Authors: Gwyneth Bolton
J
oel hurried into the living room as soon as he heard Samantha’s scream. Seeing her sitting on the couch, holding the phone and sobbing made his heart stop and his blood run cold. Without even knowing what was wrong, he knew without a doubt he would move mountains to bring a smile back to her face. He just hoped to God it was something he could help her with.
“Samantha, sweetheart, what’s wrong? What happened?”
She glanced up at him with this vacant expression in her eyes. The tears were falling down her face in long, steady streams. Her lower lip quivered, and he felt sharp pain in his chest.
He sat down on the sofa next to her and put his arms around her. “Sweetheart, talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“My mother…I have to go to Chicago. Her doctor called. She’s in the hospital, and they don’t think she has much longer. They’re only giving her a few more days…Her liver…The drinking…I should have…” She spoke in short, halting sentences and hiccupped through her tears.
“I should have known. I should have done something. Oh, my God, it’s all my fault.”
Joel couldn’t fix this one for Samantha, but he could be there for her. He held her and rubbed her back, trying to think of words to say to console her in a situation that was inconsolable. His chest constricted and his heart felt heavy.
“It’s not your fault, Samantha.”
“It is. She started drinking really bad when my father was murdered. The few times I tried to talk to her about it, she reacted so negatively I just stopped bringing it up. A good daughter wouldn’t have stopped. I should have gotten her some help.”
He shook his head. It was clear now.
“In those kinds of situations folks have to want to help themselves.” He held her tighter as he spoke, willing the words to settle and seep in so she could stop blaming herself.
She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry, Joel. Umm…you can eat the meal I prepared if you want. The food is done. I need to check on flights to Chicago. I hope I make it there in time.” She gasped and chocked back her tears. “The doctor said she didn’t have much time left….”
“How about you go and pack some things and I’ll check on airline information for our trip to Chicago. I’ll try and get us tickets for a flight this evening. We can head to the airport as soon as we stop by my place so I can pack up a few things.”
“Joel, you don’t have to go. You didn’t know my mother—”
“But I know you, and there is no way I’m going to let you go through something like this alone.”
There was no doubt in his mind, and he refused to hear any arguments. No one should be alone at a time like this, especially when they had people who loved them.
“That’s asking a lot…I don’t want to put you in that situation. You don’t have to feel obligated just because we—”
He held up his hand, halting her speech. He knew where she was going, and he couldn’t let her finish. Just because she hadn’t realized what they had was real did not mean he could let her continue to only focus on the sexual nature of their relationship.
“I feel obligated because whether you acknowledge it or not, you’re mine. Sweetheart, what part of ‘I love you’ do you not understand? I’ve got your back. You’re not alone, not now, not ever again. You got that?” He stared into her tear-filled eyes until he was sure she, at least, heard him.
She started crying again and buried her head in his chest. He held her until the sobs tapered off.
He held her and kissed her forehead. “I’m going to start calling around for flights. Go pack a bag, sweetheart. Let’s hurry and get you to your mother.”
She didn’t question him this time. She just got up and went to the bedroom.
He took the cordless phone and called several airlines before finally getting them tickets in first class for a flight out at 9:00 p.m. that evening.
Once they were on the plane to Chicago, she seemed to calm down a little, a few tears would run down her cheeks every so often, but she appeared to be all cried out for the moment.
And Joel, he finally knew what it meant to really love someone. Even though he had never met her mother, the fact Samantha was so distraught and he couldn’t really do anything to change the situation broke his heart.
She rested her head on his shoulder.
“I want to thank you for coming with me, Joel. It means the world to me. You’re such an amazing man. I’m…I’m just really glad to have you in my life.”
He nodded. Telling her she didn’t need to thank him because he loved her and would cut off his right arm if it would stop her pain didn’t seem important. She still needed time to come to grips with the depths of his feelings for her, and that wasn’t going to happen while she was worried about her mom.
He had booked them a hotel room near the hospital, and they stopped by the hospital directly from the airport. Her mother was in ICU and they had late visiting hours, but they only got a chance to peek in at her mother.
Veronica Dash was heavily sedated and out for the night. Her doctor spoke with them, and it didn’t seem as if Samantha’s mother had much longer. Joel only hoped the next morning wouldn’t be too late for Samantha to see her mother and say good-bye.
