When a Man Loves a Woman (Indigo) Read Online Free PDF Page A

speechless Baptiste inside, she’d raced to her car and sped off.
    Emotionally exhausted, she sat at a traffic light, waiting for it to turn green. With the radio turned off, a deafening silence engulfed her and magnified the raw emotions piercing her insides. A tear slipped down her check and she choked back a sob.
    She’d been scared to get into a serious relationship because it meant putting her heart at risk again and possibly being subject to another man’s betrayal. She couldn’t go through another round of heartache, and especially not with Baptiste. She was half in love with him as it was. The more time they spent together, the more her thoughts gravitated to two-point-five m ore kids, a house with a white picket fence, family discussions at dinnertime, and kiddie carpools from one activity to the next in the mommy mobile.
    Memories of Ron’s infidelity with another man stabbed a deep hole in her heart and flooded her with so much pain that her stomach churned and she fought back the need to heave. Betrayal, not just by any man, but by her husband, and the hurt that followed were two things she’d never forget or forgive. Since then, she’d convinced herself it was better to walk away from love than relive that kind of pain again. Until tonight, she’d never revealed what she’d told Baptiste to a living soul. She firmly believed there were just some things you needed to keep between yourself and Jesus, and Ron’s affair with another man was one of them.
    Another tear appeared, then another, followed by a gut-wrenching sob. She reached for a tissue and sat motionless with her head against the steering wheel until the sound of screeching rubber from behind forced her to look up into her rearview mirror.
    “Oh, Jesus…” She frantically lifted her foot off the clutch and floored the accelerator as beaming headlights barreled toward her. It wasn’t fast enough. The impact from behind hurled her car into the middle of the intersection and, a split second later, there was a loud thud against her front bumper. She was so frightened that she screamed at the top of her voice.
    Somehow, she stumbled from her car in time to catch a glimpse of the rear of the other car as it sped away. Her cracked headlight illuminated the figure sprawled on the pavement and she knelt, rolling the inert body over.
    Recognizing the person, she opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out.
    It was the last thing she remembered before everything went black.
    * * *
    “W-When I said what I said…I didn’t mean it…” Vic’s voice cracked and she wept hysterically outside the double doors leading to the trauma unit at Highland Hospital.
    “Hush now, sweetheart.” Caitlyn gently wiped away the tears that ran down Vic’s face. “You’ve got to pull yourself together. A.J. is going to be just fine.”
    The entire Baptiste family was assembled inside the waiting room, along with Vic and her parents, George Vincent and Louise Bennett, awaiting word on A.J.’s condition.
    Louise walked up and wrapped an arm around Vic’s shoulder. “Come on, baby.” She walked them to a row of cushioned seats against the wall.
    “Try and calm down, sweetheart.” George Vincent sat next to his daughter and patted her hands. “A.J. is going to be just fine.”
    Vic heard her parents’ words of reassurance and stifled another sob. No matter what they or anyone said, she didn’t feel any better because it was her car that had crashed into Baptiste’s motorcycle. She didn’t bother to hide the tears rolling down her face anymore. From the moment she and Baptiste arrived by ambulance at the trauma unit, she’d been out of her mind with worry. He had drifted in and out of consciousness the entire ride. Even though Alta Bates-Summit Hospital was closer to the crash site, she and the paramedics had feared he’d sustained a major head injury and decided it was best to transport him to Highland, which housed the county’s designated trauma