Life Shocks Romances Collection 3: Inflamed, Jilted, Kindled, Lured Read online

  “Debra?” Sean’s footsteps sounded behind her.

  She swiped the moisture away from her eyes and forced a smile into her voice. “Yes?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You walked away with a catch in your voice. It’s not nothing. It’s the marriage thing, right?”

  “No, it’s not the marriage thing. Marriage isn’t a thing. It’s a relationship.”

  “It’s a big next step. I’m not ready for it.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s too soon.”

  “You’ve already said that.”

  His eyes narrowed. “So why are you freezing me out like I’ve screwed up?”

  “I’m not freezing you out. I didn’t want to bother you with what I was feeling, so I left to give you space.”

  “That’s the same thing.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “Look, it’s been two months. We’ve been happy together, but it’s just the honeymoon period. It doesn’t last.”

  “It does if both people brought their authentic selves into the relationship in the first place. I know I did. Did you?”

  He tensed. “If this is about the phone calls—”

  “This isn’t about the phone calls. It’s about whether you’d walk away some day.”

  Sean shook his head sharply. “Men walk away from marriages all the time. A ring isn’t a guarantee of stability.”

  “No, it’s not, but it’s a statement of commitment.”

  “Until it isn’t.” He grimaced. “What do you want, Debra? A title?”

  “I already have one.” The Other Woman. Debra sucked in a deep breath. It’s not about me. “Aidan’s growing attached to you. His father is a flake. I don’t want the other men in his life to be flakes too. I don’t want him growing up thinking that leaving women is the normal thing to do.”

  “I haven’t left. I’m right here!”

  “But you could.”

  Sean rolled his eyes. “Damn it, Debra. Anything could happen if you project far enough into the future. Why are you borrowing trouble that hasn’t happened? Right now, I’m here. Isn’t that enough?”

  She stared up at him. It should be. The fact that he was here right now should have been enough.

  Why wasn’t it?

  “I want more.” Her words escaped in a stricken whisper.

  His eyes narrowed, and he turned aside but did not step away.

  “It’s not wrong to want more. After nine years of barely scraping by, after eight years of watching my son grow up with practically nothing, I’ve realized that I hadn’t wanted more. I just wanted enough, and enough was what I got. But ‘more’…more is where the laughter rings out, where love becomes so real you can almost touch it, where life really happens.” The steadiness of her voice surprised her, but perhaps it shouldn’t have. The certainty in her heart anchored her. She laid a hand on his arm; his muscles were taut, his shoulders stiff. “I want more for Aidan and for myself. Right now, you are the more that we have, and it’s wonderful, but it’s not wrong for me to ask if ‘more’ is going to be sticking around tomorrow.”

  He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “I’ll be here tomorrow.”

  “Figuratively, not literally.”

  “I don’t control the future—”

  “Stop falling back on the fact that you’re not God. Of course I know you can’t control the future. None of us can promise we’ll wake up tomorrow, but darn it if we aren’t going to try. Trying our best is all we can do—you taught me that.”

  A muscle twitched in his cheek. With obvious effort, his lips tugged into a half smile. “I never thought you’d use it against me.”

  “I’m not using anything against you. You want to know how I feel? Now, you do. I’m looking for more. I don’t need an answer now. I don’t even need an answer tomorrow—literally. But I’ll need an answer at some point, because enough isn’t enough anymore.”

  Chapter 10

  The next day, the sun blazed down on Sean’s back. The cool April morning had given way to a hot afternoon, but he worked on, oblivious to the heat and the stain of sweat on his shirt, until Jack’s voice cut into his tangled thoughts. “You keep scrubbing that spot, you’ll take the paint off the truck.”

  His head snapped up.

  Jack raised an eyebrow.

  Sean grunted and threw the brush into the bucket of soapy water. “Sorry, I was thinking.”

  “You might want to do that while you’re not working.”

  Sean chuckled, but he heard the ring of irony in his own voice. “Sometimes, working is the only thing that makes the thoughts tolerable.”

