Carry Me Home (35 page)

GOING HOME

“Damn, bro.” Luke came into the surgery waiting room on a swirl of energy and dropped down to sit in the upholstered chair next to Cal. “You look like shit.”

Cal stopped staring at the soothing landscape picture, the blue walls that were supposed to be calming. He tried to pretend he was fine, that he wasn’t half out of his mind. “Hi.”

“What happened?” Luke asked. “I came as soon as Jim called me. Mom and Dad will be headed out, too.”

“Then I’ll save the story and tell all of you at once,” Cal said, doing his best to maintain.

“How’s Zoe?”

“Banged up all to hell. But alive.”

“I guess you found out who did it,” Luke said cautiously.

“We did. The hard way. And he’s
not
alive.”

“He isn’t?” Luke looked startled.

“Jim didn’t share that? Yeah. He’s dead. The cops told us. Broke his neck, I guess. I wasn’t listening too close. I was a little preoccupied at the time.”

In forcing the paramedics to put his shoulder back in, actually. He’d still been on his knees when the cops had come, with the paramedics right behind them. He’d wanted to tell them to check Zoe out first, but he hadn’t been able to. Because he’d barely been able to talk.

“We’ll get you to the hospital, get that fixed that for you,” one of them had said, after he’d touched Cal and Cal had nearly screamed.

“Hell you will,” Cal gasped. “The muscles will go into spasm. Once they do that, they won’t get it back in there without surgery, and I’m not doing that again. You’ll do it now, or I’ll kill you.” And he wasn’t at all sure he’d been exaggerating.

“Come on, Frank,” the other guy said. “I know how. And it’s killing him. Let’s do it.”

“But what about
her
?” Frank asked.

“Never mind me,” Zoe said, and Cal wanted to say that that wasn’t right, but he couldn’t. “Take care of Cal first. Please. Please take care of him.”

“Let’s do this thing,” Frank said. “I think there’s been enough killing for one night.”

Zoe had watched, had flinched, had shuddered for him despite her own pain, and Cal hadn’t screamed. Some . . . sounds might have come out, but he hadn’t screamed.

“Is he dead? Winston?” Zoe asked once Cal was able to focus again, once he was sitting in a shuddering heap on a classroom chair, because he’d refused the gurney. Once they’d gotten to work on her, were putting her onto the gurney, which there’d been no way in hell he was letting her refuse. “Is that what you meant about killing?”

The paramedic hesitated, looked to the cops, who included Greg, a bruise on his jaw and a scowl on his face.

One of them—not Greg, because Greg hadn’t been talking to Cal, or to anybody else, either—answered.

“Dead as a doornail,” the cop said. “We’ll go on to the hospital with you, because we’ll need to ask you some questions about that.”

“What?” Cal managed to say, wiping the sweat and blood from his face with his good arm. “Zoe got him up here so she could throw him down the fire escape? Even you guys couldn’t be that stupid.”

“Watch it,” one of them warned, and he didn’t, because he was cold, hard mad. Mad that they’d been too slow, that they hadn’t protected her. Mad that he hadn’t. Mad that she’d almost died. So mad, looking at her battered face, her bloody hands, the pain she was trying not to show, that if Winston hadn’t already been dead, he’d have killed him right then and there.

Once they’d gotten him to the hospital, they’d taken him through it again and again while he’d gotten himself cleaned up and waited for Zoe. He’d never been good at waiting, but this was the worst. The cops had been there at first, and then they’d left him alone and Luke had come. And Cal was still waiting.

Finally, though, a guy came into the room. Green scrubs, stethoscope. “Cal Jackson?” he asked, and Cal stood up, his heart knocking against his ribs, and Luke stood up with him.

“That’s me,” Cal managed to say.

“Dr. Marshall,” the guy said. “We’re all done with Ms. Santangelo. We got that arm set, did some tests and some X-rays, a little suturing, and she can go on home.”

The relief about knocked Cal over, but he forced himself to stay upright. He didn’t dare look at Luke.

“I told the police they’d have to wait for the rest of her statement until tomorrow,” the doctor went on, “because she’s concussed. I wouldn’t say she’s a flight risk. She’s not getting far tonight. In fact,” he said, eyeing Cal, “you don’t look like you are, either. You need some pain pills yourself? They hook you up already?”

Cal brushed it off. “She’s okay, though?” he demanded. “She’s going to be all right?”

“As okay as somebody who’s been beaten that badly is going to be,” the doctor said. “In other words, about like you after a hard game. I guess you know how that feels. A week or two, six weeks for the wrist, and she’s good. But I should see the other guy, huh?”

