DAVID: A Standalone Romance (Gray Wolf Security)

by Glenna Sinclair

  What if something went wrong? What if the doctor’s hand slipped and David’s paralysis spread? What if they couldn’t get all the bone fragments again? What if the damage was just too bad? What if this didn’t change anything?

  What if his brother died on the table?

  Ash began to pace, aware of his friends watching him but not really caring. He needed to move. He needed this to be okay. He’d already lost Alexi and his parents. He could lose David, too.

  So he paced. What else could he do?

  Every time the doors down the hall opened, the doors through which the doctors would come, he jumped. But four hours passed, then five, then six. Waiting was always the worst part. When they were waiting for news on Donovan back in January, he thought he would go insane. But this…it was so much worse.

  “I did this to him,” he suddenly announced. “If it goes wrong, it’s because I pushed him into it. I made him do this.”

  “We all pushed him,” Kirkland said.

  Donovan nodded. “This is on all of us.”

  “We’re a family,” Rose said.

  Joss nodded vigorously. Family.

  Ash began to pace again.

  It wasn’t until just after the top of the eighth hour that the doctors finally came through those doors.

  “It went well,” Dr. Paulson said. “We believe we got all the bone fragments. Now it’s just a matter of time.”

  “He’s going to be okay?” Ash asked.

  “We won’t know how much function he’ll have until the inflammation begins to go down. But there won’t be any new paralysis.”

  “That’s good.”

  The doctor nodded. “Our only concern at this point is infection.”

  “He’ll be fine,” Ash said, pumping the doctor’s hand enthusiastically. “I know he will.”

  ***

  The fever began four hours later.

  Chapter 32

  Ricki

  Eric Rutledge was a slight man with a bit of a paunch, but he had a jolly face that made me want to smile the moment I saw him. He waved and came to me, giving me a big hug the moment he reached my table.

  “You look just like you do in the pictures she was always showing me.”

  “Thank you,” I said, wishing I could say the same. But I couldn’t. Belle and I weren’t talking by the time she met this kind man.

  “I can’t tell you how pleased I was when you reached out to me. Arabelle had lots of friends, but none she talked about as much as you. I was always so curious about you.”

  “She talked about me?”

  “Oh, yes, quite often.”

  That surprised me. I’d imagined she cursed my name to anyone who would listen. But it didn’t seem that was what he meant when he said she talked of me.

  “The two of you met at MIT, yes?”

  I nodded. “We shared a couple of classes, but we didn’t really become close until we moved here to Chicago.”

  “And rented that little efficiency apartment because it was the only thing you could afford when you first arrived in town.”

  I was truly surprised by the details he knew. I sat back and watched him, a little weary that he was going to suddenly become violent…the way Jacy had.

  I think he could see the weariness in my eyes because he watched me closely, a little hurt in his eyes.

  “How did you end up in Los Angeles?”

  “I wanted to establish my business close to Silicon Valley, but not actually there. Los Angeles seemed like a good compromise.”

  “And business is good?”

  “I’ve sold it.”

  His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Arabelle would be surprised by that. She thought you loved the business.”

  “I did, in the beginning. It was a whole new life for me. But my life has changed.”

  “For the better, I hope.”

  I thought of David and couldn’t help the smile that slipped across my face. “I think so.”

  “Are you married? Have children?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “But there are prospects?” He smiled kindly. “I can always tell a woman in love.”

  I thought about that. I hadn’t even thought the word love just yet. It seemed too early, too risky. But when he said it, it just felt right.

  “You might be right about that.”

  He nodded, as he leaned back in his seat. The waiter came and went and he still watched me.

  “How did you and Arabelle meet?”

  He laughed. “That’s a funny story. It was actually at the zoo.”

  “Really?”

  “She hates reptiles. I’m sure you knew that.”

  I nodded.

  “Well, she was walking through the reptile house for reasons only she could understand, and I was studying the black cobra. I’m something of an amateur herpetologist. And she’s walking past me and the snake suddenly moves and she jumped, falling almost right into my arms. We always said it was kismet.”

  That sounded like something that Arabelle would do. I lifted my water to my lips and took a slow sip.

  “Was it a happy marriage?”

  He nodded. “For the most part. Even after her diagnosis, we managed to find happiness in the little things.”

  “Diagnosis?”

  Eric’s eyes widened slightly. The waiter chose then to come with our meals. We waited until he’d set them down and gone. Then Eric leaned forward and said, “I thought you knew.”

  I shook my head.

  “Arabelle was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer seven months after our wedding. The doctor said she had maybe six months.”

  Stunned. I was absolutely, soul crushing, stunned.

  How was that possible?

  “She was always so healthy.”

  Eric nodded. “She was angry at first. But then she realized that if she was going out, she wanted to go out her own way. That’s why the pain killers.”

