Time for Change (2 page)

Her sister had grabbed both
of her arms and started to shake her.

“Stop this. I’m not going to
fall for your husband. I’m not going to be you if you ever go.”

Claire smiled. “I don’t want
you to be me. I want you to be you and to do as I ask.”

The tears wouldn’t let up,
and her sister’s touch was getting tighter and harder to bear.

“You’re not going to die.”

“No, you’ve got to promise
me that you’ll wait for him. He will love you and be the man you need, Rachel.”
She was being shaken, and the whole ordeal was freaking her out. How could her
sister be doing this, offering her husband on a platter? Chris was so much more
than that.

“Claire, what the hell are
you doing?” Chris asked, walking into the kitchen.

“She’s talking crazy again.
These programs need to stop,” Rachel said, looking over Claire’s shoulder.

He pulled Rachel away from
her, and for the first time, she was happy to get some relief.

“I’m sorry. I’m freaking
out.”

“You’ve had a baby. Your
hormones are all over the place, but scaring everyone is not going to cut it.
This shit stops now, Claire. I fucking mean it.” Chris wrapped his arms around
Rachel. She didn’t see how he looked at his wife, but she imagined he was
pretty angry with the whole thing.

“I can’t get it out of my
head. I’m not trying to make life difficult. I just need to know that if I die
you’ll be together getting through everything.”

Silence fell on the room. Rachel
felt him expel a breath. “Yes, Rachel and I will get through it together.
Nothing is going to happen, Claire, and in fifty years time you’re going to be
feeling pretty sheepish about all of this.” There was a pause, and Rachel
waited. “Now we’ve put up with your crap, but it stops now.”

The baby started crying on
the monitor interrupting the moment.

Rachel loved the way Chris smelled
and wished she could stay in the comfort of his arms for a long time to come.

“I’m sorry about that,” he
said.

“Don’t be. My sister has
never been all that normal. I guess we should be relieved that she’s making
plans for her death.” The tears fell harder once again. So much death, she
didn’t know if she could stand any more.

“We’ll be in it together,
Rachel. No matter what happens you’ll always have me.”

She looked up at him,
smiling. “And you’ll always have me.”

****

Three years later Chris was
sat in the café across from the hospital talking with Rachel. She was looking
for a job near him and Claire. His wife had gone away on vacation for a few
days and was due back in an hour. Rachel was going to pick her up as he had to
work.

“You’re twenty-three years
old. You don’t have to make rash decisions,” he said, sipping his coffee.

“Chris, if I don’t start
working soon, you’ll kick me out for being a bum.”

Since quitting college,
Rachel had moved back in with them. It was fun as she loved looking after Talia
so he could take Claire out to dinner. Her cooking was not the fun part.
Sometimes he worried in case she gave them all food poisoning. Rachel was not
that great in the kitchen, but she made up for it with enthusiasm.

In the café the news was
being played to the room.

“You’re not a bum. Are you
going to tell me why you quit college? Someone doesn’t just quit college,” he
said, checking his cell phone.

“No, you wouldn’t like the
answer.” She was peeling the wrapper from her bottle of water.

“Try me.”

“Oh my
God!”
Someone cried out, alerting them to the news. Chris
looked up, and Rachel turned to look behind her at the screen.

His world tilted and
shattered around him. Chris watched the news bulletin.

Rachel spun around, grabbing
her cell. “Oh no, Claire was on that plane. No, she can’t be. This can’t be
happening.”

For several seconds he froze
as he saw the headline of the plane crashing down and the note that currently
there were no survivors. This couldn’t be happening. He’d talked to Claire and
Talia that morning. They were coming home.

“I can’t get in touch with
her. Chris, please,
try
Claire.”

He dialed her number and
watched as Rachel kept glancing at the news. Lifting the cell to his ear, he
listened to the dial tone. His wife didn’t answer.

“Please tell me you can talk
to her?” Rachel’s voice reminded him of that night many years ago when he’d
collected her with Claire on the night her parents died.

The exact same thing was
happening, only this time, his wife and daughter were on a plane.

“Talk to me, Chris.”

He shook his head. “They
can’t be dead,” he said.

Later that day, he got the
news. The plane, which had crashed due to a faulty engine, had no survivors.
Three weeks later, he buried the bodies of his wife and daughter. Beside him,
he held onto Rachel’s hand like a lifeline.

Chris had lost everything,
and so had Rachel. They had only each other. Both of his women were gone, and
he knew nothing was going to be the same again.

Chapter One

Three years later

Rachel Metcalf let herself
into Christian’s penthouse apartment. He’d sold the house he’d been living in
with Claire and Talia, and now he lived the single life. She was surprised when
he’d given her a key and told her she was welcome to stay with him whenever he was
in town. He still worked as a doctor at the local hospital where Talia was
born. Blowing out a breath she stopped when she heard the masculine moan and
the feminine cry.

Great, he was fucking a
woman again. Slamming the door, she stormed to the kitchen and began unloading
his shopping. If she was staying the weekend, the anniversary of losing his
family, then he’d better keep the skanks away from her. She wasn’t interested
in making nice with his fucks.

She heard some shuffling,
and seconds later Chris came out to greet her. He was wearing a pair of jeans,
still unbuttoned at the waist with nothing else on.

“You came?” he said.

