Fighting Back
(Fighting For Love #5)
By Marysol James
© 2015 by Marysol James.
All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, including information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission from the author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design: www.doc2mobi.com
Cover photo: © Photographee.eu/Fotolia
Dedication
For H.
Always (always) perfect.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Epilogue
About the author
By the same author
Chapter One
Mia Ferris glanced at her watch for what felt like the millionth time, but was probably only the thousandth. She fought down the now-familiar burst of fear and anxiety, struggled to stay calm. Nobody needed to see her freaking out, that was for goddamn sure.
Nick had been in surgery for three hours now and Mia had felt every single second of it. The hospital waiting room had been cheerless when she’d first walked in to it that morning, and by this point, it was grim and small and gray, with all the charm of a prison cell.
OK, not really: it was actually fine, as far as these places went, but it was definitely shrinking. Mia felt the walls closing in on her as her panic rose again and she took a deep breath.
Calm, calm. Calm.
“Mia?”
Startled, Mia jumped a bit, then raised her eyes to Marnie Spencer’s. Her gut clenched up tighter, since the woman’s gray eyes were exactly like Nick’s.
“Yes?” Mia said.
“Honey, I’m going to the cafeteria to get some coffee. You want some?”
“Oh. No, thank you.” Mia smiled at Nick’s Mom. “I’m good.”
“You sure?” William Spencer boomed out, and Mia jumped again. Two days she’d been listening to Nick’s Dad’s voice, and she still found it intimidating. Well, actually, she found the whole man intimidating, and despite the fact that he’d been kind, Mia couldn’t relax around him at all. “Maybe you want some breakfast? You haven’t eaten.”
Mia shook her head. “No, really. I’m fine. Thank you, though.”
“Yeah?” Now Katie Lloyd was in on it. “I think you need to eat.” She turned to Marnie and Will. “Could you please grab her a sandwich? Tuna, if they have it, OK? If not, chicken.”
Mia bit back a sigh of exasperation as Reena Mackay and Maggie Branson nodded in agreement. She looked to the looming, hulking men for help, but Adam Pierce, Mitchell Corrigan, and Joe Carlisle were all backing up their girlfriends one hundred percent. Surrounded by nodding heads and expressions of deep concern, Mia gave in. It was easier than arguing, she knew, and it was the only way for them to stop treating her like a piece of fine china.
She knew that her friends and Nick’s parents were just being supportive, but it was starting to grate on her. After all, she wasn’t the one who was unable to help her own child. She was just the girlfriend, and Mia damn well knew it. Why was everyone behaving like Mia’s pain and worry were so much bigger and more important than their own? It was baffling, to put it mildly.
“Alright,” Mia said softly, reminding herself that everyone was feeling helpless. If it helped Nick’s parents to take care of her, then who was she to snatch that small comfort from them? Nick was their only child, and what Marnie and Will were going through had to be hell. “A sandwich and coffee would be great. Thanks.”
They nodded, looking happier. Mia watched them leave the waiting room, then she looked back at her friends. She toned down her glare, and settled for a glower.
“What?” Reena said, genuinely startled. “What’s that look?”
“Seriously?” Mia said, trying hard not to hiss or snarl the words. She’d been up the entire night and she knew that she was being uncharacteristically short-tempered. “You’re going to act like you’re not handling me with kid gloves?”
“OK, look, we’re sorry,” Reena said, her blue eyes gentle. “But we’re worried about you.”
“Me?” Mia shook her head. “Why me more than Marnie? Why me more than Nick?”
“Because Marnie has Will to watch her back,” Katie said. “And Nick has you.” She paused, wondering if she should say the next part, but she wasn’t really the shrinking violet type, so of course she went ahead. “Also, you’re acting damn weird.”
“I – what?” Mia said, wondering just how the hell she was meant to act when her boyfriend was having his left leg amputated below the knee. “Well, of course I’m acting weird, Katie. Did you expect me to act normal?”
“No,” Katie replied. “But I also didn’t expect you to show up here this morning with four dozen fresh-baked banana muffins.”
Mia blinked. “I was up all night and I needed to pass the time. I thought we’d all have shown up without breakfast, and I wanted to take care of everyone because –”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Katie interrupted her. “But the point is that ever since you found out about Nick losing his leg, you’ve taken care of everyone involved except for yourself.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true. Nick told you about the surgery almost three weeks ago, and since then, you’ve gone out of your way to be there for everyone. Marnie told me that you made all the arrangements for their flight in from Wyoming and that you called all around Denver for three days and found them the best hotel room rate. You got them from the airport, you took them to their hotel, and you’ve spent every day with them since they arrived.”
“Did you expect me to abandon Nick’s parents?”
“They used to live an hour outside Denver,” Maggie pointed out. “They only moved to Wyoming two years ago, so it’s not like they don’t know the city or don’t have friends here. You didn’t have to take it all on yourself, Mia.”
