The Penalty Box (Vancouver Wolves Hockey #3)(82)

I took her hand from his and tugged her towards me. “She’s mine, and I don’t share.”

Never have more caveman words been spoken, but I didn’t give a shit. I felt barbaric. I felt a need to yank her back to my side, to protect her, to take care of her.

Why had I ever let her out of my sight?

With her hand in mine, I turned and began to walk off the dance floor. We weaved through couples and I dragged her out into the hallway before looking for the elevators.

She didn’t say a damn word. She just picked up her skirts in one hand and worked to keep up with me. We rode the elevator in silence, and then I yanked her into my suite and shut the door before finally working up the nerve to face her.

She stood beside the couch. Her brown eyes were wide on my face and her freckles stood out, looking so sweet I wanted to drop to my knees.

“I’m a fucking asshole.”

She shook her head. “I understand what is going on.”

I tried again. “I wanted to call you. I wanted to talk. I didn’t know what to say.”

We stood there staring at each other.

In a voice so soft, so gentle, she said, “Your mom told me everything.”

If she had reached forward and stuck a shiv into my heart, I wouldn’t have felt more pain.

“Charlie.” That was all I could manage.

“You need to talk to me. You need to tell me what happened so I can understand your fear.”

I shut my eyes, trying to shut out the images of that night. For years I had buried them. And for the last two weeks, I had done everything I could to block them.

She held out her hand to me. Like a lifeline. I looked at her, and then I was walking towards her. She led me to the bed, and she crawled onto it, a vision in flowing purple. She tugged my hand, and I let her pull me onto the bed across from her.

“Tell me about Nadia.” Her voice was so soothing, infused with so much love.

I swallowed hard. This was it. This is where I needed to face everything I had been running away from my entire life. Moments passed before I managed to say, “I loved her.”

Her eyes filled with tears and she nodded.

I looked down at Charlie’s hand, so tiny in my own. “I wanted to go out to the pond that day. My dad had the gardener clear off the snow, and I used to spend hours out there, skating.”

She squeezed my hand.

“Nadia had come out with me. When she fell, she laughed. And I fell beside her and we stared up at the sky. Big dark clouds were rolling in. A storm was coming. She looked at me and asked me if I was ready to come inside.”

I looked up and almost drowned in the love in Charlie’s eyes.

I pressed my lips together, because they were trembling. “I thought I was having a nightmare when I woke up to her screams. I didn’t know that I was waking up into my nightmare.” I took a deep breath. “The lights weren’t working. The phone was dead. She was crying. I was crying, and there was already so much blood.”

I felt wetness on my cheeks, but the floodgates were open. I couldn’t seem to stop the words from coming. “Our nearest neighbor was over a half a mile away. I wanted to go, to run there, but she begged me to stay. She told me the baby was stuck, and she needed my help. She told me to be brave, that we could do this together. She promised that when it was over, I’d have a new baby sister or brother.”

I took a deep breath. “I did everything she told me to. Everything. I got the towel. I disinfected things with boiling water. She needed me to try to turn the baby. So I pressed on her stomach like she asked until she screamed. I was crying. She was screaming, and the blood…”

My voice broke. I took a deep breath and met Charlie’s eyes.

“There was so much blood. When my little brother was born, he wasn’t breathing. Nadia was so weak. She told me to breathe into his mouth. I did everything she asked, but he never took a breath. Not a single one.”

Tears streamed down Charlie’s face.

“When I turned to tell Nadia that her baby had died, she was just lying there. Staring at the ceiling. She wasn’t breathing either.”

“Mica,” Charlie spoke my name with so much pain and understanding, I almost lost it.

I bent over Charlie’s hand, bringing it to my mouth. I held my breath, barely keeping it together. I lifted my eyes to hers. “I was alone with them for hours. I knew I should go find someone, but I didn’t want to leave either of them alone. So, I held my baby brother for hours until the day staff showed up. He was so sweet, so perfect looking, with these tiny little hands and feet.” I swallowed hard. “Nadia would have loved him. She loved me, and she would have loved him too.”

Charlie’s shoulders were shaking with emotion.

I needed to tell her the worst part of the story. “It was my fault. All of that was my fault. I wanted to skate that day. I never did anything when she fell. I never ran for help. I should have gone for help.”

Charlie’s eyes widened. “No, Mica. You don’t believe that.”

I did believe that. I had spent a lifetime thinking of all the things I should have done differently. “I might have been able to save her. When she fell on the ice, that was the moment I could have saved her life.”

She kneeled in front of me and put my face between her two hands. “Mica, you were ten. You were a little kid. How could you have known that? She didn’t even know something was wrong.”