No Love Allowed(49)

She didn’t have to be told twice. She tugged on the seat belt just as he inserted the key into the ignition and started the engine. He pulled out onto the path that led away from the house just as she clicked the buckle into place. He was in a hurry to get away, but all her concern turned into elation when Caleb gunned down the tree-lined driveway leading to and from his house. When she had arrived in a limo with Natasha earlier, her eyes almost popped out of her head at the sight of the massive, almost palatial, mansion. Tash had laughed when she blurted out that Caleb’s house was bigger than theirs. A part of her had immediately wanted to explore, see what its walls hid inside. Maybe even see Caleb’s room. But she forgot all that the moment she locked eyes with him in a tux. He looked so dashing, like a dark prince from her very own fairy tale.

As they zipped their way along the mountainside, she raised her hands up and squealed. The wind whipped through her hair. She could barely breathe when she screamed for Caleb to go faster. And go faster he did. The rear tires skidded to the side every time they took a corner. Everything around her passed by in a blur—the water on one side and the mountain and trees on the other.

“It’s like flying!” she yelled through the engine’s roar. “Faster, Caleb, faster.”

With a grin stretching his lips, he shifted gears and the car leapt forward like a sleek jungle cat chasing after prey. She whooped and laughed. How could she not? Her belly tumbled like a boulder rolling down a hill. This was the most exhilarating thing to ever happen in her life, and she was with Caleb as it happened.

Because of the rushing wind, she didn’t quite catch the words he said when he finally spoke again. She turned to face him. Having escaped from the headband, her hair covered her face. She reached up and tucked the strands behind her ear.

“What did you say?” she shouted at him.

“I think I’m falling in love with you,” he shouted back, taking his eyes off the road to look her in the eye.

That one moment was all it took to change everything.

In her periphery a shadow leapt out into the road in front of them. She shrieked, “Watch out!” about the same time Caleb hit the brakes and twisted the wheel all the way to the left. The car swerved violently.

The crunch of metal cut Didi’s scream short.





Twenty-Two


CALEB GASPED AWAKE, then groaned as pain exploded in his ribs. He grabbed his left side and rolled into the pulsing beneath his palm. Right about the same time, a dull throb began behind his eyes. He shut them again. His body felt like he had bounced off a brick wall after running full speed into it. In the distance, in between the pounding beats in his head, he heard someone call for the doctor.

It might have been a minute or several hours later when sure hands rolled him onto his back again. His breathing went from shallow and fast to deep and easy after a pinprick in his arm. The tight muscles of his face eased with the dulling of the nerves sending protests to his brain.

“Caleb,” someone said. “Can you hear me?”

He nodded once. With less pain came more fatigue. All he wanted was to go back to sleep. What the hell had happened that had him feeling like crap?

The numbness allowed for memories to flood in. His birthday party. The argument with his father. The crazy drive down the mountainside. The crash.

Eyes popping open, he sat up without thinking. Just as fast, hands grabbed his shoulders and applied pressure. He looked around at the unfamiliar faces. Two women in green scrubs and a man in a white coat.

“Where am I? Where’s Didi?”

“Caleb,” the man said in a calm but firm tone. “You are in the hospital. Do you remember the car crash?”

Losing patience he didn’t have to begin with, he pushed back against the nurses holding him down. “That’s why I’m asking about Didi.” He gritted his teeth as the doctor ran a penlight over his eyes. “There was a girl with me.” He reached for her full name before it slipped away. “Diana Alexander. Is she all right?”

“Caleb, I’m going to need you to calm down while I finish my examination,” the doctor continued as if his rising panic wasn’t about to rip his heart out of his chest.

He grabbed the lapels of the doctor’s white coat. “Then tell me what happened to Didi!”

“Caleb, chill!”

It was Nathan’s voice that allowed him to let go of the doctor. One of the nurses already had a needle out, no doubt filled with a sedative. Taking deep breaths that ended with a slight twinge of pain, he tried his best not to run out of the private room. The attending physician adjusted his coat and returned the penlight to his breast pocket while the nurse put away the needle.

Caleb turned to where Nathan sat in a corner of the room. He still wore his tux, but the bow tie and jacket were gone and the sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up. Based on the light slanting in from between the blinds at the window beside Nathan, it wasn’t his birthday anymore.

With a frown firmly in place, Nathan said, “Why don’t you listen to the good doctor before we start talking about Didi? A couple of minutes. Can you do that?”

Of course he couldn’t! He needed to know if Didi was all right. But instead of voicing protestations that would have gotten him nowhere fast, he simply nodded and returned his attention to the doctor. The nurses had left to give them privacy.