She was his first love; his only love.
And if he couldn’t have her as his wife, he would never take another.
A gentle cough had him looking up to see Leanne studying him with sad, wise eyes. Thick lashes briefly shielded her dark blue eyes as she lowered her wine glass to the table with hands that shook slightly. Her mouth trembled once before firming as she asked, “Is she the one whose memory I’m competing with?”
Wade remained silent, closing his eyes, as he tried to calm his racing heart. She was back, after more than four months, she had really had come back home.
“I wasn’t sure if that was the Nikki that Abby kept talking about all the time, but I guess I have the answer to that now, don’t I?” she murmured, crossing her hands in her lap. “I didn’t know you two had met. Looks like you’ve done a little more than that.”
Wade murmured something, what he didn’t know. He stared into his wineglass, at the deep red liquid as his mind raced and chased itself in dizzying circles. The flickering candlelight only added to the effect, making his head spin as blood roared in his ears.
“Was it love at first sight?” Leanne asked, watching him. “Or did you know her from before she moved here?”
“Yes. And yes,” he whispered, his voice slightly hoarse.
“I see,” Leanne replied, her eyes stating clearly that she didn’t see at all.
She wanted to know. It was written all over her face.
And he wanted, needed, to tell somebody. Five years had passed and nobody but him knew the whole of it. He had been ashamed to talk to any of his old friends, and Lord knew he couldn’t talk it over with his best friend. That had been Nicole, and he had lost her. He had hurt her, broke her heart. His parents weren’t viable candidates for purging his soul either.
Hadn’t he kept quiet about it long enough? If nothing else, maybe telling it out loud would exorcise her from his heart and soul and he could let her go, the way he needed to.
“I…met Nikki before I got married. I’ve known her for over eight years,” he said, his voice rusty sounding. His hand clenched tightly around the fragile stem of the wine glass before he made it relax. He loosened the tie at his neck, released the top button of his shirt.
“Eight years ago,” Leanne repeated. “She would have just been a kid.”
Wade snorted and said, “I don’t think she was ever really a kid, not like we were.” He took up the wine glass, tossed it back and wished it were something stronger. And the words started to pour from him. The meals were served, but hardly touched, as he told of the first few awkward dates, and the furious fights. The final fight that had Wade destroy what was most important to him in the world.
“I don’t even remember it,” he whispered, his voice sounding slightly shocked, puzzled. “It just doesn’t seem right that the event that ended up destroying every thing I had been dreaming of for three years passed without me even knowing what happened. I don’t remember her showing up at Zack’s, or her taking me home. I don’t know if I asked her in or if she just barged in. And I don’t know if I started it or if I was just too drunk to refuse her.”
He paused, frowning into his empty wine glass. “I sure as hell don’t know why I let it happen. I never thought of her like that, never. She was just…Jamie, the little girl I had grown up with.”
He told her about the last night when he had told Nicole about what he had done, how that had ripped his heart from his body. Of the months of depression that followed, depression that was relieved only by the arrival of his newborn daughter.
“I don’t regret her. I couldn’t. She’s everything to me,” Wade said, his harsh face softening as he thought of her, that sweet smile, the mischief that glinted in her eyes, her unfaltering love. “I didn’t know it was possible to love somebody like that. But to get her, I had to lose Nikki. Had to hurt her”
Leanne listened in silence as he told her about Jamie, how his wife had slipped away and how he hadn’t been able to help her, hadn’t been to care enough to do it.
“She killed herself, you know.” His voice was conversational, his eyes bland, showing little emotion. He could have been discussing the weather. “Took a bottle of sleeping pills and never woke up. A few days before she did, I was napping in the lounge at the hospital. I dreamed it, but didn’t think anything of it. I was always having really odd dreams. But I came home one day after picking up our daughter and we found her mother laying on the bed, wearing a pair of blue silk pajamas somebody had given her at her bridal shower. Her hair was fixed and she was wearing make-up. Had even had a manicure and pedicure done.
