by Karen Rose
Thatcher made a sound in his throat. “I wish I’d been able to see the future. Toni Ross wishes she’d been able to see what an evil man he was. Ben Jolley wishes he’d helped you years ago when he suspected you were getting the living tar beaten out of you. Gabe Farrell wishes he’d pushed harder to find evidence against Winters years ago. Bottom line is, you couldn’t have known. You couldn’t have known he’d do these things. And you did try. You tried to tell the world when you took out that restraining order. Don’t blame yourself now.”
She stared at him, desperately wishing she could take his words to heart. “Part of me knows you’re right, but I can’t seem to stop thinking about all the lives Rob ruined. My friend, Sy Adelman, is dead because he cared about me. And my friend Evie …” Caroline’s voice broke again as devastating emotion surged. “She might never wake up.”
“She’s awake, Caroline.” David appeared in the doorway and eased his way past a console of blinking lights to stand next to Thatcher.
Caroline sagged back against Max. “Thank God.”
David nodded. “Amen. I just talked to Dana. It took me over an hour to get to the right extension. Dana was sleeping in the visitors’ waiting room when they found her. I told her you were safe.” David reached down and touched the tip of Caroline’s toe through the sheet. “She couldn’t talk for a few minutes, Caroline. She was crying too hard. She wanted me to tell you she was sorry for the things she said. She was afraid you’d die with words between you.”
Caroline closed her eyes, remembering the pain of Dana’s words. The greater pain of realizing her best friend had been so right after all. “She shouldn’t apologize,” she said, her voice husky. “She was right as usual. But how is Evie?”
“Dana said Evie woke up about three hours ago. Her vital signs are good, although she’ll have to undergo additional surgeries. They don’t yet know the extent of her injuries, or how long she’ll be in the hospital. She …” David sighed. “She can’t remember anything about the attack.”
“That’s probably for the best,” Max murmured. “She’ll remember when she’s able. We’ll be there for her when she does.”
Tom abruptly rose from his chair and leaned over to squeeze Caroline’s hand. “Mom, will you be okay if I leave for a little while?”
She turned as far as her neck permitted, seeing half his face from the corner of her eye. “Sure, honey. David, will you get Tom something to eat?”
Tom shook his head. “David, I’ll meet you in the cafeteria in ten minutes. I need to talk to Agent Thatcher first. Do you have a few minutes, sir?”
Caroline watched Thatcher thoughtfully consider her son. “Sure, Tom. Let’s go.”
Steven followed as the boy he’d pictured as Robbie Winters walked purposefully to the end of the hall. At fourteen Tom Stewart was as tall as he was. Give the boy a few years and he’d fill out to be every bit as big as his father. Steven’s jaw clenched at the thought of Rob Winters, currently in the operating room next to Ben Jolley, ironically enough. Ben was having Winters’s bullet removed from his abdominal cavity while Winters was having fragments of his shattered skull removed from his brain. Caroline Stewart crushed Winters’s skull and cheekbones with Hunter’s cane. A grim sense of satisfaction filled him and he made not the slightest effort to push it away.
Tom stopped next to a window and stared out. Steven waited, suspecting what the boy had on his mind. Tom’s jaw hardened as he frowned out the window. “Where is he now?”
“Your father?”
Tom’s fists clenched at his sides. “He’s not my father. Where is he?”
Steven hesitated. “Right now he’s in surgery. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to see him.”
“I don’t want to. Will you put him in jail?”
Steven nodded slowly. “Pending his preliminary hearings, yes.”
A minute went by and Steven waited.
“Will you keep his identity secret?” Tom finally demanded. Softly. Too softly.
Steven considered for only a moment. “No.”
“He won’t even make it to trial, will he, sir?” Tom’s voice was deceptively mild and completely at odds with the stiff set of his shoulders.
Steven found himself becoming defensive at the boy’s intimation. Mostly because the same thought had been rolling around his own mind ever since Jonathan Lambert slapped the cuffs on Winters, unconscious and bleeding. “It’s the responsibility of the police to protect every prisoner in custody, regardless of who he is or what he’s done.”
“That’s not what I asked, sir.”
Steven stared long and hard at Tom’s rigid back, then shook his head. If anyone was entitled to the truth it was this young man and his mother. “Once the prison population finds out he beat that boy to death two weeks ago? Probably not.”
Tom visibly relaxed. “Good.” He turned to meet Steven’s eyes and Steven was struck by the cold maturity he saw there. “I hope Detective Jolley recovers, sir, and that your little boy doesn’t have too many problems coming out of everything that happened today. And if he comes to trial, we’ll come back to testify.” He offered his hand.
“Thank you, Tom.” Steven shook the boy’s hand as if he were an adult. “I wish you and your mother a full recovery as well.”
Tom stared him straight in the eye. “I accept your wishes for my mother. I’m fine.”
Steven watched as Tom walked towards the cafeteria, a distinct spring in the young man’s step, and felt the cloak of sadness envelop, swift and complete. “No, you’re not fine, son,” he murmured. “You’re definitely not fine. None of us will be fine for a good long time.”
