by Vonnie Davis
Poor Jackson. Chief of police goes on a lingerie-buying spree. She opened the bag to see what he’d bought. She laughed when she pulled the items out: a plain white underwire bra and bikinis. No lace. No frills. A female version of “tightie whities.” There was also a white and pink flowered blouse and a pair of jeans. Pink flip-flops were at the bottom of the bag.
She’d have to thank Sunny for talking him through his buying spree. Once she got back to the ranch, she’d write Jackson a check to cover what he’d spent. More than ready to get out of there, she hoped to make a detour by Storm’s room on her way out.
****
Storm closed his eyes and sighed. He was dog tired—too many doctors poking and prodding. He had the energy of roadkill right now. He pressed the button twice on the morphine drip. Within minutes, he was asleep.
She was kissing him. Warm, sweet kisses gently placed on his forehead, his cheeks, his mouth. Instinctively his arm banded around her, drawing her close. She smelled of Armani Code. Pilar. His eyes shot open.
“Darling, I came as soon as Desiree called.”
“Desiree?” Nurse Godzilla? She knew Pilar?
“I brought you red and yellow roses.” She waved her hand toward a vase sitting on a stand next to his bed.
He tried sitting up and winced. “Flowers are very nice. Much obliged. How’d you know I was here?” He was trying not to show his irritation.
She sat and crossed her legs. “Your nurse, Desiree, is a sorority sister of mine. We’ve known each other since college. She called me this morning when she got off work. I was shocked to say the least. To be shot in your own attic; why, it just doesn’t bear thinking about.”
He shrugged his good shoulder. “One of those things.”
“I’ve had my mind on you for days, on all the things you said to me, the gentleness you showed me at the mall.” She opened her purse, removed a linen handkerchief and blotted her eyes. “I’d like another chance. I’ll do whatever it takes to get you back.” Her chin quivered.
“Now, we talked about this at the mall.” This was definitely the last conversation he wanted to have right now, when he was so tired. A wave of pain washed over him and he winced, breathing through his teeth. He pressed the button on his morphine drip again.
Pilar stood and leaned over him; twin tears spilled onto her cheeks. “Please. I can’t live without you.” She kissed his neck. “You know I’ve always been good to you.”
He did know that, which played on his guilt. She’d treated him well except for the cheating and being born Pilar Fontaine instead of Rachel Dennison.
She sat on the edge of his bed and lay next to him. “Please hug me. Hold me.” She sniffed back a sob and laid her head on his shoulder. “What will my life be like without you? Who is this Rachel person? Don’t you care for me at all?”
His arm slid around her waist. The morphine was making him sleepy. If only he could get her to leave so he could slip into oblivion. A stab of pain slammed into his side, and he pressed the button again for another dose. “Don’t worry about Rachel. Of course I care for you. You’ll be fine. We’ll go on with our lives, me and...” Darkness swallowed him.
****
Rachel held her hand up. “Stop. Please stop!”
The elderly volunteer brought the wheelchair to a halt. “What’s wrong?”
Wrong? Everything. Everything was wrong. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going in that room. He has company.” She was going to be sick. Her heart had shattered into a million pieces on her lap. Pilar was in his bed, in his arms, just as she had been during the night. Now Storm was telling Pilar not to worry about Rachel, that they’d be fine. She crossed her arms over her chest. When would she learn not to trust what he said? “Let’s go, please.”
The volunteer turned the wheelchair around. “Just as well. My job is to take you directly to the entrance of the hospital to meet your ride. I didn’t feel right about making this little side trip.” The white-haired woman pushed the elevator button, obviously eager to be rid of her troublesome charge.
Visitors stepped onto the elevator with them. “Kate, did I see you talking to Pilar Fontaine?”
“Yes, she was on her way to visit her fiancé. He was shot, you know. Poor dear was frantic.”
“I heard about it on the news. Some nut had abducted his sister’s nurse. There are a lot of wackos out there, you ask me. When’s their wedding?”
“Pilar said as badly as he was hurt, they might have to postpone for several months. Poor man lost a kidney.”