As he held her in his arms when she finally drifted off to sleep, he prayed he would be able to offer her the support and comfort she would need to make it through this. There was nothing else more important to him at that moment.
The next morning, Samantha entered her mother’s hospital room and stopped short just inside the door. She stifled a gasp as she looked at her mother in the light of day. Even though she had peeked in on her the night before, nothing could have prepared her for seeing her mother with the sunshine brightening the stark, white hospital room.
Samantha’s heart nearly beat its way out of her chest. The beating felt as if the organ was pushing its way past her chest cavity and splintering over and over again. She could feel new tears make their way down her face, and she forced herself to make baby steps forward. Each move felt like picking up a cement block and trying to drag it along.
She never thought she would see her mother like this.
Veronica Dash had been thin for years, ever since her husband’s death. She had barely eaten anything for months after the murder, and years of drinking and a poor diet had turned the once full-figured mother Samantha knew as a child into the rail-thin woman she grew up knowing. However, none of that could have prepared her for the emaciated woman that lay in the hospital bed.
The disease had eaten away at the meat on Veronica’s body. She was now just a skeleton with loose skin hanging off her.
Samantha couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down her face. How did she let it get to this? She had just seen her mother eight months ago and she had been thin but fine.
The doctor said she had been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver a little under two years ago and told she needed to stop drinking if she wanted to be placed on a transplant list. She didn’t do so and the cirrhosis gave way to cancer, which had spread throughout her body. And still, she kept drinking. It had gotten so bad that her body was deteriorating rapidly. The cancer had spread to most of her major organs, which were starting to shut down, and the doctor told Samantha it was only a matter of time.
Veronica had never even shared the news with Samantha.
Her mother opened her eyes and lifted her weak, thin hand to move the breathing mask that covered her mouth.
“Sammie…I knew you’d come before it was too late.” Veronica’s voice was raspy. She looked at Samantha with glazed-over eyes and it was hard to tell how lucid she was.
“Mom, I’m here. Oh, Mom…How could you let it get this bad? Why? Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you stop?” She didn’t even bother to wipe the tears from her face.
Joel placed his hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to wait outside and let you two talk.” Joel gave her shoulder a squeeze.
“No, you stay, young man.” Veronica gazed up at Joel and then turned to Samantha. “Sammie, is this your boyfriend?”
She didn’t know what to say. The hopeful look in her mother’s eyes almost did her in.
“You’re going to take care of my Sammie when I’m gone. I never really took care of her the way a mother should. She took care of me more than anything else. She needs someone to look out for her now like my sweet husband looked after me.”
Samantha’s gut twisted, and her heartbeat stalled.
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll take care of Samantha for the rest of my days. You don’t have to worry about her. She has me.”
Samantha let out a breath and tried to calm herself. She’d have to apologize to Joel for her mother putting him on the spot.
Veronica gave a shaky smile. “That’s good. He’s a handsome one, Sammie. I see why you were so reluctant to come home more.”
“No, Mom. If you had just told me you were sick, I would have been home on the first flight I could get. I would have come if you’d told me. Plus, we only met a few months ago.”
If she had gotten a job in Chicago and moved closer to home, she would have been there and seen the signs. She could have done something to prevent this. Her mother was dying, and it was all her fault. Her chest felt heavy, and a darkness set in so thick it threatened to choke her.
“I didn’t want you to come just because I was sick. I wanted you to come because you wanted to come. Plus, when the doctors told me that I had cirrhosis of the liver a couple of years back, I knew I wasn’t going to stop drinking.” Veronica’s face twisted slightly and she moved and contorted as if her body had a mind of its own.
Samantha thought she saw a glimpse of the guilt in her mother’s eyes at her confession.
“Without anything to numb me, the pain of losing your father is just too much. Honestly, I wanted to die then but I told myself I had to stay alive for you. You probably would have been better off if I had—”
Her voice sounded so frail, and her body seemed to struggle with each word. Samantha had to stop her. She needed to save her strength. And none of the past mattered now.
“Don’t say that, Mom. That’s not true. I needed you. I loved you. I’m so sorry I didn’t try harder to get you to stop drinking. If I had moved back home after graduate school, maybe I could have…Oh, Mom, I don’t want you to die.” She choked out her words—words that felt inadequate, words that would never right the wrongs.
