Unstoppable (A Country Roads Novel)

by Richard, Shannon

  “Got it.” Mel couldn’t have stopped the small smile that turned up her mouth.

  * * *

  “Where’s Mewanie?” June looked around the hospital waiting room for someone who just wasn’t there. The way June pronounced Mel’s name had always made him smile before, but now it was a feat that bordered on the impossible.

  Bennett had to pause for a second before he answered the little girl. Hearing Mel’s name was like pouring lemon juice on a cut. It was painful and made him wince.

  They were done. He knew it and it hurt, for many reasons.

  He loved her, more than he’d ever loved anyone. And he knew it. He knew it beyond any reasonable doubt. But ever since he’d walked into that hospital room almost five days ago and seen the strongest man he knew bent and broken, he’d known he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t go through something like that with Mel. He’d watched Cindy, seen the pain and anguish on her face for days, and he wasn’t strong enough for that.

  How was it that after everything Danny had survived, this had happen? He’d come home and left the war behind him. So how? How could it happen?

  Bennett couldn’t do it. He couldn’t dedicate his life to Mel and then have some freak accident pull them apart. Destroy their lives. Destroy everything. Destroy him.

  Maybe he was a coward. No, he definitely was a coward, and he knew it. Mel was right; he wasn’t the man she thought he was. But the thing was, he knew she was everything he thought she was and more. So much more. That was why he had to walk away.

  Really, he shouldn’t have started anything in the first place. It wasn’t fair to her. He was never going to let her in completely. He was never going to let anyone in completely. But how the hell was he supposed to, when in the blink of an eye that person could be ripped out of his life? No, it was better this way. Alone. He couldn’t get hurt when he was alone.

  It took Bennett a second to answer, but he looked at the little girl and told her the truth.

  “She went home, June Bug.”

  “Why didn’t she say ’bye bye?”

  She hadn’t said good-bye because her every instinct had probably told her to get the hell away from him. He didn’t blame her. He wished he could get the hell away from himself at the moment.

  “She left?” Cindy asked, looking at Bennett.

  He nodded.

  Cindy looked confused as she studied him, and he knew for a fact she had about twenty questions on the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t say anything more on the subject.

  “I’m going to take them to dinner,” Cindy said, grabbing June’s tiny little hand. “We’ll be back in a little bit.”

  “Okay.” He watched the four of them walk down the hallway before he headed into Danny’s room.

  The doctor’s said his vitals were strong today, and they were optimistic about him waking up. Well, at least someone was optimistic, because Bennett sure as hell wasn’t.

  * * *

  Mel was stationed firmly between Grace and Harper on the couch. They were about four bottles in, and though Mel’s heart was still clearly ripped in two, the pain was dulled. Only just slightly, but still dulled.

  Jax had gone into his and Grace’s bedroom to give the girls some privacy, but Mel had liked the fact that he hadn’t vacated the house.

  “Your husband is good people,” Mel said to Grace.

  “My almost husband?” Grace clarified.

  “That was what I meant. You know he let me cry on his shoulder and he didn’t even finch.”

  “He didn’t turn into a bird?” Harper asked.

  “Flinch,” Mel said. “He didn’t even flinch.”

  “I can’t believe you guys are going to be married in less than a week,” Harper said.

  “We don’t have to talk about that,” Grace said quickly

  “Shit.” Harper covered her mouth with her hand.

  “Just because I’m sad and pathetic doesn’t mean we can’t talk about Grace getting married,” Mel told them.

  “Mel…” Grace shook her head.

  “You’re getting married this week to the love of your life, I’d be a horrible friend if I got upset about that. If anything, you have more of a right to happiness then I do to my misery.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Harper asked.

  “You and Jax have been something for pretty much your entire lives. Bennett and I…it’s only been a couple of months. My short-lived relationship with him doesn’t even make a dent in what you and Jax have.”

  “Mel, that’s not fair,” Grace said. “You love Bennett. So, I’ve loved Jax for a longer amount of time, but that doesn’t make my love stronger or more powerful than yours. Love is love. It has a strength all its own, a strength that can’t be ranked by time. Don’t let anyone diminish how you feel, especially yourself.”

  Mel looked at her friend and couldn’t help the small little flicker of hope that was flaring up in her chest. “I won’t.”

  “Good.”

  “Life’s too short,” Harper said.

  Those were the words that Mel had repeated over and over again all those months ago.

  “Yeah it is. So what about you?” Mel asked, nudging Harper with her elbow.

  Harper waved her free hand in the air and shook her head. “We don’t need to get into that.”

  “Come on. I’m at the stage where I’m just intoxicated enough to not cry.”

  “The fact that you used the word intoxicated was pretty impressive,” Grace said.

  “Yeah, I would’ve just said drunk,” Harper added with a nod.

  “Stop delaying. What’s going on with you and the blond Clark Kent?”

  “Mel, really, we don’t have to talk about it.”

  “Can you two stop it? At this exact moment, I’m okay, because of the two of you. And I’d really, really like to hear about something that’s making you happy. This is the distraction I need. Please,” she begged.

