Eyes falling closed, I swallowed around the painful lump that was suddenly prominent at the base of my throat. Throbbing and tormenting.
And I wanted to lay it all out.
Tell her everything.
“You can trust me, Kale,” she whispered.
I blinked at her. “But I’m not sure if I can trust myself.”
She searched me. Gently. In all that belief. “How is that?”
I gathered both of her hands between mine, forcing the tweak of a smile. “I always wanted to be a doctor. My dad was a general practitioner. I basically idolized him my whole life. Couldn’t wait to walk in his shoes.”
A wistful smile pulled at her mouth, her eyes tracing over me like she was trying to imagine what I was like when I was little.
Drawing an image in her mind of a blond-haired boy who wanted to be just like his father.
“He must be so proud of you. You are the best doctor I know. And I’m not just saying that. The second you sat in front of my son, I knew what kind of doctor you were.”
I winced, the words flooding out before I could stop them. “I try to be, Hope. I try to be the best damned doctor I can be. Making sure I never get so wrapped up inside myself, distracted, or focused on things I shouldn’t be that I start missing or neglecting the things that are most important. And what’s most important are my patients.”
Something flickered through her features.
A kind of understanding I wasn’t sure she could possess. A tiny sound fell from her tongue, and she was back to caressing across my lips.
Sadness and grace rippled through her.
“You’re scared of getting involved with someone.” She didn’t even ask it as a question. It was just a statement. An awareness. No judgment. Just her quiet compassion.
That didn’t mean I didn’t see the tiny flame of hurt in her eyes. Her want for something more for me, from me, was clear. Only, I didn’t have a fucking clue if I could be man enough to offer it in return.
Thing was, I was wanting to. Fuck. I wanted it more than I’d wanted anything in a long, long time.
“I . . .” For a moment I wavered before I surrendered, giving her a little of what I could. “When I was in med school, I fell in love for the first and only time in my life.”
My mouth tweaked up with the old memories. Before they were horror and regret and shame.
Hope’s almost matched. That green glinting.
This girl.
I could feel her cracking me wide open.
A small puff of air jolted from her lungs, but she looked at me, filling me with silent encouragement.
“I met her at a fundraiser on campus. It was before I even started my clinicals . . . basically spending my time in books and labs.”
My head slowly shook as I was assailed with the memories, my lips pulling with the old affection. “She had the biggest spirit. She lit up any room she stepped into. She kept . . . complaining that she didn’t feel well. That she was tired. I should have known. I’d learned enough by that time that I should have known.” The words scraped from my throat.
Emergency room lights glared from overhead. Panic. Fear. Compression after compression after compression. That fucking flat line.
“She was sick, Hope. She was fucking sick, and I didn’t even see it. I thought she was just tired. Exhausted from classes and studying and always wanting to be a part of everything. I missed it.”
I was unable to admit to her why Evan petrified me. Why the situation was so fucked up. Why it was different and still felt so goddamned much the same. That I was there. That I tried to save her.
I tried.
I tried.
“You lost her.” Grief rang from Hope’s tongue. Spinning through the room. Wrapping me in her warmth.
Those dead places flickered, and I dropped my head to her chest, nodding against the steady thrum of her heart as I struggled with the crushing wave that slammed into me.
The regret and remorse and the old feelings I’d done fine at keeping locked down, all being unleashed at once.
“Oh, Kale, I’m so sorry,” she whispered, fingers gentling through my hair.
I buried my face in her neck.
Ashamed.
Stricken.
She hugged me to her for the longest time, her scent all around me, strawberries and cream and calm.
It felt like an eternity before she edged back. She framed my face in her delicate hands. Sympathy and that stunning understanding ridged every line of her expression. “You still love her?”
Oh fuck. This girl was going to destroy me.
18
Hope
My hands trembled where they rested on his striking face.
But it had shaken me.
Being able to finally see all the way past the gorgeous exterior. Down, deep inside this miraculous man with his huge, beautiful, bleeding heart.
To the man who had lost, who remained terrified and hurt. The one who had somehow taken on some of that responsibility when it clearly didn’t belong to him.
The one who was so clearly scared of repeating it again.
And my son.
He was sick.
I understood it in a way I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
I wanted to ask him so many things.
How?
What happened?
I wanted to tell him it would be okay.
That it was all right to hurt.
That I understood.
Instead, I just sat there, waiting for him, needing this answer, knowing if I had it, I might be able to understand him on a level I hadn’t before. That maybe we could make sense of what was going on between us.
He peeled himself away and looked at me. Grief swam in that turbulent sea of blue. “Part of me will always love her, Hope. But what torments me is she didn’t get the chance to experience life. That I missed her symptoms and took that chance away.”
Sorrow clenched down on my chest, sorrow that he could possibly think he was responsible for his first love’s death.
