Fighting Back (Fighting For Love Book 5) Read online

  “It’s not yours, either.” She forced herself to speak though the lump in her throat. “I know that you’ve been running yourself ragged at The Rock, picking up the slack from Nick missing work. Katie said that you sleep maybe three hours a night, and that if you’re not running the gym almost single-handedly, then you’re spending time with Nick. So you’re also doing penance, Adam. Also punishing yourself for something that’s not your fault.”

  Adam paused. “I know.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yeah, intellectually I do. Emotionally?” He gave her a tiny, wry grin. “Well, I’m working on it.”

  She managed a tremulous smile. “How’s that going?”

  “Like shit. But I’ll keep at it.”

  Mia laughed and then – to her utter shock and horror – she gave a deep sob. Her hands went to her face to cover her embarrassment, but Adam didn’t allow it. Gently, so gently for a man his size, he dragged her hands down, held her wrists. She fought to stop the tears from falling, struggled to stop the tightness in her chest.

  “Nuh-uh, sweetheart,” he said softly. “You go on and cry now. God knows, it’s about fucking time.”

  Panicking, she shook her head, trying so damn hard to make this not happen. “But… I don’t want to cry.”

  “You need to, Mia.” He touched her cheek with one thick finger, watched her lips tremble. “It’s OK. Let go. I’ll catch you.”

  That was when the floodgates opened, in full force. In the face of Adam’s kindness and sweetness, Mia lost the battle that she’d valiantly waged for three weeks – and she lost hard and decisively.

  She collapsed where she sat, just crumpled in on herself. Adam was shocked at how completely she fell to pieces, and he quickly pulled her in to a hug. He held her close and tight, trying to not crush her small body in his huge arms. God, she was hurting, and all he felt was pain radiating off her in waves.

  Mia curled up against Adam, shaking wildly. She didn’t even care how weak and stupid she looked right now – all she was able to handle in this totally broken moment was sucking in breath, and she wasn’t even doing that especially well. Her chest hurt from lack of air and the force of her sobs, and she just held on to Adam’s body as she drowned in a sea of grief and anger and confusion.

  After a while, Mia realized that Adam was gently stroking her hair and saying something to her. She focused on his words, really put effort into making them out. He wasn’t saying anything special or earth-shattering – he was telling her that she was OK, that it was all going to be alright, that he had her – but as it turned out, she didn’t need to hear anything original. No, she just needed his touch and warmth. His strength and gentleness.

  Slowly, she calmed again, but he didn’t let her go. Not until she stopped shaking and every tear had dried. Only then did Adam draw back and study her face.

  “You good?” he said.

  She nodded, swiping at her eyes to get rid of the last bit of evidence. “I’m sorry, Adam.”

  “Don’t.” The word was a low rumble out of that massive chest. “Never again do you apologize to me for hurting, Mia. You’ve been so damn brave and strong for so damn long… and now you need to stop. You need to rest and hand over a bit. Let us hold you up. We want to, I promise you. Katie and Reena and Maggie are dying to be there for you, so just let them. OK?”

  “OK,” she whispered. “I know you’re right.”

  “I’m always right, hon.”

  She managed a small laugh. “Does Katie know that?”

  “Oh, hell, no.” He grinned at her. “And don’t you tell her I said that. She’d kick my ass into next week.”

  “Next month,” she corrected him.

  “You got that right.” He gave her another once-over, saw that Mia looked steady. “You need some more time out here?”

  “No.” She got to her feet and he followed. “I want to go back to the waiting room.”

  “OK, then. Let’s go.”

  “Adam?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you.”

  He stared down into her eyes, those eyes that were such a soft, light brown that they actually looked gold. This woman was everything that Nick had ever wanted, and Adam was nothing but relieved and grateful that she was still here, even after Nick’s pig-headed idiocy.

  Christ, Nick could so easily have shoved her away and for good – and God knows, he’d given that one hell of a shot. But if he had, then Nick would never have forgiven himself. Worse, Adam suspected that if he had, Nick would never have gone to Mia to explain or apologize. No, he’d have been too noble and fall-on-his-own-goddamn-sword to do that. In his mind, he’d have spared Mia all of this unhappiness… and he’d have been nothing but miserable himself.

  Instead of letting Nick’s secret destroy them, though, Mia was here and she was committed to staying here. Despite her diminutive size, the woman had the heart of a warrior and she’d done nothing but fight for the past few months.

  She’d fought for Nick and she’d fought for their relationship and she’d fought to keep his leg. Where so many others would have given in and walked away, Mia had stayed the course… and now she was gathering up her strength to pull Nick through whatever was coming, come hell or high water. Adam knew that.

  “No, Mia.” His voice was so, so gentle. “Thank you.”

  Chapter Two

  Nick Spencer swam back to consciousness, feeling nothing but fuzzy and blank. He didn’t mind, though, because he knew that these seconds – these dark, dim seconds – were the final ones that he had before he went over a line that he’d been dreading crossing.

  But it had to be crossed.

  When Nick had gone under the anesthetic, he had done so with two whole, entire legs. And now he had one whole, entire leg and one… not.

