But it was too late.
Time stilled for Carlo, the way it did whenever adrenaline flooded his system. The cacophony around him receded, and it was quiet as death except for the heavy pound of his pulse.
He remembered finding Pat lying on the sidewalk. He remembered the slick and hot feel of the older man’s blood between his fingers as he tried to staunch the flow and save his life. He’d lost that battle.
And he’d lose Lucy like he lost Patrick. He could see it all slipping away from him. Her butterfly brightness, her sparkling laughter, their love that could have lit his way for the rest of their lives. He felt it slipping away just as he saw a hand reach up from the pulsing crowd to wrap around her ankle. Just like that, Lucy slipped over the side of the stage and down, down, down, until she was swallowed by the wild throng.
This was why you didn’t love people, he thought, pushing forward even as his heart was trampled.
This was why he refused to love. It could hurt so damn bad. It could make you so damn weak.
* * *
Someone was inside Lucy’s head trying to get her attention by banging both fists on her skull. She squeezed her eyes tighter shut and tried to go back to sleep, but now the someone had a voice besides those insistent knuckles.
The voice sounded like her mother’s.
Lucy allowed her eyelids to lift halfway. That was her mother, all right, with a worried frown between her brows. The back of her fingers felt cool against Lucy’s cheek. “Honey? How are you feeling?”
“There’s a dwarf inside my brain who wants out,” she mumbled.
“That’s our Goose.” It was Sam, sounding a little worried himself. “Other girls fantasize about movie stars, but she dreams of dwarfs.”
She turned her head on the pillow to find him with her gaze, and winced at the movement. “Take it easy, honey,” her mom said. “Slow and easy.”
This time, Lucy moved just her gaze instead of her whole head. Mom, Dad, Sam and Jason. There was a big bouquet of flowers on one of those skinny little hospital tables….
She was in a hospital bed. In a hospital room. Her hand lifted to brush the hair away from her face, but she discovered her arm was too heavy to move.
She frowned at it.
Jason piped up. “We thought you’d like pink.”
She was wearing a pink cast on her forearm. Lucy lifted her gaze to her mother’s face.
Laura Sutton didn’t need more prodding. “Honey,” she said. “You broke your wrist and you received a slight concussion when you fell—well, were pulled—from the stage.”
Street Beat. Silver Bucket. The pyrotechnics, “Mosh Pit.” The real mosh pit in the crowd.
Lucy closed her eyes. She’d brought her volunteers into the midst of all that. Her stomach contracted as she remembered the acrid smell of the white smoke and the frightened faces of the teenagers who moments before she’d happily ushered onto the stage. Not long after, she’d thought the crowd was about to break through security and leap up to overrun the musicians and everyone else.
“Was…” Her throat was so dry, she had to swallow and start again. “Was anyone else hurt?”
“No.” It was her dad who spoke up now, and she knew to trust him. Mom might have tried to soft-pedal the truth, but her father would always give it to her straight. “There were a few squished toes and torn shirts in the crowd from what we understand, but the only one who required a hospital visit was you.”
Her chest loosened a little. “And my volunteers? I had a list in the trailer. Are we sure they’re all accounted for?”
“Carlo mentioned something about it,” her dad affirmed. “He said they were all fine.”
Carlo. The dwarf in her head started on her skull again, using hammers and fists this time. What flack was McMillan & Milano going to have to take for the debacle? She’d been right there, and with her volunteers. Shouldn’t she have seen evidence of the fireworks that were about to go off? Shouldn’t she have been able to keep her volunteers far from any potential danger?
Carlo was never going to talk to her again, even though he’d likely already sworn never to talk to her again, anyway. The new churning in her stomach made a nauseating counterpoint to the banging in her head.
Someone tapped on the door. A nurse. “You’re awake, Lucy. There’s a Claudia Cox out here insisting on seeing you. Do you feel up to it?”
