Shifting Gears Read online

  I’ve got to suck it up. I don’t have a choice, really. It is what it is. The past. I trusted too soon. Messed up. Made a mistake. If he’s back to stay, I have to deal with it. I’ll pretend I don’t know him, the same way he looked at me tonight as if I was just another face in the crowd. If I see him again, I’ll avoid his eyes and keep a distance. I’ve already been enough of an idiot. I don’t need to make a public display of it—confronting him, sinking even lower. For my own sanity, I’m not bringing all that back up to the surface now. Not happening.

  I try my best to concentrate on what Clay’s saying as we drive home. He’s doing all the talking while I sit in silence.

  “So yeah, I should be gone for about a week.”

  He’s talking about a modeling gig in Atlanta next month. Coral Springs, where we live, is small compared to Atlanta. Most of its residents make the thirty-minute trip there to do their shopping, since Coral Springs only offers little Mom and Pop stores—the kind I love.

  Who wants to dress like everybody else anyway? I find the best clothes and shoes at Hartley’s, my favorite clothing store in town. I shop there a lot, especially when I crave something girly, the opposite of my work gear: scrubs and low top Converses.

  Clay parks the car and turns to me. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  I force another smile before answering. “Honest, I’m tired.”

  He walks me to my door, like he always does for me and Cass, and kisses my forehead. “Sleep well, Niki-cakes. See you in the morning for breakfast.”

  “You too.” I give him a hug and walk in. As I shut my door, I hear the faint sound of a car peeling off. The neighbors must be fighting again.

  While I’m getting ready for bed, I brush out my hair and laugh out loud as I imagine Cass and Ang having fun, unlike me, standing here alone, caught up in my past. Are they even going to make it home before the sun comes up? Doubt it.

  God, I wish I could be more like them—confident, fun. Carefree. The word does not fit into my world. I’m so far from it. I always worry, I always have to be organized, and I always watch the clock.

  Fun for me is reading a book or playing Scrabble, though I sometimes talk Clay into taking the Stang out. There’s a strip of abandoned road near us that teenagers use for late night drag racing, which pulls at me. But even though he has the badass car, he treats it like the classic it is. He doesn’t like to “overdo it.” The most exciting place I go is The Rox—the only place I enjoy, really. Music, much like my animals, is a beautiful distraction.

  And beauty, that’s another thing. Cass and Angie have it from head to toe. Cass, who works as a paralegal for a law firm in Atlanta, has short jet black hair that’s styled in a wispy boy cut only she can pull off. Her eyes are her best feature. They’re an emerald green, and if you stare at them long enough, you can almost feel yourself drowning in them. Her five-foot-eight figure is always in the most form-fitting clothes, whether it’s a pencil skirt for work or a dress for a night out.

  Ang, a waitress at a restaurant near our complex, is just as beautiful. Her long fire-red curly hair and porcelain skin makes her stand out. She isn’t like everyone else, and she likes it that way. She’s a little shorter than Cass but still taller than my five foot four inches.

  Both of them are so confident. They can walk into any room and get looks. I find myself walking behind them whenever we go out together. That’s how I see all the eyes on them. It’s like this at The Rox, just like everywhere else, while I find a corner to sit and listen to the music and sip my Stella.

  I hate myself for dredging up these twisted thoughts, but maybe if I had that same confidence, those looks, he might have stayed. Or at least remembered me...

  I down two ibuprofen with a tall glass of water and settle myself in for the night, hoping sleep will come. As soon as close my eyes, I see Holt’s face. Smiling at Amber. Standing by his car. Looking past me as he stood at the bar. Me, watching as someone else gets their happy while I stand there. Alone. Like always. The tears are coming, but I force them back. He’s not getting any more tears.

  I give in to the fact that my mind isn’t going to allow sleep. I sit up in bed and toss back the covers. A glass of milk and my e-reader is what I need. A good book always saves the day, or at least helps me escape reality...for a little while.