With a sigh, Steven turned for the surgical waiting room, needing to check on Ben Jolley one last time before taking his son home. Jolley had sought absolution for his part in aiding Rob Winters’s sins by making himself into a human shield. Nicky was safe. Steven hoped Ben Jolley would live to find the absolution he desired.
They’d moved Caroline to a regular hospital room where they would keep her for observation for another day. The nurse made sure she was comfortable, offered to find a cane in the hospital supply room for Max, then took her leave.
They were alone for the first time since … yesterday morning, Max realized, stunned. His whole world had been utterly changed in the space of thirty-six hours. He was unsure of what to say. Which words were the right ones.
He was sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, holding her hand. Caroline was leaning back against the pillows, resting, her eyes closed, her chest rising and falling with each quiet breath she drew. Each breath was one he hadn’t been certain he’d ever see her take again just a few hours before. Her face was still bruised, but the swelling on her jaw and lips was diminished. He wasn’t sure which words were the right ones, so he used the ones least likely to be the wrong ones. “I love you, Caroline,” he whispered, not sure if she was awake or not.
Her lips curved and her eyes opened, still the same incredible blue he’d found unforgettable the first moment they met. “I love you, too.”
He hesitated. “Can we talk now?”
Her gaze dropped to the bedsheet, then rose back up to meet his. “Yes.” She was nervous. It nearly broke his heart.
“Caroline, I …” He found the words simply wouldn’t come and he looked away, hoping for divine inspiration.
“I’m sorry, Max.” Caroline said quietly, going very still.
He turned his head back so quickly it throbbed. He ignored the pain. There was something in her tone that frightened him. “Why?”
“I’m sorry I hurt you.” She leaned back against the pillows and closed her eyes. He watched her swallow and lick her lips. “I know I hurt you when I said no to your marriage proposal. Dana told me I’d be lucky if you still wanted me when I came to my senses.” She swallowed again. “I know you love me. I know you raced down here to rescue me. But now that the smoke’s cleared I understand you might still be angry with me. I want you to know that I figured
out when I got back to my apartment that I’d pushed you away because I was afraid and I hated myself for that. I wish I’d had one more day … one more hour to call you and tell you I’d marry you. That I was sorry and stupid. That I’d truly left my old life in the past and I was unconditionally yours. Now …” She sighed, her eyes still closed. “Now I’ll divorce Rob, publicly. Everyone in Chicago will know who I was. Everyone here in Asheville will know who I now am.” She opened her eyes and Max felt his heart clench at the misery he saw there. “But you’ll never know for sure what I would have done. Every time you look at me, you’ll wonder if I would have chosen you over my stupid fear.”
Max swallowed the enormous lump of emotion back down his throat. That she should be worrying about that after all she’d been through. “I realized right after you left that I’d been too hasty. I was wrong, Caroline.” He increased the pressure on her hands, still careful to keep his touch gentle. “I wasn’t wrong to want a life with you, a legal married life with legal children. But I was wrong to force you to choose when you were so afraid.” He dropped one hand and lightly caressed the side of her jaw that wasn’t hurt. “You had every right to be terrified of him, Caroline. I wasn’t thinking about what you’d been through, only how much I was hurting at that moment. I decided to step back and work through all the ways we could solve the problem and give us both what we needed.” He picked up her hand, desperately needing to touch her. “I told my family.”
Her eyes widened. “You did?”
“Yes. They wanted to help. They all said they’d do whatever needed to be done to make it so you’d never need to be afraid again. Peter had a lawyer you could trust.”
Her eyes filled and she blinked, sending fat tears sliding down her cheeks. “Who?”
Max smiled, remembering the warmth of his family, the moment he would never forget. “Himself.” The lump rose in his throat again when he remembered his mother and her words. “Ma said I should go get you from your apartment, that you were welcome in her family.” He felt his own cheeks become wet and he choked back the emotion once more. “That you were welcome to her son.”
“Max …” Her voice broke.
“And then,” he continued, now unable to stop. “David was going to drive me to your place when Tom called and said you were missing. I thought my heart was going to stop right there. I thought I’d never see you again.” He clenched his eyes closed, opening them when Caroline leaned forward and wiped the tears from his cheeks with trembling hands. He found her eyes inches away and stared hard, telling himself she was alive, that it was over. “I was so scared, Caroline,” he whispered, his voice shaking. He had to look away. “I was so scared of what he was doing to you. That you’d die thinking I was still angry. That I didn’t love you enough.”
“I didn’t,” she whispered back fiercely. “I’m alive. And I never thought once—” She took his face between her hands and tugged until he looked her in the eye again. “Not even once that you didn’t love me. I knew I couldn’t have hurt you if you hadn’t loved me so much.”
He shuddered at the feel of her hands on his face and turned enough to kiss the palm of one of her hands, then the other. “What do we do now?” he asked, his voice husky.
She smiled, her dimple appearing, and his heart did a slow turn in his chest. “Well, now,” she said, her drawl exaggerated. “Your mamma said I was welcome to her son?”
He nodded, feeling his own lips turn up.
Caroline’s eyes danced. “Did she say which one?”
