Chelsea took a breath, as if she had something to say, but instead, she continued to leave, closing the door behind her.
That had been harder than she’d wanted it to be. Sincerely, Chelsea had gone to his room with the hope that they could find a common ground between them, but she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t even tell him she wasn’t married anymore—or why she was in such a hurry.
Deep inside, she wanted to know what he had to apologize for and did he remember telling her he loved her?
Chelsea looked at her watch again. She was late now, and if she didn’t get across town in a half hour, she’d be charged for being late. She couldn’t afford that again. It sure would be nice to have a partner in life that could help with everything—or even family nearby. That was just one of the many things Chelsea regretted about her decisions. She could have been part of the Walker family, but no, she couldn’t have been bothered to wait for the man she loved. She had made rash and stupid decisions.
She deserved what she got. She deserved Russell’s anger.
Chelsea waited for the next elevator, counted the minutes as it stopped on each and every floor, and hurried through the lobby to the doors that lead to the parking lot.
Employees didn’t have the luxury of curbside parking. No, she was going to have to sprint to get to her car and make it across town.
Yanking the door open, she threw her bag into the passenger seat and shut the door. Fumbling for her key, she finally managed it into the ignition and turned it. Nothing happened.
“No. No. No,” she repeated to herself and tried again. Still, the engine didn’t respond.
Chelsea threw her head back against the seat. The tears were there before she knew it. She couldn’t afford late fees, and she couldn’t afford car repairs. School payments were due soon, and if she didn’t pay her cell phone by the end of the week, that would be turned off too.
The tears rolled down her cheeks now and everything inside of her broke. This wasn’t how she’d planned her life, so why was it happening like this?
A knock at the window had her screaming. When she turned her head, she saw Officer Smythe backing up, his hands held in surrender.
Chelsea opened the door.
“Sorry, Chels. I saw you sitting here and wanted to make sure you were okay.”
She wiped at her cheeks, brushing away the traces of tears. “My car is dead.”
“I can give you a jump.”
She tried to smile. “That would great. I’m late picking up Lucas.”
“How about I give you a ride, and we can come back and fix your car.”
The tears were back. “That would be fantastic.” She wiped her cheeks again. “Forgive me. I’m a mess today,” she said as she grabbed the bag. “Can you help me get his seat out of the back.”
Phillip Smythe smiled with a nod. “Of course. He’s getting big, huh?” He opened the back door and unbuckled the car seat.
“Yeah, he’ll be three in a few months.”
“Exciting age.” Phillip pulled the seat out of the car. “I’m parked just over there,” he said with a nod as Chelsea closed the door and locked the car.
“I really appreciate this.”
“My pleasure. I was just headed in to see Russ. Did you know he was here?”
She bit down on her lip. “I talked to him. Of course, since I’m one of his caretakers, I guess I can’t discuss it with you, even if we are friends.”
He shifted a glance her way as they walked toward his truck. “You’re one of his caretakers?”
“Student nurse rotation.”
“How did that go over?” he asked as he unlocked his truck and opened the door for her.
“You’re asking if he threw me out of the room?”
Phillip opened the back door and set the seat inside and strapped it in with the seatbelt. “Russ has a temper. I was with him when he found out you were married. That was a long night. I just…”
“He said he loved me before he passed out from the meds they have him on. So no, he didn’t kick me out.”
Phillip shut the door and walked around to the other side as she closed her door and buckled in. Phillip climbed in, and started the engine “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Yes you did,” she laughed, and he followed suit.
He put the truck into drive and started out of the parking lot. “He told you he loved you?”
“He’s not fully there. They have him on a lot of meds to keep the pain down.”
“His truck is totaled. He’s lucky to be alive,” Phillip’s voice changed from humor to real terror. “He’s an idiot. Not only did he get into a fricking fight at the bar, but he'd also been drinking.”
“So he’ll have a DUI?”
Phillip rubbed his forehead. “No. His blood work came back normal.”
“So he was just going too fast?”
“You know what sucks? Both of our jobs have us tied to confidentiality. I shouldn’t be talking about this.”
“So there’s more?”
He shot her a look. “Nothing leaves the confines of this truck?”
“Nothing,” she promised.
“I think he was run off the road,” he said, and Chelsea felt as though it had punched right into her gut.
“Someone did that to him?”
“I don’t have my proof yet. I want to talk to him. Friend to friend. He’ll tell me if he was drinking too much. There’s medical proof that he wasn’t, but were there other circumstances? I need to know what the fight was over. Maybe that’ll help. No one at the bar said much.”
Chelsea reached across the cab of the truck and touched Phillip’s arm. “He looks horrible.”
“I imagine.”
She removed her hand and squeezed her arms around the duffle bag in her lap. “When I walked into his room I just stood there and stared at him. Both of his eyes are black. There are cuts all over his face and arms. His leg is bandaged from top to bottom. He broke his ankle, and they had to do surgery to remove debris that impaled him,” she continued as her eyes welled with tears. “He’s going to need a lot of physical therapy to get up and moving.”
