Hot as Sin (6 page)

She laughed, but there was no joy behind it, rather a self-derision that Sam refused to let stick.

“Okay, so you’re pregnant. We can’t change that. But we can try and make it work.”

Honestly, he didn’t know much about good marriages or about happy families, but he’d faced down enough deadly wildfires to know that he was as stubborn as Dianna.

“We’re going to make it work.”

“You mean like your parents made it work?” Dianna countered, still not ready to give in.

Until Dianna, Sam had never told anyone that his parents had gotten married when his mother got pregnant with him her freshman year at college—and that twenty years later, his mom and dad could barely stand to be in the same room with each other. But he’d known that Dianna wouldn’t judge him.

It was one of the things he loved about her.

I love her
, he suddenly realized, knowing in his heart that it had been true since the start.

“We are not my parents,” he told her in a firm voice, even though the raw data—a surprise baby and shotgun wedding—sure looked a hell of a lot the same. “And you have to know how much I care for you.”

Her eyes bore into his and he could feel the four-letter word hanging on the tip of his tongue. It was time to bite the bullet and say it already.

“I love you, Dianna.”

A single tear slid down her cheek. “I’ve wanted to hear you say it, but not like this.” Her voice broke. “Not because you have to.”

He reached for her cold hands and pulled her against him, glad when she didn’t fight him, when she let her body relax into his.

“I’ve never done anything because I have to. From the moment I saw you, I wanted you. Now you’re going to be the mother of my child, and our baby is going to grow up with a father and a mother who loves it. We’re going to stay together and be a happy family.”

He didn’t know how he knew all of those things, but as he said them, he believed every last one of them.

He’d thought that Dianna was just a sexy summer fling. But she’d become more than that. Way more.

“Marry me, Dianna, and I promise you, I’ll always be there for you. I’ll never leave you. No matter what.”

He knew he’d never forget the way her eyes looked after he’d said that. So green and clear he could almost see through them into her soul.

No one had ever really cared about her before. No one but him.

And as she said, “Yes, Sam, I’ll marry you,” he vowed to never, ever let her down.

CHAPTER FOUR

BETWEEN THE long drive to the airport and the flight into Vail, Sam had plenty of time for playbacks of their three-month-long relationship. For ten years, he’d tried to convince himself that he’d forgotten her.

But the truth was that he hadn’t forgotten one single moment.

Things moved at warp speed after his quick-and-dirty proposal—and her very reluctant acceptance. The next day he’d moved her clothes and books from her mother’s trailer to his apartment. Eight weeks later the limo hit her and she miscarried. They postponed their wedding and six weeks later she disappeared, leaving her engagement ring on the kitchen table.

No warning. No fights. No giving things another shot.

Just gone.

And getting over her had been nearly impossible.

He’d known better than to trust a woman, but in the heat of the “I’m pregnant” moment, he’d actually thought their relationship was going to be the exception, not the rule.

He hadn’t made that same mistake since.

It didn’t matter how pretty or laid-back the girls he dated were about his crazy schedule. Commitment wasn’t in the cards for him, simple as that. Although he hadn’t exactly turned into a monk, he made damn sure that the women he went out with knew the score. He wasn’t looking for anything serious. And he was religious about birth control, using two methods whenever possible.

Just after seven p.m., the Vail General Hospital parking lot was pretty well emptied out, apart from a throng of reporters smoking and waiting by the entrance. As he paid the driver, he suddenly wondered if they were here to see Dianna.

How could he have forgotten that she was famous now, that she had a whole new life that he knew nothing about? They were no longer on the same playing field. She was a star. And he was still just a firefighter.

But as he moved past the reporters and pushed through the tall glass entry doors into the lobby, none of that mattered. Not when the possibility of Dianna being injured and in pain had his heart racing and his hands sweating. Replaying the past had been nothing more than a convenient way to push away his fears regarding Dianna’s current situation.