“I didn’t –”
“You’ve done hours and hours of research about neuromas,” Katie carried on. “I think you now know more about nerve tissue tumors than most doctors. Nick said that over the past three weeks, he’d wake up in the middle of the night and find you gone and you’d be out in the living room on your laptop, desperately trying to find some way to remove his neuroma without removing his lower leg.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Mia snapped. “Me trying to find some way to avoid all of this?” She waved her hands around the waiting room. “I was trying to help –”
“Help Nick. I know.” Katie wasn’t backing down now, not one goddamn bit. “You’ve called about two hundred different clinics – here and in Canada – begging the doctors to take a look at Nick’s medical records, begg
ing for them to give you a second opinion. When you didn’t like it, you got a third, then a fourth. How many did you get in the end?”
“I don’t know,” Mia muttered.
“Well, I do,” Katie said relentlessly. “Twenty-six. You had twenty-six different doctors tell you that amputation is the only course of action in Nick’s case, and every single time that happened, you just buckled down more. Fought harder. ”
“Again, how is this a bad thing?”
“You don’t eat,” Katie said. “You look like you’ve dropped about fifteen pounds in less than a month. You don’t sleep. You don’t talk, not to us, not to Nick. Did you know that you’ve been sitting in that chair for three hours straight, Mia, and that you haven’t said a word to any of us until Marnie asked if you wanted a coffee? You haven’t even moved, except to check your watch.”
“And?” Mia said, her light-brown eyes spitting fire. “And what?”
“And,” Katie said quietly. “You haven’t cried, Mia. Not once in three weeks.”
Furious, Mia jumped to her feet. “OK, enough.”
“Mia –”
“No,” Mia said, almost shaking with anger now. “What was I meant to do Katie, in your opinion? What would have been the right behavior for the circumstances? Was I supposed to just sit around and not try to find another way? Just accept all of this without a goddamn fight? Would you do that for Adam, if it were his leg?” She shot a glare at Reena. “Would you stop looking for another way if it were Mitch in there under the knife?”
“Hey, Mia,” Mitch said, trying to calm her down. “It’s OK, sweetheart –”
“It’s not,” she spat at him. “It’s not and you fucking know it’s not, so don’t you patronize me, Corrigan.”
He put up his massive hands. “I’m not. I’m –”
“Or maybe I should have sat around and wrung my hands?” Mia returned to her full-on assault on Katie. She was the one who had started this asinine conversation, after all, so she was going to get the full brunt of Mia’s anger. “Just sat on my ass and been all tragic and sad and pathetic? Cried all over the damn place and expected you guys to give me hugs and head pats? Would that have been better, in your view? More helpful for Nick to have to comfort his sobbing girlfriend instead of trying to come to terms with what’s happening to him?”
“Mia,” Katie said, seriously alarmed now. She’d never seen her friend in this condition: Mia was like a wild beast, snarling and spitting in rage. She hadn’t expected this and Katie only saw now and belatedly just how badly they’d all misjudged Mia’s state of mind – especially her. As stupid as it sounded, Katie had had no idea that Mia was actually this on-edge. “I’m sorry…”
“Shut up,” Mia hissed. “Just stop talking. Now.”
She spun on her heel and bolted out of the waiting room. She stalked right on past the elevators, hit the stairs, hurtled down four floors to the ground level, exploded out of the hospital front doors. The summer heat rose up off the pavement and smacked her in the face, and in a totally weird way, it cooled her temper.
Suddenly Mia felt like the world’s biggest bitch. Her friends were just concerned, and – if she were being honest with herself – they had reason to be. Just not for the reasons that they thought.
She spotted an empty bench across the parking lot, made her way over to it. She sat down and stared at the flower bed in front of her. Rows and rows of brilliant roses in all colors, and suddenly she just wanted to cry.
Nick gave me red roses for my birthday… nobody’s ever bought me roses before that.
Tears threatened, but she forced them back. On that awful day when Nick had finally told her what was going on with him, and she’d taken him to her bed and held him, Mia had lain there and made herself a promise: no tears. She had no goddamn right to indulge in them and – frankly – she didn’t have the time. She’d needed to help Nick, and she’d immersed herself in that.
It had all come to nothing, in the end. She hadn’t been able to save his leg, and her failure still made her stomach churn and twist. Anything that she ate just came right back up again, so she’d given up eating. Desperation to find an answer had kept her thoughts racing, so she’d given up sleeping.
Worst of all, guilt weighed heavy on her; so heavy that some days, Mia almost gave up breathing.
A shadow fell over her now, and she glanced up to see Adam standing there. Right away, she tensed, sure that he was there to kick her ass for shouting at his girlfriend. Adam was nothing if not insanely protective of Katie, and Mia knew that she’d more than crossed the line.
“Hey.” His rough voice was gentle. “Can I sit?”
Startled, Mia peered up at him, really took him in. What she saw took her aback.
