Intimate Fear

by D. C. Stone

  Brooke dropped her head, tightened her grip on Hailey’s hand, and willed her to pull through. She’d gone to sleep late last night after arriving in the ER and now, fourteen hours later, she still hadn’t woken. The doctors checked in every hour, double-checked her stats, and gave her more fluid and medicine to help wean her off the drugs.

  All Brooke could do was sit back and let others help her daughter. She felt worthless and a complete failure as a mother.

  The door clicked behind her. The on-duty nurse, a middle-aged round woman who wore tight pink-and-white scrubs, stepped through, humming beneath her breath and smiling as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Like her entire estate wasn’t crumbling down around her feet.

  She stepped beside Hailey’s bed and started the routine process of taking her vitals.

  “How she doing so far, hun?” the nurse asked.

  Brooke glanced back at her daughter’s face and her heart squeezed.

  “Still sleeping. Shouldn’t she be awake by now?”

  She shook her head. “Not necessarily. I’ll double check with Doctor Johnson, but right now, her body is doing what it needs to. Rest.” Shrewd blue eyes turned her way, measuring. “It looks like you may need to take a bit of a break as well. Have you caught any sleep yet?”

  Brooke shrugged. “A little here and there. No more than you can imagine any mother would want to, seeing as my daughter has been missing for almost two weeks.”

  The nurse nodded and jotted something down on Hailey’s chart. “Well, yes. But honey, you have guards right outside the door, big menacing men, who, no offense, but can raise anyone’s temperature with just their presence alone. Do you really think they’d move away and let anything happen in the few hours you need to get some sleep?”

  Brooke frowned. “Who?”

  “And they have hospital security running tight shifts. I tell you, in my fifteen here, I’ve never seen Doug jump so quick at someone’s beck and call. Those boys belong to you?”

  Pulling away from the bed, Brooke crossed the room, curious. She hadn’t seen anyone since they’d been brought in and honestly thought they had been left alone to deal with this. Just like they always had done, on their own. She hadn’t heard from Dwayne. His expression through the back of an ambulance’s glass as they sped away from the scene haunted her. His eyes had spoken a million things at once, his gaze steady and sure, but at the time, she’d been too focused on what they were doing with Hailey to really think or plan anything.

  She tugged on the door and held it open with her hip, then peeked her head around the jamb. Luke straightened from his perch on the wall, eyes shaded beneath the brim of his ball cap. He wore a black t-shirt, this one with a dark gray skull etched on the front, which pulled taut across his chest before giving way to a trim waist. Blue jeans that had seen better days encased his legs, and finishing off the full package were black boots, scruff with use.

  She pulled her gaze back up and caught a small hint of a smile before he said, “You done?”

  Frowning, she crossed her arms over her chest. “What are you doing?”

  He lifted one brow. “Contemplating life. What does it look like I’m doing?”

  She narrowed her eyes at his tone, his words. Luke hadn’t seemed talkative last night either, but this was a little much. Or not much at all. He kept shifting his gaze toward the door at her back, almost as if he expected someone else to come out.

  “Have I offended you or something, Luke?”

  His shoulders stiffened. “No.”

  She waited. When he didn’t offer any more, she tried again. “Then what’s your problem?”

  He stared straight ahead and mirrored her pose. “I don’t have a problem. At least, not with you, Brooke. Is there something you need?”

  She frowned, disturbed even more by his words. “Why are you standing outside my daughter’s room? Are we still in danger? Is someone still out there?”

  He shook his head and let out a breath. “No, no, God, no, it’s not that. We just want to make sure you don’t have anything else to worry about while Hailey recovers.” He swallowed hard and glanced again at the door. His face looked vulnerable, which had her confusion ramping up more. “Has she said anything?”

  How odd of a question. It wasn’t as if he was in the room, knew Hailey was still asleep, but she figured one would ask how a patient was doing rather than what they were or were not saying.

