Ghost Dance (Tulsa Thunderbirds Book 3) (39 page)

I hoped she had the strength to go through that again. This wasn’t the same kind of situation, but in some ways, it might be worse. I just knew that, even though I was here with him now, I couldn’t be the one to hold his hand through the process of healing.

And it was my fault. That was the only thing making sense in my head, now that I was still long enough to allow my thoughts free rein. Wade Miller had gone and tried to kill himself because of me.

I needed to see him.

I needed to get out of there.

I needed Dima.

SVETKA WAS ASLEEP,
her head resting on my shoulder, when the team plane touched down in Tulsa in the wee hours of the morning. Taxiing to the gate would take a few minutes, so I left her sleeping and turned on my phone to see if I’d missed any calls or texts.

There was a voice mail from London. I pressed the button to listen to her message and instantly felt more awake the moment I heard her voice, but my mood changed in a heartbeat.

“Hey. I know it’s the middle of the night, and you’re probably still flying home and all, but I just… I need to talk to someone. No, not to someone. To you.” She sniffled, which tore me up inside. “Call me? Whenever you get this. I’ll be up.” She fell silent for a moment, and I thought she must have hung up, but then she said, “I really wish you were here with me right now, Dima.”

Apparently I tensed up while listening to London’s message, because Svetka woke and looked at me with worried eyes. She patted my cheek. “You’re upset, Dmitri.”

“Something’s wrong with London,” I said.

“Ah. Yes. Your girlfriend who isn’t your girlfriend.” She nodded, rubbing her eyes as the plane came to a stop at the gate. “What are you going to do about it?”

“I need to go to her.”

“So we’ll go to her.”

For Svetka, it was as simple as that. Whatever I needed, she would make sure it happened, and she’d be right by my side the whole time. No questions asked.

I didn’t deserve her, but I was damn glad I had her.

Once I’d loaded all of our bags into my car, I called London’s number. She answered before it had finished the first ring.

“Dima? I’m sorry. It’s so late. I shouldn’t have—”

“Where are you?” I cut in. I didn’t want to hear her tell me she shouldn’t have called me, that she should be able to handle whatever had upset her so badly on her own. “Svetka and I will come to you.”

“There’s no need—”

“There’s every need. Where are you?”

She sniffled. Still crying. I wanted to punch whoever or whatever had upset her enough to make her cry. “I’m at the hospital,” she finally said.

“You’re hurt?”

“Not me. It’s Wade.”

Fucking Miller. That was who I’d punch, as soon as I could get my hands on him. I didn’t care if he was already injured. That son of a bitch deserved anything I could deliver and more for hurting London again.

“On our way,” I said. Then I hung up before she could tell me not to come.

When we arrived at the hospital, they directed us to the emergency department waiting room. London wasn’t there, but a nurse said she’d let London know we had arrived. They wouldn’t let us go back to Miller’s room.
Only family
, they said. I wanted to argue that London wasn’t family to that son of a bitch, or at least I didn’t want her to be any longer if he was going to keep doing things that made her cry, but I bit my tongue.

Ten minutes later, she wheeled in, still in tears.

I was on my feet before the doors closed behind her, crossing over to pick her up. I was equally surprised and relieved when she wrapped her arm around my shoulder and buried her face against my neck.

“It’s all right. I’ve got you,” I said, sitting in the nearest chair and settling her on my lap.

“It’s not all right. Wade got drunk and crashed his truck, and it’s all my fault.”

“Not your fault.” I should know. I’d gotten drunk and crashed my car, and there was no one to blame for it but myself. Miller might have been upset about London, but he was the one who’d put the drink in his mouth, and he was the one who’d gotten behind the wheel.

“But it is. I should’ve taken his keys from him.”

“How you could take his keys?” I asked, shaking my head. She wasn’t making any sense.

“He came over.”

My blood started boiling. “Already drunk?”

She nodded. “He was a mess. Drunk and mad and lonely. He was going on and on about how he still loved me, how we should be together, but I knew he was going off the deep end so I had to do something. I had to get him some help. I could only get the gun from him, though—”

“Gun?” I roared. The son of a bitch had gone over to her house, drunk off his ass, carrying a fucking
gun
? Around my woman. My fucking baby. If the asshole got out of this hospital, he wouldn’t make it very far. Not if I ever saw his ass again.