“She didn’t leave a note,” he rasped, his eyes burning now, with anger, guilt and shame. “She didn’t have to; I knew why she had done it.
“And when all was said and done, I was relieved. I was tired of trying to help her, tired of listening to her cry about how rough she had it, sitting at home day after day. Tired of her pretending Abby didn’t exist. I just didn’t care.”
It was late, over an hour had passed since he had see Nicole enter the restaurant. And in halting tones, he was speaking of the fight that last day on her mountain, the one that had sent her away.
And when he finished, he sat back, looking at the woman he had hoped, had planned, would take Nikki’s place. How in the hell had he even thought it would work? He’d been trapped in one loveless marriage already. And he had almost walked right into another one.
“I went to her house about a week later, to apologize and see if I could salvage anything. But she was already gone. I kept waiting, certain she would back. I had this little speech all laid out in my mind. I went up four or five time a week that first month, but she was never there. Her father wouldn’t tell me damn thing, and her brothers would just as soon rearrange my face as look at me”
He leaned back in his chair and rubbed the back of his neck, closing his eyes against the tension headache that had formed ages ago. “I kept waiting for her to show up, so I could apologize. I had no right to demand a damn thing from her, no right to say anything I said. I had to apologize,” he rasped, staring into the understanding eyes across from him. “I had to; it was eating me up inside. But I never got the chance.”
Finally, he fell silent, staring at the melting candles. His untouched meal lay cold before him. The perfect night he had planned lay in shambles. But he should have known better.
Leanne opened her mouth to speak and then closed it, pursing her lips and staring blindly into her wineglass. Wade realized he had hurt another woman he cared about, but he didn’t know what to do about it.
Finally, after eons of silence, Leanne looked up at him and forced a smile.
“Not much for the relationship thing, are you, Wade?”
“No.” His eyes dropped, unable to look into those dark blue eyes, seeing the hurt she was trying so hard to hide. “Leanne, I’m sorry. I never—”
“Wade,” Leanne interrupted. “Don’t, okay? No real harm done. And I was asking for it, anyway. I could tell you had somebody else in your heart, but I just kept pushing it. I kept telling myself you’d get over whoever it was, but I ought to know better. Love isn’t like the flu. It isn’t something you can get over.”
Morosely, rubbing his heart with the heel of his hand, Wade muttered, “It’s more like cancer. The incurable kind.”
Leanne chuckled softly. “I don’t think it’s always that bad, Wade. You’ve just had a couple of rough roads. Maybe it’ll get better.”
Yeah. And maybe there is a blizzard raging in hell right this moment, Wade thought dourly. But he didn’t say anything.
Shortly after that, they were outside, heading to Wade’s truck. “I guess I’m kind of surprised to see her back here,” he said as he helped Leanne into the truck. He remained at the open door, staring thoughtfully into the night. “She must like New York for her to stay there so long. I halfway expected her to stay there. There sure as hell isn’t much to hold her here.”
Frowning, Leanne shot
him a look. “She’s lived here for almost five years, Wade. She’s made her home here. Her family’s here. Her little boy is buried here.” She wasn’t looking at him as she fished around for her seat belt. Her words were delivered in an almost offhand manner.
It might have been comical, the way he froze in mid-action. His hand hovered an inch from the door. The ground seemed to drop out from under him and time stood still. Frozen in place, he attempted several times to work his mouth, but found his couldn’t speak.
Little boy
Little boy
Wade hadn’t heard her right. Before his vocal cords could relax enough for him to speak, Leanne gave him a questioning look. “Are you okay?” she asked but he couldn’t hear, just saw her lips move.
“What…” his voice wasn’t even a whisper. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What…did…you…say?”
Leanne stared at him, aghast. Her creamy complexion paled, twin flags of red riding high on her cheekbones. There was no way. He had to have known. But his poleaxed expression, the gray cast to his skin said otherwise. “You didn’t know,” she murmured, her eyes wide and confused.
