* * *
Raina bounced between Zoe’s room in ICU to Spencer’s room throughout the course of the night and early morning. Zoe was doing just fine and sleeping comfortably. She’d briefly awoken during the night and Raina had told her she’d been in an accident and had surgery. Zoe had merely nodded while Raina had just been thankful to see her beautiful brown eyes, if even for a second, before she’d drifted back to sleep. Raina left Zoe’s room soon after to go back to Spencer.
She was glad she had because when she returned Spencer was shifting uncomfortably back and forth on the bed in the throes of one of his nightmares. He hadn’t had one of them in well over a month since they’d been together. Had the accident caused a setback?
“No!” Spencer sat upright in the bed.
Raina rushed to his bed to join him. “Spencer, it’s okay.” She wrapped her arms around his middle and held him tight. “It’s okay.”
Spencer looked around the room in a daze before his haunted eyes finally focused on Raina. “Zoe! Dear God, Raina, we were in an accident and the car crashed into her. I’m so sorry.” He began crying. “Why...why do I always survive and the people I l-love...die?”
“Oh, Spencer.” She turned his head to hers so he could look into her eyes. “Zoe isn’t dead. She’s okay. She had to have surgery, but she’ll make a full recovery.”
“What?” Spencer asked, dumbfounded, wiping the sleep from his eyes with one bandaged hand.
Raina nodded. “Zoe’s okay. She had to have her spleen removed and she’s pretty banged up, but she’s going to be fine.”
Fresh tears began flowing down Spencer’s cheeks. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Raina nodded enthusiastically. “And if you want, I can take you to see for yourself.”
“I’d like that.”
“Okay.” She jumped off the bed and held her hand out to help Spencer. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and they slowly made their way out of the room and into the hallway. When a nurse saw them, she insisted that Spencer sit in a wheelchair, and secured one for them so Raina could take him upstairs to the ICU.
The smile that spread across Spencer’s face when he laid eyes on Zoe for himself was enough to warm Raina’s heart and left no doubt that he was the man for her.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Spencer asked. “She looks just like Cam did when we were little.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Spencer said. “She has Cam’s round face, his nose and those big brown eyes of his.”
They sat looking at Zoe for a while before Raina began rolling Spencer back to his room. “Can we stop at the chapel?” Spencer asked.
“Uh, sure,” Raina said and pressed the elevator to the chapel several floors below.
Once they arrived, Spencer lit a candle and said some sort of prayer Raina couldn’t hear. She gave him his quiet time and sat on the bench behind him.
When he finally turned around, his eyes were haunted again and he said, “I had to thank God for not extinguishing Zoe’s light.”
“I understand.” She’d had some choice words for the man upstairs herself, both good and bad.
“And I had to thank Him for giving me yet another chance at life and to say this.” Spencer rolled his wheelchair over to the bench where Raina sat. Then he rose up ever so slightly, so he could bend to his knees.
What was he doing? “Spencer, get up. You’ve just been in car accident. You need to get some rest.” Raina rose to help him up, but he gave her a slight push back into her seat.
“Listen up, Raina Martin. I’ve had about enough of you running away from us. You’re going to sit in that seat until I say everything I need to say.”
“Which is what?” she asked, smiling, though she suspected she had some idea.
“You sure don’t make it easy.” He laughed. “But I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. “I’ve endured two major car wrecks and if it has taught me anything, it’s that life’s too short and not to take things for granted.”
“I know.” Raina tried to interrupt him. “Which is why—”
Spencer placed his index finger to her lips. “I love you, Raina Martin. You’ve had me enraptured from the moment we met. I know sometimes I’ve been a caveman around you, but it’s because I’ve known that you’re the woman I’m going to marry.”
Raina’s eyes grew large. Never in a million years had she expected Spencer to mention anything about marriage.