“The other guy,” Cal said, “is wearing a toe tag.”

“Well,” the doctor said, “Hippocratic oath and all . . .” He smiled. “From what I heard in there . . . good job.”

When Cal walked into the tiny curtained cubicle with Luke right behind him, it didn’t matter that he and Zoe weren’t together anymore. She was lying there all battered, all broken. She was the strongest thing he’d ever seen, and seeing her open her eyes, try to smile at him . . . it was going to destroy him. He was going to bawl, right here and now, right in front of his brother.

“Hey, princess,” he said, sitting beside her, wanting to take her hand in his, but one of them had a cast on it, and the other one was covered with a bandage, and every bit of her hurt, he could tell. “Remind me never to make you mad.”

She smiled again, even though he could tell it hurt her face. His heart twisted up tighter, and the tears tried a little harder to get out.

“We did good,” she said, the words not coming out very strong.

“Yep,” he said. “We did. You’re one hell of a fighter. One hell of a woman.”

A couple of tears escaped, rolled down her cheeks. “I’m just so glad . . . you came. Because I was losing. And Junior,” she said urgently. “Please. Tell me. Nobody will tell me. Please tell me Junior didn’t die. He saved my life. And then you did. Is he . . .” She swallowed. “Is he okay?”

“No,” Cal said, “he’s not okay, but he’s alive. He’s at the vet’s, and they’re working on him.” He looked across the bed at Luke.

“Hard to say,” Luke said. “But Junior’s hard to kill.” He smiled at Zoe. “Kind of like you.”

She closed her eyes, and there were some more tears now. “I’m going to hope,” she said. “I’m going to believe. I didn’t think I’d get out of there, but I believed. I kept fighting. And so did you, and so did Junior. We made it, and I’m going to believe he will.”

He loved this woman. It didn’t matter what happened. He loved her.

“Why did you come, though?” she asked. “How did you know?”

“It was the braces,” Cal said. “I went to the housing office, thinking I’d find out what kind of student data Greg could have had access to. And I found out that Winston’s so-called carpal tunnel came on right after Halloween. The way I figure it, Amy beat him with a baseball bat, and he had to explain why he was sore and couldn’t move one arm. If he pretended it was his hands instead, and that it was both of them, he could explain the soreness without drawing attention to his real injuries, and he’d rule himself out for anything that happened in the future.”

“Like attacking me,” Zoe said.

“Yep.”

“But people with carpal tunnel . . . you can’t just say you have it. You get diagnosed. There are tests.”

“If it’s real. I’ll bet he stuck some braces on there and told the staff he had it. How would they know? I was coming over to tell you that. Then I met Greg on the stairs, and he’d been up there with you, said some things about it, and I thought it could be him, after all. But Junior knew it wasn’t him. He knew you were still in danger. That’s why he got there first.”

“I thought it was Greg, too,” she said. “At least, I thought it could be, especially when he was in my office. When he started getting . . . nasty. But it wasn’t. He just wanted to talk trash about you.” She smiled at him, so painful, so sweet. “But I wouldn’t listen.”

That got him again, and he was choking up. “Yeah,” he managed to say, “he told me what he said, because he’s an asshole. But that’s all he is. Whereas Winston . . . he was something else. At least those two women in the States, and Amy, too, can know that it was Winston who attacked them, and that he’s dead. Too bad the Air Force can’t tell all his victims over in Iraq, but they’ll never even know how many there were. He did this for five years, and he got away with it. But it’s all over now.”

Her eyes were closing again, and what was he doing, wearing her out? “But this is all for tomorrow,” he told her. “We’ll have all kinds of time to talk about it then. Right now, I need to take you to my folks’, if you’re really supposed to go home, because I’m having a hard time believing it.”

“No,” she said, opening her eyes, although he could tell it was an effort. “I needed to know. I’m so glad he can’t hurt anyone again. I need to rest, that’s all. Just like you, because you’re hurt, too.”

“Oh, darlin’,” he said, and grinned at her. “It’s just a flesh wound.”

“Yeah, well,” she said with another of those flashes of spirit and heart and pure guts that she’d showed him since the moment he’d met her, “me, too. And I don’t want to stay here anyway. I’m all right.”

“No,” he said, “you’re not. But you will be. Want me to get a nurse to help you get dressed?”

She hesitated, her eyes searching his face. “No,” she said. “I want
you
to help me.”

“Uh . . .” He glanced at Luke, and his brother looked back at him, brows lifted. “You sure?”

