“When can he go home?” Ash asked.
“The end of the week,” the doctor said. Then he patted David’s foot. “Congratulations.”
The doctor left the room, followed by the nurse who dropped a wink in Ash’s direction before disappearing out the door. Ash looked at David, the grin on his face remarkable.
“Leave it to you to beat all the odds.”
David grinned. “I told you I’d be okay.”
Ash started to argue, then he just shook his head. “I’m gonna go home and shower. I need to refortify myself before another full day of your crowing.”
Ash touched my shoulder then walked away, letting the door close silently behind him.
I pulled my hand from David’s even as he tried to tug me closer to him. I sat in the chair we’d all been using, running my fingers through my hair as I did.
“What’s the matter?” David asked.
“You. You’re insufferable.”
“And you love me for it.”
“I do love you,” I said softly, almost too softly for him to hear. But he did. I could see it in the light that suddenly flooded his eyes.
“Hey, love,” he said, reaching his hand out to me, “I love you, too.”
“You did this behind my back.”
He frowned. “I did this for you.”
“You could have died, and I wouldn’t have been here.”
“Ricki, I—”
“I can’t keep playing these games with you, David. I love you, but I can’t keep up with the secrets; I can’t keep wondering when you’re next going to shut me out of something this important.”
“I didn’t tell anyone. I wanted to do it before I changed my mind.”
“But you don’t get it. You could have died and I wouldn’t have been here. I can’t do that; I can’t not be here.”
His face darkened, fear dancing in his eyes. But he didn’t say anything.
I brushed a tear away. “You didn’t even ask me if this was something I wanted. It never crossed your mind that I might not want you to walk again.”
It sounded horrible when I said it out loud. But it was the truth. It was how I felt.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Sorry’s not enough.”
I stood and studied him for a long minute. “I wish you all the happiness in the world,” I said slowly. But I can’t….”
“Please, Ricki. Don’t go.”
I just shook my head. I had to go before I changed my mind, before he convinced me to stay.
I couldn’t do this. I’d fallen in love with a kind, gentle man in a wheelchair. I didn’t sign up for the lies and the secrets. I couldn’t do it anymore.
And there was no going back this time.
Chapter 37
David
Physical therapy was five days a week, four hours a day. I thought it would be easy. I’d bent my knee with no effort, hadn’t I? But physical therapy was kicking my ass.
“Just one step at a time, David,” Sergio, my physical therapist, said as I dangled between the parallel bars. “Just one.”
I felt sweat bead on my forehead as I dragged my left foot forward. I was scuffing up my sneakers for the first time in over two years, but I looked like a damn fool doing it.
“Now the other foot.”
It went like that every day. No exceptions.
And when I wasn’t being tortured by a Hispanic Nazi, I was still stuck in the damn wheelchair.
Wow, what a change that surgery did for my life.
Ash had stopped trying to talk to me on the drive to and from the therapy building. I no longer bothered to go into the office. I mostly hung out in my cottage, lying in bed, wondering what Ricki was doing. I went over the last conversation we had so many times that I had every bit of it memorized. But I didn’t know what I could have done differently, what I could have done to keep her from leaving me.
I would do just about anything to see her face again.
And then I did.
Sergio was yelling at me to move one foot at a time, and I looked up to swing the hair out of my face, and I saw her. Just briefly. But I saw her reflection in the mirror that took up one long wall so that patients could watch their muscles move. It was supposed to be inspiring. It was actually quite irritating.
But I saw Ricki’s face.
I stared at the mirror the entire rest of my session, hoping to see her again. But I didn’t.
Then three days later, there she was again.
I knew I wasn’t crazy!
I knew she was angry. I knew she said she didn’t want to see me again. But she also said she loved me.
I worked harder, moving that foot forward with more strength, more confidence. And I started doing the exercises at home I’d been skimming over, stretching my legs and rebuilding the muscles that had gone weak in the years that I was paralyzed. Day after day I could feel the muscles getting stronger. And, soon, I was taking more than one step at a time.
Her hair was a little shorter. And she had it pulled back in a funny ponytail that only actually held part of it. It was nice, the way soft tendrils of hair fell around her face. It set of her blue eyes really nicely.
She was beautiful. And she was watching me.
Chapter 38
At the Compound
“Okay, people, we have a couple of new cases.”
Ash held up a handful of file folders, as Donovan, Joss, and Kirkland made their way to the conference table. David wasn’t there. He was at physical therapy, but he’d promised to come into the office later in the day. That would be the first time since his surgery that he’d stepped foot in the main house. Ash saw it as a victory of sorts.
The physical therapist said that David was making better progress than they initially thought he would. He was already walking with one of those metal walkers that old people often push around in front of them. Plus, the therapist said he would soon graduate to a cane. And from there, he’d be walking unassisted.
It was nothing short of a miracle.