  “What’s bugging you?

  “Women.”

  “Debra or the other one.”

  Sean frowned. He hadn’t thought about Romina for weeks, other than the automatic refusal of her phone calls. “Debra, of course.”

  Jack nodded and leaned back against a dry patch on the fire truck. “Marie was saying that Debra’s looking better these days. Doesn’t look nearly as stressed and frazzled as she usually is. She’s smiling and laughing more. She’s pretty again, like she used to be, before Peter.” Jack spread his hands when Sean glared at him. “Hey, I didn’t notice nothing. Marie pointed it out. Blooming. That’s the word Marie used. You didn’t get her pregnant, did you?”

  “No!” Sean recoiled. Had he? What else could possibly explain Debra’s demands for something more from their relationship?

  No, it couldn’t possibly be. He had been careful, and she was on birth control.

  She wouldn’t have lied to him, would she?

  Damn it. Not again.

  He growled, low and deep in his throat. “I’m going to—”

  Jack grabbed his arm. “Whatever you do, be careful. Debra hasn’t been on the best of terms with the folks in town since her one-night stand with Peter, but she’s still one of us. Nobody wants to see her get hurt.”

  “I’m not going to hurt her.”

  “You always have the best intentions, but can you stick around and see them through?”

  Sean’s hands clenched into fists. “This isn’t about Romina.”

  “No,” Jack said. “It’s about Debra. And Aidan.” He shook his head. “Don’t screw it up, man. This time there really is a kid involved.”

  “I don’t need a sermon.”

  “No? You ran once, Sean. Maybe it was the right thing to do then, but if you do it again, this time you’ll be running from a good thing. Don’t be stupid.”

  “I think I’m the best judge of what’s good for me.”

  Jack shrugged. “Fine. I just don’t want to see you give up.”

  Sean scowled. Maybe Jack was right, and maybe Debra was the best darned thing in his life since sliced bread, but how was he supposed to figure it out in two months? What was the rush? Why was everyone—except him—so determined to push things…to complicate things?

  Jack cleared his throat and nodded toward the corner. Sean glanced up to see Debra walking toward him, a stack of cups—presumably five black coffees—in her hand. He frowned. Jack was right. Debra had a healthy flush in her cheeks and a bounce in her step. The hem of her summer dress showed off the length of her tanned legs.

  He had always thought her pretty, even when the rest of the town’s folks thought of her as tired and frazzled, but heck, she was beautiful now. A man would have to be blind not to notice the shine of her hair as it swayed about her shoulders or the sparkle in her brown eyes. She smiled at him. “Hey, you didn’t come by for the coffee, so I thought I’d run it over to you during your break.” She spared a glance at the glistening fire engine. “Hard at work, I see.”

  “Are you pregnant?” He blurted out the words.

  Debra’s eyes widened. Instinctively, she patted her flat stomach. “I hope not. No, I think I’m fine—” Her jaw dropped. “You think I’m pregnant?” Fury flared into her eyes as she shoved the tray of drinks into Jack’s hands and turned
on Sean. “Is that what you think of the conversation we had last night—that the only reason a woman might want something more out of a relationship, out of life, is because she’s pregnant?”

  Jack winced and scurried away, but Sean did not have the luxury of fleeing.

  She poked a finger into Sean’s chest. “I’ll have you know I did just fine for eight years before you showed up.”

  “Just yesterday you were saying how much I changed your life.”

  “It’s true; you transformed my life. You electrified it. But if you leave, all the good you’ve done doesn’t evaporate. It stays. With me. I own it; I own my life—all the bad stuff, all the dumb stuff, all the good stuff. And I have a right to want more, to look for more, and it has nothing to do with being pregnant. It has to do with love.”

  She spun on her heel and stalked away, her long hair flying in the breeze.

  Sean stared wordlessly after her. What the—?

  Jack let out a long, low whistle as he peeked out from behind the fire engine. “Wow, you really screwed that one up.”

