I’d had some really bad people in my life, ones that had left their mark and taken bits and pieces of me that I didn’t want to give. But I’d been fortunate enough to have some really amazing, special people in my life as well. Instead of taking, they gave me what I needed to heal and to make myself whole. They also left marks, but theirs were ones that I didn’t want to hide in the dark. They made me smile. They made me brave. They made me bold. I wasn’t living my life where the scars and wounds were—no, I was living it where the love and light found me every single day. What happened with my father wasn’t going to drag me backward. It was going to propel me forward, knowing he had made his own bed, stuffed with consequences and penance. I would rest easy at night knowing he would never be able to hurt me, my mother, or Salem again with either his words or his fists.
This was his end and my beginning.
“You’re gonna be okay, honey … we’re gonna be okay.” Wheeler sounded so sure of the fact that all I could do was believe him. I trusted him and he never lied to me. His wild was still riled up and needed soothing, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it while I was strapped down to a gurney with an IV in my arm. That wolf was going to have to howl just a little bit longer.
ONCE I GOT into the ER, it was a flurry of activity. I was separated from Wheeler, much to his aggravation and very vocal displeasure. Salem and Rowdy showed up to keep him in check and run interference as he snapped at every person that tried to get between me and him even though they were just trying to help. I needed X-rays of my head and throat, plus I’d lost a lot of blood and needed a transfusion. Luckily, Saint Ford, a friend of my sister’s who happened to be married to the guy that painted Wheeler’s garage, was the attending nurse. I managed to avoid having a panic attack when she started fluttering around me and cutting my bloody clothes off. She handled getting me visually checked out and into a hospital gown efficiently and professionally, so I didn’t really have time to freak out. I didn’t know her well but she was super nice, very patient, and treated me like I might break. She didn’t touch me any more than was necessary and she let Wheeler into my little cubicle that was divided from the one next to it by a curtain as quickly as she could. My sister and Rowdy fussed over me for as long as I could tolerate without being able to respond to anything they were asking. Sensing my growing agitation, Wheeler gently convinced them to come back in the morning when I wasn’t holding on to my composure by the very tips of my fingernails.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed, one of my hands held in his as his other hand traced over the features of my face like he was trying to memorize each and every one when the curtain swished back and another familiar face made an appearance. I knew I was going to have to talk to the police eventually but I didn’t think I was going to get lucky enough to land in Royal Hastings’s lap. She was also a friend of my sister’s and someone that I knew in passing. She’d been instrumental in starting the manhunt for me as quickly as possible when Oliver snatched me from Salem’s apartment. All the stars were aligning to make this horrific attack as easy on me as possible—the stars and some well-meaning women. Saint let it slip that she saw my name on the intake board and bounced her coworker to another room so she could take care of me. As she gently and lightly laid me back on the hospital bed so I didn’t jostle the stitches and bandage that was now wrapped around my head like a mummy, she told me how she saw too many women come through the doors of her ER battered and bruised at the hands of someone they loved. She frowned as she told me how much it bothered her when they left with the person that put them there in the first place. She was ecstatic to hear that I would be leaving with Wheeler.
Royal watched me with knowing, cop eyes as she told us both, “I heard the call and recognized the name. I told my sergeant you’d been through enough with these men in your life and would probably be more receptive to a familiar face taking your statement than some strange man. Plus, I doubted Slugger here was feeling like letting anyone with a dick anywhere near you. I even told my partner to sit this one out.” She pointed a finger at Wheeler and wagged it back and forth. “Lucky you had witnesses to back up your story that you attacked Pastor Cruz in self-defense, Speedy. You’d be looking at a night in lockup if not.” I wondered at the nickname and made a mental note to ask him about it later.
Wheeler grunted and ran his thumb over the curve of my bottom lip. “She can’t talk. Her trachea is all fucked up and she has a severe concussion. The doc is keeping her for a few days and doesn’t know when she’ll be able to talk.” He sounded so frustrated and overly protective over it all, so I reached up and patted his shoulder reassuringly.
