He wanted Nick to feel his pain. Phoned and told him exactly that. By the time Nick got to Jana, it was too late.”
“Oh...” I had no words. Poor Nick. Poor Jana. “I don’t... I can’t...”
“It broke him. Not in every way, but in here.” She pressed her palm against her chest. “Until you came along. You stuck him back together. Now you hold his heart, and it’s up to you whether you want to keep it.”
“Does he still do the same job?”
“Yes, and he’ll never quit. He’s gonna go to work, and when he comes home, he won’t tell you about his day. He’s gonna turn up with dings, dents, and scratches and maybe worse, and he won’t be able to say where he got them. Some nights he won’t come home at all. There’s a lot of women who couldn’t cope with that. The question is, are you one of them?”
“But what if he gets badly hurt?” My voice rose in line with that darn machine and its squealing. I recalled the bruises on his chest in England, and how he’d joked about getting them. Could he have been telling the truth? “He got injured in England. His chest.”
“Ah, yes, the tree and the parachute. It happens, but getting hurt is a risk he takes. A risk we all take. It’s a calculated risk, though, and he’s well trained.”
So he had tried to be honest with me, and I’d brushed it off. I thought back to our last night in Baysville. The way he’d met Billy head-on without any hesitation, so calm and assured. How many similar situations had he faced? And where the heck did he learn to fight?
“You said on the night he was in jail that it wasn’t the first time he’d been there. Was he a criminal?”
Emmy laughed. “He spent a couple of nights in a cell when he was fifteen because he stole a truck and his arsehole of a father decided to teach him a lesson. Then he got put in the brig for a week when he and his platoon stripped down their commanding officer’s car and reassembled it on the roof of the mess hall. The captain didn’t see the funny side. Oh, and he got held hostage in Iraq for two days before he escaped. I think that’s it.”
“He was in Iraq? And what’s a brig?”
“Yes, he was in Iraq. We have an office over there. A brig is a Navy prison.”
“So Nick was in the Navy?”
“For a few years. He joined up to piss off his dad, then found it actually suited him quite well.”
“This is all...it’s so much to take in. I wasn’t expecting any of this.”
“Take some time to think it through. Lara, he’s a good man.”
“I know. I know he is. But Jana... His job... And I don’t understand why he’s even interested in me. I mean, why isn’t he with someone like you? You seem like you’d be perfect for each other.”
“Nicky needs sweet, and he needs straightforward. I’m neither of those things, and I never will be.”
“I wasn’t sweet earlier. I shouted and told him I never wanted to see him again.”
“He’ll get over it.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I’m certain of it.”
I wasn’t so sure. When I closed my eyes, I could still see the hurt on his face. I’d done that to him. Me.
“Where is he now?”
“Out working. Looking for your stalker. How much do you recall about the car crash?”
“Hardly anything.” The road, the dark… Then nothing. “I wrecked Nick’s Ferrari.”
“He doesn’t give a fuck about the car. Only you. Now, tell me what you remember.”
I racked my brain, but most of the journey was hazy. “He forgot his wallet, so I went to take it to him, then I left the restaurant, and there were headlights... Trees. I remember trees.”
“Did you see another car behind you?”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“Because there was white paint on the back of the Ferrari, and we suspect you might have had some assistance leaving the road. The car has a tracking device and sensors on it, so as soon as you crashed, Nick got a call. When we arrived on the scene, a man was carrying you along the road.”
Now the darn machine really went wild. I’d barely swallowed the lump rising in my throat before the door burst open and a nurse ran in.
“Is everything okay?”
“Uh, fine?” I needed answers, not a medical exam. Please, just go away.
The nurse narrowed her eyes at