by T. L. Haddix
Richard, Jason and Wyatt sprang into action, struggling to pry Chase off Ethan, but it was taking all their combined strength just to move him a little. Ethan fought to get his arms up enough to fend the attack off, but Chase’s rage had given him unusual strength and he wouldn’t let go.. When Wyatt gave a particularly strong tug, the small distance gave Ethan the room he needed, and he got his arms between them. He pushed back angrily.
Richard managed slide in the space between them. Jason was stunned by the rage he saw on his brother’s face. Richard finally managed to get Chase to look at him and away from Ethan, and as reason slowly returned, Chase crumpled, the fight gone.
“Dad…He hurt her.”
“I know, son. I know.”
Sampson came over and took Chase’s arm. With a few quiet words, he turned Chase and guided him out of the waiting room. There was a tense silence as everyone watched until they were clear of the ER doors, and then they collectively turned to look at Ethan. Standing against the door, stunned, he was bleeding where Chase had hit him, one of his eyes starting to swell already. Before anyone could speak, Jackie walked up to him and gently placed a tissue on the corner of Ethan’s mouth where Chase’s fist had connected. Dabbing at the blood, she spoke softly.
“Now, Ethan, I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to tell me the truth. Okay?” He nodded, still wary. “Did you have anything to do with Beth’s kidnapping? Anything at all?” Jackie finished dabbing at the blood and stepped back a couple of steps, waiting for his answer.
“No, ma’am. I would never hurt her, you know that.”
She shook her head slowly. “Oh, but Ethan, you have hurt my daughter, and you know it. Tell me, please tell me, flat out, that you had nothing to do with this.”
“Jackie, I promise you - I didn’t kidnap Beth. I didn’t have anything to do with this whatsoever. I… Ruby and I went out a couple of times, but that’s all, I swear. Just a couple lousy dinners.” As his cheeks flushed, Jackie watched him carefully, not allowing him to drop his gaze. Finally, she nodded.
“I believe you.” She moved a step closer to him. “But if I ever find out you’ve lied to me, I will castrate you myself, understand?”
Ethan nodded jerkily and Jackie turned to face the men. “He’s all yours, Wyatt. Get him out of my sight.” With that, she walked to Richard, who wrapped his arms around her. As Wyatt led Ethan past them, she turned her face away from them and buried it in Richard’s shoulder.
Jason walked over and touched her shoulder lightly. “I’m going to go wash up,” he told his father, who nodded.
Once in the bathroom, he closed himself in a stall and let the grief, the anger and the worry overtake him. Life as the Hudson family knew it had just changed. Their world had literally shifted on its axis. Even if Beth survived, nothing was ever going to be the same again.
Chapter Thirty Four
Beth didn’t remember the first several hours after she came out of surgery. That time was a blur, only a vague sense of movement, pain, and voices. When she did come around, it was nearly six thirty, the morning after the shooting. She opened her eyes and realized, strangely enough, that she was hungry. The hospital room was cast in shadows, the curtains partially drawn to block the light coming in from the nurse’s station. She turned her head and saw her mother stretched out on a cot across the room, her father sleeping in the recliner beside Jackie.
Shifting on the bed, she tried to get more comfortable without making any noise. Sharp pains shot through her abdomen and shoulder, restricting her movements, and Beth eased back onto the pillows. After she caught her breath, she raised her left hand toward the call button, her movement clumsy with the IV taped to the back of her arm. Before she could push the button, however, the curtain was quietly drawn back, and a nurse peeked around the edge. When she saw that Beth was awake, she moved into the room to stand at the bedside.
“How’re you feeling, hon?” she asked, keeping her voice low.
“Hungry,” Beth told her. “And I really need to change the way I’m laying.” The nurse raised the back of the bed and helped Beth lean forward so the pillows could be adjusted behind her back.
“Oh, thank you.” Beth let out a sigh of relief as the pressure on her body was relieved. “Am I still in ICU? And um, what hospital am I at? For that matter, what city?”
