Текст книги "Ex-Con: Bad Boy Romance"
Автор книги: Shiloh Walker
Соавторы: M. S. Parker
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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
Chapter 22
So that’s it. That’s my story.
Eighteen months ago, I was shot, point-blank, in the head.
I’ve gotten bits and pieces of what happened since there’s no memory of anything after Mitchell falling.
The cops rushed in, apparently, and started CPR, but Mitchell died en route to the hospital. Dale survived the bullet he took in the chest with only a bruise.
I found out he left the police department and took up working with troubled kids. He and his wife are expecting their first child in a couple months.
Ridley lived too. He confessed everything, from what he’d told Mitchell to how Carly had ended up in the house. There had been some questionable involvement with the letters, but since Carly had spoken to the prosecutor on his behalf, he’d been let off with probation and a shitload of community service.
Of course, Ryan fired his ass, so Ridley had to move out and find a new job.
I didn’t know any of this for quite a while after it happened because I spent the next few months in a coma.
Then I had to learn...well, pretty much everything all over again.
I had to learn how to talk, walk, feed myself, take a fucking shower and tie my shoes. I was like some giant fucking toddler.
The one thing I hadn’t needed to re-learn was her. The day I woke up, the first thing I saw was Carly, sitting at the side of my bed, reading to me.
She had a copy of Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone. Harry had been sitting in Snape’s class for the first time.
I don’t remember which line she’d been reading. Those memories of the first few days are still kind of weird. I do remember sitting there and staring at her and just...waiting.
She looked up and didn’t even seem surprised to see that I was awake. It was like she’d been waiting too. Just waiting for me to wake up.
I had to spend months in rehab, and then more months yet going to outpatient rehab, and I still have a few more appointments before everybody thinks I’ll be as good as new, or at least as good as I’ll ever be.
I’ll never think I’m good enough to go back to guarding Carly. I couldn’t trust myself to be strong enough to save her. Ryan had immediately understood when I’d told him. Carly had taken a bit more convincing, but when she realized I wasn’t trying to quit us, just the job, she’d relented.
Like I’d ever give her up.
Even at my darkest moments, Carly had been the one thing that had kept me going. And there had been some pretty shitty moments.
The walking part came pretty easy.
Feeding myself? Even easier. I always liked to eat. Even if I did make a mess of myself for a while. Certain more personal things took a bit longer, and those were humiliating enough.
The worst part though was not being able to talk.
I couldn’t even say the simplest things. Hell, Dave’s daughter was talking better than I was. I’d go to say hello and the word just wouldn’t come out. It had taken weeks before I could make my mouth form words. It had been almost two months before I could even say Carly’s name.
We’d both cried when it finally happened, and I hadn’t even cared that there were people around.
The speech therapist told me all of this was normal.
Even when I could say simple things, or when I could look at a comb and say, comb – and I could remember what to do with it – I couldn’t remember other things. Like my mom’s name. I could remember the way she’d looked when my father had been beating her. I could remember how she’d held me. And I could remember how she’d looked the officer in the eye as she’d lied and said he was gone, that he’d left and she didn’t know where he went
But I couldn’t remember her name.
Except…even when I couldn’t speak, I was able to write it down. It had been pure accident that I’d discovered it, in the middle of a therapy session. It wasn’t the speech therapist, though. It had been my shrink. I wouldn’t have gone, but Carly had asked. I couldn’t tell her no, so I went. And I ended up being glad I did.
The therapist had been asking me to explain how I felt about something. I’d been talking fine that day, but then the words hadn’t wanted to come.
Frustrated, I shoved off the couch and paced. Movement still didn’t want to come easy. Sometimes it felt like some puppet master was in control of my legs while I had to deal with the rest of me, and make sure everything still moved in tandem. I’d still been falling a lot then. I’d tripped, and couldn’t right myself. I’d fallen down, ended up on the floor for what had felt like the hundredth time.
The doctor hadn’t offered to help. Some people did. Most people, really. But I’d fumbled my way up without a word from her. I’d also tried to fumble with the cuss words that filled my head. I could see them, I just couldn’t say them.
When I’d fallen, I’d knocked a pen and a notepad from her desk so, without even thinking, I’d grabbed it and started to write.
