He was the very picture of anguish as he looked at Colt, but he turned and ran.
I hit my knees beside Colt, and then I lay down next to him, curling my body around him. “I love you so much.”
He turned his head, and I didn’t yell at him about neck injuries. There was no point. “I love you, too, Beckett.” He opened his eyes, and I rested my forehead against his.
“I was thinking maybe we’d add that zip line to the tree house. What do you say?” I ran my fingers through his hair.
“Yeah. I think you should make it go into the lake. That would be cool, and Mom wouldn’t worry about falling so much.”
This was one fall we hadn’t seen coming.
Havoc whined, curling up next to Colt’s other side. She knew.
“You’re absolutely right.” I checked his pulse. So damn weak.
“I think I’m dying,” he whispered.
“You’re really hurt,” I said, my voice choking on the last word. I didn’t want to lie to him, but I didn’t want his last minutes to be spent in terror. There was nothing we could do at this point. I was going to lose him.
Ella. God, she needed to be here.
“It’s okay. Don’t be sad. Tell Mom and Maisie not to be sad, either.” He took several labored breaths. “I get to see Uncle Ryan.”
I couldn’t breathe. My chest only rose and fell with his, my heart syncing to his frail rhythm.
“Just hold on, bud. There’s so much you haven’t done yet. There’s so much to do.”
He looked at me, love shining out of his eyes. “I got to have you. Just like a dad.”
Tears fell from my eyes, running down the side of my face to the earth below. “Oh, Colt. We were going to tell you. We were just waiting for Maisie to be okay, but I adopted you last year. You’ve had a dad for a while. One who loves you more than the moon and stars.”
His breaths came slower and slower, each one a Herculean effort, but he still managed a smile. “You’re my dad.”
“I’m your dad.”
“So this is what it feels like.” He reached over, his hand cold as he laid it against my cheek. “I love having a dad.”
“I love being your dad, Colt. You are the best little boy I could have ever been given. I’m so proud of you.” The words barely came out.
His eyes closed as another breath shuddered through him.
I heard the sound of rotors in the background.
“I’m a Gentry,” Colt said, managing to pry his eyes open again.
“You are. A Gentry and a MacKenzie. Always.”
“Always?” he asked.
“Always. I will always be your dad. No matter what. Nothing will change that.” Even death. My love for him would cross however far God took him.
“Colton Ryan MacKenzie-Gentry. I got everything I ever wanted.” His eyes closed, and his chest rose only half as high. CPR wouldn’t help, not when he didn’t have any blood to circulate.
“Me, too,” I told him, kissing his forehead.
“Tell Mom and Maisie I love them.” His words were slower, punctuated by partial breaths.
“I will. They love you so much. You have a mom, and a dad, and a sister who would do anything for you.”
“I love you, Dad,” he whispered.
“I love you, Colt.”
His chest rattled once more, and then his hand fell from my face as he faded.
“Colt?” I felt for the pulse that wasn’t there. “Colt! No!” I slid under him and sat up, cradling him in front of me, my arms wrapped around him as his head rolled back against my chest.
A primal scream ripped from my throat. Then another, until my body shook with sobs. Beside me, Havoc sat up and started to howl, the sound low and keening.
Take care of him, Ryan.
“Beckett,” Mark said softly. When I looked up, he was kneeling next to me, his eyes full of unshed tears. My eyes rhythmically blurred, then cleared.
“He’s gone.” My arms tightened around his little body.
“I know. You did everything you could.”
“I made him pinwheels this morning,” I said, running my hand over his soft hair. “He wanted extra cheese, and I gave it to him. I made him pinwheels.”
That was hours ago.
Hours.
And now he was gone.
“What do you want to do?” Mark asked.
I realized there were half a dozen guys standing around us. Jenkins kneeled down and did the same checks I had, only to press his mouth in a tight line and stand again.
Want? What did I want to do? I wanted to scream again, to rip everything in this forest to shreds. I wanted to pound the mountain down to rubble with my fists. I wanted to look at my little boy and hear him laugh, see him run on the deck of his tree house. I wanted him to grow up, wanted to meet the man he was supposed to become. But he was beyond my reach.
Want didn’t matter when nothing was in your control.
“I need to take him to his mother.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ella
The helicopter landed in the small clearing about thirty yards in front of me, and my heart sank. There were only two reasons they would land. Either they hadn’t found Colt, or…
“Breathe,” Ada told me. Larry had taken Maisie home. I didn’t want her here, didn’t want her on the front lines of a tragedy.
A group from County stood behind us, all watching. Waiting.
“If they found him, they would have airlifted him to Montrose,” I said. Trying so hard to push down the fear that held my stomach in a vise.
“Beckett will find him. You know he will.”
I’d seen the map, knew how far that fall was.
The door opened on the helicopter, and Mark got down first, then Beckett. He was wearing a long-sleeve shirt but no blue fleece.
He looked at me, and I didn’t need to see his face from the distance. His posture said it all. “No.” The sound was barely a whisper. No. No. No.