Lucy felt up to finding a hole in the ground, lying down in it and pulling the dirt in after her. But Claudia didn’t take no for an answer, which was actually something Lucy really admired about her. “I’ll see her,” she said.
Jason moved to sit on the end of her bed. The legs of Sam’s chair squeaked against the linoleum as he edged closer to her. “Good God, Goose. You’re going to talk to her now? She’ll rip you to shreds.”
“I’d like to see the woman try it,” Jason replied, his expression grim. “Lucy might have made herself another mess, but nobody but us has a right to say that. Goose has got backup.”
Lucy sighed. Goose had backup, all right, and as she looked at their concerned faces and protectively squared shoulders, she found it hard to resent Jason’s comment that “Lucy might have made herself another mess.” Because she had.
Chanel No. 5 reached her before Claudia did. Then she was there, ignoring every other person in the room to focus on Lucy. “There she is,” she declared, sliding a gold box of Godiva chocolates next to the flowers on that skinny table. “The woman who I—”
“Now, just a minute,” said Jason, in his best tight-ass attorney’s voice.
Claudia kept on talking. “—am hoping will take a job in my offices starting next week.”
“It’s not her fault,” Jason said, as if Claudia’s startling offer had not been voiced. “I know it might look like that, but—”
Claudia’s scathing glance would have melted a lesser man. “It didn’t look like her fault at all. Were you even there?”
“Well, um, I was, but we couldn’t see anything because of the smoke, and the, um, uh…”
“That’s because Silver Bucket broke their contract by bringing in those pyrotechnics. They not only caused all that smoke and confusion, but they also set off the crowd and caused a dangerous situation. A dangerous situation that your sister was instrumental in defusing.”
Jason blinked. “Well, um, uh, we couldn’t see anything, as I said. There was that smoke, and the, um, uh…”
Lucy took pity on him. “Shut up, Jason. You were saying, Claudia? You might have a position for me in concert promotion?”
“For someone who handles details and people the way you do? For someone who knows music and is quick on her feet? For someone whom I think I can mold into a woman exactly like me?”
At her brothers’ identical horrified expressions, Lucy nearly laughed. But not before she wiggled up to a higher position on the pillows. She tried to look as professional as she could wearing a hospital gown and a bright fuchsia plaster cast.
“I accept,” she said. “If the salary’s right, I’d love to work at your offices.” Where, she realized, her hot-pink cast would look right at home. Where, more important, she thought, she’d feel right at home.
* * *
Elise and John arrived on the receding wave of Claudia’s perfume. With her family gathered around her, Lucy learned more about how the McMillan & Milano security personnel had controlled the crowd shortly after she’d fallen. John had called Carlo on the way to the hospital for all the details. Wrench, the rest of the Silver Bucket and their road crew had been arrested.
“The cops had to pull Carlo off the pyrotechnics guy,” John said, sounding smug in that quiet way of his. “If Carlo hadn’t been a former cop himself, they would probably have arrested him, too.”
Then someone turned on the television and there was Lucy on the news. A video camera had caught her demanding Wrench to stop the show to calm the crowd. After she’d been pulled into the pit—the whole room had winced at the sight—the lead singer had
cut the instruments with a slash of his hand. As the fans settled down, the camera had taken one last shot—and in it Lucy had seen a dark figure arrowing through the pack toward the place where she’d fallen.
Carlo found me, she thought. He would have been the one to pick her up and find her help. The hospital would be too much for him, she could understand that. But she knew, just knew, it was he who had picked her up from where she’d fallen and delivered her to the medical personnel.
Then he’d gone back to his dark corner, where he liked to observe life alone.
Later, the family left Lucy in her narrow bed. She tried to get out of bed to go with them, but the nursing staff insisted she stay a few more hours, and she was really too tired to argue. Her eyes closed as the dwarf drumming in her head finally put it on mute.
The room held dawn light when she opened her eyes again. Between the tall box of Godiva and the flower arrangement bristling with birds-of-paradise, she spotted Carlo’s expressionless face.
