A Stallion's Touch (13 page)

Nicholas tensed, his brother's comment feeling abrasive. He shook his head. “That's not... I can't...” He trailed off, desperate to find the words. “Harper was right. Tarah deserves better.”

“Did Tarah ever tell you that? Did she ever make you
feel
that way?”

He shook his head. “It doesn't matter. She can do better than me. I'm damaged goods!”

Noah shook an angry finger. “You are not
damaged
, and I know for a fact that Tarah never once treated you like you were. In fact, from what I saw, and what I know, Tarah has never treated you any differently from how she treated you at the ranch during Christmas. A woman who will love you like that isn't a woman you turn your back on.”

Nicholas thought about his brother's comments. He hated admitting that Noah was right. And he hated knowing that he'd made a horrible mistake.

In the distance a door slammed, and Naomi's voice suddenly echoed from the hallway. “Noah's right. You've messed up big time! If I were Tarah I wouldn't have anything to do with you.”

“I guess it's a good thing you're not Tarah,” Nicholas snapped back.

His sister moved into the room, shooting Nicholas a quick look. She turned, directing her comment at Noah. “I picked up some Chinese food from Charlie Chow's after I ran my last errand. No one's had anything to eat, and I knew neither one of us wanted to cook.”

“So, we're good?” Noah asked, his eyebrows raised. He and his sister exchanged a look, something secretive shifting between them.

Naomi nodded. “We are. I don't know about him, though,” she said, tilting her head in Nicholas's direction.

“Leave me alone, Naomi. I really don't need you giving me a hard time right now.”

“I'm not giving you a hard time, Nicholas. I'm just stating facts. You messed up and now you have to pay the piper. Isn't that how your mother used to say it?”

“Norris Jean also used to say that a hard head made for a soft ass!” Noah laughed.

Nicholas shook his head. He turned his chair so that his sister was looking at his back, his eyes shifting toward his brother. “I need to fly back to Phoenix. I need to talk to Tarah. Can I lease one of your planes, please?”

“Now he wants to talk to Tarah!” Naomi exclaimed, tossing up her hands.

Noah shook his head. “Let's all get something to eat first. Then we'll figure out your next steps.”

“Did you stop to consider that Tarah might not want you back?” Naomi interjected. “If you'd bailed on me, I know I wouldn't want you back!”

Panic suddenly washed over Nicholas's expression as he considered that Naomi might be right. “I should call her,” he said as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and pushed the programmed number for Tarah. The phone rang over and over, then went to voice mail. Tarah wasn't answering his call. He didn't bother to leave a message.

He shifted his gaze toward his brother and sister, the two eyeing him with amusement.

Naomi shook her head. “You are such a man!” she exclaimed as she exited the room.

Noah laughed. “Let's go eat,” he said.

Nicholas nodded. “I need to wash up,” he said. “Then I'll be right there.”

His brother turned to make his exit. Minutes later Nicholas was having a hard time steering himself out of the bathroom. His brother's home was not conducive to his wheelchair. Trying to maneuver his way with one good arm didn't help his situation. Frustration furrowed his brow as he struggled to back himself out of the small space.

“Do you need help?” Tarah asked, her voice sounding from the other side of the room.

Nicholas's head whipped around as he turned in his seat. “Tarah?

She stood up, slowly sauntering to where he was stuck in the doorway. “The entrance is too narrow for you to wheel yourself if you don't take it really slow.

“Move your hands out of the way,” she commanded as she rested her palms on the handles, pushing him forward slightly, then pulling him backward until his chair cleared the door. She pushed him to the center of the room and stood by the chair his brother had been sitting in earlier. The two locked gazes.

“Your electric chair would have been so much better had you stopped by the house to get it before you snuck off,” she said smugly.

“I was going to call,” he said, his voice dropping to a loud whisper.

“When? Later tonight, tomorrow, a year from now? When were you going to call to break up with me, Nicholas Stallion?” Her hands dropped to her waist, clutching the round of her hips. “Because that's what you were planning to do, right? Break up with me? So what is it? You've fallen out of love and you don't want to be with me anymore?”

“Tarah, you know that's not true.”

“Do I?” She suddenly raised her voice. “Because you left me! You left
us
, Nicholas! You actually abandoned our relationship!”

He tossed up his good hand in frustration. His one arm in a cast made the simplest gestures awkward. “I was messed up, Tarah. I wasn't thinking. But I do love you, and I know you love me.”

