Only for You (6 page)

A feeling of disloyalty
snakes it way through me. I shouldn’t think anything nice about
Cole’s dad. From now on, I won’t, and if I can find a way to get
out of him being my producer before my contract’s up, I
will.

Jaxon:
Nope. E wants us to be nice, since our songs tied for fan
favorites.

Me:
He’s asking for a miracle.

Jaxon:
Goes along with his Messiah complex.

I snort. If there’s one
thing that Jaxon and I can agree on, it’s his dad’s,
I am a Country Music GOD,
attitude.

Shutting the door behind
me, I flip on the lights and head to my bedroom to change. Thirty
minutes later, I’m in my pajamas, sitting in bed, with my laptop
open.

Curiosity gets the best of
me, and I check one of the biggest gossip sites. My stomach drops,
like I’m on a rollercoaster and have hit the first big
dip.

VIOLET LYNN’S SECRET
PREGNANGY. HOW SHE LOST IT ALL IN ONE DRUNKEN NIGHT.

“
Oh my God.” My hands
shake as I click on the link. I read, in detail, about the fight
with Callie, about Jaxon trying to intervene and me speeding off
into the night. Then there’s the part about the accident, the
emergency crews, the anonymous tip, and the worst part… the baby I
lost.

All from an anonymous tip,
of course.

I scroll down a bit
further, stunned to see an actual picture of me, lying in a field,
all bloody, with a jagged slab of windshield embedded in my
abdomen.

Suddenly, that image starts
moving and I can barely process what’s happening.

“
Please help me. Oh God,”
I hear myself cry. “Please.”

“
We’re here, honey. You
stay still.”

“
It doesn’t look
good.”

“
Someone should call her
parents.”

“
There’s no
time.”

A man moves in front of the
camera and I hear flesh ripping, wet and sharp. A bloodcurdling
scream sounds, and then another, and I realize it’s me making those
sounds.

I drop my computer, making
it to the bathroom just in time. I can’t stop throwing up, the
images and sounds too fresh, too real. After a fourth round, my
sweaty hands slip and I hit my head on the edge of the
toilet.

Mercifully, blackness takes
me.

Chapter Five

Cole

Yeah, I’m a jerk, but at
least I’m a jerk that knows how to apologize. Parker’s home with
Kelly, so I got all the time in the world to make it up to
Rae.

I knock on the front door
and wait for Rae to answer. It’s already dark, but there’s a light
on in her room.

After another minute of
waiting, I pound on the door again.

Then I hear a
scream.

“
RAE!” I try the door, but
it’s locked. Another scream, and I break out into a cold sweat. I
flip up the welcome mat, grab the spare key taped to it, and unlock
the door. Racing inside, I hear the sound of voices in her
bedroom.

When I get there, it’s just
her laptop playing some horror movie, and my heart stops trying to
ram its way out of my chest.

“
Rae?” She doesn’t answer,
and I peek into the hallway. The bathroom light is on and water is
running. Maybe she’s washing her hands. Maybe she doesn’t want to
speak to me.

It doesn’t matter. I’m
going to wait right here until she—there’s that scream again, and I
shiver. “What kind of sick movie is she watching?”

I move to the bed, intent
upon clicking that thing off. I’ve never known Rae to watch a
horror movie, her version of scary things are right in line with
mine: clowns and beady-eyed rodents.

Spinning the laptop around,
the video starts playing again.

“
Please help me. Oh God,”
a woman cries, pitiful and weak. “Please.”

“
We’re here, honey. You
stay still.”

“
It doesn’t look
good.”

“
Someone should call her
parents.”

“
There’s no
time.”

A man moves in front of the
camera and I hear flesh ripping open, like the time I caught my
knee on a rusty nail. A bloodcurdling scream sounds, then another,
and the man moves.

What kind of bastard puts
this shit up? I glance up at the website, read the headline, and
drop to my knees.

“
Holy fuc—”

That’s
my Rae
making those sounds. My Rae
bleeding out and losing her baby. Her future, her everything a
young woman should have to look forward to, and here I was being an
ass today. Telling her she wasn’t Kelly’s mother.

Tears fall freely, and I
don’t even care if she catches me.

For all intents and
purposes, she’s alone, crying out to God and anyone else that can
hear her. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. I want to go to
her, to comfort her, and say that everything’s gonna be okay. That
if she just holds on a little longer, it’ll be over and she’ll be
in my arms.

My hands shake as I x out
the site. There aren’t enough words in the English language to
convey how I feel in this moment, but it’s not about me. It’s about
her...

“
Rae? Baby… come out now.”
I knuckle the tears away, anger growing at the bastard who put this
up on the Internet for the world to see. What kind of sick asshole
does something like this? What pleasure from her pain could they
get from this? “Rae?”

She still doesn’t come. So
I go to her, only I find her on the floor, passed out.

“
Oh, hell no. Rae!” Images
of finding my mother exactly like this play in my mind as I pick
her up. Her head lulls to one side. “Come on, baby. Wake up for
me.” There’s dried puke on her mouth but none on the floor, and I
don’t see a bottle of pills anywhere, not even the
trashcan.

“
Rae, come one, baby
doll.” I tap her face lightly and she moans. I want to cry in
relief, because it’s the sweetest damn sound I’ve ever heard in my
life. “Rae…Violet, what did you take, sweetheart?”

Another moan is her
answer.

“
Baby, I can’t leave you
like this… I need to call 911, okay?” Pulling out my cell phone, I
dial the number and explain what I found. The woman stays on the
line until paramedics rush inside, taking Rae from me.

“
Has she taken
anything?”

