by Naomi Niles
I chuckled. “Cupid hit me.”
“Oh, c’mon, it’s not that simple. You used to be hard and almost mean. You didn’t give a crap about anyone but yourself. Where did all that go?”
I shifted in the booth and kept my voice low. “I don’t understand, Silver. I figured you’d want me to be a little more settled down. I’ve been doing this act for a while now, getting ready for the day that I finally found you.”
Her eyes narrowed and she looked around before responding in quiet voice. “I don’t want you changing for me, Blake. If you change for someone, you’re giving in. It won’t last. I don’t want to get mixed up with someone who’s going to change back into someone else down the line.”
My mouth was open and I could hardly believe what I was hearing. “I thought you’d like it,” I rationalized.
“You thought wrong. I don’t like this—not one bit!” she had become almost vicious in her tone of voice. Where was this coming from? One moment we’re lovers getting married and the next, she’s a viper ready to bite me.
“Silver, I don’t get you. I thought you wanted me to be a decent guy. Isn’t that what every woman wants?”
“Yeah, right …” she sneered. “Decent guy. You’ve been screwing my sister, haven’t you?”
I could feel my head snap back like I had whiplash. “What the hell are you talking about?” Where had Silver gone and who was this woman in the other seat?
“Yeah, she told me. She let me know that you two were an item now.”
I held up both hands. “Look, Silver, I don’t know where she got that. I never laid a hand on her. She has her end of the house and her company; I’ve been alone. Hell, I’m hardly even there anymore. I’ve been on the circuit.”
“She doesn’t seem to think so,” she spat and signaled the waitress to come and retrieve the dirty dishes.
As the girl stacked the plates and casually chatted with Silver, I sat there and steamed. I had no idea what was going on and why Silver was choosing to attack me. I didn’t like it; not one bit.
The dinner was cleared and by mutual glares, we agreed to leave. We climbed into her car and it was a silent trip back to her house. When we got there, I got into the truck and started the motor. I rolled down the window and waited for her to come around to my side.
She walked up close to the truck and leaned a leather-gloved hand on the edge of the door. “So?”
“So … what?”
“So, did you screw her?” she asked, her voice full of venom.
“Hell no, I didn’t. Ask her. She’s nuts if she tells you otherwise. I’ve never touched her.”
“I find that a little hard to believe,” she said. “You have a certain reputation among the ladies, you know. How could you have one under your roof that long and not dip into her?”
“Silver! What the hell has gotten into you? You weren’t like this when we left? It’s like someone put another head on you. Snap out of it.”
“Remember you said you’d leave when I asked you to?”
I felt myself walking into the trap. “Yeah.”
“Okay, you got it. Leave. Don’t come back. You’re not the man I fell in love with and I don’t want a lying bastard hanging around here just because I have his kid.”
I was so astonished; I literally did not know what to say. It was as if Silver had disappeared, only to be replaced by this hateful creature who listened to nothing I was saying and chose to accuse me of things that simply weren’t true.
“You sure that’s what you want?” I asked her in a steely voice.
“I’m sure. Go on. Get out of here!”
“It would be my pleasure,” I snarled and hit the shifter into reverse. I spun gravel at her as I backed out, hit drive, and was gone before she got a chance to kick me yet again.
Chapter 19
Meli
I saw his taillights turn the corner at the end of the block and I managed to stay on my feet until I was sure he couldn’t see me. That’s when I collapsed onto the lawn and began sobbing helplessly. That had been the hardest thing I’d ever had to do.
I hoped he wouldn’t come back. I wasn’t sure I could go through that act again. I had to ask myself if what I’d done was the right thing. How could an act of love feel his lousy?
I picked myself up from the grass and went inside. The house was quiet as I’d let myself in. Sarah was staying in her room and Kirk was fast asleep. I quietly opened his door and stood in the doorway, watching him sleep. He was the spitting image of his father. I could barely stand to look at him. I closed the door and tiptoed down the hallway to my own room.
Once inside, I gave way to fresh tears. I kicked off my shoes and threw myself atop the thick comforter. It literally felt like my heart was breaking in half. I didn’t know if I could live with the pain.
I heard a noise downstairs and froze, mid-tears. Reaching into my nightstand, I pulled out the revolver I kept there and quickly removed the guard lock. Without turning on lights, I sneaked to the doorway and slid the door open. I could hear a noise coming from the living room area and my heart was pounding.
I inched down the hallway, checking quickly to make sure that both Kirk and Sarah were asleep in their rooms. I didn’t want to awaken either of them; it could give whomever was trying to get in a hostage.
One by one, I crept down the stairs. I cursed myself for not having installed the home security system the realtor had suggested. I told her I was a New York City gal and nothing scared me. I was wrong. There was definitely at least one person coming into my house.
At the foot of the stairs I paused, letting my eyes become adjusted to the darkness of the room. I could hear a scratching noise and recognized it as the effort to raise the window. It was an old house and the windows didn’t go up easily.
I advanced to the living room, wishing that I’d selfishly had kept Blake with me. This was one time I needed a strong, fearless man with me.
