To Begin Anew (Blue Jay Romance) (19 page)

Eric returned several moments later, his face flushed from walking, and he touched a hand to Debra’s chin before tilting his head in the direction of the parking lot. As they walked, he leaned forward and whispered, “My mother was more than willing to take the kids.” He briefly touched his lips to Debra’s cheek and added, “Don’t worry, she might look old, but she’s got the ticker of a twenty year old.”

Debra nodded mechanically again, this time trying desperately to keep her sad eyes from Eric’s notice.
Please
, she thought,
don’t be so kind to me - I don’t deserve it
.

~*~*~

Worry to Eric felt was as if the sides of the car he was driving were going to close in around him and crush him like a compactor at a recycling plant. The pressure roaring in his ears from the knowledge thundering away in his brain was enough to make him pull over and rant at Debra until there was nothing left in him to expound on. He could feel her torturing herself over and over again, only to never realize how much pain it could cause others when they had to watch it.

A few times he tried to speak, tried to start a conversation that didn’t involve what he’d heard, but whenever he tried his thoughts drifted to other complex matters and he had to bite his lips shut. This was so not the time to confess to Debra that he loved her.

Debra decided to spend the entire ride back to Blue Jay staring out of the window. She couldn’t talk, didn’t really want to, and she felt uncomfortable knowing that Eric was literally twitching to talk to her. It wasn’t hard to guess that the guy had overheard her conversation with Darcy. In fact, it was little less than a guess, since if it had been her who had been sent away, she’d have found a way to snoop. Curiosity was deeply ingrained in human nature.

She tried several times to perk up, to pick up that shield she used to hide behind to keep other people from being aware of the burden she carried, but for some reason, once she dropped it with Darcy, she was unable to take hold of it again.

She felt the car pulling to a stop and realized she was home only when the light on her porch shined in her eyes. She was getting out of the car and walking up to her front door before she understood that Eric meant to follow behind her.

Debra faced him and said, the first words she’d said in nearly three hours, “I think I’d like to be alone right now.”

Eric could feel himself deflate, but then he wasn’t surprised. He searched Debra’s eyes, and when he could see that she was holding fast to her decision, that there was no room for debate, then he smiled softly and said, “Sure.” He lifted a hand to cup her face and Debra shied away from him. Before he could be hurt by the rejection, his hand was down at his side and minding it’s own personal space as if it was never going to move again.

Eric was turning away from the porch and heading back to the car when Debra said over her shoulder, “Good night.”

Debra turned the key in the door, opened it and immediately knew that there was something wrong. It was a rush of warning over her skin, a kind of awareness - a woman knew when there was something amiss in her home.

“Nikki?” Debra waited for an answer, and when there wasn’t one, her heart skipped and began to beat at the pace of a galloping horse. “Nik, for Pete’s sake, please answer me! Why are all the lights off?”

Debra felt her way to her kitchen and flicked the switch when she found it. When the lights flooded the kitchen and then the living room, Debra had to gasp and grab the kitchen counter. The house looked as if it had been picked up by a giant and shaken like a snow globe.

Panicked now, Debra grabbed her phone and dialed Eric’s cell phone. She knew that he couldn’t be that far away, and that if anyone was hurt, he would be able to help.

“Debra?”

There was a moment where Debra didn’t understand the relief in Eric’s voice, but then she was speaking at the speed of light. “Please come here something’s happened, I don’t know where Nikki is…”

Debra’s front door flew open and Eric, with his cell phone still positioned against his ear, scoured the rooms until he spotted her in the kitchen.

“What in the world’s happened? Did someone break in?”

Debra put the phone down, not understanding how Eric had gotten to her so quickly, but then relief washed over her and she didn’t care. “I don’t know what happened, but I … Nikki didn’t answer me and I can’t hear the baby.”

Eric’s eyes were sharp - doctor’s eyes - and they seemed to follow the trail of overturned furniture and trashed table stands. He said after a moment, “Stay here, I’m gonna go check the bedrooms. Do me a favor and call the police.” He pierced her then with his gaze and added, “If you see anything, hear anything, you get outside and in my car. Lock the doors.” He moved to her, gave her his keys and his cell phone and said, “Wait here.”

Eric didn’t know what he was going to find, and prayed like he never prayed before, that he wasn’t going to find Nikki and her baby somewhere in the house with something horrible having happened to them. It wasn’t new to him that things like this happened to people, but it was another beast altogether when it happened right under your nose to people you loved.

Eric reached Debra’s room first and it appeared just as he thought it would appear if Debra herself had just left it. The bed was made, her pajamas on the foot waiting for her when she decided she was sleepy. Nothing appeared to him out of place, but then again he wouldn’t know for certain because he’d never been in there before. Checking the room off of his list, he moved to the spare room where David and Danny had slept and instantly he knew this was where Nikki had run to when whatever happened took place.

Eric called out, “Nikki? If you’re in here, let me know. It’s Eric, it’s okay. You’re safe now.”

The door to the bedroom closet shifted and it appeared as if it was trying to open itself. The door would crack an inch or so and then it would fall shut on it’s own. Someone or something was trying to open it from the inside. Eric moved to the door and opened it, his eyes widening as he took in the scene on the other side.

Nikki had barricaded herself in the small closet, her arms wrapped around her baby as if the little one was attached to a balloon and would float away at any moment. Eric could see blood and followed the lines of it to a gash on her arm that to him looked like a cut left behind by a sharp blade.

