His hands released mine, and he gently caressed them up my wet arms, over my chest, and down my shorts. By the time he had them off, I was ready to explode. Oh god. The way he made me feel was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. Every time with him was like the first time.

When he stood back and stared at me, I so desperately wanted to cover myself, but I knew how that would upset him. He always told me how perfect and beautiful I was. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to how he made me feel so special, so wanted.

I watched as he took off his T-shirt and dropped out of his shorts. I raised my eyebrows at him and smiled. “Commando today, huh?”

“Easier access for you, baby,” he said with a wicked smile.

Throwing my head back, I laughed, again reveling in the feeling of the rain on my face. Is this really happening?

I snapped my head back up and looked at him. “We can’t do this!” I practically yelled.

“What? Why the hell not?”

“This is your parents’ house, Josh! What if they come home? I mean, what if your mom…oh god, I don’t even want to think about it!” I turned to get my shirt.

Josh grabbed my hand and pulled me to his wet, warm body. “Princess, my parents are at their lake house. They’re not coming home until tomorrow. It’s just you and me.”

He pressed his lips to mine and kissed me with so much passion that I knew I would have an orgasm the moment he touched me. He slowly lowered himself to the lounge chair and moved back, allowing me to straddle him. When I sat down and pressed against him, I let out a moan. Between his warmth and the cool drizzle on my body, I was in heaven.

“Oh god, I’ve missed you so much,” I said with desperation in my voice.

“Jesus, Heather, you feel so damn good. I love you, princess,” Josh said as he lifted me up and down onto him.

Wrapping his arms around me, he covered me in soft kisses as we made the sweetest, most romantic love of my life…in the rain, heartbeat to heartbeat.

Ari’s voice suddenly awoke me from my memory.

“Heather, sweets, we’re at the hospital,” Ari said with sadness in her eyes.

As soon as Jeff parked the car, I jumped out.

“Heather, please slow down!” Ari called out from behind me.

I had to get to him. I kept running. What if he doesn’t make it? I never even told him I loved him before I left. Oh. My. God. We were fighting.

On the way toward the hospital, I sent Josh’s mom a text message, letting her know I was there and asking where she was.

Elizabeth: Second floor. Surgery waiting room.

I crossed through the ER and headed straight to the elevator. I heard Jeff tell Ari that Gunner and Ellie were praying for Josh. Don’t cry, Heather. Do. Not. Cry.

As we stepped into the elevator, I looked at Ari. That was a mistake. I immediately felt tears building in my eyes. I turned away and looked down at the floor.

“Heather…” Ari started to say.

“Please don’t.” I glanced back up at her as the doors opened.

Ari grabbed my hand, and we rushed to the waiting room. I saw Elizabeth and Josh’s father, Greg, standing there, talking to a doctor dressed like he had just come out of surgery.

I stopped just short of them, unable to take another step. What if he’s telling them that Josh didn’t make it?

Elizabeth glanced in my direction and immediately walked over and took me in her arms. “He’s going to be okay, baby girl. Breathe. Just breathe, Heather.”

Oh god. That was what Josh told me all the time when he knew I was upset or nervous.

I pulled back and looked at her. She took her thumbs and wiped the tears away from my face.

“He’s going to be okay? But I thought he was in critical…” I couldn’t finish.

When I started to sob, Ari rubbed her hand on my back, trying to soothe me.

“Come on, Dr. Michaels was Josh’s surgeon. He just came out to talk to us.”

As we walked over to the surgeon, Jeff’s phone started to ring. All I heard him say was, “Hi, Gunner.” Poor Ellie. She just had her baby, and she doesn’t need this added stress.

“Dr. Michaels, this is Heather Lambert, Josh’s girlfriend,” Elizabeth said as she gave me the sweetest smile.

After Dr. Michaels and I greeted one another, he began to tell us about Josh. “It looks like we were able to stop the internal bleeding from the blunt force trauma to his abdomen. His spleen was lacerated, probably by one of his two broken ribs. With a procedure called exploratory laparotomy, we were able to stop the bleeding by using a heat probe to seal the blood vessels. He lost a lot of blood, so we also had to give him a transfusion. His brain scans show that he suffered a slight trauma to the head, resulting in minor swelling. We’re treating that with IV steroids and mannitol, and we’ll observe him. We won’t really know any more until he wakes up. He is stable now, and he’s breathing very well on his own. His blood pressure is good, and all his vitals are normal.”

Greg cleared his throat. “What about his head trauma? Do we know if he had any significant injury to his brain?”

“We’ll have to wait until he wakes up to see how significant it was. All the brain scans appear to be normal, and the swelling is steadily going down, so I didn’t see the need to induce a coma.”

Looking over at me, Dr. Michaels gave me a weak but genuine smile. I smiled back the best I could, but my heart was racing.

He’s going to be okay.