“No, you’re in step-down. You’ll get more intensive care here than on the floor, but not as much as in regular ICU. That means you’re getting better. And you’re at the University of Louisville.”
Hearing her father stir, Beth turned and smiled at him as he stretched and came awake. He quickly moved to the side of the bed opposite the nurse.
“Hey, there’s my girl,” he said. He pressed a soft kiss to Beth’s forehead as the nurse hit the button that would inflate the blood pressure cuff Beth wore on her right arm. “How’s your pain?”
“Bearable. Maybe a six out of ten? It’s getting a little worse now that I’ve moved around some.”
Her vitals checked, the nurse showed Beth the button for the pain pump, and Beth thanked her.
“Just push the button if you need anything, sweetie.” She excused herself, and Beth turned to Richard, who was trying to cover a yawn. It was odd to see her father with a day’s growth of beard on his face. Even on Christmas morning, he was usually groomed by the time he came downstairs. She noticed new lines on his face that hadn’t been there before yesterday, and her heart twisted.
“How much sleep did you get?”
He shrugged and glanced at his watch. “Enough. How do you feel?”
“Sore and hungry, but otherwise okay. A little fuzzy. Could I have something to drink?”
In answer, he reached for the small pitcher on the bedside table and poured a small amount of water into the cup beside it. He held it for her as she drank.
“Just sip it right now. You don’t want to go too fast.” Beth nodded as she took a tiny sip of the water. She held it in her mouth for a minute before swallowing, and closed her eyes as the cool liquid hit her stomach. After taking one more sip, she sat back and Richard put the cup down.
“Sit down, Daddy. Tell me how badly I’m injured?”
Beth saw him give her an appraising look, and then with a sigh, he lowered the bed rail and sat down beside her legs. He reached for her hand and held it gently. “Do you remember what happened?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then. You have two gunshot wounds. Your right shoulder’s grazed, but that’s just a laceration and some bruising. They put a few stitches in, and you’ll be sore for a while, but you shouldn’t lose any mobility. You’ll probably need to do some physical therapy, though, because the muscles suffered a pretty good insult. Okay?”
When he paused, she prompted him to continue, her voice quiet. “Tell me, Daddy. It can’t be worse than I’m imagining.”
Richard squeezed her hand, struggling with the words. “I’m not used to my patient being a member of my family. This is… difficult. You had a through-and-through wound in your abdomen, and you got damned lucky, Beth. It very easily could have been a fatal wound. There was some perforation of your small bowel, and some damage done from the passage of the bullet, small muscle tears, that sort of thing. The shock wave a bullet sends out is often more damaging than the actual projectile, and that proved true with you. They’ll watch you carefully because of the bowel repair, but your surgeon is one of the best doctors here, and I think you’ll be fine. He did have to remove your left ovary, though.”
She frowned. “I still have the right one, don’t I? Do I need both?”
“There’s a small, small chance of infertility associated with only having one ovary, but since you’ve never had problems with your cycle that I’m aware of, I’d venture to say you won’t have any problems when you decide to have children.” He looked down at their joined hands, and she knew he wasn’t finished.
“There’s something else you aren’t telling me.”
When Rich
ard looked up, his face was solemn. “They did a standard blood pregnancy test when you came into the ER in Leroy.”
She closed her eyes and turned her head away, suddenly knowing what he was going to say. “It was positive?”
He squeezed her hand. “It was elevated, yes.” Her father fell silent while she absorbed the implications. When she turned her face back to his, she felt older, tired, broken in a way she hadn’t been before. He reached out and smoothed her hair back from her face.
“I’m sorry, honey. You started spotting on the way here.”
Beth nodded, blinking back tears. “Well, hell. That’s probably part of the cramping I’m having, then, isn’t it?” A few tears escaped despite her best efforts to hold them back, and he grabbed a tissue, gently blotting her cheeks.
“Probably.”
“Given the way things stand between me and Ethan right now, I imagine it’s for the best. And who’s to say I was really pregnant? Right?”
