by Dori Lavelle
Chapter Seven
A week passed, and apart from Melisa’s accusatory words the night of the accident, she had hardly said anything else to Heat. She couldn’t and didn’t want to understand why he’d made the choice he did. A choice that had instantly changed their lives forever. She would have given anything to allow her daughter to live. Even her own life. But he’d made that choice for her. If she condoned what he did, she’d be just as guilty.
“Honey,” Carlene said during her third visit. “Heat chose you because he loves you. One of you wasn’t going to survive the procedure. I know this is hard. I know you’re hurting. I’m hurting for you too.”
Melisa knew that was true. When she’d told Carlene about the baby, they’d cried together for a long time. Carlene knew how much Melisa had wanted that child.
“He had no right to make that choice alone.”
“Sweetie, you were unconscious. Decisions had to be made immediately or he would have lost both of you.” Carlene stroked Melisa’s hair. “It couldn’t have been an easy decision for him. He told me that choosing between two people he loved almost killed him.”
Melisa didn’t respond, just stared into space as she did a lot lately, wondering how her baby would have looked, worrying that she could have been their last chance at a family.
“Do you know when you can go home?”
“Maybe next week…or the week after.” Melisa didn’t recognize the sound of her own voice. She felt like she was outside her body.
“That’s great,” Carlene attempted to be cheerful in case it rubbed off on Melisa.
“No. No, it’s not. I need to be alone…for a while. Maybe I can ask the doctor to extend my stay.” She couldn’t go home, where she’d be forced to speak to her husband about what had happened. Or stumble upon the baby’s belongings. The pink and cream nursery was so beautiful. She had spent months perfecting every detail. Now the baby would never get to see it.
Melisa would never listen in the doorway as their baby girl cooed inside her crib, would never lie with her on the sheepskin rug, tickling giggles out of her. She would never get to comfort her daughter, show her the world. How would she face the constant reminders of how they’d failed to save her?
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you and Heat to live apart. You’ve both suffered a major loss.”
“Deep down I understand why he did it, but there’s a part of me that’s furious with him. I can’t switch it off. I want to, but I don’t know how. When I look at him, I ache inside.”
“Why don’t you come and stay with us for a while? You’ll have all the space you need.”
“No, I can’t intrude.” The truth was, she would have to be around sweet Daria and she didn’t know if she was ready to be near any babies yet. Not even her godchild.
Carlene read between the lines and nodded. “How about staying in a hotel? We could reserve a room for you at the Lux.” The Lux was one of a large chain of worldwide luxury hotels owned by Carlene’s husband.
Melisa laughed for the first time in days. “We’d be broke by the time I left.”
“You’re my best friend. We won’t take money from you. I don’t think Nick would have a problem with it at all.”
“Okay, I’d like that.” Melisa sat up in bed and hugged Carlene. “Thank you so much, for everything you’ve ever done for me.”
“Anything for you. Just promise you’ll try hard to make things right with Heat. He loves you so much and he’s suffering just as much as you are.”
“I promise to try.” She did love her husband—that wasn’t the issue. She just needed time to come to terms with everything on her own first.
***
After two weeks in the hospital, Heat drove Melisa to the Lux in a rented car while theirs was being repaired. Earlier, he had shown up with a bag filled with some of her clothes and other things she might need. She had wanted to take a taxi, but he had insisted on making sure she arrived safely at the hotel.
When she’d told him she needed time to herself, he had been quiet for a long time, then swiped the back of his hand across his eyes. He nodded. His eyes were damp and she could see her grief mirrored in them. He, too, had lost a child. She wanted to reach out and merge her sorrow with his, to make it something they had to get through together, but she couldn’t. She felt emotionally paralyzed. She only saw the man who had chosen her over the baby they had been so desperate to have, her second chance at being a mother. She had never gotten a chance with Ben, and this would have been a new beginning for all of them.
Heat parked in front of the honey-colored hotel, and a valet hurried toward them. He lifted Melisa’s luggage from the car while she stood outside, facing Heat, wondering what this separation meant for them, hoping with all her heart that the distance would somehow bring them closer. The heart that ached inside her also loved him more than anything. But she didn’t know where the hurt stopped and the love for him started. At this point, everything felt the same.
He drew her to him and held her as people drifted past, living their normal lives while theirs was on pause.
“I love you so much,” he whispered into her neck. “Take all the time you need.” He pressed his body closer to her, one hand cupping the back of her head and the other around her back. “I know you’re hurting. I am too. I wish you would let us heal together, heal each other. I wish you would let me breathe for both of us. But I understand. I am so sorry, darling.”
Melisa’s tears spilled hot and unhindered, soaking his T-shirt and drowning her sorrows. If only her tears could form an ocean around her, a sea with waves that could wash reality away. She drew back from Heat and studied his face: his tired, swollen eyes, his ruffled hair, his beard that hadn’t been trimmed in days. Even in pieces, he was handsome.
She needed to know one thing, even though she was afraid of his answer and what it would do to her. “Knowing what you know now, how much agony losing our daughter is causing us, if you had to make a choice between saving me or her again, would you still pick me?”