“He’ll do it. And he’ll do it far ahead of schedule too.”
That made her chuckle. “He will.”
“Did you tell him you’re divorced?”
She turned to look at him. “No. Why would I?”
Phillip shrugged. “You said he told you he loved you.”
The words hung there, just as they had when Russell had said them. “He’s drugged up. Whatever he says can’t be construed as truth. He did love me—once.” And of course, she’d loved him since. The memory of him had forced her into many sleepless nights.
The reality of what she’d done to him always loomed. Though she wouldn’t have Lucas if she hadn’t strayed away from Russ. And though she’d rather have had Russ, and his temper, be Lucas’s father, she couldn’t deny that Lucas was her greatest gift in life. He far surpassed any silly love she’d had for Russell Walker. Lucas had kept her going in hard times. Sure, he was only nearly three-years-old, but he fed her soul.
Phillip pulled up in front of Martha’s daycare. “I’ll wait here for you.”
Chelsea put her duffle bag on the floor. “Thank you for doing this for us. I’m sorry to take time out of your day.”
Phillip smiled. “The only other thing on my agenda today is to talk to Russ. He’s not going anywhere.”
She chuckled and climbed from the truck. As she shut the door, she thought about Russ and his family. The Walkers and their five sons were tight knit. They had each other’s backs, and as a team, they had the backs of relatives and friends. You were in good hands if you were associated with the Walkers.
She’d missed that part when she’d married someone else. The Walkers would still have her back. She knew that. But it would never be the same.
Chelsea opened the door to the daycare center and immediately saw her son following Martha around the table as he laughed.
When he caught sight of her, he yelled, “Mama,” and ran to her hugging his arms around her legs.
She might have missed out on a Walker last name, but the little man hugging her was worth more than that. How could she ever even consider that having waited for Russell would have been better than never having had this sweet little boy?
There was a time when she’d thought she’d known true love—when she was with Russell. But she hadn’t found it until she held her baby for the first time. Sure, it was different than the love of a man, but it was absolutely pure. Perhaps that’s where the universe meant for her to land. Not with Dominic and not with Russell. But she was meant to have that little boy.
Chapter Three
Drugs were supposed to be fun, Russell assumed, even though he’d never experimented with them. He’d thought they were supposed to give you a high better than alcohol.
He thought of the time he’d had his wisdom teeth out. He was loopy, and that was fun.
Clinging to a hospital bucket as he threw up the Jell-O he’d tried to consume, was not fun. Every time they touched his IV, it made him sick. They said anesthesia would do that to a person, although he was distinctly under the impression that when they gave you anesthesia, it was so you wouldn’t feel anything. Why the hell did he still hurt so much, and why was he throwing up?
He lurched again just as the door to his room opened and Phillip Smythe walked in.
“Bad timing, man,” he said as he laid back against his pillows.
“Food isn’t that bad here,” Phillip joked.
“I hate this. I freaking hate it,” he said taking the wet rag the nurse had brought him and wiping his mouth. “The only good thing in my day was my nurse. Well, one of them.”
Phillip smiled as he pulled a chair closer to the bed and sat down. “Chelsea?”
“How’d you know that?”
“I talked to her. Her car died. I jumped it.”
Russell squeezed his eyes shut. “She knows how to do that. I taught her.”
“Sure, but she was in a hurry,” he said. “That’s what friends are for, right?”
Russell set his bucket on the bed table and rested back. “She didn’t seem to want to be friends with me,” he admitted. “She transferred to another floor so that she didn’t have to be in here.”
“I don’t think she knew what to do when you told her you loved her.”
Russell winced. “I did say that, didn’t I?”
“She said you did.”
He looked at the IV bag to his side. “Truth serum pumped right into my veins, huh?”
Phillip laughed. “Could be.” He rested his arms on his thighs and leaned in over them. “Speaking of that. I wanted to ask you a few questions.”
“So you’re not here just to visit as a friend.”
“Of course, I am. But I want to get to the bottom of a few things.”
“I wrecked my truck. Now I’m stuck in here. What else do you want to know?”
Phillip ran his hand over the back of his neck. “We’ve had a few reports that you got into a fight.”
“I had some words with a guy. That’s all.”
Phillip nodded. “Words? He didn’t attack you, or vice versa.”
Russell sat up, only to quickly lay back again when the pain surged through him. “You’re asking me if I hit the guy?”
“I’m asking you if anything happened.”
“Just because some ass starts crap with me, you think I started a fight.”
“No. I’m asking if you got into a fight.”
Russell let out a long breath. “I didn’t start anything. Some guy started in about my dad and comparing him to my uncle and his underhanded business dealings. That doesn’t fly with me. My dad is an upstanding citizen. Just because his brother isn’t, that shouldn’t reflect on my family.”
“That’s all? Words over your dad?”
“He made some crappy comment about Chelsea too. I don’t know who the guy was, but he knew she’d married someone else while I was deployed. I don’t know why this crap has to surface three years later, but it did. I wanted to punch him, but I didn’t.”
