But by midafternoon, I’d accomplished quite a bit and dropped everything off at Bianca’s and my apartment before I made my way to Christian’s apartment across from Central Park. When I got there, the doorman had to punch in the access code for Christian’s floor and gave me a hard frown when I left three hours later.
I didn’t bother with a cab because I was only a few blocks from Keith’s apartment. I pulled my coat tighter around me to fight the November chill and smiled as I started the short walk home.
Christian was an incredibly sweet guy, I had to give him that. He had asked me to help him win Bianca back. The first thing on the list was a ring. I was going to help him find the most perfect ring for my bestie, and then at the annual Christmas gala, he would bare his soul for everyone to see and ask Bianca the one question I was sure would bring her running back into his arms.
I was so happy for my two dearest friends that I entered Keith’s apartment humming.
“Kari?” Keith called out from the living room, and I found him stretched out on the couch in a pair of sweat pants and an old T-shirt. His bare feet were crossed and propped up on the arm of the couch, and I slapped at them playfully before dropping down onto him.
“Hello, my love,” I greeted with a lingering kiss across his sexy mouth. “Enjoying having a day to yourself?”
He gave me a long, searching look. “No, not really. I missed you.”
I kissed him again. “I missed you, too.” I stretched out beside him and cuddled close. “But I got you something special for Christmas. So it was worth being away from you for a little while.”
His eyes lit up, reminding me of an excited little boy and melting my heart a little more. “Special? What is it?”
With a laugh, I rolled my eyes. “Not telling. You will just have to wait until Christmas morning, mister.”
“You know I have ways to make you talk.” Suddenly, I was under him, and his lower body was pressing deliciously against mine. “Shall I torture it out of you, baby?”
I gasped as his stone-hard erection pushed against the spot that always drove me crazy. But I gave him a smug, seductive smile. “You can torture me all you want, Mr. Winthrop. And please, really make me beg for it… But I will never tell.”
He made me beg, but not before he made me scream his name as I came apart for him right there on the couch.
***
There was only a week before Christmas, and I had a million and one things to do. Work was crazy because this was the biggest time for giving. There was so much to do and not enough hours in the day to do it all.
What spare time I did have, I was busy getting things in order for Christian’s big proposal. What little time I had left over after that, I tried to spend with Keith, but he seemed distant lately. Something was wrong, and I didn’t have five minutes to stop and ask what was going on. But I promised myself I would get it out of him as soon as the big Christmas gala was over.
I got a text just as I entered the jewelry store where I was supposed to be meeting Christian. He had called me earlier in the day to tell me he thought he’d finally found the ring, so I’d had to cancel dinner plans with Keith. Distractedly, I glanced down at my iPhone to find the message was from Bianca.
I’d been avoiding my bestie for a while now. All my excitement was eating at me, and I knew that if I saw her or spent more than a few minutes on the phone with her, I would end up spoiling the surprise. So, I had only been responding through e-mails and text messages.
With only two more days until the Christmas gala, I was holding on by only a thread. Muttering a curse under my breath, I turned off my phone and gave Christian a warm smile. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself.” He grasped my hand and tugged me toward the saleslady who already had a selection of rings placed on top of the display case.
I glanced down at the beautiful engagement rings, dazzled by all the diamonds, the glitter of the gold and silver. “Take a good look and tell me if anything screams Bianca,” Christian urged with a grin.
I took a closer look. There were several rings that I noticed right away my bestie would like, but even as I was thinking that, one just popped out at me. I reached for it in a daze, knowing this ring was meant for Bianca.
Christian laughed victoriously as he took the ring from me and placed it on my finger. Bianca and I wore the exact ring size, and it fit perfectly. “I knew it,” he said with another laugh and beamed at the saleslady. “I want it.”
“Of course, Mr. Marshall.” The saleslady gave us a teary smile. “I just love it when couples find the perfect ring. You two will make such a lovely bride and groom.”
I was so overcome with excitement for my bestie that I didn’t even think to correct the saleswoman. I had goose bumps starting down at the gorgeous ring, and I couldn’t help imagining what it would be like to have Keith slide the heirloom engagement ring his grandmother had left him onto my finger.
My chest tightened at the thought, but I quickly pushed it away. I was ready to marry Keith tomorrow. But he still hadn’t been able to get the words “I love you” out. Maybe when he could face saying those words without their getting stuck in his throat, he would be able to ask me to marry him. For now, I was just happy having him to go home to every night.
eleven
The beep-beep-beeping was annoying as hell.
I moaned, wanting the thing to stop bothering me. All I wanted was to sleep, and it kept waking me up. But I learned that moaning made my entire body hurt. Just the small sound was like a bomb going off in my head. The vibrations from the sound caused my chest to throb and my throat to feel as if there was glass cutting along the inner walls. My lips were dry, and they cracked when I opened my mouth to let the moan out.
Slowly, I opened my eyes, unable to understand why I hurt so much, but the room was dark. There were no lights on in the windowless room. There was a dim glow coming from the machine to my left that was also producing the constant and steady beep-beep-beeping.
