No Longer Mine Read Online Free

have.
    But she’d left, alive, and ironically enough, with an unexpected cosmetic repair. Her eyesight was suddenly perfectly normal, the intense pressure that had caused her nearsightedness relieved when glass had cut her retinas.
    She had left the hospital in better shape than she had entered it.
    Jason had left it in a body bag.
    Thankfully Nikki didn’t remember him being taken away. The time after the wreck was a blissful blank.
    Now she sat quietly in the cemetery by her son’s grave, reflecting on the things they would never do.
    Not exactly therapeutic thoughts, but Nikki wasn’t in the mood for therapy today.
    Her depression weighed down on her shoulders, and she knew realistically that this wasn’t normal, that she needed to be talking to somebody about this.
    But even after three years, she wasn’t ready to let go of her grief. It seemed it was all she had left of him, and once she stopped grieving he’d truly be gone.
    A gentle breeze drifted past, ruffling her hair and bringing with it the scent of wildflowers. The scent of honeysuckle teased her senses and she remembered taking Jason for a walk on the hillside very close to where he rested.
    It had been only two months before the accident. They had had a picnic and he’d toddled after butterflies and come back with a fistful of honeysuckle, which he had shared with her before trying to eat it.
    They had waded in the stream, the very same stream that ran through the cemetery. Jason had laughed in delight as tiny fish no bigger than her little finger had darted around their feet.
    “You’re going to be old before your time if you keep this up, sis,” a voice said softly, jerking her out of her reverie.
    She turned her head and squinted up at Shawn. “Hey,” was all she said, not responding to his words.
    “What are you doing here?”
    “I saw your truck on my way to work,” he said, kneeling beside her. His left eyebrow was neatly bisected by a thin scar. That, and the scars he bore inside, were his only physical reminders of the accident.
    There were scars inside. She sensed it, wished she could help him…but she couldn’t even help herself.
    Jason had been like a little brother to Shawn. He’d adored the baby from the first and talked about how he’d teach him to wrestle, to go fish…all the cool boy stuff. Stuff Shawn hadn’t ever had much chance to do himself.

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    17

    Shiloh Walker
    “You ever wonder what would have happened if we’d just stayed at the store that day?” she asked softly. It was a question she’d asked herself a hundred times. A thousand.
    “Only a few dozen times a week,” he said.
    As she looked over and met his gaze, he shook his head. “And you know as well as I do, those kinds of questions will drive us crazy. Some stupid drunk hit us, Nik. You weren’t speeding. You weren’t doing much of anything except driving in the rain. Bastard hit us, ran us off the road. You can’t blame yourself.” She just shrugged.
    She could blame herself. And she did.
    “Y’know, you’re going to be late for work,” she told him, turning back to study the headstone.
    Shawn shrugged. “I doubt they’ll mind.” And even if they did, he didn’t care. How could work be that important when he looked at her and all but saw the dark cloud she had wrapped around herself? He settled on the grass next to her, uncertain of what to say. When he had been little, he had always run to her when he had been hurt. Nikki had always made the pain go away. And even when he had been nothing more than a street punk, causing trouble and raising hell, when he was in trouble, it had been her he had gone to. She had always fixed it in some way.
    It didn’t seem fair that after so many years of patching him up and kissing away his tears that he wasn’t able to take away any of her pain.
    “Jason is probably the sweetest angel in heaven, sis,” he said, looking at his feet as he spoke. He could feel himself turning red