The Love Triangle (BWWM Romance) (3 page)

“You’re a miracle worker. I don’t know how you do it,” she said, looking at them. “They’re my own kids and sometimes I feel like I have no control.”

“It helps that I’m not here day and night. I’m a treat for them, so they listen.”

She nodded. I watched her go to her kids, ask them about their day and tell them about hers. She didn’t find a lot of time to spend with them, but she was a good mom. She had her priorities straight. I wondered if it was genetic, and why I hadn’t been able to sort out my priorities. But then again, Evelyn was almost forty. She’d had her chance to grow up.

I was thirty-one and I still felt like I was learning how this whole adult thing worked.

After supper I helped her get the two little ones to bed, and then we did the dishes.

“She’s not all bad, you know,” I said when our general conversation lulled.

“Grace?” Evelyn asked. I nodded. “She hurt you, Justin. That’s bad enough for me.”

“What if she doesn’t do it again this time? This is like a second chance. Who gets to do that, ever?”

“You’re being an idiot. You need to find someone who wants to be with you and only you. You need to find a woman you can settle down with. You can’t stay single the rest of your life hoping people like Grace find it in themselves to give you a second chance.”

I knew she was right, but that didn’t make me feel less for Grace. It didn’t change that fact that maybe, just maybe, there was a chance that this time I would be the one she ran to.

“Wouldn’t you jump for it if you got a second chance with Graham?” I asked. I’d said it softly, but she looked at me and her face had turned ashen. Her lips were slightly parted, her eyes were empty, like winter skies.

She lifted her hand and slapped me in the face before I saw her hand coming. She left a wet hand print on my cheek, suds floating in the air around my face. I watched as pain and hurt bled into her eyes, darkening the blue, and finally giving way to tears. They welled up in her eyes. She blinked and turned back to the sink before they spilled over her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That was much too far.”

She took a deep breath and blew it out with a shudder.

“This difference between Grace and Graham is the fact that Grace was a bitch and she left you for someone else because he had more money. Graham left because he was taken away from this family by a drunk driver. I’d give anything for a second chance with him. Grace, on the other hand, doesn’t deserve one.”

I nodded. I felt like an asshole for doing that to Evelyn. The words had slipped out before I’d thought about them. I’d wanted her to understand the depth of what I felt for Grace.

“Grace isn’t the problem though,” I said. “Elijah is. This is his fault. He...“

Evelyn groaned and rolled her eyes, cutting me off.

“Elijah didn’t force her to choose him. She did that. He may be a dick, but she chose him. No one held a gun to her head and made her choose. I have no respect left for that woman.”

I kept quiet. I understood where Evelyn came from. A while ago I would have thought that too. When I’d lost her to Elijah, and there was no chance that she would come back to me. But that had been before the accident. Before the memory loss. Before Elijah had proven how much of a bad guy he was.

It had been before she’d thrown herself into my arms at the hospital and cried about the fact that I was still alive. For the first time in months, I’d seen the real Grace again. The one that had been mine.

The one I wanted back.

“Let it go, Justin,” Evelyn said, and I realized she’d been looking at me. Everything I thought and felt showed on my face, it was a flaw. And she knew what I’d been thinking.

“Elijah and Grace deserve each other. They’re equally twisted, and they will only cause each other pain. Don’t let her suck you back into that. You already narrowly escaped.”

I nodded, and changed the topic. I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I didn’t want to hear what an idiot I was going to be if I tried again with her. I left the house after the other two kids got to bed as well, and I knew Evelyn would finally have a moment to relax. She hugged me at the door.

“Thanks for coming over tonight. You’re great,” she said. “I know it’s easier for you to pick up and go.”

I’d travelled a lot before Graham had died. I’d lived in a lot of places, seeing most of Texas, Nevada, Wisconsin and even as far up as Montana. I’d been in town three years, just about my limit, when Graham had died. I couldn’t leave Evelyn like that, so I’d stayed. Six years was a personal record.

But at this point I wasn’t staying for Evelyn anymore. She would hate me going, but she wouldn’t die without me. I wasn’t staying for her anymore. Her youngest was four. The worst was over.

I was staying because of Grace.

Chapter 3 - Elijah

No answers. Nothing at all. All that damn doctor kept telling me over and over again was that time would tell if she lost it all, or if it was going to come back. I’d been running after doctors since she’d woken up, and I didn’t have anything new to go by. She’d been in a coma for three days. That had been worse than this, but only just. Now that she was awake, it wasn’t like she was missing anymore, the way it had been when they’d just brought her in.

It was worse. She was stuck in the place she’d been six months ago. She didn’t know that it was me. Justin had been here, and she hadn’t known that she’d rejected him. And I hadn’t been able to get in there and wring his neck before he’d spoken to her.

They’d given her a sedative, so I couldn’t even talk to her until she woke up. Who okayed that? I was furious and no matter how much money I waved in their faces, the medical staff was stiff-necked and standoffish about it.

“Mr. Wilson, do you have a moment?” It was the attending physician. Doctor Stein.

“Yes?”

“I wanted to talk to you about Miss Davis.” He gestured to the chairs where I’d been sitting and took a seat himself. I sat down too, bouncing one leg on the ball of my foot. I’d been in a suit for almost twenty-four hours. I hadn’t had whiskey or sleep and my dress shoes pinched my toes.