  ****

  I wake after eventually falling asleep, e-reader in hand. Saturday-come-over-in-your-pajamas breakfast turns into Saturday-and-still-in-my-pajamas lunch. Clay and Ang saunter in around eleven, the same time Cass decides to get up. Clay and I get to hear all about the adventures of Cass and Ang from the night before, which is almost as entertaining as watching Clay circulate the dance floor.

  As I am clearing the lunch dishes, Ang follows me into the kitchen. “So what’s up with that Holt guy?”

  My lunch almost comes back up. I turn and glare at Cass, thinking she’s told Ang about Holt.

  I try to settle myself so I can speak, but before I can, Clay chimes in. “Who’s Holt?”

  And so the conversation about Holt Maddox begins as if I am not even in the room.

  “He’s just this dick Niki knew a long time ago,” Cass says.

  “What’d he do to be a dick?” Clay asks, turning to me with a look of anger, concern.

  I try to speak, but the words won’t come out. I can’t bring myself to talk about that day without it revealing all the pain, all the humiliation I still feel. I would’ve said or done something, anything, different if I’d known that day was going to end the way it did. With me alone. Heartbroken. In the twenty-five years of my life, that day still stands out as one of the worst.

  Instead of answering Clay, I push past him and run down the hall to my bedroom. It’s been less than twenty-four hours since I saw Holt Maddox, and already I’ve broken my promise not to cry for him again.

  I try my best not to think about it, not to remember, but the memories take hold of me. I’d done so well all these years, pushing them away, learning to forget. Pretending I was better...

  Holt left town much the way he’d come in. One day he kind of showed up, and three months later, he was gone.

  He’s a bounty hunter, and he came to Coral Springs that first time following his mark. He told me back then he was working for this man in Atlanta, Sid Rotham. I knew Rotham from television. He owned several nightclubs and had been in the news many times after being arrested for “suspicious activities” in his clubs. He’d never actually been found guilty of anything, but it’s known he’s a shady something, and it seems he’s smart, covering up whatever it is he’s doing illegal.

  Holt had been hired by Rotham to find and secure someone “of interest” to him. The man was on the run, but I don’t know if Holt ever actually caught him because he never told me. He really didn’t tell me much of anything about himself, his work, his life. What I had learned was as a result of one of those rare nights when he gave me a small, sometimes miniscule, piece of himself. It didn’t matter how irrelevant it was, I held onto it. Cherished it.

  The red flags were there from the very beginning. I ignored them. I should’ve known by the way he looked, how secretive he was, not to mention working for a shady businessman like Rotham, that he was no good. But I didn’t, and I’d had to learn the hard way.

  It was clear back then that none of the men in town would’ve fucked with him, but the women secretly wished they could. I could see it in their faces, their mouths dropped just as much as my own. Turned out I got the chance to be with him, but, after it was too late to matter, I discovered I wasn’t the only one. That was a knife twisting in my heart.

  Up until I met him, I’d always been safe Niki. Cautious Niki. Think-things-through-before-acting-rashly Niki. All those safety nets disappeared when he walked into The Rox that night. I was sitting at the bar with Cass, listening to one of the bands, when I felt a presence. I was pulled to him before I even saw him. And then he walked past us, glanced our way, and my heart stopped. At the sight of hi
m, I literally experienced all that poetic crap people go on about—weak in the knees, heart going pitter-patter. The world around me muted. If you’d asked me my name in that instant, I wouldn’t have been able to give you a reply.

  At least six feet tall, he was badass, in a worn leather jacket, torn jeans, and biker boots. I couldn’t help but gawk at him. Watching the women chatter and stare in his direction, I knew they had the same thing on their mind. They looked just as hungry as I did. He was that hot.

  His long deep brown hair looked like he’d rolled out of bed and run a hand through it, and I found myself daydreaming about tangling my fingers in it. Not every man could work that kind of hair, but he, without a doubt, did.

  You could tell he took care of his body, that he worked out, my guess, every day. The ribbed shirt he wore under his jacket showed off a tight, well-defined chest, and he had that look. The look of someone you did not want to piss off. Ever.