“I tried to get him to give me the keys, but he stormed out. I couldn’t make myself shoot him. I couldn’t…”

“He’d be in hospital if you shot him,” I said, as if it would make her feel any better about the situation. I knew it wouldn’t, though. She cared too much. She’d told me that before, but now I was finally starting to understand. And it was
because
she cared so damned much that she could be such a mess over a man who didn’t deserve her tears.

“I know.”

“You’d hate yourself if you shot him,” I pointed out.

A fresh wave of tears welled in her eyes, and she nodded.

“He did this to himself. It would have happened no matter what you did. You can’t save a man who refuses to be saved.”

She nodded again, snuggling closer to me, and the truth of my words echoed in my head. Did I want to be saved? I wasn’t in the kind of shape Miller was, but I’d never been to war.

Hockey players always talked about our game in those terms—saying a game was a
real battle
or a playoff series was a
war of attrition
all the time—but it wasn’t true. What we did wasn’t even in the same realm as what soldiers went through, so I couldn’t put myself in the same boat as Miller.

Yet I had to concede that London was right about me. Svetka had helped me to see it. Every day, I woke up and tried to atone for my past. Maybe it was time for me to look forward instead of back.

Especially now that I had a baby of my own on the way.

Svetka caught my eye over the top of London’s head. She gave me a small smile. Then she dug a shawl out of her bag and settled it around London’s shoulders. London glanced up at Svetka, who patted her soothingly on the back.

“Not your girlfriend?” Svetka said to me in Russian. “I think you’re mistaken.”

I held London close and slid my hand over her hair, urging her to relax into me as much as possible, thoughts zipping around in my mind like a thousand angry bees trapped in a box. But there was only one thought I could hold onto, only one that made sense in the numbing mass of ideas storming through my mind: I couldn’t let her worry that I’d end up in a situation like Miller was in now. I’d already done it once—long before I ever met her, thank goodness—but once was more than enough. I had to do whatever I could to assure her I wasn’t
woo-woo bonkers
, like Mrs. Petrov had called me.

In the end, that was all London had been asking of me. Maybe she had been too hardheaded to put it in simple terms, and maybe I had been equally hardheaded in digging in my heels and refusing to acknowledge the truth, but that was all she wanted of me.

I’d be more than just an ass if I denied her that much.

The waiting room doors opened, and a couple of the other players from London’s sledge hockey team walked in. I recognized them as some of the other wounded military veterans, like Miller.

They eyed the way I was holding London on my lap, but then they gave me a nod.

“Take her home,” one of them said. “We’ll stay. She needs rest.”

I thought that was an excellent idea. I wanted to take her home. With me. So Svetka and I could take care of her, and so I could make sure she understood I intended to do whatever she needed of me in order for us to have a future together.

Because as far as I saw it, London was my future. And I liked the way that future looked. I liked it a lot.

I DIDN’T HAVE
it in me to argue when Dima said he wanted to take me back to his place. I was too tired—both physically and emotionally—and too thankful that he was here with me when I needed him most, to do anything other than nod or shake my head. I even let him carry me out to his car while Svetka pushed my wheelchair, loaded with both her purse and mine.

When we got to his house, he carried me up to his bed and set me there while he went back for my wheelchair and all of the bags he and Svetka had taken with them on the road trip. Apparently they hadn’t even stopped at home before coming to the hospital.

I felt awful that he’d brought her along for all of that. It was the middle of the night after a long trip, so she should be resting instead of trying to take care of me when my friend was in the hospital.

But before Dima had finished bringing everything inside the house, Svetka knocked on the door to Dima’s bedroom and came in carrying two steaming cups of tea in dainty china, complete with matching saucers.

She handed one of the saucers to me and nodded toward the space next to me on the bed, as if asking for permission to sit. I nodded and took a sip as she sat beside me. Instead of drinking her tea, she watched me, a kind smile forming soft lines around her lips and eyes. After a moment, she started speaking to me in Russian. The only thing I picked up was
Dmitri
, several times, and then later,
girlfriend
—that one, she said in English. She paused after a bit and took a sip of her tea.