Fighting Back (Fighting For Love Book 5) Read online

  Katie froze, her chest closing already. Oh, God. He did this somehow. Something that he’d done to her back then had damaged her beyond repair. “Yes.”

  “I need to ask you about – about some aspects of it,” Alicia said.

  Unable to speak now, Katie nodded. Her hold on Adam became a death grip as his hand turned into a life-line. One that she’d need to pull her back and out from the deep, dark hole of the past that she was about to fall into.

  “I need to ask… was anything ever inserted inside you?” Alicia’s voice was so damn soft, so damn careful, but for Katie, it was an echo coming from very, very far away. “And I don’t mean a part of a body. I mean an object.”

  Right away, Adam looked at Katie and before he even got eyes on her, he knew that she was gone.

  He shot to his feet now, dropped to his knees in front of her. His massive hands cradled her face.

  “Katie. Baby.”

  She stared straight ahead, but he knew that she didn’t see him. In her mind, she was back there, back there all the way. Back in the bleak, never-ending hell that had been her childhood. Back in her bed, back under her stepfather as he raped her, hit her, burned her thighs with cigarettes. As he impaled her on knitting needles, and the handle of a kitchen knife, and a flashlight.

  And all of that was just what Adam knew about. He knew there was more – so much more – that Katie had never told him because she just couldn’t get the words out, and he loved her far too much to make her live through all of it again, just so he could know.

  Adam truly believed that some things were better left in the past… except when they refused to stay there. Katie’s darkest, most diabolical demons were demanding to be heard, and they were now being dragged back into the light. Into the now.

  Fuck you, you motherfucker. You won’t get her this time – I won’t let you.

  “Breathe for me, sweetheart,” Adam said, his voice low. “I’m right here. Say my name.”

  Her beautiful dark eyes shut and she shook her head. Her slim body trembled, and he fought down the automatic surge of fear and worry that always washed over him when this happened.

  “Katie. Listen to me, baby. Say you know who I am. Say you know where you are.”

  Her breath was too fast, too shallow, and Alicia was on her feet.

  “What can I do?” she asked.

  Adam glanced at her briefly. “Could we have a minute alone?”

  “Take two. Hell, take them all.” Alicia crossed the room and opened the door. “If she needs a sedative, I can give her one. Just let me know.”

  Adam nodded, but his eyes were nailed on Katie’s face. He heard the door close behind him, and he got to his feet now. Slowly, carefully, he picked her up and sat down again with her in his lap. He wrapped his entire body around her much smaller one, desperate to make her feel safe.

  She was whispering something under her breath, muttering the same words over and over again. Adam leaned in closer, and when he heard what she was saying, his heart damn near broke in half.

  “I’m sorry, Adam,” she whispered, the pain in her voice tearing him apart. “I’m sorry, Adam. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

  “No,” he said softly. He kissed her closed eyelids. “No, Katie. Don’t do that.”

  “I’m broken,” she said, shaking harder. “I’m broken. Broken… broken… broken…”

  “No.” His voice caught now, and he cleared his throat. “You’re not.”

  She shook her head again, still murmuring to herself. Adam couldn’t do anything except what he was doing and God knows, it wasn’t anything like enough. The woman that he loved was blaming herself for the one thing in her life that she had had no control over… the one thing in which she was utterly blameless.

  But she never saw it that way. Even now, even after all of Adam’s love and support, some part of Katie still thought that she’d done something to provoke her stepfather. That she’d somehow deserved what he’d done to her.

  As Adam rocked her back and forth, trying to reach her and pull her back to him, for the first time he really, truly wished that her stepfather hadn’t died seven months earlier.

  Because more than anything and more than ever before, Adam wanted to dig that fucking bastard up out of the earth and kill him with his bare hands.

  **

  Adam checked Katie for the hundredth time, saw that she was now awake. Cautiously, he approached the bed and when she turned her eyes to him, he sat next to her, took her hand.

  “How you doing, baby?”

  She blinked at him, so damn confused. “How did we get here?”

  He answered her question with a question. “What do you remember?”

  She was silent for a few seconds, thinking. When light dawned on her face and she pulled her hand away, his heart seized up because he knew that she was going to remember everything. And more than anything, Adam wanted to spare her pain – but the only way to do that was for Katie to forget.

  Katie was never going to forget. Never, ever. What had happened to her was burned so deep in to her – both literally and figuratively – that it was a part of her. Forever and always, and nothing that Adam did would or could ever change it.

  Now he just sat there and watched as she remembered the events of the day. Painful, awful events, events that he knew were going to cause her more pain. Like the woman needed any more pain in her existence.

  Fuck, life was unfair sometimes.

  Katie had passed out in his arms, right there in the doctor’s office, and Alicia had driven them home. Adam had put Katie to bed after undressing her, then gently drawn the blankets up and over her limp body. That had been almost two hours earlier, and he’d spent that time doing some pretty intensive research about sexual abuse victims and pregnancy challenges.

