Love Rekindled (Love Surfaced) (2 page)

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles, busying her hands with wrapping my injury.

“Don’t be,” I say, liking her touch much more than blondie’s.

“You’re right.” She looks up, and I wish there was more anger than hurt swimming in her eyes. “You deserved it.” She studies my foot once again.

“Well, you could be a little remorseful.” A smirk crosses my face, but she doesn’t bother to look at me.

“How is your fiancée, Brad?”

“She’s not my fiancée.”

“Oh, sorry, your wife?” Her voice is rough and completely affected, which only brings a smile to my lips.

“Nope. I called it off.”

This earns me a look from her warm blue eyes. Is that disbelief or a tinge of happiness I see staring back at me?

“Caught you with another woman?”

Then again, maybe not.

“No. Who’s Em?”

Her fingers tense and she stops wrapping my foot for a second.

“None of your concern.” She winds the ace bandage tighter.

“Okay. Are you going to a Halloween party or something?” I ask, and the bandage pinches my skin.

“Again, none of your concern.”

Finally, she’s done and slides a boot over my foot. “You’ll have to stay off it for a few days. Lucky it’s your left, so you can drive.”

“Taylor, can we go and talk somewhere? I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.” She busies herself at the counter, signing paperwork and throwing supplies in a bag.

“No, Brad, I can’t. I don’t know why you’re here, but please go back home.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, my throat constricting. “I made a mistake.”

“A mistake?” she screams, her fists clenching at her sides. She lowers her voice. “You cheated on me, Brad. I know we were having problems, but you slept with another girl. ‘Sorry’ doesn’t fix that.”

Her phone goes off, and she retrieves it from her pocket and quickly mutes it.

“I love you,” I confess, anything to keep her here with me. She has to know how horrible I feel. How bad I want to fix this.

“No, you love yourself, Brad. Always have.” She shoves the papers into the bag and hands it to me. “But if you care about me, even slightly, you’ll leave Roosevelt.”

“Taylor,” I call out, and her hand stills on the door handle. Her back rises and falls with a deep breath and for a fleeting moment I think she believes me.

“Please, Brad, leave,” she whispers and opens the door, leaving me on the hospital bed with the smell of jasmine surrounding me.

Taylor

My nostrils tickle and my throat’s scratchy as I walk away from Brad. He still has that cocky grin, but his brown mop of hair is a little neater nowadays. I had convinced myself that, since his swimming days were over for him, his muscular build would turn into a gut that hung over his pants. I’d wished at least, but through his tight Henley, I could still make out the V-shaped torso. For a second, my hands remembered what it felt like to give him massages after each meet. The way his hands would rub along my legs, igniting shivers in the wake of his touch as I worked on his muscles. The times when he’d flip us over and capture my lips until I was dazed and only wanted more of whatever he was offering.

As fast as I’m back in that bed with him, the blonde comes to mind. Her shocked face when I interrupted them. How she slinked off him, pulling the covers tight around her chest as his glassy eyes tried to focus on me. I saw the signs of his drug use a mile away. My sister’s addiction had taught me the telltale signals of a user. She trained me well. There I was again, trying to fix someone who didn’t want fixing. To cheat, that was an all-time low, even for Brad.

“Bye, Taylor, for good this time.” Dr. James waves and I smile. The fact that he let me come back and take care of Brad shows what a nice guy he is.

“I’m out. Em’s waiting.” I jog down the hallway as my phone rings again in my pocket.

I answer it quickly, my pace not slowing down. I can’t be late for tonight. “I got hung up. I’m on my way.”

“Hurry,” Sam says.

“I am, I am.” I hear Em in the background and my feet pick up speed a little more.

I click off and pull my keys out of my pocket, ready to unlock my door. By the time I’m safe in the car, I slam on the gas, noticing Brad made me late for the most important date in my life.

His Black SUV sits two spots down. A new car doesn’t mean a new him. All those nights when we made out in his Mustang after a night at the bar flash through my mind. The days when our hands refused to leave each other’s body. I shake my head at those happy memories, because what he did later negates anything good we had before.

When I met Brad, his reputation had preceded him. He slept with a lot of girls, and usually not the same one twice, but after he’d begged me to go out on a date with him, I thought maybe I was the girl who could change him. I could smack myself in the forehead for how stupid it all sounds. But for a brief time in our relationship, I felt like I was the magic girl who could tame the swimming stud, Brad Ashby. Until he didn’t make the Olympics and everything crumbled around us.

Swallowing the pain those moments still bring me, I concentrate on the good in my life as I breeze by downtown Roosevelt. I pass Carolle’s Tap, Bridger’s Diner, and the mayor’s office. Roosevelt is a town of six thousand, but you’d never know it had that many people with the amount of gossip that’s whispered over the telephone lines and diner booths.

Unfortunately, the Delaney family is well-known in this town, but not in a good way. My sister has stolen something from practically everyone in town to support her drug habit, which Garrison Voight, the football quarterback, got her hooked on in high school. My dad’s the town drunk, falling off his stool at Carolle’s Tap most nights. Then I came home two years ago, and any self-respect our family might have had in Roosevelt was destroyed to bits. In Roosevelt’s eyes, an unwed girl who was pregnant with no father involvement—well, I became the poor girl considered a whore who couldn’t keep her legs shut. The sad part is I believed them.