  Harper looked at Mel for a second before she started talking. “Brad is good. He took me to dinner last Sunday—a dinner that was perfect, I might add. We talked the whole time, no awkward silences. He’s sweet and charming and not pushy at all. He walked me to the door, told me he had a good time, said good night, and then went home. He didn’t do that whole wait two days thing before he called, either. No, he called me five minutes after he left, and we talked for two more hours.”

  “Harper,” Mel said, grabbing her hand and squeezing it tight. “That’s great.”

  “He took me to lunch twice this week. And then dinner again last night.”

  “Still no smooching?” Grace asked.

  “Yeah…he, uh, broke that barrier last night.”

  “Gooood?” Grace held out the word for entirely too long.

  “Perfect,” Harper said, glancing at Mel. She must’ve seen something in Mel’s face. Longing, probably…and maybe a little pain. Okay, a lot of pain. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything,” Harper sighed.

  “No.” Mel shook her head. “If anything, you two talking gives me hope. Not for Bennett to figure things out.” She waved her hand in the air and dismissed the thought. “But for life to figure things out. For me to figure things out.”

  “Well, cheers to that,” Grace said, holding her almost empty wineglass in the air.

  The other two women clinked their glasses to it before they took a sip. They’d shared many insights throughout the night. With each one they’d had a little toast, thus the dwindling wine.

  “You’re shockingly okay at the moment. Level-headed,” Harper said, studying Mel.

  “It’s ’cause you two are here, and I’m pretty drunk. Plus, I don’t think I have any more tears in me at the moment.”

  “That’s understandable,” Grace said.

  “I’m going to be okay. If I can survive what happened last summer, I can survive this.”

  Harper grabbed Mel’s hand and squeezed. “Sweetie, you don’t have to be okay today.”

  “Oh, there’s absolutely n
o chance of that. It’s going to be a while. A very long while, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel. I can’t see it yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s there.”

  Mel closed her eyes. Light at the end of the tunnel? God, she was speaking a load of bullshit. She just wanted things to go back to how they’d been a week ago. How could things have changed so much in only a few days? How could everything just fall apart?

  She wanted him back. She wanted the man she loved back. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. Why was that so much to ask for? Why couldn’t she have him?

  It was stupid.

  The whole thing was so incredibly stupid. And right at that moment she felt beyond stupid to want that man so desperately. A man who obviously didn’t want her and was able to throw away their relationship like it had meant nothing. Like she’d meant nothing.

  Mel’s eyes started to water, and the tears started to fall.

  Apparently she wasn’t all cried out. Nope. The last couple of hours had been just a little lull, the calm before the real storm. Because now Mel really lost it. Harper grabbed the glass out of Mel’s hand, and Mel lay down in Grace’s lap. A second after that, Mel’s legs were pulled into Harper’s lap. Grace ran her fingers through Mel’s hair, while Harper rubbed Mel’s back. And that was how they stayed for the next couple of hours.

  It was after midnight when Grace and Harper helped Mel into bed. But they didn’t leave her alone. Nope. Both women crawled in next to her, and Teddy joined them, curling up on the foot of the bed.

  * * *

  Bennett hadn’t really slept since Mel had left. When she’d been there, he’d been able to relax enough to sleep for more than eight hours. He’d gotten four hours of sleep the night before, and he’d done it sitting up in the chair next to Danny’s bed. Yeah, his back and neck were still sore. But that was the kind of sleep he was going to be in for tonight as well.

  Bennett could pull the chair out into the semibed thing it made. But after the last two nightmares he’d had, he didn’t want to chance it. It was eleven o’clock on Monday night, and exhaustion was beginning to overtake him, so he leaned his head back on the chair and closed his eyes. It took about a second for Mel to come to the forefront of his mind.

  It had been about thirty-eight hours since she’d left. Yes, he’d been counting, not that it’d done him any good. For the last couple of months, the longest Bennett had gone without speaking to her was a few hours. There was this void from the absence of her that he’d never felt before, a void that he had no clue how to deal with. But he was just going to have to deal.

  It should be easier to get over her now as opposed to later, easier for him to just move on, but at the moment he couldn’t think of anything more difficult.

  Bennett opened his eyes and sat up. He was in the middle of a packed church, light streaming through the stained-glass windows as someone played the piano. The song changed and everyone around him stood up and turned. Bennett followed their lead, and when he turned around he stopped breathing.

  It was Mel.

  She was wearing a wedding dress. The top was molded to her chest, and the dress flared out at her waist, making a bell shape. Her curls were pinned up all around her face, and a veil dropped from the back of her head, flowing past her shoulders and stretching down her back. She was beaming as she looked down the aisle, a smile on her face that Bennett had never seen before.

  Bennett turned forward and tried to see who she was looking at, but he couldn’t see the guy at the end of the aisle. He didn’t know who Mel was marrying, but it wasn’t him. He had to get out of there. He was choking, suffocating, and he needed air. He reached for the tie at his neck and started to pull it off as he tripped over people on his way.

