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  Nash

  Hathaway House, Book 14

  Dale Mayer

  Books in This Series:

  Aaron, Book 1

  Brock, Book 2

  Cole, Book 3

  Denton, Book 4

  Elliot, Book 5

  Finn, Book 6

  Gregory, Book 7

  Heath, Book 8

  Iain, Book 9

  Jaden, Book 10

  Keith, Book 11

  Lance, Book 12

  Melissa, Book 13

  Nash, Book 14

  Owen, Book 15

  Hathaway House, Books 1–3

  Hathaway House, Books 4–6

  Hathaway House, Books 7–9

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  About This Book

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  About Owen

  Author’s Note

  Complimentary Download

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  About This Book

  Welcome to Hathaway House. Rehab Center. Safe Haven. Second chance at life and love.

  Nash has been struggling to get back on his feet after his last set of surgeries. He pushed for a transfer to Hathaway House on an old friend’s recommendation and finally made it there—after multiple frustrating delays—only to find that he isn’t ready for the strides he hopes to make in the new facility.

  To add insult to injury, on his first day at Hathaway House, he comes face-to-face with Alicia, the only woman he’s ever loved and the last woman he’d want to see him in his current condition.

  Alicia let Nash go more than a decade ago, unwilling to settle for a long-distance relationship with the sailor, certain that her future would bring other dreams and other loves. But, when her brother fell ill, all her dreams shattered. She devoted herself to nursing him and, after his death, to helping others.

  Seeing Nash again is both pleasure and pain. The rapport between them is instant, as if the years apart had never happened. But, if they couldn’t make things work back then, when life was bright and new, do the people they’ve become in the years since have a shot at a future together?

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  Prologue

  Nash Covington listened as the doctor explained once again why his trip to Hathaway House was delayed. “But it’s all been approved,” Nash said in frustration. “Why is there even a discussion about it right now?”

  “We’re just making sure that you’re well enough to travel,” the doctor said. “So another four days, then you should be good to go.” The doctor walked out, not willing to discuss the issue anymore, not willing to even explain any further.

  Nash fell onto his bed and groaned. His buddy Owen, beside him for many weeks, said, “So not the news you wanted?”

  “Well, it’s not bad news,” he said. “It’s just the same old bull again.”

  “I think they specialize in that,” Owen said. “Here you seem pretty bound and determined to get to Hathaway. Are you sure you want to go there, or do you just want to get away from this place?”

  “Probably both,” Nash said. “But Hathaway House is in Dallas, and Dallas is where I want to be. That’s family. There’s a huge extended family on the outskirts that I’d like to get closer to. That’s friends. That’s an old girlfriend, who I know won’t want anything to do with me in this shape—but still, that doesn’t mean that I won’t be friends with her. And, right now, it feels like I have very little family and no friends in my life.”

  “I think that’s the way of it,” Owen said. “As soon as you have an accident like this, you find out who your friends truly are.”

  “Well, not only is it about the accident itself and the subsequent crumbling of my social support system,” he said, “but it’s about fixing all the accident-related damage to my body with all the darn surgeries and the time recovering. It’s not a short-term event. It’s been what? Eighteen months now?”

  “Mine’s not been quite so bad,” Owen said. “But, in your case, yeah. You’ve had a lot more surgeries.”

  “And I’m so ready to get out of this bed, to get out of this room, to get out of this center.”

  “How did you hear about Hathaway House?”

  “Cole, a friend of mine,” Nash said. “He’s been gone quite a while. But, last I heard from him, Hathaway House made the difference for him. Cole was someone I could trust, and, if he says I’ll do better there, I’d like to try.”

  “Then four days,” Owen said. “Four more days. That’s all you have to wait for now. And, when you get there, let me know if it’s any good, will you?”

  “Count on it, buddy. You can count on it.” Nash closed his eyes, resting. If the doctors here thought he wasn’t good enough to make that trip, he was bound and determined to spend the next four days doing what he could to build up his strength and to make sure that his arrival at Hathaway House happened. Otherwise it seemed like everybody else was against him, and that he wouldn’t tolerate.

  It was Hathaway or bust.

  Go big or go home.

  Get to Hathaway House or never get to his future.

  Chapter 1

  Nash Covington stared up at the ceiling of his private room in Hathaway House, clenching back the hot tears from his eyes. He was here, and he was in pain, but he was alive, and he was well—sort of. He was also terrified, euphoric, and … a complete mess. It hadn’t been just four days, as he had been told; it had ended up being eleven days. He had spent six extra days, waiting to get here, in a complete panic, afraid that everything he’d planned for, everything he’d hoped for, wouldn’t come to pass. But the doctor had finally cleared him, and then it had taken another day to get the arrangements finalized. He knew in theory that was all normal. It was all good, now that he had arrived, and the added delay, in the long-run, didn’t matter one bit—he hoped.

