“And she had a panic attack that left her exhausted. Do you still think you know what’s best?”
His tone was cutting, and clearly, he wasn’t asking. He was saying something.
“How bad was it?”
“Not as bad as some,” she said. “Worse than others. I handled it.”
“Right.” He went back to his file.
By handling it, she meant she’d gotten Hannah to a smaller space as soon as she could. When they were home, it was her closet. Today it had been the car. It had taken a while, but Hannah had been able to get her breathing slowed and heart rate under control without drugs, which Mia considered a huge step forward. Nick obviously wasn’t in the mood to hear anything positive.
“I’m sorry. I thought it would help. I made a mistake. I’ll go check on her.” Recovered from her surgeries enough to bathe and dress herself again, Hannah mostly ignored her presence. She didn’t take it personally. If Hannah wasn’t asleep, she’d read to her until she was.
Mia returned to the kitchen to find Nick still sitting in the same place, intently focused on his files. “Big case?”
“They’re all big.”
“Right. Do you want a beer?”
“No.”
“Ice tea?”
“No.”
She kept asking, kept knocking at his walls. A toothpick against ten feet of concrete. “How was your day?”
“Fine.”
“How’s Carl? Did his wife have the baby yet?”
“No.”
She dumped a bag of lettuce into a bowl and started slicing a cucumber. She chopped up carrots into small pieces the way they all liked them, cut cherry tomatoes in half, and added those. “I researched that place Hannah’s doctor told me about. I—”
“I said I didn’t want to talk about it. Said it the last five times you brought it up.”
And Hannah still sat in the dark, cried, barely ate, barely spoke. “Nick—”
“I said no. Did you not hear me? Have you not seen her? She can barely leave the house and you want to send her off to strangers? Are you insane?”
“You’re not listening to me,” she said calmly.
“I’m sick of listening to you. I’m fucking sick of listening to you every single day telling me she did this or that, telling me she’s getting better when she’s not. Telling me every single day what you think we should do and how you think she’s improving and how I should forget and move on. That’s my sister in there! I was responsible for her. I was supposed to take care of her. Maybe you can forget. I can’t.”
He sighed, not looking at her. She knew he didn’t mean it, told herself he didn’t. She’d watched him bear the weight since he was nineteen. Knew this about him. That he needed to control and protect and how it ate at him when he couldn’t. Understanding him didn’t mean he couldn’t hurt her, and slowly, little by little, she’d begun to withdraw behind a shield of her own.
“I know you, Nick,” she said after a moment. “I know you want what’s best for her, but maybe she needs more help than you can give her. I think we should talk about it, together.”
“It’s my decision. You’re not her mom.”
That was a slap.
She wasn’t Hannah’s mother, but she was something, wasn’t she?
“You don’t just send someone away because things get hard, Mia. To make your life easier. If you think I’d send her off, alone, make her think I don’t want her, you don’t know me at all.”
“If you think I’d suggest this as a way to make my life easier, then you don’t know me at all. It was a suggestion,” she said. “Something I think could be good for her, nothing more.”
Roughly, he gathered up his papers. “I’m not talking to you about this.”
“You’re not talking to me about anything. This is hard for me, too,” she added more softly. “I was late picking her up.”
He didn’t look up.
“I was late and it’s my fault. That’s what you want to say, isn’t it?” She finally said it, that thing that was like black mold growing all around them.
“I didn’t say it.”
“But you think it. I know you do. I can see it in your eyes.”
“If you see something in my eyes, it’s the memories of walking into that basement and finding…”
He scrubbed his hands over his face again, and again she regretted saying anything. There were just times she felt like she couldn’t breathe in their world of never saying anything. When was the last time they’d really talked? She couldn’t even remember.
“What do you want from me, Mia? What? I’ve got Hannah. Work. You.”
“Me? I shouldn’t be something you have to deal with, Nick. I should be someone that takes some of that load. I don’t want to make things harder for you.”