  “No, she’s asleep,” she answered, measuring each of her words.

  His shoulders relaxed and she could have sworn the lines around his mouth smoothed away. How very strange, indeed. Before she could ask additional questions, Luke nodded to someone approaching behind her. She turned her head, but she should have prepared for it.

  Dwayne stepped up to them. He stopped two feet away, but she could feel his presence as if he had touched her. His gaze roamed over her body and lingered on her face. She must look like crap, could only imagine what last night’s makeup, the outfit, her appearance, revealed after all they had been through. She fought with the instinct to check her hair and kept her hands planted at her sides.

  He stepped closer and lifted a hand, slowly, as if gauging her response. Intrigued and craving a little of his touch, she stood still. He cupped her cheek and wiped his thumb beneath her eye. “You catch any sleep last night?”

  She shook her head, unnerved with the zing his touch created. The heat from his palm spread like lava through her system, warming her completely. After being so cold, battling with the storm of concern for her daughter, she wanted to wrap the cloak of warmth around her body and give in to the comfort.

  His mouth went grim and he sighed. “What about Hails? How is she doing?” His gaze shifted to Luke behind her and he frowned at whatever he saw before turning back to her.

  “She’s going to have to go through detox. They keep talking about different options but are keeping her comfortable for now while her body recovers from what she’s been through. Her mind needs to rest as well, so they are trying not to disturb her too much.”

  “Good,” he said, then dropped his palm to her hand, entwining their fingers. A possessive hold, one screaming of his intentions, and one she liked way too much. She sucked in a breath and fought to control her growing nerves. There was no way she could manage this man, his appetite, and the care of her daughter, as well as protect her heart. He didn’t give long term. He’d told her that, right? Or, at least, he’d shown her that with actions over the years. She knew this man, knew what he did, and that he’d always have another offer with just a flick of his wrist.

  Dread formed a knot in her stomach. There wasn’t another option to give here other than break things off now, before she fell any more in love with this man, before she gave him all of her. She feared she had already given him too much.

  He pressed his lips to the back of her hand, their joined hands between them, a stark contrast in their coloring capturing her attention for a quick, distracting moment. He nipped her knuckle as if he knew.

  “She needs her rest. As do you. Why don’t you go back to the hotel, get some sleep while Luke and I hang here? If she wakes, I’ll call you immediately,” Dwayne said.

  She shook her head before he finished. “No. I won’t leave her.” She tried to tug her hand, but he wasn’t having any of it and tightened his grip.

  “You’re practically asleep standing up.”

  “No,” she snapped, yanking her hand away. God, she knew she was being unreasonable. He was doing what he always did—making sure others were taken care of. But she couldn’t allow this to happen, couldn’t have him hanging around and settling deeper in her heart than he already was. She and Hailey would be fine. They always had been. They would be now, too. She needed to break this off before things twisted any more.

  With an apologetic glance over her shoulder, she faced Dwayne head-on. “I think you should go home.”

  He blinked slowly. “Come again?”

  She shifted, seeing th
e change in his body, the tension radiating off him. “I think you should go home. I can handle things from here with Hailey. We’ll be fine.”

  His eyes narrowed. “So you can handle a seventeen-year-old drug addict who has to detox, in a place three states away from home, without support? Am I hearing you right?”

  Shoot, when he put it that way, it sounded pretty rough, but that was exactly what she was going to do, what she had to do in order to protect not just herself but Hailey as well. “I want you to go.”

  He crossed his arms. His face was hard and unreadable. “You want me to go? Not Luke? Just me?”

  Her throat grew tight and needles pricked at the back of her eyes. She fought to maintain control. This was the only way. “Yes. I’m sorry, Dwayne. I think it’ll be for the best. I have Hailey to concentrate on and that’s all I can handle right now.”

  “I want what’s best for Hailey, too. You do know that, right?”