“Hey,” she murmured. “It’s the right order. You come right after candy but before flowering plants.”
A frown creased his forehead. “Shall I call a doctor?”
“Even an MD can’t make a man better than chocolate.”
“Your head injury…I’ll come back later.” He started to rise.
Blinking, she put out a hand. “You are here. I thought I was dreaming again. Last time it was a dwarf.”
He settled back in the chair beside her bed, and she pushed at the table to see him more clearly. “It is you.”
“It is me.” His hand smoothed the thin blanket where it draped over the side of the mattress. “Are you okay?”
She remembered. “Better than okay. I have a new job! Claudia stopped by last night and made me an offer.”
He nodded, as if taking that in. “Life is looking up, then.”
“Yes.” It was, she supposed. Because last night she’d thought things between her and Carlo were left so awkward that they could never be in a room together again. “You can go now, though,” she said.
His gaze jumped to hers. What was that expression in his eyes? “You want me to go?”
“Well, um, whatever you feel like…” Lucy heard herself stepping into that familiar I’ll-say-anything-he-wants role. Closing her eyes, she took a breath, then opened them again. “You’re welcome to stay. It’s nice to see you. But I know that hospitals make you uncomfortable.”
“A lot of things make me uncomfortable,” he muttered. He smoothed the blanket again, and she noticed the skinned knuckles. So she thought, he really had decked the pyrotechnics guy.
“You’re hurt,” she said, reaching out to brush his fingers with hers.
He caught her hand, then nodded at her cast. “ You’re hurt. I hate that you’re hurt.”
“I understand.” And she did. It was how he’d changed after Patrick McMillan had died in his arms, under his watch. Carlo didn’t want to care that deeply again and so…he didn’t.
Carlo rubbed across her fingernails with the pad of his thumb, his gaze trained on their joined hands. “You’re giving up too easy again, Lucy. You’re willing to take less than you deserve. Less than you want.”
Her heart started beating faster in her chest, as if it understood more than her mind. What did he mean? What was he saying?
“Pat’s death put me in the shadows, Lucy. You lured me out.”
“I’m not a trap.” Her whisper was fierce. “I never meant to trap you.” And if he didn’t want to…to care for her, then she wasn’t going to let it ruin her life.
“Still, I couldn’t resist all the sticky sweetness.”
That had her thinking about sex. About chocolate whipped cream and hot, intimate kisses. “Not fair.”
“All right.” His voice sounded strained. “But Lucy, just don’t tell me that it’s too late. Not now that I’ve stepped into your light.”
She looked up. His face was still stone-hard, so expressionless it made her heart ache. “Too late for what?”
“For you to tell me again what you want?”
Oh, talk about traps. Her heart’s speed went up another notch, but she still wasn’t sure what he was getting at. She only knew she wasn’t going to live a life where she did all the giving and the pleasing and the telling.
“So I have to take all the risk, is that it? You want me to jump and then you’ll decide if the water’s fine?”
He was silent a long minute. Then his gaze met hers. He sighed. “Lucy Sutton, you are one tough woman.”
Apparently he couldn’t see the untough sting of tears in her eyes, because she had the sudden sense that everything was going to be all right.
Carlo brought her hand to his mouth and kissed each one of her fingers. “Here goes, baby. Don’t blink, because I’m about to execute my best dive.”
Lucy’s heart leaped and beat soft butterfly wings that made it hard to breathe.
“I’m in love with you, Lucy. You don’t know—or maybe you do—how much I didn’t want to be in this place, because I thought experiencing those feelings would be my worst nightmare. That they’d make me vulnerable to the kind of pain I felt when Pat died, to the kind of pain I’ve seen on Germaine’s face. It seemed so much easier, more comfortable, saner, never to want to do that…”
“Couple thing,” she finished for him.
He squeezed her fingers. “But then…but then I saw you fall and my vision of a nightmare changed entirely. Never letting you know what you mean to me, never seeing you smile or laugh or even cry—why, baby, why are you crying?—would be so much, much more terrible.”