  What he’d found had astonished him, and he now felt deep shame and anger that he and Katie hadn’t discussed this more. They’d embarked on this whole baby-making thing so merrily, so damn thoughtlessly, and as it turned out, they’d had a lot to both think about and discuss.

  Not all survivors of severe childhood sexual abuse had trouble getting pregnant, but an alarming number of them did. The reasons varied: some were like Katie and had significant permanent physical damage to their bodies, the kind of damage that made conceiving a baby difficult. In many, many cases, the damage made carrying a baby to term unlikely, if not impossible.

  But as Adam had discovered, the physical obstacles were just one part of a much bigger, much darker, picture. Even if Katie had managed to get pregnant easily and was able to hold on to their baby without any major difficulties, there was the psychological aspect of pregnancy to consider.

  This was the part that had taken him by total surprise. He’d sat there for much of the past two hours, just stupidly blinking as he read what seemed to be an endless tidal wave of personal accounts from abuse survivors, psychological studies, and doctor testimonials.

  Unknown to him, pregnancy was a major trigger for many, many abuse survivors, and it happened for any one of a number of reasons. For some women, the first ultrasound was a trigger, and Adam was puzzled about that until he read that the earliest ultrasound wasn’t external, like an x-ray… it was internal. The insertion of the ultrasound wand inside a woman’s body was horribly invasive, and it often caused a woman to begin to stress about pregnancy. Maybe even regret becoming pregnant.

  It killed Adam to think that something that should be so joyful could make a woman so afraid… and he thought about how Katie would react to having a wand inside her body. He knew that she’d freak out, and it hurt him to think that he’d never known any of this.

  Worse? For many women – even mentally healthy women – pregnancy was a time of total loss of control over their own bodies. Many women struggled with that, and started to feel like pregnancy was a form of invasion, like a body-snatching. A
nd if healthy women struggled with that, abuse victims could be totally devastated by it.

  For so many abuse victims who became pregnant, the idea that they had no control over their bodies was the ultimate betrayal: for years, Katie had had no say about who touched her, and how, and when. She’d only just reclaimed her own sexuality, her own desires, her own needs – and that had included deciding who had her permission to touch her. Adam had worked damn hard to convince Katie that the final decision about anything and everything that happened between them was hers, and hers alone.

  The whole idea that she’d maybe fear and resent an advancing pregnancy was astonishing to him, and he was shocked and horrified that he’d never even considered this side of things. Never even thought to do some research, or ask the doctor a few questions, or encourage Katie to talk to her gynecologist alone for an in-depth conversation about what she might expect. Maybe she should have talked to a therapist, too, someone specialized in this kind of thing, because Christ knows that Adam wasn’t.

  Just what the hell was wrong with him, anyway, that he hadn’t even thought how Katie might feel to lose control over her body this way? What kind of man was he, what kind of boyfriend?

  Yeah, he was an asshole. No dispute about that.

  So as it turned out, this conversation was a long time in coming, and he braced himself to have it now. If only he knew how it began. Katie took care of that problem, though.

  “I’m sorry,” she said for about the eight-thousandth time, and for the eight-thousandth time, Adam’s heart ached for her. “I’m sorry that I probably can’t give you what you want.”

  “I want you,” Adam said, emotion making him speak more roughly than he intended. “Just you.”

  “No.” She shook her head slowly, slid closer to the wall. “No, Adam. You want to be a father. Don’t pretend otherwise now just to make me feel better.”

  “I want to be a father with you, baby,” he said. “And we can figure out what that means for us.”

  “No.” She shifted farther away, taking his heart with her as she went. “I know you’re talking about adoption here, Adam, but you won’t be happy with anything but your own baby. I know that you wanted the whole experience… pregnancy, birth, watching me breastfeed, speculating whose nose and chin our baby has. Everything. All of it. For months, all you’ve talked about is seeing me pregnant and you holding our baby in your arms after cutting the cord. I know what you really, truly want in your heart, and now I know that I can’t give it to you. I can’t make you happy. Not in the way that you deserve.”

  She was pulling away from him both physically and emotionally, and he knew that he had to stop her before she ended things between them. She’d undoubtedly think that he should go find another woman, one who could carry his child, and she’d make that sacrifice for him. Well, he was damned if he was going to let her do that.

  “Katie,” he said, his voice husky with worry that he was witnessing the end of their relationship. “Please don’t talk this way.”

  “I’m broken, Adam. I’ve thought it for a long, long time, and now I know it for sure.” Tears slid down her cheeks, but she didn’t make a single sound. “He took my childhood. He took my innocence. He took years of my life. He took my trust and faith in men, and in myself. And now?” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Now he’s taken this from me, too. From us.”

  “So – what?” Adam demanded, getting angry now. “That’s it? We call it quits and go our separate ways? And that fucking bastard wins?”

  “Adam –”

  “No.” He shook his dark head sharply. “No, baby. Don’t you know that he’d be fucking laughing at us from the grave if we did that? God, talk about the dead hand having a clammy hold on the living. You want to give that asshole the satisfaction of breaking us up, and sending you back out into the world all alone? You really want him to have that kind of power over us and our lives and happiness?”