Sam hadn’t spent much time in church, but it didn’t stop him from praying now.
Please, God, let her be okay
was what he sent up as he headed to the reception desk.

A young redheaded woman was watching a soap opera on the TV hanging from the far corner of the room. A half-dozen people were slumped tiredly in their seats waiting to be called in to see the next available doctor.

“I’m looking for Dianna Kelley.”

She stopped watching the TV and gave him her full attention, smiling up at him flirtatiously. “I’ll bet you are. I swear, some women have all the luck.”

He frowned. She wouldn’t be flirting with him if Dianna was in a coma, would she? Or was this just her regular m.o. with every reasonably good-looking guy without a ring who walked into the hospital?

“How is she?”

The woman shrugged. “I don’t know. But I heard it was a pretty bad crash. Head-on. That road she was on can be dangerous when it’s icy.”

Air whooshed out of his lungs. That wasn’t what he wanted to hear. She was supposed to tell him that Dianna was all right, that she was the one in a million who walked away just fine. He’d tended to enough car crash survivors to know how bad her injuries probably were, that she was most likely fighting for her life that very second.

“I need to see her.”

The woman studied him more carefully, looking at his left hand again. “Are you her husband?”

“No.”
Hell, no
, he wasn’t her husband. That ship had sailed a long time ago.

“You’re not a reporter, are you?”

“No, I’m a firefighter.”

“Oh, that’s so much better,” she said with a smile. “We’ve been given express instructions not to let any more of the reporters past the front desk. They’re like vultures. It’s kind of creepy,” she said with a feigned shiver. “But firemen are
always
welcome here.”

She quirked her head to the side, even more flirtatious than she’d been at first. “So who are you?”

It was a good question. He wasn’t Dianna’s boyfriend. Wasn’t even a friend. And yet he’d flown all the way to Colorado to see her. Because he needed to see for himself that she was all right.

Sidestepping the woman’s question with a charming grin, he said, “Sam MacKenzie.”

Blushing furiously beneath his gaze, the woman immediately picked up the phone. “I’ll let Ms. Kelley’s nurse know that you’d like to pay her a visit.”

Dianna woke up to bright light bouncing off the framed picture of wildflowers on the wall across from her bed. She squinted out the window, surprised to see that the sun was already setting over the mountains, but glad to realize that she finally felt reasonably alert after dozing off and on all day while the sedatives they’d given her during the night slowly left her system.

Her heart squeezed as she recalled the conversation she’d had with the doctor that morning.

“Please,” she’d said, “I’d like to know if the people in the other car are okay.”

The doctor hadn’t taken her eyes off of her chart for a long moment. Too long. Something in the lines of her face had warned Dianna to prepare herself for bad news.

“I’m afraid the driver of the other vehicle died. There were no other passengers.”

Every time Dianna thought about it, she had to fight back a thick wave of nausea.

Why was she lucky enough to be alive when the other driver had died?

What had she done to deserve such luck?

And what was she supposed to do with this incredible second chance?

Her life was pretty simple, really. She loved her job, wished she had a better relationship with her sister, and hadn’t yet met the right man to settle down with. But even as she ran through the list, a voice in the back of her head told her she wasn’t being totally honest.

Later. She’d take a hard look at herself and her life. When she wasn’t so tired.

A nurse bustled into the hospital room and asked Dianna to try to sit up. Slowly shifting her weight with the woman’s assistance, she was extremely happy to note that the throbbing in the back of her skull didn’t get any worse.

She felt a little achy all over, kind of like when she had the flu, but apart from that she was surprised by how good she felt. Almost as if she’d simply had a little too much to drink the night before, rather than being rushed from a totaled car to the hospital in an ambulance.

Still, she didn’t really feel up to making small talk with the small, dark-haired woman who took her temperature and blood pressure, then tentatively asked for an autograph.

