by Jessi Gage
DG had thrown the lamp at his door to wake him from his nightmare the other night. He’d righted it without noticing the damage, but he noticed it now, couldn’t look away from it.
Without a conscious command, his hand skimmed over the fitted sheet on his bed. His fingers found a stiff patch of dried semen, right where he remembered making love to DG last night.
It couldn’t be.
His mind must be playing tricks on him. He couldn’t really be smelling the melon scent of her shampoo on his pillow. He couldn’t have really spent a handful of glorious nights with a ghostly dream girl. Not only was it impossible; it was laughable.
Except he wasn’t laughing.
He was hurting. He missed DG with a vicious longing.
Suddenly, he couldn’t stand being in his bed without her. Growling out a curse, he went to the kitchen to eat his sandwich. It tasted like sawdust. He swallowed it anyway, bite by dry, tasteless bite. Finished with dinner, he dragged his laptop across the table and fired it up. In desperate need of some cheer, he logged on to Facebook and pulled up Haley’s page. At Deidre’s urging, he kept an account and checked it weekly to make sure Haley wasn’t getting into any trouble online. He rarely did more than scan. Tonight he took his time reading the dozens of get-well messages plastered across her page from friends and teammates, and let the innocent greetings warm his heart. He chuckled at a picture of her holding up her purple cast and shrugging dramatically. He wrote under the photo, Tough break, kiddo. Feel better. Dad.
Did the woman in the hospital have friends and coworkers leaving messages on her Facebook page? Get well soon, Camilla. I hope the jerk that cut you off rots in jail.
His gaze flicked to the search box. He could type in her name. If she was on Facebook, he could see what she looked like. He could see whose life he’d wrecked with a single stupid decision.
Bad idea. Knowing her name was hard enough. The last thing he needed was a face to put with the hard knot of guilt in his stomach.
Call him a masochist, but he typed Camilla Arlington into the search box, anyway. With a mix of dread and morbid curiosity, he hit enter. The page refreshed, and his vision tunneled to the avatar that topped the search results list. He clicked on the image to see it larger.
The woman had her face lifted to the sun. She wore an innocent, joyous smile. She had thick, shiny auburn hair, naturally beautiful fair skin, and eyes as deep and blue as the ocean. His chest imploded, shoving all the air out of his lungs in a violent burst.
Camilla Arlington was DG.
“No.” He slammed his laptop shut and pushed back from the table so hard his chair crashed to the floor. He gasped for air as he stood over his kitchen table.
Images ripped through him one after another. His beautiful, vulnerable dream girl lying in a hospital bed with part of her skull missing, DG gripping her steering wheel as his big truck cut her off, DG afraid, DG hurting.
DG knowing he was the one who had hurt her.
“No! Derek, you fucker!”
His entire body coiled with the urge to do violence. He wheeled around and laid hands on the first thing he saw. His refrigerator. With a murderous grip on each side, he rocked it forward and slammed it to the floor on its side. The shelves and contents banged around inside.
Seething with self-loathing, he kicked the side-by side doors until they dented and the lower one fell open. His fridge was wrecked, but the damage didn’t satisfy the monster within. Maybe if he’d had his steel-toes on, but despite the pain shooting through his stocking feet and ankles, he needed more. With a roar, he ripped the upper door off its hinges and threw it across the kitchen. It crashed against his stove, making the oven door drop open.
Panting, he surveyed the wreckage and pulled at his hair. Condiment jars and bottles of beer littered his floor, some of them shattered. A pool of water and foam spread from the battered corpse of his fridge across the linoleum, and tracked toward the back door. And still, his hands shook with the need to hit.
He didn’t recognize himself. Not even his father in his worst fit of temper had ever looked quite as crazed as he felt just now.
Tracking sticky debris down the hall, he strode to the basement and laid into his heavy bag without pausing to put his gloves on. The seventy-five-pound bag danced, making the rafters groan against the bolts. He hit the bag until sweat soaked his shirt and dripped into his eyes. He hit it until his knuckles swelled and cracked. Then he hit it some more.
