Rush of Redemption (Rush Series #2) (2 page)

~*~

Rush Drayton reached out a hand and felt the empty space where
Trinity had only recently been. He buried his face in her pillow and could
still smell her scent. Happiness came over him quickly. He’d gotten her back.
He couldn’t believe it. He sat up and rubbed a hand over his scruffy face. He
wondered where she’d gotten off to. Rising, he called out, but didn’t get a
response. Unease settled over him. He slipped on a pair of cotton pajama
bottoms and walked quickly up the hall and called again. Panic settled in his
chest. He searched every room and didn’t find her. Where had she gone? He
didn’t even have her phone number or know where she lived. Why would she leave?

He went quickly to the
phone and then he saw the note she’d left. 
Not feeling well
, he
muttered to himself. What did that mean? The panic he’d felt earlier
intensified. Why hadn’t she wakened him if she hadn’t been feeling well?
Picking up his cellphone, he quickly scrolled through his contact list until he
found the number he was after.

After a couple of rings,
Hunter 
Amhearst
 answered groggily, “
Amhearst
.”

“Hey
Hunt, its Rush.
 Sorry to wake you. I
need to know if you have Trinity Grace’s phone number?” he said as he scrubbed
a hand over his face.

“Trinity Grace? No, not
since she last changed it. 
Sundra
 might
have it. What’s up, dude? I didn’t realize the two of you were together.”

“We’re working on it. Do
you have 
Sundra’s
 number?”

“Yeah, let me get it for
you.”

Rush waited impatiently for
Hunter to return to the phone.

“Okay, I found it. I’ll
text it right over. How have you been, man? I haven’t seen you in a while.”

Running a hand through his
short-cropped, dark hair, Rush answered, “Good, getting better. Listen, I need
to go and see about Trinity. We’ll catch up later, okay?”

“Sure. Hope everything’s
okay.”

Within a minute, the
promised text came from Hunter with 
Sundra’s
 number.
Quickly, he dialed it.

A very sleepy 
Sundra
 answered the phone. “Hello?”

“Hi, 
Sundra
, 
its
 Rush
Drayton. I’m trying to get ahold of Trinity. She was here last night and left a
note this morning saying she wasn’t feeling well. I’m worried, as I don’t know
what’s wrong with her. I need to know where she is.”

Silence met his words.
After a solid minute, she finally answered. “She didn’t mention to me that the
two of you were… together.”

“We’re trying to work
things out. Listen, 
Sundra
, I appreciate your
need to protect her, but right now I’m really worried about her. Please give me
her address.”

Silence once again met his
words. “Don’t you dare make me regret this, Rush 
Drayton!
” 
Sundra
 exclaimed before rattling off Trinity’s
address.

“Thanks, 
Sundra
,” he said before clicking off.

Rushing to his bedroom, he
donned jeans and a T-shirt. As quick as he could manage, he drove through the
early morning streets to the building which housed Trinity’s condo. He walked
into the old brownstone condo complex and bypassed the elevator to run up the
stairs to the third floor. He moved quickly down the hallway until he reached
her door. He rang the doorbell and waited impatiently for her to answer. After
a minute of shuffling from foot to foot, he began to knock and call her name.
When he received no answer, he tried the door handle and was surprised to find
it unlocked. When he walked into the condo, he stopped to listen for signs of
life. He began to move swiftly through the space, looking for Trinity. He went
down the hallway and pushed doors opened as he went. He got to the next to last
room and stopped in amazement.

While he’d always known
Trinity was an artist, he’d never actually seen any of her work. This room was
obviously the baby’s room. She’d painted murals of jungle animals on all the
walls in soft, muted colors. The room was just… enchanting. He looked at the
gentle expressions on each animal’s face and stood amazed at the detail in each
feature. This room had been painted with love. He could see it as plainly as
the soft sage color which served as the background for the whimsical creatures.
A lump formed in his throat. He’d missed out on so much… he’d failed her so
much. In the corner of the room was a white, padded, rocking chair. His chest
tightened at the thought of her sitting there with her long, dark hair swaying
as she rocked their son sometime in the future. With a shake of his head, he
continued to the last room. As he pushed the door open, he heard the sounds of
someone retching violently. He had a hard time finding her in the near darkness
of the room.

