Where Angels Tread (23 page)

“It’s okay,” Heidi said, smiling at her friend reassuringly. “I know you didn’t mean anything by it. And you’re right, in a way. If you put your heart out there, you’re going to be vulnerable to all sorts of things. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. I would rather have married John knowing that he was going to die young than never have met him at all. I wouldn’t trade our time together for anything in the world.”

“Is it weird,” Josie began tentatively, “now that you’ve found someone else?”

“It was awful at first, when I realized I was attracted to Shane. The guilt I felt…you have no idea how it was eating me up inside. But then as I got to know him better and saw what an amazing guy he was, I began to see that John wouldn’t want me to be alone for the rest of my life. He would want me to be happy, the same way I would feel if the situation would have been reversed. I still love John, and that’s never going to change, but I’m in love with Shane now, too. It’s like two different chapters of my life, if that makes any sense.”

“You’re lucky, then,” Josie said. “Most people would kill to have just one person to love, let alone two.” She patted Heidi on the arm and pushed open the door to the nearest examining room, where a middle-aged man sat with his daughter, whose arm was in a sling. “I’ll see you later,” she whispered to Heidi, who waved and continued down the hall.

As she walked, Heidi reflected on Josie’s parting words to her. She had never thought of herself as lucky before; in fact, it was quite the opposite. It was difficult, now that so many years had passed, remembering exactly what it was like in the aftermath of John’s death. The details, once so forcefully engrained in Heidi’s memory, were beginning to blur at the edges. And that, she realized, was okay. Loving Shane wasn’t an insult to John’s memory; for Heidi, putting her heart on the line once more was a testament to just how great her and John’s love had really been. She wanted desperately to love, and be loved again. It was a force so powerful that she didn’t want to live without it; even if her feelings for Shane meant that she would have to be vulnerable once more, it was well worth the risk.

These thoughts were still on her mind as she gathered up her purse and keys and headed for the parking lot to retrieve her car. On the drive home, she planned out the conversation she wanted to have with Zachary about their future, and how very much she wanted Shane to be a part of it.

“Zachary!” she called as she jiggled the keys in the front door. “Honey, can I talk to you for a minute?”

Her son came bounding out of his bedroom and planted a kiss on her cheek. For what seemed like the hundredth time, Heidi marveled at just how much her son had blossomed over the past few months. His sleepover had been a resounding success; when she picked him up that morning, he had chattered on for the entire car ride home about the plans he and his friends made to go to basketball camp that summer. “But summer’s still months away,” Heidi had teased. “Don’t you think you’re getting a little bit ahead of yourself?”

“No way, Mom,” Zachary had said. “And guess what? At the end of camp there’s a big tournament between all the players. Do you think you and Shane will be able to come?”

Heidi had reached across the seat to tousle her son’s vivid hair. “I’m sure that can be arranged.”

“When’s Shane coming over again?” he had asked excitedly. “My friends and I were talking about a new type of shot we want to try at next week’s game and I want to practice it with Shane first.”

Now, sitting down on the couch, Heidi motioned for her son to sit next to her. She took a deep breath, then turned to face him. “What do you think of Shane?”

Zachary’s face lit up. “He’s the best. Did I tell you that he came to my game last week, even though he had to use up his lunch hour to do it?”

Heidi smiled softly and took her son’s hand in her own, then peered into his eager face. “You did. He loves watching you play. He’s told me so a million times.” Heidi laughed. “But I have something really important I want to ask you, and I need you to be honest with me, okay? Can you do that?”

Zachary nodded, then cocked his head and regarded her curiously, waiting for her next words.

“I would like to ask Shane to be a part of our family. How would you feel about having him move in here with us? If he wants to.” When Zachary didn’t immediately respond, Heidi rushed on. “But if you’re not comfortable with that, it doesn’t have to happen right now.” She studied her son’s eyes anxiously.

Zachary bent his head and stared at his hands, turning them over so that the palms faced upwards. As he traced his thumb lightly over the blue line of his vein, Heidi’s heart hammered so loudly in her chest that she wouldn’t be surprised if he could hear it. She felt slightly nauseous; in her excitement, had she raised the subject too soon? If her son wasn’t on board, it would present plenty of unforeseen complications.