I had no way of knowing as I quickly approached the living room window and shot the gun that the man I wanted was, indeed, with me.
I had just shot Blake. I recognized his face as soon as I’d pulled the trigger; I heard his body thump to the ground as he fell. There was silence.
* * *
There was a blood draining scream coming from somewhere in the room. I realized it was coming from me. My adrenaline had been geared for an intruder, when all the while it was simply Blake, coming back to have probably a last word. And I now silenced him, so indeed it was the last word?
There is a commotion behind me as Sarah and Kirk came running down the stairs into the room. I turned and looked at Sarah. “Take Kirk back upstairs and don’t let them come down.”
“Okay. Are you all right?”
“Fine. Just get him out of here please.” I ran through the door and around to where Blake lay on the porch. He was unconscious, but alive, although there was a great deal of blood coming from his upper thigh. Evidently when I had shot, his knee had been on the windowsill trying to raise the window. I ran for my phone and dial 9-1-1.
The sirens began almost immediately. I knew Blake was in serious trouble, the blood was pooling about his thigh. I ran back into the house and clawed open the closet, looking for something that I could use as a tourniquet. I saw the belt of my trench coat and whipped it out of the loops, running back to Blake and tying it about his upper thigh. I pulled the belt as tightly as I could and prayed the ambulance would hurry. My prayers were answered as it spun up my driveway just a few moments later and attendants leaked out and ran up onto the porch.
“What happened?” one of them asked me.
“I thought he was a burglar,” I said in an anguished voice. “Will he be okay?” No one answered me as they were working on Blake. He began to stir a bit, his eyes trying to open as his head was turning from side to side. The attendants removed my belt tourniquet and replaced it with their medical version.
“Do you know who this is?”
I nodded. “His
name is Blake Temple. He’s the father of my son. He lives in Dallas. He’s a rodeo rider, rides the bulls. You can contact Dallas General for his medical records. I don’t think he’s allergic to anything but you’d better check with them to be certain.”
The attendant said nothing but continued to work on Blake to staunch the flow of blood. By this time, the sheriff’s car had arrived and there were deputies on the porch taking notes.
“Ma’am, can you tell me what’s happened here?” one of them asked me.
“This is my son’s father. He was just here and we had a bit of an argument. He left and I had gone up to bed. That’s when I heard a noise downstairs and came down to see a figure at the window trying to open it. I thought it was an intruder, someone who was here to harm us. I had brought my gun down with me and as he began to raise the window, I took a shot. I didn’t know it was Blake.”
“Why was he coming in the window?”
“We don’t live together. He doesn’t have a key. I’m only guessing that he came back to try to heal the argument. I’m so sorry. I would’ve never hurt him in a million years. I truly thought with all this going on in town that this was an intruder coming in to rob or to harm us.”
The deputy nodded and said, “Why don’t we go inside and have a seat so I can get some more details from you?”
I nodded and as the ambulance attendants loaded Blake onto a gurney and wheeled him toward the ambulance, I went inside with the sheriff’s deputy. I told him everything I knew, repeating it over and over again.
“Is there anyone else at home?”
“Yes, my son is upstairs, as is his nanny.”
“Would you call them down so that I may speak with them?”
“Of course.”
I did as he asked, and one at a time he spoke to Kirk and to Sarah while I sat shaking on the sofa in the living room.
“Please? May I go to the hospital to be with Blake?”
“Yes, ma’am. This appears to be a clear case of mistaken breaking and entering. He should not have been coming in through your window. And you should’ve probably waited a bit longer before you took a shot. I have everything I need for now but you will hear from us again tomorrow. Please don’t leave town in the meantime; if you do, check with us first.”
I nodded and ran upstairs to change my clothes. As I came down, I looked to Sarah and could see she was visibly shaken. “It’s okay, Sarah. Why don’t you and Kirk go into the family room and put something on television? Take blankets and pillows and a snack in. The both of you will relax and fall back asleep. Do you think you’re okay? Do you need to see a doctor?”
“No, I think were both just a bit shook up. I’ll look after him, Meli. You go on to the hospital and look after Blake.”
I didn’t waste any time arguing. I gave Kirk a quick hug, picked up my bag and hurried out to the car, heading toward the hospital.
When I arrived, Kirk was in the emergency room. Since I wasn’t legally immediate family, they wouldn’t let me in to see him. I even tried telling them that he was my fiancé. Their rules were strict however and they forced me to stay in the waiting room. I felt so helpless. There was absolutely nothing I could to.
It was almost three hours later before a doctor entered the emergency room and called for the family of Blake Temple. I leapt to my feet and he motioned me into a small consultation room. “I’m not able to tell you any details other than Mr. Temple will survive,” he said. “We consider his condition serious but stable.”
“Thank God. When can I see him?”
“He will be under observation for the time being in our ICU. You should check with the hospital desk for further updates regarding when he’s transferred to a private room. At that point you may visit according to normal visiting hours.” He left the room, closing the door with a hard pull as though he were disgusted with me.