“That’s what I wanted to tell you tonight,” she said. “I wanted to tell you how I felt. What I figured out. I’m so . . . so tired. I can’t say it all. But I have to say something.”

His heart was hammering out a dance beat. He was working on his next broken heart for sure, except maybe he wasn’t. Maybe his heart wasn’t going to be broken, not this time. Maybe his heart had come home at last.

“What you said,” she told him. “Before. I’m ready. I’m ready to play hard. And I don’t want to go home. Please don’t make me go home. I mean, I . . . I mean . . .”

His heart was pounding, his blood was singing in his veins, and he could barely say it. Could barely ask it. “You mean that you’re already home,” he said slowly. “That we’re home. Both of us.”

“Yes,” she said. “I do. I do. I want this, and I want you. So if that offer’s still open . . .” She stopped, breathed, and said it. “You’ve got a taker.”

She was crying. His tough, feisty little professor was crying, full-tilt and no joke. The tears running down her cheeks, her nose getting even redder, one eye swollen almost shut, her cheekbone bruised and swollen, her arm in a sling, and every inch of her aching.

She looked like hell, and she looked like the most beautiful thing in the world.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he told her, his heart doing its best to swell up until it left his chest entirely, “the offer’s still open. The offer couldn’t be closed if I wanted it to.”

“Then . . .” she said. “Could you . . . could you come down here and give me a kiss?”

He bent over the bed, and it felt bad, but it felt so good. He put that bad arm of his around her and held her. Gently, because she hurt so much. His lips brushed over hers, and his arm told him it had had more than enough that day, that he wasn’t supposed to be moving it, but who listened to arms? He had a woman to hold.

So he laid his cheek against hers and held her. And then he kept on holding her, because he hadn’t been able to do it for so long, and he’d been sure that he’d never be able to do it again. It was necessary, that was all.

“If I’ve got a taker . . .” he told her, the tenderness trying to make him cry. Trying its best, and he wouldn’t say it wasn’t winning. “That’s good. Because you’ve got a giver.”

She cried some more, and they lay there like that for long seconds, until the voice floated in from beyond him. Of course it did, because his brother had never, ever been known to shut up.

“Is there love in here?” Luke asked the room. “Or is it just not me?”

EPILOGUE

It was Saturday, the first of July, and Zoe was going to be spending it on the river with Cal.

She met him at her front door with a kiss, and he stood back afterward and looked her over, and she didn’t mind a bit. He took in the sleeveless blouse, buttoned up to the top, the flirty skirt, the strappy sandals, and she preened a little, because she could tell by the gleam in his eyes that he liked what he saw.

“All ready to spend your day with me?” he asked. “Inner tubes in the back of the truck, beer in the cooler. Redneck cruise.”

“Just let me get my stuff.” She smiled up at him, and he smiled back and followed her inside.

“Where’s Junior?” she asked.

“Ah. Junior had to stay home. He’s kind of a menace on the river. Gets way too excited. My folks have him over there, watching their granddog. Or having him watch them.”

It had become almost impossible to dislodge Junior from Cal’s side since the dog had made his slow recovery. Junior seemed almost disappointed when another day went by when he didn’t have to rush in and defend his master. Or Zoe, because he’d offered his ferocious loyalty to her as well, which sometimes almost made her cry, it was so sweet. The Junior Jackson Insurance Policy.

And his parents . . . that was pretty funny. His dad had never been all that fond of indoor dogs, Cal had told her, had tolerated them in the past for his wife and sons’ sakes. But Junior had earned a big, ugly, permanent spot in both of his parents’ affections with his heroics. And a spot on the couch, too, when Cal’s dad wasn’t looking.

Now, Cal picked up her bag from the couch. “All set?”

“In a sec,” she said, the happy smile still on her face. “Because I got paid for the summer, you know. And I got you a present.”

“Is it that your lease is up? Because that’s the present I want, and you know it.”

“No,” she said, but she was still smiling, because she couldn’t help it. “Stop.”

“Thought you said you were playing hard.”

“I am. I’m playing hard. I’m playing just as hard as you like.”

She was, too, because it was so good. Spending her Saturdays working at the desk he’d set up for her in the guest room, with Junior curled up on the braided rug next to her. Cooking a meal together that she didn’t have to eat alone, or going over to his parents’ place for Sunday dinner, their warm acceptance enfolding her. Walking over to a high school basketball game with Cal and cheering for the team. Going dancing with him on a Friday night, and going home with him afterward to his house or hers, depending on whether they could wait, and knowing that when they got there, it would be special.

