No Longer Mine (4 page)
Authors: Shiloh Walker
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Contemporary Romance
Shawn was slumped against the doorframe, hands shoved deep in his pockets. “Your boyfriend’s at the door. Want me to tell him you ain’t here?”
Wryly she thought,
I must look worse than I thought.
Shiloh Walker
Shawn was almost acting protective. The sixteen-year-old barely had two words to say to her anymore—especially after she’d physically thrown his girlfriend out on her ass when Nikki had found the girl snorting coke in their cramped kitchen.
She must really look like shit if Shawn was feeling bad for her.
“Nah, he can come on up, Shawn. But thanks.”
He only shrugged and walked away. She swiveled in her chair to face her mirror. Yep. She looked like hell. Bloodshot eyes, face pale and strained, hair messily shoved into a ponytail. Her ripped, sleeveless sweatshirt had certainly seen better days, and her cut-off shorts weren’t much better.
Not only that, they bagged slightly at the waist, evidence of her lack of appetite in the past week.
She turned back to her keyboard as footsteps echoed on the steps, tapping away at the keys, putting half-formed ideas into words. She worked a few minutes more, even after Wade slowly entered the room.
Still too angry to make the first move, she continued to work.
Finally finished, Nikki skimmed the rough draft and then she saved the file on the slow word processor. She really, really wanted a computer. But college was proving damned expensive, even with her scholarships, so she’d just have to make do for a while longer. Besides, for the most part, when she really needed something faster, she could use the computer at Wade’s.
Well,
usually
.
Spinning around, she found Wade staring out the window, his posture slumped, head bent. Finally, his voice sounding rusty, he asked, “Did you make it home okay?” He was, of course, referring to the night a week earlier when he’d driven away from the store in a fury unlike anything she had ever seen in him.
Cocking her head, she coolly said, “It looks that way. I don’t appear to be the worse for wear.” Well, not really. Nothing some sleep, a shower and a meal or two wouldn’t fix.
And you…
He sighed, looking even more miserable, if possible, and flung himself on her unmade bed. He had his arm over his eyes, and his hand was clenched so tightly his knuckles were bloodless.
He looked utterly dejected, Nikki thought with mild amusement.
If she didn’t know better, she would think he was feeling guilty for picking a fight over nothing. And he damn well ought to. However, Wade never felt guilty about anything. Feeling guilty meant you had done something wrong, made some sort of mistake. Things like that were below him.
She couldn’t gloat for too long though. He looked too awful. “I caught a ride home with Connie,” she said.
Wade’s lower lip was still puffy.
Nikki still couldn’t believe she had hit him. But, damn it, the way he had acted…
Wade’s hoarse voice broke the silence when he said quietly, “I’m sorry. I had no right to do that, no right to jump all over you. I don’t know what in the hell came over me.” 22
No Longer Mine
“Don’t you?” she asked, her voice remote.
With a sigh, he lowered his arm and sat up in bed, swinging around to sit on the edge of it. Looking her right in the eye for the first time since entering the room, he grimaced. His skin was unnaturally pale, dark blue circles under his eyes.
“I was jealous,” he said simply. “Maybe I worry about you thinking about… Shit, I dunno. Dating.
You never really did that. We’ve been together the past two years, and up until you started hanging out with me you never messed with dating. You didn’t have a chance to play the field the way your friends did.
You would have every right to wonder.”
“I never have wondered,” Nikki said quietly. “The girls my age think I’m damn lucky to have found myself somebody. The guys my age aren’t worth the trouble. But that’s beside the point. You came in with guns blazing and attacked me simply for talking to a guy I work with.”
“He’d like to do more. I know what a guy looks like when he’s interested. And he’s definitely interested.”
Sighing, he scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “But that’s not the point either. You weren’t encouraging him and that’s all the matters. I should have had more faith in you.” He stood abruptly.
Startled, Nikki was slack when he pulled her out of the chair and into his arms. Wade yanked the rubber band from her hair and buried his face in it, breathing deeply. Silently she locked her arms around his waist and stood there, feeling vaguely as though something was wrong. Something else was going on, but what it was, Nikki didn’t know. Her internal radar was sending out signals.
