by Natalie Dean
“I’m going to drop you off at the side entrance. That’s the one you said is closest to your brothers, right?”
“You remember that?” Dani asked. She might have mentioned that once, but she wasn’t even sure.
“Yeah. I made a point to keep it in mind in case I ever drove you to visit your brothers.”
“Wow, that is really sweet, but I don’t have time to give you a proper thanks because I’m too busy thinking about how fast I can vault out of your truck and up to the room.”
“That’s fine,” he said with a grin. “You’ve got more important things to worry about. Just don’t break a leg, okay.”
“I’ll try not to. I want to visit my brothers in the hospital. Not be admitted.”
“Good. Remember that.”
He finally pulled up to the entrance, and she popped her seatbelt off and jumped out. As soon as her feet hit the ground, she was off and power walking to the elevators.
She knew to text her mom that she was on the way up before she got into those metal boxes because she would lose all signal. She didn’t get her mother’s response in time, but that didn’t matter.
She was going to make it.
That thought had her bouncing from foot to foot in the elevator, eyes locked on the lights that indicated what floor she was on. 1… 2… 3… it seemed to take forever, and she wondered how effectively medical personnel could get around with elevators that took a literal age of man to get where they needed to go.
She managed to survive until the doors opened then rushed to her brother’s room. The path was familiar despite her only being there a handful of times, but it took on a whole new feeling as she rushed to her destination.
“Dani!”
It was Mom who noticed her first, getting to her feet and throwing her arms around her daughter in a hug. Dani clung to her as well, nodding to her dad who stepped out of the room. She assumed to tell a nurse that she was finally there.
“Where’s Benji?” Mom asked when she stepped away from her.
“He went to park the car. He wanted to make sure that I didn’t miss this.”
“That’s real considerate of him.”
“Yeah. He seems to be so far.”
“Look at you,” Mom said, her hands gently squeezing Dani’s arms. “Opening up and trusting people. I’m so proud of you dear.”
Dani felt herself blush. “Aw, it ain’t a big deal, Mom.”
“To me it is.”
Dani wasn’t about to argue and settled for waiting for the doctor. It turned out that Benji had been very smart indeed, because the doctor, an older woman with silver hair pulled back in a tight bun, came in before he could make it back from the parking lot.
“Ah, are we ready?” she asked, her voice sounding perfectly neutral.
“Yes, please,” Mom murmured, her fingers intertwining with Dani’s.
There was a lot of moving about, with two nurses coming into the room. One of them stated they were going to turn down his sedation medication.
“What now?” Dani found herself asking, looking to the doctor with what she hoped was a steady gaze.
“Now you wait. He can take anywhere from five minutes to five hours to wake up. Or he could not wake up at all, and we will address that if that happens, although it seems unlikely at this juncture.”
“Okay, thank you.”
“Of course. I’ll have my nurses stay here and monitor things. They’ll page me if anything is amiss, but we’re anticipating a smooth transition. Do you have any questions?”
“No,” Dad said, his voice a low rumble.
Anyone who didn’t know him wouldn’t catch the tremor in his words, but Dani did. Poor Dad. If there was anyone that she had gotten her tendency to bottle things up from, it was him.
“All right then. I’ll see you back in here soon.”
The doctor stepped out and then that was that.
But Dani wasn’t content to just stand there, staring at her brother, so she busied herself with pushing all of the chairs in the room closer to his bed, with one of them being close enough to his left side so that someone could hold his hand.
And that someone was Mom, of course. Dani gestured for her to take a seat and thankfully, she did without protest. It was harder to get her dad to sit next to her, the man seeming to want to pace around rather than wait. But if James woke up, she didn’t want him seeing his father walking back and forth hurriedly—something the man only did when he was very upset.
No, she wanted her brother to wake up with loving faces all around him and kind smiles.
Finally, she sat on his right side. She couldn’t hold his hands or stroke his arm because of his burns, but she could gently pet his head. Which she did, murmuring about how she was so excited to see him again and that he was definitely going to need to dust his room once he was back home.
Minutes passed, and little by little, she noticed signs of life coming to her brother. At first, it was just a slight twitch in the muscles of his face. Then it was his tongue coming out to try to wet his lips, which were so cracked and dry. Apparently, the nurses came and applied balm and wetted down his mouth several times each rotation, but it wasn’t enough to stop them from becoming dehydrated with his breathing tube in place.
But each little sign was like a blessing, and she felt hope rising higher and higher in her chest as she categorized them all.
A knock on the door drew her attention for a moment and she saw Benji standing there, looking breathless.
“Hey,” he said softly. “Do you want me to wait out here?”
“No, no,” Dani said quickly, gesturing for him to come in. “It’s all right.”
Benji gave an uncertain look to her parents, but they nodded too. Quickly, he strolled over to Dani, his large hand resting on her shoulder.
While before his touch had lit a fire in her, making her burn with all sorts of wants that decent people weren’t supposed to have, now it soothed her. Made her feel safe. Supported. She didn’t have enough brain power left over to analyze that, so she just let herself accept the good feelings.