I pull down my street as kids fill the sidewalks in costumes, seeking candy. Parent’s smiling faces and laughs echo in the cool, crisp air. Three houses down on the left is a red brick ranch-style home that contains two bedrooms and one bath. My car sputters to a stop, and I wait for kids to pass by our driveway before I pull all the way up behind the green pickup truck. My whole body buzzes with excitement because this is the best part of my day. Seeing Brad today might have thrown me for a loop and brought the resentment from years ago back to the surface, but it all goes away as I step through that back porch door.

“Hey,” I greet Sam, who’s stirring a pot on the stove. “Smells awesome.” My eyes search Em out.

“Chili.” He smiles up at me, continuing to stir.

Then I hear the squeal, and a second later, my girl rounds the corner, barreling right at me. Those soft chocolate brown eyes, which are a match to the ones I just looked into not twenty minutes ago, light up for me as her little arms wrap around my shoulders.

“My girl.” I swoop her up and twirl us around, loving the sound of her squeals.

“Mama,” she says, which I’m proud to say was her first word.

“Happy Halloween, baby.” I kiss her forehead.

The doorbell rings and she wiggles to escape my arms.

I let her down and follow her short, small footsteps to the door. She learned to walk at ten months and hasn’t looked back. I open the screen door to find a ninja turtle and a princess. Em grabs the candy from the bowl and puts one in each bag.

After the kids leave, she stares up at me. “Me go,” she says, pointing to the street.

“Okay, okay.” I pull her costume from the foyer table, and we move into the living room to change her into her peacock costume.

“Change her diaper,” Sam yells from the kitchen.

I move us to the floor, change her diaper, and get her dressed into her costume as a pang of guilt stabs me in the gut. Brad is here, in Roosevelt, and he has no idea he has a daughter. I convinced myself it was better this way after I’d caught him with the blonde. That he wouldn’t be good for Em. He definitely couldn’t be the father figure she needed him to be. Once news traveled back to me that he was getting married, I further convinced myself it was for the best. He’d forgotten all about me and would do nothing but disappoint her. But after today, seeing him and all those feelings surfacing back up, maybe I was wrong. I went back into that hospital room to ensure he keeps his distance, and to confirm he doesn’t have a chance to rekindle things. Now, as I dress our daughter for Halloween, an annoying knot grows tighter in my stomach.

Em eyes Sam, who is leaning against the doorway. “I’m peacock,” she says, and she holds my finger as she twirls around.

“You’re beautiful,” I say, and she grabs her bucket.

“Go, go!” She runs over to Sam and pulls his hand.

“I’ll put the candy out on the table. Chili’s in the Crock-Pot.” Sam follows Em toward the door.

Apprehension fills my veins because of this guilt inside me, which refuses to quiet down. Suddenly, it seems terribly unfair that Sam has taken on Em’s father role. Then again, a cheetah’s spots don’t change, and maybe I’m saving her from being hurt. Brad ignites flames of disappointment around his self-centered agendas. Maybe he’d want us now, but what if later, he decides something else is better? Where would that leave Em?

Anger at what he did to me quickly replaces that regret. Men like Brad care about only one thing—themselves. They step on everyone who loves them, and the same would be true for Em.

“You know there won’t be any candy by the time we return.” I glance at the overfilled candy bowl on the porch. Lucky for me, I purposely bought the candy I don’t like. The temptation to eat the whole bowl is eliminated and saves on my already wider hips.

“Not our problem,” Sam says, fussing with Em to put her coat on.

“No, coat.” She stomps her foot, and I bite my lip to prevent from smiling. She’s definitely got Brad’s stubborn streak.

Sam blows a long release of air from his lungs, holding the coat up to me.

“It’s okay. Let her go.”

“If you’re sure.” He hangs it back up on the hooks by the door.

The three of us leave the small house, which is mine, all mine. I watch Em scurry up the sidewalk with our neighbor, who we’d ran into. Chelsea is eight and takes good care of Em, protecting her. She comes over while I clean sometimes to help me with her.

“So . . .” I kick the red leaves that have fallen from the trees. “Brad showed up today.” I don’t need to look at Sam to see how the news affects him.

“Really?” he asks, and my heart breaks because I’m not blind. I know Sam likes me and he adores Em. Unfortunately, after my sister left again, we’ve made our situation appear like a family, and maybe our roles have blurred slightly. Sam’s my brother-in-law, still legally married to my sister, who left him over two years ago for her next fix. We haven’t heard from her and, honestly, we stopped looking. It’s hard to realize some people just don’t want to be found, which is more gossip that runs the stools of Carolle’s Tap.

“He apologized,” I say, shrugging my shoulder as though hearing those words didn’t patch my heart up somewhat. There are still a lot of empty holes, but his apology was nice.

“Anything else?” I know what he’s asking—did I tell him about Em?

“No. I asked him to leave town.”

His body relaxes and I hear his sigh of relief. We’re going to have to have a conversation about our situation soon. I could never repay him after all he’s done for me these past couple of years, but to be honest, I’m not over Brad. Maybe because when you still look into the same eyes of the one you love every night, it’s hard for your dreams not to be filled with thoughts of a love gone wrong. If only I could convince myself that Brad and I didn’t have something special at one time, then maybe Sam would be enough for me. If I hadn’t experienced such a deep love for Brad, I wouldn’t know the difference, but sadly, I do.

Brad

THE APARTMENT I SHARE WITH
Dylan is dark. Dylan is my best friend, Tanner McCain’s brother. He just graduated from NYU with a degree in advertising. He got a job at what Forbes has called an up and coming firm. Hard to believe anything in Detroit can be up and coming. There are rumors it will be moving to Chicago if all goes smooth, which means he’ll be gone and I’ll be solo once again.