What We've Become (My Kind Of Country Book 2) (17 page)

It didn’t matter anymore, anyway. Love, happiness, contentment—those were all just lies made up to make hopeless romantics believe they had a chance in this world. People were not meant to be happy; they were meant to do what they were required to do to survive. That was what she had to do now—survive.

With Jay.

Katie knew now she wasn’t meant to be happy with Chad. He didn’t deserve to be caught up in the drama that had become her life. He could get away from it, but she never would. Jay would never let it stop, either. He was Mason’s father, and he dangled her son in front of her nose like a treat, something he could take away at any time he sought fit. Katie would never have worried about such absurdities before, especially considering Jay’s own questionable antics in the recent years. Everything changed, however, the moment that newspaper published her face and her embrace with Chad, painting her less than favorably. If Jay did push for full custody of Mason—and she knew he would; not only because he promised he would, but because he had nothing left to lose—he had the upper hand. He was right; there was no actual record of his infidelities against her, but there was pictorial evidence stacked against her to back up his story of being wronged. It would come down to a case of his word against hers, and with the aid of the picture, the article, and the timeline, it was a chance Katie wasn’t willing to take. Jay could be convincing, and his mastered manipulation abilities frightened her. She would never win against him, so she did the only thing she had left to do.

She succumbed. She wished she didn’t have to, but she had to face the truth: Jay had won. For whatever his true motives were, he swore he would refrain from bringing the courts into the matter if she would stay. No more pretending to try. No more time to decide whether she wanted to. No more contact with Chad Kirkwood—and she had agreed, out of fear and out of disgrace.

Being with Chad, having him to love in every way possible had been a mistake. It was a beautiful mistake, one she would revisit and cherish, despite never being able to feel that way again, but it was a mistake nonetheless. For a fleeting moment, the two of them had been blind enough to think they could dig themselves out of the dark hole of discontentment and mediocrity they had fallen into, but the hole was too deep and the darkness too opaque. There was no way out, at least not together.

It was time to face the sullen reality of it all. She wasn’t some princess who would find her prince and live happily ever after. Happy endings like that didn’t exist in the real world. She and Chad had never been meant to last, and she could see that now. He’d been shoved back into her life, and the time they’d stolen had been nothing more than borrowed time. If Jay had never coerced her into going to that single release party where she was reintroduced to Chad once more, where would she be now? Would things be any different for her? The truth was...

No.

She’d already been destined to play her part with Jay then, and neither time nor Chad Kirkwood had been able to fix that despairing fact.

“Mom?”

Katie looked down into the anxious eyes of her son. “Sorry. I must have been daydreaming. What were you saying?” He stopped walking and peered apprehensively behind them.

“I asked you if you could hear that? It sounds like sirens.” His eyes never wavered from the direction he was so engrossed in.

Sure enough, the telling wail of siren bells was drifting through the air, assaulting their ears from a distance. She turned and followed Mason’s gaze, but there was nothing to be seen except for a few other pedestrians who had halted and were craning their necks in the direction of the sound as well. “It does sound like sirens, but they’re in the distance. Maybe a few blocks over or something.”

“What kind of sirens?” Her son’s forehead creased in concern, his mouth turned down at the corners with worry.

Katie had never been good at distinguishing which sound was which. Police, ambulance, and fire sirens all seemed to sound the same to her. Then again, she wasn’t sure if she had ever heard any of them simultaneously, so she wasn’t sure if maybe they were all, in fact, the same. “I honestly don’t know, buddy. I don’t see smoke, so I doubt it’s from a fire truck, but it is hard to say for certain. It’s okay, Mason. This is the city. You will hear sirens a lot more here than you ever would have back at the farm.”

He gazed beyond the buildings and crowds of people around him for a moment longer, and then turned back to her, his eyes full of weariness. Fleetingly, Katie wondered if his grim mood had to do with the sirens, or if the prospect of having to hear sirens regularly was something he didn’t want to think about.