  Yeah, he was going to cherish these last few, precious seconds before reality came crashing on down and in. Before he had to open his eyes and look down the length of his body.

  And see what he was now missing. What he’d be missing forever.

  “Nick?”

  He turned to the voice, responding to his Mom’s worry. He cracked his eyes open. Blinked.

  “Nick? Honey?” He felt a soft hand on his hair, smoothing it back, and marveled that Moms could make almost everything better with a single touch. Almost. “You awake?”

  “Yeah,” he grunted.

  “How you doing?” his Mom asked quietly, still stroking his dark-blond hair. “You feel sick?”

  Nick shut his eyes again, trying to actually feel his body. For over a decade now, he’d had perfect command and total control over it, as he’d practiced karate religiously, first as a tool to kill the men who had killed his girlfriend, and then as a discipline worthy of respect. Over the course of all those years, Nick had learned how to use his body, to harness its immense power, and then to make it move in ways that were both lethal and beautiful.

  Now, though, his body felt – strange. Unbalanced and off-kilter. He felt an absence, a void, and his heart sank as he fully realized for the first time that he’d be feeling it for the rest of his life. Where there had once been muscle and tissue and bone, now there was just air. Emptiness.

  Nothingness.

  He opened his eyes again, focused on Marnie. “I feel OK, Mom.”

  “Yeah?” his Dad boomed from the other side of the bed. “You need some water?”

  Nick managed a tiny grin at his father. The man was half-deaf and refused to acknowledge it – refused to even let Marnie or Nick suggest any kind of hearing aid – so he shouted pretty much all the time. Normally, it drove Nick up the wall, but right now, as he fought his way back to full consciousness, the added volume helped him reconnect with the world around him.

  “Yeah, please,” Nick rasped, his throat like sandpaper. “That’d be good.”

  Will poured a gl
ass of water, then gently – more gently than Nick would have thought possible from this gruff man – he helped his son to sit up. He kept his large hand on Nick’s shoulder as he drank, then took the cup and eased Nick back to the mattress.

  Nick sighed, stared at his parents. They stared right on back, waiting.

  “Mia?” Nick said at last, wondering if she’d finally come to her senses and run for the hills. God knows, he wasn’t the strong, sexy man that she’d fallen for once upon a time. Not anymore. “She gone?”

  “You gotta be kidding me,” Will said. “She’s here. The hospital rule is that you can only have two visitors at a time, and she insisted that we be here when you woke up from surgery. Said she’d wait.”

  “Oh.” He looked away from their knowing eyes. “Right.”

  “You want to see her, honey?” Marnie asked.

  “No,” Nick said immediately. “No. Not yet.”

  “OK,” Will said, showing remarkable patience and restraint. “When you’re ready.”

  Nick nodded and despite himself, his eyes dropped to his legs stretched out in front of him. The bed sheets gave the game away completely, as he saw the indentations made by his legs clearly. One leg was significantly shorter than the other, and he just gazed at the proof that it had happened and for real.

  While he’d been out cold, someone had taken away a part of him.

  “Nick?”

  He jerked his head up to look at his Mom. “Yeah?”

  “You OK?”

  He looked down again, studying the way that the thin sheet lay flat on one side of his body, covered a strong, muscular limb on the other. “Yeah.”

  His parents exchanged looks across the bed, and he saw them do it. He pretended not to, though, since he was suddenly fighting down the urge to roar his rage to the world.

  Fuck, it was unfair. He’d spent much of the past few months asking Why me? of course, and he’d played every angle of the Bargaining Game imaginable: save my leg and I’ll never complain about anything ever again. Save my leg and I’ll volunteer every single Saturday at the local youth centre. Save my leg and I’ll finally ask Mia to marry me because God knows, putting it off for this long has been a huge fucking mistake.

  Nothing doing, though. He’d played the game and he’d lost, big-time. Go to jail, don’t pass go, don’t collect your two hundred dollars. Just sit here with your one leg and think about your life choices, and ponder what the hell the rest of your life will look like.

  Nick was pushing thirty-five years old, and had no idea what his life was going to look like from this point on. All he knew for certain was that it wasn’t going to look much like the one that he’d led until the day before.

  “Nick?”

  Aware that time had passed as he’d lain there lost in thought, Nick glanced up yet again, this time with a frown. He was surprised to see that his Dad was alone with him and he blinked around the room.

  “Where’s Mom?”

  “She went to tell everyone that you’re awake. They’re down in the cafeteria, probably drinking the world’s worst coffee. Prepare for the stampede.”

  Panic gripped him now. “Mia will come in soon.”

  “Of course she will.” Will was watching his son closely. “Is that a problem?”

  “I –” Nick swallowed hard. “No. Yes. Well… no.”

  “Which is it? Yes or no?”

  “I – I don’t know. Neither. Both.” He shut his eyes. “Fuck.”

  “Uh-huh.” Will Spencer leaned back in his chair, regarded his only child. “Some advice about Mia, Nick?”

  Stunned, Nick gazed at his father. The man had never – not once in recent memory – offered Nick any advice about his personal life. His education, sure. His professional martial arts career, for damn sure. How to run his business? Will had been a geyser of information and advice, most of it as annoying as hell.

