“I’ll make us some coffee.” Riker got out of bed. “And breakfast. Then we can go back to your place if you’d like some help packing. We have time before today’s matinee.”
“That sounds wonderful. I told Dad that I would spend the rest of the day with him before I left.”
“Is he going to be sticking around for a while?”
“I think so. He’s planning on handing over the company reins to Nicolette. After that, he and Madeline will probably start cruising the world again.”
“I’m sure that’ll be good for him,” he said and headed toward the kitchen.
Trista used the bathroom to freshen up. She splashed cool water on her face and did the toothpaste-and-finger routine to brush the yuckies from her mouth. Just as she was pulling her hair back into a ponytail, she heard the familiar pings of her voicemail. She realized that she hadn’t called Quinn back yet. The message was probably from her.
Picking up her phone, she noticed several missed calls and texts from her father last night—all before her phone had died. She read the first one, her body filling with icy dread.
CALL ME ASAP. NICOLETTE IN AN ACCIDENT.
TRISTA CALL US. MADELINE.
CALL IMMEDIATELY.
Trista grabbed her purse and headed for the front door. “I gotta go!” she shouted as she passed by the kitchen. Riker was standing at the coffee pot pouring the caffeinated liquid into mugs.
“Wait! Trista! What’s wrong?” He dropped the mugs and ran to the front door.
“It’s Nicolette. She’s been in accident.” Trista put the phone up to her ear and waited for her dad to answer.
“Wait! Don’t go anywhere. I’ll drive you. Just give me a sec to throw on some pants.” He sprinted to his room.
The call went straight to voicemail. Trista hung up and redialed. She cursed when it happened again. “Hurry!” she shouted from the door.
Thirty seconds later, Riker was in her car driving them to the hospital. Trista called Our Sacred Lady Hospital and asked the receptionist if her sister had been admitted. While she waited for an answer, Riker drove quickly through the deserted streets. “If she was in an accident, that’s where she would be,” Riker told her. “It’s the only hospital in the area that has an ER and a trauma center.”
Trista heart pounded, and she felt like she was going to come out of her skin. She wondered what had happened to her sister.
Finally her dad beeped in while she was waiting for the hospital receptionist to come back on the line. “Dad!” she answered the call.
“Nicolette was in an accident. She’s in ICU at Our Sacred Lady. Do you know where that is?” Sam asked breathlessly.
“Of course. We are on the way! What happened?”
“We don’t know all the details. She was driving near Inlet Beach, and her car went off the road and crashed into a parked car.” Her dad paused for a second. “Trista, they don’t think she’s going to make it.”
Riker pulled into the hospital parking lot just as she got off the phone with her Dad. He dropped her off at the main entrance while he parked. She ran inside the hospital lobby and to the elevators. Madeline met her at the third-floor lobby.
Madeline hugged her and said, “I’m so sorry, baby. Your sister is hanging in there.” She led Trista down the corridor to a waiting area.
“Can I see her?” Trista asked. A lump had formed in her throat, making it difficult for her to speak.
“She’s in ICU, honey. They aren’t allowing anyone back there right now.” They stopped outside the locked doors and pushed a buzzer. “We have to wait for a nurse to let us back in.” A couple minutes later, a nurse who was familiar with Madeline let them in. They walked to a room labeled FAMILY WAITING AREA. It was a spacious room with several leather lounge chairs and recliners. There was only one other family in the room, and they were huddled by a coffeemaker. An older woman with the group was sobbing uncontrollably while the others comforted her.
Sam was pacing by the vending machines. When he saw Trista, he rushed toward her. Trista hugged her father. “Dad, what happened?”
“They think she might have fallen asleep at the wheel. She was going pretty fast when she hit the parked car.”
“When did this happen?”
“Around midnight. A tourist found the car and called 9-1-1.”
“Can I see her?”
“Not yet. The doctors are with her now. She has severe head trauma. Swelling of the brain. The doctors said she doesn’t look good.”
“He doesn’t know Nicolette,” Trista said.
Her father smiled weakly. “You’re right. He doesn’t know that she’s made of steel. Where is Riker?”
Trista said, “Crap. I forgot. He dropped me off before he parked the car. Madeline, can you go get him?”
She nodded and headed back downstairs.
As soon as she left, a doctor stood in the doorway. “Mr. Ricci?” he called out. They walked over to the doctor.
“This is my other daughter, Trista,” Sam said.
If the doctor recognized Trista, he didn’t say anything. He nodded and continued, “Nicolette is heavily sedated. Her most recent scan still shows significant swelling of the brain. We need to keep her as comfortable as possible.”
“How long will she need to be sedated?” Sam asked.
The doctor looked between him and Trista. “With the type of injuries that Nicolette has sustained, there’s really no telling. I’m sorry I can’t be more precise. Brain injuries are tricky. Some people pull out of it quickly with no subsequent problems, while others…they may never fully recover. I wish I had better news.”