“Come on, Mason. I’ll make you a deal. We will walk one more street over and if there is no store there to buy you something nice to wear, we will take this party to Wal-Mart, okay?” She hoped for any hint of brightness to show up in his eyes, but she saw nothing beyond the murky somberness that clouded his expression.

“Why are you marrying Dad?”

If the directness of his question didn’t floored her, the sheer look of bewilderment on his face at the thought of her doing such a thing did. “Just because, Mason. We are going to be a family.”

“We already are, but all you guys do is argue.”

“Mase, it’s not like—”

“You don’t even smile. You’re sad all the time.”

“I have just been—”

“Except when we went to see Chad. You smiled then.”

She blamed herself for her son’s confusion. How could she expect him to know what to think about this whole situation when she didn’t even know what to think herself? “I don’t expect you to understand. You are a kid, buddy, so there is no need to think about all that grown up stuff.”

“You were kissing Chad in that picture. In the newspaper.”

Katie sighed. “Mason, I was not kissing him. That newspaper is making it look like I was, but I wasn’t. We were talking, and Chad gave me a hug. Why were you looking at the paper anyway? I don’t think I have ever seen you open one of those.”

The little boy’s gaze dropped to the ground, and he kicked a stray pebble off the sidewalk curb and into the street. “Dad showed me.”

It took everything Katie could muster within her to keep her face neutral. Inside, though, she was seething. What game was Jay playing? There had been a chance that her son would have never been subjected to that misleading picture—and, thus, he never would have be compelled to question her about such adult topics. Obviously, Jay’s manipulation knew no bounds. “Yeah, he did? What did your dad say when he showed you? It’s okay, you’re not in trouble or anything.” The wide eyes he wore paired well with his bottom lip as it started to quiver ever so slightly, letting her know that she needed to rein in her questioning, or he would clam up in fear of repercussions.

“I don’t know. Just that you were going to get in trouble if you weren’t careful or something. Or maybe he meant Chad would get in trouble. I don’t know!” Mason’s hands flew up in protest, shaking his head violently.

Katie reached out and held his arms gently but firmly. “Mason! It’s okay! Don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal, okay?”

“But I don’t want you to get in trouble, Mom!”

She couldn’t help but laugh, no matter how laced with disgust the sound was. Whether or not she was in trouble should be the furthest thing from her seven-year-old son’s mind, yet there he was getting wound up and emotional at the thought of it. When had she allowed the roles to reverse and her son to grow so wise beyond his years? “I am not in trouble, Mase. I promise you that.”
Your father is the only trouble I have got to contend with now
.

“Is Chad, then?”

Katie kneeled down on the sidewalk, ignoring the bystanders and pedestrians that hurried past them with vehement urgency. “No, baby. No one is in trouble. Your dad was just being—I don’t know—dramatic. You don’t need to worry about Chad...or me, for that matter.”

Mason gave her a hesitant nod, and she tapped her finger against the tip of his nose, rising to her feet. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket to check the time. The phone, however, was blinking repetitively, signaling an incoming call. The caller display read
Private Caller
, and Katie hesitated for a moment, wondering if she should pick it up, fearful of telemarketers and scam artists. Out of pure curiosity, she hit the button and answered the call.

“Hello?”

“Hello, ma’am. Is your name Katie?”

The voice was unfamiliar to her ears. “I’m sorry, who is this?”

The woman cleared her throat. “Of course. My name is Lucinda. Are you a relative of a Mr. Chad Kirkwood, ma’am?”

Katie’s heart stopped at the mention of his name. “A relative? No, I am—I don’t understand. Where are you calling from, Lucinda?”

There was a moment of silence before the woman spoke again. “I am calling from Nashville General Hospital, ma’am. Do you know a Mr. Chad Kirkwood?” She repeated the question again, this time more urgently, making Katie’s heart constrict.