Royal rocked back on her heels and clicked her tongue. She was kind of a goof, and stunningly gorgeous … it was an odd combination for a police officer but it seemed to work for her. She was good at her job and obviously gave a damn about the people she was supposed to protect and serve.
“That’s okay. We’ll talk when you’re better, Poppy. I just thought you might want to know that the D.A. is looking at charging your old man with attempted murder. We found the rock he hit you with and it was obvious he stalked you until he found an opportunity to attack. That’s not a crime of passion, that’s a plan, one that thankfully, backfired. You’re lucky those college kids that live in the building were headed out for happy hour when they did.”
I made a noise in my injured throat and blinked. That’s when I recognized where the guys that stepped in came from. They were the rowdy group of guys that I’d done my best to avoid and had almost flipped out over the first night I invited Wheeler up to my apartment. I had spent so much time scared of people and things for no reason. The entire world wasn’t out to get me; in fact, there were lots and lots of people that seemed interested in protecting me, and I was so very thankful for that.
“Anyways, I’ll let you rest up and check in on you in a few days. Wheeler, I need you and your grandfather to swing by the station and give formal witness statements as well. Pastor Cruz is going away for a long, long time. I’m thrilled we get to do that for you, Poppy. I hated that we couldn’t get to you before your husband hurt you.” She shook her head, dark brown eyes going soft and sad. “That’s the worst part of the job, wanting to help and not being able to.” She pointed at Wheeler again and told him, “Take care of your girl.”
Royal left the room in a whirl of police blues and fiery hair, leaving me and Wheeler alone again. If I had a voice I would have asked about the grandfather revelation Royal had just dropped. I knew the older guy looked just like my guy, but my guy was a lone wolf … at least he had been until he met me. There was a story there I needed to hear, but it wasn’t the one he wanted to tell me.
“Never been so scared of anything in my entire life.” His breath whooshed out and he lowered his forehead so that it was barely resting against mine. “Not when my mom drove away from that fire station. Not when I got bounced from my first foster home or my fifth. Not when I met Kallie’s parents the first time or when she cheated on me the first time and I realized there was no way she could love me the way I needed to be loved. Not when I bought a house knowing the woman I was buying it for didn’t want me. Not when I found out I was going to be a dad. Not when we went to bed and I realized you were it for me, you were the one I’d been waiting for, and it was never going to be me and only me again. Nothing has ever ripped open my heart and made time stop the way it did when I got that call.” He lifted his head and his eyes met mine. They glistened like blue glass under the crystal veil of unshed tears. “I could have killed him and not felt a single ounce of regret over it.”
He said that but I knew it wasn’t true and so did he. He was lying with his words but his eyes always told the truth. The reason I loved him and had let him in when all I wanted to do was keep everyone out was because he was a man that wanted to take pain away, not cause it. I loved him because the last thing he wanted to do was hurt anyone, unless of course they were a direct threat to someone he loved. He was a
lover not a fighter, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t protect what was his until his last breath.
He used his heart, not his fists, to win wars.
I couldn’t respond with words, so I reached up and cupped his cheek. I tapped the spot where his dimple was missing until he took the hint and lowered his lips to touch mine. I didn’t want to waste a second worrying about what had hurt either of us in the past. Those things weren’t changing and there would always be reminders to keep us humble and keep us kind. It was the things that made up happy, the things that restored us, that I wanted to focus on from this point on.
We deserved happy.
We fought for it and we won.
He was my victory and I was his triumph.
I couldn’t tell him that I loved him, that I loved that he took better care of me than anyone else ever had, myself included in that. I couldn’t tell him that I didn’t know what a life worth living looked like before he came into mine. I couldn’t promise him my future and forever—whatever that looked like—even though I knew it would be absolutely beautiful because it had me and him right in the center of it. I couldn’t whisper that he was the best I’d ever had, that no one compared in or out of bed to him, and I couldn’t scream from the top of my lungs that the best thing that ever happened to me was him deciding he could rebuild me.