“Does she have any other injuries?” Trista asked. “I mean, other than the brain swelling?”
“Nothing life threatening. A couple of broken fingers and minor burns, likely from when the airbag deployed. The swelling is our only concern right now.” The doctor patted Trista on the arm before shaking Sam’s hand. “We’ll take good care of Nicolette. The nurses will escort you to see her for a few minutes. Remember, though, she needs her rest. Family visits only for now.”
Trista followed her dad to the ICU nurse’s station. Protocol demanded they wash their hands and put on antibacterial gel before entering Nicolette’s room. There was a nurse standing next to Nicolette’s bed, changing out one of the IV bags. Before she left, the nurse said to them, “Some doctors think that people who are in comas can hear what people are saying around them. Positive thoughts and messages can go a long way.” She smiled and left them alone with Nicolette.
Sam grabbed Trista’s hand, and warned her. “She’s wrapped in a lot of bandages. Nicolette doesn’t look like herself.”
Trista squeezed his hand. “It’s okay, Dad.”
Despite her father’s warning, Trista let out a small gasp at the sight of her sister. Tubes and wires snaked in and around Nicolette’s body. Her face—what little could be seen—was covered with angry purple bruises. There was a white bandage surrounding her head. An IV pump had three bags of different meds slowly dripping into her fragile body.
Trista reached out and gently took her sister’s hand in her own. She looked at her dad, who was standing on the other side of the bed, with uncertainty.
“Go ahead, honey. She needs to hear encouraging words from us.” Sam gently pushed her toward the hospital bed, saying in Italian, “Dille che ama (Tell her that you love her).”
For once, Trista was at a loss for words. She blew out a breath before beginning. “Hey, Nicolette. It’s me, Trista. I want you to know that I love you, and I need you to get better. I know we’ve had our differences, but I don’t know what I’d do without you. You’re strong, and I know that you’ll pull through this.” Trista couldn’t help the tears that started to fall freely down her face. “Cuz if you don’t wake up soon I’m going to have to furnish and decorate your new house all by myself. And I know how much you hate my sense of style.” She leaned over and kissed her sister on the one bare spot on her cheek that wasn�
��t covered in bandages.
Trista then stood by the window while her father whispered a few things in Nicolette’s ear. The same nurse came by and told them that their time was up. When they got back to the waiting room, Madeline was back with Riker. Trista fell into his arms, and they hugged for what seemed like hours.
For two days, Trista stayed in the ICU waiting room with her dad, Madeline, and Riker. They took shifts eating, sleeping, and taking showers. Visits were limited to ten minutes, a few times a day. Trista used her time with Nicolette to read to her the daily real estate reports, which she knew her sister read faithfully every morning, and telling her to get her ass out of bed and get better. The rest of the time Trista silently blamed herself for Nicolette’s accident. She went over the last conversation she’d had with Nicolette at the children’s theatre and how her relationship with Riker may have ruined any chance of reconciliation with her sister. Trista kept these thoughts to herself, and every time Riker tried to talk to her, she shut him out. Until one morning something inside of her just broke.
“I can’t keep going like this, Riker.” Trista pushed scrambled eggs around the plate with her plastic spork. The cafeteria food in the hospital was surprisingly good, but no one seemed to have much of an appetite.
He looked up surprised. Trista hadn’t said much in the days following her sister’s accident. “What do you mean?”
“This is not going to work. I need to be here for my sister. Even if she pulls out of it, we have a long hard road ahead.”
“We can do this together.” Riker reached for her hand. “I love you and—”
Trista pulled her hand away and interrupted him. “No, we can’t. I’m responsible for my sister’s accident. She’s in that room because of me. Because of what we did. If…when wakes up, then I need to be there for her. And I can’t do that if you and I are still seeing each other. ” She stirred a pack of sugar into her coffee, not meeting his eye. “I’m afraid I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do what?” Riker asked. “Love is not like a light switch. You can’t just turn it on and off. Either you love me or you don’t.”
“I do love you, Riker. But I don’t think this is the right time for us. My family needs me now. It’s time we said goodbye.”
He scooted his chair back, standing up. “I’m not going to fight you on this, Trista. I know you need some time. I get that.” He came around to her side and kissed her on the top of her head. “You know that I will always be here for you. Always.”
She looked up from her coffee and watched the love of her life walk out of the hospital cafeteria.
Chapter Thirty-One
9 WEEKS LATER
Trista felt the imaginary butterflies in her stomach, just as she had way back when, before her first Broadway play. Looking around her dressing room, she smiled at the abundance of flowers from well-wishers. The orchids were from her agent, the purple and yellow assorted flower basket from her father and Madeline, and three dozen pink roses from Quinn. Just as she was putting on her costume, a knock at the door brought another floral delivery. This time a dozen red roses arranged in a beautiful bouquet.
