Take Me Back (Paradise, Idaho Book 4)

by Rosalind James

  “Holy shit,” the guy beside him said. He was on his feet now, too. “That’s gone. Jesus H. Christ.”

  Maybe so, Jim thought, but he’d already bent down to get Hallie again. She’d stopped screaming. All she was doing now was moaning, and it was so faint. Too faint.

  “I’ve got you, baby,” he said, even though he had no idea if she could understand him. “I’ve got you. It’s going to hurt some more now. We have to carry you. Hang on. Just a little bit more.” He told the guy, “Grab her feet.”

  Halfway up, the paramedics came to meet them with a Stokes litter. They loaded Hallie into the basket, strapped her down, and Jim and the other man helped them carry it up. Hallie was barely moaning now, though, and he didn’t waste his breath talking to her. He just planted his boots and carried her up. Got her out.

  At last, they were at the guardrail, lifting her over it. A sea of flashing red and blue lights. Familiar faces, deputies and paramedics and firefighters, but Jim acknowledged none of them.

  “My daughter,” he said. “Where’s my daughter?”

  “Got her in the first ambulance,” a firefighter told him. “About to roll.”

  The paramedics had Hallie in another truck, were slapping an oxygen mask on her, attaching an IV. Jim hesitated for a fraction of a second, but he had to see Mac. He had to find his baby girl.

  The other ambulance was parked ahead, past an idle fire engine with nothing to do—nothing but to let it burn out—and a sheriff’s vehicle. Other cars were stopped to the front and back, and the headlights and taillights stretched out in a long snake up and down the valley. But Jim didn’t look. He climbed up into the back of the ambulance, to the small form stretched out, a blanket over her.

  “Dad,” she said.

  He took her hand and said, “Yeah, partner. I’m here. How you doing?”

  “I’m OK,” she said, her voice so tiny. “I’m OK. But Hallie . . .” She was crying. “That guy hit her. And I think she was already . . . hurt. Is she OK?”

  “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “They’re working on her. They’ll take her to the hospital, which is where they’re taking you. Don’t be scared, honey. You’re going to be all right.”

  “I know,” she said. “I can talk, and I can move everything. It just hurts, that’s all. My head hurts. But Dad. You have to go ride with Hallie. She’s hurt worse. She’ll be scared.”

  “No, baby girl.” His heart was going to rip in two. He was going to shatter. “I need to stay with you.”

  “No,” she said. “You don’t. Mom said . . .” She was crying harder now, and the words weren’t coming out too clearly, because she’d gotten braces on her teeth today. Braces, so her teeth would be straight when she was grown up. When he cheered too loud at her college graduation, and hung her shelves in her first apartment, and walked her down the aisle. “Mom said,” she kept on, “that you have to be strong. That you have to be independent. But if you’re really hurt, you need help anyway. You need to help Hallie. I’m OK. She’s hurt. Go help her.”

  He could feel the wetness on his cheeks. He knew he was crying, and he didn’t care. “I’m going,” he said. “I’m doing it. I’ll see you at the hospital, partner. I love you.”

  “I’ll see you, Dad,” she said. “I love you.”

  It hurt so much. Hallie couldn’t stand it. It hurt so much.

  The voices were talking, but her eyes were closed. She was trying to breathe, but it hurt.

  Then they put something on her mouth, and she wanted to struggle, but she couldn’t. And things were slipping away. She was floating. The pain was still there at the edges, but she wasn’t in it anymore. She could see it, but she couldn’t feel it.

  She wanted to tell them “thank you,” but she couldn’t talk.

  But Mac. What about Mac? Mac had been in the car. She remembered Jim’s arms pulling her out, and that was all she remembered. Where was Mac?

  The voices kept talking, and then there was another one. One she needed.

  “Hey, Hallie. Hey, baby.”

  She opened her eyes, and his face swam into her vision, then blurred.

  Jim, she tried to say, but she couldn’t, because there was something on her mouth. Mac, she tried to tell him with her eyes.

  “Mac’s OK,” he said. “She’s in the other ambulance. She’s going to be OK.”