Even her mother loved him. Of course she did. Cal had gone home with her over Memorial Day, had teased and charmed her mother mercilessly, and then had sealed the deal by offering to fly her up to visit over Labor Day weekend.

“To celebrate harvest being done,” he’d said. “I’ll have a little breathing room then, be able to pay proper attention to my ladies. Zoe will be starting her semester, but I think between the two of us, we could talk her into taking a couple days off. You could meet my folks, too. I think you might like them. And you know what would really help me out? If I could persuade you to borrow my credit card and take Zoe up to Spokane for a day and help her get outfitted for school. She shot up her work wardrobe, you know. She’s pretty impulsive that way. They’ve got a Nordstrom there. Don’t you think Zoe should go to Nordstrom?”

“Oh,” April Santangelo assured him, “I do. You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to hear those words.”

“Dirty play,” Zoe told him, although she couldn’t help laughing.

“Whatever it takes, baby,” he told her with a completely unabashed grin. “Whatever it takes.”

“You hang on to this one, honey,” April told her daughter. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime man.”

“Hear that?” Cal said. “That’s me. Mother knows best.”

Zoe couldn’t argue. For the first time in her life, she and her mother were in complete agreement.

Her dad had been another story. He was still too upset with her for changing her career goals, and with Cal for being the cause of it, to be more than civil to Cal. He wasn’t going to be visiting anytime soon.

It hurt, but it wasn’t his life, and they weren’t his choices to make. They were hers, and they were right. She’d gotten another consulting job in the spring, and she had an idea for a research project for the coming year. She could have her career—maybe not the career she’d originally planned, but the one she wanted—and she could have Cal. She needed both. They were like . . . air. And she needed to breathe.

But her dad . . .

“You’re his only child,” Cal had told her after an awkward lunch with her father that had left her shaken. “And he’s crazy about you. Give him a year, keep on calling him, leave that door open, and he’ll walk on through, because dads love their daughters. You’ll see.”

It had made her cry, which had made him hold her and kiss her and tell her again, and that had helped. She still called her dad every week, and he still talked to her. He didn’t ask about Cal, but that didn’t seem to bother Cal one bit.

“He’s jealous,” he told her matter-of-factly when she raised it with him. “Because he’s always come first with you. But he’ll come around. He may never love me, but that’s okay. He doesn’t have to. He just has to love you.”

She couldn’t imagine, now, how she’d ever resisted Cal. How she’d ever resisted all this, because this was
life
. This was
living
. And today, she was going tubing on the river with the man she loved, and she couldn’t wait.

“I got you a present,” she reminded him now. “Don’t you want to know what it is?”

“Sure,” he said. “You didn’t have to do that, though. I’m not all that crazy about . . . stuff. Unless it’s a new tractor, of course. Nothing runs like a Deere. They’re having a sale, too.”

“I don’t get paid that much,” she said, but she was laughing. “I would have gotten you something. I wanted to, but I couldn’t think of what you wanted. Until I did. Maybe you don’t want it, though.”

She was unbuttoning her blouse, and that got his attention.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, setting her bag down and reaching for her. “I want it.”

She slapped his hand, smiled some more.

“Damn,” he groaned. “Those dimples . . . I need to kiss you. Now.”

She kept unbuttoning, showing him what was underneath her prim and proper little white sleeveless blouse. Because what was underneath was red. And low. And exactly what he liked.

She shrugged the blouse off, unbuttoned her skirt, and started unzipping. “What do you think?” she asked as the skirt hit the floor and she stepped out of it, wearing her brand-new deep-red bikini. His favorite color on her. “Good present? Do you want me to take it back? Or do you want to . . .” Her hand trailed over the side of his neck, down his chest. “Take it off?’

“You bought a . . .”

“I bought you a present,” she repeated. “I thought about what you’d want. And I decided you might just want me to float down the river next to you in an inner tube. I decided you might want to watch me lying back in a little red bikini, drinking a beer and smiling at you. So that’s what I did. That’s what I’ve got to offer. You want it?”

“Oh, darlin’,” he said. “I want it.”

She looked good dressed, she looked better undressed, and she looked damn good in a red bikini. He could have looked at her all day, so he did.

And five or six hours later, she was looking sleepy, and happy, and pretty well satisfied. Off the river again, cooled off and relaxed and messy, eating a hamburger in a booth in a little diner in a tiny Idaho town. Dusty pickup trucks in the parking lot, heavy fans turning lazily overhead, fake flowers hanging in baskets from the ceiling, an old-fashioned jukebox playing country music, low and soft and sweet. Summer in the country.

