Hard Love (Wild Hearts, Contemporary Romance Book 3) Read online

  After a lengthy conversation, Dr. Jennings had agreed to let Robbie leave the hospital the next day. When nurse Ellie came in so cheerfully, Robbie could tell she knew that it was his last day under her care.

  “I'm doing pretty good,” he said. “I finally get to blow this joint, today. It's not that I don't like being here with you, but a guy can't live his life lying in a hospital bed. It's time for me to go.”

  Ellie smiled. “Yeah, so I heard. And just when I was beginning to think you liked me. Now, if the best-looking guy in the hospital is going to get away, what hope do I have of ever finding my prince charming?”

  Robbie laughed. “Oh, come on,” he said, “I've seen some of the doctors they got working here. They're a whole lot better looking than I am, and they're all grown up, to boot. And on top of that, they're guys, so I guarantee they've noticed how pretty you are.”

  “Okay,” she said, “you don't have to tease me. I'm a big girl, I can handle the broken heart when you leave. It's okay, really.”

  Still laughing, Robbie threw his pillow at her, but she caught it and threw it back. “So, I guess they're going to let me take my wheelchair home with me? I mean, it's already set up for me and everything. I can't see why they'd want to send a different one with me, right?”

  Ellie shrugged. “Well, you never know. These old chairs that we use around here have been here for years, and most of them were donated by people who no longer needed them. They're the universal kind, like most hospitals have. That's not the kind that most people who actually need a wheelchair end up using. As a matter of fact, I heard something about a new wheelchair being delivered this morning. Now, I'm sure it's for someone else, not for you, but I'll go check just to be sure. Be right back.”

  Robbie sat on his bed and watched her leave the room, and the sneaking suspicion hit him that she was up to something. He didn't know why he might be getting a new wheelchair, but he certainly wouldn't turn it down if he got one.

  Ellie came back in, and Dr. Jennings was with her. Right behind the two of them was Aunt Kay, and she was pushing a wheelchair that was unlike any he'd seen there at the hospital. This one was narrow, with no armrests, and the two big wheels looked like they belonged on a bicycle. They sort of leaned in at the top, and the front wheels were little tiny things that were down underneath what he guessed was the footrest. The back was kind of marrow, and not very tall, and it looked like it might actually come off. His little sister, Anna, was riding on it as she pushed it into the room.

  “Ta-da!” Ellie and Anna said, and Dr. Jennings added, “So, are you ready to leave us? We brought you a new hot rod to drive away in.”

  Aunt Kay pushed the wheelchair right up next to his bed, and Robbie leaned forward to look closely at it. “What's this?” he asked, and she smiled at him.

  “Well, this is your new wheelchair. It's very light, the whole thing only weighs seven pounds, and it comes apart easily so that it fits into the trunk of a car.” She demonstrated how the wheels would pop off with just a push of a button, and the back would fold down or even snap completely off, if needed. “This is the kind that most paraplegics use. The insurance company gave us the okay for it, so Dr. Jennings made sure we ordered you the best one we possibly could. It came in yesterday, and that's why I came to talk to you about coming to my house. And then, Dr. Jennings called me this morning to tell me he'd decided to let you go, so Anna and I had to come all the way back here, just to pick you up.”

  “Yeah! We came to pick you up and take you home! And I got to ride in your wheelchair before you did!” The whole room laughed with delight at the little girl, and Robbie leaned down so that he could look right into her eyes.

  “Well, you can ride in it with me any time you want to!” Robbie said, and Anna squealed and clapped her hands. He looked up at his Aunt Kay, and asked, “How about mom?”

  Aunt Kay gave him a sad smile. “She's at the house, with a babysitter. You, well, you need to understand that she doesn't respond when you call her mom. She…”

  Anna interrupted. “Mommy doesn't know she's mommy anymore,” the little girl said sadly. “We have to call her Linda, now.”

  Aunt Kay nodded. “Yes, you have to call her by name. She likes Anna, and will sit on the floor and play dollies with her, or color pictures with crayons with her, but she honestly has no idea that that's her daughter. I don't think she understands where children come from, not anymore.”