  But women? No, that was strictly a no-go topic of conversation between them, and Nick was cool with that. Even after his girlfriend Shelley had been killed and Nick had gone off the deep end with one-night-stands, his Dad had stayed out of it. So his father wanting to say anything about Mia was shocking to the point of being damn near electrocuted while standing knee-deep in water.

  “Uh,” Nick stammered. “OK.”

  Will paused, then he said in a low voice, “Did you know that I almost lost your Mom just over ten years ago?”

  “Lost her?” Since actually sitting up was out, Nick shifted on the bed, trying to turn to face his Dad better. “Lost her how?”

  “I was – going through something. Something painful and personal, and I pushed her away. Didn’t talk to her. Hell, I didn’t tell her what was going on at all.” Will sighed heavily. “I thought that I was sparing her pain and worry, but all I was doing was keeping her in the dark. She noticed that I was holding out on her, you see, and she started asking me what was going on with me. I lied and said nothing, and I just carried on trying to handle it all alone. But she knew. She knew that I was hiding something and all she could do was just stand there helpless as I pulled farther back in on myself, and left her all alone.”

  “Yeah,” Nick muttered. He knew a thing or two about this scenario. “So what happened?”

  “She left me.”

  “She – what?” Now Nick did sit up, at least as far as his elbows. “Mom left you?”

  “Yeah. Packed a bag, rented a studio apartment, moved out of the house.”

  “How the hell did I not know anything about this?”

  “Because you were still reeling from Shelley,” Will said. “We thought that you were… in bad shape. We didn’t want to add to the shit that you had to deal with. We kept it between us.”

  “And what happened? I mean, clearly you worked it all out. But how?”

  “I opened my mouth and talked to her,” Will said simply. “Told her what was going on.”

  “What was going on?”

  Will paused, hesitated. His son was just out of surgery for something major – physically and psychologically and most certainly emotionally – and he wasn’t sure about upsetting him more. Then again, this was important and the clock was ticking down. He was sure that Mia was barreling through the hospital that very second, intent on getting to Nick.

  “I’d been diagnosed with cancer,” Will said reluctantly. “Skin cancer.”

  “You what?” Now Nick’s voice was a shout. “Dad…”

  “It’s OK,” Will soothed him. “I’m OK.”

  “Yeah, obviously. But back then?”

  “Most definitely not OK. I was scared out of my mind, I swear it, and I was going for doctor’s appointments and specialists visits and tests and I just – I hid it all from your Mom.” He sighed. “She thought I was having an affair.”

  Nick flashed back to Mia asking him if he was pulling away because he wanted to break up with her, and his heart cracked almost in two. Fuck, what a man could put a woman through… most especially a woman that he loved. Yeah, both he and his Dad had been trying to protect their women, but had really only succeeded in hurting them deeply.

  “Anyway.” Will cleared his throat. “I almost lost her for good. She forgave me for being a secretive, lying asshole and thank Christ, because I’d be a wreck without her.”

  Nick raised his eyebrows at that. His father was one of the least demonstrative men that he’d ever known, and the thought that he’d have been destroyed if he’d lost Marnie was inconceivable.

  Will caught the look, interpreted it perfectly. “I know I don’t say two words about how I feel, Nick. I’m a silent and unemotional bastard, just like my Dad taught me to be… and now I’m afraid that I’ve raised you to be the same way. Pulling back and shutting down, downplaying how you feel, running from emotional things instead of tackling them head-on. I almost paid the price for being that way, and I think th
at you did too.”

  “Yeah,” Nick said quietly. “Twice. The first time was when I realized that I loved her, and then took off to the bar and kissed another woman and Mia caught us. She was kidnapped that same night and beaten badly. I thought – I thought she’d been killed. The second time that I almost lost her was when Mia damn near got on a plane to Thailand for four months for work. Had the ticket in her living room and everything. She thought that I wouldn’t even care that she’d gone but it would have fucking wrecked me, Dad. I mean completely.”

  “I know. And that’s why you can’t shut down on her now.” Will’s voice had an edge that hadn’t been there before. “You hear me, Nick? That woman is on her way up here right now because she loves you and wants to be here for you. If you refuse to let her in here or refuse to talk to her, she’s going to think that you need some space and she’ll put up with it… for a while. But after a few days, maybe a few weeks? Mia’s going to feel like you don’t trust her and don’t want her around, but she’ll probably still stick it out for a few months. Maybe a year. Then she’ll finally have had enough and she’ll go and leave you… and she’ll hate herself for it forever.”

  “I know.” Nick’s throat was tight at the thought of hurting Mia that badly yet again. “She’d feel like she abandoned me, even though I left first.”

  “Exactly.” Will reached for Nick’s hand now, and Nick almost slid off the bed in surprise. His father never touched him, and now here he was, holding his hand in broad daylight. “Don’t let it happen, Nick. Promise me.”

  “I promise,” Nick said, his voice breaking a bit.

  “Good.” Will gave his hand a squeeze, then withdrew it. “You hold her close, son. You need her to get through this. I know what I’m talking about, so just trust me, alright? You need her.”