Ash worried after Ricki disappeared that David would fall into a depression he wouldn’t be able to climb his way back out of, but he seemed to have perked up these last few weeks.
Things were definitely looking up for Gray Wolf.
“We have the owner of a popular club in downtown Los Angeles who believes a former girlfriend has hired someone to kill him. Sounds a little like paranoia to me, but we always give the clients what they want.”
Kirkland held up his hand as if he was a child in school.
“I’ll take that one off your hands.”
“I would have been disappointed if you didn’t.”
Ash handed the file to Kirkland, then held up another. “We have a wealthy heiress who wants a bodyguard to follow her around for a few days while she changes insurance carriers.”
Donovan immediately touched his finger to his nose, the universal sign for ‘not me’ and Joss stuck out her tongue as she stood to retrieve the file from Ash.
“That’s it,” Ash said. “You need to work on paperwork,” he added, pointing to Donovan. “You’re always three or four cases behind.”
“Yes, boss.”
Ash looked around the room and nodded silently to himself.
Life was good.
Chapter 39
David
I found it quite ironic that my job required me to sit most of the day despite the fact that I’d just fought for months to get back the use of my legs. I suggested a standing desk to Ash, but he thought it was some sort of joke. When I showed him pictures of several I’d picked out, he laughed. I tried to enlist Rose’s help, but she thought I was crazy, too.
Joss cut an article out of some health magazine that suggested a standing desk was dangerous.
I knew when I was defeated.
I was monitoring Kirkland’s target, humming some new pop song I’d heard on the radio that morning under my breath. The office was quiet with the exception of the occasional burs
t of cursing out of Donovan. He hated doing paperwork and, more often than not, he lost the file he was working on before he could remember to save it and had to start all over again.
It was quite entertaining to watch. I found myself wondering if Kate had ever seen this side of him.
I was about to get up and get myself a fresh soda out of the fridge—walk to the fridge—when something caught my eye in one of the cameras. A man was walking around the outside of the club where Kirkland’s target was currently working on his accounting books. Then an alarm went off on my computer, alerting me to the fact that someone was approaching one of the security cameras. It was a new tool I was playing with that I was hoping would prevent the same incident that had happened on Joss’ death threat case.
“We’ve got trouble,” I called to no one in particular, as I quickly typed into the texting box to alert both Kirkland and the closest team.
Donovan came up behind me. “How many?”
“At least two.” I touched the screen. “This camera was just tampered with.” As I said it, another alarm went off. I touched another screen. “This one is about to—” and it went dark.
Donovan leaned into the screen and touched a button that allowed him to speak to Kirkland through his earpiece. He told him where the assailants were and how best to get out of the building. Within a minute, we saw Kirkland guiding his target into an SUV and driving away. Less than four minutes later, our team arrived and detained the assailants for the police.
Donovan offered me a high five.
“Your system worked beautifully!”
I took a little bow. “Thank you.”
“I don’t know what we’d do without you, man. Things would certainly be much harder.”
I smiled, appreciating the compliment.
Ash came down from upstairs, and Donovan briefed him while I used my cane to retrieve that can of soda. As I held it there in my hand, I thought about that MRI machine. Suddenly, I wasn’t so thirsty.
Ash came over and patted me hard on the back, nearly knocking me off balance.
“Good job, brother.”
“So I guess I get to keep my job.”
“For as long as you want.”
I smiled, relieved despite the fact I knew Ash would never run me off.
“Do you think this deserves a reward?”
Ash cocked a single eyebrow. “As in what kind of reward?”
“As in some renovations to the cottage?”
He thought about it for a second, then nodded. “I suppose.”
“I was thinking that we could expand the kitchen, maybe the bedroom, too. And add another bedroom…”
“Maybe it would be easier to build a whole new house.”
“That would work, too.”
Ash frowned. “What are you up to, little brother?”
I smiled, my thoughts a dozen miles away. “You’ll see.”
Chapter 40
Ricky
I watched from a corner of the room, hidden behind a stack of tumbling mats. I knew it as stupid. I broke up with him. But I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to see him; I wanted to know he was doing well.
I watched three times a week. Those were the days when he was in the exercise room without other patients. It was when I had unfettered access to him. I’d been watching him since the beginning, watching with some pride as to how quickly he made progress after the first month or so. He was walking laps around his therapist now, making jokes about how well he was doing. If I hadn’t known better, I would have assumed he’d always been walking, that he’d never been in a wheelchair.
He looked so good. So happy. It hurt my heart to see him happy when I wasn’t in his life. Obviously he’d gotten over me.
We’d been apart almost six months. Every month was etched on my soul, each minute that’d passed without him. I missed him so much that I often entertained the idea of exposing myself, of showing him that I was here, that I missed him. That I wanted him still.
That I loved him.
But I never did. He was happy now. Why screw that up for him?
His session was almost finished. I turned and slipped out, leaving before he walked past me and realized what I’d been doing all this time. No reason to embarrass us both.
