No Longer Mine (25 page)

You’re a writer. Finding the right words is what you do
, Nikki reminded herself as she slid from the bed and stood.

Hopefully, when it was most important, she would be able to do just that.

“Wade?”

Her voice, soft and sleepy, came to him over the roaring in his ears. Unbelievably weary, he turned his head to see her standing in the doorway, the blanket clutched around her naked shoulders by a thin hand.

His voice rough, he said, “It’s too cold out. You ought to be inside.” With a slight smile, Nikki glanced at him, from the bare feet tucked inside boots, to the naked chest revealed by his open shirt. “You’re one to talk,” she said, smiling at him. Then she held out her hand.

“Come inside.”

Slowly, his cold hand came up and closed over her warm one. Despising himself, hating himself, but unable to deny the need to be close to her, to be warm, for just a little while longer. He was going to have to be without her soon enough.

He would need this time to get through the empty years ahead.

Nikki silently urged him onto the sofa, curling her body next to his. Wade buried his face in her hair, breathing her in, his arms locked tightly around her. It wasn’t right. How could he have found her again, only to have barriers come between them that would be impossible to break? Barriers of
his
making, damn it all to hell.

“Wade, I think it’s time we had that talk,” Nikki said, breaking into his thoughts.

He raised his head automatically when she spoke but quickly lowered it again, mumbling something under his breath. Even he wasn’t sure what it was he had said.

Quietly, Nikki told him, “There’s some things you need to know, Wade. Things I should have told you months ago.”

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No Longer Mine

His body went rigid.
Now?
Why is she going to tell me now?

Over the pounding of his heart he realized she was speaking to him, and her words were slow, almost awkward. “I was in pretty rough shape after you told me about Jamie. A part of me died that day and I just lost interest in life. I wasn’t interested in eating or writing or reading. All I wanted to do was sleep. So that’s all I did for the longest time. I never went back to school, never did anything.

“I ended up selling my book, but Dylan kind of helped me through that. Got me through the mess of contracts, talked to a couple of agents, helped with everything. Hell, he could probably
be
an agent at this point. He handled so much for me.

“He was so damn proud of me. I wasn’t all that concerned about it. When they read the third book I’d written in the
Chronicles
line, they offered me contracts and money on the spot. So I was able to buy Dad and them the house I’d always promised. I didn’t much care, but I wanted to keep my promises. Once we moved, all I did was wander around inside those four walls day in and day out.” Her voice faded, growing distant as her eyes turned inward. “I was sort of fading away, losing weight, losing myself.

“You had married Jamie and I thought my life was over.” She straightened, gently shrugging his arms away. Clutching the blanket around her shoulders, she rose and walked to stare out the window.

Wade could picture all too well what she was describing. It was the shadow of the woman he had found on the road several hours ago. Had somebody come along and taken away the loneliness for a little while?

Or God, no, had something else happened? Why in the hell hadn’t he thought of that before now?

Anything was possible, especially in that hellhole she had lived in. She was so small, and while she could mostly likely hold her own against a lone man, what could she do about a number of
men
?

He shook his head to clear his thoughts as she started to speak again.

“I was probably just a few months away from my own funeral. I had stopped eating. I hadn’t taken a bath in God only knows how long,” Nikki continued, one hand straying up to touch shiny strands of hair.

“My hair was so filthy, so matted. I wonder how anybody was even able to tolerate being in the same room with me.”

Eyes full of bemusement, Nikki turned to look at him. “And then I passed out. Right in front of my dad. He had been standing there, griping about what a mess his life was, how he couldn’t find a job he liked, blah, blah, blah… The next thing I remember I was in the emergency department. I’d passed out and I woke up with needles in my arms, doctors all over me, monitors, and my dad is looking at me like he doesn’t even recognize me.”

She licked her lips and took another breath. “When he got finally got me home, he poured every drop of liquor he had down the drain and never touched another drop. I think he figured he was going to need to be sober just to keep me alive.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

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137

Shiloh Walker

She swallowed. “I was in bad shape. Really bad.”