Sweat blurred his vision. Tears too. He sobbed out his misery with every punch.
Finally, he stumbled back and landed on his ass with a pillar at his back. “Derek, you fucker,” he repeated, this time in a voice as small and pathetic as the man he was.
He’d wondered what had ripped DG away from him too many hours before dawn last night. Now he knew. He had. When he’d put her in a coma.
He’d nearly killed his dream girl before he’d even met her.
* * * *
The trailer door squeaked open, but Derek hardly heard it. He was in the zone. Phone calls, emails, scheduling meetings, approving plans, putting out fires. It wasn’t fun, but it sure as hell beat thinking about last night. Or later today.
“Jesus, Summers, what’d you do to your hand?” Fred tossed his hardhat in the extra chair.
The hand in question tightened around a pen, making the bruised and scabbed knuckles throb. “None of your goddamned business, that’s what.”
As soon as he said it, he wished he could take it back. That had been harsh, even for him.
Fred had busted his ass this week to help pull the site together for the walkthrough while Derek took care of Haley and turned himself in. The construction engineer deserved a pat on the back, not a verbal lashing.
He threw down the pen and wiped a hand down his face. “Sorry, Fred. It’s been a rough week.” Funny how the S word was free flowing out of his mouth these days. He’d said it to Haley. He’d said it to DG. Now Fred, who waved away the apology.
“No wonder, what with your kid breaking her arm. That’s the worst. You wish you could take it for them, you know.” Fred had five kids, all grown now, but over the years, Derek had heard stories about each one.
He had Haley on his mind, of course, but she wasn’t the reason for his short temper today. “Yeah,” he said. “You need something, old man?” He whipped out the nickname, hoping to get back on familiar footing with the CE.
“Just coming in to let you know the chillers are in, one and all. Good job, boss.”
His lungs relaxed a fraction. At least something in his life was going right. He snorted at Fred’s praise. “Like I had anything to do with it. You’re the man, Fred.”
Fred sauntered out of the trailer, and Derek glanced at his computer clock. Almost two o’clock. That left several hours for the crew to get everything connected. They’d be good to go for the walkthrough. Now if he could just pull his personal shit together.
If he could stop hurting the females in his life, that would be really good. Figuring out how to make up for the mother of all hurts, that would be even better. What he’d done to DG—Camilla—went beyond hurt feelings. Way beyond. It went beyond the forgivable.
He’d spent most of the night going back and forth between chomping at the bit to see her, and dreading it. It had been tempting to call off the visit to the hospital today. She probably didn’t even remember him. She’d been in a coma when they were together. If she remembered him at all, he probably seemed like a dream to her. He had probably faded from her memory, like the nightmares were finally fading for him.
But Camilla had asked to see him the very day she’d woken up, right after the officer gave her his name, according to Christy. It’s not like he’d ever been in a situation like this before, but it struck him as unusual for a victim in a car accident to request a meeting with the perpetrator. She had to remember him. Why else would she have asked?
The truth was he couldn’t stand being away from her. He’d run from her once whe
n she’d been hurting and terrified—his dreams had shown him that. He refused to run a second time. And he would be damned if he’d let his dream girl down.
Never again.
He owed her the biggest apology he’d ever uttered. He owed her a lifetime of love to make up for putting her through what she’d experienced last Friday and the weeks and maybe months of recovery she had in front of her. He’d be there every step of the way if she’d let him.
Waving to Fred and the crew, he climbed into his cab and headed out to meet Officer Reynolds, his police escort. He should feel humiliated at needing a babysitter to visit a sick woman in the hospital, but mostly he was just thankful for the chance to see Camilla face to face.
In those rare moments he could breathe past his guilt, he took heart to know she was real. He couldn’t wait to lay eyes on her. Couldn’t wait to hold her hand and stroke her hair and give her back some of the comfort she’d given him. If she’d let him.
