Tarah kissed him one last time, then stepped out of his embrace. “If you want back in this relationship with me, Nicholas, you’re going to have to work for it. And I don’t plan to make it easy on you,” she said. She headed toward the room’s door. “I’ll make arrangements for your brother to get your stuff out of my house.”
Nicholas looked stunned. “You don’t want me to come back to Phoenix?”
Tarah stood staring at him for a moment. “No,” she said finally. “You don’t deserve me.”
Chapter 12
Nicholas pushed his Chinese food around on his plate, the sesame chicken and fried rice tasting like dust. He had no appetite, his want for food barely registering on anyone’s radar.
Tarah had disappeared from the family home as quickly and as quietly as she’d appeared. He had tried to chase after her, but maneuvering his wheelchair around his brother’s furniture and the stairs and not being able to run had made that impossible.
His family had been of no help, his siblings sitting down to enjoy their meal as if nothing had happened. Both had actually found something funny about the whole situation.
“Did she have a taxi waiting for her or what?” Nicholas asked, shifting his gaze to his brother.
Noah swallowed his bite of orange beef and swiped his lips with a paper napkin. “No, she borrowed my car. She’ll leave it at the airport, and Naomi will run me over to get it in the morning.”
“She flew in on one of your planes?”
Noah nodded. “Yes. Just like you did. Two hours from door to door.”
“I’d forgotten how pretty she is,” Naomi interjected. “Tarah is so pretty!”
“She is beautiful,” Noah agreed.
Nicholas looked from one to the other. “You two think this is funny, don’t you?”
“I don’t,” Noah said as he took another bite of his food.
“I think it’s funny as hell!” Naomi laughed. “I can’t wait to call Natalie and catch her up!”
Nicholas cut an evil eye at his sister. He turned back to Noah. “Why did you help her leave?”
“I didn’t. Her brother Mason chartered her return flight. She has surgery tomorrow or something like that. Whatever it was, she insisted she needed to get back home tonight.”
Nicholas pushed himself from the table.
“Where are you going?” Naomi asked. “You didn’t eat. You have to eat to keep your strength up!”
“I need to figure out how this went so far left and try to make it right.”
His sister fanned a hand at him. “That’s easy. I really don’t know why you men make things so difficult.”
“What do I need to do?”
“Exactly what you did to win her heart in the first place. Whatever it was that captured her attention from jump.”
Nicholas pondered the suggestion. He lifted his eyes back to his sister. “And if that doesn’t work?”
Noah laughed. “Then you’re going to need to figure out how to handle seeing her with another man at our family gatherings.”
* * *
Tarah slept soundly on her return flight. She knew Nicholas was safe, and that knowledge brought her immense comfort. So even though she was still heated with him, rest came easily. The trip there and back had allowed her to think long and hard about Nicholas and their relationship.
Being with him had been an abundance of firsts for her. He’d been the first to break down her reservations, allowing her to trust that she could be vulnerable with a man and it would be okay. He’d been the first man she’d ever said I love you to. With Nicholas she had always seen what they could do together, never focusing on what he couldn’t do because of his disability. And she had trusted him. Like she trusted her father and her brothers. Confident that he would protect her and not hurt her heart. And he was the first man she had ever gone chasing after.
Her chasing of Nicholas was why she had told him that coming back would not be easy. He would have to want her as much as she wanted him if they were ever going to find their way back to each other. He didn’t deserve her making that easy for him.
It was past midnight when she finally arrived back at her home. After locking the door behind herself, she engaged the alarm system and headed straight for her bed. When the quiet became too much to bear, she turned on the sound system, flooding the house with music. Nicholas’s soft jazz painted the walls with a hint of melancholy. She suddenly missed him more than she’d ever imagined. She missed his smell, his laugh, the sound of his snore when he slept well at night. And she missed his touch, his hands hot and teasing as he held her when they slept, sometimes stealing a pinch when she least expected it. How much she missed his Stallion touch. Tarah allowed herself to cry, her tears hot as they rained down the curve of her cheeks.
* * *
One week after leaving Phoenix, Nicholas began to call Tarah faithfully, his daily messages so numerous and consistent that Tarah could have set her clock by them. She smiled as she pushed the play button on the answering machine.
“Tarah, hey, it’s me. I just wanted to tell you that I was thinking about you and I miss you. Are you ever going to call a brother back? Sometime soon, maybe? Okay, then. I love you, baby. I just want to know that you’re well.”
Her smile widened as she pushed the save button, adding the message to all the others he’d left. After that long week of silence, Nicholas called and kept calling but Tarah had yet to pick up or return one of his phone calls.
Kamaya cut an eye at her sister as she passed Tarah a cup of coffee. “How long do you plan to make him suffer?” she asked.
Tarah shrugged, a smile lighting her face. “Trust me,” she said, “Nicholas isn’t suffering that much!”
Kamaya laughed. “We were all wondering if you saw those pictures.”