“A lot of things can happen during the first trimester. A positive blood test is not a guarantee of a full-term pregnancy, but positive is positive. As to this being for the best…” He shrugged and his voice trailed off. “Time will tell. That doesn’t mean the loss won’t hurt like hell, though.”
Beth gave a watery laugh, shaking her head. “Oh, I have the feeling I’m going to be hurting for a long, long time over all this. Speaking of Ethan…” She stopped, unsure of what she even wanted to say.
“He’s in Leroy, as far as I know. The state police have interrogated him, and it doesn’t look like he had any involvement with your kidnapping.”
“I don’t want to see him, Daddy.”
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem, sweetheart. He’s been made very much aware of the fact that his presence isn’t wanted or needed right now.”
The room grew silent as Beth thought about what he’d told her. Across the room, Jackie stretched and sat up. “Richard? Is she awake?”
“I am,” Beth answered. “Hi, Mom.”
Jackie came over to stand beside the bed, visibly relaxing as she saw Beth’s alertness. Resting her hand on Beth’s uninjured shoulder, she studied her closely. “Well, you look a little better now. How do you feel?”
“I’m okay. Where are the boys? Joely?”
Richard stood. He smoothed his hand down Jackie’s back and placed a soft kiss on her temple. “They were out in the waiting room earlier. I’ll walk out there and check on them, stretch my legs.”
Beth watched him leave, and her composure broke as soon as he was gone. Turning to her mother, the sobs she had held back burst free. Jackie sat on the side of the bed with her arms open, and Beth moved into them with an anguished cry.
“It hurts so much. Why did he do this to me? Why?”
They both knew Beth meant Ethan, and not the man who had shot her. “I don’t know, sweetheart. I don’t know.” They sat like that for a long time, and after a while, Beth’s sobs died down. Jackie eased her back against the pillows, grabbed the box of tissues, and pulled a handful out. There was a wealth of sad knowledge in her eyes as she handed some to Beth.
“Why don’t you close your eyes and rest? I’ll stay right here.”
Beth nodded, her eyes already closing. Jackie turned out the light, and as Beth moved restlessly, Jackie made a soothing noise and rubbed her arm. Beth didn’t know when she had ever hurt as much as she did now, both physically and emotionally. The oblivion of sleep seemed like a very pleasant alternative to staying awake, and she let herself drift off.
Chapter Thirty Five
Ethan had a hard time convincing Wyatt to let him leave the courthouse parking lot in his own truck. He had just spent the last seven hours being grilled by a state investigator, and had finally managed to convince the man that he’d had nothing to do with Beth’s abduction. By the time the interrogation was over, word had come in that she was out of surgery and in stable condition in Louisville. It had taken every last bit of strength Ethan possessed to not break down and sob upon hearing the news.
Exhausted, emotionally drained, he just wanted to go home, but it seemed Wyatt was determined to not let him leave.
“I’ll go straight home, I promise you.”
“Son, that’s all well and good, but-,”
“Please, Wyatt. I need some time.”
The sheriff sighed. “Well, you’re going to get some time. I’m putting you on administrative leave for the next little while, until this mess gets straightened out and you can get your head on straight.”
A muscle ticked in Ethan’s jaw. “What are you more worried about, my well-being or keeping me out of the way for a few days?”
The response was blunt. “A little of both, but mostly I’m concerned about you.”
Ethan let that sink in. “How long is a while?”
Wyatt looked down at the ground, a tired breath escaping him. “Until I’m convinced you’re taking care of some issues, first and foremost the drinking.”
Ethan was shocked, and he just shook his head, not able to put his thoughts into words. Wyatt continued. “You do realize that if you hadn’t been drinking so much lately, this might not have happened? Your judgment might not have been so clouded, and Beth might be standing here, instead of lying in a hospital bed, lucky to be alive?”
The words stabbed at Ethan, each one hitting him in the heart. The knowledge that Wyatt was saying what he was because the sheriff truly cared was the only thing that kept Ethan from telling him to go to hell.
