Chocolate Kisses and Love Filled Wishes: Kissing Bridge Mountain - Book 3 (9 page)

Chapter 18

H
er Brad.

Lost.

Summer was in shock. She had thought their love could overcome the curse and now fate had stepped in to change the course of their lives.

“I’ll get the next plane out,” she said dully. She couldn’t believe Brad was gone and she was 3,000 miles away.

“Impossible, Darling. I’m sorry,” her mother said sadly.

“There is nothing you can do, Summer. All the flights are closed.  We’re in the middle of a full blizzard. Brad’s the only one that would fly in this weather, which is why…”

Summer couldn’t control herself and began to weep and shake.

“Mom, I love him. I have to do
something
!”

Ethel’s heart swelled with feeling for her daughter, so far away.

“Have heart, Darling. The entire town of Kissing Bridge is scouring the mountain for him now. Jason has insisted on looking for him from above, despite the dangerous conditions. We’ll find him, Honey.”

“Oh, Mom,” Summer sobbed. “Poor Brad. It’s all my fault!”

Her mother shushed her on the other end of the line.

“You listen to me, Summer Landers. That curse has been lifted. Brad is going to be found. He’s one of the biggest, toughest guys I’ve ever known, and one heck of a pilot. We’re going to find him and bring him home. You are both going to be happy and safe, and I won’t hear anything but that.”

Summer nodded on the other end, but nothing her mother said could soothe her heart.

The bright day suddenly fogged over. Summer couldn’t think straight. Brad.
Brad!

“I’m going to call a friend with a private plane. Commercial flights may not be flying but—”

“Please Summer, please just be safe. Don’t put yourself in danger, flying here now in this blizzard. It would be too much! They aren’t even letting cars on the road—only emergency personnel and the search crew vehicles. I’ll call you as soon as I hear anything. We’ve set up ‘command central’ at the bakery and it’s open 24 hours with free refreshments for all the volunteers.”

Summer held the phone to her ear, but all she heard was a dull drone under the thud of her heart pulsing.

“Have faith, Honey. We’re all here and we all love Brad too. We’re going to find him.”

Summer hung up the phone in shock. She let the wet tears slide down her face.

Brad in danger.

Brad lost.

Gone.

Have faith.

It wasn’t a case of the Lander’s curse.  Summer prayed it wasn’t, anyway.

Chapter 19

T
anner paced back and forth in Kacey's hospital room on the phone. His hawk-like face was deep in thought as he listened on the phone and glanced at Kacey, asleep in the hospital bed. She looked beat up. Her face was bruised and she had various cords stuck all over her.

An annoying beep beep from the heart monitor machine taunted his nerves. He had driven the distance from Burlington to see her, and now she looked like she may not even wake up while he was there.

He finally got so anxious that he leaned over the bed and shook her slightly until her eyes fluttered.

“How are you doing, Champ?”

Kacey opened her eyes.

Tanner.

His serious concerned expression and the worry in his deep brown eyes moved her. She had seen him look like that as he was trying to direct the shots for the documentary. His passion showed when he cared.

He took her hand.

She smiled weakly. “Well, I guess I blew it. My coaches…Brody… they all told me to wait, heal, and get stronger first.”

He looked at all the tubes and contraptions all over her. “Did they diagnose you yet?”

“Basics. Broken hip, concussion, herniated disc—again.”

Tanner looked dubious.

“Those are the basics?”

“Well, for a snowboarder, yeah.  Injuries happen.”

Tanner looked relieved. 

Kacey was caught by how much she was beginning to rely on his intelligence and strength. Despite all of his business, he had made the two-hour hike to see her in horrible weather.

He behaved very unlike Brody, who had not bothered to call or text in over a month—which, even for him, was a record. The break they were on was turning out to be a break-up, after all. She guessed he just hadn’t had the nerve to end it outright—string her on, let her down easy—she guessed. She swallowed hard. She couldn’t think about Brody now. Tanner was her future.

Besides, Tanner was here. Tanner loved her. Tanner wanted to be her husband.

Still, Brody haunted her thoughts.  She had thought about calling him when she first woke up out of the concussion.  It had been Brody that came to her mind first, Brody that showed up in her dream, Brody; the first call she wanted to make.

She needed his lighthearted optimism, his lack of logic and depth of faith. Oddly, that combination had made him the extreme athlete he was. Even his partnership with her was extreme to the pro circuit, and everyone had warned him against it.
Don’t get tied down. . .You’re a star. . . Stay single—the young female fans like to think they have a chance. . . You’re too young.
. .But they had stayed together anyway, despite all the naysayers.

