I slowly make my way onto the porch, closing the door behind me after I make sure it’s locked, and carefully navigate the steps. It takes so long to twist and turn and bend and hop to try and get myself into the fucking car without jarring or bending my knee that I’m sweating profusely and completely pissed off by the time I’m finally behind the steering wheel. Slamming my hand against the wheel, I curse loudly in the empty car and let my head thump back against the headrest.
For a few minutes, my Olivia was back, the smiling, teasing, happy woman I’d fell in love and spent almost two years with. Then, faster than you could snap your fingers, she was gone. Everything I say and do is wrong where she’s concerned. I just can’t catch a fucking break. On top of the brush-off that still stings, my yellow door is gone, and I couldn’t help but notice that every single picture of us had been stripped from the walls—the one of me cradling her in my arms after we won our first softball game, the black and white candid that Parker snuck of Olivia with her eyes closed and a smile on her face while I kissed her forehead and about a dozen others. There was only one photo left that I recognized, one that, twelve months ago, captured me and a smiling, happy Olivia sitting alongside Garrett and Parker at Christmastime. Now, it’s just a photo of Olivia, Parker and Garrett. I don’t know if my part of the picture was just folded back in the frame or if she cut me out completely, but seeing it felt like someone had reached into my chest and squeezed the life out of my heart.
Not only do I have the disaster I’ve made of my reunion with Olivia to contend with, I’m also filled with guilt over the way I’d cut my best friend out of my life. Olivia was right. I should have called Garrett as soon as I landed in the US. He was my brother and I’d pushed him away before I left. He’d been through so much after our mission in the Dominican that I didn’t want to bog him down with my own bullshit, but Garrett would have been the first person to understand my need to leave, my need for revenge and my need to get the justice my friends deserved. Not only do I need to make amends with Olivia, I need to make things right with my friend.
My road to recovery is suddenly getting longer and a hell of a lot bumpier.
“MRS. VARGAS WILL see you now.”
My foot stopped its nervous tapping on the tiled floor of the waiting area, transferring all that anxious energy right to my heart. As I stood and made my way around the assistant’s desk while she eyed me suspiciously, I hoped she couldn’t hear the thud of my heart threatening to burst out of my chest.
When I moved to San Diego and started seriously dating Cole, I got a job at UC San Diego before I even knew his parents practically ran the place. A few staff members made snide remarks about how I’d get special treatment: Extra vacation days, raises, promotions… they couldn’t have been more wrong. If anything, I had to work twice as hard to prove to them that I was damn good at my job and deserved everything I’d worked so hard for. One of the first lessons I’d learned after transferring to UC San Diego was that Vivien Vargas’ office was not somewhere I wanted to be summoned. With the help of her husband, she ran this hospital with an iron fist and there were only two reasons she would call you into her office: to rip you a new asshole or to fire you.
Considering how well our one and only meeting went, either of those options is viable right now, regardless of the fact that her son left me right when I needed him most and she no longer has to worry about me being a “gold digger” and “tainting his integrity and family name”.
I pause in front of the large, cherry wood double door and try to calm my shaking hand as I knock gently to announce my presence before turning the handle and slowly pushing the door open.
Vivien is seated behind the largest desk I’d ever seen, speaking to someone on the phone. Her auburn hair is perfectly coifed in a low bun, her flawless makeup conceals the fact that she’s a woman in her fifties and the pale pink suit she’s wearing probably costs more than what I make in an entire month. I self-consciously slide my palms along the top of my head to try and smooth back my mess of a ponytail and grimace when I glance down at my scrubs, spotted with blood and a whole mess of other bodily fluids from my shift today. Thank God there isn’t a mirror in this office because I didn’t even want to know what my face looked like. At 5 am this morning, it had a light dusting of powder and blush and I’d even managed a few swipes of the mascara wand. Twelve backbreaking hours later, the powder and blush sweated off long ago and I’m sure the mascara has melted away and given me raccoon eyes.
Vivien motioned with her hand for me to take a seat as she ended her call. I pushed my ragged appearance out of my mind as best I could, perching myself at the edge of the chair opposite her desk as she hung up the phone and folded her hands in front of her.
“Olivia, it’s good to see you again.”
I felt a bubble of hysterical laughter tickling my throat and forced myself to cough instead of allow it to escape.
“Likewise,” I muttered with a forced smile.
If she’s going to lie through her teeth, then so am I.
“I’m sure you can understand that Charles and I are just distraught over Cole’s decision to leave town. We were really hoping that he’d start making smarter choices when it came to his future, but obviously that’s not the case.”
Her pointed glare made my skin crawl with anger. Does she really think I had any involvement in his choice to leave? Does she think I wanted him to push me aside without a second thought? She got what she wanted—Cole as far away from me as possible. She should be dancing on top of her damn desk right now. He’d been gone for a little over a month, but I could still smell him on my sheets and trick myself into thinking it was all a dream and he’d walk through the front door at any moment. I was alone and miserable and my heart was torn in half. Vivien Vargas should be ecstatic.
“I’m going to get right to the point, Olivia. This hospital and my family are very important to me. I won’t allow anything to damage either one of them.”