  She shut her eyes, then, because it was too hard to keep them open. Jim had a hand on her arm, over the blanket. She knew, because she felt it. She knew it was his.

  She woke up later, but it was different. She wasn’t looking at the ceiling of the ambulance anymore, and there was nothing on her mouth. She was on her side, and there were tubes coming out of her hand, which was lying flat on a white sheet beneath her chin. The pain was still there, just beneath the surface. She opened her eyes and saw him. Jim.

  “Hey, there,” he said. “How you doing?”

  “Weird,” she said, her voice not sounding like her own.

  He laughed, and that did sound like him. More or less.

  “What . . . happened?” she asked.

  “Your car went off the road. It rolled, but it was lucky the snow was deep. That probably helped. You broke your ankle in the fall, probably because your foot was wedged under the brake pedal. That’s in a cast. You didn’t do your concussion any good, either. And you got hit on the shoulder with an iron bar that cracked your shoulder blade. Which is going to hurt like hell, but you’re going to heal up fine. It’s just not going to be too much fun doing it, that’s all.”

  “Mac,” she said.

  “Mac’s all good. Mac’s already been released. My mom’s got her.” Jim’s hand was on her head, now, stroking over her hair, so tender, and a few tears were leaking from her eyes. It felt so good to have him here and to hear that.

  “I’m glad,” she said. “I’m so glad. But I’m so . . . sorry. I was driving, and I . . . I got all fuzzy. I should have let you take us. I should . . . I should . . .”

  She couldn’t go on. She didn’t have to.

  “No,” he said. “That wasn’t your fault. It was carbon-monoxide poisoning. They can’t tell—your car burned up—but we’re sure it was deliberate. Bob Jenkins was following you, and there was a drill in a bag in the trunk of his car. It wasn’t your fault.”

  The tears were coming a little faster now. The relief was trying to overwhelm her. “He came,” she said. “He . . . hit me. I tried . . . to get Mac out, but . . .”

  “I know. Mac told us.”

  “Where . . . is he?”

  “He’s dead,” Jim said bluntly, and it took a second for that to sink in. “He burned to death beside the car.”

  “Oh.” She should feel bad, but she didn’t.

  “And before you start feeling bad about that,” he said, as if he’d read her mind, “you should know that they found a whole mess of child porn on his computer. Little girls.” She could hear the anger in his voice, the sick disgust. “He would have killed you, too. He’d escalated further and further. I’d guess the fire was the tipping point, and once he wrecked your car, he was ready to go the rest of the way. I didn’t kill him, I’m pretty sure. I just knocked him out. But now that I know everything—I’d have killed him.”

  “I’m glad . . . you didn’t. I’m glad you . . . didn’t have to.” She was so tired, so she shut her eyes, and Jim kept his hand on her head, and that felt better. “Maya wouldn’t have . . . wanted you to.”

  “No. She wouldn’t have. And neither would you. That’s the only reason I’m glad I didn’t.”

  “Good.” It was only a breath. She wanted to sleep, but she wanted him to stay. She wanted to stay with him. She wanted to tell him so, but she didn’t have to. Jim wasn’t going to leave her. As long as she needed him, he’d be there.

  “My mom and Cole are outside waiting for you. Your aunt and uncle, too. And Anthea called your mom.”

  “Oh.” She should say more, but she couldn’t. That’s good, though, she thought vaguely
. That my uncle didn’t try to kill me. That’s nice.

  “They can all keep waiting, though,” he said. “And they will. You go to sleep.” It was like he knew. Again. “I’ll be right here when you wake up, I promise.”

  “Thanks.” It was a whisper. I love you, she wanted to say, but she was going to have to say it later. That was all right, though. He’d be here. She could say it then.

  “And so you know,” he said, his voice rough. Choked. “Because I need to say it. I love the hell out of you.”

  EPILOGUE

  Seventeen months later

  The soft air of May was blowing through the open window of the white house across from the Presbyterian church, carrying the scent of lilacs with it. A few petals fell from the crab apple blossoms in the glass vase and drifted, gentle as snow, onto the dining-room table.