“Yes, I do. I know him well.” It was the hospital calling her. The hospital. “What happened?”

“Ma’am, I normally wouldn’t reveal medically related information regarding one of our patients to anyone who is not an immediate family member, but we currently have no records indicating a next of kin for Mr. Kirkwood. To be honest, your first name and phone number were found in the patient’s pocket at the scene of the accident—”

A sharp gasp escaped Katie’s throat, her mind immediately assuming the worst. “He is okay, right?” Her voice came out shrill and unsteady. She took a deep breath and turned away from Mason, lowering her voice. “Tell me he is okay.”

“Ma’am, Mr. Kirkwood is alive, but he has been in a very bad motor vehicle accident. Would you be willing to come down to the hospital? The staff here will be able to provide you with more information, then.”

“I’m on my way, Lucinda.” Katie was about to pull the cell phone away from her ear when she heard Lucinda’s voice once again.

“Katie?”

“Yes?”

“Hurry.”

Katie ended the call, staring blankly at each of the cars as they drove past her. Did they not realize the world had stopped turning? Could they not tell that the entire planet had been tipped viciously on its axis? How could they just keep living their normal mundane lives when her entire universe was crashing down so uncontrollably around her? What was wrong with them?

“Mom? What’s wrong?”

Katie lowered her gaze down to meet Mason’s, her vision blurry with the tears that brimmed her eyelids. “We have to go, Mase. It’s Chad. I was wrong. He is in trouble.”

***

There was a faint buzzing in Katie’s ears as she pushed her way through the sliding doors of the emergency department at Nashville General Hospital, and it was beginning to alarm her. She seemed disconnected from everything around her, as though there was some kind of veil between her and her surroundings, somehow keeping her void of any emotion that could render her incapacitated. Instead, she seemed to be on autopilot, holding Mason’s little hand tightly as she dragged him beside her. He was struggling to keep up, not fully sure as to what was really happening, but worry was wafting from his silent form in treacherous waves as well. Katie didn’t tell him of the urgency in Lucinda’s voice, but she didn’t need to. Mason’s understanding of the seriousness of the situation was obvious. Once again, Katie’s heart broke for his loss of innocence, unable to shelter him from the nastiness and cruelty of the world around him.

“I’m Katie,” she advised the dark haired nurse behind the counter. “I was called about Chad. I mean, Mr. Kirkwood. He was just brought in after a car accident.” The nurse’s face stayed relatively neutral, but Katie, having been a nurse in an oncology ward, knew the look behind her eyes. There was a glimmer of pity there, a moment of hesitancy; she didn’t want to have to be the one to subject her to the ugly truth of what was to come. She nodded, though, rising from her chair rigidly.

“Yes, Katie. If you take a seat out there in the waiting room, I will advise the doctor and nursing staff that you are here.” She motioned automatically to the overpopulated room just outside the automatic doors, and Katie hoped she wasn’t made to wait long. Each passing second was becoming torturous.

“You’re not Lucinda, are you?”

The nurse gave her a muted smile. “I’m not, but if you would rather talk with her, I can let her know.” She paused a moment. “Our medical records for Mr. Kirkwood show no family contacts in case of an emergency, Katie. Do you know how we can reach his family members or his spouse?”

Katie avoided glancing down at Mason, who was turning his ashen face from one adult to another as he listened intently to the conversation. “He doesn’t have a...spouse. We—” Katie swallowed hard in an attempt to relieve the lump forming solidly in her throat. “It’s a bit complicated. His family, though, are in Ontario. I mean, Canada. I’m not sure who to contact.” She glanced past the nurse, willing an answer to show up beyond the swinging doors in front of her. “But I can find out how to get a hold of them.”

“That would be very helpful, Katie. I will have Mr. Kirkwood’s attending physician come and speak with you as soon as he is able to, all right?”

Katie thanked the nurse for her time, noticing for the first time that her nametag read
Anna
. “Thank you, Anna.”