by Vicki Essex
She couldn’t let her guard down. This was Mitch; he’d conned a lot of people out of a lot of money and had pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes, hers included. He’d never cared about anyone except himself. He talked about forgiveness as though it was something she could hand over, like a blank check. Even if his penitence seemed genuine, it was for his own peace of mind.
Fiona straightened. “It’s up to Sean whether he wants to talk to you. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
“Why? Are you going to tell him not to see me? If you’re telling him things about me—” He cut himself off suddenly. His face turned purple, and he pressed his lips tightly together. She heard that muttering again, counting down from twenty this time.
“It’s not my place to tell him what to think about you. Sean’s old enough to make decisions for himself.” Fiona raised her chin. “Just remember that if you see him.”
It seemed like a long time before Mitch un-rooted himself and walked toward the door. Toward her. “And you remember that he’s my son, too.”
He pushed past her, got into a beat-up blue sedan parked down the street and drove away.
“WHAT DOES HE WANT?” Sean asked a day later as they drove to town.
“He just wants to talk to you, hon.” She hoped that was all Mitch wanted, anyhow.
“Do I have to?”
Fiona sighed, wondered if she was wrong to allow Sean to make this very grown-up decision. “No. But he is still your father. I just want to remind you of that before you decide one way or another.”
“I don’t want to see him.”
Fiona wasn’t surprised. And though doubt lingered, she’d made the decision to give Sean this choice. She had to respect his wishes. “That’s fine, hon. Just remember, no matter what, he is your father. Even if he doesn’t always show it, I think he really loves you.”
Sean stared at her. “You’re…you’re not going to get back together with him, are you?”
“No, Sean, definitely not.”
He let out a breath.
Even so, she’d thought long and hard about her ex’s personality makeover. He seemed…softer. Not kinder, but definitely more patient. At least now he admitted his mistakes, and seemed to genuinely regret the way he’d treated her and Sean. He never would have admitted to feeling anything before. He’d always been top dog, alpha male. Unstoppable. Now he seemed a little less sure of himself.
Was it possible he’d changed? She would like to believe so. She’d been in love with him once. He was strong, charismatic and handsome. Full of passion and ambition.
But he was no Dominic Payette.
“Mom, look, the dojo’s open!”
Fiona nearly slammed on the brakes. If Dom was back, she… Well, she didn’t know what she was going to say or do, but she needed to see him. She swung her car into a parking space and hurried into Five Elements.
Her hopes sank as she entered.
“Sensei Miwa!” Sean quickly toed his shoes off and knelt on the mat.
Mako chuckled and helped the boy to his feet, grinning. “My, what a difference a few weeks makes! Look at you. You must have shot up five inches. What have you been eating?” His eyes slid to Fiona as if he knew exactly why the boy had grown so much.
“Welcome back, Sensei.” Fiona opted for a more sedate bow. “How is your brother?”
“Too stubborn to pass on, that’s how he is. He dragged me halfway around the world for a bad cold, would you believe.” Mako rubbed his chin. “He’s off in Australia now, trying to see the world before he dies. I told him not to pull me away from work again unless he means to go next time.” The old man shrugged. “Still, it was nice to go home.”
“Sensei Dom’s been taking good care of the place,” Sean chirped. “He’s been working really hard.”
“So I see.” Mako gazed around appreciatively. “I don’t think it’s looked this good in years. I’m impressed.”
“Do you…um, do you know where he is?” Fiona ventured.
Mako lifted an eyebrow. “He didn’t tell you?”
“The sign on the door said it was a family emergency.”
“He’s gone to see a friend,” Mako explained. “A colleague. Do you know who Bruno DiMartino is?”
Sean gasped. “That’s the guy Dom hurt in his last UFF match.”
“Bruno is still in the hospital. Dom has gone to…pay his respects.”
Fiona flinched. She only knew a little about the fight that had landed Dom’s opponent in the hospital.
It was an ugly reminder of just who and what Dom was.
