♦ ♦ ♦
I woke sometime in the night and took the moment of quiet to complete the background check I’d started. Then I made a schedule. Strength training for muscle tone, running for agility and yoga for balance and meditation. I had to take control of my life once more. I couldn’t give in, even if it was difficult to keep going. I planned to take easy jobs through PI Net and allow my body the recovery time it needed. But most importantly, I refused to think of Ryder Billings.
Dr. McAlister scheduled an MRI so that he could be sure the relapse had ended. I knew he also wanted to see the extent of the damage that had occurred. Two weeks after my return from Montana, I laid flat on my back in one of those embarrassing open backed hospital gowns.
“Are you ready?” the technician asked.
I nodded, which basically meant, this is as good as it’s going to get, buddy, and he pressed the button that slipped me into the suffocating tube of the MRI machine.
The tightening in my chest was normal. The shaky breaths were too. The flashbacks weren’t.
Only two months before, while working on a case, I’d been buried alive in a casket. There had been a moment in time when I thought, no I knew, I wasn’t going to make it out. As the tube closed in around me, it was as if I were locked in again.
I could taste the darkness; feel the dirt pressing down on me. My air grew short; each breath was only interrupted by the screams that burst from my chest. The technician’s voice boomed around me, but the casket had swallowed me again. As my cage slid free of the tube, I clawed at the air as if the soil might crush me. Strong arms held my hands as another technician freed my face from the cage that held my head steady. Pain surged through my right arm like a hot poker had been jabbed through my collarbone. The sudden intensity of my gunshot injury jarred my senses and brought me to the present.
Still trembling, but no longer fighting, I managed to say, “I can’t go back in there.”
The wide eyes of the technicians told me that they’d reached the same conclusion.
After five minutes, I was handed a phone with Dr. McAlister on the other end. “Lindy, I heard you had a claustrophobic episode—”
“I’m not going back in there,” I interrupted.
“We need to see a clean scan, so I’m going to have them give you something to relax you.”
I resisted the idea at my core, but I knew he was right, so I relented.
“You’ll need someone to drive you home, should I have my assistant call your uncle?”
It wasn’t like there was anyone else available. “Yes that should work.”
♦ ♦ ♦
The sedation was easy, and I wondered why I hadn’t tried it before. The hardest part was coming out of the fog. My eyes were heavy and my brain was muddy. I blinked once and regretted the decision of consciousness. Nausea swept over me and settled in my stomach like a hard knot. I hated drugs and the side effects that went with them. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in. Slowly, it seeped out between my tight lips. A hand slipped over mine and then promptly released.
“She’s going to be loopy for a bit, but give her five minutes and she’ll be coherent enough to get dressed,” the voice of the technician said.
A deep voice replied, “I’ll wait in the hall.”
The door opened and clicked closed. When I opened my eyes I was alone again. My clothes were at the end of the gurney and though I fumbled and fell once, I dressed quickly. I didn’t want to keep Uncle Shane long since he’d been willing to drop everything to get me. I pulled open the door and glanced down the hall.
My uncle wasn’t there. Sharp pain pinched the joint of my jaw, my first warning of tears. I turned my gaze to the floor to shake it off before he noticed.
“Hey there, Huckleberry,” Ryder Billings said from where he leaned against the wall.
It didn’t seem fair that he could use that nickname while he was dating another woman. I could handle that he’d moved on, but not in a world where I still had a pet name.
“Hello, Ryder.”
The floor rolled, another side effect of the medication, and my body crashed into the door jamb. I winced in pain as my muscles cried out and my heart broke at the sight of him. Ryder rushed to my side and braced me up. His scent wafted around me and weakened my resolve to ignore him. As he steadied my waist and rectified my posture, I considered pretending that I was worse off than I was, willing to be a damsel in distress if it meant an extra five minutes in his arms. I could feel the effect of time between us as he held me, far more reserved and tentative than he’d ever been. For him, it had been over a month since we’d last seen each other, but for me it felt like much less. Once I was stable again, he backed away and kept his distance.
“Uncle Shane was supposed to come,” I said. My apology was behind every struggled word.
“He was working, so he asked if I could come get you,” Ryder said as if it were normal.
I felt the need to voice my apology. “I’m sorry, if I’d known—”
“You had a panic attack.” He started walking down the hall, though he kept a watchful eye on me. “I know tight spaces bother you.”
The structure of his words said that nothing had happened, but the rigid tone told me he was angry. I was in no shape to argue, not while I was still foggy from whatever drug the tech had given me.
He held the elevator door and almost offered his arm to me. Ryder knew elevators aggravated my vertigo, but it dropped to his side as he slunk back against the wall. Silence pressed in as we moved upward and I worried the compartment might explode under the pressure of our unspoken words. Where should I start? How could I explain? And did I have to? Some part of me was just as angry with him.
The elevator door slid open. With effort, I managed to pull myself free. My gait hadn’t recovered completely from my relapse and the sound of my right foot scraping the floor filled the lobby as I followed Ryder toward the parking lot. The sedatives only aggravated my original damage. Without a doubt, Ryder’s dormant medical training analyzed every twitch and abnormality.
