“I’ve known your dad for quite some time and I know he’s got plenty of other guys more qualified to do this job. Why’d he send you?”
I grit my teeth together as I try to remind myself that I will only be working with this prick for eight weeks. I dealt with the skeptical looks from employees in the Wilmington office for the first year or so, but everyone there knows I worked my ass off to get my degree and help my dad out for nearly three years and they respect me for it. This asshole doesn’t know that and it’s not my job to school him. But one good thing my dad did teach me was that we teach people how to treat us. Larry Cromwell will not treat me like a spoiled dumbass for eight weeks.
“I assure you that I am the most qualified project engineer for this project. I handled the startup on the Camp Lejeune training center project in June and, no disrespect, but this project is a walk in the park compared to that. My father sent me here because I’m the only one he trusts to oversee the dredging.”
He doesn’t look convinced, but this shuts him up. We make it through the meal without any further questions about my qualifications. We talk about the meetings we have scheduled for the week and when the drilling subcontractor is set to start their work. By the time I get into my car I’m annoyed. I don’t want to call Claire when I’m like this, but she asked me to call her on my lunch break.
I pull out of the steakhouse parking lot behind Larry’s new Cadillac and punch Claire’s number. I put her on speakerphone before I set the cellphone into the cup holder.
“Hey, sexy,” she answers.
“Hey, baby. What are you doing?”
“Studying to retake the exam I just failed this morning.”
“Why did you fail? I thought you were studying for that last night.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “I was gone for a while last night. I didn’t get a whole lot of studying done.”
“Were you partying on a Sunday?”
The silence on the other end of the phone puts me even more on edge. She’s hesitating and I can only imagine why.
“Chris was in an accident yesterday so I was at the hospital for a few hours. I didn’t get to study.”
Fuck. I hate that I feel even the slightest bit happy that he was in an accident. That’s fucked up.
“What happened? Is he all right?”
“He’s fine. He just broke his leg and they had to reset his fibula.”
“You went to the hospital to visit him for a few hours when you had a test to study for and all he has is a broken leg?”
“I didn’t know until I got there.”
“But you stayed for a few hours.”
“I was already there.”
I take a deep breath as I attempt to focus on the road. The ten-mile drive back to the base and the conversation with Claire was supposed to calm me before I got back to work.
“Adam?”
“What?”
“You’re mad.”
“How did you even visit him at night if you’re not family? I thought his mom never adopted you.”
“Adam, please.”
“Please, what? I just want to know if you’ve been lying to me.”
“I have not been lying to you. I lied to the hospital staff.”
“What do you mean, you lied to the hospital staff?”
She sucks in a loud breath then lets it out slowly. “It’s not a big deal. I just told them we were family so that I could get in to see him.”
“I don’t fucking get it. Why was it so important to see him if it was just a broken leg?”
“Because I ran into Jackie in the waiting room and she wanted me to see him so I lied to the hospital staff and said we were married. Okay? Are you happy now or are you going to keep grilling me?”
Am I happy now?
I blink my eyes to keep the silvery road in front of me from blurring with rage. They taught us in anger management to take a moment to collect our thoughts. Step away until you can work things out calmly. I’ve had to use the shit I learned in anger management a lot lately.
“I can’t talk about this right now. I have to get back to work. I’ll call you when I get off work.”
“Adam, please don’t shut down. I had to deal with Jackie the best way I could. You have to understand what a tough situation I’m in here. She doesn’t know anything about the baby or us.”
“Why doesn’t she know about us?”
“Because I already broke her heart and I’m just becoming a part of her life again. And I need her. She’s the closest thing I have to a mother. Please don’t make me put that in jeopardy.”
“If she’s like a mother to you she’ll understand that you’ve moved on. I think you haven’t told her because you’re not sure you’re ready to move on.”
“What? That’s ridiculous. I… I can’t even believe you would say that. Chris and I are over. We’re just friends and we have to stay that way if we want to have any chance of seeing Abigail.”
Her voice cracks when she says her daughter’s name and I feel awful. Even if I’m still not totally convinced that there’s nothing between her and Chris, I can’t make her feel even guiltier than she already does. I can’t give her a reason to go running to him.
But I also can’t fucking stand knowing that she was at the hospital, lying to the staff, and sitting there with him for God knows how long, all over a broken leg.
“I’m sorry. I feel like you’re slipping through my fingers and I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t…. I don’t even know if I should.”
“What does that mean?”
I pull the car over onto the grass along the highway because I’m getting close to the guard station and I’m not supposed to be using a cellphone when I pull up.
“I mean that I don’t know if I should be trying to fight this. If you feel yourself being pulled to him, maybe I should just let it happen.”
I grab the phone out of the cup holder and take her off speakerphone. I suck in a deep breath and close my eyes as I lean my head against the headrest.
“I don’t want to be with Chris. I want to be with you.”
“I don’t want you to be with him. I want you all to myself, and I’m beginning to see how selfish that must seem. But it’s the fucking truth. I can’t stand that he gets to have you at his side whenever he needs you. I’m just not comfortable with it.”