“Then don’t,” he said evenly, looking right at her.
He wasn’t emotional, wasn’t yelling, didn’t blurt it out like someone did without thinking. And another piece of her heart broke off and fell at his feet.
What was happening to them? What could she say to make it better? She tried to breathe, willing herself to hold on, give him time to apologize or at least reassure. He did neither.
She wondered if Nick had divided his life into before Hannah was taken and after. If there was a stark demarcation line and if she sat solidly in his before. When she was finally able to speak, her own words sounded hollow and far away. Sad and weak, two things she’d never been with Nick. “I’m not even sure you want me here anymore.”
“Of course I want you here.”
He spit the words at her, like the suggestion was just one more annoying problem. “No. I don’t think you do, and I don’t know how much longer I can be here feeling like you don’t.”
His dark head was bowed, a pen still in his hand, but he wasn’t writing. She wanted to cradle him against her. Wished he would let it all out and let her hold him, let her love him. And that was another pain. Not just that she didn’t feel like he loved her, but like he no longer wanted the love she would give him.
Seconds passed, and he stood, grabbed his travel mug, his keys. He was leaving.
“No.” She held up one shaking hand. “Don’t go. Not this time.” It crossed her mind that all this time, maybe he hadn’t been running to work to keep his mind busy but to get away from her. “You don’t have to leave your own house. I’ll go.”
She turned and set the knife and cutting board in the sink. Her heart was pounding so hard, she laid a hand over her chest. For a minute, no one moved and she was certain he’d come to her, say, “I’m sorry, don’t go, I haven’t been myself, you know I love you, you know I need you.”
He didn’t. With a slow and shaking hand, she reached for her keys on the counter. The blood rushed in her ears. And still she waited, her feet refusing to move. The wall had been there, growing taller, thicker, higher. Then in the biting silence she heard the door in that wall close, the bolt slide through the lock with a reverberating finality.
She wanted to scream against it, fight it. It wouldn’t end like this. It wouldn’t, couldn’t end at all.
When she couldn’t stand it any longer, she walked out the door lightheaded, heartsick, ears straining to hear him coming after her. All the way to her car telling herself this wasn’t the end.
Chapter 18
Present day…
THREE WEEKS AFTER THE fateful morning at Nick’s, Mia walked into Norfolk’s favorite pizza joint for a girls’ lunch. She’d cried more over Nick Walker in the past three weeks than she had in the past nine years. Nothing could catch up to the amount she’d done that first year without him.
Heartbroken all over again, she lay in bed at night, reliving all the years they were together, slipping right back into the past like it was yesterday. All the time and energy she’d poured into getting over him now seemed worthless. That made her cry even harder. Would she never get over the man?
What had she been thinking going over there? That sh
e would get some kind of closure? That things were different? Had she been so desperate to see him, to touch him, that she had no damn sense of self-preservation?
This lunch was a self-imposed outing. Mia was determined not to let Nick break her the way he’d done years ago. She slipped into the booth next to Hannah. Abby’s tow-headed four-year-old son, Charlie, sat in Hannah’s lap, working on a coloring sheet. Abby’s five-year-old, Gracie, sat beside her, coloring, while she wrangled Mary, a darling eighteen-month-old with a head full of soft-brown curls.
Mia swallowed against the lump in her throat. Savannah would be almost eighteen months now.
“Lizzie couldn’t make it,” Abby said, pulling Mary’s fist and a crayon away from her mouth. “One of her kids puked at art camp.”
Hannah stopped with her ice water halfway to her mouth. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes,” Abby said.
“He puked all over the table, and then more kids puked,” Gracie announced, sounding inordinately happy about the whole affair.
“Gracie, that’s not table talk. So sorry,” Abby added, speaking to them.
“It’s okay. No food yet,” Mia said. “And I have a strong stomach.”
