The Fight for Us (33 page)

She sat at the table, feeling her brain getting more muddled and slow with each sip, and she sniffed through her tears until she couldn’t remember why she was crying. Her vision was blurry, and her head felt heavy. And when she felt her consciousness slipping away, she tried to panic…but she just couldn’t muster it.

Something didn’t feel right.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Isaiah spent the next morning alternating his attention between the lake beyond his house, his daughter who was in a stupor, and Dr. Suthers from Chicago, who was trying to keep him sane as much as his daughter. There was a children’s shrink in Baymont, but Dr. Suthers could say little more about the man. It was just too remote an area to expect the same resources he’d had in Chicago. He was both kicking himself in the ass for thinking a small little island town was a good idea and also struggling to see his life anywhere but here at the same time.

But he might just have to get used to that concept. Could he really expect Nat to stay here? Or would that be tantamount to torture? He’d die to protect her. And he’d die to protect her heart from this pain again too. Why wouldn’t he? This pain had nearly killed her once already. He couldn’t watch this happen again.

When he found her curled up on the bathroom floor with the shower on, he’d sunk to the floor, pulled her into his lap, and spent the next thirty minutes hushing her. He’d carried her back to bed, hating that he was leaving her in her bedroom again. It couldn’t be good for her, but how could he expect her to face the world yet? Once she’d fallen back asleep, he’d grabbed the phone, calling the psychiatrist in Baymont. The problem was it was Saturday. He ended up on the phone with the man’s service, being placed on hold, taken off of hold, answering more questions, pleading for some help, and then listening to more elevator music.

He made coffee as he listened to the instrumental version of some Coldplay song he usually liked, and then he grumbled when he fucked up the coffee machine, spilling grounds all over the counter and watching the water spill over the top of the basket. “Fuck,” he muttered just as the phone was picked up again.

“I’m sorry?” came the woman’s offended voice from the other end.

“Sorry. I was just…spilling…something.” He sounded a bit deranged, and he felt equally crazy at the moment.

When there was suddenly a knock on his door, he gritted his teeth to keep from cussing in front of the woman again. He walked to the front door, and when he saw Joss standing there, his heart raced for a moment.

“Umm… Can you hang on for just a moment?” He didn’t give the woman a chance to respond before he covered the mouthpiece and held the storm door open for Joss. Snow was starting to fall, and there were flecks of it in Joss’s long dark hair.

She stepped inside, and the race in his heartbeat suddenly accelerated even more. There was something wrong with her. He didn’t need her to say anything to see it. Her eyes glanced around. They were puffy and swollen, and she’d obviously been crying. Even as he watched, her lips pursed as she fought back the emotion.

“Joss, what’s wrong?”

He was still holding the phone, and she glanced at it.

“It’s okay. You should…” She pointed to the phone.

She looked horribly nervous, and his chest felt like it was constricting as he watched her. He’d been a dick the night before, and he desperately needed to undo that, but at the moment, he had a phone call to deal with and a daughter in the other room who he didn’t trust not to hurt herself if he turned his back for more than two seconds.

He stayed on the phone with the woman for another two minutes, milling around the kitchen as Joss watched him, just to find out they could get Natalie in on Monday at the soonest and that he should take her to the hospital if he thought it was an emergency. He set up an appointment for Monday morning, struggling not to yell at the woman or hang up on her the whole time, and just as he was confirming the details, Nat walked into the kitchen.

Her face looked slack and tired, which was hard to imagine, considering she’d been sleeping around the clock since he got her home Friday. Joss pulled her into her arms, and they both stood holding onto one another crying. He stared at them, fighting to get the last of his responses out to the answering service before he broke down himself, and when he hung up, he took a deep breath.

His world was spinning, and he just wanted it to slow down long enough for him to catch his breath. Joss pulled back from Nat, cupping her face in her hands sweetly. She smiled sadly at Nat, and Nat’s lips pursed as new tears built and then fell from the rims of her eyes. She collapsed against Joss again and sobbed some more.

