Denver: A Bad Boy Romance (FMX Bros Book 3) (12 page)

Chapter 30

Denver

Jami was standing in the doorway wearing a blue sundress and that sexy, heartbreaking smile that I woke up aching to see. I’d been under the house patching a plumbing leak, and I was covered with sweat and the fine silty dust that filled the space beneath the foundation.

She held up a bag of bagels. “Thought you might have worked up an appetite last night.” She punctuated her words with a sweet wink and walked past me. “I’ll make some coffee.” She put the bagels down and paused to look at me. “You know I’m all about the manly man thing—sweat, dirt and all that. But this might be just a bit too much manliness for me.”

“It’s definitely too much for me. Hate to think how much of the dirt under a house is made up of rat droppings and decayed cockroaches. I’m going to go in and take a very long shower before I even go near you or those bagels.” I lifted a brow at her. “Did you get a cheddar and jalapeno one?”

“I sure did.” She headed to the door. “I’m going to go to my place and get my coffee. Yours tastes like man coffee.”

“Man coffee?”

“Yeah, a cross between sludge and tar. Man coffee. Mine has a hint of hazelnut. And since you’ll probably need a few minutes to wash off the cockroach debris, I’m going to take a quick hike to the beach. I’ve got almost an entire loaf of bread that is too dry to eat. I’m going to make a lot of seagulls very happy this morning. I only hope I don’t lose an eye. I’ll be back in ten minutes expecting to see a shiny but still very manly version of this.” She waved her hand in front of me and headed out the door.

Chapter 31

Jami

“You’re welcome, you ill-mannered birds.” The sand was covered with a carpet of seagulls. Even a few pigeons had joined us for the bread feast. Now that I knew what to expect, it wasn’t quite as frightening as the first time when I’d tossed my sandwich onto the sand. I pushed the empty bag into the trashcan and headed back toward the house.

My time away from home was half over. Every second had been worth the commotion and bickering I’d endured when I’d told my mom I was leaving. She hadn’t called me since the late night plea for help. I hoped that Harold had, in the meantime, figured a way out of his problems without involving me.

My mind was still constantly racing with the idea of how I could keep this relationship going with Denver while still fulfilling my professional commitments. Sometimes it felt as if it would be completely doable, but in reality, a long distance relationship was hard, especially one where I was never quite sure how much time or distance would separate us. Surely, it wouldn’t be enough for a man like Denver. He was strength and passion and confidence, everything I wanted but everything other women wanted too. I would lose him for sure in between bookings, and it would be selfish to ask him to wait for me.

Denver was probably close to finishing his shower. A white van was parked on the street in front of the house. Most likely a delivery of some kind to the neighbors. They tended to get a lot of packages, although Sunday seemed like an odd day for it.

I had just reached the back of the beach house when I saw someone jumping off the last step of the stairwell leading to my apartment. An icy shiver went through me as if someone had reached inside my chest and wrapped glacial fingers around my heart. The ground seemed to drop out from under my feet, and for a brief second, I was sure I was stuck in a bad dream. Stuart’s violin case was dangling from the man’s gloved hand. I was awake. It wasn’t just a bad dream.

“No! Don’t you dare!” My feet slapped the sidewalk hard as I raced toward the van. The man dashed through the open cargo door. Stuart disappeared inside just as I lunged for the door. “No! You can’t take him!”

A man I’d never seen before sneered at me through black sunglasses from beneath the brow of his beanie. Then the cargo door slid sharply shut . . . on my hand.

Chapter 32

Denver

The hot shower had revived me. I turned off the water. A scream penetrated the walls of the house and bounced off the tile in the bathroom. It took me a second to decide if I’d actually heard it. Then I heard it again. It was Jami.

I jumped out of the shower and struggled to pull my jeans up over my wet skin. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I yanked them up over my ass just as I reached the front door.

I wrenched the door open. Jami was screaming at someone inside the cargo hold of a van. I raced out to the street just as she reached for something in the van. And then the blood curdling scream followed, a sound that I would take to the grave, a sound that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

Jami dropped to her knees. All the fingers on her left hand were jammed tightly in the door.

I flew at the van and reached for the handle. It was locked. I pounded the door. “Open up!” Then a sound followed that made my heart slam against my ribcage. The driver had put the van in gear. He was taking off.

I flew to the front of the vehicle. The driver put his foot on the gas before he saw me. I hurled myself onto the hood and grabbed hold of the mirror to keep from being ricocheted off as he slammed on the brakes. “You can’t drive off!”

The guy had on a beanie and black sunglasses. He pulled the beanie lower over his brow and motioned for me to get off. He rolled down his window. “I’ll run you down if I—”

I reached around and grabbed his arm, which he quickly flung off. “She’s stuck in the door. Unlock the fucking door.” Fear and rage burned my throat, and I could hardly catch my breath to speak.