A hospital? I thought as I tried to make out shapes in the near darkness. The smell of antiseptic was overpowering and made me gag. Painfully, I tried to breathe through my mouth to reduce the gag reflex. I was in a very uncomfortable bed with poor excuses for pillows behind my head. I didn’t think I was wearing any clothes, but there was a sheet tucked under my arms.
Beside the uncomfortable bed was a chair with a large body slumped over in it, asleep. I frowned, not sure who it was, but something about the low snore felt familiar to me. “Hello?” I whispered, only to wish I hadn’t as the small sound and movement sent my body into agonizing pain.
Suddenly, a door to the left opened and let in a small stream of light that hurt my eyes and made my head hurt to the point I thought I might black out. But just as quickly, the door was shut, and the light was thankfully gone as a small figure crossed to my bed. “Miss Brandon?” a soft, quiet voice murmured my name.
“Help… me…” I whispered, fighting the blinding pain that was causing my stomach to roil with nausea.
The sleeping person in the chair awoke with a grunt but quickly got to his feet and was by my side within half a second. “Kari.”
I blinked, trying to fight the pain long enough to make out who it was. But even as the name flashed across my mind, I had a sudden urge to hide. Stranger! What was a stranger doing in my hospital room?
Why was I in a hospital?
The pain and the fear of the unknown made me shake, and I pulled away from the hand that reached out to touch my cheek. “No...” I whispered. “No!”
“Kari…?” That deep voice trembled with emotion. “What’s wrong with her?” he demanded of the nurse.
“She just woke up from a three-week coma.” The nurse’s soft voice was now laced with steel. “She doesn’t know where she is, and she’s in pain. Please, Mr. Winthrop. Calm down so that I can tend to Miss Brandon, or you will have to leave. And I don’t care how much money you’ve given this hospital!”
Their voices only ma
de the pain in my head worse, and I couldn’t contain the tears that streamed down my cheeks. The man saw my tears and wiped them away, not knowing that he was hurting me and frightening me more. “Kari, it’s okay, baby. I’m here. The nurse will make all the pain go away, I promise.”
Before I could even wonder why this man was calling me baby—or saying my name in a way that made my heart skip a beat—the nurse was injecting my IV line with meds. I was soon floating away from all of the unbearable pain and fear of the unknown.
***
The next time I opened my eyes, the pain was less intense—but still there.
The room was less dark than it had been the first time, and I could see a little better. My vision wasn’t nearly as blurry, and I could actually move my head without the blinding pain behind my eyes. The annoying beeping wasn’t nearly as annoying either.
Quiet voices attracted me, and I found three men standing a few feet away from the foot of my bed. The stranger from before, a man in dark scrubs and a white doctor’s coat, and… Thank God, someone I know! My father.
“Da…” My throat still hurt, but at least there wasn’t the feeling of glass this time. “D-Daddy?”
All three heads turned at the sound of my voice. They were frowning down at me as if they couldn’t really believe I had spoken. “D-d-daddy?” I whispered, scared as they continued to frown.
Baxter Brandon moved toward me, relief on his face. He was pale, and there were new lines on his face, his hair longer than I remembered. That confused me, but I couldn’t really focus on it. He carefully grasped my hand and bent to give me the lightest kiss on my forehead.
“Kari.” This close, I could see his eyes were glazed with tears, and I couldn’t understand why. “How do you feel, sweetheart?”
“I hurt,” I whispered. “What… What happened? What…” I swallowed and took a moment to catch my breath. I felt as if I couldn’t really get enough oxygen. “What… What’s wrong…with me?”
With a slightly trembling hand, my father fixed something on my face, and oxygen filled my nose and I could breathe once more. “There was an accident, honey. A drunk driver hit… He hit you from behind, and you were tossed out of the car… You…” He clenched his jaw. “You weren’t wearing a seat belt.”
I grimaced, knowing that if I hadn’t been lying there in a hospital bed hurting, I would have been in big trouble with my father. “That explains why I feel as if I was run over.” I tried to joke, but he didn’t smile, and that scared me even more. “Daddy?”
“Oh God, Kari.” A tear spilled out of his right eye, and I watched, horrified, as he began to cry.
“D-Daddy?” I tried to reach for him, but I found that it hurt too much to move.
The doctor in the dark scrubs and coat appeared on the other side of my bed. “Hello, Carry.”
“That isn’t my name,” I snapped, but it came out as little more than a whisper. Even in so much pain, the wrong pronunciation of my name annoyed me. “My name is Kari.”
A smile curved the man’s lips, making him look years younger and really quite handsome. “Kari, I am Dr. Shelton. How are you feeling?”
“Not great.”
He nodded. “Okay, I will get you some pain medication in just a little bit. But first I would like to examine you. Is that all right with you?”
“I guess.”
Dr. Shelton smiled. “Where do you hurt the most? I will focus there first.”
That was a hard question. Everything hurt. Everything. But there was a real contest on which would take first place—my head or my chest. I told him that, and he pulled a penlight from his coat pocket, shining it into my eyes. Pain stabbed through my head, but the urge to vomit wasn’t there. The doctor brushed his fingers across every part of my head, and I realized, for the first time, that part of my scalp was practically bald.