“You’re going to get through this. I promise.” Joss’s voice was perfectly tender and kind as she spoke quietly against Nat’s ear, and he realized in that moment that it was everything his daughter needed and that he could never give her. There was just no replacing this. Joss was meant to be a mother, and he was a sorry substitute.

When Joss finally let go of Nat and faced him again, he was still perplexed. What had been a calm and reassuring approach with Nat had turned on a dime, and she looked like a startled rabbit. What he’d wanted to chalk up to how their night had ended the evening before or even to her concern for Nat just wasn’t fitting the bill. Her eyes glanced around, and she trembled even as he watched her.

“Joss—”

“I should probably go.”

“Joss, what’s wrong?”

She glanced to Nat who was staring at the floor in her own little world, and when she looked back to him, she tried to force a smile to her mouth. It was so contrived and obviously false that his brow flinched at nothing more than the sight of her trying so hard to pretend she was okay.

“Is Harper okay?” He was just grasping at straws at this point.

Her focus started dancing and hopping around the room, and she looked like she was panicking on the inside. He’d never been more confused in his whole life.

“She’s fine. She’s with Steph.” Joss glanced at Nat again. “She sends her best. She’s worried about you, and she wants to see you.” But the second her attention shifted back to him, she cleared her throat. “I really better go. I’m sorry. I’ll…I’ll just talk to you later.”

She practically sprinted down the hallway toward the front door, and after he glanced back at Nat who was staring wide-eyed after her, he followed Joss. He caught up to her in the driveway as she was climbing into her car, and he grabbed the door before she could close it on him.

“Please talk to me. I’m sorry about last night, but you have to talk to me.” He was pleading, but she couldn’t seem to even look at him at all at this point.

“I’m fine. I’m fine.” She nodded her head, but she was staring at her steering wheel in front of her, and there was nothing fine about her.

“Joss—”

“I need to go… Please just let me go.” Her breath was hitching, and her eyes were wide and terrified as she tugged on the door. “Please. Please.”

He watched her. He could feel his mouth hanging open like a fool, but he’d never been more confused in his entire life. The moment he let go of her door, she slammed it, started her car, and backed out of the driveway without so much as looking at him once. He stared after her, feeling like a very large portion of his life was driving away and abandoning him. As he stared, he panted as though the very notion had knocked the wind out of him. It was exactly the way he’d felt when she’d left the night before. He’d deserved it then. Now, he just didn’t have a clue what was happening.

When he walked back into the house, he found Natalie still in the kitchen. She was sitting on the counter with her feet pulled up. He shook his head, trying to clear the confusion, and Nat watched him. It was the most alert he’d seen her since the same time the day before.

“Will you try to eat something?” He was hoping, though even as he moved around the kitchen, pulling a loaf of bread out of the cupboard and dropping a piece in the toaster, he was struggling to concentrate.

Nat nodded when he finally turned back. “What’s wrong with Joss? It’s not me is it?”

“No! God, no.” He looked at the floor for a moment before he looked back up at her. “Honestly, I don’t know what’s wrong.”

They spent the next two hours pretending to watch T.V. In truth he was stressing out about Joss, and Nat was just staring at the T.V., seeing nothing. But she was still out of bed, and that was something. There was another knock on his door, and when he opened the door and saw Steph standing there with Harper, the worry that was already eating through him like termites ratcheted up another notch. Steph looked as worried as he felt.

He hugged Harper when she stepped in. “You okay, kiddo?”

“Yeah. Is Nat okay?”

He looked at her for a moment. “She’ll be glad to see you. She’s in the living room.”

Steph hung back, and the moment he started toward the living room, she grabbed his elbow. He stopped and turned toward her.

“We need to talk.” He stared as his heart started pounding again. “Joss is at the hospital in Baymont.”

“What?” His voice was loud as he responded, and she instantly clamped her hand down on his arm.

“Quiet. Harper doesn’t know, and Joss would prefer to keep it that way. Something happened last night. The last thing she can remember is being in the kitchen having a glass of wine, and when she woke up this morning, she was in bed. She has no idea how she got there.”