The asshole leaned his head closer to the window. “What?”

In frustration, I lifted my fist and hit the front windshield. It shattered into a long mural of tiny cracks. “Her hand is caught in the fucking door!”

His face blanched, and he reached down and hit the unlock button.

I slid off the front of the van and raced around to the side door. Thin trickles of blood were running down Jami’s thin white forearm. A small crowd had gathered. I yanked open the door and Jami cried out. Her fingers were warped and bloodied. She couldn’t stand up, but she lunged for something inside the van again.

I grabbed her around the waist and hauled her back just as the van tore off. I caught a glimpse of the man in back, another beanie pulled low. He was holding the violin case in one arm as he slammed the sliding door shut with the other.

Jami was inconsolable. The neighbors looked on in horror at the girl with the mangled hand. They were sure she was crying and screaming because of the injury to her hand, but I knew better.

She spun around in my arms and collapsed against me, struggling to take breaths between her cries of anguish. Her injured hand hung limply at her side as she clutched at my arm with her good hand. “Stuart. They have Stuart.”

“I know, baby, but we’ll get him back.”

She hid her face against me. “I can’t feel my hand, Denver. Is it bad?”

“The doctors will take care of it.”

Her shoulders shook just before she went limp. I lifted her into my arms.

The guy who lived on the east side of us came closer. “Christ, I’ve never seen anything so horrid. If you hadn’t jumped on the front of that van, they would have dragged her along the street. I’ve called an ambulance.” He lifted his phone. “And I sent a picture of the van to the police. It had no plates, but I think it’ll be easy to spot.”

“Thank you.” My entire body shook as I held her tightly against me.

Other neighbors and curious people stopped to  see what they could do to help, but their faces and their words blurred. Jami was warm and alive in my arms. Her injured hand hung down, leaving a spray of blood drips on the white sidewalk. All I could think was that for a terrible moment in time I’d nearly lost Jami for good. It was a dark, hopeless feeling I never wanted to experience again.

Chapter 33

Denver

I could only see her through the glass window of the hospital room. Several doctors were looking at the hand, evaluating the damage and deciding on what to do. Jami looked small and frail and ashen against the white pillows of the bed. They had pumped pain meds into her bloodstream, so she was finally resting. But I knew, even in the darkness of her drug induced sleep, she was in pain. The violin was gone. For now. The witnesses had stayed behind to give full descriptions of what had happened while I followed behind the ambulance to the hospital. I’d let the quick thinking neighbor know that they’d stolen a rare Stradivarius violin worth seven figures. He’d looked at me as if I was nuts.

My phone had buzzed in my pocket more than once, but I’d ignored the calls. No cell phones were allowed in the area. I glanced at it. Cole had called three times. I headed out of the ward and into the waiting area to call him back.

“Denver, shit, I was wondering when you would call back. How is she?”

“How do you know about Jami?”

“You kidding? Fuck, man, the video of you jumping on that van and pulling her out of the door is all over the damn place. Freestyle king Denver Mathison saves violinist Jami Holliday from a horrible death. Christ, dude, what the hell happened? There are rumors that her violin was stolen, and that it’s one of those rare ones. Stradivarius, right? Uncle Nate has one of those in his collection. It’s worth a damn fortune. What are they saying about her hand?”

“I don’t know. I’m not even sure they’ll tell me since I’m not family or anything. They called her mom. Guess she’s flying in from Colorado with her insurance information and stuff.”

“But they do know who she is. You did mention that she’s one of the top violinists in the world, right?”

“I just told them her name and what had happened. Why would they need to know that?” My head was pounding and my stomach was still reeling from the whole thing. “I’ll just wait—”

“No,” Cole said sharply. “You need to tell them. You can’t just let some doofus, who thinks he knows how to put bones back together, do surgery on her hand. She doesn’t have ordinary hands. They’re fucking magic, but they won’t stay that way if just anybody tries to put her back together. She’ll be done with violin forever if it’s not done right. Uncle Nate threw his fist into a wall one night when he was drunk, and they sent him to fucking Sweden for surgery. This isn’t like you and me getting a shoulder mended.”

I hadn’t been thinking clearly since the second I’d seen Jami dangling from the door of the cargo van. Everything Cole was saying made sense. “Shit, they’re not going to let me tell them what to do. And Jami’s out cold from the morphine.”

Several hospital security guards rushed past the door of the waiting room. They were headed toward the parking lot. I got up and poked my head outside the room. There seemed to be a lot of people gathering outside.

Cole continued. “Just go in and let them know who she is and tell them they need to wait for her mom to get there. In the meantime, I’ll give my dad a call. He might know someone at USC.”