Every damn cuss word I could think of. Then I’d started writing all the words that had been trapped inside my head. The words seemed to tangle on my tongue, but if I wrote? They came out easier and once I wrote them, I was able to speak them...sometimes.
I’d been almost laughing by the time I finished, and when the doctor had come to sit beside me, she’d been smiling.
A week later, she gave me a journal.
“Write down what you remember, Bobby.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re not dealing with everything like you want to think you are. You’re just hiding from it.”
It took me a while to get around to accepting the fact that she was right, but in the end, I started to play around with it. I started and stopped probably half a dozen times, and I kept having to hide the thing from Carly. She kept finding it anyway.
Finally, I just started writing it on the computer, and sometimes I left dirty stories for her in the journal. Sometimes, she wrote dirty suggestions back, but she seemed happy that I was working through things.
I’m still not quite sure when it turned into a book.
For the past six months, I’ve been able to speak just fine without having to resort to writing anything complicated out first. Right up until last night, that is.
Last night, Carly stunned me speechless.
I listen and my heart begins to beat faster.
She’s coming up the stairs now. I can hear her, and I’m about to finish this up, but I need to get this down first.
That bombshell she dropped on me last night? I’m still trying to wrap my mind around it, but I’m not quite so speechless anymore.
A baby.
Carly’s pregnant.
I’m going to be a dad.
And this time, I can actually be there.
The door opens. I can see her in the mirror now, leaning against the door and smiling at me. “Eric is here with Haley, baby.”
I nod at her as I finish wrapping things up.
Haley is the other bright and beautiful spot in my life. Eric, the man who adopted my little girl all those years ago, is a great guy. He’s her dad and there’s no denying that. When, after I woke up, she asked if she could meet me, he told her absolutely. Now we see each other twice a month. One Saturday here, one Saturday up in Monterey. Yeah, some people might not think it’s a lot, but it’s more than I ever expected to have.
She was there when Carly and I got married. Impatient as always, Carly asked me before I even got out of the hospital. I made her wait until I could stand up and watch her walk down the aisle.
And Haley held the flowers for her.
In a few minutes, we’re going to tell the kid about the baby we’ll be having in a few months.
Haley is going to tease me again, about some stupid article or other that she cut out of the paper about me. It’s her thing. She collects them and teases me about being her hero. Sometimes I wonder just how long the media is going to milk it.
I’m no hero.
I’m just a lucky son of a bitch.
“You coming, Bobby?”
I study the screen a minute longer.
Then I nod. “Yeah.”
The past is recorded and it’s time for it to stay in the past. I’ve got the rest of my life to think about now. My life with Carly and our child. With my daughter. With all of the people who care about me.
With the one thing I’d never thought I’d have.
My family.
THE END
If you enjoyed this story, you’ll also enjoy the other stories from M.S. Parker and Shiloh Walker, including 8 complete Box Sets currently on sale.
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About The Authors
MS Parker
M.S. Parker is a USA Today Bestselling author and the author of the Erotic Romance series, Club Privè and Chasing Perfection.
Living in Las Vegas, she enjoys sitting by the pool with her laptop writing on her next spicy romance.
Growing up all she wanted to be was a dancer, actor or author. So far only the latter has come true but M.S. Parker hasn’t retired her dancing shoes just yet. She is still waiting for the call for her to appear on Dancing With The Stars.
When M.S. isn’t writing, she can usually be found reading – oops, scratch that! She is always writing.
Shiloh Walker
Shiloh Walker has been writing since she was a kid. She fell in love with vampires with the book Bunnicula, and has worked her way up to the more…ah…serious works of fiction. Once upon a time, she worked as a nurse, but now she writes full time and lives with her family in the Midwest. She writes romantic suspense and contemporary romance, and urban fantasy under her penname, J.C. Daniels. You can find her at Twitter or Facebook. Read more about her work at her website. Sign up for her newsletter and have a chance to win a monthly giveaway.
Acknowledgement
First, we would like to thank all of our readers. Without you, our books would not exist. We truly appreciate each and every one of you.
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We have to thank our PA, Shannon Hunt. Without you, our lives would be a complete and utter mess. Also, a big thank you goes out to our editor Lynette and our wonderful cover designer, Sinisa. You make our ideas and writing look so good.
