Last First Kiss (2 page)

“
Somebody tell me where my husband is! Is he alive? He has to be! Please, tell me! His name is Toby...Tobias Granger and he was driving a black SUV. Please tell me if he’s okay—I have to know. He’s got black hair, brown eyes, he’s six two and slim.”

Jackson stood tall as stiff resolve seeped into his core.
Be strong for her.
“Giselle.”

She swung her piercing green eyes in his direction. “Toby?”

As recognition dawned, Jackson watched her hope melt away like ice under hot tap water.

“
Jackson...where is he? Have you seen him? They won’t tell me anything. Please, tell me,” she begged.

He spoke from the doorway, his voice steady...as calm as he could manage. “Giselle, just try to calm down.”

A doctor paused at the door before pulling him away. “Sir, are you a member of her family? We’re trying to find someone to be with her when we tell her about her husband. He was d.o.a.”

Jackson shook his head, his gaze reverting back to Giselle. “She has no family. Neither she, nor her husband had any living relatives, other than their two young daughters. She’s a co-worker of mine, and her husband is...” He swallowed hard. “Was a good friend.” He turned back to the doctor. Dr. P. Allemand, he read from the tag. “We were all involved in that accident. I’d like to be with her when you tell her, if you don’t mind.”

She gave him a slow nod and patted his arm. “Okay, but you need to get back in your wheelchair. You don’t look too steady.”

He sunk into the chair the nurse held for him and let her roll him into the room then next to her bed.

“
Giselle,” he said, staring up into huge, green, amber flecked eyes, now red-rimmed from tears.

She spoke in a voice hoarse with crying. “Jackson...where is he?”

“
Mrs. Granger,” Dr. Allemand began. “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but your husband didn’t make it.”

Jackson watched as she let her head fall back on the bed, her eyes squeezed tightly shut. “Giselle...I’m so sorry,” he said, fighting back his own tears.

Hearing his voice she lifted her head to meet his gaze with her own wild eyes. “You’re lying.”

He grabbed her hand as his own voice cracked. “I’m so sorry, Giselle. Toby was such a good man...a good friend.”

“
No! Noooo!” She pulled her hand from his. “You’re lying! You’re jealous...because we’re so happy and you and Chloe aren’t. It’s a lie - it has to be! I can’t live without Toby!

I can’t!” she wailed, breaking his heart.

“
Giselle, I know how happy you were but you still have two beautiful daughters. Think of Mackenzie and Lexie.” He gripped her hand tightly as the doctor moved in to give Giselle a sedative.

“
Oh God...I can’t do this without him. How can he leave me? How could he? I can’t take this...I can’t take it. I don’t want to live without him.” She crossed her arms in front of her face. “Please, God...Take me too!”

“
Don’t say that, Giselle. Think about your girls...Two beautiful girls—Mackenzie and Lexie. Toby loved you so much and he would want you to live so you could take care of them.”

Her body shook with hysterical, heartbreaking sobs. Jackson cried with her, repeating her daughter’s names. Slowly, the sobbing lessened and she began to calm. The drug seeped into her system, calming, quieting her. Giselle pulled her hand from his, and turned away, remaining silent as the tears flowed continuously.

Jackson felt a gentle touch on his shoulder and nodded as the nurse wheeled him out of the room and back into the elevator. The gentle whoosh of doors closing shut out the image of Giselle’s crushed presence. He closed his eyes and zoned out, wanting to mourn for his friend properly, knowing he couldn’t until Toby’s wife and daughters were taken care of. And Chloe...
what the hell was he supposed to do with Chloe?

“
Mr. Broussard?”

Jackson opened his eyes, shocked at the sign on a set of double doors three feet in front of him. The single word in thick, block letters, MORGUE, was a harsh reminder of his reason for being here. He nodded and the nurse pressed a button on the wall. Two seconds later, the technician opened the doors to let them inside. Within two minutes, he sat in front of a table as the tech lowered the vinyl sheeting to expose the body.

“
Dear God,” he groaned, covering his mouth with one hand, thankful for the shock he’d apparently suffered at the accident scene. Nothing could have prepared him for what lay before him. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been halfway clothed, and the other half covered with blood. This...this showed the ravaging effects of how her life had ended...and it sickened him. The soft voice of the nurse reminded him that he wasn’t alone.

“
Mr. Broussard, are you okay?”

He nodded then pushed himself up from the wheelchair to stand over the body of his wife, a woman he’d assumed the heavy burden of caring for. The fact that she’d made the last thirteen of their fifteen year marriage a living hell for him, had long ago removed the love.

Jackson knew everyone thought he’d been crazy for staying with a woman who generated unhappiness from her temper tantrums, violent mood swings, and overall nasty character. He also knew her real unhappiness stemmed from not being able to conceive the child they both wanted so badly. He’d seen what she considered to be her failure, eat at her for years. The doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with her, she’d said. He’d had all the necessary tests run, and his count was fine, his swimmers weren’t lazy.

Friends had urged him to leave her, find someone who wouldn’t torment him with false accusations, public displays of temper, and affairs she’d never admitted to, and he couldn’t prove. He’d stayed in hopes that the baby they’d one day have would change her back to the woman he’d fallen in love with so many years ago.

Jackson’s nod accompanied the solitary sigh of a man faced with the difficult task of closing the door on a part of his life. “It’s my wife. Chloe Stansfield Broussard.”

