Miles From Kara (9 page)

Colt jumped out of the driver's seat and came to my side. “What can I do?”

Maggie's body relaxed, and I knew the contraction had stopped. She peered up at Colt, her eyes suddenly wide. “No. No, no, no. I can't have some hot guy seeing me like this.” Her gaze returned to mine. “You didn't tell me your friend was hot.” She started crying again, and I pulled her toward the 4Runner.

“Don't worry. He's not that hot,” I said, shooting Colt a wink as I helped Maggie into the backseat, then ran around and slid into the seat beside her. “Just pretend he's not here. It's just you and me and that little baby of yours.”

At the mention of her daughter, she started crying again. “I haven't decided yet. I can't have this baby yet. I still don't know what to do.”

I nodded and brushed her hair off her face, then pulled a tissue from my bag and wiped away the tears from her face. “You won't have to decide that today. Okay? One step at a time. Let's get you to the hospital first and then we'll go from there.”

It took an excruciating amount of time to make it to East Cooper hospital, where Maggie planned to deliver, and after two more contractions and lots of screaming from Maggie, we managed to get her to the Labor and Delivery floor. But because I wasn't family, they wouldn't allow me to go back with her without a family member present to consent.

I sat down beside Colt in the waiting room after calling Maggie's dad—again. The sudden weight of everything I'd just been through and what Maggie might be experiencing came over me like a tidal wave. I placed my head in my hands, and then before I could conjure up enough strength to push back my tears, I began to sob into my hands.

Colt reached over to put his arm around me, and then I felt myself being picked up. He placed me in his lap and tucked my head into the curve of his neck, allowing me to cry a lifetime's worth of tears into his chest while he whispered comforting words over and over.

The days after my abortion began to play out in my mind. The fight with Preston. My parents' refusal to speak to me. The visit from our pastor and the excruciating hour-long chat about the importance of virtue and the need to ask forgiveness for my sins. Sins, plural. Sex and the abortion.
Premarital sex and murder,
he had all but blatantly said.

“What can I do?” Colt finally asked, bringing me back to the moment.

I shook my head. “Nothing. There's nothing either of us can do.” The weight of those words made me cry harder. Maggie was in there, too young to be enduring this alone, yet she was alone. Very much alone. I felt an empathy for her I had never felt for anyone in my life.

“This is the very reason why I questioned majoring in psychology in the first place. This . . . It . . . How in the world can I do this day in and day out and not fall apart all the time?” I looked at him, and if I weren't on the verge of crying again, I would have laughed.

“Um, I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“You know, the getting too involved thing. I mean, I'm a volunteer counselor! All right, I get college credit and all, but still. This”—I motioned around the hospital—“is not part of the job description. And what happens when I'm working full-time at a center like this, having random people come in all the time that I might never see again? I will worry myself sick over them. I know it!” I dropped my head back into my hands. “I'm so in over my head here.”

Colt drew a breath, buying time, like he wanted to work through his response before saying it. “I think you're putting too much pressure on yourself. You're human. By nature we get too attached. I think that's also one of the things that make you so amazing. You are unabashedly you. But you need to realize, too, that we're just starting our college years. You don't have to know what you will do just yet. You don't have to become a counselor at a nonprofit center. There are other fields in psychology that could be perfect for you.”

I thought of Rose, of how effortlessly she worked her magic—even on me. Maybe Colt was right. Maybe a one-on-one setting would be better for me, even something at a hospital like this. I turned to him, wishing more than anything that I could kiss him. “Thank you. I like having you around,” I said, again unable to hide my true thoughts from him.

He smiled. “I hope you'll allow me to stay here a little longer.”

My heart did a little dance, and I rested my head on his shoulder, allowing his strength to hold me up for a while. Finally, after day had turned into night, I pulled away and peered around for a clock. Before I could find one, a middle-aged man with dark brown hair sprinkled with gray walked over to me. He stopped just in front of Colt and me, rocking back on his heels uncomfortably.

“I'm sorry, I . . . The person at the front desk said you brought my daughter Maggie here?”

