Christopher and Jaime (Pianos and Promises #1) (3 page)

“Jaimes, I would never cheat on you. We’ll be a real husband and wife.”

“What about more kids?”

He had to think about it. I watched as he rubbed his neck, cheek, and chin. I could see the internal conflict in his eyes. I didn’t understand why this was so hard for him. When we were younger he talked about having
children
, in the plural. He didn’t like being the only child and always said he wanted to have more than one.

“Give me two years and then I promise we’ll make babies and move to the suburbs. I need this time right now to focus on my career. It’s important to my . . . our financial future.”

“I didn’t say yes.”

He took my left hand and slid his grandmother’s ring on my finger.

I looked down at my long, slender finger. The ring was a perfect fit, but I met Christopher’s gaze. Why was I even contemplating this?

As if he knew what I was thinking, he pulled me to him. My leg caught on my piano chair and we fell over.  I landed on top of him—just like he planned, I’m sure. With our bodies so close together I could hardly breathe. His blue eyes took in every inch of my face. His hand reached up to my neck where he drew my face closer to his.

“Marry me,” he whispered.

I licked my lips and he took that as an invitation. His lips met mine, but they froze in place. He took a moment to breathe me in. I soaked him in as much as I could. I had longed for this moment. Dreamt about it, craved it.

I released his lips and looked into his eyes. “What are we doing?”

“This.” His lips captured mine and this time he didn’t hesitate. We fell into a wild kiss as if we had been saving up for this place and time for years. Our bodies molded together as our mouths explored every inch of each other’s. I didn’t want the moment to end. The last piece of our relationship puzzle had fallen into place. He was all I ever wanted.

In a swift move with our lips still welded together, Chris turned us over so he hovered over me. His lips glided off mine only to find them once more. I opened my eyes. This wasn’t a dream. This was my Christopher taking me in.

His eyes were peering into my own. They looked alive and hopeful. He rested his forehead against mine. His labored breathing matched my own. “What do you say, Jaimes?”

“Promise me this will work out.”

“I promise.”

Two Years
Later

“Jaime McKay? Mrs. Christopher McKay?”

“Yes,” I answered.
But not for much longer.
I did my best not to scoff at the unknown caller. How could he have known that I was in the middle of divorcing the man who had made me Mrs. McKay? Or that those words felt like lemon juice in a paper cut?

“Ma’am, this is Saint Thomas Midtown Hospital.”

I stopped unpacking my box of dishes.

“Your husband’s been in an accident. You need to get here as soon as possible.”

I held onto the counter for support. “Is he okay? What kind of accident?”

“I can’t give that information over the phone.”

“Please, tell me anything.”

“Ma’am, I can’t. Go to the emergency room entrance and give them your name.”

“Is he alive?” I could barely mutter the words. No matter what we had been through, I couldn’t stand the thought of him not existing. I looked at Allie pretending to play my digital piano and singing at the top of her lungs on the living room floor. My heart was thumping out of my chest.

“Yes.” He hung up.

The bated breath I had been holding came out in a rush. I looked around my small home at all the unpacked boxes, trying to formulate a plan. I had to get to Christopher—that I knew—but I felt like I couldn’t function. I focused on our little girl. For Allie, I had to hold it together.

“Baby doll, how would you like to go play at Grandma and Grandpa’s?” I hoped they could take her.

“You said we could go to the park after you put the dishes away.”

“I know, honey, but I need to go see . . . your daddy.”

Her hands released the keys she had been pressing down. “So that you can love each other again?”

She was ripping out my wildly beating heart. The separation had been hard on her. Me too. Little did she know, that was the problem—her daddy had never loved me. I shook my head.

Her tears started up again. I hated this. I ran to her and took her up in my arms. She wrapped her whole little body against my frame. Her tears bathed my shoulder.

“Allie bug, I love you so much. That will never change. I’ll always be your mommy. But right now, I need to go see Daddy.” I prayed silently he was still alive and okay.

“I want Daddy to live here with us.”

“I know, baby. Let’s talk about that later.” I grabbed my bag and car keys and ushered her out the door and into the blazing end-of-July weather. The Tennessee humidity smacked us in the face on our way out to the car. I got Allie buckled in her booster seat and called Ruth on the short drive over to their place. I tried to keep the panic out of my voice, but she asked what was wrong anyway. I couldn’t say anything in front of Allie, not until I knew exactly what was going on. The man from the hospital couldn’t have been more vague. Did they understand what those kind of phone calls did to people? I was shaking.