A grim look entered her eyes as she described just how bad. And slowly Wade began to realize that if she was telling the truth, and he knew she was, she couldn’t have been out carousing with another man, erasing him with another man’s touch.

A niggling little doubt was making itself at home in his mind, darting out of reach any time he tried to latch on to it.

“They did tests at the hospital—lots of them. I had to go see specialists. At first they thought I was anorexic and they were talking about counseling and various pharmaceutical treatments for depression.

“I had starved myself so badly my body was no longer doing what it was supposed to do. I’d developed an arrhythmia because my electrolyte levels were so badly out of whack. My blood pressure was erratic. My stomach had started to atrophy and I had to learn how to eat all over again. The doctor very bluntly told me that if I hadn’t collapsed, if I hadn’t somehow ended up in the emergency department when I did, it might have been too late.”

A soft, shuddering sigh escaped her. “Another few weeks, I might have been dead, probably from a heart attack. I had damn near destroyed my heart. As it is, it can’t function on its own any more.” She wandered over and picked up her purse, pulling out a brown prescription bottle.

She tossed it to him and he caught it automatically.

He read the bottle and the bottom of his stomach fell out.

Lanoxin. Standard medicine…and the sort of medicine somebody could die without. Oh, God.

“I’ll probably be on heart medication for the rest of my life.” Wade had long since gone cold, was staring at her in some numb kind of shock. She wouldn’t have let that happen, not over what he had done.

“You were stronger than that,” he said, his voice harsh, half-broken. “You were always stronger than that. You wouldn’t have done that to yourself. Not over
me
, damn it.”

“You don’t get it, Wade.” Sadly, Nikki just stared at him and shook her head. “I wasn’t
me
anymore.

The girl you knew wasn’t there anymore. I had let her go, and ended up getting lost inside myself. I couldn’t find my way back.”

She paused long enough to take a deep, shaking breath before meeting his eyes. “And that wasn’t all.

Bad enough that my heart was a wreck and my body was about ready to shut down. A complete physical for a woman of child bearing age includes a pregnancy test. They had almost forgotten it since it was so highly unlikely considering my condition. But…but they were wrong. I was four months pregnant, Wade.”
January… She said January…
Four months pregnant… It had happened in August. His heart simply stopped beating. He stared at her, dismayed and deeply shocked for the longest time. Pregnant. Four months pregnant. “How?”

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“That last time in the woods.” She turned away now, resting her forehead against the cold pane of glass while she struggled to speak around the knot in her throat. “By all things logical, there was no reason for me to have carried the baby that long. It was deprived of everything that was so important during the first few months. A miracle from God is the only way I can explain it. I’d lost you, but He had given me something else to hold onto. And that saved my life.”

Nikki dashed away a tear with the back of her hand, started to drop her hand and then she paused, studying it, seeing how thin and pale it was, realizing how very weak she had become. How tired. She was doing it to herself again. Grimly, she swore to herself,
No more.
She was nowhere near as far gone as she had once been, but this wouldn’t happen to her again. No matter what. She was doing better, but it wasn’t enough. No matter what, she had to do more than this. Had to do better.

“The doctor strongly advised me to abort the baby. Told me I’d never make it to full term, and if by some slight chance I did, the baby would be severely handicapped and may not survive delivery. He had been starved and neglected when he needed the most care. He was so small. I didn’t even weigh a hundred pounds, but somehow, this little life was inside me and trying to live.

“A part of you,” she whispered, her voice hot and intense. “And that was all that mattered. I think the doctor thought I was crazy—thought maybe it was a way of committing suicide or something. He did everything he could to make me understand how dangerous it was. He tried to make Dad see his side.

Neither one of us would listen. Dad was ready to support whatever decision I made. We found a doctor who was willing to try.