  “She didn’t let me get a word in.”

  “Considering how badly you messed up with the words you did get in, you might want to just shut up for a while.”

  “But she’s not pregnant.” Sean released his breath in a sigh of relief. And she loves me…

  “Did you really think she was?”

  “You put that thought in my head.”

  Jack frowned. “But did you really think she’d lie to you?”

  “No.” Sean wanted to kick himself. “It was a lapse. I forgot where I was, forgot who she was, and panicked.”

  “You’re in a different time and place, buddy. You got your fresh start. Don’t screw it up.”

  “I’m going to have to apologize to her.”

  “Think she’s going to make you crawl?”

  “It’s not her style, though I shouldn’t wait too long—” His cell phone rang its non-Romina tune. Sean glanced at the number, and his jaw tensed. Perfect. Just what he needed to ruin the rest of his day. “Hey, Brian.” He offered his older brother a cool greeting.

  “You’re not taking any calls from Elkins.”

  “I’m not interested in talking to anyone from Elkins.”

  “Romina’s mom has been trying to reach you. Romina was admitted to the hospital this morning.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Her parents found her unconscious—they couldn’t wake her—so they called the ambulance and rushed her to the hospital.”

  “How did you—?”

  “They called me and asked me to reach you.” Brian laughed. It was a short, bitter sound. “Imagine how desperate they must have been. The doctors found drugs in her system. She overdosed. They’ve spent the past few hours pumping it out of her, and she’s regained consciousness. She’s asking for you.”

  Sean drew a deep breath. “I’m not going to get manipulated back there again.”

  “The hospital is real. The drug overdose is real. The doctors don’t think she’s going to make it.”

  The acute sense of irritation and nagging grip of guilt transformed into shards of ice lodged deep in Sean’s chest. “What do you mean?”

  “They don’t think she’s going to make it,” Brian repeated. “I’m on my way back there now.”

  “To Elkins?”

  “Yeah. You should be there too. After all, she’s calling for you, not for me.”

  Sean hung up. His stricken gaze met Jack’s.

  Jack shoved him lightly on the shoulder. “I caught the gist of it. You better go.”

  “Right. Can you tell—?”

  “Debra? Yeah, I will.”

  Sean raced to his car and did the one thing he swore he would never do. He turned down the road that would take him back to Elkins and to Romina.

  The nerve of him. Implying…no, flat out concluding that pregnancy could have been the only possible reason for the heart-to-heart conversation the previous night. Did he think women were a tangle of hormones that immediately switched on husband-hunting mode just because there was a fetus in the uterus? Did she look like a female on the prowl for a mate? Hadn’t she raised Aidan from an infant on her own—entirely alone—for eight years?

  The more Debra thought about it, the more irritated she became. In fact, she hadn’t said quite enough. She spun around and stalked back to the firehouse, in time to see Sean’s car turn the corner and vanish down the street. Jack was standing outside the firehouse, a worried frown on his face.

  “What’s wrong?” Debra asked.

  Jack glanced over his shoulder. “He got a call just after you left, and had to go back to Elkins His…” Jack faltered. “Someone was admitted to the hospital. Doesn’t look good.”

  The lump clogging her throat made it hard to swallow. His…what? Family? Friend? Obviously, it was someone close to Sean. What was he feeling? How was he handling it?

  Guilt edged into the cracks in her heart and dogged her steps all the way back to the café. The squabble with Sean seemed trite in comparison—a minor squall that would blow over by dinnertime.

  Except that Sean would not be home for dinner. More likely than not, he would still be at the hospital, dealing with real life-and-death issues.

  She pushed open the door to the café. Marcia stood behind the counter, chatting with the store’s only customer. Business was slow, which was normal for the end of the day. “Will it be okay if I take the rest of the afternoon off? Something came up and I’ll need to take care of it.”

  “Sure. You run along, hon.”