  His face, unshaven, with its strong jaw line, was so intense that even a smile did nothing to soften it. Yet, somewhere underneath his hardness, I saw something else. His eyes gave him away. They were blue-gray and electric, almost as if a storm was brewing somewhere, but I saw gentleness in them. Compassion. I was instantly hooked by the man with the tattoos and broad shoulders. I wanted to know his story, wanted to know who he was. I wanted him.

  He got a beer from the bar and slowly put it to his lips. Tipping his head back, he took a deep swallow. A shiver trailed down my back as I watched his lips on that bottle. He hadn’t even looked back my way after walking past us, so I knew he was clueless of my existence, my gawking. And, like always with men like him, one of the boobs-out-to-there women lurking around The Rox would flaunt herself his way. In a matter of minutes, he’d be sucked into her lair.

  But I couldn’t stop watching him. My jaw was still dropped as he took another sip from his bottle. My heart raced when he turned his head in my direction, stared at me, and smiled. Heat radiated through my body. I fought a pang of nausea—and giggles at the same time—from the anticipation as he walked across the crowded floor....to me.

  ****

  There’s a knock at my door. “Honey, it’s me. Can I come in?”

  When I open my door, I see the “I’m sorry, I messed up” look Cass always gives me when she feels she’s done just that.

  It’s her way of apologizing, trying to make a truce. I’ve seen this face so many times after a stupid fight. She’s always the first to apologize. She can’t stand it when we’re mad at each other. I think the longest we’ve ever gone is six hours, and that’s only because I had to go to work. I left home angry and in a hurry, forgetting my cell. She had to wait until I got off work to apologize.

  Before I say anything, she blurts out, “I’m sorry, Niki. I swear the only thing I told Ang is that he was an ass to you when he lived here, and none of us thought we’d ever see him again. It’s your story to tell, and I would never tell it to anyone. I love you. I cried with you after that shit went down, and I still wish you’d let me kick his ass.”

  I slump my shoulders and walk back over to my bed, tossing myself across it. “Why didn’t I have the guts to go up to him and at least slap him in the face?”

  She crosses to my bed and flings herself onto it too, like when we were teenagers, crying or laughing over boys at sleepovers. “Nik, hun, you know you don’t have that in you. Leave that shit to me. Say the word, say the fucking word, and I’m on it.”

  My dear Cass, she knows me well.

  I turn my body sideways, facing her, resting my head on my arm. “You wouldn’t even get a shot at him. He’s too fast. Anyway, you know that’s something I have to do. He did it to me, to my life, so it should be me who confronts him, not you.” I drop my head to my pillow as I let out a dull sigh. “But I’m not going down that road, making an idiot of myself along the way. He doesn’t even remember me. I was something to occupy his time while he was here. He sensed my naiveté and took advantage of it. And then he got bored.”

  “But wait, what about when you said he was behind Clay’s car when y’all came out?” Cass says.

  “It did seem like he was looking at us, but I’m sure it was my imagination. He was probably having an after-sex smoke like he use to do when...” I shiver at the memory of watching him smoke after hours of fucking. “I mean, why else would she be in there like that? In the dark? I doubt she was taking a nap.”

  “Maybe not. But, I don’t know, it’s kind of weird how he was parked right behind Clay’s car. The kind of car he knows you’re attracted to. And you even said it looked like he was watching you and Clay drive away. Plus, why would he park in that lot when Rox’s was nowhere near full?”

  “Well, maybe because they wanted to be in the dark.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” she says, but her voice is full of doubt.

  “I don’t understand why he’s back. After all this time? I mean, he doesn’t have any family in town. At least nobody he ever told me about or introduced me to. There’s nothing to bring him back here...unless, maybe, you think he’s on another job?”

  Cass shrugs. “Don’t know. Guess you’re going to have to ask him.”

  “Not happening. He doesn’t know me. I don’t know him.”

  Chapter 3

  Two weeks later...

  It’s a Thursday afternoon, and I’ve just finished an appointment. I have some time to kill, so I wander out to the front office to chat with our receptionist, Katy—something I do a lot, when I have the time. I like her. At twenty-two, she’s younger than me, she’s a spitfire, and she reminds me so much of Cass. She keeps us all laughing when she goes out with us to The Rox, competing with Clay over the guys.

