A few minutes later, the closet door opened and a hand pulled back the cover of clothes. “Oh, little man, little man,” a warm, rich voice said. “Who you got there? Your baby sister?”
Josh pushed away from the desk and stood. His shaking hands clenched the top of the chair as he took several slow, deep breaths to try to slow his racing heart. He’d shut that night away in the furthest, darkest corner of his mind and left it there. The sudden outpouring of memory overwhelmed him. The sense of suffocation under the pile of clothes, the sweet smell of Kimmie’s hair, it all came back. The ice-cold terror. All of it closed in on him.
Finally, as if in answer to his silent wish for guidance, the warmth of that cop’s voice entered his mind again. The tender hands that lifted him and Kimmie from the closet. It was like a splash of cold water, waking him up from the dream, the nightmare, the cold place he’d already begun to let seep into him. Everything had been wrong and now, all of a sudden, there was kindness, and he didn’t even know why.
He slammed the chair against the desk. Heart pounding, he spun around, looking for something, anything, to hit, to destroy. The bastard. Murderous cowardly son of a bitch. The sound of the front door opening was the only reason he didn’t punch a hole through the wall. Get yourself together.
“Hey, Josh, you back there, man?”
Calm washed over him at the sound of DeShawn’s voice. A surface-deep calm, but enough of a facade that he could act normally. Just as he’d done most of his life. Act. He left the office. “You all done for the day?”
“Yep. Unless you’ve got something for me to do?”
“No. Wait. Yeah. I let Mickie go a little early. Can you hang out for a while? I really want to get to the gym before the after-work crowd shows up.”
DeShawn flopped down on the couch. “Not a problem. Go get some lifting in. You’re starting to look flabby. Been meaning to say something.”
“Right, dude. You might want to work that core while you’re lazing around on my couch. Looking like a busted can of biscuits over there.”
DeShawn pointed a middle finger at him and Josh laughed as he grabbed his gym bag and headed out the door. The familiar feeling of the back-and-forth trash talk calmed him enough that he no longer wanted to put a fist through Sheetrock, but he still couldn’t wait to pull on some gloves and go a few dozen rounds with the punching bag.
He’d known digging around in this was going to stir up old feelings. He hadn’t realized how strong and fresh those feelings were going to be. Talk to Sadie. Problem was, once he got Sadie involved, she wouldn’t let him quit. She’d want him to see it through to the end. And he wasn’t sure he had the strength to do it. He’d spent years disciplining himself. Yoga. Meditation. Martial arts. Learning to calm his mind and control his body. But when the dark things came slipping out of the corners of his mind, he was still as helpless as the five-year-old boy he’d been. And helplessness made him furious. And the monster lived in the fury.
Can you face this and not release the monster? He didn’t know. It seemed like his only choice was to continue living this half life or risk destroying everything and losing everyone.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE STACK OF index cards was six inches high. Mickie knew this because she’d measured it. The stack represented every class she’d taken, every test she’d taken, all the accumulated biology, chemistry, human anatomy, physiology, psychology knowledge she’d crammed into her brain over the past two years of taking prerequisite classes for nursing school.
And she couldn’t remember a thing. And she was going to completely fail. And she’d end up as a waitress at the Waffle House on night shift, start smoking and live in a trailer park her whole life. She smacked her hands over her face with a groan.
“What’s all this?”
“My doom,” she said, dramatically collapsing forward and pretending to pound her head on the table.
“Sounds serious. Am I going to need a new secretary or is this doom still to come?”
Mickie straightened and huffed out a sigh as Josh crossed the kitchen to perch on the edge of the table. His voice was warm with humor but the small smile lurking at the corners of his mouth didn’t match the look in his eyes. Maybe it was because he was still weirded out by the kiss.
He reached out and took a card off the top of the stack. “Diastolic pressure?”
“The minimum arterial pressure when the, uh... During the relaxation and dilatation of the ventricles... When they are filling with blood?”
“You’re asking me?” He flipped over the card and read the answer. “Yep. Perfect. I think your doom isn’t quite as close as you think.”
“I hope not. Tiana is bringing me some study guides she used for her first year. Apparently, I need to be prepared to hit the ground running from day one and it doesn’t stop until I graduate.”
“Huh. I think you’ll be fine.” He picked up another card. “Nature versus nurture?”
“Easy to answer. Difficult to know. But it’s the question of whether your genetic makeup or the environment you were raised in has more influence on the kind of person you become.”
She smiled up at him. Somehow it was easier to come up with the answers when another person was asking her. Her smile faded at the look on Josh’s face. Any trace of humor or teasing was gone. He flipped over the card and stared at the answer on the back. A frown creased his forehead as he replaced the card on the stack.
“Josh? You okay?”
“Me? Yeah. Great. Listen, I gotta get going. Not much happening today, so hopefully you can get some studying in. DeShawn is coming by later to interview a couple of guys, that’s about it.”