“Trinity?” he called
softly.

He heard a groan from the
other side of the bed. Moving swiftly, he knelt down next to her. She was
sitting on the floor, leaned up against the bed, with her arms wrapped over the
top of a trashcan.

“Hey, baby, what’s wrong?
What can I do?”

With a shuddering sob, she
said, “Migraine.”

Rising to his feet, he went
to the bathroom and wet a cloth. He returned to her and wiped her face with the
cool rag. “Do you think you can get up now?” he asked softly.

“I don’t know. My head
hurts so much,” she whimpered.

“Let me help you, okay?”

With very little effort he
lifted her in his arms and laid her gently on the bed. Slipping in behind her,
he pressed his body up against her and wrapped his arms around her as tears ran
in rivulets down her cheeks.

“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry,”
he whispered from behind her. “Do you think we should go to the emergency
room?”

“No… it’ll pass
eventually,” she murmured through the pain.

He gently massaged the
knots in her neck and shoulders and continued to speak soft words of sympathy
to her. Eventually, she relaxed under his ministrations and drifted off. He
wrapped his arms around her and their child and held them close, hating her
pain. His chest burned at the feelings of hopelessness her pain brought him. He
closed his eyes as he remembered how she’d looked when he’d first walked into
the room. She reminded him of a wounded animal which had crawled to hide in its
lair. Why hadn’t she stayed with him if she felt that poorly? His heart sank.
She didn’t trust him to take care of her… and why should she? He’d let her down
so many times in the past.

Chapter Two

Trinity cautiously opened her eyes and was happy the horrendous
pain in her head had evaporated. As a thought occurred to her, she rolled over
onto her back to find herself alone in the bed. Had Rush actually been here, or
was that her imagination? She heaved a huge sigh as she tried to sort through
her feelings in regard to Rush Drayton.

She’d been utterly and
completely devastated… and broken. In the days that had followed her ordeal
with James Franklin, and her father had continuously battered her already
shredded confidence.

“I tried to tell you the
kind of man he was. But you refused to listen,” he said.

Knowing his words were true
only added venom to their sting. Tiring of his self-elation, defensively, she
asked him, “And what kind of man are you, Father? How much money did you
actually get from the Embassy Fund? Was it worth it? How can you live with
yourself, knowing your actions killed your wife? Do you know how scared I was?
I was just a child. Did you care? And what about the things you’ve done to me
recently? How do you rationalize in your mind scaring the hell out of me?”

He’d slid his hand in his
pockets. “I had my reasons for what I did, both then and now,” he replied.

She stared up at him from
her hospital bed, bruised and broken, and had an epiphany. Her father believed
the world revolved to meet his needs. As long as those needs were met, nothing
was off limits. Through his greed, he’d killed her mother and destroyed the
only family she’d known… and for what? 
Money?

“I need you to leave,” she
said quietly.

“You’re not thinking
clearly. You’re tired and overwrought. By tomorrow, the world will look much
different,” he said.

“I’m thinking clearly now. Leave…
get out… and don’t come back. I don’t want to see you. I am notifying hospital
security not to allow you entry into my room. Am I clear?”

He’d given her a steely
stare before lifting a hand to straighten his tie. 
“Yes,
perfectly.”

He’d walked out of her room
and she’d not heard from, nor seen him, since. She’d been lucky to have the
support of Gavin Lassiter, her boss from 
LaMont
 Art
Gallery, and 
Sundra
 Caruthers, her best
friend, to help her find her condo and set it up. It’d taken her a solid month
to get back on her feet and begin to do things on her own.