Wyatt wasn’t done. “By the grace of God, it looks like Beth is going to be okay. Whatever went wrong between the two of you, or between her family and you, she’s alive and that means there’s always a chance you can work this thing out. Don’t be stupid and throw that away. Most people don’t get a second chance.”
“Who’s to say that I’ll get a second chance? That I want one, even?”
“Son, it’s written all over your face.” Wyatt sighed. “Look, I’ll let you go, even though I probably shouldn’t. Just promise me you won’t do something stupid?”
“You mean don’t kill myself like my father did,” Ethan said bluntly, meeting Wyatt’s gaze head on.
“That’s at the top of the list, yeah. Getting drunk out of your head would be second on the list.”
“Okay. Then if you don’t mind, I’d like to leave now.”
Wyatt let him go, and as he drove home, Ethan’s mind circled over and over again to how wrong he’d been about Beth. He hadn’t believed she was in danger, and now she was lying in a hospital room, recovering from gunshot wounds. Everything Ruby had told him, all the things he’d believed, had been lies. Beth had been a true victim, and he’d added to her pain. It was almost too much to take in.
When he reached his house, he sat staring out the windshield without seeing the world around him. Instead, he saw Beth’s face when they had been upstairs in his bed, her smiles, how she had glowed from the inside out. That image was replaced by the way she had looked at him the last time they’d seen each other, on that horrible day at the newspaper, how hurt and unhappy she’d been.
Thinking about every cruel word he had said to her, Ethan closed his eyes. The full knowledge of just how wrong his thinking had been was settling heavily around his shoulders, and he didn’t know if he could stand the weight of it. Wyatt had said Beth was stable, but that could change in an instant. Ethan didn’t think he could live with himself if she didn’t survive.
Out of the truck, he trudged up the steps. After letting himself into the house, he closed the door and leaned back against it. At the sight of all the empty beer bottles sitting on the coffee table, he felt a shudder of disgust and longing, twisted so closely together he was hard pressed to know which was stronger. He turned away from the mess and headed for the kitchen and a bottle of whiskey. As he reached up into the cabinet, his craving for the alcohol became almost a pain of its own and he paused. His hand was shaking, he wanted the drink so badly, and it took every ounce of strength
in him to close the cabinet door back without touching the bottle.
For the very first time, Ethan admitted to himself that he had a serious drinking problem. He leaned up against the counter, a wave of shame crawling through his body at the knowledge. Not knowing if he was strong enough to resist the pull of the alcohol, he went back into the living room. With his hands at his side, he grasped his cell phone for a long moment before slowly pulling it off his belt. Dragging his gaze away from the empty bottles on the coffee table, he flipped open his phone and dialed. When the call was answered, he had to close his eyes against sudden tears. He barely managed to speak.
“Mom? Can you come over to the house? I’m in trouble.”
Chapter Thirty Six
By the end of her third day in the hospital, Beth was feeling well enough to start getting antsy. Joely, who was enrolled at a local college, had become her faithful companion, only leaving when their parents ran her out. Jackie and Richard were making a run back to Leroy to get fresh clothes, and Joely took full advantage of that.
“Aren’t you going to get in trouble for missing classes?” Beth asked.
Joely, curled up in the room’s recliner with her knitting, shook her head. “Nope. It’s amazing - all my professors gave me the week off, no questions asked, as soon as they heard what had happened. They know I’ll make the work up.”
Beth shook her head, smiling at her sister. She was a straight-A student, always had been, despite her seemingly lax attitude toward school work. “So are you going to borrow notes from classmates or what?”
Joely rolled her eyes at her sister. “You truly live back in the dark ages, sis. Most of the classes are broadcast over the ‘net. I’ll just watch those later. The only ones that aren’t are my math courses, and I’m way ahead in those, anyhow.” She stood and came over to the bed with the hat she had been working on. It was flapper style, fashioned from soft, buttery Noro cotton. The colors were dark and mysterious, full of greens, blues, and deep reds.