It didn’t help that Allie was sniffling in the back. I knew she was trying to be brave as her dad and I sorted out this mess we had created. It wasn’t fair to her. We would be shuffling her between his place and mine. And I was starting a new job and she was starting kindergarten. The only bright spot was that she and I would be together at school. I had filled the music teacher position at one of the elementary schools near my new little place, and the district allowed your child to go to school wherever you taught. I never wanted to teach elementary education, but I did it for Allie. And I needed whatever job I could get. I had used up most of my piano jar money on my new rental, furniture, and a retainer for my lawyer. Again, I hated doing it, but Allie deserved to be in a good home where she could play and run around outside. It was what Christopher had promised, but . . . well, did it matter?

Her well-being was more important than my dream. Someday, though, I would have my piano.

But pianos and broken promises were a worry for another day. I needed to get to Chris. I hated that he still had so much power over me. That the thought of losing him was like losing a part of myself. I looked at Allie in the rearview mirror. She couldn’t lose both of her parents—not that she remembered Bianca. I was her mommy, or like the divorce papers stated, joint custodial parent. Thinking about it made me ill. I was sticking with Mommy.

I pulled up to the Ingrams’ modest brick ranch home. I had Allie out in no time flat and we were flying up the walkway to their house. I wasn’t sure how I hadn’t lost it yet, but that was how I rolled. I had a freakish ability to keep it all in even when it was better to let it all out. It was how I survived my two years of marriage. I let things roll off my back until I hit a breaking point.

Ruth’s face lit up when she saw Allie walking toward the front door where she stood waiting for us. My little bug had that effect on everyone. She was a ray of sunshine, even if she was blue. I knelt down to Allie’s eye level and hugged the air right out of her on the concrete steps. “I love you so much. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” I ran my hand through her baby-soft curls.

“Can we still go to the park?”

“Maybe tomorrow. I don’t know how long I have to be with Daddy.” I looked up to Ruth’s concerned eyes.

“How about I take you to the park and we get popsicles?” Ruth was a saint.

“Thank you.” I placed the hand of my daughter in hers. I whispered ever so quietly in her ear, “Chris has been in an accident. I don’t have any details.” I stepped back to see her wide eyes. “I’ll call later.”

“Bye, Mommy.” She sounded like she had lost every friend in the world.

It was exactly how I felt. Not only was I divorcing my husband, but I was losing my best friend in the deal.

“Bye, baby doll. Be good for Grandma.”

She nodded her head and Ruth picked her right up. She was still a tiny little thing, petite like her mother, but she looked more like Chris with the same startling blue eyes. I had wanted all of our kids to inherit those eyes.
Stop thinking about it, Jaime. It is never happening.

With Allie taken care of, I sped toward downtown on I-65. I wished I knew what kind of accident it was. Was he in his car? He still walked to work most days, so that seemed unlikely. Maybe he had gone to an appointment, but he was at Saint Thomas, so I was assuming it was downtown. My mind was going to darker and darker places, like workplace violence, or a drive-by shooting. Maybe he was stabbed. The thought made me ill. While I drove, my mind drifted back to the last time we were at that hospital.

We had only been married for a couple of months, but I had never been so sick in my life. I was diagnosed with a kidney infection that earned me my first and only hospital stay so they could pump me full of antibiotics intravenously. Chris was so worried; he never left my side. I could still feel the way he held my hand and kissed my forehead repeatedly. His work fell by the wayside while he nursed me back to health even after we got home. I could still hear the words he whispered as I lay in our bed in his arms. He thought I was asleep and lightly ran his fingers down my arm. “How is it that I feel worse when you’re sick than if I was? You’re my life.” Those words warmed me. I knew then more than ever I had made the right decision marrying him. It had proven to me that when it came down to it, he could come through and put me first.

The construction delays downtown made traffic insane in the middle of the day and it brought me back to the depressing present. My mind began to race again. Maybe a crane fell on him? I couldn’t think like that. He was going to be okay. He had to be, for Allie.

There was hardly a seat available in the emergency room waiting area when I arrived. Sickness hung in the air. It added more to the uncomfortable feelings going through me. I steadied myself at the door. I took a deep breath and pushed my way forward to the information desk. An uninterested woman sat there, her eyes daring me to need something. She could get over herself. I needed to see my husband, I meant
Chris
. I had to know he was all right.