I couldn’t blame him. I had done the unforgivable: I had hurt the man I loved. The shock was beginning to wear off and tears were streaming down my face. I went out to my car and drove home, shaking and filled with guilty regret. The others were asleep when I arrived home. I went up to my room, lay down across the bed on top of the covers, and from sheer exhaustion, I fell asleep.
Blake was still in the ICU when I telephoned the next morning, but by the afternoon he had been transferred to a private room. I hurried to the hospital, intent upon seeing him. I asked at the front desk for his room number.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Mr. Temple has requested no visitors for the time being.”
I staggered backward at these words. He had obviously left these orders intended solely for me. Of course he knew no one else would know what happened or that he was even in the hospital. I left the hospital with a black cloud hanging over my head. I couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything other than how misguided my intentions had been. I had planned to help him, when in return I may have may well ended his career forever.
That next day I kept calling the hospital, hoping his directions had changed. I vacillated between trying to focus on work, but the sorrow and regret of what had happened kept bringing me back. Finally, that afternoon I called the hospital and pretended I was florist calling for Blake’s room number. With that information, I headed back down there and simply walked through the emergency entrance to the bank of elevators. I wrote went up to his floor and headed toward his room. The door was only open a couple of inches, so I pushed on it gently to go inside.
Blake was lying in the bed, a massive bandage around his upper thigh. He was pale, and I knew he had probably lost a great deal of blood. “Blake?”
He looked up at me and a frown blackened his face. “You need to leave, now.”
“Blake, you don’t understand. I thought you were a burglar.”
“How convenient.”
“Blake, I swear it’s true. What did you think would happen by coming into my window?”
“I was coming back to straighten things out,” he said. “I never expected to find a raging mad woman.”
“I guessed that now, but at the time I was scared to death. I thought you had gone. I am so very, very sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t cut it, sister,” came the words from the corner of the room.
“I swiveled my head and there sat Jill in a chair. Her face held a look of contempt, and my own turned to a look of jealousy. Why was she here?
“Blake doesn’t need your kind of help,” she told me in a cold voice. “I’m here now. I’ll take care of him. You go home and don’t come back.”
I looked to Blake and I could see multiple emotions crossing his face. However, his words sealed the deal. “Go home, Meli. I’ve got this.”
I nodded slowly, tears attempting to wash the guilt from my face. I slowly turned and walked out of the room and down the hall. All I could think of was that he had called me Meli.
And the image my own sister, my Jill whom I had always protected, always looked after. There she was, sitting in the room of the man I loved and claiming him for herself. I knew he needed to be away from me in order to find himself again, but I had never expected him to find himself with her.
Chapter 20
Blake
I lay in the hospital bed, steeped with anger. I had come to find Silver, and was willing to change my life in order to be with her and our son. Not only did she reject me, but she made sure I would never come back again, and in more than one way.
The bullet had torn into the muscle of my thigh. The doctors told me that the muscle had been destroyed, complicated by the fact that I had had so many muscle injuries in that leg in the past. I was also not as young as I used to be. The combination would keep me from a comeback. I had nothing now.
Jill sat in the corner, a smirk on her face. I saw it then. She was jealous of her sister. Silver had gone on and done things with her life and raised her from their childhood beginnings. Jill, on the other hand, had followed in her mother’s footsteps and was destined for the streets. She wanted what Silver had, and
would do anything in order to get that. That included me.
For the time being, I would keep Jill around. I would need help at home, after all, and she needed a place to live. She would earn her keep for once, and then I would find a way to set her on her own.
Silver’s betrayal tore at me in a way that the doctors could never put back together. I staggered beneath the realization that despite the happiness of the previous two days, I would not have my family with me. She had seen to that. I didn’t know what happened that last evening. The woman I loved had suddenly turned into a cold, calculating witch. She punched me with every verbal fist in her arsenal, and I had no idea what I did to deserve that. I really was trying so hard.
I would go back to Dallas for the time being. I’d have to make some hard decisions about my life. Silver had been my goal for so long, and in the last couple days adding my son to that, seemed to be the pot at the end of the rainbow. That was all behind me now.
The doctors kept me in the hospital for another week, releasing me to physical therapy which they arranged for me to take back in Dallas. Jill drove us home; the ride was long and very quiet. She still didn’t know what to say, how to make it apparent to me that she wanted to be with me. I knew this, and I gave her no opportunity to speak up about it. As much as it hurt to be rejected by Silver, I did not want to get involved with her sister.
We set up the physical therapy and Jill drove me into town every day. The pain in my leg was nothing compared to the pain in my heart. I worked hard, as that would let me quell the demon was inside of me. I might not be able to ride again, but that wouldn’t stop me from doing something different. I only had to make up my mind what that would be.
I spent most afternoons out by the pool. It was where I remembered her; where we had been the closest. I sat for long hours and thought about her, what she and my son were doing at that moment. I imagined that she had looked for a new location for restaurant. I realized that I might never see her, or Kirk again.
That was when a cold resolve began in the pit of my stomach. Silver may have decided she didn’t want me in her life, but I had yet to decide that I didn’t want my son in my life. He was my son, after all. I was entitled to see him.