Isaiah backed against the wall as he absorbed what Steph was saying. It was as if he could see exactly where this nightmare was headed before it even got there, and he was bracing for it. Pictures of Joss’s panicked and terrified face from that morning were snapping like a flash bulb in his mind. She’d been trying to tell him something.

“They found Rohypnol when they tested her urine. She was drugged.”

He clasped his hands to his head as he bent over, bracing his elbows on his knees. “Oh, God.” He tried to swallow, but he almost threw up instead. When he glanced to Steph it was no better. Tears sat on her lower eyelids just waiting for an excuse to fall. “Was she…?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. But if she was, I know that fucker did it.” She spat the last statement out as her tears finally fell, and she covered her mouth to stifle the sound. She blew out a calming breath. “She shouldn’t be alone. I have to go or you do, but she can’t be there alone.”

“Will you stay with the girls? I need to go.”

She nodded, and he turned toward the living room. She sniffed her nose the entire way down the hallway, but she pulled it together when they entered. Harper was sitting next to Nat on the couch. Their knees were pulled up, and they were facing one another.

“Girls, Steph is going to stay with you for a while. I need to run out for a bit. I’ll be back.” It was difficult to keep his voice calm and relaxed. He was dying inside just a little more with every minute he was away from Joss. He was also trying not to hate himself for missing the clues that something was so very off with her. He’d seen it, and he’d been so damn preoccupied he’d not forced it more.

He should have refused to let her go. Hell, he never should have let her out of his sight the night before. He should have apologized for being a dick and made it right. If he had, she’d have been with him where she belonged and not at her home alone being drugged and raped by her ex-husband. He was going to kill that man if he got his hands on him again. There was very little, in fact, that would stop him.

He ran into trouble at the hospital, or perhaps it was just patient confidentiality run awry. “Are you family?”

“Close enough. Please just tell her I’m here.” The woman studied him, glaring as though he was the man responsible for putting her there. Maybe she was right. “Please. If she doesn’t want to see me, then it will be her choice, but you can at least tell her I’m here.”

The woman studied him for a few moments longer before finally harrumphing and walking away. Isaiah had no idea if that meant she was taking his advice or simply ignoring him, and as he paced in front of the waiting room chairs in the small, quiet hospital, he fought the absolute and almost overbearing need to hate himself.

“Mr. Henry. You can come on back.”

If he thought his nerves were unraveling before, it was nothing compared to the anxiety he felt as he followed the woman down the emergency room corridor. It was damn agony, and the moment she turned into a room, he was certain he was going to stroke out before he made it to Joss.

She was lying in the bed with a hospital gown on and a blanket pulled up to her chest. She watched him, her lips trembling and her eyes filling with tears. Her chest started heaving as she fought the tears, but it was about as pointless for her not to cry as it was for him. He’d been so terrified to see her, but now that he did, he crossed the room in a millisecond, sitting beside her, and leaning over to cover her. She clutched at his shoulders, and he buried his face against her neck as she did the same.

He didn’t bother caring that he was crying in front of her or the nurse who was standing by. He’d never cried so much in his entire damn life, but he was guessing that’s just what happened when everything in your life you cared about started falling apart all at once. That was certainly no coincidence. Todd had orchestrated this attack quite intentionally. It was a fucking blitz on Isaiah’s world. By the time he sat up, someone else had entered. He glanced at the older man in white lab jacket and then back to Joss.

“I’d like to speak with you alone, Ms. Verna, unless you’re comfortable with him staying.” The older gentleman spoke to Joss.

“It’s fine. He can stay.” Joss sat up, and Isaiah turned to sit beside her, letting his shoulder rest behind hers so she could lean into him.

“Very well. Physical exam is inconclusive.”

Joss just nodded but said nothing.

“There’s some irritation, but I wouldn’t classify it as trauma, and I’d expect to see that with any woman actively in a sexual relationship.” His eyes glanced to Isaiah quickly. “I assume you are?”

Joss nodded but still remained quiet.