Knowing the past four years as host of
West Coast Update
had made her a bit of a celebrity, Dianna played her part as best she could. With her job, there was no downtime. She always had to be on. And even though she was in the hospital, she still felt that she had an image to uphold. People—including this nurse—expected to see the “perfect” Dianna Kelley. She didn’t want to disappoint them.

Not when she’d worked so hard to create that illusion.

As soon as the nurse closed the door behind her, Dianna pushed back the blanket and slowly swung her legs out over the edge of the bed.

So far, so good.

She slid her feet onto the floor and made sure to hold on to the side table as she stood up, just in case. Fortunately, she was only the slightest bit dizzy. Taking her large purse into the bathroom, she closed the door and stared at herself in the mirror.

She looked a sight!

For the past decade, she hadn’t let anyone see her looking less than her best. But as she stared into the mirror, she saw right through the successful twenty-eight-year-old woman to the confused eighteen-year-old girl whom she feared was never far below the surface.

In the small shower, she scrubbed her skin with the industrial pump soap by the sink. After drying off with a tiny, thin towel that was a far cry from the ultrasoft, oversized ones hanging in her bathroom at home, she stood naked in front of the mirror.

Looking at herself with a critical eye, she found herself wondering—not for the first time—how long it would be until she’d need to book an appointment with a plastic surgeon. Thus far, her breasts and stomach and thighs were still okay, but okay wasn’t even close to good enough for TV.

She hated the thought of someone cutting her apart. Was there any other option? she wondered as she opened her makeup bag and brushed some color onto her pale skin. Could she grow old gracefully and not lose her viewership?

Not likely
, she thought with a sigh. Not with a hundred—more like a thousand or more, actually—women waiting in the wings to take her place if she ever started slipping.

Giving silent thanks that the makeup artists she’d worked with over the years had taught her everything they knew about doing professional hair and makeup on her own, fifteen minutes later the face staring back at her looked like the woman everyone recognized from
West Coast Update
.

The paramedics had retrieved her luggage from the trunk of her rental car and she changed into a pale yellow, long-sleeved cashmere shirt and her favorite form-fitting jeans. As a finishing touch, she spritzed herself with a tiny travel bottle of her signature scent, which she’d found in a tiny town in the south of France.

Realizing her legs were beginning to quiver, she made her way back to the bed. Scooting onto the mattress, she was pulling the blankets back up when a line from a song suddenly ran through her brain:
“Listen to me now ’cause I’m calling out. Don’t hold me down ’cause I’m breaking out.”

In the rental car, she’d thought the lyrics had only applied to April’s life, to the emotional hurdles that her sister was leaping as she became a woman. But suddenly, Dianna could no longer hide from the chilling truth: That song could have been about her own long days on a set with the crew and her guests, her dates with men she didn’t care one fig about, even the girls’ nights out where she was afraid to reveal too much in case she seemed too high maintenance. For years, she’d gone out of her way to make sure people had no reason to abandon her.

Her hands stilled on the blanket, halfway up her legs. For so long, she’d pushed forward with her career, with her façade of perfection, willing to do anything if it meant proving to the state that she would be a good guardian for April. Wasn’t it time to stop covering up her true feelings with false smiles, with perfect makeup and hair and the latest designer clothes?

Feeling terribly shaken, this time from the inside, rather than from any surface injuries, she reached into her purse for her cell phone. She’d distract herself with work.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone this long without her phone in hand. Pulling it out, she wasn’t surprised to see that there were a dozen messages. She settled back against the pillows with a pen and pad of paper to take notes for Ellen Ligurski, her best friend and producer, who was supposed to be dropping by the hospital within the hour.

But instead of someone from her staff calling with a problem at the studio, the first message was from her sister.

“Oh my God, Dianna, I just found out about your accident. I know you probably can’t get this message, but just in case you can, I want you to know that I’m coming to the hospital right away.”

Dianna pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it. April had been at the hospital?

She hit the nurses’ call button, and when the woman poked her head in, Dianna said, “I’m sorry to bother you again, but was my sister here earlier when I was sleeping?”