Let him. I wasn’t about to explain it. I didn’t have to. He wasn’t my boyfriend.
“Where did you park?” I asked as he held the door for me.
“I didn’t. Vanessa dropped me off.”
She had a name, and he hadn’t pretended to hide it. Instead he let it hang in the air between us.
“You don’t have to act like you don’t know,” Ryder said, “Shane told me you knew.”
We didn’t say another word as we crossed through the rain toward my car. I let myself in after I heard the lock release. It felt good to sit and halt the sway that accompanied the vertigo. Ryder slumped into the driver’s seat and slipped it all the way back. I closed my eyes and waited.
“Nothing?” Ryder asked after a moment of silence. “You have nothing to say to that?”
I pulled a deep breath in through my nose to ease the nausea again. “I’m not quite coherent, Ryder.” The sentence was a struggle to get through. “Give me a second to adjust.”
The engine turned over and he shifted into reverse with an angry thud. The car eased backward and after another frustrated shift, we lurched forward and out to the open roads. I had plenty to say, but my words were still jumbled from the recent relapse and the sedation. I looked normal for the most part, but I was far from it.
“Where did you meet?” I asked after a few minutes of tense silence.
With my eyes closed I couldn’t see his head turn, but I sensed it. “She was the waitress the night you stood me up.”
I was grateful I couldn’t talk very well. If I’d said everything that I had wanted to in that moment, there would be no repairing a relationship of any sort. From the mess of options, the only words that jarred themselves loose were, “The waitress?”
“I waited for you for three hours. Vanessa was kind to me. She kept saying that you might make it still, probably held up in traffic, stuff like that.” I could hear his grip tighten
on the wheel, skin pulling against leather. “I called you at least twenty times.”
“I know,” was all I could say.
The engine roared as we entered what I suspected was the freeway. “I know. That’s it? That’s all I get?”
Words piled in a clump, forcing me to pull them apart. “I can’t,” I paused to find order, “do this,” another pause, “right now.”
I heard a groan roll from his chest. The wheel squeaked against under his clenched grip. “You left with no warning, and now you’re back out of nowhere. I have a million questions and you’re not ready?”
I wanted to be angry at him. I wanted to rage and scream and accuse him of everything under the sun, but how could I? If I’d chosen him, none of this would’ve happened.
Thoughtless.
Selfish.
All my fault.
I urged my eyes to open and stared across at him. Tension steeled his jaw. His eyes were narrowed, ready for a fight.
“I know you need answers,” my voice was fragile and low, “and I’ll give them to you.” He turned and looked at me for a second as I said, “But not right now.”
Ryder glanced at the road, then back at me and then back at the road once more. The tension melted from his face, and his hands relaxed. It took a couple minutes before he asked, “You relapsed, didn’t you?”
It felt as though I was admitting I committed some great crime. “Among other things, yes.”
Ryder eased the car onto the exit that led home. The car slowed and the frustration slipped from his body. After another few minutes he said, “I didn’t know that.”
I closed my eyes again and waited through the turns that felt like home. When the gravel driveway crackled under the tires, I breathed a sigh of relief. Ryder parked and hurried around to help me out again. Once I was on my own two feet, I distanced myself from him and said, “I have to walk,” I fought through the fog for the rest of the sentence, “or I’ll never get stronger.”
“Let me help you,” he said as he trailed me to my front porch.
As I considered the option, a silver convertible pulled into my driveway.
“Your girlfriend’s here,” I said as I stepped up the stairs.
Ryder waved at the girl I assumed was Vanessa, and then stared back after me. I could feel the pull there, the indecision and struggle between his choices. I simplified his decision and ducked inside my house.
Hesitation gone, his steps thudded down my stairs. I heard a female voice say, “Is she okay? Do you need to help her?”
I parted the curtains in time to see Ryder slip his arms around her waist as he kissed her lips. Vanessa’s jet black hair stretched to her waist and caught the breeze as it blew over Ryder’s arm. Her skin reminded me of the lattes my Aunt Stella used to drink, mostly milk with a little bit of coffee. An exotic woman, with playful eyes and long, slender limbs to wrap around him, a dream come true for any man.
Ryder’s voice caught my ear as they broke apart.
“She’s fine. She doesn’t need me.”
I let the curtain fall shut and slid to the floor against my door. I let the tears fall as the loneliness encapsulated me. I did need him, more than ever, and he was gone.
I had no one to blame but myself.
Chapter 4
Dr. McAlister called with the results after two days of waiting. I filled my time with odd jobs I could complete from home and was happy to see my bank account grow with each job. Money had a way of lifting my most dampened spirits, especially when my medical bills had racked higher than my rent.
In his direct manner, Dr. McAlister explained over the phone, “You did relapse. The damage was small and it’s no longer active, but new regions of your brain were affected, so that is worrisome. It’s also why you’re having some difficulty speaking.”
“What does this mean for me?” I asked nervously. “Am I going to get worse?”
“Not necessarily,” he assured me. “You know how to take care of yourself. Exercise, proper diet, low stress and plenty of sleep will help you heal and ward off something more severe.”
