A Fighting Chance (7 page)

I pull out what’s in the bag, it’s an origami unicorn. When Amelia was kidnapped, she had picked up a very similar unicorn that I had made off a bookshelf. During my three years held captive, I was given boxes of things to keep me busy. One of the books he gave me was how to make origami. I’d spend hours making the most intricate creations. Amelia hugs me, and we just hold each other while I sob uncontrollably. I never let that man get the best of me. I had placed everything that I knew that defined me in a safe place and I sheltered it so one day I could have it back. Only to have it all stepped on and crushed like a discarded cigarette by Max.

“Alright. Now that that’s out, let’s get this wedding going,” Amelia says, and walks back over to Shay. I don’t hear another word said. It doesn’t matter. In the end that man won and so did Max. Between the two of them, they stole every part of me that made me,
me
. And what’s left isn’t worth the air I breathe.

Max

Staying away all this time has killed me. I just wrapped up the case with the two men in Texas, and they will both be facing a long stint in prison. I’m relieved that I made it back in time for Adrian and Shay’s wedding. I’m also anxious to see Chloe. Chase and Levi have been giving me daily reports on Chloe’s activity. They both report that she has the same routine, work then home. They said she looks pretty bad, but I just need to see it for myself.

Adrian and Shay are getting married in the horse stable where their engagement party was, and coincidently where I made the biggest fuck up of my life and decided I needed to break things off with Chloe.

Asher and Willow make their way down the aisle, and I crane my neck to see if I can spot Chloe yet.
Come on, where are you, I just need to see you. I need peace of mind to know that you’re doing alright
. Next down the aisle are Amelia and Kyle, fuck where is she. Then comes Mia and Ava. As soon as they start walking, I spot Chloe in the doorway and my heart sinks. This is really bad. She’s so skinny her hip bones are visibly noticeable through her dress. Her eyes are dark and lifeless. When I first met her, she had that same look on her face and the same void in her eyes. But what I see today looks ten times worse.

I’ve looked at many a man with my death stare before, and they’ve all cowered and crumbled at my feet. But Chloe stares straight ahead as if I’m not even in the room. Ah, there, her eyes lock with mine and it’s me who cowers. My heart sinks. Even in the short glimpse, the pain and the anger that she showed me is far worse than I imagined. As she passes me down the aisle, I want nothing more than to get out of my seat and wrap my arms around her and take all that anguish away from her. Tell her how much I love her and what a fool I am. I can’t do that, I’d disturb the wedding. If, by looks alone I could, through some sort of telepathy, tell her everything I need to say, I would.

I don’t hear a word of the ceremony. I can’t take my eyes off of Chloe at just how utterly broken she looks. It rips my gut to shreds that it was me who did that to her.

She never looks at me again through the whole service. On her way back down the aisle, her eyes are cast downward. As soon as I can, I race from my seat to find her, but between all the guests and the wedding party taking photos, there just isn’t an opportunity to get her alone.

The guests are invited for cocktails outside the stable while the inside is prepared for the reception. I nurse a beer as my temper soars. After the beer is drained, I head back inside and take a seat. I get lost in my thoughts about just what I should do.

I can hear the stable quickly filling with guests, and even with my back turned to the door, I feel her enter the room even before I see her. Her presence is so spellbinding, and it has me so captured, that my body knows she’s close. The wedding party enters, and everyone takes their seat at the head table. Fuck this is going to be hard to talk to her with so many people, and without making a scene. Dinner is served, and I still have not taken my eyes off of her. She just pushes the food around her plate, but never takes a bite. Dinner is cleared and everyone starts dancing and having a great time. But Chloe just sits at the head table with a blank stare on her face.

I’m so angry; I have sweat pouring down my back. This shit has gone on long enough. It’s time for some drastic measures. Shay is having the father daughter dance. Her father passed away a few years ago, so the dance started with her brother, Drew. Through the whole song, every male member of the Wellington family cut in and took a turn dancing with her. These Wellington’s sure know how to cut you to the quick. I don’t think there’s a dry eye in the house. The dance ends, and I just can’t take it anymore. I get up from my table and walk with determination to the head table. This shit ends right now. I get to the table and she nervously plays with her fingers in her lap, but doesn’t look up at me. I tap my fingers on the table and still no response.