“We’re going to keep him in the ICU overnight, and then we’ll move him to another room tomorrow. Although he’s not awake, y’all are more than welcome to go in. We just ask for only two people to visit at a time.”

“Of course, of course,” Elizabeth said.

My heart started racing even more. Oh god.

“We’ll be right back.” Greg leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

I watched as Josh’s parents followed the doctor through the double doors. Jeff must have sensed what was about to happen because he rushed to my side and grabbed on to me when my knees gave out. With Ari on one side of me and Jeff on the other, we walked over to the small sofa.

After Ari and I sat down, I just let go. I had never cried so hard in my life. Even after my parents passed, I’d tried not to cry. This time though, I couldn’t hold it in. Thinking back to the last forty-eight hours, every emotion I’d felt came crashing down on me,the beautiful moment in the rain when Josh had made love to me, my anger over him and Lynda and the fight we’d had before I left, the excitement about Alex, Josh’s car accident, and how scared to death I was when I’d thought I lost him.

As Ari gently held me in her arms, I let it all slip away.

He’s okay.

We’ll be okay.

Twenty-Four Hours Before the Accident

Chapter Two

I looked down at my cell phone in my hand. Fuck, why is Lynda calling me again?

Heather was staring at two dresses on my bed, trying to decide which one to wear to my mother’s office Christmas party tonight.

“I’ll be right back, babe,” I said as I turned and walked out into the hall.

“Lynda, what do you need?” I asked in a hushed voice as I quickly made my way down the stairs.

I headed through the kitchen and out onto the back patio. The last thing I wanted was for Heather to hear me talking to Lynda.

“I’m so sorry to bother you, Josh. I’m just having a really hard day. Christmas is so close, and I feel so alone. Can’t we just meet for lunch, please?”

I took a deep breath and looked out toward the pool. As my eyes locked on to the lounge chair where Heather and I had made love the day before, I smiled. I slowly let out the breath I’d been holding in.

“No, Lynda, we can’t meet for lunch. You have your family. You’ll be fine. You need to get out and meet someone.”

“I don’t want to meet anyone else. What we had was such a good thing. You know it was.”

“No, what we had was nothing, Lynda. You knew from the beginning that I loved Heather. I’m tired of having this conversation with you. Listen, I need to go. You’re gonna be okay, trust me. Please just get out there and look for someone. You’re a beautiful girl, and I promise that you’ll have no problem finding someone.”

When I turned around, I found Heather leaning up against the door. She had obviously been listening to me.

Fuck me. “Listen, I have to go and get ready for a Christmas party. Later.” As I hung up the phone, I started to walk toward Heather.

She put up her hand to stop me from coming closer. “You felt the need to come outside to talk to her? How often do you sneak away to talk to her on the phone, Josh?”

“Heather, I know it upsets you, so—”

“So, you snuck outside? Why can’t you see that this girl is playing you? This whole feel-sorry-for-me shit is getting old.” Heather turned and began heading back into the house.

“Heather, wait. I’m trying the best I can here,” I said.

She stopped immediately and spun around to look at me. The expression on her face told me that I had just said something very wrong.

“You’re trying your best? No, you’re not trying your best. When she calls, you drop everything to comfort her, and she knows it. You need to ignore her. I’m tired of this, Josh. I’m ready to move on and leave all of that behind, but we can’t. Every other week, she calls you with some sort of breakdown. She’s lying to you. Why can’t you see that?”

I pushed my hands through my hair as I let out a long breath. I glanced over at the clock. My parents would be home any second, and the last thing I wanted was to be fighting with Heather when they walked in.

“Okay, Heather. You’re right. I need to learn to just ignore her. I care about her though, and I worry, so—”

Her mouth dropped open as she shot me the dirtiest look.

Oh fuck.

“What? You care about her?”

Jesus H. Christ! I can’t believe I just said that. “Okay, this is getting fucking ridiculous, Heather. I love you. I’ll only ever love you. I want to be with only you. Why are you so fucking jealous over someone who’s only a friend?” I shouted.

I watched as tears began pooling in her eyes before she lowered her head. Oh, holy shit. Why did I just yell at her? I was nervous about proposing to her tonight, and I was taking it out on her.

She started to shake her head as she looked back up at me. “She’ll never go away, will she, Josh? How would you feel if I talked to Jerry on the phone all the time? If I told him how handsome he was? If I snuck outside to talk to him? If I told you I still cared about him?” Heather asked as she tried to hold in her sobs.

“Baby, I meant to say, I cared…as in past tense. I feel nothing for Lynda. I just worry that she’ll do something stupid,” I said as I moved closer to Heather.

“She. Is. Not. Your. Problem. The problem you have right now, Josh, is the fact that you can’t open your eyes and see she’s coming between us. She’s doing the very thing she set out to do the day we walked into that hospital room together.”