  Robbie swallowed, and put on the best smile he could. He looked at Anna. “Well, she may not remember that she's mommy, but we know it, don't we? And we love her just as much, anyway, don't we?”

  Anna nodded gravely. “Yeah,” she said, “and we like to play together. Sometimes, she's lots more fun now than she used to be.”

  Anna slipped out of the chair at Aunt Kay's urging, and Ellie asked Robbie if he thought he would be able to get into the chair on his own. He looked down at it and nodded. They had put it right beside the bed, so he leaned over and caught the far side of it with his right hand, pushed off with his left, and swung his bottom into the seat. He almost went out the other side, but caught himself and sat up straight.

  Anna applauded, yelling, “Yay!” Aunt Kay and the others joined in the applause, and Robbie made a mock bow. “Thank you, thank you, next show at eleven!” He grabbed the wheels and moved the chair around a bit, spun it a couple of times in the middle of the floor, then stopped and reached out for Anna. She laughed and threw herself into his arms, and he lifted her up into his lap. “Hold on, now,” he said, and then took a tour around the room. “Wave at all the people as we go by,” he said. “This is our little parade.” Anna waved, and everyone waved back, smiling their delight at seeing how happy the little red-haired girl was to have her brother back.

  After some fundamental instructions from Dr. Jennings, and a couple of hugs from nurse Ellie, it was finally time for the family to leave. Because it was hospital policy, Ellie had to push Robbie down to the front doors, where Aunt Kay would meet them with her car. Anna insisted on staying with Robbie, so she was enlisted to help carry some of his things while she rode in his lap. She didn't mind at all, and in fact, helping her big brother was something she knew she'd be doing for a long time to come.

  When they got to the front doors, they had to wait a few minutes for Aunt Kay to arrive with the car. Ellie took the opportunity to give Robbie a quick kiss on the cheek, making him promise not to tell anyone. “We wouldn't want to make any of the doctors around here jealous, now would we?” Robbie agreed not to tell, even as he was blushing bright red. He was sure that Aunt Kay could tell something was up when she got there, especially from the way she did sort of a double take when she looked at his face.

  Ellie opened the car door, and Robbie wheeled himself up to it. He sat there for a moment, just looking the situation over, then put one hand on the car seat and another on the door, gave himself a yank, and sort of bounced into the seat. He had to use his hands to pull his legs up into the car, but managed to get the seat belt fastened all on his own.

  The car door was closed, and suddenly Robbie was terrified. This would be the first time he rode in a car since the accident, and the very thought of being on the road sent a shiver of fear down his spine. He forced it back, reminding himself that cars were a part of daily life, and there was no way around having to ride in them from time to time. He'd simply have to get over it, and not let any fear from the accident get in the way of living his life.

  He waved at Ellie as Aunt Kay drove away, forcing himself to keep calm as she moved out into traffic. The ride to her house, he knew, would take about an hour, so he leaned back and tried to think about anything other than the trip.

  “Robbie,” Aunt Kay said, “I've got to tell you how proud I am of you. I know that this has been terribly hard on you, and I'm just amazed at how well you've held up. You are an absolutely incredible young man, and while I wish things were different, I want you to know how proud I am that you will be coming to live with me
.”

  Robbie looked at her and smiled. “Thanks, Aunt Kay,” he said. “I don't know what would've happened to us if it wasn't for you. I'm not sure how to say thanks, but I want you to know I appreciate it.”

  Aunt Kay smiled at him. “Well, you know I never had any kids of my own,” she said. “My husband, your uncle Johnny that you never knew, he was in the Army, so we always traveled around a lot, and then he got sick—he got cancer, from smoking—and passed away, and I just never got married again. I always thought I'd just be alone the rest of my life, but now I'll have you and Anna, and Linda, of course, to take care of. Almost makes me feel like I finally have a family of my own.” She reached over and ruffled his hair.