“Can I talk to you for few minutes?” I ask politely in a soft voice. Still I don’t get a response from her. I can tell this is going to be harder than I thought. But that’s alright. I deserve it.

“Can I please just talk to you outside?” I ask again a little louder. She glances up from her lap, and looks around the room, everywhere but at me. I can see her brain trying to calculate an escape. Some of the guests are now starting to look at us, wondering what’s going on. The music stops completely and now all eyes are on us. Shit, that’s not good.

“You’re making a scene. All I’m asking is for you to step outside and talk to me,” I say getting impatient. I’m starting to break out in a sweat again. Between all the unwanted attention, and Chloe ignoring me, I’m suddenly very uncomfortable. I stare in her eyes just looking for some sort of emotion, something to tell me she’s still alive in there. She takes her napkin out of her lap and tosses it in front of her, gets up and heads toward the bar without even looking at me. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!

“You’re seriously going to walk away from me?” I say, walking behind her. Oh that’s it. It’s time for some serious actions now. I walk in front of her and stop. She tries to step around me but I step in front of her again.

“Alright, we can play your little game, if that’s the way you want it,” I say with a smirk. Before I can think better of it I bend over, plant my shoulder in her stomach, and lift her over my shoulder. She kicks and screams and pounds her little fists on my back as I walk out of the stable.

“You wanted to play the hard way, you left me no choice. You will talk to me whether you like it or not,” I tell her.

As soon as we’re out the door, I swat her in the ass and say, “Knock it off and I’ll put you down.”

“Let me down or I’ll scream bloody murder,” she shouts.

“Only if you’re a good girl and hear me out,” I reply.

“Alright, just put me down.”

The second I put her down, she smacks me across the face and starts to run away. In two long strides, I grab her around the waist with ease, lift her off the ground and pull her into my body with a thud.

“NO! Let me go, you can’t do this,” she screams while digging her nails into my arms. She rakes them up my forearms while she wiggles and fights in my arms. Fuck that hurt. I carry her to my truck, throw open the passenger side door and sit her ass in the seat. She thrashes around in the seat and kicks the dash with her feet. I hold her in then slam the door closed. I make my way around to the driver’s seat watching her through the windshield the whole way. She quickly darts to the driver’s side and locks the door. Funny girl, like that’s going to stop me. I reach in my pocket, pull out the key fob, dangle it with a smirk and hit the unlock button. Instantly she locks the door again. Well, I can stand here all day and play this game if she wants.

I unlock the door again, this time with a sigh, she gives in. As I get in the truck, she tries to escape out the passenger door. I quickly lock the doors and start up the truck and speed away. Dirt and gravel go flying in the air as I speed down the driveway to the main road.

“Buckle up,” I say.

“You’re kidnapping me? Like seriously, you’re kidnapping a person who’s already been kidnapped once in her life? Are you out of your fucking mind?” she shrieks.

“Well I never thought about it that way, but if that’s what it takes then yeah, I guess I am.” I drive to a park and pull into a parking space and turn off the engine. I take a deep sigh and turn my body towards her. She crosses her arms over her chest and glares out the passenger side window.

“I’m sorry. But you left me no choice. I just didn’t know how to make you listen to me. This has gotten serious. Just look at yourself. How much weight have you lost? You’re not going to therapy, you’re not going to family dinners, and as much as I hated it, you’re not going to Deuce’s anymore, because it fucking burned to the ground. I’m worried about you.” She turns her head and gives me a dirty look. Shit! I’m attacking her when all I want is for her to listen to me so I can explain to her that I love her and why I felt like I had to do what I did and ask her to give me another chance.

I sigh. “Look, let me say what I have to say, then if you want, I’ll take you home and leave you alone.” She doesn’t make a move so I take that as an ‘I’ll listen’.

“I shouldn’t have broken up with you. I thought I was doing you a favor, and I was only thinking of myself and I made a huge mistake.” She turns her head and her eyes just about pop out of her head. Shit, that sounded really bad and not at all how I needed to explain it to her.

“Shit, that’s not what I meant to say…”

“You said what you wanted, now take me home,” she says looking back outside the passenger window.