When he raised his head to meet her gaze, Heidi was shocked to see tears in his eyes. Her stomach dropped like a stone. “I’m sorry,” she stammered. “Maybe this is all happening too fast.”

But before she could process what was happening, Zachary threw his arms around her and laughed; Heidi soon joined in. When he pulled away from her, his face was shining with excitement. “When can he move in?”

Heidi buried her face in the top of her son’s head and let the tears of happiness stream down her cheeks. “We’ll ask him tonight,” she whispered. Her heart had never felt so full.

*

Zachary leapt up from the couch when Shane’s car pulled into the driveway; he had been watching the window eagerly since Shane had phoned to tell Heidi that he was leaving the station. Rushing out of her bedroom to greet him, Heidi smoothed the fabric of the casual dress she had chosen to wear. It was, after all, going to be a night for celebrating. “Go say hello,” she urged her son as she made a detour into the kitchen to pull a bottle of champagne and two flutes out of the cabinet. She uncorked the bottle and listened with one ear as Zachary opened the door to greet Shane.

She poured the champagne into the flutes, added a single strawberry to each, and stored them in the fridge, out of sight for now. First, Heidi knew, she needed to formally ask Shane to move in with them. After that, there would be plenty of time for toasting the start of their new life together. “I’ll be right there,” she called as she closed the door to the fridge and headed into the living room.

“Shane, Shane, can we practice the lay-up shot tonight?” Zachary stood in front of Shane, blocking his face from Heidi’s view, and dribbled the ball on the living room floor.

“I need to talk to your mother,” Shane replied softly. “Why don’t you head outside and give it a go yourself for now?” Zachary obeyed, bouncing the ball down the sidewalk before lobbing it at the hoop.

Shane turned around to face Heidi, who stopped in her tracks when she caught sight of the look of intense pain and sorrow on his face. “What’s the matter?” she gasped, reaching for his hand. “Did someone else get hurt?”

He shook his head mutely and pulled his hand away from hers, leaving her grasping at the empty air between them. She dropped her hand to her side and took a step toward him, her face screwed up in concern, but he shook his head and held out his hand to stop her. “Don’t.” The word came out as a croak.

“What’s going on, Shane?” Heidi asked, her voice rising an octave. “You’re scaring me. Did something happen at the station?” She guided him over to the couch and forced him to sit down. He dropped his head in his hands and raked his fingers through his hair, hunched over like someone twice his age. “I wasn’t at the station. Not for hours.” When he finally raised his head, his hair was standing on end. He looked like a man who had suffered more in the last few hours than most people did in a lifetime.

Heidi felt numb inside. Something was wrong, she knew. Something was terribly, terribly wrong. “Where were you?” All sorts of scenarios ran through her head, each more crazy than the next. What in the world could have possibly happened in the twelve hours since she had last seen him?

Shane rocked back and forth, clenching and unclenching his hands. “I was on Highway 101.”

Heidi stared at him in confusion. “Okay,” she said slowly. “And what were you doing there?”

“Sitting in my car on the side of the road, just past the farmer’s market, a couple of miles from the police station.”

Heidi reeled back as though she had been punched in the face. “Why were you there?” She searched her brain frantically, trying and failing for Shane to have a reason to be at that particular stretch of the road. It was the place that haunted her dreams, the one that caused her to take the long way through the side streets of town, just to avoid having to pass it on her way to work. The setting of the worst day of her life, the day that she cradled John in her arms as he took his last struggling breaths and watched the life drain from his body.

Hot rage seared through Heidi’s limbs as she stared at Shane in disbelief. Was this some kind of a sick joke? Heidi had never mentioned where the accident took place. She had barely talked to Shane about it at all, unable to form the words needed to describe it out loud even after all this time. “What the hell is going on?” she asked through gritted teeth.

“I had to—I had to see where it happened.” Shane fixed his eyes on hers; they had a dead, haunted look that shook Heidi to her very core.