  She nodded. His words were lovely, but this wasn’t about his feelings. Unfortunately. And that may make her a bitch, but she had to put her daughter first, and in order to do so, she couldn’t care about anything else. “I do. But I also know I can’t be who you need me to, what you expect. I just think it’ll be better for all of us if you go home and we settle back into our old friendship. You can’t handle anything outside of that,” she said and rushed on to add, “and that’s okay, but it’s time for us to stop this. It’s time I need to spend with Hails.”

  His shoulders snapped and his back went stiff. “You really think we can just go back to being friends?” he asked incredulously.

  She blinked and whipped her head up, shocked to realize she had never considered that he wouldn’t want that friendship anymore.

  Riiiiip.

  So many years, so much lost. It was almost too much to bear. The pain in her throat spread to her chest. “You don’t want that?” she gritted out, fighting to keep the pressure inside. It built in her chest, an explosion of epic proportions. With everything happening the past few weeks, the emotional release threatened to erupt as sure as a geyser.

  His gaze roamed over her face before his expression softened. “I think you know what I want, Brooke.”

  Sex. Didn’t he say that? That’s it. That’s all it was? She drew in a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “I’m sorry, I can’t be that to you.”

  He stared at her for long minutes. She kept her gaze on his strong jaw, knowing if she met his eyes, she’d break down and let it all out. Her love for him, the craving she always felt. Her desires needed to be set away, placed on a back burner until her daughter was healthy. Maybe then, maybe they could discuss being friends again.

  Unbidden, hundreds of memories flew through her mind.

  Dwayne laughing, his smile shining brighter than the sun.

  Her three-year-old daughter wrapping her arms and legs around one of his, holding on for dear life as he played Giant and ran across their backyard.

  The muscles of his back flexing as he bent below the sink to fix a leak.

  Teaching Hailey how to throw a curve ball.

  Mowing her lawn when she hadn’t asked him.

  Corralling them over to his parents’ house for Thanksgiving the year after her mother died.

  Taking care of them. Always.

  She turned, needing the escape, and pushed open the door. His voice behind her was rough with emotion, pain, and something she couldn’t identify. She wouldn’t look back, couldn’t, for surely he’d see her tears, and he’d know she lied.

  “Luke will stay and watch over you. He’ll take care of you from here.” A heavy pause floated between them. “Goodbye, Brooke.”

  Goodbye…

  Crack.

  The ominous sound ripped through her chest, the heart she’d been trying to protect shattering.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  A week later, Dwayne pushed through the front door of his parents’ house, the home where he had started his new life. A life that belatedly began at six years old. The foyer had coats and shoes scattered haphazardly, tossed aside like a forgotten item. It was the way of things, a simple reminder of how his life with his brothers had been when they’d done the same—still did the same—as they were each brought into this new bright, loving world.

  He toed off his Italian loafers, kicked them gently under a wooden bench by the door, slipped off his jacket and hung it on a hook. Voices sounded from down the hall, just on the other side of the stairs, and he recognized Charlie, Trent, his mother, and father laughing and carrying on. He gave a small smile at the sound of family, and that Trent would be accepted into the mix as easily as Charlie had been. His parents were like that, loving and kind, always freely giving something they never expected in return. Patience. Understanding. Love.

  God. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed at the phantom pain in his chest. The whole saying about your heart breaking had always been something he thought silly, because really, how could feelings cause that much grief when they weren’t physical. But after the way Brooke had kicked him out of the hospital, and effectively out of her life, the pain in his chest hadn’t lessened at all.

  He was standing in the foyer, staring at pictures from his childhood, ones where he’d been laughing, smiling and covered in mud with his five brothers, when his mom walked into the room.

  “Baby, when did you get here?”

  One side of his mouth lifted in a grin and he glanced over his shoulder. Karen wasn’t as young as she used to be, but she was still very mobile and spent tons of time outdoors doing gardening, hiking with his father, and pulling them both on outings to explore the world. It showed in her sun-kissed skin dusted with wrinkles, and her toned shoulder where a white cardigan had slipped slightly. Her gray hair had hints of brown beneath. Her eyes, a clear hazel, held years of knowledge and a lifetime of love.

