My Heart Can't Tell You No (37 page)

This time she felt more than the palm of his hand as his fist came in contact with her face. The rotten son-of-a-bitch! Her head flew back and cracked into the passenger’s window. She couldn’t even defend herself, because he was driving the car.

“Never say that!!”

The car swerved again, this time crossing over the other lane, the front of the car smashing head-on into the concrete wall of a bridge abutment with the sound of a loud explosion. Maddie woke only once, looking through a red haze covering her eyes. She heard Lew’s voice somewhere. He sounded so frightened. She had never heard him sound frightened in her life. She saw Bob. The steering wheel was too close to him. They should push the seat back, he must be uncomfortable. He was looking at her, his hand grasping hers, but it felt odd, sticky and wet.
Jackie
? Jackie was screaming—he was crying. She had better go and see what was wrong. She hoped it wasn’t another skinned knee. He was forever tearing them open. There, Lew was talking to him. Jackie must not be too bad. Laugh Lew, chase the tears away. Tell him about Bruno the Christmas Elf. Why wasn’t Bob talking to her? He always talked to her. He was her best friend. She tried to ask him what was wrong, but nothing came out. She tried again, but the red haze slowly turned to blackness.

July 1984

She hadn’t noticed Joe kneeling next to her chair until she felt his hand cover hers. She was about to jerk it away until she saw the concern in his eyes.

“You okay?” he asked softly, only for her to hear.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Just thinking of Bob,” she said before she could stop.

Joe stood up and gazed down at her, the concern gone as he moved across the room. “I’ll be back, Lew. I need a cigarette.”

Joe went to the first floor where he went out the front of the building to sit in the shade and smoke his cigarette. He needed to get out of the hospital more than he needed a smoke. That hospital held vile memories for him, memories that exploded through his mind as he passed those elevators in the damn basement on their way to Lew’s pavilion.

CHAPTER XVIII
 

December 17, 1980

J
oe had been working double shifts since the flood. He had a need to keep busy, more than the need of money. He spent evenings usually alone. He didn’t want to go out, yet he abhorred the loneliness that surrounded him like a gray shadow in his apartment during the evenings. Years earlier, he had tried socializing after he had first found that Maddie had married, but he had known he wouldn’t allow himself to find anything more than a casual affair. Most of the women he’d been with since then weren’t interested in anything permanent either. The few who were didn’t stick around long. He smiled with wry amusement when he remembered that their complaints were the same as Lena’s, except with Lena it wasn’t a complaint so much as something to taunt him with. The inevitability of waking up and looking into some woman’s eyes, seeing the pain he had caused—and always the first question,
Who
is
Maddie?
Some didn’t show their pain until after he answered. Those were the ones unfamiliar with the name, who asked
What
is
a
Maddie?
Usually after that, his temper would rise and he’d tell them exactly what a Maddie was—or what a Maddie used to be. He still couldn’t understand why Maddie turned on him—all he ever wanted was to give her everything. And she had thrown it back at him that day when he had first learned of her marriage.

He remembered that when he went back to his father’s house during the flood, he hadn’t expected to run into Maddie. He had only intended to visit Mom and Jack, and maybe stop to see John, then try to make it back over the river. But once he got there and found that Mom wasn’t home from work, his concern for her had kept him there, feeling every bit as much her son as Tom and John. When he had heard Bob’s voice in the kitchen, his anger had surfaced. He had risen to his feet, his anger seething, but wanting more than anything to see her face. He was stopped when the little boy had run into him, bouncing off his legs; the little boy he had felt kick in Maddie’s womb, wanting so much for the baby to be his child; the little boy sitting on the floor looking at him with a trace of fright in his curious eyes.

He looked at him a long time, looking for traces of Maddie or Bob, but there wasn’t one feature that didn’t resemble John. Except the eyes. John’s were blue and the boy’s were brown like Maddie’s; maybe a little lighter.