  “But you do, Aunt Kay,” he said. “We're still your family, even if you weren't our mother. We've always been family.”

  “Oh, yes, I know that,” she replied. “But it's not the same thing, when you don't have anyone living in your house with you. I've had that big old empty house; Johnny and I bought it back when we were planning to raise a family, but after he died it was just me living there. It sort of felt like I was living in a big empty warehouse, or something, but it's been a whole different place since Anna has been there, and Linda—oh, my goodness, she makes it seem like a madhouse at times, and I mean that in the good, everything is so busy, kind of way. I'll guarantee you this much, there used to be times when I lay there for hours at night, just trying to get to sleep, but not anymore! By the time I get to bed now, I'm so worn out that I can close my eyes and drift off in a matter of minutes!”

  Robbie smiled. He didn't say anything, but he had noticed that he was having a lot of trouble sleeping, lately. He thought that a lot of it was because it was hard for him to shut down his thoughts and relax; there was always so much going on in his mind. Maybe being in a busy place with two rambunctious little girls—even if one of them did used to be his mother—would help him be able to sleep, as well. He was certainly looking forward to finding out.

  They made it out of town, and Robbie managed not to panic as Aunt Kay drove onto the Interstate. Luckily, there wasn't a whole lot of traffic on the road. If it had been extremely busy, he might've had more trouble keeping himself under control. As it was, he still felt that hairs rising on the back of his neck, and a nervousness that just didn't seem to want to go away.

  That nervousness got worse whenever one of the big rig trucks went by. The day after the accident, a couple of policeman had come to the hospital to see him, to ask questions about what he had seen at the time. He answered their questions the best he could, and they explained to him that from all appearances, the accident was caused by a blowout on a tire of the big truck that had hit them. That first thump that Robbie had felt, they explained, was probably from the tire coming off the truck and hitting the car. It was one of the front tires on the big rig, and when it blew out, it made the truck jump to the right. The tire would've hit the car first, and then the bumper of the truck probably hit it next. That would have been what caused the card to spin out, and even though the truck driver tried his best to stop, the car slid in front of him and there was no way he could avoid hitting it.

  The truck driver had also been injured in the accident, though not as badly as Robbie. He had asked the policeman to tell the family how sorry he was for what had happened. The truck was not his, and the company that he worked for, it turned out, was going to be in serious trouble because the tires on the truck should have been replaced weeks sooner. In order to try to save a little money, they had put off buying new tires; Robbie and his family had been the ones to pay the price for that decision, and his parents' insurance company was filing a lawsuit against the trucking firm that would not only pay all of their medical bills, but would leave Robbie and Anna with a lot of money in trust for when they grew up.

  Robbie didn't care about money. He would have gladly traded every penny of it to have his father back, to have his mother back. It absolutely disgusted him that any company would risk the lives of innocent people just to save a few dollars. A part of him hoped that the lawsuit would put the company completely out of business. As far as he was concerned, they didn't need to make any money at all.

  Things were quiet in the car, so Robbie turned around to look at Anna. His little sister was sound asleep in her car seat, and that was when Robbie noticed that it wasn't the same seat she'd had before. He looked at his Aunt Kay, and asked about it.

  “Oh, no,” Aunt Kay said. “There wasn't a whole lot in the car that was—well—that didn't have a lot of blood on it, mostly from your mom and dad. You were bleeding a little bit, but not a whole lot. And apparently you managed to keep little Anna from getting hurt badly at all, and that’s something you can be proud of for the rest of your life, Robbie. You are a hero, young man, and don't you forget it. Anyway, that seat was a mess, so I just went and bought a new one. I knew I was going to need it, so I figured I might as well just get it over with and buy one. As soon as they told me that your dad didn't make it, and that they weren't sure if your mom was ever going to wake up, well, I knew you didn't have any other family. It felt like God was telling me to stand up and do what was right, so I tried to do just that.”