She could very well yell and scream at him instead—well, she was on a breathing tube, according to Christy, so she wouldn’t be yelling—but she could hate him. She had every right. If that’s what this visit was about, it would kill him, but he’d take it if it would help her. Then he’d make her see how sorry he was. He’d make sure she knew he loved her. He’d never run from her again.
He parked his truck at the station and went in to meet Officer Reynolds, who turned out to be a heavy, middle-aged black woman eyeing him like a persistent spot of mildew on her bathroom tile. Deidre could learn a thing or two about judgmental looks from Reynolds.
“You the hit-n-run?” she asked.
He sighed and nodded.
“Mmm-hm. Come on. Let’s get this done with.” She ambled out the door and he followed. She made him ride in the back of her cruiser and cut disapproving glances to him from time to time in the mirror.
He didn’t let her get to him. He knew he’d messed up. He had no excuse for cutting Camilla off on Friday. But one bad decision didn’t make him a terrible person. Haley had taught him that. And so had DG. Now it was time to turn things around and be a better man. Hell, maybe he’d even start taking some anger management classes. God and his refrigerator knew he needed a better way to deal with his anger.
“You sit over there,” Reynolds said when they got to Mercy Med’s ICU floor, nodding at a back-to-back line of waiting room chairs. “I’ll let the charge nurse know you’re here.”
She might as well have said, “I’ll let them know someone tracked mud all over the waiting room floor.”
He didn’t sit. He paced, bouncing on the balls of his feet with nervous excitement. He’d thought about what he would say to Camilla when he saw her. He’d considered telling her he loved her, but didn’t want to risk making her uncomfortable. He’d settled on apologizing, then letting her set the pace. How much did she remember? What would she feel when she saw him?
If he had anything to say about it, by the time he left her today, she’d know he cared about her and would be there for her in whatever way she needed.
Reynolds had been gone for a while. What was taking her so long? He peeked around the wall of the waiting room to see her standing at the ICU reception desk. She had her hands on her hips, arguing with a tall blond man in slim-fitting, tailored pants and a lavender dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves. He had on a watch flashy enough to be a Rolex, and his shoes looked Italian.
He dressed just like Mark, Deidre’s pretentious partner at the realty firm.
“Ms. Arlington is not to have any contact with the defendant or vice versa,” he said. “Not under any circumstances.”
“I find it hard to believe your client is bringing suit, based on my talk with her yesterday,” Reynolds said. “What are you, an ambulance chaser? You talk her into suing or something? I can’t stand people like you. You give attorneys a bad name.”
Her words rolled off him without effect. Casual bastard. Derek wouldn’t mind being able to keep his cool like that.
“I’m just looking out for Ms. Arlington’s best interest,” he said. “And interacting with the defendant before the trial is not in her best interest.”
“Defendant?” Derek asked, stepping up to stand shoulder to shoulder with Reynolds. Who did this ass clown think he was?
The man was about six-five and made the most of the three-inch difference in their heights when he looked down at him. “You must be Mr. Summers. Your meeting with Ms. Arlington has been called off. You’re free to get back to work or whatever it is you do. If I had known about this before five minutes ago, I would have picked up the phone to save you the trip.” He turned his cool gaze on Reynolds. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I’m about to meet with Ms. Arlington.” He turned to go.
“Hold it,” Derek said. “What’s going on? Is Camilla suing me?” She had every right, but it surprised him. If she needed money for her medical bills, he’d help her out any way he could, even if he had to remortgage the house. All this was his fault, after all. He also had no problem going to court for the traffic violation. He’d take his lumps willingly, and he resented this asshole looking down on him like he was going to fight every step of the way. “She doesn’t need to do that. I’ll cooperate with her wishes, whatever they are.”
The other guy came to a stop but didn’t deign to turn around to face him head on. “Ms. Arlington,” he stressed, like Derek wasn’t worthy of using her first name, “is considering a lawsuit, though she hasn’t made any decisions yet. When she does, you’ll be the first to know. Now excuse me.” His well-crafted heels tapped the tiles as he strode down the hall to the patient rooms.