“You’re everything I’ve been looking for, for so long, but couldn’t find. You have beauty, wit, charm, warmth and have sexiness in spades. And I don’t want to waste another minute of my life without you. I want you. No, I need you in my life. So I humbly ask that you agree to be my wife. Marry me, Raina.”
Raina was overcome with emotion. He’d beat her to the punch. She’d wanted to tell him that she loved him and again he’d gone full speed ahead like he always did, but in that moment she didn’t care. Tears of joy sprang to her eyes.
“Is something wrong?” Spencer asked.
Raina shook her head, “No, quite the opposite. Because I—I don’t think I’ve ever really told you just how much I need you, too.”
“You do?” Spencer asked hopefully.
“I do. You mean the world to me, Spencer. When I thought I’d lost you...” Raina’s breath caught in her throat. “I—I thought I’d die. I didn’t know how I was going to be able to go on without you.”
“You didn’t lose me, baby.”
“I know, but I almost did. And I can’t put this on my parents alone. I put a rift between us because I was afraid of the passion and love you evoked in me. I’d never had it my entire life from my parents, so when you showed it to me, I ran away from the one thing I wanted most, the one thing I’d always yearned for.”
“Oh, Raina.” Spencer scooted beside her on the bench so he could pull her toward him, but Raina held back.
“Let me say this,” she responded, pushing against the hard wall of his chest. “Let me tell you that I love you, Spencer Davis. I love you so much. And I need you in my life, in Zoe’s life. And I would be honored to be your wife.”
“Raina.” Spencer leaned forward and brushed his lips across hers. “My sweet Raina, I adore you.”
“And I love you.”
Epilogue
“Zoe, be careful,” Raina’s mother chided Zoe as she playfully rubbed Raina’s pregnant belly as she sat on a lounger in her parents’ backyard. Raina, Spencer and Zoe had come over for Labor Day barbeque.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” Zoe said and quickly rose from the lounger. “I’ll be more careful. I don’t want to hurt my little brother or sister.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Raina said, but Zoe had already bounded off. She’d been shocked when Zoe had called her the endearment a few months ago. Zoe had long since stopped calling Spencer Spence and had started referring to him as Dad. But Raina had never expected Zoe to call her mama and certainly had never asked to be called anything other than auntie. Zoe had said it felt right and had wanted to know if she was okay with it.
Raina was more than okay with it; she was honored. She had some pretty big shoes to fill, but she would do her best by Zoe even though she and Spencer would soon have a little one of their own.
She glanced over at her father and her husband across the lawn. They were by the smoker and barbecue cooking up a variety of ribs, chicken and sausages for the day’s events.
After the car accident, she and Spencer hadn’t wanted to waste another minute and they’d gotten married on New Year’s Eve. They’d wanted to be husband and wife as they brought in the New Year. And they’d brought it in all right because she was already six months pregnant and they hadn’t even been married a year yet.
As if
he sensed her watching him, Spencer smiled from across the lawn and came striding toward her. “Hey, babe.” He bent down to give her a lingering kiss before lifting his head.
“Hey now, that’s what got us here,” she said, rubbing her belly.
He smiled knowingly. They’d had a lot of fun on their honeymoon and their first few months of wedded bliss. “Can I get you anything? Milk, water or lemonade?”
Raina smiled. “No, all I want is you.”
Spencer raised his eyebrow “Oh, yeah?”
“Oh yeah.” She gave him a naughty wink. She’d been horny as hell in this second trimester, while her first trimester had brought minor bouts of morning sickness. When she’d thought her lustiness was abnormal, the doctor had informed her it was completely normal so their love life hadn’t missed a beat.
“Oh,” Spencer said, lying across the lounger next to her. “Then I can’t wait to have my way with you later.”
“You promise?”
“Do I ever renege on a promise?”
She smiled broadly. “No, you never have.”
“And I never will, Mrs. Davis,” Spencer said and covered her mouth with his.
* * * * *
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ISBN: 9781460320099
A CHANCE WITH YOU
Copyright © 2013 by Yahrah Yisrael
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