Thankfully the elevator reached the lobby before Rachel dissolved into tears or a screaming fit. She wasn’t sure which. What she really desired was fresh air and distance away from Rosefire, Texas.
Jackson was waiting at the curb with the passenger door of his cruiser open.
“Here’s your young lady.” The volunteer leaned over to put the locks on the wheels. Rachel stood, eager to be on her way.
“Ready to head to the Triple-S?” He helped her in the car and hurried around to his side. “You up to stopping by the office first to sign your statement? Our secretary should have it typed up, ready for your signature.”
“Sure. I’m feeling great. Glad to get that big bandage off.” She held out her arm to show off her smaller bandage. “Then I need to make a stop at a car rental agency. I need a car for a few days until I buy one to replace my little Beetle.” She had to convince him she was good enough to drive. She had to stay perky and chipper, no matter how much she wanted to fall apart.
He glanced in the rearview mirror before easing out onto the street. “What kind of car are you thinking of buying? Another convertible?”
“Don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.” She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, willing herself not to cry. Twice Storm had turned to Pilar after swearing his love for her. She stared out the side window, her vision blurred by tears. In a couple hours, she’d be on her way out of Texas and away from Storm Blackhawk.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Three days later, sweat beaded on Storm’s brow. He leaned on the physical therapist while slowly walking back and forth across the therapy room. He had to make two trips, according to her no nonsense orders. The physical therapy session had been easy, yet grueling. In other words, his little nephew could have breezed through it, while he groaned and grunted with every movement.
Would his shaky legs hold him? Damn the pain. He could have sworn the room grew bigger the longer he shuffled, and shuffling was what he was doing. There was no way one could classify this as walking. Finally, having made the required number of trips, he collapsed into the wheelchair. “That was harder than I expected.” What a humiliating experience.
When the therapist wheeled him back into his room, he could have sworn his bed blinked a neon “welcome.” The therapist helped him lift his legs onto the mattress and covered him. “I’ll get you some fresh ice water.” She refilled his container and then hurried out, presumably to her next patient.
Sunny knocked on his open door. “Hi there, how are you today?” She came in carrying a small bag. “Noella sent a couple banana nut muffins.” She bent to kiss him. “You’re sweating.” She pressed a hand against his forehead, probably checking to see if he had a fever.
“I’ve just had a torture session, otherwise known as physical therapy.” He narrowed his eyes. “You want to tell me why I haven’t had any visitors for three days except Pastor Quinley?” She shrugged a reply. “Why does Rachel only come see me in the middle of the night? Why won’t the hospital allow her to come down here during the day?”
“Rachel comes here at night?” Sunny’s eyebrows rose.
“Yes, but never during the day. It’s the damndest thing. Why is it when I call you or Noella or Jackson, all I get are runarounds? You won’t even let me talk to Sawyer.” He was whining. He knew it and hated it, but he had a strong feeling something was going on.
“Was Rachel here last night? What did she say?”
&
nbsp; “Same thing she says every night. She crawls in bed next to me, whispers in my ear that she loves me, and then we both fall asleep.” What was wrong with Sunny? She acted like she didn’t believe him.
She slowly set the bag of muffins on a table. “Is she here when you wake up?” Her eyes were locked on his.
“No, and I can’t figure out why. How come you’re looking at me as if I’ve spent too many hours out in the hot sun?”
She sighed and fiddled with the handles of her purse. “I think you’ve been dreaming her visits, brother.”
“What do you mean?”
“Has Pilar been here to see you?” She shot him a look.
“Yeah, the other day.” He touched two fingers to his forehead as if to pull out the answer. “Two…three days ago.”
“Did she get in the bed with you?” She rested a cool hand on his arm.
“Well, yes…” His eyes probed hers, and then he closed them as if to block out the truth. “Tell me Rachel didn’t see Pilar in my bed.” How else would Sunny know?
Sunny crossed her arms. “Storm, what are you doing playing one woman against the other as if you couldn’t give a tinker’s damn about either one? I can’t believe you’d do this.”