A news van rolled through the lot. “Shit. I think some reporters are showing up.”

“Of course they are. That video is viral right now. And Jami is a big deal in the music world. They won’t get past the hospital doors. But don’t forget, you’re on that video. In fact, you’re the star, you big fucking action hero. Guess you learned your moves from me.”

“Guess so. That’s why they call you King.”

“The reporters will hound you until they get a picture or statement. When you leave, ask security to show you a different way out of the hospital.” Cole’s very different lifestyle was on full display. He’d told me the sad story of how his little sister had died and that the worst part of it all was that they couldn’t just be sad in peace. The press had camped outside of their estate, waiting for glimpses of the distraught, heartbroken rock star and his family.

“Hey, bro, I’m here if you need me.”

My throat tightened, and I nodded as if he could see me through the phone. He didn’t need to see me though. Cole knew. He knew how I felt about our friendship.

“I’ll get back to you after I talk to my dad.”

“Thanks, man. I appreciate it.” I stuck the phone back in my pocket and headed up to Jami’s room. The medical team who had been standing in her room were at the nurse’s station looking at something on the computer.

One of the nurses looked up as I neared. “Here he is,” she said. All of them looked up at once, and it made my breath stop.

“Is everything all right?” I asked.

One of the doctors, a tall woman with a nice smile stepped forward. “Hello. I’m Dr.  Belkin. Jami is resting and she’s fine. We were all watching the video. Earlier, when we were evaluating her hand, we were only thinking about reconstruction to get it back to as close to normal use as possible. This changes things dramatically. We’ll wait for her mother to arrive to discuss other options.” Her expression turned even more sympathetic. “That was quite an ordeal, and you still look shaken. Is there something we can get you?”

“I’m fine but I’d really like to see her.”

She nodded. “I think she’s coming out of the medication a bit, but she’ll be extremely drowsy. You can go in for a few minutes.”

I took a deep breath. I wasn’t completely sure what to say to her. In one fucked up moment of time, her entire life had changed dramatically. I headed toward her room but stopped and looked back at the doctor. “How bad is it?”

She hesitated, and the gracious smile turned slightly downward. “The damage is extensive. I’m not a hand expert or a musician for that matter, but . . .” She paused again and glanced toward Jami’s room. “It will be a long road back. I think it’ll be up to her. But after seeing that video, it could have been a lot worse. You saved her life.”

Chapter 34

Jami

None of it was real. The weird greenish lights glaring down at me from the ceiling. The starkly appointed room with the beeping monitors keeping time with my heart rate. The ugly array of tubes coming from my hand, the only hand that I could see or that I had feeling in. I lifted my left arm, but it was heavy with a splint. I lowered it without looking. None of it was real. Stuart was still with me. I could feel the connection, the piece of soul that we shared. He couldn’t be gone.

A tall figure walked into the room. There had been so many people in and out, I’d ignored the person at first. But then my eyes came into focus. The lump that had tightened in my throat with the thought of Stuart being gone, hardened even more when I looked up into Denver’s pale face. Words were impossible. Tears were easy.

He walked up next to the bed, the same confident, calm, intelligent man I’d grown to love in the past few weeks, but his distress was palpable.

His hand was shaky as he reached up and touched my arm. “How are you feeling?”

I stared up at him through watery eyes and heavy lids. It seemed he was feeling my heartbreak as keenly as I was. And I loved him even more for it. I couldn’t answer. Speaking was too much. I worried that if I started talking, it would all be too real, and I would fall apart.

He crouched down next to the bed and gazed at me. “Your mom will be here soon. Don’t know if that’s good or bad. Just thought you should know. She’ll help you decide what to do about your hand.”

I turned my face away. Looking at him only made the ache in my throat worse. The industrial style window was covered by white blinds, obliterating any natural light. I briefly wondered how anyone could ever feel better or heal in such a bleak place.

Denver stood back up. His long shadow stayed over me, but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything or even look at him. It hurt too much. Everything hurt too much.

“They’ll find that violin, Jami. A rare instrument like that doesn’t get far. It’s like someone walking off with the Mona Lisa.”

I stayed faced in the direction of the window, listening to his words and hoping they were true.

“I’ll go. You need your rest.” He sounded completely lost, and it tugged at my chest.

I heard his footsteps as he was leaving.

I sucked in a deep breath. “Denver.” My voice sounded strange and just as lost.

He stopped and looked back at me.

I scooted over and glanced at the empty spot I’d made for him on the bed. He walked over, lowered the railing and climbed onto the mattress, taking care not to bump my broken hand. He put his arm around my shoulder and I rested my head against him. The early morning nightmare flashed through my mind and tears fell again. The only thing that was real, that was worth taking my next breath for was the man sitting next to me.