I stood up, anger ripping through me, but I tried to keep my voice even. “You're Maggie's father? Where have you been? We've been here for hours and she's been back there all by herself. They wouldn't let me go back with her. They won't tell me anything. She's all alone and you just left her here. How can you even stand there and look at me like that, when you've left your little girl alone for all this time.”

Colt stood behind me and pulled me against him. I closed my eyes to keep myself from saying more, and when I looked up there were tears in the man's eyes.

He shook his head. “Look, you're right and I'm sorry. No one can tell you how hard this is. Being a parent. They don't tell you how sometimes it feels like you could break from the worry. And sometimes, it gets so intense, you just . . .” He shook his head again. “I didn't mean to leave her,” he said, tears now streaming down his face. “I don't want to leave her. I don't want to be a bad father.”

I swallowed through the thickness in my throat. “Then don't be. She loves you. And she needs you right now. I can't imagine how hard this is for you, but try to remember that it's even harder for her.”

He nodded, his body jerking as he fought back a sob. “I'm going to go check on her now. I'll come back and tell you how she is and see if I can get you back there to see her. If you'd like?”

Tears pricked at my eyes, this time from relief. “Yes. I'd love that.”

Her dad disappeared through the Labor and Delivery doors, and I slumped back into my original chair, exhausted in every way, but also petrified of what I was about to learn. Had Maggie gone into early labor? Was she okay? Was the baby? Or was this all a false alarm, as I'd hoped? The worry was enough to make me understand, if only for a moment, why Maggie's dad had checked out. It was hard to process this much worry. But still, she deserved to have a father who was there. Hopefully after this scare, he would be from now on.

Colt reached over and took my hand, gently moving his thumb back and forth over my palm, but he never said a word. We sat like that for another half hour before Maggie's dad came back out, worry lines etched into his face. I stood up quickly as he started over.

“She's okay,” he said. “She went into early labor, but they gave her some fluids and are prescribing some medication to stop the contractions. She's better now. She wants to see you.”

I reached around for my bag and then wrapped my arms around Colt. “Thank you so much. I don't know . . .”

“I'm here. I'll be here when you return. Take your time.”

I pulled away to look at him, at a loss for words. No one had ever been so selflessly there for me. I rose onto my toes and kissed his cheek, wishing I could do or say more to let him know how thankful I was for him. He smiled down at me. “I'm fine, Kara. Go.” I nodded to him and then followed Maggie's dad through the doors and down the hall to Maggie's room.

“I'm Clark, by the way. Maggie tells me you're Kara. That you work at a counseling center? I didn't even know she was going there.”

“I think you'd learn a lot about what she's going through if you'd ask her. She's afraid. And she's thinking of giving the baby up for adoption. She said you want her to do it.”

Clark stopped walking. “What?”

My eyebrows threaded together. “She said you kicked her out.”

“I would never. I love her. I just have no idea how to deal with any of this. Her mother . . .” He swallowed. “She was the one good at this stuff. The girl stuff. She was . . . Anyway, Maggie and I got in an argument about school. She said she wanted to drop out now, and I said absolutely not. Well, it ended with my saying if she's going to live in my house, she will abide by my rules. I guess she took that as my kicking her out. I would never abandon my daughter.”

I wanted to tell him that he had abandoned her. That she just wanted him to reach out, to give her a hug, to tell her that everything would be okay. To be a freaking dad. But clearly I didn't know the full story, and I didn't want to make any more assumptions. “She's very torn about what to do, but she could use your guidance and support, either way.”

He nodded slowly and then directed me farther down the hall and to the left, to Maggie's room. When I pushed through the doors, she had her eyes closed, and I tried to quietly make my way to her side, but she woke up quickly.

“Kara,” she said, her voice filled with relief.

“Hey there,” I said, reaching for her hand. “You gave me a scare. How are you feeling?” The sounds of a monitor beeping drew my attention and Maggie smiled.

“That's her. Addie. That's her heartbeat. She sounds strong, doesn't she?”

I clamped my mouth shut to keep from crying and nodded to Maggie. “She does, but I'm not surprised. She has a strong mommy.”