“Are you saying you want me to stop seeing Chris?”
“Babe, I don’t think you see what’s happening because you want to think the best of him. He’s your first love and the father of your child. I get it. But this is exactly what he wants.”
“He wanted to break his leg?”
“No, he wants to tear us apart.”
“He does want to tear us apart and you’re allowing him to do just that.”
“I’m not allowing him to do shit, but I can’t do anything from here. You don’t understand the fucking lunch meeting I just had.” My stomach clenches as my mind goes over the last hour spent with Larry Cromwell. “I’m chained to this fucking island for the next eight weeks. I can’t blow this job. I can’t swoop in and take you back if Chris gets his way with you, but I want to. I want to show up at your door and take you in my arms. I want to kiss you till you can’t breathe. I want to be next to you and on top of you and inside of you. I want to fucking inhale you and every moment we spend together. But I can’t do that from here. I’m at a huge disadvantage. And I’m not giving up, I’m just telling you that I don’t think I can deal with this shit right now.”
“I don’t like where this conversation is going. I—” Her voice cuts off for a moment before it comes back. “It’s Chris calling me on the other line. He’s supposed to call me and tell me what happened with the meeting between Tasha and Abigail’s mother.”
“Go ahead. I know you have to take this. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
I shake my head as I drop the phone into the cup holder. This is w
ay too much stress to put on a two-month relationship. Claire needs to take care of this stuff with her foster mother and Abigail and Chris. And she needs to study. I need to focus on getting this project set up and training for Koki Beach. If we want to have any chance of coming out the other side of the next eight weeks without hating each other, we need a break.
Chapter Eighteen
Chris
CLAIRE’S VOICEMAIL GREETING COMES ON and I immediately hang up. She’s probably meditating or talking to her boyfriend. I told her I would call her with the news about Tasha’s meeting. I move to lay my phone on the rolling table next to my hospital bed and just this small movement sends a bolt of pain shooting through my right leg and up my spine.
“Fuck!”
The phone vibrates in my hand as Nurse Fran walks into my room. “Is everything all right in here?” she asks as I answer the phone.
“Claire, you have to come down here,” I say into the phone, the pain pulsating throughout my entire body giving my voice a hard edge.
“Why? I already saw you yesterday and that was only because your mom insisted. It’s a broken leg, Chris. You’re not going to die. I have to study.”
“Not for me.”
Nurse Fran gives me a pointed look through her swooped black bangs. She ordered me to get some rest since this is my last night in the hospital, and here I am on the phone again. She already jokingly threatened to toss my phone out the window earlier today.
“It’s not for me, Claire,” I continue. “It’s Abigail. She’s here. That’s what the meeting was about. She’s having surgery tonight at eight and Abigail’s—” I hesitate to refer to this woman as Abigail’s mother, though she was nice enough to offer us a chance to see Abigail tonight. “Abigail’s mother is letting us see her tonight before she goes into surgery. You have to get down here.”
Claire is silent and I wish I could be there to give her this information in person instead of lying in this fucking bed. I wish I could have picked her up in my own car and held her hand as I delivered this news, but time is running out. This might be our only chance to see our daughter.
“Claire?” A soft sob comes through the speaker and it feels like a fucking knife in my chest. “Claire, can you get Senia to bring you?”
“I’ll be there.”
I hang up the phone and Fran glances at my chest and I’m pretty sure she’s just putting together my conversation with Claire and the tattoo over my heart. “You need a wheelchair?”
“Yes, please.”
As soon as she leaves the room, the aching in my chest spreads through my throat, choking me, until it reaches my face, stinging my eyes. I clear the thickness in my throat and try to compose myself before Fran returns. Then I hear the click of someone’s heels in the corridor and I know who’s coming.
Tasha enters my room wearing a cleavage-popping green dress that makes her red hair look even redder. The navy-blue cardigan she wears buttoned at the waist does nothing to hide the soft, round flesh bulging out of her neckline. A blue sweater, green dress, and cherry-red heels… somehow she pulls it off. It’s the sexy red-framed glasses and red lipstick that pulls it all together.
“Is she coming?” she asks as she walks right up to my bedside and stares at my bare chest.
I swallow the lump in my throat before I answer. “She’s on her way. You didn’t have to come here.”
The last thing I need right now is for Claire to feel intimidated by Tasha, if that’s even possible. I’m pretty certain Claire knows she has me wrapped around her finger.
“I know I didn’t have to come, but I have to be here in case they try to make a verbal agreement,” Tasha replies as she peels her gaze away from my chest and takes a seat in a chair. “You have virtually no rights here, Chris. I’m just protecting your best interests.”
“Yeah, you’ve told me that before.”
Fran walks in with the wheelchair and I grit my teeth as I attempt to sit up. “Hold on there, bad boy. I’ll lift you up.”
“I don’t need you to lift me,” I say as she reaches for the button on the side of the bed to lift the head of the mattress, but she’s too late. I’m already sitting up and reaching for my leg in the splint.