I couldn’t say any of those things because I had no voice, but I knew they were all shining out of my eyes, that he could see them, because he always saw. When I was hiding, when I was afraid, when I was worried, when I was lost and looking behind me instead of where I was going, he still found a way to keep his eyes on me. It didn’t matter that I built walls to keep him out … he walked right through them.
He was looking at me the same way I was looking at him and I knew that no matter what we faced from here on out, we would always, only, have eyes for each other.
EPILOGUE
I like the name Royce.” I whispered the words into Wheeler’s hair as he rested his head on my shoulder and closed his eyes.
It was three o’clock in the morning, Kallie’s water had broken a little over an hour ago, and all three of them—Kallie, Wheeler, and the baby—had just survived an emergency C-section that brought a perfectly healthy, seven-pound-five-ounce, furiously wailing little boy into the world. Royce Hudson Wheeler had ended up breech and no matter what kind of yoga, chiropractic, holistic healing methods, or old wives’ tales Kallie tried, the baby was stubbornly staying put. He refused to flip just like he refused to reveal his sex so that his parents could plan accordingly. It was actually Zak who suggested the name Royce. One of the first classics he rebuilt and sold was a 1944 Rolls-Royce Silver Phantom. Wheeler brought the name up to Kallie after one of his grandfather’s visits, stating that Royce could work for either a boy or a girl, and surprisingly she agreed.
I was happy to play messenger for both of them while they worked to bring their son into the world.
Kallie’s mom and dad had shown up shortly after we did and were now in her birthing suite meeting their grandson. Dixie and Church would be on the first flight out of Tupelo tomorrow and Zak and his wife, Shannon, were coming in from California sometime in the afternoon. Zak had gotten choked up when I called. He was a really nice man, one with a heart nearly as big and as pure as his grandson’s. He was overwhelmed with relief that his wife was still well enough to travel and that she was going to be around long enough to meet Zak’s great-grandson. They were good people and I hated that Wheeler’s mother’s selfish and unthinking actions had kept him from the family he was so desperately seeking his whole life. It reminded me too much of the way my father had isolated me from the kind of life I knew was out there for all of us, and forced me to live under his tyranny.
I called Roni and let her know Kallie was in labor even though the two of them had recently split. They’d done their best to make a real relationship work, but it turned out that while Roni wanted Kallie, she didn’t want everything that Kallie came with. She wasn’t ready to be a mom, wasn’t ready to have not only Wheeler but me as well in her life. She claimed it was all too complicated, too messy. They stayed friends and Roni assured me she would stop by to see the baby when she had a minute.
Kallie was heartbroken when Roni pulled the plug and had reacted in a way that scared everyone. She shut down, quit eating right, quit going to her birthing classes, and started skipping doctor’s appointments. Wheeler tried to talk to her, tried to reason with her, but she was despondent. She didn’t want to hear anything. All she wanted to do was wallow in pain and feel sorry for herself. She told Wheeler that she finally understood what it was like to have the love of your life stomp all over your heart.
Watching the way her behavior was stressing Wheeler out, I finally decided to intervene. Kallie wouldn’t listen to anyone that was close to her but I had a feeling she would listen to someone that knew firsthand what could happen if she didn’t get her act together. We met for coffee one morning and I told her what it was like to lose a child. I told her how I felt like I had a hole in my heart that would never be filled, that every time I saw her protruding belly, jealousy ate at me, sharp and pointed. I told her how I still grieved every single day and that I still woke up in the middle of the night crying for that lost life. I explained that it was a hurt that never healed, that eventually it just turned into an ache you learned to live with, and sometimes, like when a baby started crying in a restaurant, or when you went to a baby shower, the ache turned into a burn that felt like it would turn your heart to ash. I softly admonished her for not taking care of herself, for worrying Wheeler, and for putting her baby at risk. I promised her that a heart that had been broken by a lover would heal with time, but one that was ripped out of your chest when something happened to your child was one you could never get back.