The sight of Maddie made him want to reach out and pull her against him. He wanted to hug her until he knew she couldn’t go away, and he had become angry with himself when he realized it. He had turned his anger on her to protect himself.

He remembered his anger at her bullheadedness when he saw her at the bridge with them, and the fear that blazed through him when the bridge tossed them around like dolls, and he couldn’t find her immediately in the water’s depths. When she fell through the smaller bridge that he had pushed her toward, he could have died himself for putting her in that situation. His anger at himself and his fear for her had made him pull her into his arms, telling her before he could stop himself that he loved her and would have died if anything had happened to her. But she had pulled away and started walking again.

He had tried to stay away from her that first night. He hadn’t wanted to make her do anything she didn’t want to do. He had even tried to stay angry at her, but it was a lot easier during those years when he didn’t have to look at her than it was in that house, seeing her feeling helpless and alone; seeing her aching to have her son again, an ache he never saw leave her except when they were making love. That was when she had made him believe he was the only man in the world. He would have slept alone in her parents’ old bedroom if she hadn’t awakened him by calling his name. At first he had thought it was a dream, then he had vaulted from the bed, thinking somehow that she had gone outside and become caught up in the water. When she called again, first his name, then Jackie’s, he had realized she was having a nightmare. He only wanted to calm her, to tell her everything was all right, but the touch of her hands on his skin made his soothing go too far. And when she wanted him to make love to her, he knew he couldn’t hold back. He needed her. He had needed her for seven years; he couldn’t stop.

He still felt the odd stabbing in his chest when he remembered how she had asked him to make love to her that first night of the flood, how she had enjoyed it. Giving him everything, she had even made him believe that, once they got out of that house, she’d stay with him. She hadn’t denied she was his, that she belonged with him. And then later, when they made love, how she had told him she loved him. More than once; many times, she had told him. But since then he had come to realize she wasn’t even aware of saying those words to him. The way she ran into Bob’s arms when he got there had torn Joe’s heart apart. How she had stood and watched her husband come after him, not caring enough to try to stop him. The about-face had shredded him.

So within the past six months he had spent most of his extra time at work, whenever they could give him overtime. He enjoyed being overworked. It let him sleep at night.

He looked at the calendar. The date meant something to him, but the realization didn’t come to him immediately. Then he remembered it was Mom’s birthday. He tried to calculate her exact age, remembering she was twenty-two years older than he was, so that meant she had turned fifty-three today. He’d have to go down to see her soon. He missed her. He went to sleep early that night, still tired from the double shift the day before, but sometime during his first few hours of sleep, he jerked awake. He was sweating even though the temperature outside read ten degrees. He felt nauseous. He was going to be sick. He ran into the bathroom, vomiting in spasms—his mind on Maddie. Something was wrong.

By dawn he hadn’t slept more than two hours since returning to bed. He rose and called the hangar to report off work, then got dressed. Within half an hour the eerie nagging that something was wrong drove him back to his hometown. It was nearly eight o’clock when he pulled into the Baker driveway. Zipping his coat closed as he opened the door to his truck, he hurried through the frigid wind to get onto the porch. A light in the kitchen told him someone was awake as he knocked then pushed the door open. Jack Baker sat at the table, holding his grandson in his arms. The boy was asleep, but his small body jerked in fright before he released a sob then went back to a deep sleep. Jack looked up at him, a fatigue around his eyes and something else that told Joe his suspicions were correct.

“You heard. Did John and Tom call you?” Jack’s voice was very distant and emotionless.

“No. What happened, Jack?”

“Car wreck. Maddie’s in intensive care—so’s the baby.”

“Intensive care? Baby? What baby?”

“She was pregnant. Seven months. They had to take the baby early. They say she doesn’t know she has another son yet, doesn’t even know she had the baby yet. Probably won’t know for days. If she finds out at all. Sarah and the boys are with her now.”

