The Risk-Taker (15 page)

Only after he’d left had she realized she hadn’t even admitted that. Or told him she was sorry.

Eventually, she’d fallen asleep.

A loud pounding on her front door had her bolting up from the sofa where she’d curled up.

“Huh? What?” she asked no one, spinning confusedly in a circle.

Only when the sound came again did it really register that someone was practically trying to drill through her front door.

Racing over, she yanked it open before her brain kicked in and cautioned her that maybe she should have looked first. Luckily, it was Lexi standing on her stoop and not another horde of reporters.

But it didn’t take her long to realize her friend looked like hell. Her first assumption was that Lexi must still be upset over Brandon. But then she realized her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen with new tears. When she’d left Sugar & Spice yesterday Lexi had been past that stage and well into being pissed. Something else was wrong.

“What?” Hope grabbed onto her friend’s arm and hauled her inside.

“Where have you been? I’ve been calling you for the past hour.”

Hope thought back to leaving the office and groaned, realizing she’d been in such a daze that she must have left her cell sitting on her desk. “I walked off and left my phone.”

“Of all the days...” Lexi’s voice trailed off, thickening with new tears. Hope wrapped her in a hug and offered whatever comfort she could. She had no idea what was going on, but Lexi would tell her soon enough.

Her friend clung to her, mumbling into her hair, “He’s been in an accident.”

“Who?” Surely Lexi wasn’t talking about Brandon. But who else...

In that moment she knew exactly who. All the blood drained from Hope’s head, leaving her shaken and pale. Oh, no. Not again. She couldn’t go through this again. Her mind flashed to that day so many years ago, when the officer had knocked on the front door and told her dad that her mom was gone.

This time Lexi had come.

Hope’s legs refused to hold her up and she collapsed beneath the combined weight of both of them.

“Oh, my God.”

A vision of his eerie, calmly irate eyes melded with him straddling that damn Harley, sunshine washing down over his naked head as he drove away.

It was her fault. This accident was her fault. She should have stopped him. But she’d been so devastated that she hadn’t thought. Of course he’d go out and do something reckless and stupid. Like die.

“Oh, my God.”

He was dead. It was every nightmare she’d ever had. Absolutely everything she’d been afraid of with Gage come to real life. And she couldn’t take it. It hurt too much.

Asshole, she thought desperately. A ragged sob erupted from her. He would survive being captured and tortured to come home and die in a motorcycle accident because he refused to wear a damn helmet.

She was never going to forgive him.

Or herself.

“They’re keeping him overnight, but he’s been asking for you.”

“Wait. What?” Hope shook her head. She had to mentally backpedal, to dovetail what Lexi had just said into the conclusion she’d jumped to. They didn’t fit. “He’s okay?”

“Well, if you can call twenty stitches in his leg, a collarbone broken in two different places and a hell of a lot of bruises okay, then yeah.”

Hope gripped Lexi’s shoulders and held her away so she could look into her friend’s eyes. “He isn’t dead?”

Shock widened Lexi’s tear bright eyes. “No! I’m so sorry. I didn’t think... I’ve been holding it together for Mom and Dad. The minute I saw you all the fear and memories and relief just hit me.”

“He’s alive?” Hope asked again, because she really, really needed to hear the words.

“Yes, he’s alive. Banged up. But the doctors said it could have been worse. Luckily he was wearing a helmet.”

“He was?” she asked incredulously. “He’s never bothered to wear one before. I’ve been giving him grief about it for days.”

“Thank heaven he finally listened to you.”

15

H
E
’
D
BEEN
HIT
BY
A
freight train. Again. Had he been recaptured? He didn’t remember returning to Afghanistan, but maybe he’d blocked it. Every muscle, including a few he’d forgotten he had, ached.

His leg throbbed like a son of a bitch and when he tried to roll onto his side he sucked in a sharp breath against the pain that shot across his chest and down his shoulder.

What the hell?

“Lie still.” A soft voice floated to him from across the room.

Gage realized his eyes weren’t closed. The room was dark. Suddenly a light beside the bed flared on.

Hope stood next to him, watching him with cautious, measured eyes.

And like that everything was fine. Hope was with him and nothing else mattered.

“Do you want me to call the nurse? You can probably have more pain meds.”

“No,” he croaked through a dry throat. He didn’t like the meds. “They make my head fuzzy.”