I couldn’t help my cry of distress. The doctor immediately stopped what he was doing, concerned. “Does that hurt?”
“N-No,” I whispered brokenly.
“Then what’s wrong?” he asked, confused.
“My hair. It’s gone.”
There was a small, husky chuckle from the man standing at the foot of my bed, watching me. But the stranger still scared me, not so much because he was frightening look at but because my heart ached when I did, and I ignored him.
Dr. Shelton grinned. “Sweetheart, hair grows back. I had to shave your head so I could relieve pressure from your brain.” He slid his fingers across the bald patch again, and I noticed it hurt just a little this time. “The headache is normal. It will last a while.”
He pulled his stethoscope from around his neck and carefully pressed it to my chest. He closed his eyes while he listened, before moving it and listening again. When he opened his eyes, he gave me a smile. “Sounding good. You broke several ribs, and one punctured your left lung. That is why it’s hard to breathe without the oxygen right now. Because you’ve been lying around in a stupid old coma, your lungs have taken longer to heal. But now that you are awake, it won’t be long before we can get you as good as new again.”
He turned to my father. “Mr. Brandon, if you and Mr. Winthrop could give us a few minutes? I need to check the incisions on Kari’s chest.”
My father nodded his head and gave me a reassuring smile. “Keith and I will be right outside, sweetheart.” He slapped the stranger on the back. “Let’s go, son.” They left the room, but both of them glanced back before the door could shut behind them.
When the door was closed again, the doctor pulled down the sheet, and I realized that my chest had a big bandage wrapped around it. There was a long cut down the center of my chest. “Oh God!”
Dr. Shelton carefully examined around the incision, checking for swelling or signs of infection. “We had to open you up, Kari,” he explained to me once he was satisfied with his examination of the area. “There were a few shards of broken rib too close to your heart.” He rewrapped my bandages and tucked the sheets around me once more.
“Doctor…”
The doctor had been writing on my chart, but something in my voice must have alerted him. His head snapped up, and his eyes narrowed on me. “What is it, Kari?”
“I…” I bit the inside of my lip. “Who was that man?”
He frowned, glancing toward the closed door as if he expected someone to be standing there. “What man?”
I sucked in a deep breath for courage. “The man with my father.” I lifted scared eyes to meet his, which I discovered were a warm chocolate. “The big man who was here when I woke up the first time. With the green eyes and dark hair.”
He stared down at me for the longest time, but when he spoke again, it was with concern. “You don’t know him?”
“No.”
“Okay.” He gave me a tense but reassuring smile. “Do you remember the accident?”
I frowned. There was the sound of siren shooting through my mind, followed by flashing lights as I stared up at a snow-filled sky. “No, not really,” I answered. “All I remember is being cold.”
“Well, that is a start.” He straightened. “What is the last thing you do remember?”
“My mother and I shopping.” For some reason, that only made me feel profoundly sad. “I couldn’t find the right present for my father at the antique books store… Where is my mother?” Was she in the waiting room worrying about me? Or was she off with her husband somewhere? Suddenly, I wanted to see her with such a devastating desperation my heart felt heavy. “Can you get her for me? I want to see her.”
“Kari…” He shook his head. “Kari, how old are you?”
“Seventeen,” I frowned, thinking about it. Seventeen, but…something didn’t feel right.
The look on Dr. Shelton’s face frightened me, making my unease all the more intense. “Doctor?”
He took my hand and gave it a small squeeze, but for some reason, I didn’t feel relieved. “I’m going to go get your nurse, Kari. She will give you something for the pain. I wan
t you to rest, okay?”
“I… Okay.”
With a last concerned look over his shoulder, he left the room. As I lay there alone, I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone else had been in the accident with me.
Had someone else gotten hurt?
I lay there for several minutes before the door opened, and an older woman in baby blue scrubs entered. During the brief time the door was open, I saw the doctor standing outside my door with my father and the stranger. I heard an emotional voice demanding answers. “What do you mean, she doesn’t know who I am?” But then the door closed once more, and the nurse moved closer to my bed.
She had two syringes full of something clear, and she wiped the IV line before placing one of the syringes into it. “This is just to flush the site,” she explained with a kind smile. “And this…” She held up the other syringe with a wink. “This is the good stuff.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“It will only take a minute before it starts working,” she informed me. “Is there anything you need, Miss Brandon?”
“I…” I was already starting to feel the effects of the medication, but I needed to know something before I could relax. “Was there anyone else hurt?”
She frowned for a moment then seemed to understand what I was asking. “All I know is the other driver had a broken nose, and Mr. Marshall had a pretty bad concussion. The only reason you got the rough end of the deal was because you weren’t wearing a seat belt.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, thankful nothing too terrible had happened. “Wait! Mr. Marshall? Christian?” My head was suddenly throbbing. There was a blinding pain behind my eyes despite the meds, and I had to fight the sudden urge to vomit. “Christian!” I didn’t know if I whispered or shouted his name, but suddenly the door to my room burst open, and the doctor and the stranger were standing there.
“Miss Brandon, please. Are you all right?” The nurse was trying to calm me, but I shook my head, fighting to remember something important.