The older woman with the bad dye job looked up from the
People
magazine she was reading. “Can I help you?”

“I hope so. I received a call from this hospital informing me that my husband, Christopher McKay, was here and that he had been in some sort of accident. I would like to see him.”

She took her time typing some information, one key at a time, into her computer. This was no time for poor work ethic. I tapped my fingers against the counter.

She pulled her glasses down and looked up at me. “Take a seat and someone will be out to speak to you.”

“Can you please tell me how he is?”

“Take a seat, ma’am.”

Hold it together. Don’t become one of those people who lash out.
“I hope you never have to be on this side of the coin.” I didn’t bother to look at her reaction. I walked off and found a seat near the back of the room. I sank into the chair, clasped my hands, and bent over to silently pray.
Please don’t let him die. Allie needs him. And I . . . I still love him
. I knew we could never be together, but I would always love him. I couldn’t imagine my world without him in it.

I sat there for almost an hour, checking in at the information desk every fifteen minutes. I kept getting the same answer that someone would be out to talk to me. My nerves were shot. If I didn’t get answers soon, I was going to become a patient myself when I fainted in this germ-filled room.

While I waited impatiently all I could think of was Chris—my Chris, not the Chris I was divorcing. I had a million memories of him, but for some reason my mind settled on another time I had been frightened.

It had been our junior year and Southern fall weather struck while we were at school. Normally we were let out early when tornadoes were predicted, but this storm seemed to come out of nowhere and we were stuck at school. While I loved a good storm, I was terrified of tornadoes. It was against the rules to leave your assigned area, but Chris pushed his way against the crowd of students sitting in the hall bracing for the worst to find me. He knew how much I feared tornadoes. I sat there shaking and wishing for Chris and his hand to hold. When I heard him say, “Jaimes,” my heart immediately calmed. I looked up to find him grinning before he sat down next to me on the hard tile floor. He didn’t say another word, he just took up my hand with both of his and held it securely. I rested my head on his shoulder and we weathered the storm together. I had never thought there would be anything that could tear us apart.

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

Finally, someone did come to talk to me, but it filled me with a fear more paralyzing than any tornado. I saw the unhelpful clerk point a police officer my way.

I can’t. I can’t breathe.

The tall lanky officer looked grim as he approached.

Please, no.

“Mrs. McKay?”

I think I nodded.

He knelt in front of me. That was good, in case I fell over. At least he would be there to cushion the fall.

He got right to business. “Your husband was struck by a car late this morning as he was walking across Broadway.”

I gasped and covered my mouth with my hand.

“He was lucky it was a smaller vehicle, and the driver did apply her brakes before impact.”

“He’s still alive, right?”

“Yes, ma’am, but his head hit the asphalt. He was conscious when the ambulance brought him in, but there were injuries.” He handed me his card. “We will need to get his statement when he’s able to provide one.”

I took the card and glanced at it. The officer’s name was Wes Johnston.

“Witnesses say your husband was in the crosswalk and the driver was distracted talking on the phone. We don’t believe alcohol or drugs were involved.”

I nodded numbly to acknowledge him, but all I wanted was to see for myself that Chris was alive.

“Feel free to call if you need anything. I wish your husband a speedy recovery.”

“Thank you.” I looked down at the trembling card in my hand. At least I knew he was still alive, but what were the extent of his injuries?

The clock on the wall became my point of focus. Each second that ticked by only fueled my desire to see Chris. For those minutes, I forgot we were at odds, or that he was making my life more difficult by halting the divorce proceedings. I couldn’t understand his reasoning in slowing it down—he didn’t fight for us when he had the chance, so why bother now?

Then the guilt crept in. During our conversation last night I had said some things in pure, unadulterated anger. He had made an innocent comment of, “I didn’t know that’s what you needed, working late never bothered Bianca.” I unleashed my fury by saying, “Maybe that’s because she was out sleeping with her colleagues.”

Silence was his reply.

I had ambushed him with Bianca’s affair. I only said it to hurt him; I wanted him to feel a fraction of how much he had hurt me. I wasn’t an angry person, or even a spiteful one, but I felt like Bianca had loomed over our marriage, and hearing her name made me snap.

“Jaime McKay,” a nurse called.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts and rushed to the nurses’ station. “I’m Jaime McKay.”