by J. K. Coi
Chapter Fourteen
April had no idea where she was going as she raced out of Nolan’s room like the devil himself had lit a fire under her ass. All she knew was that if she had any chance of holding the line, of staying in control, she had to leave. Leave now and never look back.
A coward. That’s exactly what she was.
She made it to the stairwell exit, but as she shoved open the door with a sob, she glanced up and saw the hospital directory posted on the wall.
5th Floor – Radiation
With a heavy heart, she went up instead of down. On the fifth floor, she hesitated before exiting the stairwell. But what else did she have to lose? She stopped at the main desk and waited for the pretty nurse in dark green scrubs to finish with her paperwork.
The nurse looked up, and the welcoming smile on her face froze as she took in April’s appearance. “Are you okay?” she asked.
April glanced up and caught her reflection in the window of the hospital room across the hall. She looked stunned, not to mention pale, bruised, and dirty. The rest of her—including the once beautiful dress she should never have bought—must look just as bad.
But inside, she felt…shattered. She was breaking apart into sharp pieces that cut and stabbed…and she wanted her father. “I’m looking for Mitchell Porter,” April said weakly.
The nurse nodded and pointed back down the hall. “His room is four doors down that way.” She flipped a few pages in her binder and said, “He’s scheduled for a treatment in about twenty minutes.”
“Thank you.”
April found the room and lifted her fist. She stared at it hanging there in front of her for what seemed like forever before finally knocking.
“Yeah.”
April’s throat swelled at the thin, tired sound of her father’s voice, and part of her wanted to turn and run.
Oh God. First Mom, and now Dad? Every time she walked into a hospital room, it felt like she was saying good-bye to someone.
And Nolan wanted to know why she refused to let her guard down? How was she supposed to love him, knowing it was just a matter of time before he left, too? He might not have to actually die to do it, but it was better to choose loneliness than to be blindsided with it after she’d gotten invested and comfortable.
She took a deep breath and pushed open the door. “Hey, Dad.”
His head jerked up from the magazine in his lap. “April. What are you doing here?” His face lacked color, and his cheeks were gaunt. Even the breadth of his shoulders looked narrower. He wasn’t the same man they’d called Mitch “the Ditch” back in the day because that’s where he left all his opponents. He wasn’t the same man who’d tossed her over his shoulders and made her screech with glee, and who’d taught her to throw a punch and keep her arms up to protect her face.
She took a few steps closer, restraining herself from running to him like she would have done any other day of her life. Not because she was afraid he would spurn her, but because she was afraid she’d start to cry…and then he would cry. She knew it right away. That was the real reason he hadn’t wanted her to come. He’d known how hard this would be for her, and he hadn’t wanted her to see him like this.
Her father squinted and looked her up and down. “What the hell happened to you?”
She choked out a laugh and cleared her throat. “I was attacked by a lunatic stalker in a stairwell.”
He raised a brow. “In an evening dress?”
“Didn’t you know? It’s the latest fashion craze in bodyguard uniforms.”
His mouth twitched. “Do I need to ask what the lunatic stalker looks like right now?”
“Worse, trust me,” she said, gingerly touching her jaw. It hadn’t ached so badly before. Then again, she’d been desperately trying to ignore pretty much everything…before.
Silence fell, and so did his smile. His shoulders drooped, and he opened his mouth.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t make me go.”
He sighed and patted the mattress. She swallowed hard and collapsed beside him in relief, crossing her knee under her. He put his arm around her and kissed her forehead. “I wish you had let me do it my way,” he murmured. “I didn’t want you to go through this.” He took her hand and squeezed.
“I know. But you have to let me, and you have to trust that I can take it,” she promised. Could she, though? She was so afraid of losing him, it was crippling. She was so afraid of losing any more people, she’d just thrown away the possibility of love. Her heart squeezed. “What I can’t take is you shutting me out, because I love you too much.”
“I know,” he repeated in a soft voice. “I’ll promise not to shut you out, if you promise not to shut out the world.”
She frowned. “What makes you think I would—”
“Big Joey gave me a call,” he said.
April groaned. “He was supposed to just get your answering machine,” she grumbled.
“What’s this about you and some highbrow client tossing sparks at one another on the mats?”
Her mouth dropped open. “Big Joey told you that?”
He chuckled. “You don’t think he dialed up four different people to find out how to reach me just because you were looking good in a pair of gloves, do you?”
She groaned. “It was no big deal. Maybe I went a little easy on the guy, that’s all.”
“You don’t go easy on anyone, ever. If they can’t handle my girl at her best, they don’t deserve you at any time.” He chucked her in the arm. “So, does the suit deserve you?”
She sighed and stared out the window into the late afternoon sun. “It’s…complicated, Dad. We have very different lives, and it’s just…not a good time.”
He tipped her face to look at him. “There’s never a good time to fall in love. When I met your mother, I was hell-bent on becoming the next middleweight champion of the world. I wasn’t thinking about romance and kids, but I saw her there at the train station, and everything changed just like that. She blew me off my feet.”