  “No.” The word came out as a sob. “But you want –”

  “You.” His tone was final. No bullshit, no discussion. “I want you, Katie, and we’ll figure out how to be parents. We’ll figure it out together.”

  She dared to look at him now. “We will?”

  “We will.” He shifted on the bed, watching her as he closed the distance between them. “We’re a team, sweetheart, and nothing can break us apart. Especially not that sick, twisted fuck. We won’t let him. I want to be a father, but I want to raise my child with you only. I don’t care if you don’t carry him or her for nine months, and I don’t care if he or she isn’t my flesh and blood. Somewhere out there is a child waiting for us to make them ours – ours all the way. I know we can do that, baby. Together.”

  “Adam…”

  That was all she managed to get out before he grabbed her and held her as close and tight as he ever had. Having her even consider letting him go so he could find some other path had scared him worse then he realized – and he needed to hold her. He had to be sure that she was still with him.

  “C’mere, baby,” he murmured. “No more talking and no more tears. We’ve got options and we’ll start looking at them as soon as you feel ready. We got this, OK? We got this and fuck him.”

  Her laugh was muffled against his broad chest, but he rejoiced to hear that soft, sweet sound.

  “Yeah,” Katie said, thanking God that this man was in her life and that he wanted to stay right where he was. “Fuck him.”

  Chapter Six

  Two days later

  The nurse watched closely as Nick bound the end of his stump in bandages. The trick – as he’d learned through trial and error, and most definitely the hard way– was the tightness of the wrapping. Too loose and the still-sensitive stitches weren’t protected from the bed sheets or his jeans; too tight and it hurt pretty badly.

  “Good, Nick,” Cheryl Walker said approvingly. She’d been happily surprised to see that he was able to both clean and dress his own amputation with confidence… many, many of her patients couldn’t bring themselves to so much as touch their own wounds. “How’s it feel?”

  He shrugged a bit. “Better.”

  “Well, you have no infection at all, and the healing’s going well.” Cheryl consulted the notes. “Doctor Bishop says that you can get your first prosthetic fitting next week.”

  “Yeah.” Nick took a deep breath, straightened in the chair. “He told me this morning.”

  “You ready for that?”

  “I am.” Nick stared down at his stump. “Anything to quit hopping, I swear.”

  Cheryl grinned. “OK, so. You’re free to go home now. Who’s coming to get you?”

  “Mia.”

  “Good. Your parents still around?”

  “Yep. For another two days, then they’re going back home. They have to get back to work.”

  “Speaking of work…” Cheryl let that sentence dangle out there, let Nick fill in the blanks, if he felt so inclined.

  “Yeah, I know.” Nick shifted in the chair. “Doctor Bishop said it was a good idea to get back into my pre-surgery routine as much as possible, as soon as possible. That includes work.”

  “And?” Cheryl watched his face tighten. “What do you think about going back to The Rock?”

  “With one leg?” he rejoined. “Not much.”

  “Oh.” Cheryl cocked her head. “Because?”

  “Because what am I supposed to do?”

  “What did you do before?”

  “Taught karate and self-defence classes. Worked out. Ran some administrative stuff. Mingled with the clients.”

  “OK, well. Can you do any of that now?”

  “I can sit on my ass and do paperwork,” Nick said. “But I can’t teach with one leg, and I sure as hell don’t want the members to see me like this.” He tapped his large thigh.

  “They don’t know?” Cheryl asked quie
tly.

  “No.”

  “Because?” she repeated.

  “Because I didn’t think it was any of their business,” Nick said tightly. “I mean, Christ… I was barely able to get the words out with Mia and my parents and Adam. How was I supposed to just drop it into casual conversation with some guy lifting weights, or some woman signed up for a self-defence class?”

  “Uh, yeah. I can see that.”

  “Right.”

  “So – what’s the plan?”

  “Right now? To get my prosthetic, to figure out how to walk around with it. Then go back to the gym when I don’t fall on my damn face.”

  “And nobody will be any the wiser?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What will you say when people ask why you’re not teaching karate classes anymore?”

  Nick paused. “I – I don’t know.”

  “You going to lie?” Cheryl persisted with the questions. Yeah, it was a shitty thing to do, pushing the patient, but come on. The guy was barreling head-first down the path of denial with loads of enthusiasm, and part of her job was to cut people off at the pass whenever possible. “Change the topic? Avoid answering and hope they drop it? Have Adam discreetly get the word around about your amputation and instruct everyone to stay mum about it? What?”

  “I don’t know!” Nick yelled. “Fuck, Cheryl. Back off, yeah?”

  “What the hell’s going on here?”

  They both turned to face the owner of the voice. Mia stood in the doorway, her mouth hanging open.

  “Nick?” She set down her bag on the table next to the door. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he said with a great effort.

  No way Mia was letting it go, though.

  “Uh, you just shouted at a nurse,” Mia pointed out. “You also used some pretty colorful language and though Cheryl’s no delicate, shrinking violet, that’s not appropriate. So what’s the deal?”

  “Aw, shit,” Nick muttered. “We just – we had a difference of opinion about something, babe.”