  At Hallie’s house. Their house. The only thing, other than Jim’s new truck, her new car, and their education and emergency fund, that she’d kept from the millions she’d inherited a year and a half earlier.

  She and Jim had been able to keep their hands off each other after all for the final few months of the waiting period. That was a lot easier, she’d found, when you had a fractured shoulder blade and ankle. She’d inherited her share—and had promptly given everything away except what she’d earned from the sale of Henry’s house. All of the three-point-five million dollars from the sale of the company and Henry’s portfolio was gone. A half million had made it to the women’s shelter, with the rest to the scholarship fund helping nontraditional students go to college. A decision that had seemed to cause Faye almost physical pain. If Hallie had referred to her scholarship recipients a time or two when she and Jim had dinner with Faye and Dale, just to see Faye struggle with her expression and watch Jim hide a smile? Well, she was only human.

  Had there been a little less in her inheritance? Yes, because Bob Jenkins had been dipping into it. The damage had been minor, though, amounting mostly to a testing of the waters for future raids, checking whether anybody would notice the discrepancies.

  If he’d been willing to settle for his management fee, he’d have gotten away with it. All in all, Hallie was glad he hadn’t been willing to settle. The world was a better place without him in it.

  And without her father, too. Which was why the first thing she’d done on the way home from the meeting with the scholarship foundation had been to stop by Eileen Hendricks’ house and give her a brochure.

  “Really?” Eileen had asked, staring at the printed words as if they were meant for somebody else. “You think I could?”

  “Well, let’s see,” Hallie had answered. “You’re running your own household. You’re running your own business. You’re raising two children. Yeah, I’d say that gives me some faith.”

  Eileen had laughed like the sun was coming out, had hugged Hallie, and had even cried a little. She might not go for it, but at least she’d know she had a chance.

  Of course, Jim had asked Hallie if she were sure, but that answer hadn’t been hard at all.

  “Financial security,” she’d told him. “That’s plenty. Otherwise—I want to keep doing my job, and you want to keep doing yours. A big wide safety net would be great, but everything else is just window dressing. And besides,” she’d added, “we’re setting an example for our brother. I inherited a family. All right, it’s your family, but I’m claiming my share. And that’s the most important inheritance of all.”

  He hadn’t argued. She’d known that, deep down, he’d been relieved. That didn’t stop him from being almost as excited as she was, though, when they’d gone to the Ford dealership on his last birthday and bought him a brand-new crew-cab Ford F-150. Black.

  “I guess I’ve got a sugar mama,” he’d sighed when they’d taken their first family drive in it. “Too bad I can’t resist her.”

  Hallie had exchanged a smile with Mac, who’d been sitting between them. “Except that selling your house got us half the money for the new one, and you’ve put in about five hundred hours of sweat equity on it since. And except that Idaho is a community property state. Face it, buddy. From here on out, what’s mine is yours, and more importantly—what’s yours is mine.”

  Now, she sat in the recliner in the living room of the best house ever, all the way from the peaked roof to the pool table in its basement rec room, and looked at her watch. It was seven in the morning, but that wasn’t why she was looking.

  She waited another ten minutes to make sure, then pulled the lever to return the recliner to its upright position, heaved herself out of it, and went to the bedroom.

  She’d been sleeping in the recliner for the past two weeks, ever since lying flat had grown too uncomfortable. “Practice,” she’d joked to Jim. “In case he’s fussy. He and I may be sleeping out there all the time, who knows.”

  He’d been lying across the bed at the time, his hand resting on her belly, feeling their son kick. “Nope,” he’d said. “If somebody’s got to walk him or sit up with him, that’s going to be me. Or at least I’m going to fight you for it.”

  Now, she paused in the doorway and looked at him. Lying fast asleep on his side, a pillow pulled close to him as if it were Hallie, because he didn’t like to sleep without her.

  Her husband of a year, and the father of her son.

  She went and sat on the edge of the bed, then put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey,” she said softly.

  He sat straight up. “What? Is it time?”

  She laughed, heard the shakiness of it, and forgave herself. He’d been asking the same question every time he’d woken up for weeks now. This time, the answer was different.