“Dr. Gray said from the beginning it was likely I would miscarry at any given time. And I might not survive the pregnancy. I was unbelievably weak. He wanted to make sure I knew what I was saying, what I was up against. I told him I wouldn’t give up my baby. I wouldn’t… I couldn’t.

“So he put me in the hospital right away. Rode with me in the ambulance, walked me through the admission process. He wasn’t leaving anything to chance. I think he spent more time with me than he spent with most of his other patients combined.”

She sighed and turned around to face Wade. So far he hadn’t said anything. Hadn’t spoken. The look on his face was dark, unreadable. Unable to keep looking at him, she lowered her gaze to the floor.

“I was in the hospital two weeks. I gained back four pounds and my heart rate returned to normal. I had to stay on the medicine though, throughout the pregnancy. I was out of the danger zone, gaining weight and eating regular meals. But…but my baby wasn’t doing so well. He had been neglected during the most important time and he wasn’t growing or moving around the way he was supposed to. The ultrasound showed him to be half the size he should have been.” Her mouth trembled briefly before firming.

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139

Shiloh Walker

Her next words were cut off with a yelp when hard arms closed tightly around her, like bands of iron.

Wade buried his face against her neck, shuddering, rocking her back and forth. His baby. Not another man’s. His. She had been too busy grieving herself to death to go to another man.

Wade didn’t even realize she was speaking until he raised his head, his eyes diamond bright with unshed tears, and saw her mouth moving.
Sorry
. She whispered it, over and over. “I am so sorry.”
Sorry…?

Wade shook her slightly, his voice low and rough. “Don’t you apologize to me. I’m the one who screwed up. It was my fault—”

She covered his mouth with her hand and shook her head. “No, Wade.” Her voice was determined and firm. “No. It was my fault. I put myself in the hospital and I let myself wither away. I almost killed our baby. I had screwed up and I was going to fix it.”

She leaned forward then, settling into his arms briefly, steadying herself. “We pulled through somehow. He was born normal and healthy, just a little small for his age. I went overdue almost a month while his body played catch up.” She grimaced and added, “I had to spend the final three weeks in the hospital, hooked up to monitors, just in case.”

“But then, like he had decided he was ready, I went into labor and he came along just fine on his own.

He was so beautiful,” she whispered, her voice soft and lost in thought.

Nikki shifted, turning around so that her back was against Wade’s front. He remained wrapped around her, his face buried against her hair, while she continued to speak. “He looked just like you. He was the light of my life. Everything was going to work out okay for me. I bought my own house, and we moved into it the day after he turned six months. Spent our first Christmas there.” Wade closed his eyes, not wanting to hear any more. He knew the rest of the story, vividly, had a nightmare or two of his own about it. But she was determined to finish telling it.

“He would have been just four months younger than Abby,” she whispered. “Would have started school next year.”

A shudder racked her body from head to toe. Anger edged her voice as she started to speak of the stormy day three and a half years earlier. “Shawn was staying up at the house for a few days. He’d been fighting with Dad a lot, needed to get away from it. We had gone into town for some groceries and we were on our way out. This storm came up. We were going to Dad’s. I knew better than to drive home in that kind of weather. We were less than a mile away and this car came out of nowhere. I heard this horrible noise, this loud crash and there was this terrible jolt. Then the world started to spin. I had tried to jerk the wheel to the right, away from the drop off.

“I wasn’t able to.” Her voice shuddered and broke, hands clenched into fists. “The bastard hit us again, trying to go around us on the side of the shoulder. The safe side. I lost control and we went tumbling 140

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No Longer Mine

over the hill, broke through the guard rail. When I came to the rain had stopped. And my little boy was gone.”

She fell silent once she finished talking, and Wade just sat there while his eyes burned and his throat ached from the knot inside it. A hot, greasy ball of shame settled low in his gut.
My son.
Already dead and buried and Wade hadn’t even known he existed. He was shaken and confused, angry at both himself and at her. Why hadn’t she told him?