DOMINIC PACED in the Los Angeles hospital waiting room, his palms clammy. Since arriving at the West Coast Mercy Hospital, he’d been trying to dredge up the courage to walk into Bruno DiMartino’s room to face Katy. Brett sat with Dom, watching with bored indifference. He’d already been in and out of Bruno’s room what felt like hours ago. Brett wasn’t a touchy-feely kind of guy.
“Could you stop walking back and forth like that? You’re making me dizzy.”
“Why won’t you at least tell me how he looks?” The thought of all kinds of tubes and machines beeping and whirring and hissing to keep his colleague alive made Dom queasy. He’d as good as attached them to Bruno with that right hook to the side of his head.
“Jeez, man, just go down the hall and take a look.” Brett glared at him. “I’m not telling you nothing. Hector said you have to face him yourself. No expectations.”
Dom ran his hands over his face.
He was such a coward.
Brett groaned in exasperation. “God, Dom, what’s your deal?” The kickboxer launched himself out of his seat. “What are you so afraid of? Bruno can’t hurt you.”
Dom stared at a scuff mark on the linoleum tile, breathing in the hospital air.
“My mother died of cancer,” his said, his voice hollow. “She was sick for a long time, stayed in a hospital just like this.” He gazed around, unseeing. “I visited her every day, and I was terrified that when I walked in, she wouldn’t be there.” He rubbed his palms over his thighs. “My father couldn’t come—he worked double shifts so we could afford the bills. It was just me. And I thought she was getting better….”
Brett grimaced. “Man, that’s rough. But Bruno’s not your mom. And I don’t think it’s a fear of hospital rooms that’s keeping you out.”
His friend was right, but now that the flood-gates were open, Dom found himself caught up in a deluge of confessions. “I blamed myself for her death for a long time. Dad said she was fine until I was born. It took years for me to realize I couldn’t have done a thing to stop her cancer. That my being born wasn’t what killed her.”
Brett shook his head. “You were just a kid. And your dad was an ass.”
“But I put Bruno in the hospital, Brett. I did. This is my fault. If Katy has to bury him—”
Brett let out a gruff expletive. “That’s it. I’ve had it.” He grabbed Dom and hauled him to his feet, twisting his arm and pinning it behind his back. “You get in that room right now.”
“What are you doing?” Dom scrambled for a foothold, but Brett’s momentum and the sharp wrench of his shoulder propelled him forward.
“What I should have done three hours ago, you maudlin crybaby.” Several people around the nursing station watched apprehensively as they struggled past, but no one intervened. It wasn’t as though they could have taken on the two professional fighters, anyhow.
Brett thrust Dom the last ten feet up the hallway, to the door of Bruno’s private room. He pointed. “He’s in there, Dom. Bruno and all your damn issues. Face them.”
Dom looked at the door. Exhaled.
He hadn’t flown six hours across the country just so he could admire the hospital’s waiting room.
He put his hand on the doorknob, turned it, stepped in.
Bruno DiMartino was sitting up in bed, letting his smiling wife, Katy, spoon-feed him orange Jell-O. Hector and Kyle shot to their feet together and applauded.
&nb
sp; “What…what the hell?” Dom couldn’t tear his eyes away from the grinning man he’d beaten to a bloody pulp so many months ago. He looked…fine.
“He came out of his coma this morning, man,” Brett told him in disgust as he left.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“PAY UP, BRUNO.” Kyle gestured at the patient, who slapped a five-dollar bill into his hand. “Told you he’d make it through.”
“Bruno…” Dom didn’t know what to say. The man was much thinner than he’d been when they hauled him out of the cage on a stretcher. His skin hung off his limbs. Months in a coma had wasted his body away.
“He can’t speak yet,” Katy said, standing. She was plump, with dark hair and enormous doe eyes. Bruno watched her with deep adoration. “His last seizure left him a little scrambled. The doctor said his aphasia will take some time to correct, but he’s fine, otherwise.” She gazed at him tenderly, then held out a hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Dominic.”