To their credit, the nurses stayed quiet as they came in and out of the room, never leaving for more than a few minutes and one of them always within earshot.
It was an hour and forty-five minutes later that her brother’s eyes first fluttered open, flying wide in confusion. Dani was instantly leaning over him, talking low and smooth.
“Hey there. You’re in the hospital. You’re safe, okay? We’re right here with you.”
She could see his pupils dilate as his eyes roved around, trying to place everything. She didn’t know how much he was aware of when he was in his coma, so she just let him do what he needed, staying alert in case he hurt himself.
The tension lasted for a few minutes, but he seemed to simmer when he saw Mom and Dad along with her. Blinking slowly, he tried to raise his head but then his breathing tube let out a horrible gagging sound.
“Uh, nurse—”
But one of the women was already in the room with a towel and suction equipment in her hands. “It looks like someone is ready to have their breathing tube pulled out. Would you mind making space?”
Naturally, it was Dani who moved first, then the RN and the respiratory therapist came up alongside James, going about their business quickly and efficiently with smiles on their faces.
“All right, we’re going to take your breathing tube out. Sound good?” Her brother slowly nodded his head yes. “We just have to take this tape off, then we’ll pull it out, and we want you to give us a few big coughs once it’s out, okay?”
Her brother blinked slowly again, and the respiratory therapist took that as affirmation. With the ease that could only come from years of experience, she pulled the tube out, holding the towel under James’ chin to catch the drool, mucus and what looked like soot that came out with it.
Her brother coughed once, twice, three times before letting out a strangled groan. It made Dani’s heart shatter, b
ut the nurse reacted as patient and smoothly as ever, crossing to the bathroom and wetting a cloth before returning to James and gently wetting down his mouth.
“There,” she said soothingly, and Dani was a bit in awe of her. “Feel better?”
He winced a little, a small rasp coming from his throat. She nodded like she understood.
“Are you in pain?”
Another little rasp.
“All right. I’ll go get the doctor and see what we can give you for that. In the meantime, I want you to breathe for me, okay? Long, slow, and deep as you can. You’re doing great, James.”
She looked to the family with a small nod before heading out the door. “He’s looking good. I know it all looked a little scary, but he’s doing just fine. Don’t worry.” And then she was gone.
As time passed, her brother seemed to grow more lucid, his sluggish gazes turning sharper and like the sibling Dani remembered. He didn’t talk, only little choking sounds and wheezes coming from his dry throat, but he found ways to communicate anyway.
It was Mom who told him everything that happened. From the ambulance ride to his induced coma and all the treatments he had been getting. How debriding his skin had taken two plastic surgeons hours and hours even with the two of them and how he was going to need skin grafts in the future.
It was scary stuff, but she also told him how he never got a single infection and how the doctors were impressed with his recovery. She told him about the insurance and how the town had really rallied around them.
She told him about almost everything and anything, continuing as the doctor came in and gave James something that seemed to help him settle, and not stopping until everything was out.
Well, everything except what was going on with Dani and Benji, that wasn’t hers to tell.
By the end of it all, the sun had set in the sky and James was leaning back in his pillows, a slight grin on his face. He looked thoroughly exhausted though, and Dad asked him if he wanted to rest.
He tapped his left pointer finger twice against Mom’s hand, his signal for a yes. Mom asked if he wanted them to stay, and that was another yes.
Unfortunately, hospital rules were only one person was supposed to be allowed to spend the night, so that meant Dani was out. The only reason Dad would be able to stay along with Mom was because Chester shared the same room as Benji and technically that fit the rules of one overnight guest per person.
Bending down to press the gentlest kiss she could on her brother’s head, Dani wished him goodnight before crossing over to Chester. She gave him a kiss too and assured him that his time was coming, he just had to keep fighting.
With one last hug for the night to her Mom and Dad, she headed out of the room, Benji following silently behind her.
They stayed silent all the way to the car, her mind so full she felt like she might burst.
She was just so, so happy. She knew that this was just the beginning, that he had a lot of work to do going forward and there could be all sorts of speedbumps along the way. But she couldn’t help but be relieved that she was getting her big brother back.
Thank God.
But also, she couldn’t help but wish that he could have stayed awake a bit longer so she could tell him about Benji and maybe ask him for some advice. But that would mean shooing everyone out of his room so there probably wouldn’t have been a good time for that.
It wasn’t until they pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street when she felt she finally had her wits about her enough to speak.
“Thank you,” she said, looking at Benji gratefully.
“No problem. I’m happy I was able to be there for you.”
“Yeah, you really were, weren’t you?” She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. “I know I would have been able to survive all of this without you, but goodness, I’m real happy that you were here.”
He smiled at that, and they drove in silence for a while. But once they got more onto the country roads, he began to shift around a little.
“You okay over there?” she asked, eyeing him.