His Adam’s apple bobbed heavily as he swallowed. “Then the other part of me wonders . . . wonders what my life would have looked like had I been able to save her. Would we be married? Would we have kids? Would she be an anesthesiologist like she’d wanted to be? Or would her dreams have changed, too?”
His voice cracked as he continued, “She deserved to experience everything life had in store for her, and I stole that from her. Failed her when she needed me most.”
I could feel my heart splintering under the devastation in his expression.
“I’ve been told that sometimes it’s the what-ifs that hurt the most. What haunt us the longest. But there is absolutely no chance you were responsible for her death, Kale. You have to let that go. Live and find joy. Because I promise you, you deserve it, everything life has in store for you.”
He flinched as if he wanted to refute my claim, so I was quick to add, “Believe it. I do.”
He took my hand and pressed his face in to my palm, kissing the flesh before he moved to kiss the inside of my wrist. “Incredible. Told you, Hope. You are incredible. And I don’t know how to make sense of it.”
“Do you want to try?” I asked him. Stepping out, that limb teetering beneath me, threatening to splinter.
And God . . .
The smile he sent me?
It rocked me to the core.
Confidence and naked vulnerability, the contours of his face lit up in the glow of the fading sun.
“I do . . . but the last thing I want to do is fail you. Fail Evan.”
I blinked at him, my chest tightening, and I started to tell him I didn’t think it was possible for him to do that.
Fail us. But then the sizzle and hiss of water boiling over onto the stove hit our ears.
“Shit.” He spun away and rushed that direction. He drove a pasta spoon into the pot, stirring quickly to settle the roil down.
I almost giggled when the sauce started to bubble a
nd spit all over the place.
“Shit,” he said again, this time with an amused huff that came at his expense, his strong back bare as he worked to salvage our dinner.
Cute.
Confident.
Chaos.
He glanced back at me, the heaviness from moments ago gone. “Can’t even get spaghetti right.”
I ignored the questions still looming around us and slid off the counter. I slinked up behind him and pressed a gentle kiss to the warm, bare flesh at the center of his back.
He shuddered, the quiver of an arrow straight through the center of me.
“You are the most incredible man I have ever met, Kale Bryant. I am so sorry you had to go through that. I hate it for you. If I could take it away, I would,” I whispered against his spine, which stiffened the barest fraction.
I knew I needed to give him space, let him process. He had probably shared more with me than he had with anyone in a long, long time. I moved to stand beside him, nudged him with my hip, and sent him a smile. “Here, let me help with that.”
Kale laughed. “What? You don’t trust me in my own kitchen?”
I widened my eyes up at him. “Should I?”
He hesitated for a second before he busted up laughing. “No . . . no, you definitely should not.”
I shot him a grin. “That’s what I thought.” I snagged the spoon from his grip. “Give me that before someone gets hurt.”
He took his turn knocking me with his hip. “Fine. I relinquish these duties. Thinking they’re not so knightly, anyway.”
I gasped a horrified sound that was completely feigned. “And just what is it you’re implying?”
He laughed again. A bellowing sound that came from his belly, making his abdomen ripple and flex. “Absolutely nothing, Princess. Nothing at all.”
I poked him in the side. “I’ll let you off the hook this time. Just because I like you.”
His eyes smoldered when he looked down at me, the edges brimming with something brilliant.
Something beautiful and whole. “You like me, huh, Shortcake?”
I didn’t know why I adored it when he called me that. That coaxing tease that clearly meant so much more.
I kept my focus trained ahead, stirring the noodles, the confession a breath on my tongue. “Yeah, Kale, I like you.”
I think I’m in love with you.
Sitting out on his gorgeous balcony, we shared our meal beneath the blaze of the setting sun. Engines hummed from below and voices carried on the breeze. The Alabama air thick and warm, comforting in a way I didn’t know it could be.
Or maybe it was just Kale.
The man who steadily stole more and more, each laugh and tease and smirk shackling another piece of me.
“That was delicious,” I told him, sitting back in the chair, my stomach so full it was close to painful.
He arched an eyebrow. “And just who are you complimenting?”
A giggle floated out on the air, every shield and guard ripped away, my ribbing so easy. “I was complimenting you, but I guess I really should give the credit where it belongs.”
“Is that so?”
“Mm-hmm,” I drew out.
Flying from his chair, he lunged for me, and I squealed, jumping to my feet and racing through the open doors.
He chased me. And God, I loved it.
Loved it when he caught me from behind. When he lifted me from my feet. When he hugged me against his bare chest.
Loved it when he kissed the back of my head. Loved it more when he started leaving dizzying trails of kisses down the side of my neck, nipping at the corner of my jaw, his cock growing thick against my bottom.
Oh.
He was undoing me.
My phone rang from within my purse, and I held back the groan at the interruption.
He set me back on my feet.
“Don’t think just because you have a phone call that you get a free pass. I’ll be waiting for you.”
I glanced at him from over my shoulder, putting an extra sway into my steps when I moved toward my purse, grinning wide. “Is that a promise?”