“It’s okay, Sammie. I’m at peace with it. At least there’ll be no more pain, and if God isn’t too peeved with me for being a drunk and a bad mother, maybe I’ll get to be in heaven with your daddy. I sure hope so.” She lifted her hand and tried to put the breathing mask back on.
Samantha reached over and secured the mask for her mother.
“Are you okay? Should we get a nurse?” Joel asked.
Veronica feebly nodded her head slowly.
Joel rushed out of the room to get help.
Samantha placed her hand on her mother’s shoulder and prayed. She wasn’t ready to say good-bye. A daughter is never ready.
It wasn’t fair. She had really lost both parents when she was twelve. The woman who drank her life away was a ghost of the woman she used to know, but that ghost was the only mother she had.
“I love you, Mom. I’ve always loved you. Please don’t leave me.” Samantha sobbed out her words and willed her mother to live.
Veronica looked at her, and Samantha could have sworn she saw a smile in her eyes before they glazed over into nothingness.
Her wail assaulted the air at the same time that her mother flat-lined.
By the time Joel made it back with the doctor and nurse, Veronica Dash had passed away. The doctor simply called the time of death since her mother had requested not to be resuscitated.
Samantha’s heart broke in so many pieces she didn’t know how she would put them back together or if she even wanted to.
S
amantha called the clinic to let her supervisor, Lisa Howard, know that she would need a little time off from work to bury her mother and wrap up her mother’s affairs.
“Girl, first let me say that I’m so sorry to hear about your mom. I’m so sorry. That has to be the worst feeling in the world. I’ll keep you in my thoughts and prayers.” Jenny paused and sighed.
“Are you sitting down? I have something to tell you before I transfer you to Lisa.” Jenny spoke in a hushed whisper.
Samantha sat down on the hotel bed. She hoped nothing had happened to Jenny’s kids or her husband, Walt.
“I’m sitting down. What happened?”
“Some woman called the clinic Monday wanting to speak to whoever was in charge. Something told me to find out more about what she wanted first before connecting her with Lisa, but I didn’t follow my first mind.” Jenny stopped and Samantha could almost see her friend’s facial expressions and her bouncing in her seat. She always bounced when she got excited or antsy. “Dang, I should have followed my first mind! Anyway, I just connected her and come to find out she called to complain about you.”
Her mouth dropped open and her eyes went wide. “Me? Was she a former patient? Why would she complain about me? What did Lisa say?”
Samantha knew she was always the consummate professional with her patients. She did her job well, and for the most part had a nice and easy rapport with all of her patients.
“Lisa said the woman went on and on about you being a slut who seduced patients and that you were currently having an affair with at least one of your patients, maybe more. The woman suggested you might be using the clinic as a clandestine massage parlor to find unsuspecting johns for your prostitution ring. Lisa said the woman just had a million and one ways to call you a whore, basically.”
Sophie!
She thought back to the Hightower family cookout and the harsh words Joel’s aunt had spoken. If she were a betting woman, she would put her money on Sophie.
Now in addition to burying her mother she had to worry about having a job when she got back to New Jersey. She might even have to worry about going to jail, because if the old woman had cost her a job, she couldn’t say for sure she wouldn’t snap and break Sophie’s evil, hateful neck.
“Just transfer me to Lisa so I can tell her I’ll be in Chicago, burying my mother and settling her affairs.” She didn’t even feel like discussing Sophie anymore.
She wanted to tell Jenny dating Joel had been a bad idea after all. But thinking of the way he had been there for her from the moment she found out about her mother and each step of the way after, the way he was still with her, helping her with arrangements and holding her when it just became too much to bear, she knew deciding to give their attraction a chance to grow into something more had been the best decision she’d made in a long time.
He had become her rock, her protector, her safe harbor. There was no way she could give him up. Even if her boss demanded it, she couldn’t. The ache in her chest would be too painful if she lost him.
She realized she had fallen in love with Joel Hightower.
She’d fallen in love with a man who could possibly go back to a dangerous job and put her at risk of mourning him the way her mother had mourned her father.
When Lisa came on the line, her supervisor expressed her condolences and then gave the streamlined and sanitized version of what the complaining caller said.