His bark of surprised laughter filled the quiet hospital room. “Excuse me?”
“Well,” Caroline reasoned, her hands still on his face. “Peter’s taken. That leaves sons number two and three.” She tilted her head slightly, feigning a frown of concentration. “Which one to choose? Both are handsome—” She broke off when he covered her mouth lightly with his, her giggle escaping from beneath his lips.
He lifted his head to find her eyes laughing even as the tip of her tongue touched a sore spot on her lip. “I guess I deserved that,” she said with a chuckle.
“You did,” he answered with mock severity even as he grinned at her smiling face. Then he watched her eyes grow serious as his own mirth subsided. “Marry me, Caroline.”
“Yes.” Her smile bloomed again, her eyes radiant despite the bruises on her face. She pulled his face down and lightly touched her lips to his. “I love you.”
He touched his forehead to hers, his heart truly at peace. “Let’s go home, Caroline.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Chicago
Sunday, April 22
3 P.M.
“Made it!”
Tom’s mouth distorted into a disgusted grimace as Peter and one of his sons gave each other high-fives for a two-pointer Peter had slipped past Tom.
Max reached out and squeezed Tom’s shoulder, understanding. They’d been playing for an hour on the basketball court he’d had restored at the end of his driveway a few weeks before, but Tom’s mind wasn’t on his game. Neither of them had been able to focus. Max wondered if he’d ever draw an easy breath again without Caroline being in the same room, within touching distance. For days after their return from Asheville he never left her side, never moved more than an arm’s reach away. He found himself waking in the middle of the night, nightmares filling his mind. If she was asleep, he’d listen to her breathe, gently stroke a lock of her hair between his fingers, anything to prove to himself she was all right. But more often than not he found her awake already, her sleep disturbed by nightmares of her own. More often than not he found her staring out the window of their bedroom, her mind far away.
Days were significantly better than nights.
Max’s family had descended on his house this sunny Sunday afternoon for a “picnic lunch.” He knew better. It was his family’s way of supporting him and Caroline and Tom. The days when at least one of them hadn’t “been in the neighborhood” had been too few to bother counting. They brought food, magazines, little sundries they just happened to have bought one too many of.
He and Caroline didn’t lift a finger in the weeks that followed their return from Asheville. Ma and the girls had done everything for them. Cooking, cleaning. Cathy even ironed his boxer shorts.
It might have become annoying had there not been so much love in every gesture. Everyone wanted to help. No one knew what to say. So they said nothing. They just rallied around his new little family and refused to let them falter or fall. His new little family. The very thought took some of the edge off the tension that hadn’t yet ebbed.
The psychologist promised it would. In good time. Max had stopped wondering when that would be. It would come when it came and not before. There were lessons in patience that came out of futility. There were truly things that were beyond his control.
How quickly his little family became normal was one of those things.
Things started to pick up a few weeks after their return. They moved all of Caroline and Tom’s things from their old apartment to Max’s house four weeks after, leaving nothing behind except a bloodstain on the dining room carpet. Dana showed up the next night with a box of haircolor and an hour and a half later Caroline was a blonde. It suited her, he thought, studying her across the back yard. She sat at the old picnic table with his sisters and Peter’s wife, poring over old issues of Bride magazine Cathy had bought at a yard sale. Amidst teasing and laughter, his mother and sisters were effectively planning their wedding. Caroline just sat back and let them, content to be swept along.
She looked up in that moment, as if feeling his eyes on her, and smiled. It was a smile of encouragement, of sharing. Of gratitude. He’d been put off by her gratitude at first, not wanting to accept it, feeling whatever he’d done for her hadn’t been nearly enough. But he’d come to understand that her gratitude was for so many things he himself didn’t directly impact—being part of a family, being free, waking up every morning and finally knowing she was safe.
Cat
hy jabbed Caroline’s shoulder to direct her attention to something in one of the magazines and Caroline laughed out loud, the joyful sound carrying the short distance to where he stood. She shook her head vehemently, her new blond hair swinging around her face.
The golden hair did suit her. It framed her face, set off the fine porcelain of her skin, made her eyes seem an even more intense blue. Made Tom look even more like her son.
“I think they’re trying to break our momentum, Phil,” Peter commented dryly from behind him. “We’ve threatened them with our skill and prowess.”
Max turned to his brother, one brow lifted in as sarcastic an expression as he could muster. He’d learned even sarcasm required energy. “It’s twenty to two, ours. Last week we beat you forty to nothing. I hardly think you need our help to threaten your skill and prowess.” He looked over at Tom, whose eyes still hadn’t left his mother. “You ready for more?”
Tom sighed. “I don’t feel much like playing today.” He turned to Peter’s son. “I’m sorry, Phil. I just can’t seem to concentrate.”
Phil tossed the ball in the air and caught it in one hand. “No problem. You hungry?”
Tom forced a grin. “I can always eat.”
Together the boys started back toward the house and Max waited until they were out of earshot before he let his own sigh escape. “Tom’s upset because Evie was supposed to come today,” he said quietly, “but she changed her mind at the last minute. She couldn’t face us, she said.”