She really sounded angry with him, and that stung. “What did Rachel say?” Not again. Don’t tell me she caught me with Pilar again. Couldn’t he catch a break? Wasn’t it bad enough he’d been shot and lost a kidney? That he was laid up here in this hospital instead of at home taking care of the ranch? “Tell me everything.”
Sunny sat and sighed. “When she left the hospital—”
“She’s been discharged? Why am I just now hearing this? Wait…she’s been here every night…” Or was Sunny right? Truth be told, his recollection of the first few days after his surgery was muddled—too much pain medication. He’d been sure Rachel was coming to him every night. Had he been dreaming that? Had the morphine driven him to hallucinations? He glanced at Sunny. His sister wouldn’t lie to him; they’d always been honest with each other. “When did she leave the hospital?”
“The day Pilar was here. Rachel asked the volunteer, who was taking her out in a wheelchair, to come by your room so she could see you for a few minutes before she left.”
Dread grabbed his stomach, twisting and pulling. “She saw Pilar in bed with me?”
Sunny nodded. “She heard you tell Pilar ‘that of course you cared for her, that she should forget about Rachel, that you’d both be fine.’”
Storm ran a hand through his hair. “Dammit!” His gaze roamed the room before landing on Sunny. Understanding ebbed in and chilled his heart. “She’s gone, isn’t she? Rachel’s left the Triple-S.”
“Can you blame her? She rented a car, came to the ranch and packed her stuff. She was distraught and angry, going from ranting to crying and back to ranting. She feels you’ve been lying to her all along. Her heart is broken.” Sunny glanced away and sighed. “No, worse—shattered.”
“Oh, mouse.” He groaned. When would she start trusting him? For that matter, when would women he loved stop leaving him? That never-ending feeling of abandonment walked into his heart and set up camp. He exhaled a long, slow breath. “Where is she now?”
Sunny shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think even she knew where she was going. She was in flight mode, not think mode, trying to get away before she completely fell apart. When she called Jackson, she told him she’d keep in touch.”
“Jackson? Why?” Why would she call Jackson and not him? He fought to suppress an insane jealousy. Never in his life had he been jealous of his best friend; why now? Because he felt insecure with Rachel’s leaving. He felt left out because she’d talked to Jackson.
“Rachel asked Jackson some questions about Kyle. Was there a chance he could go free? Was she really and truly safe? Would she need to return for Kyle’s trial? Things like that. Guess she felt she owed the chief of police the courtesy of keeping him informed as to her whereabouts. She gave him her cell phone number so he could contact her about Kyle.”
“But she didn’t tell him where she was going?”
Sunny shook her head. “No.” She leaned toward him. “How could you do this to her? Help me understand.”
“You condemn me, too, sister?” Women—they always stuck together.
“What am I to think?”
His eyes narrowed. “You don’t trust me any more than Rachel, do you? Why is it so hard for a woman to trust a man?”
Sunny patted his arm in what he thought was a conciliatory gesture. “Experience. Once a woman has been hurt, she guards her heart. She looks for fallacies in a man’s character and inconsistencies in anything he says. Just like when a small boy is abandoned, he expects others to abandon him, too.” She cocked her head to the side and regarded him, waiting, he supposed, for her words to sink in.
He contemplated her words. First, his mother. Now, Rachel. He exhaled a deep sigh of pain and…emptiness. The woman he loved was gone. Suddenly, the colorful light floated out of his life. He saw things in muted shades of grays.
“Two nights after my surgery, Rachel came to me.” He shot a glance at his sister. “For real. I didn’t dream this. She crawled in bed with me and slept. A nurse found her in the morning. Turned out the nurse was a sorority sister of Pilar’s. She couldn’t wait to call Pilar to fill her in.”
Sunny nodded, finishing Storm’s retelling of the facts. “And Pilar came charging over with her usual dose of drama.”
“Yeah. I was in a lot of pain and using the morphine drip pretty heavily. I was more than half out of it and thought she was Rachel at first, until I inhaled the expensive perfume I’d bought Pilar for her birthday. Pilar was crying. I was pressing the button on my morphine drip.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Lord only knows what all I said.”