Maggie smiled. “They said I'm having early labor symptoms. They're giving me something to stop the contractions. I was worried about what the drugs could do to my baby, but they say it's better to let her cook a little longer.” Her smile became a laugh, and I wondered if whatever they gave her also made her loopy. “Cook. Isn't that the silliest way of describing it?”

I grinned back. “I guess she's like a little chicken, and she just isn't quite done, yet.”

Maggie leaned back into her pillow, her eyes closing. “I'm tired. I'm so tired.”

I stood up and ran my hand easily over her forehead and down her hair. “Then rest. I'll stay here with you.” I thought of Colt waiting for me outside, how he had said the very same words to me. Somehow along the way, I had become Maggie's support system . . . and he had become mine.

She peeked over at me. “Do you promise?”

“I promise. Now sleep.”

And she did.

I pushed out of the ER doors, exhausted, but relieved that Maggie was doing better. Clark, her dad, agreed to take her home, and I gave Maggie my cell phone number to call me if she needed anything, which was perhaps against every single rule at Helping Hands, but I did it all the same. Some rules were meant to be broken.

Colt stood as soon as he saw me and walked over, pulling me to him. “Are you okay?” I nodded. “Is she?” I nodded again and he released a breath.

I smiled at his obvious care and linked my fingers with his. “Do you think you could take me back to Charleston Haven instead of to my car? I don't feel like driving. I can just ask Olivia to take me to get it tomorrow.”

“Of course.”

We rode the entire way in silence, no radio, no talking, just the sounds on the streets and our breathing to keep us company. It was three in the morning now, and I was starving, but I didn't know if I could actually eat. All I knew was that I didn't want to be alone.

Colt veered off before our normal turn, and I peered over at him, my eyebrows raised. “There's a twenty-four-hour Macca's over here. Junk for sure, but you've got to be starving.”

I smiled a little. “Macca's?”

“Er, yeah. McDonald's?”

My grin spread. “Ah. Yeah, let's go there. Thank you. How many times am I going to say that today?”

He peered over at me. “You were amazing back there. Truly. Not just anyone could stay cool in a situation like that. It was—you are—amazing.”

I smiled again. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

Colt gave my order, and then far too quickly, we were outside my apartment. “So this is you. Let me walk you inside.”

“No, it's fine,” I said, but my voice gave me away. I didn't want him to leave.

We walked up the steps to Olivia and my apartment, and he tucked his hands in his pockets as I unlocked the door. I turned back around and eyed the ground before returning my attention to him. My heartbeat began to pick up, my mind swarming with a thousand different things I wanted to say, but didn't know how. I opened my mouth and then swallowed hard, trying again. “I don't know what we are or where this is going or even if it is a thing at all, but what I do know is that I don't want to be alone tonight.”

Colt took a step toward me, his body heat radiating off him. His eyes dropped down to mine, fixing me to the spot. “Kara . . . are you asking me to stay?”

“No,” I said, all the walls around me crumbling down. “I'm begging you.”

And then, before I could say another word, his lips were on mine and his hands were around me, pulling me to him. The kiss was nothing like the one at the beach. The beach was fast and sweet. A taste of what was to come.

This . . . this kiss was powerful and intense and full of deep, dark emotions that we'd yet to explore. His tongue slipped across the seam of my mouth and then inside, raking over my tongue in a delicious swirl that had me panting for more. I clung to him, like he was my lifeline, overwhelmed by everything he'd shown me today. His care for Maggie, a stranger. His refusal to leave me. And I knew I couldn't deny how much I wanted him any longer. Colt was in me, in my mind, in my heart, and I didn't want him to leave.

I wanted him to stay. I
needed
him to stay.

I reached behind me for the doorknob, my eyes on his, and then I was pushing through the threshold and waiting for him to follow, all my hesitation remaining outside.

I eyed the family room, curious if Preston and Olivia were there, but the apartment was empty, dark. I flipped on the light switch in the kitchen and leaned against the counter, comforted that he was there with me. I scooted onto a barstool and spread out my cheeseburger and French fries, careful to keep them from touching, then began my routine of squeezing ketchup onto the cheeseburger wrapper, again careful to keep it from touching the burger or fries.

“You're a little on the crazy side, aren't you?” Colt said, edging closer.