He was gone before she could ask anything more. Because the question on the card had triggered something in him. She clapped her hands over her face. Of course. He was in foster care, you dork. Maybe you could have worded that a little better. She secured the cards with a giant rubber band and shoved them back in her backpack. Grabbing a clipboard, she tried to quiet the stings of guilt by doing the most boring of her duties: counting inventory.
By noon, she had all the office duties completed. As she ate her lunch of a bologna sandwich and potato chips, she propped her feet up on a half-open file cabinet drawer and flipped through the study cards. Glomerular filtration in nephrons. Got it. Blood types. Red blood cells, white blood cells. Easy cheesy. Immune response. B cells. T cells. Yep, yep and yep. Peripheral somatosensation. What the what? She flipped over the card. Oh, yeah. Sure.
The front door opened. She glanced at the clock. “Hey, DeShawn,” she called out. “Your interviews aren’t here yet. But do you know what the hell the Krebs cycle is?”
“It’s the main metabolic pathway in aerobic organisms and the number-one cause of complete mental breakdown in nursing students.”
Mickie spun around in the chair. “Tee!”
Tiana crossed the room to drop a box on the table. It landed with an ominously loud thud. “Look at you, Miss Cutie on Duty! All kicked back and relaxing with a stack of anatomy cards like a good little paranoid nursing student.” She looked over her shoulder and turned back to Mickie. “Where’s all the hot dudes?”
Mickie laughed and stood to begin pawing through the box. “All out working.”
Tiana smacked at Mickie’s hand. “Hold up. Don’t be messing up my system. Each file represents a class. In each, there is the class syllabus along with my own study guide and notes. They are color-coded by semester. First semester is the red files. Second semester is the blue files.”
“Now who’s the paranoid nursing student?”
“Yeah, well, I’ll let you in on a secret. The paranoid, overprepared types are the ones who make it. You can’t half-ass or fake anything. And this is just the class work. Clinicals are a whole other experience. Nothing can prepare you for that.”
“Yeah, I’m most afraid of that. Like they really are going to let me take care of sick people? Me? What if I kill someone?”
“You won’t. I hope. It’s a balancing act. You want to be positive, eager to learn and help the nurse, but you don’t want to get in the way. You will have one patient, the nurse may have up to five.”
“I just hope none of them yell at me and make me cry.”
Tiana laughed. “That may happen. I’ve been lucky. The whole nurses-eating-their-young thing isn’t really as prevalent, I think. I’ve not had any bad experiences in clinicals with nurses. Most have been very helpful and wanted to show me and teach me. The worst was they seemed too busy to really let me try to do things.”
The front door opened again and a voice sang out, “Hey, Mickie!”
Mickie rolled her eyes. “Not funny anymore, DeShawn.”
“Oh, Mickie...” DeShawn’s teasing words stuttered to a halt as he entered the kitchen. His gaze drifted over Tiana. “Hello.”
“Eyes up here, man maid.”
Mickie smothered a giggle at Tiana’s no-nonsense tone. Because she was ogling DeShawn just as much as he was eyeing her.
A slow, sexy grin spread across DeShawn’s lips. Mickie’s eyebrows rose. Hot. He stepped forward and offered a hand. “DeShawn Adams.”
“Tiana Nelson.”
“Tiana is my support person for nursing school, DeShawn. She’s starting her last semester. And DeShawn is just helping us out for a while, Tee. He graduated with a degree in engineering and is going to join the US Army Corps of Engineers.”
Why she was babbling her brains out, she didn’t know. Probably because the two of them were just standing there, staring at each other. Awkward.
Tiana pulled her hand from DeShawn’s grip with a frown. She turned to Mickie. “Girl, I gotta go. Let me know if you need anything else. I’ve got the books, but you know how they change them every year. Show me the list before you buy any.”
“Don’t run off on my account,” DeShawn teased.
Tiana shot him her best withering stare. “Get a hold of yourself, man. I ain’t doing nothing on account of you.”
DeShawn laughed as she left. “I think she likes me. Don’t you?”
Mickie tried out her nurse scowl. “I think you’re insane.”
“I think you’re cute when you try to look mean.”
“I think you should go get ready to do your interviews.”
He gave her a quick, snappy salute. “Yes, ma’am. By the way, you got Nurse Ratched’s number?”
She gave him her own one-finger salute. “I think she’s got your number, DeShawn. Besides, she’s told me herself she doesn’t have time for men.”
“I don’t have time, either, to tell the truth. I’ll be back in the office waiting on the interviews.”
Mickie watched as he left the room. No time. Wrong time. Sounded a lot like her situation with Josh.
* * *
MICKIE MANAGED TO keep her hands off the box of study material until after she’d gotten Ian to bed. When she was sure he was good and asleep, she splashed some wine into a cup. Wineglasses. Nestling down in the comfiest of the donated armchairs, she propped her feet on the coffee table. One day I’ll have real wineglasses.
One day. What a nice place this was going to be. With its matching furniture, dish sets and wineglasses. Beds with mattresses. Cars that didn’t break down. Yep, one day was going to be awesome.