“Which woman do you really want?”
He exhaled a harsh bark of laughter. “You really need to ask? Rachel, hands down.”
“Then tell Pilar, in no uncertain terms, she’s to stay away. Tell her you love Rachel.”
“I’ve done that already to a degree. I didn’t mention Rachel, though, because I’ve hurt Pilar so much already.”
“So Pilar’s feelings take precedence over Rachel’s.” She gave him a look of disgust.
“Hell, no! You’re as bad as Rachel. She said the same thing after seeing me with Pilar at the mall.” His twin stared at him as if he were an idiot. He shifted in the bed and looked away. Was it wrong to keep from hurting another person’s feelings? He’d dated the woman for two years; didn’t he owe her a measure of kindness? He thought of his gut reaction when he’d heard Rachel gave Jackson her phone number, a purely jealous reaction. Maybe, just maybe, he was making the woman he loved feel the same way by protecting Pilar.
“Rachel’s feelings come before Pilar’s.”
Sunny pulled her cell from her purse and handed it to him. “Then call Pilar and tell her. Make the first step in getting Rachel back, because I assure you, no woman wants to play second fiddle to another. It’s what drove Jackson and me apart years ago.” He hesitated, and she shook the phone at him. “Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.”
He took the phone and dialed his ex-fiancée’s number. “Pilar, it’s Storm.”
“Storm, darling, I was just getting ready to come see you.” The woman knew how to put the purr in her voice, he’d give her that. How had he ever endured such phoniness?
“Don’t come.”
“Pardon?”
“I hate hurting you, but I don’t know how else to get through to you.” He took a deep breath. “I’m in love with Rachel Dennison. I fell in love with her the moment I laid eyes on her. I plan on marrying her if she’ll have me. Please don’t contact me again. I want you to have a good life, but without me.”
“You bastard!” she screamed.
“Good-bye. Don’t contact me again. I love someone else.” He disconnected the call. “Was I clear enough?”
“For the average
woman, yeah. But Pilar can be persistent. You may have to repeat it a few times, no matter how much she whines and cries and yells.” Sunny took the cell phone from him and slipped it in her purse.
“Do you think Rachel went back to Yazoo City?” He’d go get her if he was able, but right now he could barely walk across the room. Hell, he still had a catheter shoved up his penis. Wouldn’t he make a romantic sight hobbling to her front door, with one arm hanging in a sling and dragging a bag of urine with his other hand? He ran a hand over his eyes as if to rub away that image of himself. No man liked being weak, least of all him.
“Maybe not right away, brother, but I’m thinking she’ll go back to her home after a few days. She’s too numb right now to think clearly.”
“Do you know her number?” Why didn’t he? Because they hadn’t been away from each other long enough to need to call—until now.
Sunny reached for her phone again and waved it at him. “Speed-dial nine. Don’t be surprised if she hangs up on you as soon as she hears your voice.”
He looked at her for a few beats. Knowing Rachel as he did, he had no doubt she’d hang up, but not before giving him a piece of her mind. Was calling wise? Would that put him on the same level as Kyle, harassing her by phone? He speed-dialed nine and waited for her to answer, suddenly realizing how much he hungered for the sound of her voice.
“Hello.” He closed his eyes, willing himself to say the right thing. “Hello?”
He took a deep breath and willed her to hear him out. “I don’t care how much you cuss at me, what names you call me, just so long as I get to hear your voice.” All he heard was sobbing. “Mouse, talk to me.” Lord, he felt like a heel hearing her cry.
“Haven’t you hurt me enough? Leave me alone, you lying, conceited, manipulative, cheating snake. You spawn of the devil. You yellow-bellied, blue-balled weasel.”
A smile creased Storm’s face. “See, that’s why I love you. Just a few minutes ago when I called Pilar and told her I was in love with you and had been since the moment I laid eyes on you, all she could think to call me was ‘bastard.’ You’re much more inventive.” He heard more sobbing. “Where are you, love?”