His eyes didn’t leave hers as the words spilled out of his lips and stabbed her like a dagger through the heart. “I know you might not like to hear this, but I would do it all over again.”
“Okay,” she said, and kissed him on the lips, tasting bitterness and regret there. “I’ll call you.”
She contemplated asking him to come inside, to see where she would be staying, but she resisted the urge. She needed to breathe and she found she couldn’t in his presence. Not while the wounds were still so fresh. He reminded her too much of the future they had been robbed of. Funny how life could change in the blink of an eye. A few days ago they had been complete and happy, but now there was a gaping hole in the life they’d built together, and a rift between them.
Chapter Eight
Heat felt like punching a wall as he watched his wife disappear through the rotating hotel doors. Since the accident, since he had been forced to make a decision that shattered his world, he hadn’t been able to sleep through the night. Although their baby girl was gone, the one thing that comforted him was knowing his wife had survived.
He didn’t know what he would have done if he had lost Melisa. He would have made the same damn decision a hundred times over if he had to. Without her, there would be nothing much left of him. Now, she was walking away, choosing to grieve alone instead of together. She was running, as she always did when things got tough.
He gunned the engine and gritted his teeth. He wanted to be furious with her for what she was doing, but couldn’t find the anger in his heart. He understood her sorrow because it weighed on him as well, crushed him. She will return, he told himself. She would come back to him and they would pick up the pieces that fate had knocked down. But why was it that he felt as if he was losing her forever?
The first room Heat entered when he arrived home was the nursery. From the changing table, he picked up the small panda bear he had won for the baby at a fair. He lowered himself into the r
ocking chair and held it in his fist, as tightly as he squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m sorry, little one,” he said to the empty room. “I’m so sorry.”
He remained in the room for a whole half hour. When he walked out, his eyes were wet. Inside his and Melisa’s vintage-decorated bedroom, he charged straight toward a wall and punched it. Fury buffered the shot of pain. Even though Melisa didn’t blame him for the accident, he blamed himself. He had been running on too much adrenaline and shouldn’t have driven her to the hospital. Now their baby was dead and he had almost lost his wife. Why did he have to be the one to walk away with only a few scratches on his arms and legs when he could have handled so much more pain than Melisa and the baby? How cruel was fate to pick on the weakest?
Although Heat had been robbed of the chance to hold his daughter, he missed her as if he’d known her his whole life.
He had been so ready to move into the next phase of their lives, to be an awesome dad to his child. As a fireman, he spent a lot of time at work, but he had already arranged to reduce his hours, at least in the beginning to spend as much time as possible with the baby and Melisa. He had planned to be a hands-on dad, from diaper changes to feedings and baths. He’d wanted to do it all. Now he had nothing. No baby. And no wife to get through the loss with.
Even as he felt it was wrong for Melisa to walk away right now, he felt he owed her the time alone. He was prepared to wait. And he would support her in any way he could, for as long as she needed to heal. Not that he had a choice.
Chapter Nine
Melisa had often dreamed of spending even one night at the Lux.
She slid the plastic keycard into the slot and pulled it out when the tiny light blinked green. As she roamed around the spacious suite, the plump couches with cream and gold damask covers, the dimly lit lamps, the gleaming mirrors and white marble in the bathroom had no effect whatsoever on her. It could have been any old room. What she wanted more than anything was snatched away before she had a chance to take it.
Without unpacking, she removed her ballerinas and climbed, fully clothed, under the crisp sheets. Burying her head into the pillows, gulping in the fresh scent of laundered bedding, she wept until exhaustion dragged her into the depths of sleep. She didn’t wake until morning.
Chapter Ten
After a light breakfast of poached eggs on toast and fruit, Melisa strolled to Serendipity Lake Park. If anything could lift her mood, it was water.
She had spent six weeks at the Lux and had a semblance of a routine. She ate breakfast in her room, called Josie, who was filling in for her at the bakery, went for a walk, returned to the hotel for lunch, and spent the rest of her day wallowing in misery. If she stopped grieving, it would mean she was forgetting the daughter she had lost. The thought of moving on, as if nothing had happened, left her breathless with guilt.
But this morning, as she walked to the lake, she realized she had to find a way to go on, or else she would lose her marriage with Heat. She had not intended to spend so much time away from him and their home, but each day that passed made it harder for her to go back. He had begged her so many times to return home, but she always asked for a few more days.
When she sometimes invited him to eat dinner with her at the hotel or some restaurant in town, things felt distant between them. But she knew one thing. No matter how much she blamed him for what happened, she still loved him more than she had loved any other man. He had been her first love, and even if she was blinded by grief, she couldn’t see a future without Heat in it. It was time to go back home so they could work through everything together. She intended to surprise Heat in two days’ time.
The park lining the lake was blissfully empty of people. Serendipity was a small town where everybody knew everybody, and Melisa didn’t want people gawking at her, wondering why she was wandering around, with her eyes red and her hair disheveled.