Tarah took a quick sip of her brew. “Everyone saw them,” she said, referring to the tabloid photos of Nicholas and that actress from a popular prime-time ABC television show. The leading lady had been posed in his lap, one leg thrown out high, her head tossed back as she squealed with delight. It had been a good shot. The image had come from his first endorsement photo shoot since his accident. Nicholas had left twelve messages to explain it away, desperate for her to know that the leading lady hadn’t meant anything to him.
Katherine set two plates of shrimp and grits in front of her daughters. “You young people play too many games. You better call that boy back before he gets tired of calling.”
Tarah laughed. “He won’t get tired. Nicholas Stallion loves me.”
Her mother shook her head. “Then it’s past time you let him. He’s learned his lesson. You’re not doing anything now but torturing him.”
Tarah met the look her mother was giving her. “It’s not about torturing him. Nicholas needed time to himself. There was a moment, just before he fractured his arm, when I realized he was struggling. All the time we’d been spending together since his accident was great, but it hadn’t given him a chance to redefine who he was as a man. He still had to discover what it would mean for him no longer to be an athlete or never to walk again. He needed to learn that his masculinity isn’t exclusively located below his waist. He had issues to resolve in his head, and he couldn’t do that while we were so busy trying to define who we were as a couple. I realized I had to let him go in order for him to come back and be the man I needed him to be.”
She took another deep breath, holding it briefly before letting it go. “That and I needed to get past being angry with him. Because it really hurt my heart that he left the way he did without talking to me. We can’t do this if we don’t talk. Good and bad. We have to be open and honest with each other. If we’d returned to the way it was, with everything going on with me at the hospital and him feeling inadequate, we might not have made it. Now I think we have a fighting chance
.”
“Even with his challenges?” Kamaya asked.
“I know that whatever his future needs may be, I won’t be able to fulfill them all, and I shouldn’t try. We may need help, and neither one of us needs to be afraid to ask for that help. But I love him, and it scares me to think of what my life would be like without Nicholas more than it does to imagine being with him.”
Her mother nodded. “You never cease to amaze me, Tarah!”
“Me, too!” Kamaya chimed. “Damn, that was deep!”
“What have I told you about cussing?” Katherine admonished her, swatting a hand at her.
The sisters both laughed heartily. They continued talking until the doorbell interrupted them.
“Are you expecting someone?” Katherine asked.
Tarah shook her head. “No, ma’am.”
“I’ll get it!” Kamaya shouted as she jumped to her feet and rushed to the foyer. She returned minutes later, a large bouquet of mixed orange and red freesia arranged in the prettiest vase. “Someone got flowers!” she chanted.
Katherine shook her head, chuckling warmly. “Bless his heart!”
Tarah leaned in to sniff the sweet aroma wafting off the stems. She pulled the card from the envelope and began to read, the assembly of words moving her to laugh until she had to swipe a tear from her eyes. “I told you he loves me,” she said.
Kamaya snatched the card from her sister’s hand, reading the message aloud. “‘Tarah, are you ever going to cut me some slack? It’s hard picking flowers for my girl from my wheelchair. My wheels keep running over the plants! Love, Nicholas.’”
Katherine moved to Tarah’s side, wrapping her arms around her shoulders. “Don’t you ignore that boy anymore!”
* * *
Nicholas dropped his phone against the marble counter of the center island in his kitchen. It had been a long day and he was exhausted, wanting a shower and his bed. He’d had therapy that morning, working with his team of trainers. After that he’d grabbed lunch with his brother and then had gone on to play a game of wheelchair basketball with some new friends he’d made at the rehabilitation center. They’d played hard, and he was now feeling like he’d been run over by a train.
He’d called Tarah. She still hadn’t answered or returned his calls, but he took that as a good sign. He knew her well enough to understand that if she was done with him, she would have sent a message for him to stop calling altogether. There would have been no doubt about her not wanting to hear from him ever again.
Instead their siblings were having a grand time keeping them updated on each other. He knew Nathaniel kept her abreast of his progress, reporting what his new team of doctors had to say about his health. And he was certain that the one time he’d gone to dinner with his buddy after her Wimbledon win, both his sisters had rushed to share the details. He had left messages about everything else.
He’d been excited to tell her that he’d reconnected with some old college friends who were doing a great job holding him down and giving him a hand when he needed it. He’d given her a blow-by-blow of his decision to return to his penthouse apartment in Los Angeles, investing in the renovations to make it wheelchair-accessible. He’d become self-reliant and independent, loving that his paralysis was more of a footnote than the entire essay of his life experiences.
Thanks to her brothers, he knew that Tarah had filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Dr. Harper. His cousin Matthew had kept him updated, passing on the news that they expected him and the hospital to settle quietly in Tarah’s favor. Dr. Harper had since accepted a teaching position abroad, not at all missed by the fifteen women who had joined Tarah in her complaint against him.
Earlier that day he’d learned that she had officially completed her surgical fellowship. She’d passed her board certification exams and had earned her unrestricted medical license. She was also being honored for her achievements in a formal ceremony taking place some weeks to come. Even with the distance between them, they had family rooting for them, and they were always rooting for each other.