“But you didn't trust it. Dr. Harper fed you a line of garbage and you were suddenly ready to throw what we had away.”

“I'm sorry,” Nicholas said, regret wrapping him in a blanket of lament. “I'm so sorry.”

Tarah crossed her arms over her chest, shaking her head. “So am I, Nicholas.”

He rolled himself to her side, reaching to wrap his arm around her waist. He felt her body quiver at his touch, the heat between them rising. He pressed his face into her abdomen, inhaling her familiar aroma. “How do I make this up to you, Tarah? Because I would do anything to make this up to you!”

Tarah encircled his head and shoulders with her arms. She leaned down to kiss the top of his head. “I don't know if you can, Nicholas. I trusted you, and you should have trusted what we had.”

He looked up into her face. “So, what now?”

Tarah kissed him one last time, then stepped out of his embrace. “If you want back in this relationship with me, Nicholas, you're going to have to work for it. And I don't plan to make it easy on you,” she said. She headed toward the room's door. “I'll make arrangements for your brother to get your stuff out of my house.”

Nicholas looked stunned. “You don't want me to come back to Phoenix?”

Tarah stood staring at him for a moment. “No,” she said finally. “You don't deserve me.”

Chapter 12

N
icholas pushed his Chinese food around on his plate, the sesame chicken and fried rice tasting like dust. He had no appetite, his want for food barely registering on anyone's radar.

Tarah had disappeared from the family home as quickly and as quietly as she'd appeared. He had tried to chase after her, but maneuvering his wheelchair around his brother's furniture and the stairs and not being able to run had made that impossible.

His family had been of no help, his siblings sitting down to enjoy their meal as if nothing had happened. Both had actually found something funny about the whole situation.

“Did she have a taxi waiting for her or what?” Nicholas asked, shifting his gaze to his brother.

Noah swallowed his bite of orange beef and swiped his lips with a paper napkin. “No, she borrowed my car. She'll leave it at the airport, and Naomi will run me over to get it in the morning.”

“She flew in on one of your planes?”

Noah nodded. “Yes. Just like you did. Two hours from door to door.”

“I'd forgotten how pretty she is,” Naomi interjected. “Tarah is so pretty!”

“She is beautiful,” Noah agreed.

Nicholas looked from one to the other. “You two think this is funny, don't you?”

“I don't,” Noah said as he took another bite of his food.

“I think it's funny as hell!” Naomi laughed. “I can't wait to call Natalie and catch her up!”

Nicholas cut an evil eye at his sister. He turned back to Noah. “Why did you help her leave?”

“I didn't. Her brother Mason chartered her return flight. She has surgery tomorrow or something like that. Whatever it was, she insisted she needed to get back home tonight.”

Nicholas pushed himself from the table.

“Where are you going?” Naomi asked. “You didn't eat. You have to eat to keep your strength up!”

“I need to figure out how this went so far left and try to make it right.”

His sister fanned a hand at him. “That's easy. I really don't know why you men make things so difficult.”

“What do I need to do?”

“Exactly what you did to win her heart in the first place. Whatever it was that captured her attention from jump.”

Nicholas pondered the suggestion. He lifted his eyes back to his sister. “And if that doesn't work?”

Noah laughed. “Then you're going to need to figure out how to handle seeing her with another man at our family gatherings.”

* * *

Tarah slept soundly on her return flight. She knew Nicholas was safe, and that knowledge brought her immense comfort. So even though she was still heated with him, rest came easily. The trip there and back had allowed her to think long and hard about Nicholas and their relationship.

Being with him had been an abundance of firsts for her. He'd been the first to break down her reservations, allowing her to trust that she could be vulnerable with a man and it would be okay. He'd been the first man she'd ever said
I love you
to. With Nicholas she had always seen what they could do together, never focusing on what he couldn't do because of his disability. And she had trusted him. Like she trusted her father and her brothers. Confident that he would protect her and not hurt her heart. And he was the first man she had ever gone chasing after.

Her chasing of Nicholas was why she had told him that coming back would not be easy. He would have to want her as much as she wanted him if they were ever going to find their way back to each other. He didn't deserve her making that easy for him.