“Didn’t know what?” he asked, but before she could reply, voices intruded. Like a wolf scenting wounded prey, he whirled, eyes narrowing as a slim figure moved across the parking lot. “Didn’t know what?” he repeated softly, staring at Nicole as if just that alone would tell him what he wanted to know.
Nicole came to a halt, thirty feet away, her eyes colliding with his. They rested on him, then on Leanne for a brief moment before she turned away.
“If you aren’t going to tell me, then I guess I’ll go ask her,” he said, his voice sharp.
“This isn’t the right time, Wade. Damn it, I thought you knew. I’m not the person who should be telling you,” Leanne said softly, her eyes locking on his as she caught his arm.
“You’re right. The right time would have been months ago,” he snarled, jerking his arm free. “And she should have told me.” He started in the direction Nikki had headed.
“No,” Leanne hissed, releasing the seat belt and jumping from the car, forced into action as she remembered the desolate look on Nikki’s face moments earlier. The look would haunt her until the day she died. Much like the look that had been on Nicole’s face when Leanne had revealed that Jason was gone. She caught up with him when he was half way to where Nikki and her family had parked. Seizing his arm, she put all her weight into slowing him down.
“Damn it, Wade. Let her go.”
“Tell me,” he said once again, his voice whisper soft.
A car door slammed shut and Leanne’s head whipped around, following the taillights of a classic Mustang. Gone. Nikki was gone. She breathed a sigh of relief then turned her head to Wade, wishing to God she had never laid eyes on him.
As she remained silent, shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other, Wade cupped her shoulders, drew her closer to him. Leaning down, he repeated a second time, “Tell me. Now, Leanne. Or I’ll chase her down and have her tell me.”
Leanne shrugged away his hands, turning away from him. The cold winter wind blew across the parking lot, cutting through her coat like it wasn’t there. It settled deep inside her, making her feel as though she would never be warm again. The bitter hot taste of guilt welled up in her throat until speech was nearly impossible.
Finally, she softly said, “I met Nikki in the grocery store a couple of years ago. She had this little boy with her.” Her voice trailed off as she remembered those wide innocent brown eyes, that sweet laugh, silenced forever.
Wade’s were sharper than shards of glass as he caught hold of her chin, forcing her to look at him. “I haven’t seen that little boy. I’ve been here for months and I’ve never seen him”
Leanne closed her eyes, shook her head. “You aren’t listening,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “About two weeks after that, I saw her again. This time in the ER. She was comatose. One of her brothers was with her and he was pretty banged up, but nothing serious.
“And her little boy was in the morgue. He was killed when a drunk driver ran them off the road by her dad’s home.”
Wade wasn’t even aware that she was still speaking. The tragic story fell on unheeding ears. All he could think was that somebody else had touched her, held her in the night, loved her. While he had scorned the touch of his wife, clinging to his memories of Nikki, she had been with another man. She had given herself to somebody else, given what was his.
Had born another man’s child, probably that faceless high society bastard he had imagined her with. He could almost see it. Some rich New Yorker had met up with her when she hit it big, had wined and dined her, taken her to some penthouse, laid with her on silk sheets.
His stomach revolted at the thought, acid burning bitterly at the back of this throat. But somewhere inside, he clung to hope. Maybe…
His vision faded to gray before coming back into sharp focus, the edges gone eerily red. “You take me to the grave,” he rasped, shoving Leanne toward the truck. “Now.”
Chapter Nine
JASON CHRISTIAN KLINE
BORN MAY 11, 1995 DIED SEPTEMBER 2, 1996
Beloved Son
‘I’ll Be With You Always, Until The End of Time.’
The date was all wrong. Only by a month, a handful of weeks, but it might as well have been six months, or a year. She hadn’t even waited a damn month, if that. Wade ran it through his head, hopping against hope. But it wouldn’t work out. Pregnancy lasted nine months. That last frantic coupling in the woods couldn’t have done it.