She unfolded her hands and rested one palm on top of a manila folder, sliding it across her desk towards me. I stared at the folder like it was a snake about to bite me, but Vivien pushed it until it was close to toppling off the edge of the desk and onto the floor. I had no choice but to take it.
I licked my dry lips and swallowed nervously before grabbing the folder and opening it. My eyes scanned the document resting inside and my face heated with mortification. I knew this wasn’t something I’d be able to keep from her forever, but I had hoped to have a little more time to prepare myself. I was still raw from the loss of Cole, and I wanted time to grow stronger before I shared this information with anyone, especially Vivien. I felt betrayed and angry that she’d used her hospital connections to dig into something so completely personal. This was MINE. The one thing Cole hadn’t destroyed when he left, the one piece of him that I could keep forever. It was my secret, my body, and my life. I was naïve to think any of that was true.
Staring back at me inside the folder is a lab report with my name on it. Highlighted with a yellow marker are the words “HCG Quantitative—35,400 mlU/ml”. I have my own copy of this report hanging on my fridge at home. I thought that by doing the blood test myself and taking it downstairs to the lab on my own, it would limit the number of people who would be privy to the information. While it’s true that the hospital has a very strict policy on patient confidentiality, when one of its own has something going on, the workplace gossip line travels faster than a forest fire.
I looked up from the report, masking my feelings of anger and confusion.
“This report was private and confidential.”
I spoke with an air of conviction that I didn’t feel.
Vivien smiled and cocked her head. “You should know by now that nothing in this hospital is confidential where I’m concerned. I need to know everything that is happening with my staff, otherwise it would be complete anarchy. And when something happening with one of my staff involves one of my family members, that makes it espe
cially my business. Assuming this predicament you’ve found yourself in is my son’s doing?”
I immediately forget the fact that this woman is my boss and could toss me out on my ass.
“Contrary to your opinion of me, I’m not a whore. Obviously, the baby is Cole’s.”
My hand rests protectively over my stomach and, for the first time since I took the initial home pregnancy test three days after Cole left, I feel a strength flow through me that I thought I had lost. I have something to fight for. I have something to live for and no amount of smugness from Vivien is going to ruin that.
“Herein lays our problem,” she continued, ignoring my outburst. “If that’s the case, and my son really is responsible for this, he’s no longer in the picture. Do you really think you can do something like this on your own?”
“I didn’t really get a choice in that matter, did I? I’m on my own and I WILL do it on my own. I’m not a child; I’m a grown woman. Whether or not I can handle this is of no concern to you.”
Vivien sighed and leaned back in her chair. “No good can come from this, Olivia. You are a single woman, with no family to speak of. I realize that, in this day and age, no one bats an eye when some foolish woman gets pregnant out of wedlock and sponges off of taxpayers’ money to raise their bastard children. But we aren’t talking about just anyone. The child you’re carrying is a Vargas. A child conceived without any thought to the ramifications of what this would do to our family name. I can’t have you walking around, flaunting your situation in the faces of my staff. I will not allow anything to ruin the legacy Charles and I have created.”
I’m so shocked and appalled by her words that I can’t speak. Of all the things that I thought would come out of this woman’s mouth today, this most certainly wasn’t one of them.
“There’s an envelope inside that folder. You will take what’s inside and I trust you will do the right thing to resolve this situation you’ve gotten yourself in. Obviously, it’s a more than adequate amount, so feel free to use the remainder as you see fit. Maybe a vacation would be a good way for you to start fresh. I know you enjoy the job we’ve allowed you to keep for the last few years and I would hate to have to let you go or add any disparaging remarks to your personnel file that would prohibit you from ever practicing as a nurse again.”
“Are you threatening me?” I whispered, finally finding my voice.
“It’s not a threat, my dear. It’s the truth. Take the envelope, fix the problem.”
I jolt awake in bed with a gasp. It takes me a few moments to calm my racing heart and realize I’m alone in my room and not sitting across from Vivien in her office all those months ago. Realizing I’ll never be able to fall back asleep after that trip down memory lane, I slide out of bed and head across the hall to the other bedroom. The door to this room is always closed. I never open it and I never go inside. Every time I walk past this door to go to my bedroom or into the bathroom, I pretend that what lies on the other side doesn’t really exist, that this is just another empty room in the house. I can’t pretend anymore. The reappearance of Cole in my life is going to make me face my mistakes and my nightmares head-on. I’ve been so focused on finding out Cole’s secrets that I’ve allowed myself to forget that it’s a two-way street. If I want him to open up to me, I’m going to have to do the same. I’ll have to tell him about what lies behind this closed door and how my actions led to this room sitting here empty and unused.
With a shaking hand, I turn the knob and push the door open. I hold my breath and swallow past the lump that forms in my throat as soon as I see the shadow of the crib sitting against the wall beside the window. There’s just enough moonlight streaming through the window that I don’t bother turning on the lamp on the table next to it. Even if it were pitch dark in here, I wouldn’t need the light, anyway. The location of every single item in this room is burned into my brain. I walk right up to the crib and rest my hands on the smooth wood finish of the top rail, staring at the frame hanging on the wall over the bed.