He numbly clasped her hand in both of his, trying to convey his remorse, but the words jammed in his throat.
From the bed, Bruno kicked him in the elbow.
“Hey!”
“Oh, my poor baby’s cranky,” Katy said with a laugh, and sat on the edge of the bed to cuddle her husband. “Don’t mind him. He gets jealous easily.”
“Duly noted.” Dom rubbed his elbow as Bruno glared at him. All those months asleep and the guy coud still kick like a mule. He looked over at Kyle and Hector. “Did you guys set me up?”
“Man, you set yourself up.” Kyle sat back. “When you didn’t follow us in when we got here, we knew you were thinking the worst. All the way here, you looked like you were headed for the chopping block. When have you ever had that attitude in the cage, huh?”
“What our friend here is trying to say,” Hector interjected, “is that no, we did not set you up. Bruno’s recovery was nothing short of a miracle.”
“Why didn’t you just come out to the waiting room and tell me?”
“What fun would there have been in that, I ask you?”
Bruno snapped his fingers to get Dom’s attention.
“Yeah, Bruno?”
The man in the bed grabbed a notepad and pen. His writing was slow and clumsy, but eventually, he got his message down and handed it to his wife to read out. “‘It’s not your fault.’”
“Of course it was my fault. I clocked you on the side of your head and didn’t let up until you stopped moving.”
Bruno shrugged, his lips flattening into a grim line as he wrote more on the pad. “‘That’s the whole idea.’” Katy shot her husband a look. He challenged her with a raised eyebrow, and she relented with a sigh. “He’s right. We talked a lot about what could happen. He knew the risks going in. You all do.”
Dom sat heavily. “That doesn’t make it okay.”
“Yes, it does. You know what can happen in the cage. It’s what you train for. This is what you wanted. What you both wanted. What happened to Bruno was unfortunate, but it happened, and we’re lucky it didn’t turn out worse than this.” As her pitch rose, Bruno took Katy’s hand, drew her close and kissed her forehead, the words he couldn’t say expressed in his touch. “Sorry, sorry, I know. I was getting worked up. I didn’t mean to direct my frustrations at you, Dom, not at all. It’s been tough these past few months.”
She sounded so calm, so forgiving. Dom thought she would be absolutely justified if she wanted to tear into him.
“Whenever Bruno and I had a fight about what he did, he used to tell me that every job has a risk. Police, firemen…heck, even bus drivers and desk jockeys can hurt themselves. I never understood, until he made me train with him to show me just how tough he was. How much you guys go through to get to your level.”
Bruno squeezed his wife’s tiny hand and kissed the top of it. Dom saw the love between them, and knew he wanted the same with Fiona.
“Bruno told me that if anything ever happened to him…he wanted to make sure the other guy knew it wasn’t his fault. You won the fight fair and square.”
“But Bruno—”
“Is retiring,” Katy said definitively. Bruno nodded his grudging acceptance. “It’s killing him to have to quit when he was so close to the championship. But this…this was a wake-up call.” They laced fingers. “We want a family. And Bruno’s always wanted to open his own business. We kept putting it off because the fighting took him everywhere, and we thought we could save for the day when we’d be set for life. But we already are. Everything we need is right here.” She kissed the top of his head.
“Damn, I got something in my eye.” Kyle turned away a moment, sniffed.
“We just want to live a peaceful life now, build a family and a home together. We don’t want the media all over us, making this a big deal. We already know it is. We could have learned the lesson the really hard way, but God blessed us with another chance.”
Dom stared. They were so willing to forgive him, when he wasn’t prepared to forgive himself. He knew the risks, had spun the same lines to every naysayer who’d condemned mixed martial arts…. But something had changed since his fight with Bruno. And with all the time he’d spent with Fiona.
“Oh, God. I can’t fight.” He leaned heavily against the wall.
“What?”
“After everything I put Katy and Bruno through…what if I do it again?”
Bruno smacked the rail with an open palm, and a string of angry noises came out of his mouth. Frustrated, he jotted furiously on his notepad.