Mia knew Hannah was making an effort to include her in lady lunch dates, and she appreciated it enough to make an effort to accept. It was the only capacity she’d seen Hannah in since the hospital.
Despite Hannah’s panic attack sparked by her past, it had been a step forward. Had spurred Hannah to share the details of her past with another person, a man she cared about and whom Mia believed cared about her.
The young waitress returned, and she ordered a slice of her favorite. That was the best thing about this place, that you could order just a slice. While Abby ordered for the kids, Mia couldn’t help but notice the small diamond winking on the waitress’s left hand. A symbol of love and a promise made. She’d once had the love and the promise. She didn’t feel cynical or think that their love wouldn’t last just because hers hadn’t. It was more a wistfulness, a reminder of what she’d lost.
Charlie climbed from Hannah’s lap into hers, his sweet arms circling her neck in a squeeze.
“I’m sorry,” Abby said. “Just pass him back when it gets to be too much.”
“No. It’s not too much. He’s just a bundle of love.”
“He is,” Abby agreed, smiling at her boy.
Mia nuzzled his head, breathing in the scent of his soft baby hair. The last couple of weeks hadn’t been easy. Less than twelve hours with Nick and she’d fallen right back into that heartbreaking place she’d never wanted to be again. She hadn’t even realized how much she’d feared ever feeling that kind of pain again until she did. And that was perhaps the real reason she’d avoided getting involved with anyone.
“Such a ladies’ man,” Hannah said.
Mia closed her eyes and cuddled him close one more time before he pulled away and turned to get his crayons from his sister.
They talked of family and birthday parties coming up and all the happenings that came with a large family. The bunk beds Matt was building in Jack’s room and Hannah’s long-term plans for a children’s riding camp with cabins near her own.
“Our men love a project,” Abby said, picking up Charlie’s freshly delivered pizza to blow away some heat. “Keeps them happy even if they grumble a little.”
Mia felt a pang at the phrase our men. Both of the ladies here had a man who loved them and whom they loved back. Except for Hannah, they all had children added to the mix. She watched Abby, wiping and herding and holding. She’d wanted that. God, how she’d wanted that. With Nick. If not with Nick, then by herself.
She hadn’t spoken to him since she’d left his house, but she spent most of every day trying not to think about him. She couldn’t decide if it hurt worse now that she’d seen him again. Maybe it had just brought everything to the surface, but the pain wasn’t worse. It had hurt plenty before. Touching him again, holding him, being held... it’d been such a mistake, going to him, going to bed with him. But would she take it back if she could?
“Stephen said you were okay with Gracie coming out on Saturday,” Abby said to Hannah. “But please, tell me if it’s a problem.”
“It’s not a problem,” Gracie chimed in. “Hannah says I’m the best five-year-old rider she’s ever seen.”
Hannah smiled. “You’re right. I did say that. And I wouldn’t ever say it if it wasn’t true.”
“See, Mom?” Gracie beamed.
Abby shook her head, smiling in wonder across at Hannah. “Stephen is a lucky man.”
Hannah grinned sheepishly, studying the ice cubes in her soda. “I feel pretty lucky, too.”
Mia was glad to see things going so well between Hannah and Stephen. There was a certain confidence that spoke of intimacy when she said Stephen’s name.
“Well, well, well.” A tall, dark, and incredibly handsome man stopped beside their table. “Look at all my favorite ladies in one place.”
If Mia hadn’t known right away who he belonged to, it wasn’t hard to figure out by the way Abby’s face lit up.
“Daddy!” Gracie stood and leapt for him.
Mary almost fell out of Abby’s arms, getting to the man who caught Gracie with one arm then took the baby with the other as if he did it a million times a day.
“Daddy!” Charlie stood, not to be left out.
“Hey, bud.”
“Mia, this is Stephen’s brother, Matt.”
“Hi,” he said, smiling. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too.”