He began rocking back and forth, and instinctively she tightened her arms. Turning her head, she pressed a kiss to the side of his neck, cuddling against him, trying to ease some of the tension that was rolling of him in waves.
She gasped out a breath as Wade swept her up in his arms and went to the bed, cradling her in his lap.
That internal radar was screaming now. They’d fought before and he hadn’t acted like he was afraid she would slip away.
“Wade, what’s going on?” she asked, cupping his face in her hand and forcing him to look at her.
Nikki searched his eyes for some clue but all she saw was torment and guilt. She was almost afraid to ask, but knew she had to. “Is there something I need to know about?” He closed his eyes and Nikki felt her stomach drop. She waited for him to tell her, but all he did was bring her hand to his lips and kiss it. “I just don’t want to lose you,” he said, raising his head and staring at her intently.
“I’m not the one who left,” she reminded him softly. Then she shrugged. “It was a fight. It’s not the first and it won’t be the last. I…I shouldn’t have hit you.”
“You’ve got a mean right hook, Nikki,” he said, a ghost of a smile on his face. “But I deserved it. I’m sorry. The entire thing happened because I’m an ass.”
23
Shiloh Walker
With a forced smile, she replied, “You are an ass.” Then she shoved aside her misgivings. Everything was okay. “It’s all right, Wade. It’s over.”
“It’s not all right,” he insisted, cupping her face in callused, gentle hands. “It’s not, baby. I’m sorry for everything I’ve done that hurt you. I’m sorry for things I said and did and thought that weren’t fair to you.”
She only tucked her face against his shoulder, looking away from those intent eyes. Meeting them only made her vague feelings of wrongness return.
Nikki had to bite her lip to keep from asking, “What things?” A month had passed since that day. Buried in her writing, working part-time and dealing with a few extra summer courses, she had her hands full.
There was also the minor detail of a wedding.
They were getting married.
A quiet, simple wedding, but they were getting married. Shortly after their honeymoon was over, she’d start back at U of L for her third year of nursing school.
Yeah, she had her hands full, all right.
Hunched over Wade’s computer, she focused on her book. Two hours—she was giving herself two hours. Then she’d get her stupid, endless homework done. She’d get the damn homework done and then she might even have time to work on the book some more.
Wade slept like the dead on the couch.
The broken-down, secondhand couch was comfortable but not that comfortable. He wasn’t interested in sleeping in the bedroom though. When she’d mentioned the bedroom a weird look had crossed over his face and he’d shut down, shut her out. Distracted, she hadn’t thought much of it, but as she forced herself to turn off the computer, she looked over at him. Nikki had thought he liked the little ranch house they’d picked out. But maybe she was wrong. He ended up at her dad’s apartment every morning after work, and slept there on her narrow twin bed until she got home from work.
To top it off, his sleep was fitful. Often he’d wake the minute she got home and tumble her down onto the bed with him, holding her tightly against his side as he drifted back into uneasy slumber. Wade insisted nothing was wrong, just that he was working too hard, busting his ass to save more money for the honeymoon.
Her mind drifted around in circles, trying to pinpoint if she had done something or said something to make him act this way. There had been the fight but it wasn’t the worst they had ever had.
Since then they hadn’t fought about anything. Wade, in fact, went out of his way to keep things quiet between them.
She didn’t even realize he had woken until she heard him whisper, “C’mere, Nikki.” 24
No Longer Mine
She smiled and rose from her chair. Stiffened muscles protested as Nikki stretched and forced them into action. She bent over at the waist to touch her toes briefly before she went to couch, perching on the edge.
Watching her with burning eyes, Wade waited for her with an outstretched hand. As she settled against him, his arms closed around her and he pulled her down next to him. With a turn of his body, Wade neatly tucked her under him. “I love you,” he rasped, his voice intense. “I always will. If I ever lost you, I don’t know what I’d do.”