Giving him a nod, she
ignored him and turned her back to him. She was putting some milk in the fridge
along with a few bottled sauces when the woman came through. Rachel turned to
see it was another nurse from where he worked. He’d taken to screwing the women
he worked with. She shouldn’t be surprised. Claire did tell her he’d been a
hound dog and an asshole when she’d met him.

Why do I keep coming back to him?

Knowing the answer, Rachel
cursed her stupidity and kept unloading the food.

“Is she your wife?” the
nurse asked.

Turning to give the woman
her scorn, she waited for him to say something.

“She’s not my wife.”

No, that was the problem.
Claire was dead while she was alive.

I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

Three years she’d watched
him self-destruct his life, refusing to be part of it and yet not leaving him
alone to deal with it. She’d promised her sister that no matter what happened,
she’d be there for him.

“No, I’m not his wife. I’m
his dead wife’s sister. He’s a widower.” She glared at him as the nurse gasped.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”

Rachel nodded and stormed
away. She gathered the screwed up bed sheets. Seconds later she heard the door
slam closed. He came through to the bedroom within moments.

“Well, I don’t think she’ll
be coming back.”

“I’m sure nurse three
hundred is not worried.” She dumped the sheets into the wash basket, continuing
to curse him.

“I didn’t know you were
coming today,” he said.

She spun on him. “You were
the one who told me to come.” With a hand on her hip, she glared at him. “You
know what? I’m not getting into this. You want to screw everything that walks,
fine. This is my last visit to your apartment.” Picking up the basket, she
grabbed the key out of her jeans pocket and slammed it against his naked chest
as she passed. “I’m done after tonight. You want to meet to talk then by all
means, call me.”

Walking toward the kitchen,
she started to load the washing machine. When he’d first moved in, she would
get the clothing dry cleaned because he hated her being domesticated. Over the
months he’d gotten her a washing machine. She began to think he was getting
over the death of his wife. But Chris was never going to get over the death of
her sister or his kid. She couldn’t blame him. There were times she held the
phone wanting to call her sister and then realized Claire wasn’t alive.

“I’m sorry. It won’t happen
again,” he said, following her. She fed the washing into the machine not giving
him the time of day.

“No, it’ll happen again and
again and again.” She shook her head. “You don’t need me here.”

“I want you here.”

Slamming the door closed she
turned on him. “I don’t want to be here with you fucking every slut who will
take you. Claire warned me about this, but I never knew you could be this big
of a prick.”

Shoving him in the chest,
she moved toward where she dropped her bag near the door. Bending down, she
picked it up and put her hand on the door handle, ready to leave his life for
good.

Opening the door, she yelped
as his hand went beside her head and closed the door hard. She tried to open it
again, but he was too strong. Rachel should have known she wouldn’t be able to
best him. He was the strongest person she knew, and she had watched him work
out more than enough times at the gym. She’d joined the gym to keep him company
and hoped to get fit. But running, while staring at him or other slim blonde
women, was not her idea of fun, and she quit.

The jealousy had gotten to
her, and then she’d felt guilty at her feelings. Chris was her dead sister’s
husband, and she shouldn’t be having any feelings for him.

He leaned in close. His
breath caressed along her neck. Closing her eyes, she tried to stop the
feelings running through her body. He was the only man who’d sparked any
emotion inside her.

She wasn’t a virgin, but
even the men she dated hadn’t made her want them as much as Chris did.

Stop this. He’ll never be yours.

“Don’t go,” he said.

“You don’t need me.”

“I do need you. She was just
a distraction. You know what today is.”

Closing her eyes, she felt
herself beginning to cave to him.

“Please, Rachel, don’t go.”
His hand rested on her hip as his head seemed to start to nuzzle her neck, and
he stopped.

She frowned, turning toward
him. One of his hands still rested against the door.

“Tonight, I’ll stay tonight
so we can visit their graves, and then I’m gone.” She lived in a small
apartment near the restaurant where she worked. In the bad economy, not a lot
of jobs were available, and she had yet to finish her degree in business. This
was her third job in three months.

“You don’t have to leave.”

“I do have to leave. I can’t
keep doing this, Chris. You’re going to move on soon, and then I’ll be alone
anyway. I can’t stick around constantly watching you mess around with women.”

She brushed past him,
missing his touch the moment he let her go. Would she ever stop feeling so
connected by him?

****

Chris watched her go behind
the counter. She started to arrange saucepans on the stove. He stood watching
her. In the first few months when he moved in Rachel had lived with him in the
spare room. Thinking back to that time, he recalled bringing a woman home, and
within days Rachel was moving out. He’d not given it much thought at the time,
but he must have been the cause for her leaving.

Running fingers through his
hair, he took a seat at the counter. That one woman had turned into two, until
he’d finally fucked his way through the hospital. It was much easier relieving
the stress through sex than thinking about everything he lost. He didn’t even
keep a photo of his girls. No, his only reminder was Rachel, but he couldn’t
let her go either. Every time he tried to leave her alone, he found himself
going back to her, wanting her. The women meant nothing to him. The times in
his life he enjoyed were the moments Rachel was part of it.

“How’s the restaurant?” he
asked.

“Still going
strong.
At least I’ve not lost this job, and it’s keeping me
in rent and food.” She shrugged her shoulders, stirring something as she did.

“You don’t need to be living
like that. You can stay here, and I’ll be happy for you to be here.”

“No, I’m not staying here.
I’d soon cramp your style when you brought more women here to screw.”

Chris couldn’t say anything.
If she was here then he’d stop fucking other women. They meant nothing to him
at all.