“You can’t move your leg. I’ll do it.” I attempt to lift my leg out of the splint and the pain stops me cold. “Just hold your horses and I’ll do it for you. For crying out loud, eight o’clock isn’t for another ninety minutes. You’ve got time. Do you want something for the pain?”
“No. I want to go in there with a clear head.”
She nods and I try not to grimace too much as she slowly helps me into the wheelchair and props my leg up.
“I looked up the information for Abigail and I can take you straight to her as soon as your friend arrives,” Fran adds as she moves toward the door. “You may want to put a shirt on.”
She leaves and I look down at the jeans that Fran allowed me to put on earlier today. The right pant leg is cut off below the knee.
Tasha and I make small talk for a while as we wait for Claire. I want to ask her if Abigail’s mother told her how serious Abigail’s condition is, but I almost don’t want to know.
“Can you hand me that shirt you’re sitting on?” I ask Tasha.
She quickly stands and hands me the black NOFX shirt that is now nice and warm from her ass. It’s already hot as fuck in this hospital room so I wait a minute before I pull it on. Claire and Senia walk in as I’m shaking out the T-shirt and Claire instantly looks away from my chest. She hasn’t seen the new tat yet. I know this isn’t the right place or time to show her so I quickly pull my shirt over my head to cover it up.
I lean back a little and hit the nurse call button.
“Claire, Senia, this is Tasha Singer,” I say, nodding toward Tasha who’s standing on my left.
Senia ogles Tasha’s cleavage for a moment, before they shake hands. “Nice to meet you,” Tasha says before she turns to Claire.
Claire doesn’t seem to be in the mood for introductions, but she holds out her hand. “Nice meeting you.”
Fran arrives and immediately starts pushing me out of the room. No one speaks as we travel through the cold hospital corridors. Fran takes us down to the first floor, past the gift shop, and to the children’s hospital. We pass straight through the lobby and to another corridor toward the Heart Center.
I’m afraid of what we’ll find when we finally see her. I don’t want this to be the first and last time I ever see my daughter. I look to my left and Claire’s face is twisted with worry. I wonder if broken hearts are genetic.
Chapter Nineteen
Claire
THE SQUEAK OF THE NURSE’S Crocs on the shiny floor is making me even more nervous. I already feel as if I might collapse at any moment. My thoughts keep rewinding to the day I gave birth and I can’t remember if the nurses ever said there was something wrong with my baby.
Not my baby. She’s not mine.
A burly man stands with his back to us in the corridor about forty meters ahead. He’s speaking to a doctor who stares at us as we approach. There are too many of us. I wonder if we look intimidating to them. The burly man turns around and the worry in his eyes turns to annoyance.
We’re not welcome here. We’re just the stupid kids who gave Abigail up and now we’re crashing motorcycles and trying to ruin their lives.
I stop in the middle of the corridor and Senia stops next to me.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
The burly man with the dark hair and four days worth of scruff on his jaw watches me. Senia catches me around the waist as my knees begin to buckle under the weight of his glare.
“He hates us,” I whisper, my shoulders weakening as the resolve drains from my body.
The nurse pushing Chris stops and turns back to look at me. She sees Senia holding me and immediately switches into “nurse-mode.” She comes back to help Senia as they attempt to hold me steady.
“Do you feel like you’re going to pass out
? Do you feel cold or dizzy?”
Chris looks over his shoulder at me and immediately turns his wheelchair around.
“I’m fine,” I say as I push away the nurse and I finally see her nametag: Francesca. Chris attempts to push himself up from the wheelchair and I throw my hand out to stop him. “I’m fine. Sit down. Please.”
He grimaces with pain as he sets himself down in the wheelchair. “Claire, come here.”
“I am here.”
He shakes his head. “No, come here,” he says, beckoning me with his finger.
Senia and Francesca let me go and Tasha watches me as I step forward. He beckons me closer so he can whisper something in my ear. I lean forward and his fingers hint against my skin as he pulls my ear closer to his mouth.
“I need this. I need you to be strong like you were the day I met you and the day you broke up with me. You’re not that broken girl your mom left in the trailer. You made the right choice giving her up, but I need you to be strong right now because I fucking need this. It’s just you and me, babe. Okay?”
I nod as I blink furiously to staunch the tears. “Okay.” Francesca comes to turn the wheelchair around and I stop her. “I’ll do it. You guys can stay here.”
I turn the wheelchair around and Tasha falls in step with me.
Chris turns to her and shakes his head. “We’re going in there alone.”
“This is a bad idea,” she warns him and I try not to glare at her burgeoning cleavage.
“Tasha, this isn’t about the adoption,” Chris says, then I push him toward the doctor and the burly man.
My feet seem to sink into the hard floor as I walk, holding me still, yet somehow I keep getting closer. Help, I want to cry out. Please help me get through this.
The doctor holds out his hand to Chris. “I’m Doctor Buchik. I’ll be handling the surgery today.” Buchik holds his hand out to me and I shake it. His hand is dry and warm and, as stupid as it is, this gives me comfort.