A Love Story
18)
He didn't want this to happen like this, not like this… not like this… but, hey, he was from Pine Valley, right? When was the last time something like this had been easy? Well, technically, should someone coming back to life ever be easy? Maybe not but he was getting sick of it.
He didn't even have time for fury and hurt when he spotted Tad stalking around like some angry bull… yes, there had been the first touches of it... until he realized that she was out here, too, ready to be driven home where he had promised to tell her things. This was why he had been hiding in a corner.
And, no, the leg had nothing to do with it.
He had tried, desperately, to stop the idiot before he trampled her… ignoring the steady ache… the pain that practically screamed for him to stop and sit and not do anything, he stood and took off, threading through people and ignoring how the ache became a stab. His walk had become a run, probably not a pretty looking run considering how he felt as his knee and hip took all the stress he didn't need.
This was getting too bad, too fast… it shouldn't be affecting him this quickly… this was just wrong…
It was like a blow to his chest when they finally collided… one man, one woman… it was poetic, he thought as he threw all of his strength into the last few steps… they had always collided together, hadn't they? Of course, they had never cared that he was the one they used when it fell apart… it always fell apart… and always because of him…
One of the first things Joe and Ruth had brought him when they got him was a puzzle… a little box of cardboard pieces that could fit together and made a picture of a dog with blotches of brown and white and a bright red collar. Joe would sit at his side and help him turn the pieces over, comparing them together.
Tad loved those puzzles, loved fitting together the pieces to make a picture… even later, older, he'd have a ball teaching JR and Jamie how to do them… Jamie stopped doing them when he learned the meaning of 'girl' and, for a long time, he'd thought JR had outgrown them.
This felt like a puzzle, he decided, watching, silent and strangely calm as JR attempted to get the woman—Dixie, Dixie, Dixie—away and gone…the woman wasn't having it; she kept trying to get around JR, kept trying to get back to Tad. He could see her mouth moving, growing more and more agitated… hands gesturing, trying harder to reach someone… reach him… why was she trying to reach him?
The face wasn't completely right, not completely; there were more lines around the eyes, deeper smile lines but the face itself. The face itself was right. It fit those cheekbones and that jaw and that neck that smelled so right in the middle of the night, as she lay sleeping.
Then that little girl was there, bouncing in front of him; when all he could do was stare down at the whipping champagne colored curls and the big eyes she caught the edges of his coat in small hands and began yanking excitedly, mouth moving… she was beautiful, perfect… not ours, she's not ours, that's not our Dixie… no, no, never, she'd never have stayed away…
Tad finally did the only thing he could; he bolted, tearing back the way he had come, shoving aside people and running as far away from them as he could… it was a coward's way and he knew it but it was the only way… flinging himself into the elevator, he pressed the button desperately, shivering and shaking and trying desperately to not think, not care, not remember…
"Who is that?"
"Nobody," JR snapped, continuing to drag her away from where she and the man had collided. Cady, latched onto her hand, was more excited than Diana had ever seen her, jumping up and down and babbling something that Diana, for the life of her, couldn't decipher… and why did it sound so much like handcuffs?
All the relaxation she'd gotten from her massage was gone now, replaced by something she didn't like, and the things in her head… it felt like someone had emptied a box of puzzle pieces on her head, and she was left scrambling for how to put it together, how to match voices with faces and places…
And she was scrambling to keep up with JR, who was dragging her towards the elevator and… why was he limping?
It was strange, what happened then, how some part of her immediately stilled and zeroed in how he was moving… it felt like when she had lost track of Cady one day at the hospital, how it felt when she realized something could be happening to her baby… it was fear, something that tightened her heart and caused her skin to go cold…
"JR…" he ignored her, continuing to drag her. It didn't hurt, not at all but that look on his face… that hurt her, made her ache in some painful way… it was the look of a caged animal, the look of someone who can't escape from something… Pushing her into the elevator, he bent down and lifted the still squealing Cady and put her into Diana's arms; he handed her a card key and pressed the button with a single bark of "Go there and wait."
Micaela rolled her shoulders, her skin rubbing against the cloth of her blouse and she looked down at the bag, checking the line of clothes before dropping the flap and zipping it closed. She stepped back from the bed and let the bell hop take the leather luggage; hefting it, he left, heading towards her new suits.
No more of this crap… and, besides, what was she supposed to say when he got back? Yeah, sure, fine, it was the cowardly thing to do but it was easier than trying to apologize…
After returning from the spa, she'd found Collette, standing by the door, with the joyful news that a suite had been opened for her. Needless to say, she'd accepted the offer and gone in to pack what she had pulled out earlier. With the last bell hop headed to the new rooms, she scooped up the copy of Carrie and her bag and stuffed the book into it, letting it hang at her side as she gave the bedroom one last glance.
Stepping out, she stopped by a mirror to check her appearance once more in the mirror. Nodding, she spun and stalked effortlessly out, flipping hair over her shoulder; at the door, she paused to check that it was locked before turning and leaving.