“Oh, Nikki!” The soft cry that came to his ears was burdened with regret.

Debra was behind Eric, not the kind of girl to sit and wait behind like she was told to do, and she shoved past Eric to her sister, touching her cool face trying to rouse the girl. As she did, Annie stirred and took to whimpering softly.

“I got away, I got away,” Nikki breathed.

Debra looked over her shoulder to Eric, his eyes still holding that keen, sharp, alertness to them that for the moment was all the reassurance she needed. With Eric there beside her, nothing was going to hurt them further.

~*~*~

Debra stood over her sleeping sister, watching her closely. From what Nikki said to her, she could understand what happened to her sister and to the home she’d tried to defend.

A man had broken into the house, startled Nikki, and he’d threatened to hurt her. Nikki had just enough time to grab Annie and run away from the man, but not enough time to get away uninjured. She’d defended little Annie with her life - just as any mother would have done, and to protect them both she ran to the spare bedroom and stuffed herself in the closet and used the weight of her body to keep the intruder from getting to them.

Eric had seen to the cut on her arm, made sure that the bleeding was stopped even before they made it to the hospital, and after Eric put nine stitches into Nikki’s skin, Nik was declared stable and was admitted for observation.

Annie, thank God, had been shaken, but she was perfectly healthy with not the slightest scratch on her. Nikki had taken all the damage, had cuddled her daughter to her chest and done everything she could to keep Annie safe from harm.

Debra placed a hand on Nikki’s forehead. “I’m so proud of you, Nik.”

Nikki stirred and her eyes opened. When she saw her sister, tears slid down her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

Debra shook her head. “You have nothing to be sorry about, Nik. You did the right thing.”

“Is … is Annie…” she began, but couldn’t bear to continue for fear of giving voice to what the answer might be.

“Annie’s okay. She’s in the next room with a nurse and she’s playing with a stuffed bear. She’s just fine.”

Nikki closed her eyes and sighed heavily. The relief on her face could have been eaten out of the air with a spoon. She said, “I haven’t been honest with you, Sis.”

Debra pulled a chair close to Nikki’s bed and as she rested her elbows on the soft blankets, she looked at her sister softly. “What weren’t you honest about?”

“I told you that I was tired of Robert complaining to me, about how my life was and all of that stuff. But really, I was happy with him. I love him, you know.” Nikki took a breath, her tears now freely rolling down her face, and she continued, “I’ve just been so confused since Annie was born. I couldn’t get out of bed and I didn’t want to be around her. I love her so much, but I didn’t think I could be a mother to her like you were to me. I don’t think I could ever be half the mother you are.”

Debra knew she was crying now, knew that the soft words that were coming from her sister weren’t so much of a confession as it was a plea for help. She ran her hand softly over her sister’s forehead, feeling the gentle touch of her hair, and she said, “You’re every bit the mother I am, Nik. You protected her with everything you had. Do you know how bad this could have gone tonight? You could have been killed, Nikki.”

“It didn’t matter then, Sis. I knew I had to protect my baby, I knew that if I lost her I’d lose everything. I’m so, so sorry.”

The door of Nikki’s room opened and Debra smiled wide as Robert slid in, his arms full of his daughter. His eyes were red, full of emotions Debra couldn’t even begin to name and she said, “She’s awake.”

Nikki looked from her sister to her husband in confusion and Debra took her sister’s hand and explained, “Robert was on his way here to try to convince you to come back home. He told us that you weren’t feeling well, that you had some troubles. He’s been very worried about you.” Debra gripped her sister’s hand tighter, letting the understanding given to her by Robert reaffirm what she’d always known about Nikki and that was the fact that she was - deep down in her soul - a good girl. Depression, postpartum or otherwise, could be treated. It didn’t make you crazy, it didn’t make you less of a person, and now that Debra understood that about Nikki, they could get her help.

“Deb, could you let me talk with Rob alone, please? I … I want to hold my family for a little while.”

Debra nodded, knowing that the love she sensed from her sister and from Robert was genuine and that even if there was a long road of mending ahead of them, in the long run, they’d be just fine.

As she passed by Robert and Annie, she said softly, “Take good care of her.” It had been the very thing she’d said to the man she was once set to marry herself on the very day Robert married her sister. To her knowledge, he’d always done right by her, always took care of her and his daughter. It was now, when she could see them together without pain, that she could forgive him.

In Nikki’s room, Debra knew she’d reached a decision about herself. There were things in life that mattered far more than the past did, far more than the pain that threatened to swallow her whole and she knew just how precious the things that did matter were. Nikki and her daughter, Eric, Danny and David - all of them were sort of like her family now, and nothing mattered beyond their happiness. If she could hold on that, hold on to the knowledge that she was still needed and was loved by the people around her, then life could continue to go on.

Debra didn’t know how she felt about Eric - her heart wanted to scream at her that she was being silly, that it already knew what her brain was trying to ignore - but she did know that she wanted him to be with her. Whatever form that took, she was willing to reach out, grab it and hold on with all that was within her.

For a moment, she rested her back against the door to her sister’s room and with a smile on her face, she looked for Eric, who had probably gone off somewhere to occupy himself while she’d had some private time with Nikki. He’d understood somehow that she’d needed to be alone with her, that with Robert’s arrival and everything else, she had needed the silence to gather herself together.