He took a sip of chocolate milkshake and looked her over. “You know,” he told her, “you’re a pretty quick study. I’ve got to say, I’m approving of your wardrobe more and more these days.”

“Well, thanks,” she said, looking a little startled, but pleased.

“Except I think you could still improve.”

She set her paper-wrapped burger down and stared at him. “Excuse me?” The fire was lighting up those innocent round eyes of hers, and it made him smile inside.

“I had plenty of time to read those magazines at Rochelle’s,” he said conversationally, ignoring her expression, “back when you were staying with her. They had a bunch of stuff about accessorizing. It made me realize that you never accessorize, and I think that would look a whole lot better.”

“You do, do you,” she said, her tone level and dangerous, and she was sitting back, folding her arms. “And that’s required? I’m not up to standard yet?”

“Mmm . . . close,” he said, looking her over critically. “Just need a few more . . . touches.”

“You are the most—” she started. She stopped, took a deep breath, and visibly calmed herself. “I’m reminding myself really hard right now,” she told him, “that you don’t call the person you love names. Because I’ve got so many words I want to use on you. Keep talking, though, and I might not be able to hold back.”

“Let’s see,” he said. “I’m thinking obnoxious. Arrogant. Presumptuous. How’m I doing?”

“Keep going,” she said, but she was starting to smile. “You’re getting warm.”

“All right, then,” he said. “Let’s narrow it down. How about if you just wore some jewelry? Kind of . . . brightened up a little?”

“I don’t like lots of jewelry, though,” she said. “It gets in my way. Earrings, that’s about it. You like jewelry so much,
you
wear it.”

“Hmm. I might just be doing that,” he said, and she looked even more startled. “One piece, then. How about that? I’m negotiating here, princess. I’m compromising. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to want in a life partner? Isn’t that one of the rules?”

“In a . . .” She was sitting up straighter, and her arms had fallen to her sides.

“Yeah.” He knew he was stalling, and he knew why. Because now that it was time, he was nervous. Hell, he was more than nervous. He was terrified.

Cowboy up.

He reached in his pocket, pulled out the box. “One piece,” he told her, opening it, turning it around so she could see it. “Please. If you’d wear this for me . . .” He swallowed. “It would mean a lot. It would mean just about everything.”

“Cal.” She was staring at it, then up at his face. “That’s . . .”

“Yep,” he said. “That is. I’m asking you to marry me in a diner. I’d have done it more fancy, but you know the Breakfast Spot’s the best restaurant in Paradise, and even I couldn’t really do it over bacon and eggs.”

He was rambling. Time to cut to the chase. “So, Zoe Santangelo,” he said, “I’m asking you to change that pretty name of yours. I’m telling you that I love you so much. I wish I could tell you how much, but I can’t figure out any good enough words to explain it. So I’m just asking you to marry me and live with me and love me back. I’m asking you to have my babies and help me raise them out there on the farm. I’m asking you to make some kids with me who’ll slide down the banisters and swing on a rope in the hayloft and be farm kids and hicks and jocks. The girls, too, because I hate to tell you this, but girls can be jocks. And, because they’re your kids,” he said, looking into her eyes, trying to tell her everything, to show her everything that his stupid tongue couldn’t say, “they’ll probably be brains as well. They could even be geeks. But that’s okay, because I love geeks.”

“How many kids are in this plan of yours?” she asked, and she was trembling a little, but still trying so hard to be businesslike. “Sounds like six. I’m twenty-nine.”

“I told you,” he said, “I’m good with compromising. I’m ready to negotiate here. I’m all right with two. But I’m holding out for two. You’ve got to give her an annoying brother to tease her and provoke her and stand up for her if anybody tries to mess with her. Our daughter’s going to need a brother.”

“Then,” she said, and those were definitely tears shining in her eyes now, “I guess we’d better give her one. But I’m not changing my name. At least professionally,” she amended. “Research, you know. Consulting.”

“Done,” he said promptly.

“What is this?” she asked with a shaky little laugh. “A business deal?”

“Nope,” he told her, and, finally, he reached for her hand, pulled the ring from the box. He lifted his eyebrows at her, got a smile, and slid that ring right onto her finger. The diamond winked in the shaft of summer sunlight that fell across the red-checked vinyl tablecloth, George Strait sang about loving somebody forever, and Cal knew that as always, old George had gotten it just exactly right.

“This isn’t a business deal,” he told her, his ring safely on her finger, right where it belonged. Right where it was going to stay. “This is the real deal.”