Samantha didn’t miss a beat. She was in love, and life, sweet precious life, was too short.
“Lisa, I just want to say I have started dating a patient. We were attracted to one another from the beginning and I did nothing about it for the first two-and-a-half months because of my professionalism and the fact I do value my position at the clinic. Unfortunately, love refuses to be put on hold or follow protocol, and I’m glad, because he has been the only thing between me and unbearable grief right now. It’s not a shady affair. I’ve found the man I love.”
She had no idea what made her blurt out her confession to her boss before she even told her man, but there was something about knowing it that made her want to scream it from the rooftops, go tell it on the mountain and sing it to the world. She loved Joel and he loved her.
Joel Hightower was the only man for her, and it was about time she admitted it to herself and to him. He’d already confessed his love. She hadn’t wanted to believe it when he said it, but his actions the past couple of days showed her the truth.
“Samantha, we’ll still have to have a formal hearing with you when you get back to discuss the complaints of prostitution and your relationship with this patient. We just need to check into things and make sure the complaint is unfounded. We all know you, Samantha, and we know you wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize your career or the clinic, and I for one, couldn’t be happier that you’ve fallen in love.”
Samantha could almost feel Lisa’s smile from across the phone lines. She expelled a breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding.
“I’ll try and get back as soon as possible, Lisa.”
“Take your time. Losing your mother is hard. I’m glad you have someone to help you through it,” Lisa said.
Samantha felt the tears running down her face.
She was glad, too.
When Joel came back to the hotel room with breakfast, he found Samantha sitting on the bed with the cell phone in her hands, crying.
Placing the bagels and coffee on the small corner table, he went to her immediately and held her.
“We need to head out to the funeral home to tie up the details for the wake and funeral, sweetheart.”
He hated bringing it up, but they had a lot of ground to cover. Since Samantha was an only child, there were no other immediate family members left to handle the planning. Her mother had pretty much alienated anyone else.
It made him all the more glad he had insisted he make this trip with her.
She wiped her face. “Someone called my job and made a complaint against me.”
He couldn’t hold back the angry twitch in his jaw when she relayed all the things someone had called her job and said about her.
Aunt Sophie had gone too far this time. He was going to put an end to her reign of terror as soon as he got back to New Jersey.
“You’re a stellar physical therapist. You’re professional, and most important, you really didn’t stand a chance of resisting me once I put my game down. I was determined to have you. You had no choice but to give in.” He rubbed her back as he spoke and tried to keep the smile out of his voice.
She pulled away and crossed her arms over her chest.
He kept a straight face.
“What? You know you wanted me from the first moment you set eyes on me. I think it’s commendable you wanted to hold on to your ideals and all that, but it was really an exercise in futility. Not only am I irresistible, but I always get my girl.”
He made a show of shrugging nonchalantly.
She smiled. “You are
sooo
modest. It amazes me how a guy that is as awesome as you are can be
sooo
humble.”
“I know, right? I blow my own mind with how low-key and understated my swagger is.” He brushed off his shoulder for show. “To be fair, I’m not irresistible to the entire female population—”
“No!” she interrupted in mock horror.
“Yes. Shocking, isn’t it? But actually, there is really only one woman whose tolerance and resistance levels turn to mush when I’m around, and lucky woman that you are, it’s you.” He brushed her lips with a kiss. “Don’t faint now. I know what my touch does to you.”
Her smile widened, and she shook her head.
Seeing her smile lifted his spirit. “I love you, sweetheart. I love you more than words could express, and I’m dedicated to making you happy and making you smile.”
She giggled softly. “Thanks. I needed that.”
“I know. Now go clean up those tear tracks so we can get moving.”
She saluted and offered, “Yes, sir,” in a sassy voice.
Smiling, he teased, “I think I can get used to that kind of obedience.”
He chuckled when her lips twisted to the side.
Lightly tapping her bottom, he said, “Get a move on, Little Miss Spitfire.”
All through the wake, the funeral and cleaning out her mother’s home, Samantha saw she could count on Joel in ways she would never have imagined.
When they got to her parents’ bedroom, she found both of her parents’ things in the closets and dresser drawers. Even though she’d known her mother had never gotten rid of her father’s things, seeing them there the way they must have looked the day he died sent a sharp pain through her chest.