  When he got to the doors at the back of the church he pushed them open and was immediately assaulted with a blast of desert sand in his face. Gunfire erupted and a bullet went through his shoulder. He fell back onto the ground and stared up at the blazing sun. He touched his shoulder and held his hand in front of his face. It was covered with blood. Something exploded near him and the blast knocked him unconscious. When he opened his eyes, Danny’s face was floating above him.

  Bennett was being dragged through the sand. The ringing in his ears was too loud to hear anything, but he could just make out the words Danny was mouthing: I’ve got you.

  Bennett woke up, practically jumping out of his chair.

  Shit. He didn’t need one of these again. But the routine was second nature at this point. He leaned forward and put his head between his knees.

  “I see you’re still getting panic attacks,” a raspy voice said.

  Bennett’s head shot up. Danny was awake.

  * * *

  Bennett stood at the edge of the room as doctors poked and prodded Danny, asking him a hundred questions while they did it. Cindy was standing by Danny’s side, holding the hand that hadn’t been broken with tears streaming down her smiling face.

  The doctors were hopeful about Danny’s recovery, but only time would tell, and there would need to be a lot of time.

  It was after one in the morning before everything settled down. And Danny was in desperate need of some morphine and sleep.

  “I’ll be back in the morning. I’m glad you’re awake, man,” Bennett told Danny before he turned and headed for the door.

  As was Bennett’s routine lately, he went and walked around outside for a little while. He needed some air. He’d snapped out of the panic attack he’d been having pretty quickly after he’d seen that Danny was awake, but he wasn’t quite over it yet. Just thinking about that dream had his heart rate going up.

  He’d told himself so many times in the last two days that he just needed to move on from Mel. What he hadn’t thought about was her moving on from him.

  God, he was an idiot.

  What did he expect? For her to forever pine over him? To never be with another man? Mel deserved every happiness in the world. She deserved to find a man who was going to love her every single day for the rest of her life.

  The thing was, whether they were together or not, Bennett would love her every single day for the rest of his life. He knew he’d never get over her.

  By the time Bennett got back to his hotel, his fingers were numb. Cindy had taken the kids over to her parents’ room, so his room was empty. He didn’t even bother changing. He just pulled off his boots and climbed into bed. The pillow he was using smelled vaguely of Mel; it was just a soft lingering touch of her. He buried his face in it and breathed deeply, searching for her.

  But she wasn’t there.

  He flew backward as the bullet blasted through him. He touched his shoulder, then held his hand in front of his face. It was covered with blood. The explosion happened a second later and he blacked out. But this time it wasn’t Danny’s face hovering over him when he opened his eyes.

  It was Mel.

  She was kneeling over him, pressing her hands against his wound.

  “Bennett, it’s going to be okay,” she said calmly. “Understand? You’re going to be fine.”

  “Okay,” he whispered as he looked up into her face.

  “Stay right here, Bennett. I’ve got you. I promise.”

  He closed his eyes for just a second, and when he opened them he was back in the church again. The music was playing and Mel was walking down the aisle. She was passing right in front of him, but she didn’t look over.

  No, her eyes were intently focused at the end of the aisle. And the look on her face made him ache. He wanted to reach out and grab her, to stop her, to tell her that she was marrying the wrong man. That he’d made a mistake.

  But as he went to reach out the scene shifted, and he was behind a wall of glass, looking out. He couldn’t reach her, he couldn’t stop her, couldn’t talk to her, couldn’t tell her he was sorry, tell her he loved her. His heart broke. He broke.

  The pain in his shoulder came out of nowhere and he reached up, touching the wound. His hands were covered
in blood, but it wasn’t his shoulder this time. No, it was chest. His heart. This is what it would be like without her, bleeding out.

  He woke up to sunlight streaming into the hotel room. His heart was pounding hard, but it had nothing to do with a panic attack.

  Bennett had to get to Mel.

  * * *

  Mel stayed at Jax and Grace’s house until the morning of Christmas Eve. She had spent the entire previous day watching Christmas movies with Grace and Harper. They sat on the living room floor making table decorations for the reception, drinking spiked eggnog, and eating more bags of potato chips than any of them could possibly count.

  But after an entire day of wallowing around and trying her hardest to ignoring certain things, Mel decided it was time to get back to her life. Or at least try to get back to it.

  Both Harper and Grace insisted that they would go back with her and stay the night, but Mel said no. She needed some time alone, she needed some time to regroup, to adjust to how things were now.

  Besides, her family was getting back in town after a short trip to visit Mel’s aunt in Mississippi. Mel was going over to their house on Christmas Day, so she was going to have to face the inquisition in about twenty-four hours. She needed to prepare herself, because breaking down in front of them wasn’t an option.

  When Mel and Teddy walked into the house, she had to pause for a moment in the hallway. It was cold and quiet. It felt hollow. She felt hollow.

  Teddy was sitting in the living room, looking at her with his head tilted to the side. He apparently didn’t understand what she was doing. Well, he could join the club because she had no freaking clue, either.

  She took a deep breath before she stopped stalling and headed for her bedroom.

  “First things first,” she said as she dropped her bags at the door.