Phillip scooted to the edge of his seat. “When you left, did he follow you?”
“I don’t know that he followed me. I was just focused on getting out of there so that I didn’t take the guy down.”
He nodded and sat back as the door opened again and Lydia Morgan, a dear family friend, poked her head in.
“Hey, stranger. Interested in some…” she stopped as she noticed Phillip sitting there. “Oh, you have company. I’ll come back.”
She began to back out the door, and Phillip jumped up, hurried to the door, and pulled it open.
“He’d love your company,” he said and looked back at Russell. “I’ll talk to you later. If you think of anything else, let me know.”
Russell nodded and watched as Lydia walked into the room and Phillip scanned a look over her. Did she know the man was obsessed with her? She didn’t even acknowledge him.
Lydia turned her head as the door latched and let out a breath. “It must be a curse. That man is everywhere I go.”
“He’s embedded in this community as a police officer, just as you are with all the businesses you own,” Russell defended.
“I suppose.” She moved to his bedside and kissed his cheek. “How are you feeling?” she asked as she combed his hair back with her fingers.
“Like crap. I don’t know what happened,” he confessed. “I’ve driven that road for years. How did I run off the road and flip my truck?”
Lydia took his hand and held it. “I don’t know, but maybe it’ll come to you.”
Russell looked at the woman next to him and wondered how she had managed to have such a kind heart when she’d been raised by her grandfather, who was a cold hearted man.
She straightened the blanket on his bed. “Was Officer Smythe questioning you? Doesn’t he know you’re recovering?”
“He was here to visit.”
“Sure. His job rules his life. I’m sure he had ulterior motives to be here.” She ruffled her short cap of hair. “I shouldn’t say that. You’re his friend and of course, he came to see you.”
“Did you come to make sure I was alive?”
“Damn straight. I was counting on you to help me do some work on a new house I just bought.”
Russell tried to turn his head to look at her but realized just how stiff his muscles had become. “You bought a new house? This is a business investment?” he asked, knowing that she had a weakness for buying up buildings in the town to run businesses out of. He knew she was well off with her grandfather’s fortune alone, but he had a suspicion that she was doing just fine on her own as well.
“No, this is just for me,” she said turning and taking the extra pillow off the dresser and walking to the other side of the bed. “It’s a little cottage with a cute yard.”
She gently lifted his arm which was bandaged from wrist to shoulder, and set it on the pillow. He felt the sudden relief he hadn’t known he needed.
“You’re moving out of your grandfather’s?”
She smiled. “It’s long overdue.” Lydia adjusted her bracelet on her arm then turned her attention back to him. “I could still use some landscaping in the spring when you’re all healed.”
“I heard what they had to say. I’m lucky to be alive. I’m going to have to do physical therapy with all the work they had to do to my leg and hip.”
“Consider working at my house therapy,” she grinned and walked around to the other side of the bed again. “I should let you rest. You look tired.”
Suddenly he felt it.
“Thanks for coming to visit.”
She leaned in and kissed his cheek ever so gently. “I heard your brother is getting married.”
That still stung. He’d had eyes for Gia Gallow, who owned a shop in one of Lydia's buildings, and his brother was now going to marry her. Maybe she’d seen right through him from the start
. He was only trying to move on from his broken heart of three years. When someone promised to wait for you then married someone else, it hurt for a long time.
“They’ll be good for each other,” he said on a yawn.
Lydia gave his hand a gentle pat. “Get some rest. I’ll stop by again.”
~*~
The light from the hallway streamed into Russell’s room as Chelsea pushed open the door. He was sleeping, and she paused to watch him before entering.
Early morning rotations might have been her favorite if she weren’t a single parent without support from her ex-husband or parents. Thank goodness she had dear friends who could stay with Lucas and take him to the daycare.
Chelsea walked into the room and signed into the computer. She took a moment to read the files about Russell’s night, which hadn’t seemed to have gone very well.
She noted his pain medication and his calls to the nurses’ station.
He stirred next to her, and she watched as he fought to find comfort with minimal movement. The bruises on his face were darker now. Even then, he was as handsome as she’d remembered.
Russell’s eyes fluttered open, and she took a step toward his bedside. “Good morning.”
It took him a moment to focus on her. Many times, patients, even days after surgery, found themselves confused when they woke in a hospital room. She assumed, by his facial expressions, this was what he was going through.
Instinctively, Chelsea reached for his hand and held it. “You’re still in the hospital. You’re fine.”
He blinked a few more times. “It’s nice to wake up with you here,” he said with a raspy voice.
Chelsea reached for his water and handed it to him. He took a sip, and she replaced it on the tray.
“Thank you,” he said, gratefully.
“It looks like you had a long night.”
“Days and nights run together here.” He wiped his eyes with the hand which wasn’t bandaged. “I just want to go home.”
Walker Revenge (The Walker Family Series Book 5) Page 2