  Debra hurried home and arranged for Aidan to hang out at the neighbor’s house, before cooking up a quick meal of shepherd’s pie. The layers of whipped potatoes spread over ground beef and servings of mixed vegetables would be warm and filling—comfort food for any occasion. She filled a large container with food, and then poured black coffee—the way Sean liked it—into a thermos.

  Before getting into her car, she looked up the address of the only hospital in Elkins. She could be there in an hour.

  The trip to Elkins took scarcely over sixty minutes, and the nurses at Davis Memorial Hospital ushered Sean into a private room in the Intensive Care Unit. Machines filled the room, each one blinking and beeping, but the sound was inaudible over the raised voices coming from the room.

  Sean paused, his hand on the door handle, listening.

  “It should never have come to this!” a man shouted. The deep bellow, roughened by years of cigarette smoking, belonged to Garry, Romina’s father.

  “Look, I’ve been away for five years,” a familiar voice retorted. Brian—Sean’s older brother. “This isn’t about me. It was never about me.”

  “Stop fighting!” Bettina, Romina’s mother, sobbed. “Why are you still fighting over this?”

  “Because it destroyed her!” Garry yelled.

  Gritting his teeth, Sean opened the door and stepped into the room.

  Three pairs of eyes turned to him. Romina lay in the bed, her eyes closed, face pale.

  “How is she?” Sean asked quietly.

  Garry rushed Sean. His ham-sized fists seized Sean’s shirt and slammed Sean back against the wall. “Where were you? Where were you all these months when she needed you?”

  “We broke up. I left.”

  “She cried for you. Every damned day. She called you. She left message after message. You never called back.”

  “Your daughter needed help far beyond what I could provide. Did you take her to the doctor like I told you to?”

  Garry’s jaw stuck out like a pugnacious bulldog, but guilt flickered into his eyes. His hands loosened their grip on Sean’s shirt.

  “Romina has major psychological problems. She didn’t need me. She didn’t need a pep talk. She needed therapy and maybe drugs. The right drugs.”

  “She was just upset.”

  “She’s been upset for years.” Sean flung his arm out at Brian. “She was like that long before she met Brian. She was lik
e that long before he left her.”

  “That’s not true!” Garry yelled. “You got her pregnant and left!”

  Brian’s eyes narrowed. “It wasn’t my baby.”

  Sean’s jaw dropped. The baby Romina had been pregnant with five years ago hadn’t been Brian’s? “But—”

  “You thought it was mine?” Brian’s gaze flashed to Sean. “Is that why you stayed around? Not because it was yours?”

  “Mine? She was your girlfriend. I never touched her. If it wasn’t yours or mine, then…whose was it?”

  “Was there even a baby?” Brian asked, his voice bitter. “She miscarried, didn’t she, conveniently before her first doctor’s appointment? She was a heck of a liar. She never thought twice about it.”

  Sean nodded. He could not find the words, not with the air punched out of his lungs.

  Brian’s gaze darted to the woman on the bed. “She’d know.” He turned back to Sean. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “What was there to tell? You abandoned your pregnant girlfriend. I was your brother. I felt like I had to do something about it.”

  “It wasn’t your problem to fix.”

  “She was a goddamned wreck. And I? I was the fool who thought she would get over it, that it was something I could fix by being around for her. I wasted five years of my life. Nothing I did changed anything about her life.”

  Garry scowled. “That’s not true. She was happy with you.”

  “She was miserable. She did nothing but complain. She was a vampire; she sucked all the joy out of my life. I left because I couldn’t take it anymore.”

  “She loved you.”

  Sean shook his head. “She loved the attention I gave her, because you gave her none. It’s not the same thing.”

  “She called you every day.”

  “And left messages about how the spa attendants didn’t wait on her immediately, or how the valet wasted her time by taking three minutes to deliver her car. Her sour view on life soured my view on life. I found myself arguing with a girl at the checkout counter because my order wasn’t served the way I wanted. I’d left that girl in tears, terrified that she was going to lose her job. It hit me then. I realized I’d become like your daughter. In caring for her, I’d become like her. I lost myself.”