They understood each other.

Kacey just wanted to call Brody now and hear his voice.  She wanted to tell him how she was and what was happening in her life.

She wanted to say, “
Hey baby, I had a horrible fall but I made it. I need you.
”

But she hadn’t called, and now it was Tanner who stood over her with a soft, caring look in his eyes.

Tanner Williams, the star activist, was dressed in a tie-dyed shirt that read
Save the Maldives
—his next endeavor. His dark wavy hair fell to his shoulders as he paced the room.

“I had hoped to have us on a flight to the Maldives next week,” he said. “Do you have any idea how long until…?”

He knocked into Kacey’s exposed foot by mistake. “Oh sorry, did that hurt?”

Kacey looked confused. “What hurt?”

“I just knocked into your leg. I didn’t know if it hurt your hip or something.”

Kacey screwed up her face. “I didn’t feel anything.”

Tanner’s dark brows drew together. He walked over and started massaging her foot. “Do you feel that?”

Kacey’s eyes dazed over with a worried look. “No.”

She tried to wiggle her legs.

Nothing.

A look of fear came over Tanner’s face.

“I’ll go get the doctor.”

Chapter 20

T
he following day the pin striper volunteer nurse, Justine, wheeled Kacey out of the hospital into the bright morning light.  The brightness of the light off the snow hit Kacey’s eyes hard and blinding.

“Sorry, Kacey,” Justine said. “I should have brought you some sunglasses!”

“Oh, you’re so sweet, Justine. It’s okay. The light feels good on my face.”

Kacey and Justine had grown up together in Kissing Bridge and attended the same high school.

“‘Worst blizzard since ’77’ the news is saying…” Justine explained to Kacey. “Only emergency driving is allowed right now and all the stores are closed.”

Any other day, the white-out conditions would have thrilled Kacey because that meant fresh snow on the mountain. Powder conditions on the way.  She looked down at herself in the wheelchair and sighed heavily. She’d really done it this time.

She wondered about Tanner.

He had been a mess last night. 

He’d been so worried. He had left abruptly when they couldn’t locate a doctor to help get any straight answers.

Kacey found it odd that he hadn’t called to find out what the doctors had determined was wrong with her legs.

She knew he was shocked but somehow she felt slighted.

She had spent the night lying awake, fearing the worst for her future and wishing she wasn’t alone.

She could heal from broken bones, but if her spinal cord was affected in the fall, then her fate would be so much worse than she could imagine.

A possible lifetime in a wheelchair.

If she couldn’t walk, she couldn’t snowboard, and that would be worse than death. It had been the longest night of her life.

For some reason, she had wanted to call Brody all that night. She wanted him to tell her that everything would be all right like he always did—bring her spirits up and remind her (in that goofy way he always did),
“You’re Kacey Anderson, darn it!”

Goodness knows they had each been through hospital stays and mends together before.

They had been through sleeping on friends’ floors and having the bigwigs set them up in 5-star hotels.

They’d seen each other through the Gold and through the sadness of loss, when Brody’s mother passed away. They had been each other’s strengths. Boy, how Kacey needed that strength now.

She lay awake alone, staring at the ceiling, with that thought running through her head all night, until her doctor had arrived in the morning.

Now as she sat in the wheelchair with the snow falling all around her, as she waited to be picked up, she wondered why she had ever come home again. 

The weather was some of the worst she had ever seen in the main town of Kissing Bridge, nearly whiting out everything in sight. She shielded her eyes from the hurling sheets of white and caught sight of a blurry image coming through the snow toward her.

The image was coming closer, closer…

Out of the storm emerged Tanner.

Kacey smiled.

“You made it! I wasn’t sure you Texas guys could drive in the snow,” she joked.

The truth was she wasn’t sure she’d ever see him again after the way he had looked at her in the hospital bed last night.

It had been the look of the owner of a prize race horse that had just broken its leg.

Sadly, Kacey thought, in a way it was
exactly
like that.

But here he was.

“You can count on me, Babe,” Tanner said. The smile he gave her didn’t quite make it to his eyes.

He looked her over in the wheelchair and cringed in a covert way. 

She smiled weakly.

Kacey
hadn’t
been able to count on him actually.  She had been afraid—more afraid then she could ever admit—and he had gone home, without a word.

But he was here now. Looking at her uncomfortably.