  He needed to be here, and yet he was so scared, so worried, during those six, seven days before his travel arrangements went into effect. Nash hoped and prayed that his chance, that this opportunity, would finally happen.

  Now it had.

  Of course, as soon as he’d gotten here, he’d checked the amenities of his room and then headed out to see what all Hathaway House had to offer. He hadn’t gone far down the hallway, knowing that he had a team coming, but he had stepped wrong, and it had sent pain shooting up his spine and around his hips.

  He’d managed to return to his room, to lie down on the bed, his body rigid, in an attempt to quell the pain. It was a constant reminder of the agony that his body was in. And that pushing his body wasn’t the answer.

  Just then came a knock on the open door, and a man stepped in. His smile fell away, and immediately he came closer. “Are you all right?”

  Nash nodded slowly, breathing deeply through his nose. “I will be,” he said.

  “Is this from the trip?”

  “The trip, the surgeries, the fact that I was just checking out the room, the hallway,” he murmured, his eyes half closed. “And then I stepped wrong.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Which foot? Was it a flat step? Did you fall? What happened exactly?”

  He opened his eyes to see a man with a name tag that read Shane. “Are you a doctor?”

  “Nope. I’m the head of the PT Department,” he said. “I need to know these things.”

  In as calm a v
oice as he could muster, Nash reiterated what had happened. “It was a simple thing,” he said. “But, if I’m not mindful of where I place every step, it’s just so easy to have things go wrong.”

  “That’s fine,” Shane said, as he used a stylus to jot notes on his tablet as he watched Nash curiously.

  “What are you writing down?”

  “We’ll have to work on your steps, your hip alignment, and the pain was from a single misstep.” Shane looked at Nash. “What would you say that pain was? An eight out of ten?”

  Nash nodded and said, “Right now, it’s a ten out of ten.”

  “Which foot?”

  “Right.”

  Shane nodded and continued to write. “Pain shooting into the leg and stopping or into the spine?”

  Then Nash grimaced, not able to talk.

  Shane put down his tablet and neared Nash. “Let me massage the foot, see if I can get the cramp to relax.”

  Nash held up a hand to stop Shane, gasping, trying to talk. Eventually he uttered one word. “No.”

  Shane nodded, watching, timing the pain flare.

  “When do we get started?” Nash asked, dreading the answer, because, right now, the thought of moving was just way too painful.

  Shane smiled and said, “Not for a couple days, not until you have fully recovered from your travels. Then we have a bunch of testing to do to, gauge where you are starting from now. I want to do a full workup to see just where the problems are, how we can help you the best.”

  “That sounds good,” Nash gasped out.

  “Do you need something for pain right now?”

  He shook his head slowly. “Normally something like this will pass within a few minutes. This time it’s taking longer,” he admitted. “But I just think it’s the fact that I’m still stressed from the trip.”

  “Okay,” Shane said, as he pointed to the button at the side of his bed. “If you need anything,” he murmured, “you tell us, okay? There is never any need to suffer through the pain. We have meds and massage and yoga and meditation and a hot tub and other options open to you.” With a one-finger wave of acknowledgment from Nash, Shane stepped out.

  Nash kept focusing on his breathing, waiting for it to all calm down. He knew that these cramps sometimes got worse, but he didn’t tell Shane that. The last thing Nash wanted was for them to decide his case was too complicated, or he wasn’t ready, or any such thing that would send Nash away from here. He really needed to be here; he really desperately needed that bit of hope that they offered, even if it took a while. There were just some things he had to have. But hope? That was the biggest one.

  As he lay here, slowly he could feel some of the tension easing off his shoulders and neck, and, as soon as he recognized that was happening, he deliberately worked through some of the meditation affirmations that he had tossed off as being useless about a year ago, only to find that helpful today—things that he had dismissed as being completely irrelevant, even a little bit on the woo-woo side, but now here he was using them. Just the repetitive mantra—It’ll be okay. You’ll be fine. This will all pass—seemed to help reduce some of his stress. For that, he’d do anything he could right now. As his body relaxed further, he could feel exhaustion from his journey overtake him.

  He closed his eyes, wondering if it was safe to nap when a steady stream of people from his designated team could invade his room. Otherwise he hadn’t told anybody he was coming; he wanted to surprise his friends and family. Instead he wondered if he should have sent out an email, letting everybody know that he would be here, arriving today. He still went back and forth over it. He wanted it to be a happy surprise.

  As he slowly started to drift off, he heard a voice outside his room, something weirdly familiar about that voice. He opened his eyes, his heart slamming against his ribs. He shook his head slowly. No, no, it couldn’t be. Surely it wasn’t Alicia. When a woman walked into his room, he tried to relax. He stared at her, but it definitely wasn’t the one he had heard in the hallway, and he let out a slow sigh of relief.

  The woman walked forward and said, “Hi, I’m Dani.”