  Robbie started to speak, but suddenly the tears were streaming down his face. He tried to hold them back, but he just couldn't do it. “Oh, Aunt Kay,” he said. “Oh, I miss them so much. I miss my dad, I miss him so bad, and I miss my mom. I know I'm going to see her when we get to your house, but like you said, that isn't her anymore. I don't know how I'm going to handle that; I don't know what to do.”

  Aunt Kay reached over and took hold of his hand, squeezing it gently. “You know what? I was just as overwhelmed the other day when they told me your mom had woken up, and I needed to come and take her home. When they said that she was just a little girl in her mind, I didn't know how to deal with that. I mean, that didn't make any sense to me. She was a grown woman, just like me, how could she be a little girl again? I didn't get it. But I went and picked her up, and I took her home with me, and I figured out pretty quickly that, while she wasn't the sister I grew up with anymore, as a little girl in a big body, she's quite a delightful person to know. Yes, we have to accept that the Linda we knew is gone. Your mom is gone, and she won't be back, and I'm so sorry about that. But this Linda that lives at our house, she needs our love and our support, and sometimes she needs us to smack her fingers so she doesn't hurt herself or someone else. She's a part of our lives, now, and we've got to deal with that.”

  “But she isn't my mom,” Robbie said. “My mom was a grown-up, not a little girl who looks like a grown-up. What if I—what if I can't handle it, what if I panic or freak out?”

  Aunt Kay squeezed his hand again, and glanced his way, smiling softly. “I'll tell you what I think you should do,” she said. “I think that you should watch Anna with her. They play games together, and they color pictures and watch TV together—yeah, I don't know how to tell you this, but we seem to see a lot of cartoons on the TV. But seriously, just watch your little sister with her, and it won't be long before it dawns on you that Linda is like having another little sister. I know it's going to be hard on you sometimes, looking at her and remembering who she used to be, but you've got to understand that this isn't something she did, this is what happened to her. She didn't run out on you, Robbie, she didn't abandon you. She got taken away, and it wasn't by her choice.”

  Robbie turned and faced forward, looking out to the windshield at the road ahead. Even though he was only 13 years old, it struck him that looking through the windshield was a fairly accurate metaphor for the position he found himself in life. He could look ahead all he wanted to, but there was no way to be sure of what might lie around the next bend. Life was never going to be the same again, and that was the only thing he could be certain of.

  He had Anna, though, and he knew that she needed him to be strong for her. Well, doggone it, that's what big brothers do, right? Big brothers are the strong ones that little sisters c
an lean on, can cling to, when the world tosses and turns them and flips completely upside down. Big Brothers want to help you get through life when life just plain sucks.

  He needed Anna, too. Now that the world had gone crazy on them, they would have to depend on each other. Anna, because she really was a little girl, would probably be the one most involved with their mother, who now thought she was a little girl. Robbie, on the other hand, had been thrust into the role their father used to play. He would have to be the strong one, the disciplinarian, the one who planned for the future and figured out how to take care of the family. Sure, they had Aunt Kay, but they weren't really her responsibility. Anna, and now Linda, as well, were Robbie's responsibility. He knew that, down deep in his heart, and if there was one thing he would never do, it was walk away from his responsibilities.

  3

  There are moments in our lives that can define exactly where we're going, moments that can almost serve as a signpost for the future. One of those moments occurred for Robbie only seconds after they arrived at his Aunt Kay's house. He was still sitting in the car, staring at the house and thinking that he should have been there two weeks earlier.

  Of course, the big difference would have been that he would've arrived with his entire family. His father would not be dead, already buried while Robbie was trapped in the hospital. His mother would not have forgotten that she had children, and she wouldn't think she was a little girl again. His little sister, Anna, would not be missing her mommy, and of course, Robbie himself would not be in a wheelchair, uncertain whether he would ever walk or run again.

  His father always used to say that life was a thing that happened while you were making other plans. Robbie suddenly understood exactly what that phrase meant, as Anna woke up in the back seat and began clamoring to be released from her car seat restraints. “Wanna go play with Linda,” Anna said, and Robbie felt a new wave of grief at hearing his sister referred to their mother as if she were just a little friend who came over to play.