“Brave, stupid man.” Reaching over his head, she pressed the big button with the picture of a nurse on it. “Take the medicine. Who cares if you’re fuzzy? It isn’t like there’s anything else for you to do but sleep.”

The nurse came in and pushed something into the IV still attached to his arm. He moved to yank it out, but two hands slapped over his, stopping him.

The nurse gave Hope a rueful smile. “You warned me.” Transferring her hard gaze to Gage, she threatened, “If you try to pull that IV out I’m going to knock you out completely. Be a good boy.” Then she patted him on the cheek.

“I like her,” Hope said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I don’t.”

“I can’t imagine why,” she said dryly.

With a resigned sigh, Hope reached behind her and dragged one of the uncomfortable, heavy chairs that were a staple of all hospital rooms over to the side of the bed. He wanted to pull her up on to the bed beside him, but for some reason his limbs weren’t quite cooperating.

She grasped his hand and bent her head to touch her forehead to where they joined. He was supposed to be angry with her. He remembered that clearly. But all he could find inside was bliss that she was beside him.

Until she looked up and he realized she was crying. Quietly. Her stoic tears were the most heartbreaking thing he’d ever seen.

“First, I want you to know that I was telling the truth about the document you saw this afternoon. I was writing it all down trying to figure out how to deal with it. How to help you deal with it. I use words to process things, Gage. That’s all it was.”

The sincerity in her voice was difficult to argue with. He wanted to believe her, but part of him was reluctant to do that only to find out he’d been had.

“But you were right about the guilt. I did feel guilty. I arranged for us to be together for Cupid week.”

She paused, probably waiting for shock. She wouldn’t get any. He already knew that.

Just to make sure he completely understood, she clarified, anyway. “I paid to nominate you. I paid to be paired with you.”

“I know,” he said, the two words slurring out of his mouth uncomfortably. He wanted to say more, but his tongue felt like a useless flap.

“You do? How?”

“Dad let it slip.”

“When?” Hope squeezed her eyes shut. “No, never mind. That isn’t important. I did it so that I could get the scoop on your story. I had every intention of using our time together to get you to open up.”

Gage grunted. It was about all he could manage. His body was rebelling against him. It was taking everything he had to keep his eyelids from slipping shut. What had that nurse given him?

“At first, anyway. And then you came to my house that night after the cocktail party. Upset about something.”

“My friend committed suicide.” Sure, now his lips wanted to cooperate. He hadn’t meant to tell her that.

Her soft green eyes widened with surprise and then crinkled at the corners with sadness. That’s one of the things he loved about her. She had such a tough, no-nonsense exterior, but inside she was nothing but a gooey marshmallow.

He needed a gooey marshmallow to remind him there were still good things in the world. Things worth fighting for.

Her hand brushed across his face. Gage turned into it, prolonging the contact. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

He shook his head, accepting.

“It didn’t take me long to realize I’d made a mistake. I couldn’t have used anything you told me to write a story that I knew you didn’t want published. I still don’t understand why, but that doesn’t matter. You’ve earned your privacy, Gage. You paid for it with every scar on your body.

“But it wasn’t just a matter of changing my mind. If that was the case then we could have had a nice time together, reminisced about the good times, finished out the week and both walked away with you never the wiser to my initial ulterior motives.”

She glanced away, staring out the open door into the silent corridor. The muscles in her neck strained as she fought against something she didn’t want him to see. With unsteady fingers, Gage managed to cup her chin and make her look at him.

Big, fat tears glittered like diamonds in the corners of her eyes. She tried to will them back, but that was a fight not even she could win.

“I spent years telling myself I couldn’t love you. I couldn’t be just one more girl you took out on Friday night. Your friendship meant too much to me. You meant too much. But you were wild and dangerous, Gage. If there was a rule you wouldn’t rest until you’d broken it. You had this...drive. I knew, even back then, that you could hurt me. That letting you in would be just as dangerous as anything you’d ever thought of doing. And twice as stupid.”

Gage brushed the pad of his thumb beneath her eye, swiping away the tear that clung there. He didn’t want to see her cry.

“I thought you were dead tonight.” A sound wheezed out from between her parted lips. “Only for a few minutes, but it was enough. I can’t do that. I can’t go through that again.”

She grasped his hand and pulled it away from her face. Squeezing it, she placed it onto the bed beside him and stood. Her face contorted with pain, she looked down at him.