When I left Vivien’s office that day, I waited until I got home to tear open the envelope she stuck behind the lab paperwork in the folder. I wanted to rip what was inside into tiny little pieces and mail it back to her, to light it on fire as I screamed in anger and frustration. Parker convinced me to frame it and hang it in the room as a reminder that I was strong and wouldn’t let anyone walk all over me. My fears over losing my job and never being able to do what I love again and raising a child on my own grew and festered until every breath I took threatened to choke me. I knew I could do it on my own, but I didn’t want to. I wanted the man I loved to be there with me, telling me everything would be okay, but that would never happen. Even though I had Parker and Garrett’s support, it wasn’t enough. They had their own lives to lead, their own child to raise, and at the end of the day, I would always be alone. The joy I’d felt over finally having a family of my own was replaced by fear that consumed me bit by bit until it forced me to do something I will regret for the rest of my life.
I stand in the dark room, staring up at the framed check on the wall, made out to me, in the amount of ten thousand dollars. The tears fall silently down my cheeks and I don’t bother wiping them away. I deserve the pain and misery that being in this room brings. At least I have one thing going for me—I never cashed that check.
I never cashed that fucking check.
I STARE AT Olivia’s bowed head as she reads through the file that details the work that’s been done on my knee, from the initial surgery in the Dominican to remove the bullet to the two I’d had stateside to try to repair the resulting damage. Her long black hair is hanging loose around her shoulders, obscuring her face. I want to reach out and tuck it behind her ear so I can see her, but I’m pretty sure she’d smack my hand away. When she walked through the door fifteen minutes ago, I tried to get her to smile, making a crack about the fact that she was wearing jeans and a t-shirt instead of scrubs. I told her she should have worn pediatric scrubs with kittens or puppies on them since she was dealing with a temperamental child with an attitude problem.
She didn’t smile. She just brushed past me and went right to the couch. She asked for my medical records and has been studying them ever since. I want to ask her why she looks tired, to question the slight puffiness around her eyes that makes me wonder if she spent her night crying. I don’t ask because, selfishly, I don’t want to know if her tears were my fault. I don’t want my reappearance in her life to cause her so much turmoil. I was an idiot for thinking I could just breeze right back in and everything could go back to the way it was.
“You’re a very lucky man, Cole,” she finally says when she reaches the end of the paperwork, tossing the folder down on the coffee table in front of us. “If you hadn’t received medical attention as quickly as you did, you wouldn’t even have that leg anymore. Getting the knee stabilized so quickly after the injury was the only thing that saved you.”
I nod my head in agreement, knowing I have Hoss to thank for hauling my ass back to the extraction point as fast as he could.
“It was a pretty bad situation. Our team of four was cut in half pretty quickly, so it was just me and Hoss left behind to finish the job.”
She looks up at me and her eyes soften. “You don’t have to tell me if it’s too painful.”
I shake my head in disagreement. “No, I need to talk about it. I should have talked to you about everything a long time ago.”
I start thinking about Dragon and King—my reasons for going back to the Dominican. As Navy SEALS, each of us took an oath to never quit and be physically and mentally stronger than our enemies. As friends and brothers, we took an oath to always have each other’s backs no matter what. I don’t realize my hands are shaking until I feel Olivia’s softer ones slide on top of them to still their movement. I look up into her face and I don’t see pity, like I feared. I see understanding and compassion.
“How about for right now, we just focus on the injury itself. Yo
u have six weeks of my torture sessions to talk about anything you want. In between cursing at me, of course,” she jokes softly.
God, I love this woman. No matter what I told her when I left, I knew I would love her until I took my last breath.
“I’ve been warned PT actually stands for pain and torture instead of physical therapy,” I tell her with a smile, flipping my hand over until her palm is resting against mine.
She doesn’t immediately pull away and I take that as a good sign. Feeling a little bold and hopeful, I slide my fingers through hers and give her hand a squeeze.
“It’s true. I get a sadistic kick out of tormenting my patients, but you’ll be happy to know they all thank me in the end.”
Not wanting to ruin the moment by saying something stupid about how good it feels to have her hand in mine, I pretend like it’s totally natural to be sitting next to her on the couch holding hands and I launch into the explanation of how my knee got fucked up. As I’m winding down a few minutes later, I realize how good it feels to talk about this with someone. I knew that repairing the damage between Olivia and I meant I’d have to tell her everything. Even though I haven’t gotten to the heart of the reason why I left her, I’ve told her more than I ever thought I would. I’ve brought her into the part of my world that I’d kept locked away and it feels good.
“I’m telling you, adrenaline should be bottled and sold on street corners. I was so fucking high that I didn’t even feel the bullet go in. It wasn’t until Hoss put a hand on my shoulder and I realized the house was completely silent that it hit me. The bullet most likely slammed into my knee as soon as we entered, but I didn’t feel a thing until we were finished. I owe Hoss big time. That country bumpkin bastard tossed me over his shoulder and hauled my ass through the woods for two miles to the HELO that was waiting to take us to safety.”