Derek took off after him with Reynolds breathing down his neck. “Mister Summers,” she hissed, curling her fingers around his bicep. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m not clear on something,” he said, directing his voice at the man’s back. There was something strangely familiar about him, and something didn’t feel right about all this.
The guy stopped. This time, he turned all the way around, and lowered his head, like he was looking at Derek over nonexistent glasses. Condescending prick. “I’m not sure what it is you don’t understand, Mr. Summers. You’re not welcome here.”
Derek put his finger on what was bothering him. This jerkoff had way more hostility in his voice than appropriate for someone with the emotional distance of an attorney. A pang of jealousy assaulted him. Could this man be more to Camilla than just her lawyer? Boyfriend? No. That didn’t feel right.
He narrowed his eyes at the guy and realization struck him. He’d seen that blond hair before, only lightened with silver at the temples. The face was the same as the one he’d seen on the rainy roadside in his nightmares with a couple of marked differences. The eyes were darker blue, like Camilla’s, and there were no laugh lines creasing the corners. Here was a younger, more arrogant version of the man he’d mourned each time his attempts at resuscitation failed.
Which meant Camilla was the girl whose body and mind he’d shared in those nightmares.
Now that he saw it, it was so obvious. How could he have missed the connection? She’d found her way into his dreams; he’d found his way into hers.
“You’re her brother—”
A feminine squeal from behind him cut him off.
“Cade! Is that you?” A short auburn-haired woman with sunglasses perched on her head and a big purse on her arm dashed past him and Reynolds and pulled the other guy into a fierce hug. “You got my messages. Oh, thank you for coming. She’s just down the hall here. How was your flight? How’s the firm? Oh, Cami’s going to be so thrilled to see you. My, you’re looking fit. How’s LA?” Her voice faded as she ushered him away.
She’d been completely oblivious to him and Reynolds, just like a mom who hadn’t seen her son in a long time and had eyes only for him. The man—Cade—shot a smug look over his shoulder as he draped an arm around his mother. The pair disappeared into a room halfway down the hall.
Derek had half a m
ind to go after them. Camilla’s brother was throwing around his weight as a lawyer before he’d even talked to her. Asshole. Based on the exchange he’d just witnessed, he’d bet good money Camilla hadn’t even known her brother was in town. He doubted she was planning to sue him, although he didn’t rule out the possibility the jerk would try and talk her into it.
He huffed a pent-up breath, releasing the pressure in his lungs. Try as he might, he couldn’t stay mad at Cade. Derek had put his sister in the hospital. If he ran into a person who’d hurt one of his brothers or Haley, he’d be hard pressed not to pummel them into the ground, let alone keep a civil tongue. At least Cade had been professional. Mostly.
And hell, maybe he was right. Maybe seeing him was the last thing Camilla needed. She had her family around her. Which he hadn’t expected. In his bedroom, she hadn’t had anyone but him. She hadn’t even had a name. Despite her soft strength and her natural compassion, she’d been scared and insecure. She’d been utterly alone. She’d needed him every bit as much as he’d needed her those nights. When he imagined Camilla in real life, he’d imagined her needing him the same way. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
What an idiot he was for thinking he could just march into her life with an apology and they’d be able to pick up where they’d left off the other night. This wasn’t some dream. This was reality. Lt. Christy’s words came back to him as he’d summarized Camilla’s injuries, and he felt sick all over again. He’d caused all of it. Every stitch and bandage was on him.
Did he really want to see her like that? Could he stomach it? Would she really give a rat’s ass about his apology? Would her brother? Her mother?
And knowing this wasn’t her first car accident, he felt even worse. No wonder he’d been so freaked in his dreams when he’d relived Friday’s accident from her perspective. She’d been terrified of driving on the freeway, and now he knew why. It made her think of her father, and the guilt she had no business shouldering but clung to anyway.