An hour later, when Nicholas was settled in watching the ball game on his big screen television, the video chat line on his computer rang. His excitement was suddenly combustible as he pushed the remote to answer it. Tarah’s shining face filled the oversize display.
“Hey!” he said, joy gleaming from his eyes.
“Hey, yourself,” Tara said, smiling sweetly.
“How are you?”
“It’s a good day,” she answered. “Can’t you hear Justin playing?”
Nicholas laughed. “I see your taste in music hasn’t improved since I’ve been gone.”
Tarah laughed with him. “Maybe not, but I’d be willing to bet that you’re still watching reality television when you think no one is looking.”
He grinned. “Some things never change.”
“And some things do,” she said. There was a moment of pause as Tarah allowed the reflections to billow between them. “Thank you for the flowers. I wanted you to know how much I appreciated them. They’re beautiful.” She slid the vase into the camera’s view so that he could see them.
“I miss you, Tarah,” Nicholas said softly. “I miss the hell out of you!”
Tarah’s smile blossomed like the flower buds beside her, the upward curl of her lips lifting slowly. “Can I call you later?” she asked, promises gleaming from her stare.
Nicholas nodded. “If you don’t, I will call you.”
* * *
In no time at all they were back on track, sharing time and space within the confines of their digital world. Tarah’s schedule was still chaotic and his wasn’t much better. The time they were able to video chat or talk on the phone became important to them both.
When Nicholas answered the early evening call, he was surprised to see Tarah and her friend Dana holding two babies, a third woman beaming in the background.
“Hi,” he said, confusion washing over his expression.
Dana tossed up her hand, smiling as if she’d swallowed a Cheshire cat.
“Hey! I had some special visitors today and I wanted you to say hello. They’re going to be big fans one day. Nicholas Stallion, this is Oscar and this is Henry Barton. They had to come in for their checkup today, and their mother asked about you.”
The woman behind Tarah waved excitedly. “My husband and I are big fans!” she exclaimed.
Nicholas laughed. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Barton. And your boys are beautiful!”
Tarah smiled. “These two munchkins are tough, and they’re doing exceptionally well.” She pressed a warm kiss to little Oscar’s cheek before passing him back to his mother. The two women and the babies stepped out of the camera’s view.
“You look good with a baby in your arms, Tarah!” Nicholas said, his eyebrows raised.
Tarah giggled. “Hush your mouth, Nicholas Stallion. What have I told you about cussing at me?”
“I didn’t cuss!”
“No, you tried to put a curse on me. That’s even worse!”
“I did no such thing. I just made an observation.”
Tarah grinned. “I just wanted to say hello. I’m on duty, so I need to run. I’ve got surgery in an hour.”
He nodded. “I understand. Will we talk later?”
Tarah nodded. “Definitely. I was thinking about coming to see you. We can talk about it tonight, but I have some time off soon, and, well...maybe I can come visit?”
“Was that you inviting yourself, Tarah Boudreaux?”
Tarah smirked. “Not at all, but if you want to extend an invitation, I might be open to accepting it.”
Nicholas smiled. “Call me later and we’ll talk about it. I’ll need to see if I have any openings in my schedule.”
Tarah laughed. “You know you can’t wait to
see me!”
* * *
Tarah woke him from a sound sleep when she was finally available to call. He grappled with his phone, the device falling out of his hands twice before he could finally pull it to his ear.
“Hey,” he whispered, before realizing he’d talked into the earpiece and it needed to be turned around. “Hello?”
Tarah chuckled softly. “I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep.”
“No, I was waiting to talk to you. I wanted to hear your voice.”
“You were sound asleep.”
“I still wanted to hear your voice so I could dream about you when I go back to sleep.”
“You flatter me, Nicholas Stallion.”
“Then I’ve done my job successfully!” he said, a smile filling his face. “How was your day?”
“We’ve been slammed. There was a nasty accident on the interstate, and we’ve had a lot of traumas come through. It’s been a busy day.”
“Sounds like you need some sleep yourself.”
“And I’m ready for it, too. But I had to call and talk dirty to you first.”
“Brilliant and freaky! You’re a dream come true!”
“I try to please!”
Nicholas stretched his arms up and out, the phone clutched between his shoulder and his ear. He struggled to suppress a yawn. “Baby, I can’t keep my eyes open, but I really need to talk to you,” he muttered.
“I understand,” Tarah replied. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m not going to be able to fly in for your awards thing next week. I forgot that I had promotional gig that I’m committed to.”
“Oh...okay,” Tarah said, disappointment paramount in her tone. “I was really hoping you’d be there.”
“I was, too, but you know how it is.”
“No, I don’t,” she said, attitude ringing loudly in her voice. She took a deep breath and held it.
“We’ll see each other soon, Tarah. Are you still thinking about flying here for your vacation? We’ll see each other then.”
She exhaled the air she’d been holding. “Let’s talk about it in the morning,” she said.
A Stallion's Touch Page 15