A small smile played on her lips and she let herself dream. Something she tried to avoid. No sense building up hopes that might be dashed. But she could see it. A little house. She didn’t need anything fancy. A cute little cottage in a nice school district. Maybe a park nearby where Ian and his puppy could play. Maybe a Labrador. They were supposed to be good dogs for kids.
She glanced down at the box with a sigh. All that stood between her and one day was in that box. That box, classes, tests. Days spent in the hospital actually providing care for patients. After all that, she would have to pass the big NCLEX test to get her license. And the cherry on top of this mountain was she’d have to pass entry testing at almost any hospital she applied for a job at. She put down the wine.
One day might be closer now than ever, but the obstacles were higher than ever. And she was going to have to climb every single last one of them. The no-men-while-in-school idea was only half-serious. The last two years were going to take all the energy, time and focus she could muster. Taking care of Ian was the only other thing that was going to be possible.
“Well, then. Let’s get started,” she said out loud. The bigger the head start she could get, the less chance of falling behind. First up—pharmacology. What the hell is this? It looked like gibberish. She flipped through the syllabus, her heart pounding, hands shaking. Tiana’s notes were neat and orderly and she still didn’t understand a single word on the pages. She fumbled for her phone.
“I can’t do this.”
“Put the pharmacology down, Mickie.”
“Tee...”
“Why’d you go straight to the worst of it? Mickie, put it down. Go look at the pathophysiology. You’ll actually recognize words there.”
“I...”
“I’m going to say one thing and then I’m hanging up on you. This is what you will be taught. You don’t have to know all this before you start. I gave those to you to help you while you are in school. Do not use them to freak yourself out or I will come over there and take it all away. Got it?”
“Okay.”
Mickie dropped the phone in her lap and put the pharmacology notes away. Pathophysiology. Because that sounds so much better. Rolling her eyes, she pulled out the file. Okay. See. This isn’t so bad. Nodding, she ran a finger along the class outline. Basically it was everything that could go wrong with the human body. Sort of the flip side of all the anatomy and physiology she’d learned. That was all. The phone buzzed in her lap and she snatched it up, thinking it was Tiana calling back.
Unknown number. She hesitated for a moment. Never answer unknowns. But it was local. Might be the school or the day care or one of the other nurses she’d met. She set down the phone. That’s what voice mail was for.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“WHAT ARE YOU being so fidgety about?”
Josh stopped wiping down the kitchen counter and looked over at Mickie. “I’m not fidgeting. I’m cleaning.”
“Dude. I’m the mother of a toddler. I know what fidgeting looks like.”
He stashed the cleaning supplies away with a sigh. He was fidgeting. Sadie was on the way to meet the new hires. He hadn’t realized how much her approval meant to him until now. How much he depended on her. Owed her. He hadn’t spoken to her since their argument. He’d left Charleston without resolving it with her and he knew she was going to want to finish that conversation.
“I’m just getting the place cleaned up before Sadie gets here.”
“What’s she like?”
The question caught him off guard. What was Sadie like? The new one or the old one? “She’s tough, but fair. Doesn’t take bullshit or excuses.”
“Are you worried we won’t be up to her standards?”
Josh leaned against the counter, arms crossed against his chest, and looked at Mickie. A small worry line appeared on her forehead. “No. Not you guys. Me. Sadie and I have a, I don’t know...a complicated relationship.”
Mickie’s worried look transformed to one of curiosity. “Complicated?”
“Yeah. Oh. No! Not like that. God, no. She was raised in foster care, too. We consider ourselves brother and sister. But she’s also my boss. And I don’t want to let her down.”
Mickie crossed the kitchen to him and put her warm hands on his shoulders. He couldn’t breathe when she was so close to him. When those ice-blue eyes looked directly into his
. “You won’t. Didn’t you say the business was growing faster than you anticipated? That’s good, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Just yeah?” Her hands dropped from his shoulders. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those übercompetitive men who has to be better than everyone else.”
That made him laugh. A short, bitter laugh. “No, Mickie, the only person I compete with is myself.”
“Boss is here,” DeShawn called from the living room.
Showtime. Josh pushed himself away from the counter and went out to meet Sadie.
The gathered Crew members were in stunned awe. Josh smiled as he took in their faces as Sadie captivated the room. She made them feel as if they’d won the lottery, not gotten a job as a maid. They were the few, the elite, the Crew.
“All right,” Sadie said after giving her pep talk. “I’ll let y’all get back to work. Josh? Let’s take a look at the books.”
Like a fool, he had dared to believe for a moment Sadie was going to keep the visit purely business. But the moment the office door closed on them, she plopped down in his chair, toed open a desk drawer and propped up her feet.
“So, Wyatt told me he sent you the police files. Have you looked at them yet?”
He sat. “Some.”
“What do you think you’re going to find there, Josh? You know what happened.”
Anger bubbled up but he pushed it back down. “I don’t know. I’m just grabbing at straws, Sadie. I don’t know what I should do.”
“What do you want to do?”
Great question. One that became murkier every day. “I want to not have to deal with this. I want to have had a different life. But I can’t. This is my life. This is who I am. Kim escaped it. I didn’t. I want to not be selfish. I don’t want to want to know her.”
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