It had happened after that. And that meant it couldn’t have been his.
Not even a damn month.
Her voice hesitant, soft, Leanne asked, “When… when did you two break up?” The little boy had had dark hair, dark eyes, but that was all she could remember. She had only seen him once.
Bitterly, Wade replied, “Not soon enough. She didn’t wait very long though, a month at most”
She had gone straight to another man and yet she had been punishing him all this time. “Bitch,” he breathed out, hands clenching and unclenching, a vein throbbing at his right temple.
All the times she had pulled back, had thrown Jamie in his face, rushed back at him. All this time, he had thought she had been mourning what they had lost, had been too afraid to get involved or fear of being hurt. She had been mourning, all right, but not over him. She’d been mourning the loss of some guy’s brat.
And his little girl. She had done the unforgivable, had hurt Abby. The cool answers, the distance she had insisted on keeping between them, the reluctance to talk to her, touch her; it had all affected his baby, even though Abby had tried hard not to let it show.
He conveniently forgot the warnings she had issued, how many times she had tried to get him to leave her be. Sooner or later, you’ll realize I’m not who I used to be and I’m not somebody you want to be around. Certainly not somebody you want your daughter around. She had been warning him but he hadn’t listened. His subconscious played those words over and over.
But they were drowned out by the louder refrain of his bruised heart and pride. It kept replaying other words she had spoken.
I can’t look at you without thinking about Jamie. About what you did.
And she had gone and done the same damn thing.
She would pay, damn it. For every time she had twisted his heart inside his chest, every time she had put even a flicker of hurt or disappointment in Abby’s eyes, for every slur she had made against his wife.
He hadn’t even realized he had spoken aloud until a palm smacked up against his chest. He almost didn’t recognize the livid face practically nose to nose with his. Leanne’s voice rang out in the quiet cemetery as she shouted, “Pay? Pay? Damn you, she has paid! She lost everything she held dear. That little boy was her entire life and he’s gone.”
“My little girl is my life,” Wade rasped. “She hurt her. She called my wife a whore, then turns around a
nd does the same damn thing. She treated Abby like she had the plague, treated me like dirt. But she had gone out and done the same damn thing.”
Leanne was practically shaking with anger, and with shock. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing, or what she was seeing. The hard cold face of the man before her was someone she didn’t know. Eyes wide with disappointment and disillusionment, she bitterly whispered, “You cold hearted bastard. That little boy was her reason for living. I took care of her after the accident; she was in a coma for two weeks. And when she woke up, she was empty inside. There was nothing there.
“You think about how you would feel if the reason you had for living was suddenly ripped away,” she whispered, her own heart aching at the memory of those grief stricken, desolate eyes she had faced, eyes that haunted Leanne day after day. “Ripped away, not stolen like you were, didn’t abandon her or leave, but was ripped away for no reason. Everything just suddenly gone, with no hope of ever getting it back.
“She’s never completely healed from it. Her grief damn near killed her,” Leanne said roughly, trembling inside from the force of her emotions. “She had to bury her own child, Wade. That is a price no parent should ever be asked to pay.”
His fury deafened and blinded him. In his mind’s eyes, he could see it all so clear. Nikki in bed with another man, Nikki heavy with child, Nikki loving that child. The love he had wanted her to give to Abby, she had given to another child, while refusing them.
It gnawed at him like a cancer, sickened him, crazed him.
Her eyes burning with tears, her voice thick, she asked, “I’m not getting through to you, am I?”
He would rip that woman into shreds.
Eyes boring into hers, he advanced on Leanne and whispered, “This never happened, Leanne. Do you understand me?”
She looked fragile, but she had always thought herself to be stronger than she looked. Refusing to be intimidated, she scoffed, “Oh, yeah. right. Like I’m just going to pretend that you haven’t lost your ever loving mind”
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