It was past midnight when she finally arrived back at her home. After locking the door behind herself, she engaged the alarm system and headed straight for her bed. When the quiet became too much to bear, she turned on the sound system, flooding the house with music. Nicholas's soft jazz painted the walls with a hint of melancholy. She suddenly missed him more than she'd ever imagined. She missed his smell, his laugh, the sound of his snore when he slept well at night. And she missed his touch, his hands hot and teasing as he held her when they slept, sometimes stealing a pinch when she least expected it. How much she missed his Stallion touch. Tarah allowed herself to cry, her tears hot as they rained down the curve of her cheeks.

* * *

One week after leaving Phoenix, Nicholas began to call Tarah faithfully, his daily messages so numerous and consistent that Tarah could have set her clock by them. She smiled as she pushed the play button on the answering machine.

“Tarah, hey, it's me. I just wanted to tell you that I was thinking about you and I miss you. Are you ever going to call a brother back? Sometime soon, maybe? Okay, then. I love you, baby. I just want to know that you're well.”

Her smile widened as she pushed the save button, adding the message to all the others he'd left. After that long week of silence, Nicholas called and kept calling but Tarah had yet to pick up or return one of his phone calls.

Kamaya cut an eye at her sister as she passed Tarah a cup of coffee. “How long do you plan to make him suffer?” she asked.

Tarah shrugged, a smile lighting her face. “Trust me,” she said, “Nicholas isn't suffering that much!”

Kamaya laughed. “We were all wondering if you saw those pictures.”

Tarah took a quick sip of her brew. “Everyone saw them,” she said, referring to the tabloid photos of Nicholas and that actress from a popular prime-time ABC television show. The leading lady had been posed in his lap, one leg thrown out high, her head tossed back as she squealed with delight. It had been a good shot. The image had come from his first endorsement photo shoot since his accident. Nicholas had left twelve messages to explain it away, desperate for her to know that the leading lady hadn't meant anything to him.

Katherine set two plates of shrimp and grits in front of her daughters. “You young people play too many games. You better call that boy back before he gets tired of calling.”

Tarah laughed. “He won't get tired. Nicholas Stallion loves me.”

Her mother shook her head. “Then it's past time you
let
him. He's learned his lesson. You're not doing anything now but torturing him.”

Tarah met the look her mother was giving her. “It's not about torturing him. Nicholas needed time to himself. There was a moment, just before he fractured his arm, when I realized he was struggling. All the time we'd been spending together since his accident was great, but it hadn't given him a chance to redefine who he was as a man. He still had to discover what it would mean for him no longer to be an athlete or never to walk again. He needed to learn that his masculinity isn't exclusively located below his waist. He had issues to resolve in his head, and he couldn't do that while we were so busy trying to define who we were as a couple. I realized I had to let him go in order for him to come back and be the man I needed him to be.”

She took another deep breath, holding it briefly before letting it go. “That and I needed to get past being angry with him. Because it really hurt my heart that he left the way he did without talking to me. We can't do this if we don't talk. Good and bad. We have to be open and honest with each other. If we'd returned to the way it was, with everything going on with me at the hospital and him feeling inadequate, we might not have made it. Now I think we have a fighting chance.”

“Even with his challenges?” Kamaya asked.

“I know that whatever his future needs may be, I won't be able to fulfill them all, and I shouldn't try. We may need help, and neither one of us needs to be afraid to ask for that help. But I love him, and it scares me to think of what my life would be like
without
Nicholas more than it does to imagine being with him.”

Her mother nodded. “You never cease to amaze me, Tarah!”

“Me, too!” Kamaya chimed. “Damn, that was deep!”

“What have I told you about cussing?” Katherine admonished her, swatting a hand at her.

The sisters both laughed heartily. They continued talking until the doorbell interrupted them.

“Are you expecting someone?” Katherine asked.

Tarah shook her head. “No, ma'am.”

“I'll get it!” Kamaya shouted as she jumped to her feet and rushed to the foyer. She returned minutes later, a large bouquet of mixed orange and red freesia arranged in the prettiest vase. “Someone got flowers!” she chanted.

Katherine shook her head, chuckling warmly. “Bless his heart!”

Tarah leaned in to sniff the sweet aroma wafting off the stems. She pulled the card from the envelope and began to read, the assembly of words moving her to laugh until she had to swipe a tear from her eyes. “I told you he loves me,” she said.