Hands in my pockets, I
shake my head. I’m helpless right now, just like when I was
little.

“
There’s nothing in the
medicine cabinet except some OTC acid reflux.”

Another paramedic listens
to her heartbeat. “Her heart’s fine. Blood pressure is slightly
elevated. There’s a contusion on the right side of her head. She’ll
need to be observed overnight.”

Officer Ford walks in. “Did
you do this, son?”

Not taking my eyes off Rae,
I say, “Do you really think I’m that stupid?”

“
I have to ask,” he
says.

I glance up at him. He’s
looking at Rae. “What—no roughing me up tonight?”

“
The women you run with
seem to have lots of accidents, Cole.”

The last time I called 911,
my mom had taken a butcher knife and sliced her arm open from wrist
to elbow. Ford had gone nuts, immediately assuming I’d been the one
to hurt her.

“
Seem is the key word,” I
say. “Crystal hurt herself.” And our family, but Ford knows
this.

“
Yeah,” I hear him mutter
before he turns away to speak with the EMTs. I know he’s getting
Rae’s hospital information so that he can question her later, when
she’s fully conscious.

I step forward. “I’d like
to go with her. I can call her parents on the way. Her mother’s due
anytime now, so I’m not sure how soon they’ll be able to get here,
and Miss Violet’s out in California, visiting her son.”

“
So you’re family?” one of
the paramedics asks, his brows drawn together. He knows who she is
and he’s wondering how in the hell she got stuck with some white
piece of trash like me. But I know a lot of information for someone
who’s plain old white trash.

I have two choices: Tell
the truth, or lie.

Grimacing, I go with what
my family’s known for. “She’s my fiancée.”

Chapter Six

Violet

When I come to in the
hospital, I’m alone, and for a moment, I’m back, stuck in my now
not-so-private nightmare of pain, of learning about the baby I
lost. The baby I killed by drinking and driving, then crashing into
a tree.

The baby I had no clue
about. But I’d been punished; now, I’ll never be anyone’s
mother.

Having an emergency,
partial hysterectomy at the age of nineteen tends to do
that.

I whimper, unable to stop
the tears or the urge to rip the IV out of my arm and run from this
place. I fumble with the tubes, my fingers not working
right.

“
Hey, hey… sweetheart.
It’s okay.” Suddenly, Cole appears, his gorgeous face filling my
vision. He places his hand over mine, stopping my frantic clawing.
“I’m here.”

I cry out his name in
relief and he gathers me to him, his strong arms all I need. “I
want to go home. Take me home.”

“
As soon as they let me,
Rae.” He smoothes my hair down and whispers in my ear. “I’ll take
you home with me, tuck you in bed, and hold you all night
long.”

I nod, all my anger gone
from our earlier fight. “How did you… How did I get
here?”

He lets me go, hooking a
chair with his leg, and pulling it beside the bed. Turning it
around, he sits, and rubs a spot over his ear, the sight familiar
and endearing. He’s nervous and upset.

“
I came by to apologize
and heard a scream.”

I feel the blood drain away
from my face. Cole knows everything but to actually see what
happened… it’s this strange mix of terrifying and humiliating. I’d
put myself in that situation.

The text to the cab that
never came notwithstanding.

“
You saw.”

He nods, his face pale.
“I… I didn’t think I could love you more until that moment. You
were, you
are
, so
damn strong. There are not too many people that could live to tell
the tale of what happened.” His gaze goes to my head, and I gently
pat the knot there.

“
I got sick from watching
it, my hands got sweaty, and I slipped, hit my head.”

“
Yeah, I couldn’t find any
pills, and they didn’t find anything in your system, either,” he
says, his gaze skittering away.

I want to be affronted by
his assumption, but from what I know about his mom, it couldn’t
have been easy to find me like that. “I’m sorry, Cole.”

“
It’s not your fault.” He
rubs that spot over his ear again. “It’s a natural reaction for
me.” I reach out to take his hand, my fingers twining with his.
“Careful, baby.”

“
I’m fine.” The bruise on
my head is the only thing wrong with me. My throat’s a little sore
and I could eat, but other than that—nothing. “Thank you for taking
such good care of me.”

He peers up at me, through
black lashes. “I haven’t called your parents yet, because I wasn’t
sure with your mom and all.”

“
That’s good,” I say
firmly. There’s no need to worry my parents over a nasty goose egg
on my head. Then it dawns on me, Cole’s with me, in a place they
usually reserve for family. “Cole,” I whisper, my eyes darting
around. A night nurse walks by, studying the chart in his hand.
“How did you get back here?”

He grins, shy and sweet,
before ducking his head. “I might have said you were my
fiancée.”

“
Oh!”

His leg starts to shake,
another sign of his nerves. I love this boy so much I want to pull
him in bed with me. “Hope you didn’t mind, but I couldn’t have you
waking up alone, like you did… before. So, I lied.”

Engaged. What would it be
like to wear his ring on my finger, to know that our lives would be
intertwined forever? “Maybe… maybe you weren’t lying.”

His head jerks up, and he
gives me this look. “What?”

I’ve known Cole for months
now, shared every deep, dark secret with him, and he with me. I
know we’re young at twenty and twenty-two, but both of us have had
to grow up fast, and we’d both be going into this with eyes wide
open.

My parents dated only for
six weeks before they got married. So the idea of a marriage
lasting after a short dating period is not a foreign concept for
me. Besides, I’ll never be loved by a man like Cole
again.

Miracles like him only
happen once in a lifetime.

Taking a deep breath, I
say, “Marry me, Cole, and make an honest man out of
yourself.”

*** *** ***