This was indeed a strange day… With her hand lightly clamped over the squeaking Cady's mouth,Diana stood at the corner of the hall and watched, eyes wide, as Micaela Kincaide left JR Chandler's room… strangely enough, she felt a slight surge of something akin to annoyance as she watched the fellow Southern girl strut away in her heels, showing it all off…
It never occurred to her that these were the stirring of a mother bear.
Adam would not admit defeat… even though Collette had been brought off and even though Tad Martin had escaped, he refused to admit the fact that this trip was, in essence, a bust. He had a nagging realization that he knew who had paid off Collette, a woman who worked at Tempo and happened to be, although not at this exact moment, his favorite ex-wife.
So, as of right now, Micaela Kincaide was somewhere in some other part of the resort and JR was god knows where and, hello, damn it, where the fuck was Tad!
Adam was not a happy man and the world was always afraid when Adam Chandler was not a happy man… and, in Pine Valley, as he paused in the middle of hanging a painting in the gallery, Stuart Chandler shivered in fear.
Listening to Erica go and on about New Beginnings in her happy little language for five hours was simply one of the most disturbing things Kendall Hart had ever experienced. But, like the loyal little Kane she was, she stuck it out and made herself suffer through it. Yet, in some ways, she wasn't even focused on it.
Most of her thoughts had been on Zach, their marriage and the ever present problem of their involvement with JR… sitting in her car in front of the Fusion offices, she sifted through her thoughts, thought about how he had looked before, when he'd paused and looked at her…
Kendall wished she had never seen that look, wished that she'd never let herself soften… she wished that she didn't care and didn't understand… only problem was, she did understand and she did care… she knew that look, she knew how that felt, she knew why he'd been standing outside her place and looking in.
Once upon a time, she'd been the one to stand outside and look in, wanting to enter, wanting to have someone invite her in, let her in to their homes and hearts and make her something that was worth caring about… she understood him and that truly frightened her.
It was like some sudden kind of clarity, a sudden surge of true understanding and she suddenly saw him in a new light and it was pissing her off. And it shouldn't be, not really… she'd bonded with him during the elopement, she thought as she started across the street, heels clicking steadily on the cement.
Except… this was different, this was something else entirely. She shouldn't be able to get into his head like that… Kendall sighed, tapping fingertips across her thigh as she stepped out of the elevator and into the offices… and slammed full force into Ryan. Throwing out her hands, not wanting to touch him, she staggered, fighting to retain her balance with his smell now around her like some dark fog.
She nearly screamed when he caught her arms with his hands, balancing her as she stared at him, eyes wide… and, as always, there it was, something raw and painful and all she wanted to do was run back out, get into her car and hide at home… it hurt as bad as it had just a few days before.
"Be careful there, Kendall."
She twisted slightly, trying to get out of his grip, trying to breathe again past the blossoming wound on her soul, something that refused to heal beyond a kind of rot… Ryan was rotting her through… stepping back from him, she watched, arms crossed over her chest as he bent to pick up the bag she'd dropped to the floor.
She snatched it from him, stepping back further and he finally left her alone, walking past her to his own office… and Kendall was left in confusion, with yet more weight on her back now… she headed to her seat, frown on her face, only paying half attention to Simone's excitement about Ethan being back in Pine Valley.
JR's leg stopped hurting in mid-stride. Or, more precisely, he stopped giving a flying fuck about the pain in mid-stride. It wasn't supposed to happen like this, damn it. It was supposed to be a planned reintroduction, a slow and steady life that she would get back… not her ex-husband, times three, nearly steamrolling her in the middle of another ex-husband's resort.
Still, what if Tad had a stroke?
Just because his kid was dead didn't mean that Tad should suffer without Kate—Cady—his little girl… he shouldn't live with a memorial like JR was… nothing but a name on a piece of stone and a couple of roses every year… no, not even Tad deserved this… he'd left JR in a car, left JR to mourn for his two babies in a nursery completely alone.
But it didn't change the fact that, once upon a time, Tad had given a damn about him… Mom didn't need to know all that happened, didn't need to hear about everything that had happened… it would hurt her too much.
Sighing, JR stopped, eyes settling on the figure sitting on a bench in the middle of the hallway, head down, hands in his hair and even from there he could hear the rough breathing. He could do this, he could… he took a breath, held it, watching and then he started forward, one step, than another, and another.
Turning, he settled at the Martin's side, leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes in silent and broken exhaustion… he heard the breathing, he heard the movement of clothe as the other man finally straightened fully, leaning back. And, then, finally, quiet and hoarse and broken in so many ways… "JR… tell me I'm crazy… tell me that isn't my little girl… tell me that isn't my Dixie… our Dixie."
"Tad… do you want me to lie to you?"
A look, an intensity in his gaze as he turned it to his step-son… "JR…"
"I know." JR patted him on the arm, leaned his head back again and studied the ceiling. "I know…"
AN: The good news is that the first three chapters of SBM have been found! I'm currently working a little bit on a one shot David/Greenlee and Ryan/Kendall fic and I'm going through those first chapters to try to clean them up… I'm a multi-tasker at heart and I never even knew it!