I peered down at my makeshift plate and grinned. “I get it from my mom. She used to say that food tasted better when tasted alone, and somehow the sentiment stuck. She always accuses me of being obsessive. Little does she realize that she's the one who made me that way.”

“I think it's cute.” Another step. “So are you going to tell me what happened back there?”

I kept my eyes on my fries. “What do you mean?” I knew exactly what he meant, but I didn't want to go there. Not yet. We were finally moving toward something here and I didn't want to mess it up.

“I think you know.”

I chewed extra slowly, and then took a drink from my Coke and placed it back on the counter. “She's a regular at the center. I just wanted to make sure she was okay.”

Colt slipped onto the barstool beside me, his legs out wide so I was sitting between them, making it even harder for me to concentrate on hiding my emotions from him. Somehow Colt brought out the real me. “And . . .”

“And what?” I asked.

“You weren't treating her like a regular at the center. You were treating her like she was your sister. Like family.”

“Well, you heard her piece-of-shit dad. She lost her mom, and her dad checked out. I had to step in. I had to.”

“So that was it? You were being kind, nothing more?”

“What the hell do you want me to say?” I asked, growing angry. What did he want from me? We'd already discussed my fear of growing too attached. He knew that was exactly what had happened, so why was he forcing me to say it out loud? Or was this about something else? Again, I wondered if Ethan had told him my secret.

He released a breath. “I want you to trust me enough to tell me the truth.”

My eyes dropped back down, my moment of anger suddenly replaced with sadness. “Maybe I want to trust you, too.”

“Have I ever told you how my mum died?”

I looked up, surprised at the change in conversation. “No, you haven't.”

“She developed breast cancer years ago and had gone through chemo, but then the cancer came back. There was another round of chemo, and then more cancer, and more chemo, and then finally, she refused to be treated. She had lost all her hair and was sick almost always and she had no one there to give her the strength to keep going. I was an angry kid and Dad was long gone. And then suddenly . . . so was she.” His voice had dropped to almost a whisper, and the intense emotion in his eyes, coupled with the pain in his voice, was too much for me. I stood up between his legs and wrapped my arms around him. “I'm sorry.”

“Me, too,” he said into my hair. “I'm not trying to push you. I just want you to know that I know pain, too. I know sadness. I know how it can cling to you, unwilling to let up. You don't have to walk through that alone. Whatever Maggie is to you, whatever memory she conjures, you don't have to face it alone. I want to be here.”

I pulled away to look at him. This was it, the moment when I either took the step toward a trusting, healthy relationship . . . or I shut down, giving up on us before we'd officially even started. I didn't want to back down, not with Colt. He deserved to have the whole me, the good and the bad. I swallowed hard to give me the strength I needed and then said, “I had an abortion in high school. I was Maggie's age, so I guess I feel like she made the decision I wasn't brave enough to make.” My bottom lip shook, so I bit down on it, hoping to steady it.

“Then what happened?”

I looked at him. I always assumed when I told him he would fixate on the abortion itself, but I had underestimated him. I'd underestimated him in a lot of ways. “Next?” My mind drifted back to Mom's face when I told her. It was the single hardest thing I'd ever said in my life. I couldn't get the words out, and she became furious, screaming for me to spill it already. She rushed me because she had to get to the office, because she had a patient waiting—she always had a patient waiting. I finally found the words, and as soon as they were out, I saw that I had said the one thing my mother had dreaded the most. The one thing that disappointed her the most.

I reached for my wrist, feeling the pressure of her nails even now, impressions that would stay in arced slices across my wrist for the rest of the day. I couldn't stop crying. There was no stop to that type of crying. I was petrified, maybe more of my mom than of the pregnancy itself. And then she told me we would be aborting it.
We
. I had felt sad and relieved in equal parts. My life could continue without missing a beat. Nothing would change. Preston would be fine with it. He would feel only relief. I was sure of it.