“Oooh, girl, who sent these gorgeous flowers? I don’t see a card,” Darby said, fingering one of the stems. Darby was the makeup artist and worked exclusively for Trista. During the short six weeks she had been in New York City, they had become close, like brother and sister. She’d told Darby everything that had happened to her recently, from the time she was fired from the TV show to Blake cheating on her to her move to Florida. “Could they be from your former lover?” he asked, referring to Riker.
Trista thought Riker was probably watching a Key West sunset right now and drinking a Mai Tai from the comfort of his new bar. She hadn’t heard from him since he left her in the hospital cafeteria. That seemed like ages ago. “No, those are probably from Greg and Tony,” she said of her two friends from whom she leased her apartment.
“Honey, red is for love. Not gay BFFs who coordinate your outfits and help decorate your apartment.”
Darby had a point. But she had made it pretty clear to Riker that it was over for good. After Nicolette’s accident, she felt so guilty about her relationship with him. If she had stopped sleeping with Riker from the get-go, then Nicolette would have never had her car accident. The doctors had told her that the combination of alcohol and Valium in Nicolette’s system slowed her reflexes, causing poor judgment when driving. However, Trista knew that if it wasn’t for her, Nicolette wouldn’t have left the children’s play upset and driven twice the legal speed limit down a narrow, two-lane beach highway. Nicolette had crashed into a parked car on the side of the road, totaling her own car, causing the severe brain injury. The swelling in her brain finally subsided and she was out of ICU within a week of the accident, and in physical rehab ten days later—all miracles. Trista considered herself lucky that Nicolette had no memory of what had happened; she didn’t remember the accident or any events leading up to the accident for two weeks prior. Meaning that she didn’t remember anything that happened between Riker and Trista. After discussing the situation with her father, they decided not to rehash the events with Nicolette until she was better. Far better. And so Trista intended to keep her promise to not see Riker again. The day Nicolette started physical rehab, Trista left for New York City at the insistence of her father. She was lucky the producers let her keep the role, and she’d immediately started work as soon as she returned to the city.
She put the red roses on the side table opposite of her dressing table. She situated herself in the makeup chair and waited for Darby to work his magic. “I can’t think about some secret admirer sending me roses right now. I need you to make me beautiful while I go over my lines one more time,” she said. She lifted her face toward the ceiling and waited.
“Honey, you’re already gorgeous. And if you don’t already know those lines, then you’re screwed.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Thirty minutes to show time!” a voice said through an intercom system.
“I know you’ll be fine.” Darby finished touching up her makeup and added a spritz of body glitter. Trista stood up, twirling around in her red dress and black-sequin pumps. “You look fabulous,” he added.
Trista blew him a kiss and headed out to the stage. A few minutes later, she was ready for the opening night to begin. Taking a deep breath as the curtain slowly ascended, she got a glimpse of the audience before they turned the spotlight on her. Her best friend Quinn sat in the front row, in the reserved spot Trista had arranged for her. Quinn had visited Nicolette in the hospital and helped Trista move her things to New York. She was there for her every step of the way, and for that, Trista was grateful. She was still a little disappointed that her dad and Madeline couldn’t make it, but she knew that Nicolette needed them more right now.
Giving a small smile to Quinn, Trista focused her attention on the rest of the audience. As soon as the spotlight hit her Trista would speak the first line of the play. But a split second before the light blinded her from the audience, she saw him. Sitting a few rows directly behind Quinn. At first she thought she was seeing things. How could she ever forget that dimpled smile, those inquisitive, blue eyes, and the way he cocked his head to the side when he was really concentrating on something? Like he was now. She blinked a few times, but she could no longer see past the front row. Her heart thudded loudly against her chest. The audience was deafeningly quiet, everyone waiting for her to speak.
All she could think about was Riker.
Author Note: To read more of Trista and Riker’s story, look for the second installment of The Blue Mountain Beach series, Sunswept, coming soon (Oct 2014).
About the Author
TRACI HOHENSTEIN is the #1 Amazon international bestselling author of the Rachel Scott series, which includes Look for Me, Asylum Harbor, Burn Out, and Cut & Run. She lives in Florida with her husband and three children. Please visit tracihohensteinbooks.com.
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nbsp; Also by TRACI HOHENSTEIN
Rachel Scott Series
Look for Me
Asylum Harbor
Burn Out
Cut & Run
Deceptive Measures (Coming Feb 2015)
Hollywood Hills Novellas
Special Delivery
Split Decision
Sinfully Delicious
Blue Mountain Beach Series
Sunkissed
Sunswept (Coming Oct 2014)
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
About the Author
Also by TRACI HOHENSTEIN
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