  I have my pink scrubs on today, my favorite as they’re the most girly, along with my chucks, the must-haves as far as shoes go for me. I always start my day with a spritz of my favorite perfume. Kind of pointless really, because by the end of the day I smell more like a mixture of wet dog, cat pee, and flea shampoo—one of the many hazards of working with animals. Nonetheless, it’s my thing, so I keep with the routine. My long brown, curls-when-it-wants-to-hair is pulled back in a tight ponytail, away from my face. I never wear much makeup in general, only a little eyeliner, mascara, and lip gloss, and today is no different.

  Katy is on the phone and raises her finger, motioning me to stay put when she sees me approach.

  “Can I squeeze in a new client for you between your three and four-fifteen appointments?” she asks, muffling the earpiece.

  “Yes, absolutely.”

  She returns to the phone and proceeds to schedule the appointment with the caller. When she hangs up, Katy looks at me and grins. “Hmmm, he sounded like one major hottie.”

  I roll my eyes, and start chatting with her about one of the latest bands that played at The Rox.

  My three PM appointment is Mrs. Frawley and her fat cat, Sam. He’s such a sweetheart and has been coming to Hobbs since Mrs. Frawley rescued him from the shelter eight years ago.

  After I finish his checkup, which always ends with Mrs. Frawley saying, “Yes, dear, certainly,” when I remind her to slow down on the kitty treats for Sam, I walk them out to the lobby.

  “Dr. Stringer, dear, I meant to ask you, how is Dr. Caravan doing?” she asks, as we make it to the front desk.

  “Well, I’m sure he’s doing well, wherever he is.” I laugh to hide my sadness. I still can’t understand why he hasn’t been in contact with me, or any of us at the hospital, since he retired.

  “You mean you don’t know where he is?”

  “Not exactly. I mean, I know he’d planned to go to Florida to meet up with a bird-watching group he mentioned before he left.”

  “Oh, well, I’m sure he’s enjoying all the leisure time he has now. Can’t think of anybody more deserving of it either, with all he did for this hospital and those kids at the youth center. You know, he was the one who talked me into volunteering at the shelter. That’s how I met my precious Sam.” She gives her fat
cat a squeeze. “It’s a shame Rose Marie died so young. That damn cancer and them not having any kids...so sad. He’s all alone.”

  “Yeah, I know, but you’re right. I’m sure he’s enjoying his retirement, and he’ll call us when he starts getting stir-crazy.” I laugh again to cover my real feelings. I miss him. Terribly.

  “Well, he made a wise decision leaving the care of this hospital to you. I’m sure he’s very proud of you, watching you grow from that little girl, bringing in all those stray animals with your daddy...” I must’ve been staring, because Mrs. Frawley raises her mouth in a smile and arches her eyebrows. “Yes, that’s right. I remember, dear. And now into the beautiful, skilled doctor you are today. You worked hard to get where you are. I know. He’s so proud of you, I’m sure of it.”

  I’d forgotten that Mrs. Frawley has been coming to the hospital since before Doc C took over. And that she remembers me when I was a kid, with Dad. The tears had already been building when she mentioned Doc C, but now Dad…it’s hard to hold them back. Thinking of the two men who’ve been the most important people in my life—both now gone.

  “Thank you so much. It’s so sweet of you to say that. I’ll make sure to let him know you asked about him when I hear from him again. I’m sure he’ll appreciate your kindness too.” I grin at her as I wave my finger. “Now. Remember what I said. Slow down on the treats for Sam.”

  “Yes, dear,” she says, giggling. “I promise.”

  “Your three-forty-five is here,” Katy says, and I turn to her just as she mouths, “H-O-T,” while giving me an ear-to-ear grin.

  I roll my eyes and walk back to the exam room, where Beth, one of our technicians, is finishing tidying up and spraying the exam table with sanitizer for the next patient. I go over to the hospital ward quickly to check on one of my patients, and when I get back, Beth is closing the door behind her, sliding the patient’s chart in the drop box.