She opened her mouth, determined to find out what was going on with him, but then he settled his mouth over hers, and the question, like all thought, flew out of her head.
Things were good…for a while.
Three more weeks to be exact.
Her wedding dress, something that seemed too beautiful to be real, hung in her closet, minute adjustments made in the waistline. Satin ballet slippers dyed to match resided in a box close by.
Everything was already set. Decorations were at the church. She had already mailed the thank-you cards for shower gifts and there wasn’t anything left to be done except the wedding itself.
The wedding was to be small and simple, since they had to pay for everything themselves. Even the honeymoon was simple, a four-day weekend to Gatlinburg. A real honeymoon would have to wait.
It was Tuesday, hot, humid. The air was so thick and muggy even breathing seemed like work. The rain started sometime after noon, a steady downpour that didn’t seem in any hurry to end.
But she didn’t care about the rain, because she had just gotten the call.
Nineteen years old, and she had just gotten
The Call
.
She still couldn’t believe it. She’d written everything down just to make it feel real. But it didn’t feel real. Couldn’t feel real.
Wade… She needed to tell Wade. Determined to do just that, she borrowed her dad’s truck, something she rarely did because she hated driving a stick shift, but she hardly noticed it as she drove over to Wade’s in a daze of excitement.
Hands shaky, a smile a mile on wide on her face, she pulled into the driveway and danced up the porch.
The deafening silence when she threw open the door should have warned her.
How could silence sound so ominous?
That silence… Yes, it should have warned her.
Her excitement was gone. Forgotten as misery, shock and anger roiled inside her. She’d completely forgotten about the notes she had in her pocket. About the call. About everything.
Nikki now stood on one side of the kitchen, staring out at the thunderstorm that had rolled in only minutes earlier.
25
Shiloh Walker
If asked why she had driven over, Nikki would have admitted she didn’t have a clue.
Wade was across the room, on the floor, face buried in his hands, shoulders and hair wet with rain.
When she’d first arrived a few minutes earlier, Nikki had found him sitting outside on the deck in back, oblivious to the rain that was pounding down.
She’d thought something was wrong. Had thought it was one of his parents. But it wasn’t.
He’d been holding a pregnancy test in his hand.
A positive one.
And Nikki hadn’t taken any pregnancy test.
That damning bit of evidence now sat on the kitchen table, and she found herself staring at it again, acid burning in her throat.
“I can’t believe this is happening.” She wanted to scream it, but she couldn’t. She barely had the breath to even speak.
“Baby, I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “Damn it, I’m sorry.”
Sorry?
Yes.
She imagined he was.
She bit back the hot, burning words that sprang to her lips, because once she gave into the anger, she wouldn’t think to ask the questions, and damn it, she wanted the answers before she exploded. Before she lost it.
She deserved answers, damn it.
“Who is she?” Nikki asked numbly, her face gone stiff. She wasn’t hurting yet. It hadn’t really hit her, but she knew the pain was lying in wait. It was like a man who had suddenly had his leg cut off and could feel nothing for the shock of it.
When he didn’t answer, she whirled and snapped, “Who in the hell is she?” Raising his head, Wade stared at her from black eyes. Those eyes, always so warm and full of life, looked cold and lifeless. Before he even said it, she knew.
“Jamie Sayer,” he said, his voice almost soundless.
That was when the pain came, ripping through her like a forest fire, consuming everything in its path.
Jamie… Of course, it was Jamie. The beautiful, sleek brunette had been chasing after Wade for as long as Nikki had known him, longer. Wade hadn’t ever been interested in her. Nikki hadn’t ever really worried about her, and man, what a fucking mistake
that
had been on her part.
Looks like the perfect little prom queen had finally gotten him.
“Jamie,” Nikki whispered, her tongue feeling thick, her throat raw.
As the pain tore into her heart and the pressure built in her throat, she stared at him. Her knees gave out then and she slid to the floor, a mirror of Wade’s dejected slump. She drew her knees up and held them clutched to her chest as she started to shake.
26