She rubbed her eyes and
rolled the muscles in her neck to ward off the oppressive thoughts of the past.
She’d put it all behind her and moved forward doggedly – refusing to give in to
her feelings of despair and loss. And now, in a matter of two days, Rush had
brought it all crashing back down on her. Her lips began to tremble. With pure
strength of will, she clamped them together and made them stop. She wasn’t
going to be that girl ever again. He’d broken her once; she’d not allow him to
do it again!

Carefully, she rolled
herself up and stood on wobbly legs. She couldn’t remember ever having a
migraine as severe as the one she’d just had. She didn’t think she could endure
another one. She padded up the hall to the kitchen and paused in the archway,
surprised, when she saw Rush standing at the stove, heating up what appeared to
be soup. Her heart caught in her chest at the sight of him. He was just so
stunning. Her emotions seesawed between extreme joy and extreme terror. Her
heart began to pound and her breathing became rapid. She tried to once again
gain the control she’d fought for just a second ago… but it was much harder
when looking into her tormentor’s eyes.

As if he sensed her
presence, he glanced in her direction, 
then
 turned
to her.

“Hi,” he said softly.

“Hi,” she answered, as she
nervously wrung her hands together in front of herself.

Pushing the soup to an
unlit burner, he came to her, pulled her stiff body into his arms, and brushed
a kiss against her forehead.

Looking down into her pale
face, he asked, “How are you feeling?”

Her uncertainty of him made
her feel shy suddenly. “I’m better, thanks.” Clearing her throat, she moved out
of the shelter of his arms and moved to the refrigerator for juice. “How’d you
get into the condo?”

She saw him stiffen at her
obvious rebuff before he turned back to the stove. “The door was unlocked.”

She watched as he stirred
the soup and struggled with her overwrought emotions. “Rush, I’m fine. You
don’t have to take care of me.”

He cut his eyes to her once
more before turning back to the stove to switch the burner off.

“But I want to take care of
you,” he replied lightly.

She watched as he searched her
cabinets until he found the bowls. Lifting two out, he poured soup into each.
He searched the drawers for spoons, before carrying the bowls to the table.
When she hesitated, he said, “Come, you need to eat.”

While her stomach roiled at
both the thought of eating and sitting at a table with him, she knew he was
right. He pulled her chair out and she sat down. She cautiously lifted the
spoon filled with chicken broth and noodles to her lips and was happy her
stomach accepted it. They sat in uncomfortable silence as they both sipped the
soup from their bowls.

She jumped when Rush
suddenly placed a hand over the one she’d laid on the table.

“Trinity, what’s going on
here?” he asked softly. “I thought we’d worked through things last night. At
least, it felt that way to me.”

Emotions swirled through
her at his words – love… hate… hurt… pain… need… regret. She wasn’t sure how to
answer. She sat her spoon down on the table with extreme care before lifting
wary her eyes to his.

“I need to know the truth
about us,” she said hesitantly, not knowing if she could handle the truth.

He sat his spoon down with
equal consideration and sighed deeply before sitting back heavily in his chair.
Staring into her eyes levelly, he asked, “What do you want to know?”

“How did it start?”

He licked his lips and
studied her carefully before answering. “As I told you that day in my office,
the man who’d shared a prison cell with Lars Thorn, the man who’d stabbed
my father, contacted my grandfather about six months previously – it now appears,
he’d also contacted James Franklin from what I’ve been able to gather – looking
for the biggest payout. He told my grandfather he had information for a
price.  My grandfather agreed to pay him and he told us about
Tiko
 Mars and about the truth regarding the Embassy
Fund. I was sent to Mexico to find 
Tiko
 Mars,
which I did. Through… 
my resources
,” the last words sounded
menacing to her ears, “I was able to extract the information I needed – except
for who’d actually called the hit on my father. I only knew it’d been ordered
from your father’s office. But, we knew for a fact your father was in court at
the time the call was placed. We also knew he’d had his office under video
surveillance. We needed his information.”