This wasn’t happening. This was impossible.
Beckett turned as other members of Telluride Search and Rescue climbed down and then slid out a backboard, carrying it like pallbearers.
Then I saw Beckett’s fleece.
It covered Colt’s face.
My knees gave out, and the world went black.
…
The world came into focus as I blinked. Bright lights hovered above me, and I caught the sterile smell of hospital. Turning my head, I saw Beckett in a chair next to me, his eyes swollen and red.
Havoc slept under his chair.
“Hey,” he said, leaning forward to take my hand.
“What happened?”
“You passed out. We’re at Telluride Medical, and you’re okay.”
It came roaring back to me, the helicopter. The fleece.
“Colt?”
“Ella, I’m so sorry. He’s gone.” Beckett’s face crumpled.
“No, no, no,” I chanted. “Colt.” The tears started in a deluge, coming hard and fast as I let out a sound between a cry and a scream that didn’t seem to stop. Maybe it paused while I took a breath, but that was it.
My baby. My beautiful, strong little guy. My Colt.
Warm arms surrounded me as Beckett crawled into bed next to me, and I buried my head in his chest and wailed. Pain wasn’t strong enough of a word. There was no scale. No ten to be medicated. This agony wasn’t measurable; it was unfathomable.
My little boy had died alone and cold at the base of a mountain he’d grown up under.
“I was with him,” Beckett said softly, as if he could read my mind. “He wasn’t alone. I got there in time to be with him. I told him he was loved, and he said to tell you not to be sad. That he had everything he wanted.” His voice broke.
I looked u
p at Beckett, my breaths short and choppy. “You saw him?”
“I did. I told him I adopted him, that he had a mom and dad who would do anything for him.”
He hadn’t been alone. There was something in that, right? He’d been born into the hands of his mother and died in the arms of his father.
“Good. I’m glad he knew. We should have told him earlier.” All that wasted time because I was so scared. All the days he could have had Beckett and known who he was to him.
“Was there pain?” He must have hurt so much, and I wasn’t there.
“At first, but it faded really quickly. He didn’t hurt at all when he passed. Ella, I promise you I did everything I could.”
“I know you did.” That was a given, even without knowing what had happened. Beckett would have died to save Colt. “Was he scared?” I started to cry again.
“No. He was so strong and so sure. He asked about Emma. He saved her, Ella. That’s why she lived. He pushed her to safety. He was so brave, and he loved you and Maisie so much. That’s what he said last. To tell you and Maisie that he loves you. And then he called me Dad, and he was gone. Just like that.”
The sobs started again, uncontrollable and unstoppable.
This wasn’t heartbreak. Or sorrow.
It was the utter desolation of my soul.
…
“There was nothing you could have done,” Dr. Franklin said from across the table, flanked by other doctors.
I looked out the window and saw the barest hint of sunrise.
I didn’t want it to be a new day. I wanted it to be the same day that I’d kissed him goodbye, hugged him before he got on the bus. I didn’t want to know what the sun looked like if it wasn’t shining on him.
“Colton had severe internal injuries, including a severed spine, ruptured spleen, and a tear in the aorta, combined with the laceration to the femoral artery. And those are just the things we saw on the ultrasound. Please believe me when I say that there was nothing you could have done, Mr. Gentry. If anything, your quick thinking on his leg gave you those minutes that you had.”
“That’s why it didn’t hurt,” Beckett said, his hand covering mine.
“He’d lost all feeling. It didn’t hurt.”
Tears slipped down my cheeks, but I didn’t bother to wipe them away. What was the point when they’d just be replaced?
“If I’d gotten there faster?” Beckett’s voice strangled the last word.
Dr. Franklin shook his head. “Even if he’d had that fall outside our ER, there’s nothing we could have done. Not even Montrose. Injuries that severe? The time you had was a miracle. I’m so very sorry for your loss.”
My loss.
Colt wasn’t lost. I knew exactly where he was.
He didn’t belong in the morgue. He belonged at home, sleeping, warm and safe in his bed.
“We need to go home,” I told Beckett. “We have to tell Maisie.” A fresh wave of tears fell. How was I supposed to tell my little girl that the other half of her heart was gone? How was she supposed to pick up and carry on as half a person?
“Okay. Let’s go home.”
Dr. Franklin said something to Beckett, and he nodded. Then somehow I put one foot in front of the other, and we headed for the front door.
I paused just before the doors. The twins were born here. I’d stood from the wheelchair in this very spot and carried them out in their car seats, ignoring the protests of the nurses, walking because I had to know I could do it on my own.
“Ella?”
“I can’t just leave him here.” My chest seized, and I struggled for a second before I could draw a breath. My own body didn’t want to live in a world without Colt.
Beckett’s arms surrounded me. “They have him. He’s safe. We’ll take care of him tomorrow. For now, let’s just get you home.”
“I don’t think I can move,” I whispered. I couldn’t make my feet budge, to leave Colt behind while I went home.
“Do you want me to help you?” he asked.