“Besides her head trauma, her other injuries aren’t so serious that we need to keep her much longer than the absolute necessary for observation. Things like her black eye and lip will heal.”

“So she can come home?”

He nodded. I nodded. The black eye, the split lip, it would heal. It would all go away, and I didn’t have to be reminded that life with me could be hell. The accident had been a blessing and a curse all in one. They didn’t know because anything could happen in an accident. She didn’t know, either. No one remembered what I’d done except me.

But she didn’t remember how much she loved me, either. She didn’t know that she’d told Jason to back off because she wanted a life with me.

“Good. That’s good,” I finally said.

“The nature of her injuries is going to make it hard. I take it she’s going to go home with you?”

I nodded again. At home, in my bed, that was where she belonged. “I can take care of her.”

The doctor nodded. I scrutinized his face, tried to see what was going on under that mask he wore, but he was professional and nothing showed. He gave me nothing other than facts.

“She’s going to struggle. Confusion, headaches, mood swings, it’s all part of it. We’re going to prepare her, tell her what she needs to know, but you need to know that as well if you’re going to be looking after her. It can be very disconcerting. It’s going to feel like a personality change for a while.”

“For how long?” I asked.

“It’s impossible to say. It could be a few days, a few weeks, months. It depends on how quickly her memories return, and if they return at all.”

I nodded, leaned my elbows on my knees, laced my fingers through each other. Nurses shuffled past, on their way to other patients. I could see through the crack of her door, see the blanket tent over her feet. She hadn’t moved in a while.

“It’s very important that you keep her stable. If she suffers a blow to the head in any way now, it might be exponentially worse for her. She needs to be very careful. She might have dizzy spells, and she’ll need someone to watch her.”

“I’ll get her a nurse,” I said. “Anything she needs. Money isn’t an object.”

“Yes, you mentioned that,” Doctor Stein said. I’d made it clear that I could pay for everything she needed and the best of it the moment they wheeled her through the emergency doors. The doctor stood and glanced at his clipboard then his wristwatch.

“If she’s stable tomorrow, we can send her home the day after. We’ll see how things go.”

I nodded again. Agree, that’s what I had to do. Agree with everyone, no friction, until I could get her out of here. They’d been quick to get me out of her room when I’d gotten angry the first time, just after she’d woken up.

But she asked for Justin. I’d been there with her every moment since the accident, since they’d pried her body from the twisted heap of metal, and she’d wanted him when she’d opened her eyes. I felt like I could break something and they’d removed me. So it was easy. No temper until she was mine again. No anger around here because they were going to take me away from her. And we couldn’t have that. I couldn’t lose her, not now. It had been so close before.

I stood up and went to the door, opened it a bit more so that I could see her face. Her eye wasn’t as swollen as it had been the first day, but the purple spread across her cheek bone and around to her temple. The cut in her lip was just a thin line of dried blood now. Not so swollen and puffy. I sighed and turned around.

Justin walked down the corridor toward the room. The hell he was getting in to see her again.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. He looked at me and his eyes were tired. His hair was loose, irritating.

“I just wanted to make sure she’s okay,” he said. His voice was weary.

“She’s fine. She’s sleeping. Doctor says she can leave soon.”

He nodded slowly, glanced at the crack in the door. I grabbed the handle and pulled the door closed so that he couldn’t see her. Not even her feet. She was mine.

“I’d like to talk to her when she wakes up,” he said.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. They gave her a pretty strong sedative after you left the last time. She was pretty upset. I don’t want her going through that again. She’s been through enough as it is.”

“I’m sure she has,” Justin said, and it rubbed me the wrong way.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, stepping closer to him. He was a lot taller than me, but I didn’t have to be tall to be dominant.

“She was in an accident. She has amnesia. It’s a lot,” Justin said, and I felt the tension ease out of my shoulders. I was overreacting. I nodded and took a step back. Agree, that was what I’d decided. Keep it calm. As soon as she was out of here, I could relax.

“Is she going home with you?” Justin asked.

“Who else would she go with? She needs someone to look after her.”

“I don’t think she should go home with you, though,” he said and I could feel myself getting angry again. It was like an itch in my chest that I couldn’t scratch. I swallowed hard and focused on not balling my fists. I was way too uptight. Calm, I had to be calm.

“She needs to be in an environment she knows. One of the nurses told me it’s the easiest way for her to regain her memories, if she falls back into her old routine.”

“I just don’t think she’d be safe in the environment she knows,” he said. He took a step back the moment he said it, like he knew I’d want to hook him for it. A nurse shuffled past and I glared at her for being there when I wanted to break this guy’s nose. Instead I clenched my jaw and counted to ten. When I trusted myself to speak, I forced my voice to stay low.

“She’s going to be just fine. Thank you for stopping by. We have it under control.”

Justin looked like he wanted to say something, but instead he just nodded, backed up a couple of steps like he didn’t think it was wise to turn his back on me and then he walked away. Good man.

I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. I would straighten this out in the morning.

Morning came, and with the first rays that fell in through the crack in the curtains in stripes across her bed, she woke up. A part of me was relieved. Since the accident, I’d been scared something would go wrong. Scared that she wouldn’t ever remember the choices she’d made, which man she’d ended up with.