I walked to the park down on the corner and bought a hot dog from the vendor as I did every Wednesday. I could see David go by with Ash in one of their many SUVs from here. I liked to imagine what they were talking about as they drove. I imagined how they were arguing over some case the firm was working, or some alarm David wanted to set up that Ash thought was unnecessary. I imagined how normal his life was now.
I expected that one of these days I would see a woman in the SUV with David. Surely he wasn’t alone anymore. There was probably a long line of women dying to be with a man as good looking and secure in himself as David was.
I took a bite of the hot dog as I watched the road, waiting for him to go by. I heard music, and I thought someone was driving by with the radio up way too loud. But I didn’t see a car. I turned and there, behind me, was a string quartet.
They were playing “Ave Maria.”
What an odd thing to see in the middle of the park!
I turned back around and David, dressed in a tuxedo, was standing in front of me.
I screamed.
David laughed as he watched my hotdog tumble to the ground.
“I’ll buy you another one,” he said.
“What are you doing here?”
“I thought it was time for us to talk.”
I stared at him, at the tuxedo, then turned and looked at the string quartet again as they moved into a semi-circle behind the bench I was sitting in.
“Is this some sort of joke?”
“No. It’s some sort of proposal.”
My lungs just froze as I slowly turned to face him again. He was down on one knee now, a small jeweler’s box in his hands. He opened it when he saw I was looking at him, and inside was the most beautiful diamond solitaire I’d ever seen. It was a teardrop cut and surrounded by amethysts—my birthstone. I pressed a hand to my mouth as tears began to flood my eyes.
“You’re insane!”
“I’ve been called worse.”
I looked up at him, looked into those perfect green eyes. I couldn’t believe this was happening. It was like a dream, like a dream that just stepped out my head and into reality.
“I love you, Ricki,” he said. “I loved you from the first moment I set eyes on you. I can’t imagine ever wanting to share the rest of my life with anyone but you.”
He smiled as he looked at me, even as tears ran down my cheeks.
“I promise no more secrets. If I ever have major surgery again, I will call you first. Even if I’m smashed up and bleeding on the street.”
I groaned. “Don’t be morbid.”
His eyes grew serious. “I love you,” he repeated, “and I want to love you for the rest of my life. Please be my wife.”
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I was even capable of speech. But then I realized that a simple nod would probably do it.
I nodded, and he suddenly became this ball of movement, tossing his arms around me and tugging me onto the ground with him, his mouth covering mine. I couldn’t breathe. But if my last breath was his, I was okay with that.
Chapter 41
David
“I’m so fucking nervous!”
“You probably shouldn’t cuss in a church.”
Donovan pressed two fingers to his lips. “Sorry,” he muttered.
I laughed. I loved screwing with him.
We were standing in the small room off the side of the altar, waiting for the priest to come tell us it was okay to go into the church. There was some delay, something about the photographer and the bride. Donovan dragged his cell phone out of his pocket for the hundredth time, checking for a message or just double-checking the time.
“She didn’t run off,” I said.
“David,”
Ash said in a warning voice.
“What? We all know that’s what he’s wondering.”
Ash shot me a stern look while Kirkland laughed.
“I just wish you’d get on with it so that I can get to the reception. Do you know how many lonely, horny women attend weddings??
Ash slapped him on the shoulder, prompting Kirkland to offer him the same, “What?” I’d given.
“I can’t believe you’re getting married, brother,” Ash said.
Donovan nodded as he met Ash’s eye in the mirror.
“Neither can I.”
They stared at each other and something passed between them. There was something about their relationship that was so different from Ash’s relationship with me. I was his brother by blood, but Donovan was his brother through the things they’d survived together. There was a special bond there I would never understand, just like Donovan would never understand our blood bond.
There was a tap on the door, and I thought Donovan was going to jump ten feet high. I opened the door, hoping for the priest, but I got the father-of-the-bride instead.
I stepped back and let him in, hoping he would calm Donovan’s nerves.
“Katie asked me to come and give you this,” Daniel said. He held out a thin piece of paper with a high school logo on it. I had no idea what it meant. But it was as if it had magic powers. Donovan suddenly calmed as if someone had waved a wand over him.
“Thank you,” he said,
When the priest came a minute later, we filed out of the room and into the church, taking our places at the altar. The organist began to play, and the congregation suddenly stood in one mass movement. Kirkland stepped to the center of the aisle and met with a pretty young redhead, a cousin of Kate’s, escorting her to the front of the church. Then it was my turn. I was escorting Mindy, a chubby little teenager who was so shy I thought she was going to run from the church during the rehearsal the day before. Her face was beet red today, but she managed to walk straight to me. But then I caught sight of Ricki behind her and I was the one who wanted to bolt.
DAVID: A Standalone Romance (Gray Wolf Security) Page 15