My words must have sunk in because she snapped out of her stupor and found her footing. We also went from being uneasy allies to being friends. She didn’t have many, and with Dixie being down in Mississippi setting up house with Church, she needed someone, and for whatever reason that person was me. I was the one she called to go baby shopping with. I was the one she called with updates and questions. I was the one she called when she butted heads with Wheeler over the name. She wanted to hyphenate the last name so that it was Carmichael-Wheeler or Wheeler-Carmichael, Wheeler was adamant that no kid should be saddled with having to write that monster out for their entire school career and they should just use Wheeler. It was an ongoing argument that I frequently heard both sides of, but I’d had to inform Kallie that I was always going to side with Wheeler. It was my job to take his back even though she mattered to me and I cared about her opinion.
It was a weird situation, one that had to look impossible and unbearable from the outside. But to those of us on the inside … we were doing what we could to make it all work and make it all as normal as possible. It was our life, so all we could do was live the best we could. It wasn’t anyone’s idea of a traditional family unit, but it was our family and we would do whatever it took to fight for it and defend it.
I also called my sister, who immediately offered to pull her very pregnant self out of bed and come wait with me since she instinctively knew it would be difficult for me to sit and wait while surrounded by so many reminders of what I had lost. Of course, I told her to stay in bed, that I would be fine, but I wasn’t surprised when not twenty minutes later her man came walking through the door looking bleary-eyed and rumpled. Rowdy collapsed in a seat next to me, took my hand and squeezed it, then silently waited with me, offering steady, unwavering comfort until Wheeler came through the doors marked LABOR AND DELIVERY wild-eyed and still dressed in the green paper gown the nursing staff had given him to wear over his regular clothes. As soon as Wheeler found his way over to my side, Rowdy lumbered to his booted feet, offered a handshake and a heartfelt congratulations, and promptly muttered that he was going back to his pregnant girlfriend and his warm bed.
Wheeler laced his finge
rs through mine and I could feel the tremor in them. “I’m a dad.” The words whispered out in awe.
I kissed his temple and brushed his ear with my nose. “You are.”
His fingers flexed in mine and he pushed himself up in the chair so that he could turn and look at me. He reached out a finger and pushed some of my hair behind my ear. “Thank you for being here.”
My lips twitched. “Anytime.”
He grinned and those killer dimples did what they always did, made my heart skip a beat and my skin shiver. I hoped against hope his little boy was going to be blessed with those twin dots of adorable. All his kids needed to have them.
“It’s you and me from here on out for everything. We’re all in.” I returned his smile and was leaning forward to give him a kiss when we were interrupted by a throat clearing.
We both turned to look at Kallie’s mom and dad where they were standing behind us. I liked the Carmichaels. They were nice, and as accepting as they could be of the role I was going to play in their grandchild’s life. They treated me with consideration and kindness once Wheeler explained everything that I had been through, and they did their best to include me in family things that involved the baby, like Kallie’s baby shower.
“Kallie asked us to send you back.” Wheeler went to rise to his feet but Kallie’s dad, Russ, shook his head. “No, she wants to see Poppy.”
I blinked in surprise and looked questioningly at Wheeler. He shrugged in confusion and helped me to my feet. “You okay sticking your head in the room?” He was asking because he knew I was still hesitant to be around the baby, that it would hurt watching Kallie hold and cuddle that precious little life.
It would hurt, but it would ultimately be far worse if I didn’t figure out a way to play through the pain. I couldn’t avoid the things that wounded me, couldn’t lock myself away so they wouldn’t touch me. I had to confront them and fight them head-on. I patted Wheeler reassuringly on the chest and gave him a wobbly smile. “I’ll be fine.” I’m sure it seemed off to Kallie’s folks, him asking if I was okay when Kallie was the one that had just been cut open and sewn back together, but he was always taking care of me. It wasn’t something that needed any explanation.