I nodded, and Beckett bent and picked me up, one hand behind my knees and the other bracing my back. I looped my arms around his neck and put my head against his shoulder as he carried me out into the morning.
Beckett drove us home in my car. At least I thought he did. Time lost all meaning and relevance. I was adrift on an ocean, just waiting for the next wave to pull me under.
I blinked, and we were inside, Ada fussing over something. Beckett sat me down on the couch and put a blanket over my legs. Ada said something, and I nodded, not caring what it was. A cup of coffee appeared in my hands.
The sun came up in defiance of my grief. Uncaring that my world had ended last night, it was determined to move forward.
“Mom?” Maisie walked into the room, clasping her blue teddy bear. She was dressed in purple pajamas, her hair sleep-mussed, and little pillow lines creased her face.
So similar to Colt’s face. Would I ever look at her and not see him?
“Hey,” I croaked.
Beckett appeared at her side.
“He’s dead,” she said as if it were fact, her face more solemn than it ever had been in any phase of her treatment.
My eyes flew to Beckett, but he shook his head.
“I knew last night. It stopped hurting. I knew he was gone.” Her face twisted, and Beckett pulled her against his side. “He said goodbye while I was sleeping. He said it’s okay, and to check his pocket.” Beckett sat her next to me on the couch, and I lifted my arm so I could hold her.
“I’m so sorry, Maisie.” I kissed her forehead, and she tucked in even smaller.
“It’s not okay. He wasn’t supposed to die. I was. Why did he? It’s not fair. We had a deal. We were always going to be together.” She began to cry, which started my tears all over again. Her tiny body shook against mine as her tears soaked through my shirt.
I willed myself to find the right words, not to leave my daughter alone in her grief because I couldn’t see a way out of mine.
“It’s not fair,” I told her as I rubbed her back, her little blue bear wedged between us. “And you weren’t supposed to die. Neither of you were. This is simply what happened.”
How could there not be a better explanation than that? What was the reasoning in an accident you couldn’t see coming? Where was the justice in that?
Beckett took her other side, and we surrounded her with as much of us as we had to give. She needed it all. I may have lost my son, but she lost her other half.
After about an hour, she fell asleep, having turned to Beckett. He held her against his chest, his hands running over her hair, and I couldn’t help but wonder if that was how he held Colt as he died. Then I shut the thought down and shoved it behind a door that I’d open when I was ready for the answer.
Ada came in, holding a Telluride Medical bag. “Did you want this? She said to check the pocket.”
I reached into the bag and took out Colt’s fleece. There was no blood, no tears, nothing to indicate the trauma he’d suffered. I located the first pocket and came up empty. The next one would be, too, if logic ruled. After all, just because they were twins didn’t mean—
My fingers came across something thin and crinkled. I pulled it free, and my breath abandoned me.
It was a red leaf.
…
The sun shone beautifully the day we laid Colt to rest. It trickled through the leaves of the trees on the little island, dotting the ground in tiny spots of light. The breeze picked up, bringing a cascade of colors down, mostly gold from the aspens.
I stood between Beckett and Maisie as they lowered Colt’s small white coffin into the ground. Maisie refused to wear black, saying it was a stupid color and Colt hated it. She wore yellow, the color of sunshine, and clutched Colt’s pink bear.
She’d put her blue one in with him last n
ight, saying that was the only way they could be apart. But watching the light drain from her eyes, I knew we weren’t just burying Colt but part of Maisie as well.
Emma, the little girl Colt had saved, stood with her parents, tiny tears on her cheeks. I was immeasurably proud of what Colt had done and couldn’t bring myself to wish harm on Emma; it wasn’t her fault. But I still couldn’t understand how God could exchange the life of one child for another.
Had it been Colt for Emma?
Or had I prayed too hard the last couple of years and accidentally traded Colt for Maisie with my desperate pleas for her to live?
The line of mourners began coming our way, wanting to express their sorrow. Why would I want to hear how much they missed him? I could barely breathe through my own pain, trying to absorb Maisie’s, support Beckett’s. There just wasn’t any more room for anyone else’s grief.
“I can’t,” I told Beckett.
“Okay, I can handle this,” he said and walked me over to the small bench we’d added to the island when Ryan had died. Maisie sat next to me as Beckett and Ada took the line, and Larry ushered them to the small rowboats we’d hired to take them back to shore.
“Now I’m like you, Mom.”
“How, baby?”
Her eyes stayed locked on Colt. “We both have brothers out here.”
Another wave of grief came for me, dragging me under waves so thick I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see my way to the surface. How did anyone live through losing a child? Why didn’t the pain simply stop my heart as it constantly threatened and send me with him?
Maisie’s hand found mine, and air trickled into my lungs.
“We do.” I finally found the strength to answer her.
“Beckett matches us, too.” She turned her attention to where Beckett was nodding and shaking hands with the last of the line. “Both his best friends are here.”
I swallowed for the thousandth time, trying to dislodge the permanent lump in my throat as I watched him. He stood strong and steady, handling what I couldn’t, even though his grief matched mine. He was simply that strong.
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