Tears blurred her vision. “But if you hadn’t married her, you wouldn’t have had your heart broken when she died, and you wouldn’t have had to give up on your dreams.”
“Your mother became my only dream. And then you came along, and I realized that dreams were made to evolve and grow, like we all must evolve and grow.”
He clutched her hand. His body might be frail, but his hands were still strong. Still big. Still capable. They were still her father’s hands. “April, honey, you aren’t going to make any dreams come true by locking your heart away out of reach.”
Her breathing hitched with emotion. “But what if it all falls apart? It hurt so much to lose Mom, and then after Jeremy…I can’t open up like that again.”
“You’re going to lose people. That’s a part of life.” They both knew it wasn’t just Nolan they were talking about now, and April couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. “And when it happens, you start over again, and you make new dreams with all the good memories from the old ones,” he said.
“Dad.”
“I want you to have every good thing that the world has to offer, and if this silver-spooned society boy”—she chuckled and shook her head—“makes you happy, then maybe that’s where you should start.”
She laughed but her world was spinning. “I would have to give him some boxing pointers,” she teased. “He leads heavy.”
A nurse came into the room. Her long red hair was peppered with silver, but she’d pulled it back into a fresh-looking ponytail that showed off flawless skin and bright green eyes. April discreetly wiped her cheeks and stood up from the bed.
“Hi, Dory.” There was something in her father’s voice as he greeted the nurse.
“Hey, Mitch.” The woman’s radiant smile could have lit up the room. April raised an eyebrow, and her father actually blushed. “Are you ready for your last treatment?” Dory asked.
“Um, can I come?” April said, hands twisting in front of
her.
Her father nodded. “You and Dory can get acquainted. She’s promised me we’re goin’ on a date when I get out of here,” he said with a grin.
A couple of hours later, after helping her dad back to bed and getting him to drink a protein shake, April went back downstairs to Nolan’s hospital room, but it was empty and the bed was already being turned down by a candy striper. Too late.
She went back out to the nurse’s desk. “Did the patient in this room get moved?”
The nurse looked up with a frown. “Not exactly. He insisted on being released and left the hospital about an hour ago.”
He’d left. Just like that.
April swore. She thanked the nurse and walked a few steps away for some privacy as she dug out her cell phone and called Nora. “Is Nolan still being covered?”
Her boss clucked. “Nope. That bankroll ship has sailed. He sent John home and said that after Edward Fielding and Ms. Ash, if someone else decided to stalk him anytime soon, he probably deserved it.” She paused. “I’ve got another contract coming in as we speak, though. I can probably have you working in Manhattan again by tomorrow morning.”
She sagged against the wall of the corridor. “Sorry Nora, but I’m going to need to take a leave of absence. I want to spend some time with my father and help him get back on his feet.”
“I understand. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, okay?”
She smiled weakly into her phone. “Thanks, but I think we just need some time to see if the radiation therapy worked and for him to get his strength back.”
She hung up and checked for messages, but there were none. She tapped the screen to her contacts page, scrolling down until she found Nolan’s number. Her thumb hesitated over the bubble that only had a shadow-figure inside it because she didn’t have a photo to attribute to his profile.
Is that what these last few days were destined to be relegated to? A shadowy break from reality they were both going to forget had ever happened? Or could she make her dreams a reality with someone like him?
The answer was obvious…
He had already left.
She looked at that shadowy bubble for a long time before finally dropping her phone back into her purse.
Chapter Fifteen
The next few weeks were difficult. Her father came home, and he was sick. Very sick. April barely had time to think about Nolan, although every so often she’d wake up in the middle of the night, her sex pulsing and wet from dreaming about him. The nights were all she let herself have, though. The rest of her time was devoted to her father’s recovery.
One morning four weeks and three days after his last treatment, she took him for his first follow-up exam. The doctor smiled and told them both that although it was early and her dad would still need to come back in three months and then six months for regular tests, it was his opinion that the radiation had been successful, and he was cancer-free. On the way out, April had excused herself to go and cry in the clinic’s restroom.
That was the moment she realized that she hadn’t actually heard what her father had said to her that day in his hospital room, and she hadn’t been listening to Nolan when he asked her to help him break down the walls between them.
He’d been offering her something special, and she’d tossed it back at him as if it wasn’t the very thing she needed in her life.
But after spending these hard weeks with her father, confronting the fear that had plagued her for as long as she could remember, she knew without a doubt that taking chances didn’t always have to end in loss and pain.
She’d been so wrong. Horribly wrong.
It wasn’t better to choose loneliness. Loneliness was just another word for emptiness, and she didn’t want her life to be empty. She wanted it full of laughter, tears, and passion. If that meant taking some pain and heartbreak along with it, well then, her father had raised her to be strong.