“I can’t stand by and watch you self-destruct, Gage. It hurts too much. Whatever’s driving you...I hope you talk to someone about it, because eventually it’s going to kill you.”

She paused at the door, glancing over her shoulder to look at him one last time.

He wanted to jump out of the bed and stop her. To haul her back against him and explain that the restlessness that drove him disappeared when she was close.

But his body wouldn’t listen. The room started graying around the edges. Right before his eyes slammed shut he watched her walk away.

* * *

T
HE
MOMENT
HE
RESURFACED
,
he rolled over to pull at the tube lodged into his vein. It tied him here and he needed to go after Hope. It was damn difficult considering his right arm had been immobilized against his chest and every movement sent pain lancing through his shoulder. Somehow he managed to fumble the tape off and pull the thing out.

He was one-arming a pair of gray sweats, grumbling beneath his breath the whole time, when his dad walked in the room.

Gage looked up from the string on the sweatpants he was trying to tie with one hand. His dad, big burly man that he was, filled the doorway.

Arms crossed over his chest, the man glared at him. Gage remembered that expression, had seen it more than he liked as a teenager. Had expected it to greet him when he’d arrived home, an undeserving war hero.

“Getting captured and tortured wasn’t enough for you? You had to attempt to wrap my Harley around a tree?”

Oh, yeah, his dad was pissed. Although, Gage supposed he really couldn’t blame the man. That Harley had been his baby for almost twenty years and he’d totaled the sucker.

With a scowl, his dad crossed the room, swept his hands out of the way and tied his pants for him.

“I think I just lost a million man points.” Gage grimaced exaggeratedly, hoping he might be able to joke his way out of this one. “Please don’t ever do that again. I’ll have the Harley fixed, or replaced, I promise.”

“Do you really think I care about the damn bike?”

Gage sank onto the side of the bed, bone-deep exhausted. Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. He’d been through a lot in the past couple of months and it was finally catching up with him.

“Yes, I think you care about the bike and I think you have every right to care about it. I know how much time and money you put into it.”

“Hope was right, you really are an idiot.”

Gage’s gaze shot to his father’s. “You’ve seen Hope?”

His dad nodded. “She was here to do a piece on the Wilson girl, she has leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant. They’re trying to find a donor.”

“Right.” Gage’s heart sank.

His dad propped against the bed beside him. They were a pair, two grown men, gingerly perched on the edge of a hospital bed, their arms crossed over their chests, staring at the pale green wall rather than look at each other.

“I love you, son.”

“I know that, Dad.”

“No, apparently you don’t. There is nothing in this world, including that damn motorcycle, which I never want to see again, that matters more than you and your sister.”

Gage cut his eyes over to his dad. The man was watching him, his face tight and drawn with pointed sincerity. Well.

“When they came to tell us you’d been captured...it was what I’d always expected. Although I imagined it’d be Sheriff Grant making the visit. You were such a difficult boy, always testing boundaries and then leaping flat over them just to prove that you could. I have to admit I was surprised when you made it to eighteen and I thought the army might drive some of that wild outta you.”

“Boy, were you wrong.”

His dad grunted with wry humor. “Tell me about it. They just paid you to walk that razor’s edge. The thing is, you’re damn good at doing it, son, and I know that. Doesn’t make sitting by and watching any easier to take, though.”

“That’s just about what Hope said.”

“Always thought she was a smart girl. Good to her daddy, too. That’s one you should marry.”

“You been talking to Mama?”

“No. Hope. She loves you and is struggling with the same thing your mama and I have been dealing with since you blew past walking and started runnin’ everywhere.”

They both chuckled.

“I’m proud of you, son.”

The words he’d been waiting his entire life to hear sobered him. Suddenly they weren’t enough. Probably because he knew he didn’t deserve them.

“You have no idea what I’ve done,” Gage said gutturally.

“I don’t need to. I know you. You’re a good man.”

“I’ve made mistakes.”

“We all do. It’s what we do afterward that matters.”

They sat there in a charged silence. Gage let his father’s words sink in, so similar to what Hope had told him just two nights ago. He wanted to follow their advice, but it was so difficult.

Everyone—including his superior officers and Tanner—had cleared him. He was the only one holding on to the mistake.

Apparently forgiving himself was the hardest part of letting go.