  His face lit up. “Hi,” he said. “Cole told me a lot about you.”

  She chuckled. “He’s also said a lot about you. We’ve had quite the time getting you here, haven’t we?”

  “It’s been so hard to be patient,” he said. “So many extensions on travel dates. However, I’m so very glad to be here. Did I hear you talking with somebody else out there?”

  She frowned, looked toward the hallway. “I was just talking to one of the new nurses,” she said. “Why?”

  “Just something familiar about her voice.”

  “Maybe,” she said cheerfully. “Alicia used to work for us a few years ago, and now she’s back again.”

  His heart slammed against his chest. “Alicia?” he asked cautiously.

  Dani smiled, nodded, and said, “Yep, she was off doing some special training, and then she did a practicum at the other end of the country. But decided that she liked Texas too much and came back.”

  He smiled and said, “Right, I mean there’s nothing quite like it, if this is home for you.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “Now I’ve got all your schedules on a tablet for you.” She sat on the chair beside him and went over everything that would happen for the next day or two.

  It was almost too much; he could feel his mind glazing over.

  “So,” she said, “you’ll have people coming and going today. People on your team, stopping by to say hi. They’re all on their own time frames as to this initial meet-and-greet, so they’ll find a time that’s convenient and then will work with you from there.”

  “I already met Shane,” he said.

  “Good,” she said. “Shane is usually right on the ball.”

  He nodded. “So everybody on my team is here?”

  “Yes,” she said, as she stood. “As for food, depending on how you’re feeling”—she studied him hesitantly—“we can bring in a meal for you, or we can take you around for a tour in a wheelchair, end up in the cafeteria to feed you. However, if you’re exhausted, and you want to relax, you are always welcome to eat alone in your room. That’s fine too.”

  “I’m not sure I can get very far,” he said. “It all depends on how much of my energy is required to get there. I am very tired. I don’t really like to admit that.”

  “Not a problem,” she said with a knowing smile. “The question is whether you’re up for even leaving your room today.”

  He hesitated, and she nodded in understanding. “That works for me,” she said. “I’ll come back in a little bit and see how you’re doing. Would you like a cup of coffee or something in the meantime?”

  He looked at her in surprise. “I guess it’s about four o’clock,” he said. “And I haven’t eaten much all day.”

  “How’s your stomach?” she asked instantly. “I can go get you food. Dinner starts at five, but I can get you a cup of coffee and something to tide you over, or we can get you a meal right now.”

  “Maybe a cup of coffee,” he said. “That would sure be lovely.”

  She nodded and disappeared.

  He sank back down again, wondering what the chances were that her Alicia was his Alicia and how would she feel if she saw him here? They had a history, but they’d also ended on an amicable note. At least he thought so; he wasn’t so sure if she had the same viewpoint. It always seemed like people took away from each discussion something completely different than intended, so he wasn’t sure. She had been the most precious thing in his life back then, but he had been determined to go into the navy. Though she had encouraged him to go, she had also said that she didn’t want to spend her life waiting for him, so they had broken up. She’d had plans for her future back then, but he didn’t think it was about nursing; he wondered at that. He thought she’d planned to go into design, maybe into business.

  As he thought more about it, he flicked through his tablet, and there was his team. H
is gaze went down the portfolios, the images, and he froze because there, sure enough, was his Alicia. He swallowed hard, realizing that not only was she here but she was part of his team. They would have to find a way to be amicable in order to get him the best care, and, if he didn’t feel comfortable with that, what would he do about it? Not that he had a whole lot of choice, he didn’t think. Not if he intended on staying here.

  At the same time was there any reason to think that she wouldn’t be a professional and give him the best care? Did he really not think that she’d be happy to see him? He thought back to their last meeting, pretty sure that it had been an okay one; although she hadn’t been too thrilled about his leaving. Then goodbyes were never easy. It was hard because he’d been so gung ho and so determined to go into service.

  Also he’d been too young to see what they had, which was pretty special. It’s not that they’d left on bad terms, but he winced even now because he really had broken them up due to his career choice over her.

  He didn’t know how she would handle it now or how she had handled it back then, as they hadn’t had any contact since that time. Well, at least he had a heads-up warning that she was coming because he hated shocks like that. He hated facing something he didn’t have time to prepare for, just like so much of his life right now. He was in a completely different state of affairs from where he’d been ten years ago. That seemed like a lifetime ago to him.

  He was still a young man, but he no longer looked like a young man. His body had been beaten up so much that he knew he looked ten years older than his actual twenty-eight. But it was what it was. Even with this outcome, he still didn’t have any regrets over his career choice. One thing he did have a great regret for was the IED that put him here. Yet life happened, and he couldn’t do a thing about it. As he lay here, another voice interrupted his thoughts. He looked up to see a huge male walking toward him, holding a cup of coffee.

  Nash smiled and said, “Thank you. I appreciate this.”