  I sat back and ran my fingers through my hair. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. It wasn’t possible that my tall, lithe friend—who wouldn’t let me order a pizza because of the chemicals in the tomatoes they used—could have had cancer.

  “It’s not fair.”

  “Life is often not fair.”

  I nodded. He was right there. It made me want to go home and hug David.

  “Listen,” Eric said, “I can see I just delivered quite a blow. Why don’t you take some time and when you’re ready to talk again, give me a call?”

  “Thank you.”

  I watched him go and felt the tears threatening to erupt. What had I done? Walking away from my friend and letting her go through something so devastating on her own? It wasn’t right.

  I needed to hear David’s voice, but he wasn’t answering his phone.

  Chapter 33

  David

  Ash was sitting beside me, his face a mask of concern.

  “How’d it go?” I asked with a throat that didn’t want to work.

  “They got all the fragments.”

  “And?”

  “Have to wait for the swelling to go down before they can know.”

  I closed my eyes, an image of myself walking up to Ricki and touching her face as she stood filled my mind. And then I drifted back to sleep.

  ***

  The next time I woke, I was cold. I shivered and someone immediately brought a blanket up to my chin.

  “They say the antibiotics should bring the fever down soon,” a disembodied voice said above me.

  “Is someone sick?” I tried to ask, but I didn’t think any sound came out of my throat.

  I didn’t get an answer.

  ***

  My eyes felt gritty, like I hadn’t slept in days. I felt a hand move in mine. I said Ricki’s name, but I couldn’t hear my own voice. I was so cold and my throat was burning…

  ***

  Donovan was watching me through weary eyes. I studied him, but it was as if he didn’t realize I was awake. Kate came up behind him and squeezed his
shoulder.

  “She keeps calling. We should let her know what’s happening.”

  “Ash wants to wait till his fever breaks.”

  “It might not break for days.”

  “Ash says he didn’t want her to know, that he didn’t want to worry her. We have to respect that.”

  “I think she would want to know. I know I would.”

  And then I was gone again.

  Chapter 34

  Ricki

  David wasn’t answering his phone. It was beginning to frighten me a little. Twenty-four hours it’d been since the last time we talked. He promised he would keep in touch.

  Had he decided he was done with me? Was this his way of ending our relationship? Or was it something else? Had something happened to him?

  I was frightened, but I didn’t know what to do. So I kept calling and leaving messages, begging him to call me back. To hell with self-respect.

  ***

  I met with Eric the next morning over breakfast. This time he was the first to arrive, sitting in a corner booth with a plate filled to the rim with eggs and hash browns.

  “Morning,” he said, rising and giving me another of those tight hugs.

  “How are you?” I asked.

  “I think the question is better posed to you.”

  I shrugged. “I was shocked. But it also makes so much sense to me.”

  He nodded. “A lot of people have said that.”

  “I’m sorry the two of you had to go through something like that, that you had to make that choice.”

  He tilted his head, as though he was weighing my statement. “I think the decision was the easy part. It was getting the diagnosis that was the hard part.”

  I had to agree with that.

  I ordered, asking for a bowl of oatmeal, not sure my nervous stomach could take much more than that. When it came, I pushed it around with my spoon.

  “I’m guessing you have more questions,” Eric said. “Feel free to ask anything.”

  “Was she in pain?”

  “Sometimes. But it never got unbearable for her.”

  That was something of a relief.

  Eric watched me a bit longer, waiting for more questions. When none came, he set a notebook on the table, one like students use to take notes in class. I recognized Arabelle’s handwriting on the cover and knew what it was immediately.

  Arabelle liked to write. She wrote down everything. Sometimes she’d fill notebooks like that with code. Other times it would be poems and little snippets of prose. Other times it would be like a diary, filled with her thoughts and feelings.

  He slid it across the table to me.

  “I think maybe you’d get more out of this than I would. It’s mostly about the time the two of you spent together toward the end. Before her arrest.”

  I was almost afraid to touch it at first. But then I picked it up and opened the front cover, my eyes moving over the familiarity of her handwriting.

  Oh, how I missed her!

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “I cut her out. She deserved so much more, and I cut her out; I told her she didn’t deserve to be a part of my company. But it was more hers than it ever was mine.”

  Eric reached over and touched my hand. “She understood, Ricki.”

  “How could she?”

  “Because she knew you. She knew what you’d been through, and she knew you would someday come through that part of your life like emerging from a tunnel or a cocoon. And you clearly have.”

  “But it’s too late.”

  “It’s never too late.”

  I wished I could believe that, but I wasn’t sure.

  I stayed for a long time after Eric left, reading a random page here, one there, not really reading the words but the essence behind them. Just holding this journal brought back my friend with an intensity that I thought I would never experience again. I missed her so much it hurt. I so wanted to introduce her to David; I wanted to share my happiness with her. Nothing was ever the same after she was gone. And it never would be again.