Kamaya snatched the card from her sister's hand, reading the message aloud. “‘Tarah, are you ever going to cut me some slack? It's hard picking flowers for my girl from my wheelchair. My wheels keep running over the plants! Love, Nicholas.'”

Katherine moved to Tarah's side, wrapping her arms around her shoulders. “Don't you ignore that boy anymore!”

* * *

Nicholas dropped his phone against the marble counter of the center island in his kitchen. It had been a long day and he was exhausted, wanting a shower and his bed. He'd had therapy that morning, working with his team of trainers. After that he'd grabbed lunch with his brother and then had gone on to play a game of wheelchair basketball with some new friends he'd made at the rehabilitation center. They'd played hard, and he was now feeling like he'd been run over by a train.

He'd called Tarah. She still hadn't answered or returned his calls, but he took that as a good sign. He knew her well enough to understand that if she was done with him, she would have sent a message for him to stop calling altogether. There would have been no doubt about her not wanting to hear from him ever again.

Instead their siblings were having a grand time keeping them updated on each other. He knew Nathaniel kept her abreast of his progress, reporting what his new team of doctors had to say about his health. And he was certain that the one time he'd gone to dinner with his buddy after her Wimbledon win, both his sisters had rushed to share the details. He had left messages about everything else.

He'd been excited to tell her that he'd reconnected with some old college friends who were doing a great job holding him down and giving him a hand when he needed it. He'd given her a blow-by-blow of his decision to return to his penthouse apartment in Los Angeles, investing in the renovations to make it wheelchair-accessible. He'd become self-reliant and independent, loving that his paralysis was more of a footnote than the entire essay of his life experiences.

Thanks to her brothers, he knew that Tarah had filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Dr. Harper. His cousin Matthew had kept him updated, passing on the news that they expected him and the hospital to settle quietly in Tarah's favor. Dr. Harper had since accepted a teaching position abroad, not at all missed by the fifteen women who had joined Tarah in her complaint against him.

Earlier that day he'd learned that she had officially completed her surgical fellowship. She'd passed her board certification exams and had earned her unrestricted medical license. She was also being honored for her achievements in a formal ceremony taking place some weeks to come. Even with the distance between them, they had family rooting for them, and they were always rooting for each other.

An hour later, when Nicholas was settled in watching the ball game on his big screen television, the video chat line on his computer rang. His excitement was suddenly combustible as he pushed the remote to answer it. Tarah's shining face filled the oversize display.

“Hey!” he said, joy gleaming from his eyes.

“Hey, yourself,” Tara said, smiling sweetly.

“How are you?”

“It's a good day,” she answered. “Can't you hear Justin playing?”

Nicholas laughed. “I see your taste in music hasn't improved since I've been gone.”

Tarah laughed with him. “Maybe not, but I'd be willing to bet that you're still watching reality television when you think no one is looking.”

He grinned. “Some things never change.”

“And some things do,” she said. There was a moment of pause as Tarah allowed the reflections to billow between them. “Thank you for the flowers. I wanted you to know how much I appreciated them. They're beautiful.” She slid the vase into the camera's view so that he could see them.

“I miss you, Tarah,” Nicholas said softly. “I miss the hell out of you!”

Tarah's smile blossomed like the flower buds beside her, the upward curl of her lips lifting slowly. “Can I call you later?” she asked, promises gleaming from her stare.

Nicholas nodded. “If you don't, I will call you.”

* * *

In no time at all they were back on track, sharing time and space within the confines of their digital world. Tarah's schedule was still chaotic and his wasn't much better. The time they were able to video chat or talk on the phone became important to them both.

When Nicholas answered the early evening call, he was surprised to see Tarah and her friend Dana holding two babies, a third woman beaming in the background.

“Hi,” he said, confusion washing over his expression.

Dana tossed up her hand, smiling as if she'd swallowed a Cheshire cat.

“Hey! I had some special visitors today and I wanted you to say hello. They're going to be big fans one day. Nicholas Stallion, this is Oscar and this is Henry Barton. They had to come in for their checkup today, and their mother asked about you.”

The woman behind Tarah waved excitedly. “My husband and I are big fans!” she exclaimed.

Nicholas laughed. “It's a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Barton. And your boys are beautiful!”

Tarah smiled. “These two munchkins are tough, and they're doing exceptionally well.” She pressed a warm kiss to little Oscar's cheek before passing him back to his mother. The two women and the babies stepped out of the camera's view.