“How did you know?” she demanded. “You had no right to go down there.”

“It was me. Heidi, it was me. I did it.” He reached for her, a look of desperation on his face, but she took a step back before collapsing on the floor.

“What are you saying, Shane? What the hell are you saying?”

“It was an accident. You have to believe me. I—I fell asleep at the wheel, and never saw the car coming. It’s been tormenting me for the past three years. I dream about it all the time. I’m sorry,” he whispered, his face twisted into a tortured expression.

Heidi’s mind raced as she tried to process his words. She never knew who had been in the other car on that fateful night, having determined long ago that knowing the name of the person who destroyed her family would do her no good. But Shane? Shane, the police officer, the man who put his life on the line every time he went to work in the morning? It didn’t make sense.

But it did, a tiny voice in the back of her brain said. After all, why did Shane take such an immediate interest in Zachary? Heidi had been so flattered by the handsome officer’s attention, blinded by her attraction to him, that she didn’t even stop to wonder why Shane would be so adamant in his offer to help Zachary. Looking back now, it certainly seemed strange. The only conclusion, Heidi knew, was that Shane used her, played on her emotions to try and atone for his sins. To undo some of the guilt he surely carried around with him every day of his life by helping out the poor family of the man he killed.

“You used me,” she said, closing her eyes to avoid Shane’s pitiful gaze. “You used me to make yourself feel better.”

“What?” Shane spluttered. “No, Heidi, no! I didn’t know it was him. You have to believe me.”

“You told me you were in an accident, but you never told me any of the details,” Heidi spat out. “I thought it was just because you didn’t want to talk about it, which was something that I understood. I actually sympathized with you! The man who killed my husband.” She watched with pleasure as the remaining color drained from Shane’s cheeks; she wanted him to suffer now just as much as she and Zachary had suffered for the past three years.

“I didn’t remember the details of the accident until recently,” he whispered, his voice so low that Heidi had to strain to hear him. “I forced myself to forget, to try and pretend that it had never happened. And I had no idea it was your husband. I never knew the name of the person in the other car. I didn’t want to know. This is all just an awful coincidence. Please, Heidi, you have to believe me. I would never do anything to intentionally hurt you or Zachary, and I never used you to make myself feel better.”

Heidi covered her eyes with her hands and sobbed, her shoulders trembling uncontrollably. She felt Shane drop to his knees in front of her; he crawled forward on the floor and wrapped his arms around her, cradling her head and stroking her hair while her body shuddered with the memories of that awful night.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered again and again into her hair, his voice choked with emotion. “I’m so sorry, Heidi.”

She wept until there was nothing left for her to give; when she finally hiccupped into silence, she slumped over in his arms. When she raised her head to meet his eyes, she saw that he, too, had been crying.

In that moment, something in her broke. She knew that Shane was telling the truth, that he would never be capable of purposely hurting her so badly. She, too, had done her best to block out the memories of the accident, unable to bear even hearing the name of the person who caused it. Was it so hard to imagine that it would have been the same for Shane? She remembered the haunted look in his eyes when he walked through the door that evening, so different from the face of the man who made love to her last night. He was not the same man who whispered his love to her in the dark while he caressed every inch of her body. Shane, her Shane, wasn’t capable of such deception.

She reached up and grabbed his face with her hands, forcing herself to look into the eyes of the man she still loved, but who had stolen from her the most precious thing that she had. “Please,” he said again, touching her cheek. “I love you.” Cautiously, he bent his head toward her, seeking out her lips.

After a moment’s hesitation, she turned her head away. “I’m sorry,” she said, and the shock of pain that seared through her body when she realized what she had to do made her double over. Struggling to regain some semblance of composure, Heidi untangled herself from Shane’s embrace. Taking a deep breath, she wiped the smudge of mascara from under her eyes and forced herself to look at Shane, whose face was contorted in agony.

“Heidi,” he began, reaching for her once more, but she held up her hand to stop him.

“Don’t,” she said quietly. “You’re only going to make this worse.”