  I stepped out of the diner and called David again. Again the call went directly to voicemail. I hailed a cab and thought I’d go do a little shopping on the way back to the hotel to clear my head, but as the cab pulled to the curb, my phone rang.

  I didn’t recognize the number and considered ignoring it. But I swiped the answer button.

  And everything changed.

  Chapter 35

  David

  She was sitting beside me, and for a moment I thought it was an illusion.

  “Ricki?”

  She slipped her hand into mine, her fingers fitting perfectly between mine.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I’ve had major back surgery.”

  “Like you’ve had a fever for five days.”

  “Five days? Really?”

  She nodded slowly. I noticed how red her eyes were, how tired she seemed. She lifted my hand to her mouth and kissed my fingertips before letting go and sitting back with a heavy sigh.

  “You’re beautiful,” I said.

  She shook her head, not even a smile emerging from those beautiful lips.

  “You scared the shit out of me, you know that? I called over and over again and you never answered. I had to hear about all this from Kate Thompson.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I thought we’d promised no more secrets.”

  I started to answer, but she shook her head, leaning close to me again, pressing her fingers to my lips. “Get better, David.”

  Then she stood and walked out of the room.

  ***

  A nurse was changing my IV bag when I woke next. She was tall and had impossibly dark hair.

  “Where is everyone?”

  Ash came into view from behind the nurse.

  “It’s late,” he said. “They’ve all gone home.”

  “And Ricki?”

  A cloud moved over Ash’s face, but he nodded. “Home.”

  “She looked tired earlier.”

  “She’s been sitting at your bedside nonstop since she came back from Chicago.”

  “Has it really been five days?”

  He glanced at his watch. “Six now.”

  The nurse finished and stepped away from the bed. I watched her leave the room, then focused on Ash again.

  “Should ask her out. She’s cute.”

  “She’s also married with three kids.”

  I groaned. “We have been here a while.”

  Ash took a seat in the same chair Ricki had been sitting in earlier. He leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees.

  “You’ve been pretty sick, David.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You had us all scared.”

  “I don’t feel too bad now.”

  Ash studied my face. “You look better.”

  He was quiet for a few minutes, then he sat back again, a deep sigh slipping from his chest.

  “Ricki learned some things about her friend, Arabelle, in Chicago she thought you might want to know.”

  “Why doesn’t she tell me?”

  Ash pretended I didn’t speak.

  “She was sick when she took her own life. Pancreatic cancer. Doctors predicted a pretty painful death in just a few short months, so she took matters into her own hands.”

  “At least Ricki can stop blaming herself.”

  Ash inclined his head slightly. “She also was given this journal by the husband. In it, it implies that Arabelle knew who was targeting her for arrest. She believes that she broke into a computer that had something to do with Homeland Security. She thinks they targeted her because they thought she’d seen something sensitive and she might have exposed it. But she didn’t, and they must have figured that out because half the charges were dropped before she even went to trial.”

  “That makes sense. A lot of the things they had us doing involved Homeland Security.”

  “Also explains wh
y they moved you out of cybercrimes afterward.”

  I reached up to touch my forehead, but my arm was strapped to a board. Ash reached over and brushed the hair from my face.

  “You were a little combative when the fever was high. They had to strap your arm to keep you from pulling the IV out.”

  “What else happened while I was out of it?”

  Ash just shook his head. “It’s been a tense few days is all.”

  I didn’t believe him. There was tension in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

  “Did they see something on their tests? Is there something wrong with me?”

  Ash started to shake his head, but he knew me well enough that I would see right through a lie.

  “The infection might have caused more damage. They won’t know for sure until it passes and they can do more MRIs.”

  “Fuck me! You’re joking, right?”

  “I’m sorry, David.”

  “So I went through all of this for nothing?”

  “Not necessarily. The inflammation will take time to go down.”

  “But it’s possible?”

  Ash looked away so that I couldn’t see the expression on his face.

  “Don’t lie to me, brother!” I grabbed the bed rail with my free hand and pulled myself up, not realizing that I also bent my knee and used my foot to give myself some leverage.

  Ash stared at my leg.

  “Tell me the truth. How much damage?”

  And then he started to laugh.

  Chapter 36

  Ricki

  “There’s atrophy, as we’d known there would be,” the doctor continued, his voice such a monotone that I wanted to ring his neck and tell him to speak with a little more enthusiasm. David moved his leg for the first time in two and a half years. That had to be good news.

  “You’ll need physical therapy, but the extent of your movement thus far is very encouraging.”

  David laughed. “I’d say it’s more than encouraging. It’s a miracle!”

  He reached for my hand and I gave it, my heart shattering in my chest each and every time he smiled at me, each time he touched me, each time he simply said my name.