“Low stress?” I asked.
He knew me too well. “No covert surveillance or big cases for now. Background checks, maybe a little reconnaissance and simple surveillance, but no bullets and no dangerous rendezvous.”
“Is there anything else?”
“I know I can’t talk you into a new career, but maybe some new hobbies. You might consider swimming, Lindy. The active lifestyle you lead is not always the best for your disease. Kickboxing and running overheat and overwork your system. Studies have shown that swimming, horseback riding and yoga tend to be the best choices for individuals with multiple sclerosis.”
Even if the memory of my drowning sister was fake, I couldn’t shake my fear of water. Probably best not to acknowledge the idea in the first place. “Where would I find a horse, doctor?”
“You live in the country. I’m sure you can dig one up somewhere.”
I listened to a few more words of caution before I hung up the phone and sighed. My life since choosing Jackie over Ryder wasn’t what I’d hoped. The papers in their plastic bag caught my eye. I’d taken them out a few times to try to decipher the codes, but with no luck. If a team of highly trained police analysts couldn’t crack the cipher, who could?
“Kip,” I said in response, and snatched my phone from the coffee table.
He picked up after two rings without as much as a hello. “Lindy, it wouldn’t kill you to call me and let me know if you were murdered or not.”
“Sorry Kipper, it’s been hectic.” I related an abbreviated version of my run in with St. Anthony as he patiently waited through my stuttering and long pauses. I finished with, “So now I have this code that no one can crack.”
The excitement dripped from his words, “Send them to me. You know I want to work on that.”
“Let me make copies and I’ll overnight them to you.” I was about to hang up when I asked, “Hey how’s your girlfriend?”
His squeaky voice cracked as he said, “She’s my fiancé now.”
I gushed as well as I could and wished him well before I hung up and set the phone down to make copies. It took longer than I expected to photocopy every page, especially once my machine decided to overheat. I switched it off, abandoned the idea for the day and retired to bed early.
♦ ♦ ♦
I mailed the paperwork off first thing in the morning before my fatigue could steal what was left of me. Then I went about paying bills, finishing background checks, and trying to put the remnants of my life back together. I tried jogging again, but after nearly eating pavement twice, I ended up walking a half mile instead. It amazed me that so much could be taken in the blink of an eye.
I followed the doctor’s orders and relaxed, took easy cases, and had minimal stress. I almost tried swimming. I got as far trying on a suit at the superstore. As the panic set in with the memories, no matter how false, I abandoned the idea. I’d stick to yoga.
Thoughts of Ryder were easily avoided during the day. I stayed busy and exercised extreme self-control. As night set in, my thoughts darted back to our time together, the musky scent of his cologne and the nights he’d held me in his arms. Nightmares had always been a part of my life, there was no question about that, but Ryder had made them bearable. He gave me strength I’d never had. The nights felt colder, scarier and incomplete without him.
Around eleven-thirty, my phone buzzed. I knew who it was even if the name didn’t register on my new phone.
“Hello, Ryder.”
His soft laughter felt cynical. “Somehow I knew you’d be up.”
The sound of his deep bass seeped into me and racked me with guilt and regret. “I don’t sleep much anymore.”
It was a lie. I slept all the time, but not very well.
“I won’t keep you long. I need to talk to you, and I don’t want to do it over the phone. Can you meet me tomorrow?”
I owed him answers; perhaps
once I gave them to him we could move on and live separate lives.
“At the lighthouse?”
“Yeah, I’ll go there.”
As we hung up I wondered where he was if he had to travel to the lighthouse. Had he moved to the manor? What had happened in my time away?
♦ ♦ ♦
The next day, as I parked near his lighthouse, I felt a wave of memories rush over me. The lighthouse had been a refuge for me after my near death experience, but it had also been the place where I’d finally been willing to give Ryder my heart. Unconsciously, I stared at the bluffs as I walked to the front door.
The memory played in surround sound in my mind. His touch had been light, but insistent. I could still hear the constant lap of the waves. And his words were honest as he said, “I keep thinking you’re right, but the problem is, the thing I keep coming back to is, that you kissed me back, Huckleberry.”
“Lindy?” Ryder called again from the open door. “Did you hear me?”
I shook off the feelings that the memory had stirred up and followed Ryder inside.
The first floor of the lighthouse housed the studio where he created his art. After coming close to finishing his residency as a doctor, his father’s dream, Ryder had bravely given it all up and forged out on his own. Granted, his father’s death had awarded him a fortune beyond anything I could imagine, so art was no longer a dream he chased, but a hobby he was paid for.
“How are you feeling?” Ryder asked as we walked to the spiral staircase that led to the rest of the house.
I followed him to the second floor, deliberately selecting each stair as I went. I didn’t want him to see that I was struggling, but I didn’t want to fall on my face either. “It’s not as bad as last time.”
“Did the doctor find anything?” He stepped out to the second floor landing and motioned for the couches that sat by the panoramic windows.
With his medical background, it was worth sharing. I sank onto the opposite couch and said, “It was a mild relapse, but parts of my speech were affected. That’s why I have to think about every word.”
Saddles & Sabotage Page 3