After walking for a while, she chose to sit on the same old, weather-beaten bench she often occupied when she came to the lake and closed her eyes to better enjoy the summer breeze stroking her face and fluttering her hair. A leaf abandoned its branch and landed on her head. She didn’t remove it; it was a small piece of comfort. Sucking in a deep breath of the rain-washed air, which still smelled of dirt, grass, and flowers, she cajoled her mind into transporting her back to the time she had been happiest, to remind her of what she had, instead of what she’d lost.
Against the soundtrack of the water lapping the shore and the leaves rustling, she studied a picture of Ben, the way he’d looked when they saw him at MaryJane Café over two months ago. He was by far the greatest miracle of her life, and seeing him again after so many years still felt surreal. She thought of Heat, his gentle smile, the way his eyes had filled with warmth when he’d gazed at her at their quick but romantic wedding in Vegas. She knew Heat was the man she was meant to be with.
Suddenly, without her consent, an image of Scott’s face formed in her mind, and at that moment, the hairs at the back of her neck rose and bristled. As if an invisible force were pushing her to do it, she turned around and sprang to her feet.
A stone’s throw away, under a tree with low-hanging branches, a man with a well-trimmed beard and wearing a black cap stood watching her, smiling. He took an unsure step forward as she took one back. A chill ran up her spine; her heart thumped. What the hell was going on? Was someone playing a prank on her?
The man held up a hand, palm facing her, and halted. “Please,” he said, and at hearing the familiar deep and silky voice, Melisa’s blood ran cold. She clapped a hand to her mouth and stumbled back, sank to the damp ground.
“Go away… You’re not.” She attempted to get up but her knees were too weak to carry her weight. She used her hands to scramble backward, grabbing onto dirt and kicking her feet like a spoiled child as fear electrified her. “Leave me alone.”
Before she could take another breath, the man was beside her, trying to grab hold of her hands as she flailed at him like a madwoman. It took her a moment to realize she was screaming, the sound scraping the insides of her throat raw. Finally, the strength to fight melted out of her body and fear paralyzed her.
The man held her tight and pulled her to him as she whimpered and shook. “Shhhh.” He buried his face into her hair. “Melisa, it’s okay, sweetheart. It’s me. I’m here.”
A fresh dose of strength flooded back into Melisa and she used all of it to shove him away so hard he fell back against the earth, breaking the fall with his hands. She got back to her feet and gazed down at him with fire burning in her eyes. “Who the hell are you?”
The man’s lips parted, but he closed them again. Instead, he removed his glasses. His grey eyes were unmistakable.
Melisa reached out with her eyes and made contact with his. She held his gaze, bore into it, questioned it. She swallowed the lump in her throat as she noted the pleading, the hurt, the fear in those eyes.
Was she so far gone that she was now seeing her dead husband’s ghost? But how could he be a ghost? She’d felt him as he held her a minute ago—the warmth of his body, his breath in her hair. She’d felt his heartbeat. A heartbeat that was supposed to have stopped seven years ago. She blinked twice to make sure he was still standing there.
He was still there, wearing jeans and a turquoise polo shirt.
The man who stood before her was real. At forty-three, with a beard and longer hair, he looked different. But the one-sided tilt of his lips when he smiled was the same one that had once sent her heart racing.
Melisa still couldn’t move any part of her body. With every ounce of strength she had, she parted her lips. “Sc… Scott.”
He blinked and nodded. “It’s me,” he said cautiously, afraid to chase her off or have her attack him again. He picked himself up off the ground and attempted to dust himself off, but his dirty hands left streaks on his jeans. He didn’t seem to mind. He approached her again, slowly.
Before the rational side of her brain could take over, Melisa flung hers
elf into his arms and buried her head into his shoulder, soaking his clothes with hot tears. As both shock and relief flooded her body, she tightened her arms around him, clutching him as if afraid he might turn into thin air any moment. He wore the same spicy cologne he had when he was… alive. She shoved him away again, wiped her eyes, and raked a hand through her hair. “I’m crazy. This… this can’t be happening?” She shook her head.
“No.” He blinked away tears and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “You’re not. I’m really here.”
“No… You can’t be.” Tears scorched her cheeks as she remembered the day he was buried, a freezing day with the scent of wildflowers perfuming the air. Pain had twisted her stomach when she’d watched his casket being lowered into the ground. A dark cloud had wrapped itself tightly around her until she couldn’t breathe. For years, she couldn’t breathe. When he died, it was as if a light switch inside her heart had been flicked off, allowing the darkness to shroud it. “What the hell…”
Scott backed away again as the relief in her amber eyes turned to molten lava. He held up his hands. “I can explain.”
Melisa titled her head to the side and squinted. She didn’t say a thing. She wanted to. But what could she say to a dead man? What could she say when she felt she was going crazy? But he was standing right in front of her, and it could only mean one thing. She was afraid to let it register inside her mind. “You didn’t… You wouldn’t…” Her knees gave way and she stumbled to the bench where she slumped back, legs knocking against each other. “What did you do? Where the fuck were you?”