“Yeah, it’s just…” He took a deep breath and for a moment she was sure that he was about to tell her that she was all too much and so was her family. “I know this is probably fast, but I don’t want to just casually go on dates and make out in your kitchen.”
Crap.
She knew this would happen. Her heart broke and it took everything in her not to let her eyes get teary. Just when things were starting to go well, something always came around to bite her.
“I realized in that hospital room how easy it is for someone to be snatched away, so I don’t want to waste any time playing around. I want a relationship. Maybe it’s juvenile, but I want to introduce you as my girlfriend, not just a woman I happen to be dating.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“Very oh.”
“I gotta admit, when you ask a beautiful woman if she’s interested in something serious, you usually hope to hear something a little more… affirmative.”
“Right. Right. I just, whew, I thought you were trying to end everything with me.”
He actually took his eyes off the road, staring at her. “What? Why would I do that?”
“I dunno. Still expecting the worse, I guess. Working on that.”
He reached over and squeezed her hand.
“It’s okay. I understand that past experiences have definitely made a pattern. But trust me, I’m like a barnacle. You’re gonna have to pry me off with some sort of sharp instrument.”
“Huh, you know that sounds like torture.”
“Uh, please don’t torture me.”
“I’ll try not to.”
Their banter faded into light laughter and he looked back to the road, but she could still feel the corner of his gaze on her.
“So, is that a yes?”
Dani smiled, warmth and happiness bubbling through her. “Well, I’m tempted.”
“Oh, you’re tempted, huh?”
“I just might be.”
“I guess sometimes temptation isn’t a bad thing.”
“Not from where I’m sitting. So yeah, that’s a yes.”
The road was empty, so he leaned over, giving her a light kiss. Dani pushed into it for a moment, before forcing herself to behave. After all, she wouldn’t be a good girlfriend if the two of them ended up smeared across the road.
Ew. Dark thoughts. The situation with her brothers had given her a definite macabre edge to her dry humor.
Oh well. It was something she could work on. Because after her little experiment, she could honestly say that she was ready to trust someone again.
Maybe… even ready to love.
But she didn’t want to get ahead of herself, not when she was on a journey with someone who mattered so much to her. She was going to value every step along the way. The stumbles, the bumbles, and the victories.
Life was finally looking up, and she was going to enjoy it.
One kiss at a time.
Epilogue
A year and a half later
Benji
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Dani asked for maybe the tenth time since he had picked her up. She was staring at him with that too-knowing gaze of hers, and he knew she was zooming in on each and every little sign that he might be giving off.
“I’m just not really much for parties, and this is the first one we’ve had with everyone there. And I mean everyone. Even our cousins from Dakota have flown in.”
She reached across the seat and patted his hand, her skin as soft as ever. “I think it’s real amazing that your whole family is getting together just to have a cookout and reconnect. And that you invited my whole family, of course.”
“Why would I ever want to go to any sort of celebration if you weren’t there?” he retorted back, looking in his rearview mirror to double-check that both sets of parents were following behind them.
It’d been a year and a half since th
at fateful ride back to her home from the hospital, and Benji had cherished every moment of it. The journey wasn’t easy, with plenty of people disrespecting Dani when he wasn’t around, or starting up the rumor mill, but between him, his brothers, Ma, Pa, Chastity, Missy, and Keiko, Dani now had one heck of a backup system. Eventually, people’s attitudes started to change about her, and Benji was pleased when he heard that Rachel had decided to move to the Big Apple after being fired from the diner.
Not that he would ever want to chase someone out of town, but that woman wasn’t exactly adding to the environment. She was mean, vicious and he was glad that her shadow no longer would cross any of their paths.
Thankfully, the arsonists had been caught and secured in the juvenile detention center. They had a history of vandalism and started the fires for excitement, not for revenge or because they were targeting anyone specifically. When they heard about the extensive burns the Touhey brothers suffered, the teens were truly sorry.
Her brothers had done incredibly well for themselves, with Chester being brought out of his coma just a week after James. From there they’d spent six months in the burn unit with their first couple of skin grafts, and then there was a whole lot of physical therapy.
It wasn’t until the eleventh month that they were allowed home, and they still had a twenty-four-hour nurse on hand for all the little things they needed assistance with. Benji had been able to tell that it sometimes grated on their nerves, so he’d started taking them on short fishing jaunts or walks around his ranch. He hadn’t expected it to happen, but the three of them formed a bond so fast that they quickly became his best friends.
It was odd, perhaps, to be so integrated into the Touhey family, but that was exactly how he felt. He went over there at least every other day even though all the damage from the fire was long gone, and his own brothers had grown used to his absence. Of course, Dani always pestered him about getting his work done on his own family’s ranch, but he would just make excuses that he wanted to check on his investment.
Because, after a whole lot of research by Bradley, he had ended up working something out investing in the Touhey’s goat enterprise. He wasn’t a co-owner or anything like that, but it was enough to help diversify his portfolio and support something that he thoroughly believed in.