When they got home later that day, Dad was exhausted. He was feeling better every day but still had little stamina and a day like that had taken it all. She helped him settle in on the couch with a blanket. “I think I’ll make some soup,” she said brightly, turning toward the kitchen.
“April wait,” he called.
She went back to his side with a frown. “What is it? Are you uncomfortable?”
“I’m fine.” He glanced up and out the front window, looking oddly nervous.
It dawned on her that he was expecting company. She tried to keep a straight face. “So…how’s Dory?”
He grinned sheepishly. “Uh, actually, she’s coming over with dinner to celebrate my optimistic news.”
“Dinner, huh?” She crossed her arms. “Dad, when was the last time you were on a date?”
“With a woman?”
She quirked a brow. “Are we having a different conversation here than I thought?”
He chuckled. “About fifteen years ago.”
Her eyes widened. “You haven’t even had a date since…Mom?”
“Your mother was all I needed for a long time.” He hesitated. “I don’t want to say that that’s changed—”
“You don’t have to explain or apologize, Dad,” she said gently. He looked abashed, but excited, too. It made him seem more like himself, and she was glad for anything that could keep him looking forward to the future. “You deserve happiness, too.”
She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her future, about…Nolan. Her father was being blessed with a second chance at life…at love. Why shouldn’t they both get one?
She cleared her throat. “I think I’m going to get out of your hair for a while, then.” She waved a finger, teasing. “Don’t do too much celebrating. It’s good that you’re feeling better, but you’ve got a ways to go. I don’t want to hear about any wild acrobatics.”
He waved his hand. “Yeah, yeah. I’m still your father. Have some respect.” He winked. “Besides, she’s a nurse. I bet she’s an expert at mouth to mouth.”
April made a face and laughed. “Ew, okay, that’s my cue.”
She grabbed her purse from the living room table just as the doorbell rang. She opened it and smiled at the lovely woman on the front stoop dressed in crisp denim and a soft, green silk blouse. “Hi Dory, nice to see you again. You look wonderful,” she said, stepping back to let the woman in, then closing the door. “Although the hospital scrubs have a kind of flair you just can’t get anywhere else.”
“Especially those lovely printed ones they wear in Pediatrics with the puppies and cartoons on them. I keep telling the administration that we should put on a fashion show for the patients.” She laughed, a tinkling sound that made April even happier for her father.
April grabbed her jacket, and Dory’s smile faded. “I didn’t mean to run you out of your home,” she said. “Why don’t you have dinner with us?” She lifted the grocery bag in her hand. “I’ve brought plenty for everyone.”
“No, but thanks for the offer. You guys have fun. I think I’ll take this opportunity to… There’s someone I have to see, before it’s too late.” Hopefully it wasn’t already too late.
She started to leave, but stopped short and looked back at her father, who hadn’t gotten up from the couch.
Dory touched her arm. “He’ll be fine,” she said softly.
April nodded. “You know, I think you’re right.”
She opened the door, only to stop short as she almost walked into the fist raised to knock—at eye-level with her forehead.
“Nolan!” Her heart leaped.
As often as he’d been in her dreams these last weeks, she would have thought it’d be easier to come face to face with him. But her heart started pounding so loud she could hear it, and her breathing hollowed out. His arm still hung between them. She tipped her head to look around it and caught her breath.
He seemed bigger than she remembered, smoother, and more intense. Something else about him had changed, and it was subtle but immediately noticeable. It was in the tight set
of his shoulders and the focused look he leveled on her, so different from the laid-back playboy she’d been sent to protect what felt like eons ago.
Serious. Steve Nolan was standing on her porch, completely and utterly serious.
The front door quietly clicked closed behind her, and she realized that the entire world had shrunk the moment he’d arrived.
He still hadn’t said anything…and she was too nervous to say anything. Why had he come? Was this her second chance? What if she screwed it up again? What if he left again?
“What are you doing here?” she finally asked, her voice cracking.
“I tried to give you some space.” He stepped closer. “I heard from your boss at the security company that you were taking time off to be with your father, and I didn’t want to get in the way of that.”
She swallowed. “I picked up the phone a thousand times,” she blurted out. “But after what happened in the hospital, I thought…I thought you were done for good.”
“For about five minutes, I thought the same thing. I told myself I’d never needed to chase after any woman, especially one who wasn’t willing to share herself with me, who wasn’t ready to make me a priority.” He grimaced. “But it only took one night without you to admit how fucking selfish that was. I put up just as many walls between us as you did.”
“What changed?” she whispered, her cheeks hot.
“I remembered that I never give up on something I want.”
She held her breath. Could she risk the pain that might eventually come with losing him?
“I want you, April.”
She hesitated. “Now that my dad’s doing better, I’ve decided to reapply to the FBI training program. If I’m successful, I would be going back to Quantico to complete my training and then…”
He didn’t miss a beat. “That’s fantastic news, both about your dad and about your training.” He sounded absolutely sincere. “But it doesn’t change a thing between us.”