“‘You have to fight. This is your belt, your shot at the title. Don’t throw away everything me and Katy have been through.’” He glared at him, tore another page out and scrawled: “‘What are you fighting for if not to win?’”
Dom stared at him.
Damned if he knew anymore.
ON SATURDAY, Fiona sat on one of the benches against the wall in the dojo, waiting for Sean’s karate class to end so she could take him out to lunch. She checked her phone for the hundredth time that day. Almost a week later, Dom still hadn’t called. If something terrible had happened—if Bruno DiMartino had died—it would have been on the news, wouldn’t it?
The dojo door opened, and Fiona turned to see who’d entered. It was Denise.
Silence fell over the room as the students glanced over, searching for Rene. The Kirkpatricks hadn’t been seen around town much since the arts fair, and they hadn’t attended classes at the dojo, either.
If there were any traces of Denise’s injuries left, they’d been covered by makeup. She wore jeans and a knit top in turquoise, perfectly subdued, yet stylish. Her eyes landed on Fiona and she skirted the perimeter and sat on the bench next to her. She said nothing as Sensei Miwa continued with the lesson.
As soon as the class ended, Denise grabbed her arm. “Can we talk?”
Fiona watched her warily. “About what?”
“Is Dominic around?”
“No,” she stiffly replied. “He’s off seeing a friend.”
“Just like a man to disappear when you need him.”
She cut to the chase. “What’s wrong, Denise? Are you and Rene—”
“It’s over, Fiona. I wanted to tell you…and Dom…that I filed charges against Derek.”
Fiona blinked. She wasn’t sure whether to congratulate Denise or console her. The woman looked so dismal.
“That night you came to my house, the police caught him driving drunk on his way out of state. He called me to bail him out. And I almost did, too.
“I was on my way out the door…but Rene had this look on his face. I’d never seen it before. And it damn near broke my heart.” Her eyes grew glassy. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make any more excuses. Rene is my son. I know he loves his daddy, but it’s killing him the same way it’s killing me….”
“You still love your ex,” Fiona said quietly.
“The heart’s a funny thing. You can’t help who you fall in love with.” Her laughter died away. “Listen, I’ve got to
pick Rene up from the babysitter’s. I just came to say…I’m sorry I hung up on you so much these past few weeks. And thanks, I guess, for the kick in the ass. And for helping Rene. Not many people care enough to stick their nose in other people’s business.” She got up to leave.
“Denise,” Fiona said. The brunette stopped and turned. “What happened to Rene and you…it’s everyone’s business. I just took it personally.”
“YOU LOOK LIKE you’re doing some heavy thinking,” Hector said above the dull roar of the airplane engines on the way back to Virginia.
Dom glanced blearily at him. The in-flight meal was even more rubbery and tasteless than usual, so he’d put the chicken à la king aside and chewed over Bruno’s question instead: What was he fighting for? Dom thought he knew—money, prestige, recognition. He wanted to be the best. He wanted Sensei Miwa to be proud of him. He wanted…
Hell, what did he want? What did a big-ass belt and a UFF title amount to? They seemed in-substantial compared to the love Katy and Bruno shared. And they’d nearly lost that.
“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, Hector. I’m having some serious doubts.”
“You can’t drop out now. You have contractual obligations to your sponsors and the UFF. You have to give them the fight they want.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“You will. You have to.” Hector sighed. “Bruno’s got a point. You knew what you were get ting into when you joined up. So what’s changed?”
Dom opened his mouth, closed it.
“Are you afraid?”
“No. Of course not.”
Hector eyed him skeptically. “Not for you, you aren’t. Do you realize whenever you talked about Bruno, you referred to him in terms of what his wife was going through? You’ve stopped focusing on your opponent. You’re fighting them as if you’re fighting their families, too.”
Dom turned that over in his mind. He hadn’t even been aware Bruno was married before their match. But everyone had someone: parents, siblings, friends. And those people had to live with the consequences of injury as much as he and his opponents did.