Rough Rhythm: A Made in Jersey Novella (1001 Dark Nights)(10)

Good. He’d always known she was smart.

James breathed through the horror of having scared the one person he’d dedicated his life to saving from pain. Relief would come eventually, along with the conviction he’d done what was right. If it didn’t, at least he’d know Lita was happy. Somewhere without him.

A shadow filled the sunlit walkway in front of the bench where he sat, temporarily lifting him from mental torture. He lifted his head to find his mother running a Kleenex beneath her eyes. “How is he?”

“Better,” she responded with a sigh. “Still no movement on the right side of his body, but he’s communicating with the white board and marker. He won’t try speaking just yet…I think because it feels so unnatural with only half his mouth.”

James gave a tight nod. “Still no desire to see me, I assume?”

His mother’s sympathetic look was unbearable, so James stood and paced away. He’d been home for six days, following the phone call from his mother informing James that his father had a stroke. Over a decade had passed since the last time he’d been face to face with the man—frankly, he’d been content to remain in contact with his mother only, when there was an occasion or major holiday. Unfortunately, the family landscaping business didn’t run without his father, so his mother had begged James—their only child—to step in until the company’s manager returned from a family reunion trip overseas. Regardless of James’s non-relationship with his father, there’d been some solace in being needed after relinquishing his title as manager to Old News. As protector to Lita.

Working with his hands had given James some place to direct the restless energy, so he’d taken a labor role in addition to the managerial responsibilities. The last six mornings, he’d spent digging trenches, planting trees, hauling rubble. And six afternoons in a row, he’d been refused entry to his father’s hospital room.

The sidewalk outside the hospital had begun to fill up, presumably with a shift change, if the amount of personnel was any indication. People rushed up the walkway to take advantage of the final hour of visiting time before the dinner break. An unnamable tug of consciousness pointed out an anomaly among the moving mass of people. A flash of life, of static, that didn’t belong with the rest. Sort of like déjà vu that wouldn’t stop, just looping back and around, keeping him edgy.

Holding up a finger for his mother to pause in the vocal listing of medication the doctor had administered to her husband, James turned in a circle, the pulses in his wrists hammering. When his gaze lit on the cause of his body’s visceral reaction, it took James a moment to believe what his eyes were telling him.

Lita marched up the hospital walkway, all out war written on her beautiful face. The way she sometimes looked during a drum solo. Concentrated brilliance. Jesus God, how? How had he made it this long without a glimpse of her? James took an involuntary step in Lita’s direction, his body obeying instinct. And instinct said, I need to go get mine. There was nothing but bone-melting fulfillment upon his first eyeful of the girl who ruled him. Always would—no denying that fact. But when his brain registered the entire picture, his mission stalled out, giving way to an avalanche of other. Lust, denial, anger. They whipped around him like a whirlpool, sucking him down into an ocean of chaos.

An all-too-familiar thrift shop outfit covered Lita’s body, cheap material hugging her swaying hips, the crop top’s leather fringe ending at her belly button. The outfit she’d worn the night they met.

When Lita’s Converse scuffed to a stop on the sidewalk in front of him, James’s fists were shaking with the need to get hands around some part of her and keep. A roar escaped him instead. “What are you doing here?” He barely registered his mother’s startled gasp beside him. “What kind of game are you playing?”

“Game?” Green eyes blazing, she turned around to execute a stiff karate-type kick in the air before facing him again with her shirt’s fringe still swinging. “How dare you call this a game when I’ve spent six days and four bus transfers tracking you down.”

An invisible hand squeezed his neck. “Why?”

“Why.” Shaking her head, she looked downright disgusted with him. “I’m so mad at you, James, my mad grew a second head and ate the first one.”

James realized two things at once. One, he’d always classified his feelings for Lita as sheer obsession, but the fact was, he was achingly, irrevocably in love with her. Which meant letting her go would be infinitely harder than his fool self had thought. And two, blood soaked clear through the back of her favorite Converse, so much that it left droplets in her wake on the concrete sidewalk. “Why…” He had to take a moment to formulate the question, the sight of injury on her person was so abhorrent to his peace of mind. Can’t breathe. “Why the f*ck are you bleeding?”

“Is this your mother or something? It is, isn’t it? We’re arguing in front of your mother.” Lita threw up her hands and sagged at the same time. “So be it, James. Your family will think I’m crazy and that’s too bad. I am crazy. If you want to get rid of me, you better start working on a restraining order.” A passing group of nurses were staring at Lita, bottled drinks in their hands. “Hey. Yeah. I know. The crazy has arrived. Why don’t you just…drink your stupid lemonade, huh?”