  “Getting close,” she said. “Moving along. I think you’d better get up, and we’d better wake Mac up, too.”

  He was already out of bed, grabbing for his jeans and pulling them on.

  “You don’t have to rush,” she said. “It’s a first baby. For me.”

  He seemed to hear her nerves, because he paused in the act of dragging his T-shirt over his head, came over to her, pulled her close, and said, “It’s going to be fine. You’ll see. We’re going to have a baby.”

  She leaned into him, knowing that he was reassuring himself as much as her. “Then get dressed, Dad,” she said. “And get ready to help him get born.”

  She wasn’t laughing, though, four hours later, when he was helping her. Along with Mac.

  “You’re doing great, Hallie,” Mac said from her spot near Hallie’s head. “You’re doing awesome.”

  Hallie wanted to argue, but Jim was on her other side, holding her hand. She could look right inside his heart and see the fear he was trying to hide. And when the doctor said, “Get ready to push,” she looked at Jim and thought, You need a baby, and I’m going to give you one. So she pushed, and then she pushed some more. She pushed until she thought she’d split in two. But she’d been hurt before and pushed through, and she could do it again. So she did.

  One moment, she was calling out, unable to keep the anguished cry from escaping, and the doctor was saying, “We’ve got a head coming. Here he comes.” And the next instant, she was giving it more effort than anything she’d ever done, thinking, Come on, baby. Come on. And it hurt.

  “Dad,” Mac was saying beside her, her voice shaking. “Dad. He’s coming.”

  Jim was still with Hallie, though. He still had her hand. He was saying, “Come on, Hallie. Come on. You’re doing so good, sweetheart. Come on.”

  “One more push,” the doctor said. “A gentle one. And you’ll have a baby.”

  One last time, when she thought she couldn’t and she did anyway. And there was a sound. A sound. Like a kitten, and then something else. Like a baby. An angry one.

  “Well, hello, Mom and Dad,” the doctor said. “Hello, big sister. We’ve got a boy.”

  Jim knew he was crying, and he couldn’t care.

  He’d told Hallie it would be all right. He’d told Mac. And he hadn’t believed, until this moment, that it could act
ually be true.

  But it was. His son was here.

  Thomas James Lawson. Lying on his mother’s stomach, his eyes scrunched closed, his face screwed up in concentration, like he was trying to figure out whether the world out here was going to work out for him.

  Jim put a hand out, then hesitated.

  “Go on,” the doctor said. “Go on and touch him. He’s yours.”

  When Jim’s hand covered the tiny back, though, he lost it. His hand was shaking, and the tears were coming.

  And just like that, there was Hallie’s hand on top of his. There was her sweet, exhausted voice telling him, “It’s OK, Jim. It’s OK, honey. We have a son. And he’s fine.”

  “Dad?” Mac asked, and he shook his head, tried to speak, failed, and laughed through his tears.

  “Just . . . too much,” he got out. “Sorry. Give me a second.”

  “You’ve got a second,” Hallie said. “You’ve got forever.” And that made him lose it some more.

  Hallie still had her hand over Jim’s. Over their son. She was so tired, but she was all good.

  She turned her head to look at Mac. “Hey, big sister. Want to touch your brother?”

  Mac’s eyes were big and round. “Can I?”

  “You bet,” Hallie said.

  Having Mac here had been an open question right up to the end. Mac had come to every childbirth class, though, had made a bulletin board with a diagram of the baby at each week’s gestation, had researched until she knew more than Hallie did herself. And in the end, she’d been a trooper.

  “Time to cut the cord,” the doctor said. “You doing this, Dad?”

  “Yep,” Jim said. He’d pulled himself together. Of course he had. He stepped down there, took the scissors the doctor handed him, and did it.

  “There you go,” he said. “Now he’s his own person.”

  “He can’t do it himself, Dad,” Mac said. “He’s a baby.”

  “Nope,” Hallie said, smiling at her. There was so much love in her, it couldn’t be contained. It was spilling out all around her. “He’s going to need a whole lot of help. A mom and a dad and a big sister to love him and help him grow up strong. Think you’re up to it?”