False Start (23 page)

All Mattie needed was to see the finish line. Once she laid her eyes on it, she knew she'd find her kick and breeze right on through to the end, but until then, every step was a monumental effort. Her body felt like a volcano that was about to erupt. If she could just find a cool, shady spot and lie down.

"Just a little further," someone to her left said. Not wanting to lose her focus, she didn't dare turn her head.

When she finally spotted the finish line, she was dismayed to see that it was still so far away. She wanted to stop. Stop running. Stop lying. Stop being someone she wasn't. She just wanted Nick. As that thought crystallized in her overheated brain, tears tried to form, but couldn't.

When she didn't see him stationed in his usual spot, waving her in, she called out his name with a pathetic whimper.

"Come on, Mattie. We're almost there."

With everything she had in her, she glanced to her left. There he was.

As they approached the finished line, she reached for him and cried, "I'm so sorry. Please forgive me."

Once they both stepped foot across the line, Mattie crumbled like a rag doll. Nick scooped her up, looked into her face as her head hung lifeless over his arm and yelled, "Where do I take her?"

Within seconds, volunteers swarmed to escort them to an air-conditioned emergency medical tent.

Nick laid her on an empty gurney, checked her pulse, and made sure she was breathing. He then removed her hat and took her right hand in both of his. "Come on, Mattie. Wake up."

Beating himself up ten different ways for not pulling her off the course when he knew she was struggling, all he could think to do was kiss her forehead and whisper, "Stay with me. Please."

Blinking back the tears he felt sting at his eyes, he looked around and shouted, "Can we get some help over here?"

A nearby paramedic rushed over holding an IV bag in one hand and three ice packs in the other. Handing him the ice packs, he instructed Nick to place one under her neck and one under each armpit while he readied her for a much-needed infusion of fluids.

Another man burst into the tent. He was not in uniform. He wasn't even wearing a volunteer T-shirt. Standing opposite Nick on the other side of the gurney, he looked down at Mattie and muttered, "Oh, Jesus."

Alarmed, Nick asked, "Can I help you?"

The man looked at him and asked, "You Nick?"

I know you.

While his mind busied itself with trying to reconcile the recognition with the source, he released her hand and replied in a hoarse croak, "Yeah."
The man reached his hand across to Nick. "I'm Tom. Nice to meet ya."

Addressing the EMT, he said, "She's a southpaw. Better start that in her right arm."

How the hell would you know?

And that's when it hit Nick. He
had
seen his face before—in a frame on Mattie's desk.

Backing away, he watched as the EMT tapped a vein, inserted the needle, taped it to her clammy arm and left to hail an ambulance.

When he was gone, Tom stroked her cheek and called out, "Mattie. Come on, honey, it's me, Tom. Stay with me all right? You gotta stay with me now, sweetheart."

Oh my God, she is married.

 Nick turned to leave, his heart crumbling in his chest, when he heard Tom say, "Shit."

He turned and watched as he patted down his pockets, then look at him imploringly. "Do me a favor? I lost my wife in the crowd trying to get in here. Can you call her and tell her to meet us at Chicago Memorial. Her name's Claudia."

"Your
wife
?"

"Yeah." Pointing to Mattie, Tom clarified, "Her sister."

Nick blew out a breath and nodded. "Right."

His overloaded emotional circuits flipped into autopilot mode. He pulled his phone from the back pocket of his shorts, punched in the number, and mechanically delivered the message.

When he hung up, Tom handed him the fluid bag to hold up high while he pushed her to the waiting ambulance. At Tom's urging, he followed him in and rode with them to the hospital. By the time they arrived, not only was Nick up to speed on Mattie's marital status, or lack thereof, he was certain of just one thing—he didn't want to play this game anymore.

*  *  *

Waking up to her six-year-old nephew Charlie serenading her with his rendition of "Wheels on the Bus," Mattie opened her eyes and scanned her surroundings.

"Mommy, she's awake," the little cherub shouted at the top of his lungs.

Claudia rushed into the hospital room. "Oh, thank God. How are you feeling, hon?"

She had never felt so exhausted in all her life. Her head throbbed, and she felt dizzy. Through her cracked lips, she croaked, "Nick?"

Her sister sat down on the edge of the bed. "He just left. He wouldn't leave until the doctor convinced him that you'd be OK. He called me from the medical tent."

Mattie moaned, "Oh no," and Claudia started brushing the back of her fingers against Mattie's cheek like their mother used to do when they didn't feel good.

"He's in love with you, Mat. You should've seen him." But, she didn't say it like an excited teenager divulging a secret. She said it like she felt sorry for him. "He's a wreck."

The tone of Claudia's voice was filled with an unarticulated, "I told you so."

Mattie contorted her face to hold back a sob. "He's not coming back, is he?"

After shaking her head back and forth, her sister got up and closed the curtain around them as Mattie turned onto her side and cried out all of the fluids the good doctors and nurses of Chicago Memorial Hospital had just replenished.

Early the next morning, she saw that someone had posted a new link on the Team Plate Spinner Facebook page. Apparently, one of her readers was a volunteer at the race. Not only did that person record Mattie and Nick crossing the finish line, but they also managed to follow them into the medical tent and record everything up until Mattie being loaded into the ambulance.

