Page 18 of Protecting Vidalia
Horror and panic assailed her as she leaped forward and grabbed the back of the pink t-shirt and pulled the little body up on the bank. As a dispatcher, Vidalia had training for CPR and she knew she had to try to save this little girl.
The wind was moaning in the cypress trees, the moss dancing wildly around in the branches as Vidalia turned over the still small form. She screamed bloody murder when the face of Dani Owens stared vacantly up at her. No smiles, no laughter shining from happy blue eyes, just ugly death staring back at her, accusing her. “No,” she screamed, shaking Dani’s body. “You can’t be dead. Wake up, Dani, wake up!”
Tears streamed down her face as she was gathered into strong arms and pulled away from the small body lying at the lonely edge of the bayou. Pulling her into another world.
“Wake up, Vidalia,” a male voice urged.
Panting, she opened her eyes and Jake’s face loomed above her. “I...it...I,” she stuttered.
“I’m here, Vidalia,” he soothed, brushing her sweaty hair back from her forehead with one large palm. “It’s all just a bad dream,” his gravelly voice soothed.
She was shaking all over, the last remnants of the ghoulish nightmare fading slowly away. Vidalia’s pain and anguish was a giant, unfillable hole in her mind. “She wasn’t supposed to die,” she cried, “she wasn’t supposed to die. I should have saved her.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “I know how you feel.”
Suddenly enraged, she tried to claw her way out of his lap. “No, you don’t. You can’t know how I feel,” she yelled angrily at him. When his arms locked tighter around her, she beat her small fists against his bare chest. “Let me go.”
“Settle down now,” he replied, grabbing her fists and holding them still.
Vidalia tried to kick him instead. With a wild screech, she kneed him in the stomach as hard as she could. “I said let me up!”
He grunted and put both her wrists in one hand and reached around and slapped her outside thigh with the other. “I said settle down, Vidalia Minton, before I turn you over my lap and settle you down.”
“Who the hell are you to tell me what to do?” She glared up at him. His loose hand locked in the back of her hair and held her in place, his smoky gaze licking her flushed face. Her thigh was smarting where he’d slapped it. High-handed asshole. she thought furiously. Still, the lips above her were firm, surrounded by the beginnings of new beard growth and hovering just out of reach. As if he were tempting her.
Or was being tempted by her.
Either way, Vidalia was mesmerized, her chest heaving as he spoke.
“I’m the man holding you right now, and I’ll hold you as long as I feel it’s necessary. You’re still trembling and shaking like a leaf and I won’t allow you to hurt yourself against me, or to stumble and fall if you try to get up and run.” His voice was low and determined but not angry. His eyes held shadows of their own as he continued. “I know what it’s like to lose a patient, especially a child. It hurts like hell. A pain so bad you can barely face it. It takes a long time to get over that and you usually can’t do it alone.”
“How do you know?” she whispered in anguish, wanting to believe him, grasping at straws to relieve her own pain as it chased away the rage and settled in.
Jake hesitated, and then spoke. “His name was Hamal, and I lost him on my watch.”
“What happened?” Jake was uneasy, she could see it in his face. He didn’t want to talk about it. She just couldn’t help asking.
“Let’s just say I’d saved his life once when his family had been killed by insurgents. He’d been brought into the medical tent with a bullet hole through his shoulder.”
“Oh no,” she gasped, already channeling the horror of that moment. Poor Jake.
“He followed me around everywhere after that, like a small puppy dog with big brown eyes. He had a ready smile and laugh in spite of what he’d been through. He was an amazing child,” he replied gruffly. “I thought I could protect him, but I failed him when he needed me most. It was very difficult to get past.”
Vidalia’s anger draining left her feeling like a deflated balloon as sympathy took over. She palmed the side of his face. “I’m so sorry, Jake. I’m sure it wasn’t your fault. I’m sure you did everything you could to save Hamal.”
Jake nodded briefly. “Just remember your own words, Vidalia. You need to apply them to yourself and stop taking all the blame for Dani’s death. I know it’s hard to do, but you have to or you’ll be a basket case stuck in a memory you can’t get out of.”
His words shocked her. Was he right? “I-I’ll try,” she finally responded. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to do that. She sat up in his lap and he finally let her go. Being aware of his bare chest under her hand and the hard thighs beneath her bottom was moving in on her senses. “I’m really tired,” she said with a yawn and glancing at her watch. “It’s only 3:00 am so I’ll take a sleeping tablet and try to get a few more hours.”
He stood up with her and frowned. “You’re still taking sleeping pills?”
She averted his eyes, his knowing stare unnerving her. “Not for much longer,” she lied. She was planning on getting a refill—if the doctor would allow it. If not, she’d have to find an alternate method of getting some sleep. If only the nightmares would leave her alone.
“Tonight, you and I are going to have a talk,” he promised. “Right now, I’ll let you do your thing.”
“What kind of talk?” She asked suspiciously.
“About things you can do to help you sleep better and get off those pills. Like seeing a therapist, and other things.” His gaze locked firmly on her and she realized he was totally serious.
