki and when I refused, he became angry, and I was scared. You were working late that night and I’d come to the building to find you, but Mark was there. He’d followed me, and he was angry, making threats. I couldn’t get past him into the building. So I ran back to the car. And then I started driving. I just kept going, and I got lost. I have no idea how I ended up on that road that night. I wasn’t running away from you. I wasn’t leaving you. I was just trying to lose Mark, and the next thing I knew, he was ramming my car. He pushed me over the bridge. And then—” She stopped.
And then the nightmare had begun, for both of them.
Roman’s heart filled painfully. “Leah—”
“You have to know that I lied to you,” she went on, not giving him a chance to speak. She seemed determined to get it all out, now, at once. “I was never the woman you thought I was.”
“You’re more than I thought you were.”
“No. I lied. I hid my past.”
“Your foster father.”
“I didn’t kill him.” Her voice trembled, and she took another deep breath. “It wasn’t only me he abused. He abused my foster mother, too. And I wouldn’t testify against her. They put me in a juvenile home. I had a bad history—I’d been through a lot of homes. I lost my parents when I was five, and for a long time I wouldn’t even speak. Foster parents didn’t know what to do with me, and I acted out. I can’t blame them. I went through so many homes, and then I ended up with the Hendersons.”
She stopped, swallowed hard, looked away from him as if ashamed to meet his eyes. Then slowly, painfully, she looked at him from heart-torn eyes. “I knew she was going to do it. I knew. And I could have told somebody, or done something. I don’t know. But I hated him,” she said thickly.
“And when the police came, I lied for her. I told them someone had broken in. They didn’t believe me or her. But they could never prove it. I think they really didn’t know which one of us had done it. They sent me to the detention center till I was of age and could go out on my own. I went to New York and pretended I was someone else. Someone carefree and happy, without a past. When your family found out—”
“You were seventeen, Leah.” He wanted to wrap his arms around her so much his whole body ached, but he was so afraid of hurting her. “And I never doubted you weren’t a murderer. I knew it wasn’t in you. As for knowing what your foster mother would do… How could you have stopped it? You’d both been hurt by him too many times…”
“I had no right to marry someone like you,” she went. “Your family was right.”
“They were wrong!”
“I should have told you the truth. I should have trusted you. And I don’t know how you can ever trust me.” Tears filled her eyes, spilled over.
“How could you have trusted me? I didn’t trust myself,” he said, cupping her face, still so afraid of hurting her tender ribs. Her shining eyes ripped him apart. “I didn’t trust the way you made me feel. You were everything I ever wanted and didn’t know I wanted. You made me feel things I’d never known before.”
“You thought I was perfect,” she cried softly. “And I was so far from it.”
“No,” he argued, almost angry now—at himself, not her—that she had held so much inside when they were married. And he had let her because of his own fears. “I thought you were perfect for me. And that scared me to death. I didn’t know you could love someone that much, and I was sure I’d lose you. I worked too hard and ignored you, and I was such a bastard, I made sure I would lose you.”
He skimmed his touch down her face, tracing her tears.
“I love you,” he whispered roughly. “And I need you. When I thought I’d lost you, it was as if my world went dark. It was a miracle that I found you again. Ever since I came to Thunder Key and saw you that first day in the bar, I knew this was where I was supposed to be. Here. With you. I dream of our life here, the kind of man I would be. I dream of our grandkids building sand castles on the beach in thirty years. I really like that dream.”
She made a soft sound in her throat, a half sob, half laugh. “I like that dream, too.”
Hope rose inside him, but he had to be sure she really knew what she was getting into. He was a changed man, but he was still a Bradshaw, and old habits would die hard.
“I’m not ever going to be an easy man to live with,” he said. “I’m still the same driven bastard I ever was, and I’ll have my moments when I lose sight of what’s important. I’ll buy the Shark and Fin, and one day I’ll wake up and think I have to turn it into a restaurant chain across Florida. And you’ll have to just pull me back into bed and make love to me till I beg for mercy.”
Now she did laugh.
“Oh, that hurt.” She reached up to touch her chest. “I can’t laugh.”
“I want you to laugh every day,” he said. “I want to laugh with you. And if you cry, I’ll cry with you. I don’t want you to be afraid of anything with me.”
“Only if you promise not to be afraid of anything with me.”
“Well, I’m dying right now,” he admitted, “because I want to hold you so bad, but I’m afraid if I take you into my arms, I’ll h
urt you.”
“Please take me in your arms. And don’t let go. Ever. I love you.”
Her face was bright and her eyes glowed, and he saw again the Leah he remembered. Free and happy and full of hope. He’d made her whole, too. He drew her gently into his arms, bent his head to kiss her lips as she tipped her face to meet him, and he knew there would be no more nightmares.
Only the sweetest dreams.
Epilogue
The Miami hospital was silent at midnight.
Roman peeked into Room 502. Leah looked up from the bed in the moon-striped dark of the room. At her breast, an infant with a fuzz of dark hair suckled. And Leah smiled her fantastic smile.
“Hey, there,” Roman said softly, coming into the room, quiet but for the steady sound of the nursing babe at his wife’s swollen breast.
“She’s all cleaned up now,” Leah told him. “They said they’d let me sleep, but I’d rather be with her. And you. But you’re tired, aren’t you? It’s okay if you want to go back to Thunder Key, get some sleep—”
“Not a chance.” Roman wasn’t going anywhere. He sat on the edge of the bed, watching his beautiful wife and their two-hour-old baby girl. It had been a long ten months since the night they’d sheltered at the Orchid Key church. The bar had been damaged by the hurricane-force winds. They’d moved into one of the little shotgun houses in Thunder Key, which was just fine since they needed a nursery now.
They’d already rebuilt the Shark and Fin, just as they’d rebuilt their interrupted marriage.
“I just got off the phone with my parents,” he told her. “They’ve been calling the hospital all night.”
“How are they?” Leah’s face tensed.
All these months later, it still hurt her when she thought of her role in his family’s tragedy, Roman knew. Leah felt others’ pain as keenly as she felt her own. And even though his family ultimately hadn’t blamed her after Mark’s death, she still regretted that it had happened and that she’d played any part in it.
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