“No, I’m an idiot, that’s not it. Look what I mean to say is…”

“If you aren’t going to take me home, you need to let me out,” she says without any emotion.

“Chloe, please look at me,” I plead one last time.

She turns her face to me and there’s just nothing there. No emotion, no sense of any of the Chloe I know and love. I can tell trying to talk to her right now will do neither of us any good. I start the truck and take her home. She gets out of the truck and doesn’t even close the door behind her. I watch her walk into her condo leaving the front door open. She walks out of her heels, drops her purse on the floor and disappears around the corner toward her bedroom. She might as well be the living dead. I get out of my truck, walk to her front door reach around inside, turn the bottom lock and close the door. I call Levi to sit at her house and leave nowhere better than I started.

Chapter 6

Chloe

Max’s reason for breaking up with me was because he thought he was doing me a favor. Well please, by all means, stop doing me favors.

I haven’t talked to Savvy in a while since the bar burned down. I can’t be in this house. I need to get away. I call her cell and hope she picks up.

“Chloe, my God it’s good to hear from you,” she says smacking that ever loving gum in between her teeth.

“Are you busy? Can we meet up somewhere?” I ask.

“Sure thing, sugar. How about the coffee shop next door to Deuce’s? Well where Deuces used to be, that is,” she says and giggles.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” I say, and hang up the phone. For the first time in a long time, I feel something in my heart other than anger and loneliness.

Savvy arrives only minutes after I do. She takes one look at me and says, “Oh, babe, what are you doing to yourself?”

“Can we not talk about me, please? I don’t want to be alone, but I don’t want to talk about me either, tell me about you. Anything. Just talk. Please.”

“Well, you don’t have to ask me twice to talk, especially about myself. Alright. Well the bar is going to be rebuilt. Gary got the insurance money and is taking bids for the job. I think Wellington Construction is one of the front runners, too,” she says and clamps her mouth closed. Ugh, the Wellingtons. They seem to have all the good fortune. That will be a nice contract for Adrian though if he gets it.

We each order coffee as she continues to talk. “I’ve been doing some thinking about going back to school, like you said. I’m not young and I really can’t afford to go full time, but I’m going to do it! I’m going to go back to school. I don’t care if it takes me ten years to get my degree and become an RN. I’m going to do it.”

“Why do you want to be a nurse?” I ask. Her eyes glaze over and she starts to pick at her coffee cup.

“I didn’t have it easy growing up. My dad was never around and my mom was real sick. She died when I was ten. After that, I was raised by my Aunt Molly, her sister. She thought of me more as a housekeeper and chef than anything else. I was her personal slave more than her niece. But she sure did love my mother. I’d often catch her staring at me with tears in her eyes, and I knew it was because I was a constant reminder of the pain of her sister’s death. I want to be a hospice nurse. My mother was very ill. She had Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis –ALS- also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, and she was placed in a hospice care facility to die. Everyone knew it was time. My Aunt couldn’t handle it. She kissed her on the cheek, said she loved her, and then left the room a complete mess. I remember my mother’s nurse like it was yesterday. I remember every word she said, and I remember everything she did for my mother. As my aunt cried hysterically out in the hallway, I stood in the doorway of my mother’s room and listened. She had been in an unresponsive state for days up until the very end. They call it terminal lucidity. It was like she woke up from a long sleep, and she was back to her old self and all better. She knew where she was and what was about to happen. My mother saw me in the doorway and called me to her side. I ran to her bedside and she held me tight with tears streaming down her face. She told me to be a good girl and to listen to Aunt Molly. She kissed me on the forehead, told me she loved me, and said she’ll always be watching over me. Then she told me to go to Aunt Molly out in the hallway and comfort her. I didn’t. I disobeyed. I stood just outside the door and listened until the very end. That nurse held my mother’s hand while she cried. My mother told her she was afraid. The nurse asked her, ‘What are you afraid of?’ My mother said, ‘I’m afraid of dying. Do you think I’m going to die now?’ The nurse answered her by asking, ‘Do you think you’re going to die now? Most of the time when people answer no, then it probably isn’t their time. But if you answer yes, it’s usually time.’”