Even with kids clinging to him, Matt leaned down and placed a sweet kiss on his wife’s lips. It was more than the casual kiss of a man who’d seen his wife hours earlier and would see her again in a few more. A kiss full of love followed by the kind of smile that said there was more to come.
“He belongs to Abby,” Hannah said.
“Yes. I got that.”
“How are you feeling?” he asked Abby softly, though everyone heard.
All female eyes were on the two of them. You couldn’t help but be sucked in.
“I’m fine.”
He continued as if the rest of them were invisible. Mia figured they were.
Matt was still focused on his wife. “Are you going home soon? I thought you were going to take a nap?”
“I will. Straight after this.”
Mary went for the sunglasses hanging on a lanyard around his neck. He let Gracie slide onto the bench seat beside Mia so he could pick up Charlie before he climbed through the pizza to get to his dad.
“I had pizza.” Gracie held up her half-eaten slice for Matt.
“Nice. I’ll keep these little rug rats occupied and pick up the big ones after school.”
“Thanks, babe.”
“You’re welcome. You can pay me back by taking that nap.”
He kissed her once more then gathered his charges and all the paraphernalia that came with them. A pink-and-white-checked quilted bag hung on one thick arm with Mary perched on the other.
Nick would look like that. Hot and confident and proud. They’d talked about the children they would have so many times she could see them. Could practically hear them calling out Daddy and see Nick turn to them smiling, gathering them up in his muscled arms. He’d be happy, his soul eased, his guilt gone. She’d dreamed of that, prayed for that, but life hadn’t followed.
“He’s not always like that,” Abby told her when Matt was gone. “He’s just a bit overprotective at the moment. We just found out we’re having twins.”
“What? Wow.”
“Yep.” She picked up her water, and Mia didn’t miss her other hand going protectively to her belly. “I just found out a few weeks ago.”
“That’s wonderful. Congratulations.”
“Thank you. We wanted a houseful, and that’s what we’ll have.”
“You already have that.” Hannah bit into her pizza.
“Right. Well, a fuller houseful then.” Abby was
so happy she was beaming like her daughter had.
“Well, you look great. Pregnancy obviously agrees with you.”
“Thank you.”
Mia tried not to let herself think how much she wanted that. “I have a crib. If you need it. If you want two.”
A hush fell over the table.
Then Abby reached out and covered her hand.
“Thank you. That’s so generous.”
Maybe, but it was time. And somehow the catastrophe that being with Nick had been made moving forward that much more necessary.
* * *
NICK PROWLED AROUND HANNAH’S kitchen, helped himself to a bottle of water in the fridge. It was strange, this shift in their dynamics. For maybe the first time ever, he’d come to Hannah for himself instead of for her, because after the disastrous morning after with Mia, he needed…something. Hell if he knew what it was or how to ask for it. “So,” he said, twisting off the bottle top.
“So.” Hannah countered his grumpy expression with a smile.
He leaned back against Hannah’s kitchen counter, feet and arms crossed. “Is he like… your boyfriend now?”
“I think it’s gone well past that, and you know it, so you can stop grumbling like a pissed-off bear.” She grabbed a pot holder and pulled the batch of brownies from the oven. “You could be friends, you know. You’re a lot alike.”
“Don’t make me ill.” He took a drink and watched her cover the hot brownies with foil. “Why does he get brownies?”
Hannah laughed, her eyes so bright he almost wanted to buy the man a drink. Almost. She killed that thought when she grinned back at him, waggled her eyebrows. “You really want me to answer that?”
He pinched his eyes closed. “God, no. You’re being…careful, right? I mean, you…”
“What?” She gaped at him, feigning shock, while her eyes danced with laughter. “Are you trying to talk to me about sex, Nick?”
He opened his mouth then closed it, running his fingers through his hair.
“Could you maybe tell me real quick? Or I know, let’s call Zach and Luke, and you could sit us all down. Make it a group lesson.”
Worth the Wait (McKinney/Walker #1) Page 14