Underneath it, someone had typed, "Dislike."

Over three hundred people clicked that they liked that comment.

Over five hundred had clicked "Like" directly under the link itself and over fifty people had already shared it.

She replayed the clip at least half a dozen times before her buzzer rang.

She got up as quickly as she could, pressed the button, and said with her voice full of hope, "Hello?"

"It's me, Sweetie. I come bearing caffeine and refined sugar."

Dianne.

Unable to mask her disappointment, she pressed the buzzer and sat on the couch, waiting for her editor to arrive.

Letting herself in, Dianne asked, "How're you feeling, doll? I brought you some breakfast."

She set a large disposable cup and a small bag from a bakery down the street on the coffee table and sat beside her.

"I'm so sorry," Mattie whispered. "I've ruined everything, haven't I?"

 "I wouldn't say everything. For starters, you're trending Facebook and Twitter. Oh, and you made the sports section. Well, the last page of the sports section."

Dianne handed it to her. "See? There, on the bottom."

After scanning it, she was grateful that the report on her dismal performance was limited to one picture. It was of Nick holding her seemingly lifeless body in his arms at the finish line. The expression on this face spoke volumes. He looked like he had just lost everything. Again.

Reading her thoughts, Dianne sighed, "Clearly not your typical client/coach relationship."

Mattie shook her head. "My readers must hate me."

Putting her hand on Mattie's shoulder, Dianne squeezed it and said, "How 'bout you get yourself cleaned up and into something fabulous. Lester wants to see you in his office at ten. I'll pop for a cab."

After a quick shower, Mattie put on a pretty floral-print dress and, since the temperature had finally dropped to a more tolerable level, a matching short-sleeved cardigan. Twenty minutes later, she made her way to Lester's office doing her best to prepare for her inevitable termination.

And possible criminal charges.

During their cab ride into work, Mattie hadn't asked about the fate that awaited her, and Dianne didn't offer. She only asked this: "What's the worst that can happen?"

Mattie had stared out the window as the tree-lined streets of the Lincoln Park neighborhood segued into the high-end storefronts of the Magnificent Mile and said, "It already has."

Feeling all eyes on her as she approached the administrative assistant's desk closest to Lester's office door, she gripped the small notebook she had brought with her.

Natalie Foster sprung up from her chair first. "Hi, Mattie. He'll be right with you."

"Ok, thanks."

The admin moved her box of tissues to the edge of her desk closest to where Mattie was standing and whispered, "Good luck."

Frowning, she said, "Thanks."

Not a moment later, the door to Lester's office swung open and there was Nick, standing directly in front of her wearing jeans with a shirt and tie. Mattie caught her breath. His eyes were dark. He looked wounded and brooding. When he saw her, he folded a little piece of paper he was carrying and stuffed it into his shirt pocket.

With his voice low and gruff, he asked, "You ok?"

Sensing a collective swoon from the administrative pool behind her, Mattie whispered, "Can we talk?"

He turned and started making his way to the elevators. When she hurried after him, Natalie and her officemates craned their necks, trying to follow the action.

"Nick, please. I'm so very sorry. I never meant to hurt you."

She cringed at the cliché.

Ignoring her, he ground out, "I don't know why I never saw it before."

"What?" Mattie asked, wishing she had plucked a couple of tissues from Natalie's box.

"You and my brother would've been perfect together. A couple of con artists."

Ouch.

Reaching the elevator, he plastered on a fake smile and added, "Who knows? Maybe someday he'll come back, and you two can live happily ever after. Just like you always wanted."

Anger started pulsing through her veins. "How can you say that?"

She grasped his hand. "I don't want your brother. I want you."

Nick let out a short laugh. Pulling his hand away from hers, he jabbed the down button. "Is that right? Well, you have a crappy way of showing it."

The elevators doors opened, and he walked in.

 "Wait." Mattie followed. When the doors closed, she hit the emergency stop button. "Are you leaving me?"

This was it. Her greatest fear was playing out before her very eyes. Another man she had lost her heart to was about to abandon her. This time, though, she knew it was no one's fault but her own. With her heart threatening to pound right out of her chest, she swallowed hard, barely able to contain the tears as she waited for his reply.

When Nick turned toward her, his eyes smoldered with hurt. "Why do you sound so surprised? You never expected me to stick around. Why else would you have lied to me this whole time?"

"I didn't lie to you. I never said I was married."
He gave her a disparaging look and released the button. "You never said you weren't."

"Nick, please." She spoke quickly, her pulse racing as they descended. "What was I supposed to do? The whole time we were growing up, you never liked me. You always just looked right through me. Then all of a sudden, you show up and act so surprised that I could be married
"
Pulling the emergency stop button, he turned on her and asked, "What are you talking about?"

She held her hands out in front of her. "Oh please. The note you handed me on the playground?"

Where the hell did that come from?

She winced, painfully aware of how pathetic she sounded
.

When Nick's expression made it clear he had no idea what she was talking about, she rolled her eyes and began reciting, "There once was a girl named Mattie who looked like a great big
"

A deep crease formed between his eyebrows. "I never gave you a note."

Mattie took in a sharp breath as the memory she believed to be her reality for so long shifted like the colors in a kaleidoscope.