“How did it happen?” Joe felt ill again, but he swallowed hard, knowing he needed to remain strong.

“Bob was drunk again. Smashed head-on into a bridge abutment.”

“Again? He drinks a lot?”

Jack paused, not knowing how to answer him. Jack had been a heavy drinker himself; his admission told Joe the extremity of Bob’s drinking. “I’d say he was an alcoholic.”

“Was he in the accident to?” Joe nodded toward the boy.

“Yeah. He was strapped in the back seat though. He didn’t get hurt. Just scared.”

“Is Maddie in town, or in the hospital up the road?”

“Up the road.” Jack indicated the hospital fifteen miles northeast of them; a trauma center.

Joe was back out the door in an instant, rushing to his truck then over back roads that gave him a shortcut of about five miles from the route that would take him through their town. His mind raced as he pulled into the huge parking lot. His most intense thought was to find Bob and beat him half to death. His feet carried him over the paved area to the basement entrance. Once inside, he took the first elevator to the top floor.

“Joe?” John called from a large waiting room as Joe came down the hall, turning his attention into the room where he found Tom and Beth as well. All three were smoking heavily as they either paced the floor or sat in a slump.

“Where’s Mom?” His eyes moved quickly around the room.

“In with Maddie. She’s the only one allowed to stay with her longer than the regular fifteen minutes.”

“The only one? You mean Bob isn’t in there with her? Is he down with the baby?”

“No. Nobody can see the baby yet. Maybe later this afternoon. They’re not sure yet.” John spoke hesitantly.

“Then where in the hell is he?!”

“Joe. Bob’s dead. He died almost instantly. Lew was driving right behind them last night. By the time he got to the car, Bob was almost dead. He said Bob only lived long enough to reach for Maddie and say he was sorry. There was too much bleeding. He was dead within five minutes.”

“Bob’s dead?” Joe’s voice was weak. His anger and jealousy were blown away as he remembered five boys running across fields and country roads, forever smiling and laughing, loving one another like brothers until a small premature baby entered their lives. A comradery that had held those boys in a brotherhood that left their destinies intertwined. Five boys, now only three men. “Too much bleeding?”

“Sit down, Joe.” John put his hand on his arm, guiding him to a seat next to Beth. “Get him some water,” he told his wife then looked back at Joe. “It was a head-on into solid concrete. The steering wheel crushed his chest. He was pinned there. Maddie was luckier; when they hit, it jolted her across the seat, brought her legs up, otherwise her legs would have been crushed. Lew just reached in the broken window on Bob’s side, wound down the rear window, and pulled Jackie out. He wasn’t hurt, but he saw Bob and Maddie. Lew tried to keep him from seeing them, but he couldn’t help it as he was pulling him out.”

“He was in a seat belt.” It was an expressionless statement before Joe moved his eyes back up to John’s face. “What about Maddie? What were her injuries?”

“A lot of internal bleeding, possibly a ruptured spleen. She has a concussion, they had to stitch her up along the hairline. She must have really been tossed around because her head got it from all directions. She nearly broke her jaw. Plus the baby coming. They said it would be a few hours before they can tell one way or the other.”

“They said that when I left for coffee.” Lew entered the room with a carton holding four cups of steaming brew.

“What took so long?” Beth reached for the containers from him, passing one to each of the Bakers, then handing one to Joe. “Here, take mine. I’ll get one later. Lew, it took you almost an hour.”

“Got lost. This damn hospital’s getting too big to get around in.”

Beth looked at the clock. It was eight-thirty. “It’s time for someone to go in.”

“Lew, why don’t you and Tom go in. Me and Beth were in last time,” John suggested.

“Don’t want to.” Tom hadn’t moved the whole time Joe was there, slumping low in his seat, watching television. Joe doubted he could tell anyone what was on the screen, though.

“Do you want to go in?” John asked Joe, and Joe was on his feet immediately.