“Oh, Harley Hope, you are in so, so much trouble.”
I was.
I already knew it.
And I loved that, too.
I was grinning when I dug into the side pocket and found my phone. I glanced at the screen. A frown pulled across my brow when I saw Chanda’s name.
Quickly, I answered it, sure it was nothing.
But it took only the flash of a second before I knew it was something.
Dread curled through my insides when I heard her voice coming through the line. Frantic. Words so rushed, I couldn’t make out what she was saying.
“Evan . . . breath . . . hurry.”
My insides trembled. Panic blew through me. Pummeling and beating.
A gale force.
“What?” I asked, eyes pinching shut as my fingers drove into my hair, yanking, struggling to process what she’d said. “What are you saying? Where are you? What happened? Slow down and tell me what’s happening.”
Chanda sucked in a breath. Trying to calm herself. “We’re just pulling up at the ER. The boys were tossing the football with Richard. The same as they always do. He was fine, Hope, he was fine, and then all of a sudden, Evan said he couldn’t breathe.”
A hand landed on my shoulder, grabbing hold, maybe holding me up.
Tension wound tight. Round and round and round.
“Is he okay?” I didn’t know if she could hear me, the words choked where they locked in my throat, not prepared for what she might say.
“I think so. I think so,” she rambled. Frazzled. Frenzied.
Or maybe all that frenzy belonged to me. Because I could feel it shaking through my system.
Speeding through my veins.
Seeping into my spirit.
Penetrating to my bones.
“Okay, we’re here. We’re here. I’ll call you back,” she said.
The line went dead and dread pressed down on my chest.
Too heavy.
Too much.
I couldn’t move.
Frozen.
Kale spun me around and pried the phone from my hand, setting both of his on my shoulders. He gave me a tiny shake, trying to snap me out of the daze. “Hope, what is going on? Who was that? Tell me what’s happening.”
“Evan.”
His name.
It was a plea.
A prayer.
Kale’s face blanched.
White as a ghost.
Or maybe I could only see what was reflected in me.
Tremors rolled beneath my skin, my muscles trembling as the freeze finally thawed.
It gave way to a raging river. Sweeping me away. Taking me with it and shooting me into action.
I fumbled into my shoes, grabbed my purse, and jerked open the door.
I could sense the torment of the presence behind me. The anguish in his silence. And maybe I did understand him better. His walls higher than mine. Why he couldn’t do this with me.
I didn’t pause to look back when I floundered with the latch and flew out the door.
The only thing I knew was I needed to get to my son.
19
Kale
The door slammed closed behind her.
I gripped fistfuls of my hair, staring at the spot where she’d just been.
Air gone, my lungs squeezed tight.
What the fuck was I supposed to do?
Fear spiraled. Slammed and howled. It beat against this overwhelming sensation that welled.
Growing bigger—more powerful—than anything else. Constricting my chest and shattering every reserve.
I was moving before I let myself think through the consequences. Because the consequence of standing there like a worthless piece of shit were so much greater than going after what had just fled out my door.
Bolting into the living room, I nabbed my shirt from the rug. I was pulling it over my hea
d at the same time as I was grabbing my keys and wallet from the entry table. Not wanting to take the time to go to my room, I shoved my feet into some ripped-up Vans and then went racing out.
I didn’t bother with the elevator.
I pounded down the stairs, taking them three at a time. I blew through the big metal back door and flew out into the lot.
Twilight had taken hostage of the sky, the heavens streaked with darkened clouds, a single star blinking on the horizon above the copse of trees.
My eyes hunted.
Immediately, they landed on Hope. She was across the lot, stumbling through her panic as she tried to run in her heels.
She jerked at the door handle of her big SUV, fumbling and shaking as she struggled to get inside.
Sprinting her direction, I caught her just before she was all the way in. “Hope.”
She gasped a pained sound. “I’ve got to get to him.”
My voice was grit at her ear as I hauled her back from around the waist. “I know. I know. But I can’t let you drive like this. Come on, baby, let me help you. It’s going to be okay.”
She gasped another sound. This one a guttural cry, her terror that had been bottled spilling out.
“I’ve got you. It’s going to be okay,” I told her, anxiety gripping me like a vise.
It is going to be okay.
He’ll be okay.
I promise I won’t let anything happen to him.
I shifted her around, slamming her door shut as I did. Quickly, I guided her to my car parked two spaces over. Opening the passenger door, I helped her in, darted around the front, and hopped inside.
The second the engine turned over, I threw it in reverse and whipped out of the spot. Half a second later, I had it in gear and was gunning the engine, tires squealing when I skidded out onto the street.
Teeth gritted, I weaved in and out of traffic, trying to remain calm.
Cool.
Which was impossible since my heart was a fucking throbbing mess where it was lodged in my throat.
Fight for Me: The Complete Collection Page 52