She wasn’t sure how she felt.

Tanner was acting strangely.

Kacey noticed he shied away from getting close to her, as if what she had might be contagious. Suddenly, his eye lit with a great idea and he rushed back to his car and pulled out his equipment bag. He ran back to them and pulled out his camera from his bag and started pointing it at Kacey in the wheelchair.

“What…what are you doing, Tanner?”

He clicked away photos.

“Smile, Honey,” he chirped happily.

Click, click, click.

Kacey was agape.

Here she was in a wheelchair—broken and beaten—and he wanted to take shots of her?  He wasn’t going to ask how she was? What the doctor had said? If she was all right?

“Tanner, what are you doing? Please
stop
shooting pictures of me! I’d rather not have people see me like this.”

But Tanner didn’t stop. He kept shooting and ignored her pleas.

“Listen, Kacey . . . I’ve been thinking about this all night. We might not have the life together as exploring partners I had hoped to have with you, but we can still use you for the movement as our poster child to garner sympathy!  Cripples sell!  We’ll blame the fall on the bad weather conditions due to the climate change.”

He zoomed in on the black and blue side of her face as if intrigued. He brought the camera in for an ultra close up.

Kacey was aghast.

“Did you just say ‘cripples
sell
’?”

Tanner pulled back the video camera to get a full view of her entire face, now snarled in contempt.

“Yes. Give it to me, Kacey.  Show your anger for what’s happened to our world. The camera is
loving
you!”

Kacey felt disgusted.

It seemed that the camera was the
only
thing loving her at the moment.

She looked back at Justine, who shrugged her shoulders and looked completely confused.

Tanner continued on his ‘save-the-world’ rant.

“People have to know what lengths people are willing to go to help the environment! You are a star victim, Kacey. This is an exclusive! Would-Be-Olympic-Gold-Medalist crushed by climate change.”

Tanner got in her face again with the camera—her now
angry
face. She was just this side of swatting it away when he pulled back and changed position.

Now he focused the camera on her unmoving legs covered by a plaid blanket. He panned the camera down her legs slowly, taking video of them.

Tanner narrated along with taking the video.

“Lost limbs—the first tiny victims of climate change left uncontrolled.”

Justine reached around and pulled the blanket up over Kacey’s legs protectively in the wheelchair as Tanner kept taping.

Tanner continued his sensuous narration.

“Olympic hopeful now lost of all hope. This is the future.

Inert.

Dead.

Just like poor Kacey Anderson’s legs.”

With that last bit of expose—extra heavy with fake emotion—he turned the camera on himself, and summoned up a look of empathy.

“We can stop this. We can make a difference. Help us. Help the children. Because we can’t help Kacey.”

With that last dialogue, he actually conjured up a fake tear and pulled the camera in extra close to follow its fall from tear duct to high cheekbone, down to chiseled jaw.  He zeroed in with a long pause as the tear wavered on the side of his chin before dripping off his handsome face altogether, and he hit the ‘off’ button with finality.

He turned to them with a self-satisfied grin.

“That was Oscar-winning shit right there!”

He lifted a hand up to Kacey to high-five him.

“High-five, Kacey, that was great stuff!”

Kacey could not believe it.

She was certainly getting to see a side of Tanner she had never seen before!

He might care about the environment, but it appeared he could give a
fig
about people, or
her
! It looked like he cared more about his movie and being famous than anything else!

Tanner was too busy fiddling with the camera to notice what was going on inside Kacey’s head—which happened to be a lot, despite the fall.

Now, Kacey Anderson might have been young, but she was not naive.

Having left Kissing Bridge Mountain at the age of 17, she had been around the world a couple of times in her career and met many kinds of people. Sadly, most of them were not like the good town folk of Kissing Bridge. But it had taught her much about the character of people—or lack of character, in this case.

She realized that she had come across Tanner’s type of character before.

The faker.

The user.

The con artist.

They always hid so well, at first.

Acted so nice.

Appeared so handsome.

Told you they loved you and wanted to be with you always. Convinced you they loved you so much you believed them!

Ouch.

The truth was, they were great actors with nothing inside; soulless and heartless with only their egos being important.

Narcissists.

Kacey was forced to consider now that Tanner’s entire courtship had merely been a sham to get closer to her fame—

to use her for his cause. 

All of those loving words of heartfelt feelings and having a future of serving and traveling the world together seemed to have flown out the window now that she appeared broken. 

Now she was a just role model for his cause, but what did that mean for her heart? For their future?