After filling out the necessary forms and releases, he gave them the name of a funeral home to contact. The nurse wheeled him back to his room where he called Chloe’s mother in California. He’d just ended the call when the doctor came in to discuss his x-rays, and subsequently, release him.

Jackson made his way back to Giselle’s room, and stood over her bed, watching her brow crease even in her drugged sleep. Remembering her cries from earlier, he knew, even as his own personal hell had just come to a dramatic end, hers was about to begin. He reached out to touch the bandaged cut on her forehead, a minor injury compared to what could have happened to her. Her right hand was in a splint, but that, too, was minor. He stared at her perfectly symmetrical features, marred only by a light spattering of freckles along the bridge of her delicate nose and a tiny scar above one eyebrow.

A light touch on his arm disrupted his thoughts and observations. He turned to meet Carrie’s worried gaze.

“
Jackson...I’m so sorry.” Teary eyed, she hugged him tightly. “I thought you would be here, so I brought someone up with me.”

Jackson caught the movement at the doorway and turned as his uncle walked in, Stetson in hand, looking unsure of what to say to him. He stepped toward the man who’d raised and loved him for over thirty years. “Uncle Bill.”

“
Are you okay, Jackson?”

“
A few bruises and a sore knee...nothing.” He embraced his uncle then shrugged. “It could have been a lot worse, obviously.”

“
I guess Chloe wasn’t wearing her seat belt,” Carrie said.

“
She’d be alive if she had.”

“
Have you called her mother yet?” Bill said.

Jackson snorted and shook his head. “Oh,yeah. She said she was sorry for
my
loss but couldn’t make it to the funeral.”

“
Lord, it’s no wonder she was disturbed,” Carrie added. “Are you all right? I know how bad it was for you at home.”

Jackson shook his head slowly. “I don’t know how I feel yet. Chloe was difficult to live with, but to have her die like that.” He lowered his head and squeezed his eyes shut. “God, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forget that. I wouldn’t have known it was her if I hadn’t recognized her clothing,” he said, his voice suddenly breaking.

“
I’m sorry, Jack.” Carrie hugged him again.

Jackson held on to her, fighting back the tears that threatened. Besides his Uncle Bill, Carrie was the closest thing he had to family. At forty-eight years old, twelve years older than himself, she was more like an older sister to him than co-worker of ten years. She was his right hand at the office, and he’d vented to her often when life with Chloe seemed unbearable.

Carrie had also been his buffer zone when Giselle had declared him the enemy four years earlier. One careless moment of stupidity on his part and she still called him ‘Satan’ behind his back.

Her reaction to him walking away from an accident when Toby hadn’t...No way would that be good.

Carrie’s next statement jolted him to attention.

“
Jackson, I’ve seen you miserable because of Chloe for so many years. I can’t help but feel that you’re free now, even if I do feel guilty about it.”

He stared down at the woman who’d always been so supportive of him, even when he was a wet-behind-the-ear engineer, brand new to road design. “Have I ever told you how much I appreciate you?”

“
Yes, but it’s been awhile.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “Seriously, Jackson. I’d love to see you happy.”

“
Thanks, Carrie.” He turned to stare down at Giselle, sedated and sleeping. “I wish I hadn’t been here when the doctor told her about Toby.”

Carrie’s jaw dropped. “You were here?”

“
I volunteered, but if I could do it over, I wouldn’t. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. Hell, I wasn’t thinking.”

He walked out of the room, over to a window at the end of the hallway and stared blankly out at the parking lot below. “The doctor wanted someone present that she knew. She thought it might be a comfort, but I should have known better. I know she despises me.”

Carrie put her hand on his arm. “What happened when the doctor told her?”

“
They had to sedate her.” He told them what Giselle said before receiving the shot to calm her.

“
She didn’t mean that, and I doubt seriously if she’ll remember saying it,” Carrie insisted. “Toby’s poor girls...it makes you wonder what God could have been thinking, doesn’t it?”

Bill, who’d been quiet up to now, stepped up suddenly. “Wait a minute. Is
that
the wife of your friend, Toby?”

Jackson nodded slowly. “He died in the accident.”

Bill’s head fell forward. “I’m sorry, Son. I didn’t realize. Isn’t she the one you pissed off at work a few years back?”

“
That’s her,” Jackson said, giving his uncle another nod. “She already didn’t like me. After walking away from an accident that took Toby’s life, she may never forgive me.”

“
She wouldn’t hold that against you,” Carrie told him.

He raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t hear her.” He shook his head and pushed away from the window. “She was right about one thing, though. I was envious of their marriage.”

“
Come on, Jack. Everyone was envious of those two. They were the perfect couple,” Carrie said. “Now, you need to go home, take a couple of aspirin, and go to bed.”

“
I need to get to the Chevy dealership for a new truck. I’m not driving Chloe’s Vette around. I can’t get comfortable in that thing. Are you ready, Uncle Bill?”

“
Are you released yet, Son?”

“
All taken care of. Will you be here all night, Carrie?”

“
I’ll be here until they release her.” She reached up to touch a bruise on his face. “I’m worried about you, Jack. You call me if you need to talk.”

He leaned over to hug her. “If you need anything while you’re here, let me know, and I’ll get it to you.”

“
I’ve got your number. Get your new truck then go straight home. Bill, maybe you ought to stay with him tonight.”

“
I don’t need a damn baby sitter,” Jackson grumbled. He rose from the seat quickly and winced at the pain in his knee.

“
Go ahead and sass me again, smart ass. Good luck, Bill.”

“
Call
me
at home if you need anything, hon,” Bill replied.