the same.
Carrying such thoughts into sleep with him, he should not have been surprised that his rest was uneasy. Yet, when the nightmare came in the dark of the night, it took him unaware. One moment he floated in a vast, black sea of oblivion, then suddenly he found himself behind the wheel of the sleek, low-slung, midnight-blue sports car that had been his signing gift to himself. He had bought the vehicle as soon as the ink had dried on his first pro contract and couldn’t wait to show it off. The valet at the club where he and Nick had stopped in for drinks earlier that evening had gushed about what a sweet ride it was when he’d delivered it to the curb that night and traded Stephen the keys for a generous tip.
Adrenaline pumped in Stephen’s veins as he put the car through its paces. It sped through the night, wind whipping through the open windows, Nick whooping it up in the passenger seat. Pleased with life, Stephen laughed and stomped the gas pedal. Nick braced an arm against the dash, howling with glee as the car shot forward.
Suddenly headlights appeared. Stephen knew with sickening dread that he was dreaming and exactly what was coming, but he could do nothing.
“No! No!” he cried. “Wake up! Wake up!”
He tried everything, from trying to rouse himself from the dream to yanking and pounding the steering wheel, but nothing prevented the bone-jarring crash. Then they were rolling, banging around the interior of the car as it tumbled. Unbelted, Nick slammed into him more than once, tossed about like a rag doll. Stephen knew that the car would come to rest on the passenger side and what he would see then.
Blood. Shattered glass. Crumpled metal. Nick, twisted and broken.
Howling in grief, Stephen clawed at his own safety restraints. Abruptly, the colored lights of emergency vehicles flashed macabre shadows across the scene, but Stephen knew it was too late. Still, he struggled, sobbing and screaming, desperate to reach the dearest person in his world. Nick could not be gone. He could not, for how could anyone possibly live in a world without Nicklas?
The call came on the house phone, not the expensive mobile unit that Stephen Gallow had insisted she must have. Somehow, though, even as she reached for the receiver on the low chest beside her bed, Kaylie knew that it had to do with him. Hearing Odelia’s trembling voice on the other end of the line only confirmed that assumption.
“Kaylie? Can you come? He’s fallen, and the pain is terrible. We don’t know what to do.”
“I’ll be right there,” she answered without hesitation, throwing off the bedcovers.
Her father tapped on her bedroom door as she pulled on her scrubs. “One moment!” Reaching for the doorknob with one hand, she stuffed a pair of socks into a pocket with the other.
“What’s going on?” Hub demanded, yanking a knot in the belt of his plaid robe. “I heard the phone ring, and it’s not even 5:00 a.m.”
“Stephen has fallen,” she told him, stomping her bare feet into athletic shoes.
“Who is Stephen?”
“Mr. Gallow.”
“Your new patient?”
“That’s right.”
Hubner rolled his eyes. “I knew this job would turn into a terrible imposition.”
Kaylie tried to hang on to her patience as she stuffed her wallet into her pocket and grabbed her keys. “I don’t have time to discuss it, Dad.”
Pushing past him, she moved down the narrow hallway and into the living room. Hub padded along behind her in his house slippers.
“When will you be back?”
“I have no idea.”
She skirted the room, with its comfortably worn furnishings and fieldstone fireplace. Just as she reached the opening to the small foyer, a lamp snapped on and her father spoke again.
“What about breakfast?” he asked, the faintest whine in his voice. “Will you be back in time to get breakfast, do you think?”
Exasperated, Kaylie rounded on him. “I don’t know, Dad. Thankfully, you can feed yourself.”
Something dark and troubling flashed across his face, but Kaylie’s worry for Stephen pushed all other considerations away just then. She whirled and rushed out, telling herself that she would apologize later. As she raced toward Chatam House, her only prayer was for the injured man who had put that tremor into her auntie’s voice.
Locking his jaw, Stephen held still as Kaylie injected medication into his upper right leg. Red-hot pain radiated up and down from the thigh, knifing up into his hip and down into the plaster cast below his knee, all the