Adam was hands-down the largest man that Mia had ever set eyes on, but as he stood there, he looked – diminished, somehow. Shrunken and exhausted, almost beaten down. He had dark shadows under his hard blue eyes, and he looked pale. More than that, he looked tentative and insecure, and it was this last thing that really shocked her, all the way to her core.
She slid over a bit to make room for his massive body on the bench next to her. “Sure. Be my guest.”
“Thanks.” Adam sank down, stretched his long, muscled legs in front of him, half-turned his huge upper body to her. “You doing OK?”
“Mmm-hmmm.”
“Liar,” he said softly.
Mia jumped, shocked. “What?”
“You heard me, Mia. You’re lying. All you’ve done for the past three weeks is lie about being fine.” He paused. “And I know why.”
“Oh, yeah?” she said, the anger rising again.
“Yeah. It’s the same reason that I’ve been lying.”
That surprised her, and she stared at him. “You have?”
“I have,” he said heavily. “I’ve been a fucking guilt-ridden wreck, Mia, and I haven’t said a word about it to anyone.”
“Not even Katie?” Mia asked cautiously, not sure that she should call attention to her friend quite yet, seeing what had just happened upstairs.
“Nope. Not even Katie.” His eyes met hers now. “By the way, she was way out of line back there and I told her so, in no uncertain terms. God knows I love her more than I’ve ever loved anything, but sometimes the woman has no filter and she picked the worst possible time to have that conversation. She owes you an apology, and you’ll get it.”
“Oh,” she stammered. “No. No, she doesn’t –”
“She does,” Adam said in an insistent tone. “So let her.”
“OK.” Mia bit her lip. “So… why have you been lying about being fine?”
“Because,” Adam said succinctly. “I feel like I let Nick down.”
Mia fell totally silent. Good Lord, was the man a mind-reader or what?
Adam saw her face go still and he carried on. “Nick and I have been friends for over a decade, Mia. We competed together and we run a business together and by now, I think of him as my brother. I thought – I thought that he trusted me, that he knew that he could come to me with anything. But he didn’t say one word to me about what was going on with him… not one goddamn word.”
“I know.”
“And I keep asking myself why? Why didn’t he talk to me? Why didn’t he trust me?”
“Adam,” she began, but he cut her off.
“No, hon.” He shook his head, a hard, sharp gesture. “Let me talk about this, OK? I need to.”
“OK,” she whispered.
“I keep wondering what the hell I did wrong.” Adam stared down at his hands now. “I mean, I asked him what was happening with him, but he avoided answering my questions. Why didn’t I push harder? I knew that something was way wrong between the two of you, but I didn’t come to you. Why didn’t I? I knew that he was limping and in pain, but I accepted his transparently-bullshit excuses about s
ome new student kicking him by accident. Why? Why did I?”
Mia shook her head, wordless.
“And now here we are,” Adam said. “I know that nothing I could have done would have changed this outcome, but I still think that I could have been there for Nick, you know? He didn’t have to go through all those weeks alone and in pain… but he did. He chose to be alone with his secret and his fear, instead of talking to me. His brother.” Adam sighed. “Why? What did I do – or not do – to make him keep this from me? Why didn’t he ask me for help?”
“I don’t know.” Mia’s voice trembled and Adam looked at her. “But I wonder the same thing. About me, I mean.”
Adam nodded slowly.”I know you do. And that’s why I understand what you’re doing now.”
“What are you talking about?” she faltered.
“I’m talking about being there for Nick for the past three weeks, to the point that you’re tying yourself in knots and hurting yourself.”
“I’m not –”
“You are.” His eyes were steel as he gazed at her, not accepting one second of her feeble excuses. “You’re punishing yourself for Nick not confiding in you – though that was his call, not yours. I know that you pushed him to talk to you and he refused to do it, but you’re beating yourself up about it badly. Not eating, not sleeping, not talking to your friends, not allowing yourself to cry or hurt about how things are going to change for you. Spending hours and hours on the laptop and on the phone, desperately looking for an answer that just doesn’t exist. It’s self-punishment for some mythical failure on your part, hon, plain and simple. And you’ve been doing it ever since he finally told you the truth.”
Mia felt tears burning and she averted her eyes, wishing like hell that he’d say his piece and go away. But he wasn’t done.
“You’re also… I don’t know. Making up for lost time, maybe. It’s like you feel so bad that you weren’t there then, so you’re killing yourself to be there now. It’s some kind of penance, but again, what you need to get straight in your head is that Nick made the choice to not let you support him. He didn’t talk to you, Mia, and he didn’t talk to me.” Those eyes were so soft in his hard face, and Mia saw real worry and regret there. “If he’d asked, you’d have been there. I know that and he knows that and you’d damn well better know that. He didn’t ask, though, and that’s not your fault.”
Fighting Back (Fighting For Love Book 5) Page 1