  “I just got here. Was remembering how you had to hose us down after this.” He nodded toward the picture he’d been looking at.

  She stepped next to him and glanced at the picture. “Oh, yes, hose you down good, I did. I warned you boys. Your father kept harping on me to leave you alone, said it was only a little dirt.”

  Dwayne scoffed. “A little? You were installing the pool, it had been raining for two days, two days,” he emphasized, “and to us it was way more than a little dirt.” It had been a big ’ole mud pie, and they had a blast pretending to be pirates attempting to dig their way from the trenches.

  She chuckled, and the sound soothed him. This was why he’d come home, to experience a little piece of comfort. To remember what it was like to be accepted unconditionally. No matter what. His adopted mother turned to him and he looked over at her. She studied him, frowning.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Why don’t you tell me? You boys work out whatever it was you needed to do up north?”

  Surprised she knew, he asked, “Who told you?”

  She offered a smile, one that looked like she was only tolerating him being so silly. “I’m your mother, I know all.”

  He let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Yeah, and I distinctly remember you telling me the same thing after I came home from an all-nighter with Cindy Squalls.”

  “You were sixteen, and it was three o’clock in the morning.”

  “I was sixteen and a half,” he corrected. “And Jake had a big mouth then, too.”

  She shrugged and asked again, “So tell me, what’s got you so upset?”

  He sighed, then hung his head. “There’s no easy way to tell it.”

  “Then just say it, baby.” Her small hand reached out for his. He accepted her connection and linked their fingers together. With a tug, she motioned over her head and he followed. The short hall opened into a huge kitchen with wraparound counters, a kitchen island, and a bar to separate the cooking area from the eat-in dining. Charlie and Trent glanced up and smiled.

  They sat at the bar that extended out from the kitchen counter. Trent had his arm wrapped arou
nd Charlie, smiles on both of their faces. His dad turned laughing eyes toward him. Charlie was wiping beneath her eyes, and Trent’s lips were turned up in a smile. He’d obviously walked into something, but really, it was no surprise to have Charlie here when he wasn’t. She’d been accepted long ago, and if she was bringing over Trent to meet his parents, ones that had looked over her as she grew, too, then it meant things were getting serious between them.

  Not that they weren’t serious already.

  A blissful scene, and he was more than happy for them all. His problems seemed so pathetic when compared to the lighthearted feeling in the room. He shifted his feet and his mom squeezed his hand.

  “How’s Brooke?” Charlie asked.

  Dwayne pursed his lips, fighting to find the right words to explain the situation she was dealing with. He didn’t know if he could, though, and fought to stop thinking of himself and his own damn feelings. It was ridiculous. Here this woman was dealing with her seventeen-year-old daughter who’d been kidnapped and was now trying to detox, and all he could think about was how he wanted to be at her side, comforting her, helping her, just being with her.

  His mother reached out and soothed the area between his brows with her finger. “Tell me, what’s causing my son to develop wrinkles. Is she hurt? I thought you two were getting along nicely.”

  He tilted his head away from her touch. “Ahhh, hell, Mom,” he whined.

  She grinned. “I told you, mothers know everything.”

  Blowing out a breath, he looked around the room, not seeing anything but the woman he left behind. Was forced to leave. “She’s fine. They’ve got the best care in the area and as soon as it’s safe, she’ll be bringing Hailey back down to Nyack.”

  “She’ll get through it. That girl is stronger than she thinks. And her daughter takes after her, so I’m not worried about it,” Karen chirped.

  “Yeah, there’s that.”

  “Okay, so go on,” she prodded, nudging him lightly.

  “On?” he asked.

  She looked at him with the same expression she used to get him to confess to stealing a beer from his dad’s fridge.