But then I told him, and suddenly I knew there was something far worse than the fear I'd felt when I told my mom. Because Preston was more than my boyfriend. He was my best friend and had been my entire life. And because I made that decision without him, he hated me. I could see it in his eyes. His face had changed from concern to complete and utter hate faster than I could finish telling him the truth. Suddenly the real truth—that I was forced into it—no longer mattered. I knew what he would say. That I was in control of the situation. I could have said no. I could have fought for our child . . . but I didn't.

“You don't have to tell me, Kara.”

“I want to.” I drew a long breath, and then began to tell him my story. The story only a few people knew.

I talked for an hour, standing there between his legs, his face unchanging, until I mentioned Preston, and then his eyes snapped into focus. “Preston? You mean . . . ?”

I nodded. “Yeah, that Preston.”

I could tell by his expression that of everything I'd told him, that fact was the hardest to digest, but he said nothing.

“We aren't anything now,” I added, though he hadn't asked.

“All right.”

“Really?”

“Kara, we all have a past. Some more involved than others, but we all do. Preston is part of yours. That's all right.”

My eyebrows drew together. “How do you do that?”

“What?”

“Push aside the stuff that should bother you. Does anything bother you?”

He laughed. “Plenty of things bother me. But after my mum died, I decided not to live my life by those rules. I decide what rattles me. No one else. I have no idea if I have fifty years left or fifty days or fifty minutes. I refuse to live my life angry.”

I hesitated. I didn't want to test his life-without-anger sentiment, but surely he saw the irony in his words. “But, Colt . . . what about your dad?”

He instantly tensed, and I wondered if I touched on the one exception to his life-of-happiness rule. “My dad had affair after affair when I was little. My mum would forgive him, they would seek counseling, and then he'd do it all over again. Finally he left her, and I spent years resenting her for staying for so long, for belittling herself. It wasn't until after she died that I realized she'd stayed for me. She wanted me to have what she had—a loving set of parents who worked together to create a family unit. Instead, she carried the weight alone. It isn't that I'm angry with my dad. It's that he's nothing to me. Less than nothing.”

I nodded slowly, though I didn't believe him. I could see the anger in his face. “Do you think he's a better person now?”

Colt shrugged. “I doubt it, but I wouldn't really know. I only see him when I must, which is practically never.” He hesitated, then glanced up at me. “Anyway, when are you going to tell Preston that your mum forced you to have the abortion? I think that'd change his opinion on things.”

“I don't think it matters now. We've moved past it.”

“Are you sure? I don't know the bloke that well, but it isn't something I could move past. Even if I said I had. I think he'd like to know the whole story. I'd want to know.”

I tried to stifle a yawn and failed, exhaustion catching up with me.

Colt's eyes fixed on mine, and then moved to a strand of my hair that had fallen loose from my ponytail. He reached out and gripped it loosely between his fingertips, then delicately tucked it behind my ear, his gaze returning to mine. “I'm sorry for what you've been through.”

“I'm sorry for what you've been through,” I whispered back.

He stood up, his body flush against mine. “We're the same, you know. Broken, but strong. Misunderstood, but hopeful. You . . . you make me want things I haven't wanted in a long time.”

I drew a shaky breath, my heart picking up speed. “What sort of things?”

He leaned down until his lips touched mine. “This.” And then his mouth moved to my neck and he trailed his breath and lips up to my ear before reaching the soft spot just behind my earlobe, sending a surge of goose bumps across my flesh. “And this.” He pressed his lips against my skin, and I thought my body would ignite in flames. We were connected, through our pain, through our desire, through some cosmic pull that made me want to be wherever he was.

I reached for his hand and started for my room, when he stopped me.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I want to sleep with you. I want to hold you in my arms and hear your breathing slow, feel your body relax against mine. But I don't want to have sex with you.”

Instantly my body became torn between relief and sadness, a familiar feeling that made my insides recoil. “Why?”

He stepped closer. “You're not ready for us to go there.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but he placed his fingertips over my lips. “I know what you're going to say. And I agree with you. You're strong. You can do whatever the hell you want. But just because you can doesn't mean you should.”

My eyes fell and my cheeks began to burn. I felt like a fool, leading him into my bed, ready to do whatever it was I did, but the truth was that person wasn't me and he deserved better. I swallowed hard and then reached for his hand again, which I had dropped away in my shock.