And here she was, setting herself up for the same downfall if Joel got clearance to return to his dangerous job.
She could lose him, and it would probably kill her, too.
The realization hit her like a fist to the gut because it meant she had made the ultimate mistake. Not only she had fallen head over heels in love with Joel Hightower, but she had risked more than her heart in the process.
Was she really stronger than her mother in that regard? She liked to tell herself throughout the years she would have done a better job coping for her children if she’d been in her mother’s shoes, but that was easy to say when she hadn’t been deep in love.
As her tears began a steady trail down her face, she felt strong arms enclose her in an embrace.
“Let me hire someone to do at least this room for you, sweetheart. I know it must be hard.”
She could feel Joel’s soft breath on the base of her neck as he spoke.
It was too late to save her heart or play it safe. If she gave him up now, she would be heartbroken. If she stayed with him and he died performing his dangerous job, she would be devastated, as well. No matter how she cut it, loving a man in a dangerous job could destroy her the way it had destroyed her mother.
“No. I need to do this.” She took a deep, calming breath. “I can’t believe she never gave away his things. It’s like she never recovered from the loss because she never really let go.”
He didn’t say anything. He just held her close.
“I don’t want to be that vulnerable to heartache. I’m terrified of ending up like her.” Her words came out in such a hushed whisper she could barely hear herself, and it was too late to wonder if he’d heard her. She felt his body go still.
He had heard her.
She pulled away and turned to him. “I’m going to get started in here. The sooner we get done here the sooner we can head back to Jersey and find out the fate of my job.”
It took everything in him not to pull her back into his arms and make her believe her heart was safe with him. He understood her hesitation. His father’s words about why he had started Hightower Security came to mind and made him question his own situation and his own desires to go back to a job he loved.
Would he lose Samantha if he were allowed to go back to firefighting? Would it be asking too much of her to ask her to remain with him despite her history, pain and fears? Could he look at her each day and know his job added to her worry and stress? Could he leave a job he loved to give the woman who had captured his heart her peace of mind?
At the end of the day, which of his loves would win out and which would be sacrificed for the other? He had no idea how to answer any of those questions. The only thing he knew for certain was that after finding this incredible woman to love, he didn’t want to ever let her go.
When they made it back to New Jersey, after weathering her mom’s death together, Samantha knew without a doubt they could probably make it through anything. That’s why she knew she had to go and face his aunt Sophie one-on-one to clear the air and try to get an understanding of why she felt the need to do what she did.
Joel came with her to Sophie’s place but she told him that she wanted and needed to face Sophie alone. He agreed to wait downstairs in her senior complex just in case. Him coming to the complex actually worked out well because she needed his voice to get Sophie to buzz them into the building. The woman probably wouldn’t have buzzed her up.
The look on Sophie’s face when she opened the door and saw Samantha there instead of her beloved nephew gave
nasty
a new meaning.
Samantha didn’t wait for an invitation and instead just pushed her way into the apartment.
“So, tell me, Sophie, what exactly did I do to you to make you think it would be fun to try to ruin my career?”
Sophie let the door slam.
“Where’s my nephew? I buzzed him up, not you. Should I call security?” Sophie folded her arms across her chest and glared at Samantha.
“You could. I can’t stop you, but I was hoping that since you were woman enough to call my place of employment and complain about me—albeit a cowardly anonymous call—that you would be woman enough to have a civil conversation about why you did it.” It was all she could do to hold her own hands at her sides and not slap them upside Sophie’s head.
“You don’t have any proof that I did anything.”
“You do realize that our offices have caller ID? And we could easily get the phone records to see where incoming calls on that day came from.” She smirked when she said it and hoped that she exuded an air of confidence because they did not have caller ID and there was no way she could really prove Sophie did it.
She just knew Sophie had done it.
“I—I—I…Well…listen, I didn’t call your job, but
if
I did, I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m sure it’s against the rules for you to date your patients.”
Mmm…hmm…stuttering
and
lying.
“Actually, it’s not against the rules, and it’s your accusation of prostitution that was the big issue.” Samantha rolled her eyes in disgust. “Why would you do that? What did I do to you besides date and fall in love with your nephew.
I love him,
and you are trying to sully our relationship with your innuendo and malicious behavior.”