Leaning across the mattress, he laid a soft kiss on her lips, taking a tear or two away with it. “There’s no time to waste, Luce. I get that now. Will you be my light, my love, my hope for happily-ever-after?”
Later, Lucy would make him pay for proposing to her when she had bedhead and was wearing a faded hospital gown. Secretly she would always think it was the most perfect moment in her entire life.
Later, Carlo would apologize profusely when she complained. Loudly, he would always tell her—truthfully—it was the most perfect moment of his entire life.
* * * * *
Sparks fly in Cabin Fever, the charming contemporary romance series by USA TODAY bestselling author
CHRISTIE RIDGWAY
Cabin Fever
TAKE MY BREATH AWAY
MAKE ME LOSE CONTROL
CAN’T FIGHT THIS FEELING
KEEP ON LOVING YOU
“Equally passionate and emotional, this tale will quicken pulses and firmly tug on the heartstrings... An excellent story that you hope won’t ever end!”
—RT Book Reviews (Top Pick) on Can’t Fight This Feeling
Don’t miss the sweet and sexy Beach House No. 9 series:
Beach House Beginnings
BEACH HOUSE NO. 9
BUNGALOW NIGHTS
THE LOVE SHACK
“Pure romance, delightfully warm and funny.”
—New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Crusie
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If you enjoyed this emotional romance from USA TODAY bestselling author Christie Ridgway, then you’ll love KEEP ON LOVING YOU, an enchanting new romance featuring childhood sweethearts who get an unexpected second chance. Read on for a sneak peek…
THAT CRISP JANUARY night Mackenzie Walker couldn’t help but notice the beauty of the bride and the handsomeness of the groom. All the family and friends at the reception glowed, too, reveling in the couple’s obvious happiness.
The whole lot of them was giddy with gladness, with just one exception.
Not that she’d allow anyone to guess that. Instead, she smiled and laughed and responded gaily to every question thrown her way.
Wasn’t her new sister-in-law’s gown lovely? Of course it was, Mac agreed. Who would deny it? The ivory-colored dress clung to Angelica’s figure, her golden skin showing through spangled chiffon sleeves that began just off the shoulder and ended at her wrists.
Didn’t Brett Walker appear just as comfortable in his charcoal suit and silvery gray tie as he did in his usual uniform of jeans and work boots? No doubt, Mac responded. Her big brother rocked the formal wear.
And what a bridesmaid dress! one of Mac’s cousins exclaimed. Everybody knew those could be dreadful. Hers was not, Mac had to concur. The pale blue was the color of her eyes and it had a flattering, sweetheart neckline with sheer sleeves dotted with crystals just like the bride’s.
Yes, her attire was lovely. That wasn’t the source of Mac’s low mood.
On that thought, she made her way to the bar at Mr. Frank’s, an old-fashioned restaurant and bar with red vinyl booths and dark paneling in the village of Blue Arrow Lake. The lake itself was private and the surrounding lavish homes beyond pricey, because Southern Californians could find stupendous mountain scenery and four real seasons just a couple of hours away from urban centers and sand and surf.
This was a vacation spot for them, but locals lived—much more modestly, of course—in the area, too. Mac’s family, the Walkers, had been here for over one hundred and fifty years, part of the first wave of pioneers who labored up the mountain with their oxen for lumber opportunities and stayed because they fell in love with the land.
She slid onto a bar stool and sketched a wave at the bartender. “Hey, Jim.” His white shirt was starched and his red vest well pressed. “Looking good.”
He beamed, his fifty-something face lighting up. “Nothing but the best for your brother and his bride. We were only too happy to close the place for the reception.”
Though Brett and Angelica had actually run off to Vegas and done the deed in October, they’d decided to celebrate the tying of the knot with all the trimmings once the holidays had passed. It had been a bit of trouble getting the dresses in a timely fashion, but the rest had fallen into place.
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