by Diana Palmer
Annalee hadn’t liked the hours he worked, or his colleagues, and she’d hardly ever stopped complaining about his absences and the time she was missing from her job because she was pregnant. Until she became pregnant, she’d been career-minded and sacrificed any free time with Garon because she wanted to get ahead. She’d even worked Saturdays and evenings. They’d been growing apart, because he was ambitious as well. They’d both assumed they had forever to make up their time together. Then she knew she had cancer, and she was terrified. Their last months together had been agony. She’d cried and apologized for being so hateful to him. And then she’d prayed, and made promises, and tried to bargain for her life. She’d been a bad wife, but she’d change, if she could just live. She’d start going to church, she’d be a better person, she’d care more for her family than her job…
And so it went. But you couldn’t bargain, he thought. Not ever. You could ask. Nothing more.
He bowed his head and spoke to God. He didn’t bargain. He just prayed for what was best for Grace.
16
THE CHAPLAIN SLIPPED out of the room and when she came back, Garon was coming down the aisle toward her.
“They need you,” she said gently.
He followed her down the hall, past the waiting room, to the desk. An aide was signaling frantically to the chaplain.
“Just a minute,” the chaplain told him, going to confer with the aide.
Garon waited, taut as steel cable. She must live. She must live! He felt panic as he watched the chaplain’s face go somber.
She came back. “She’s all right,” she said immediately, because he looked absolutely frightened to death. “Come on. We’ll go up and talk to the surgeon.”
They went into the elevator, which was already packed, and up to the surgical ward.
Coltrain and Dr. Franks were waiting for them. They both looked at Nan.
“I didn’t tell him,” she said softly.
“You have a son,” Coltrain said in the gentlest voice Garon had ever heard him use.
“What about Grace?” he asked through his teeth.
“She’s holding her own,” Coltrain said. “It may even have helped us. It was a quick labor, very unusual for a first child. She came through it with very little stress beyond the usual. Now they’re prepping her for surgery.”
“She’s given us permission to operate,” Dr. Franks said. “But I’d like yours as well.”
“Of course,” Garon said at once. “May I see her?”
“Just for a minute,” Dr. Franks said. “Dr. Coltrain will take you back.”
“Do your best,” Garon asked the surgeon. His eyes said more than words.
Dr. Franks put a firm hand on his shoulder. “I don’t lose patients,” he said with a smile. “She’s going to come through it. Have faith.”
Garon nodded. He followed Coltrain and Nan back through the ward to the room where Grace had been given her pre op medication. She was very drowsy, but she saw Garon and her eyes brightened.
“Grace,” he choked, bending to kiss her eyelids.
“Oh God, Grace! Why didn’t you tell me, baby?”
“I couldn’t do that…to you,” she whispered. Tears were pouring down her cheeks. “You were so excited about the baby. You wanted him so much. We have a little boy, did they tell you?”
“Yes,” he managed to say. He was fighting the wetness in his own eyes and losing.
“Come here,” she whispered, drawing his face down to hers. He came without a protest, drowning in the comfort she gave him. He felt ashamed. He should be comforting her…
She kissed his eyelids slowly, tasting the wet salty moisture on her lips. He shuddered at the tenderness, and she felt it. He was devastated. Poor, poor man, to have to go through such anguish with two pregnancies. But she didn’t want to die. She was going to fight. What he was feeling, and showing, was far too deep for pity. It hurt her to see him so shattered, when his strength had carried her so far from danger. “It’s all right, Garon. Everything will be all right. I promise.” But she hesitated, because she was taking a step into the unknown. She was getting sleepy. “Take care of our baby, if…”
“Don’t,” he ground out in anguish.
“Tory,” she whispered drowsily. “I want to call him Tory, for my grandfather. And his middle name should be Garon, for you. All right?”
“You can have whatever you want,” he said stiffly. “Only don’t…leave me, Grace. Don’t leave me alone in the world.” His voice was husky with feeling.
She felt beautiful. He did feel something for her. Something powerful, like what she felt for him. Her fingertips traced his mouth. She loved him so much. More than he knew. “You gave me more happiness than I’ve ever had,” she whispered. “You saved my life. I love you.”
“Grace…!”
She’d taken a quick breath and she seemed to be straining to get the next.
“We have to go,” Coltrain said. “You can tell her later.”
But Garon was frozen at her side, terrified, hurting, terrified that this might be the last time he saw her alive. He didn’t want to leave her. “Don’t you die, Grace,” Garon choked as he stared down at her through a misty haze. “Don’t you dare!” He took a harsh breath. “I’m not going back and telling those damned rosebushes that you aren’t coming home!”
Amazingly she laughed.
The sound was like a chorus of angels to Garon. He bent and kissed her dry lips one last time. “Don’t leave me,” he whispered into her ear. “I can’t live if you don’t.”
Tears stung her eyes. “My darling,” she whispered as her eyes closed. The medicine was working.
“Come on.” Coltrain half dragged him out of the room. Grace was already going to sleep. Garon got one last glimpse of her, blond hair curving around her shoulders, around her pale face as her gray eyes closed. Please God, he thought in panic, don’t let them be closed forever! Whatever I’ve done, punish me, but don’t take her away! Please don’t!
“She’s come halfway,” Coltrain told him, sensing the panic in the usually rigidly controlled features.
“Don’t give up on her yet. Let’s go down and get a cup of coffee.”
COLTRAIN TOOK HIM downstairs and bought him black coffee. The man was steel right through, Garon thought as they shared a table in the commissary.
“I must have been a despot in a former life,” Garon muttered, “to be condemned to go through this hell twice in one lifetime.”
Coltrain understood the reference. He remembered that Garon had lost his first wife while she was pregnant.
“Grace may have a bad heart,” Coltrain told him.
“But she’s got as tough a spirit as any human being I’ve ever known. She survived an ordeal that most children wouldn’t have. She’s a scrapper. Don’t give up on her.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” Garon replied heavily.
“Would you like to see your son?” Coltrain asked.
The child he’d wanted for so long. His child. But he shook his head. “Not yet,” he said. “Not until…we know something.”
“All right.”
Cash had been missing for an hour. He came into the commissary, looking weary. “We had an emergency back home. I had to make half a hundred phone calls to sort it out. A bank robbery. Can you imagine? In Jacobsville. They got the guys, but I had to be available. How’s Grace?”
“In surgery,” Garon replied.
“He has a son,” Coltrain added.
Cash glanced at his brother, who was morose. “I’m an uncle? Wow!”
Garon sipped coffee. His whole look was one of exhaustion.
“Come on,” Cash said. “I want to see if your son looks like you.”
Garon gave him a depressed glance. “I hope not, poor little kid.”
“They’ll have him ready about now,” Coltrain remarked. “Well?”
Garon went with them, reluctantly. He wasn’t sure it was right for him to be enthusing over a child while Grace was f
ighting for her life. But he knew he’d go crazy if he had to sit here thinking about it. At least, the child would be a diversion.
But when he was looking through the window at the little boy, his mindset changed. His whole attitude changed. He stood staring at the tiny thing in the blue blanket with eyes that hardly focused.
“He’s so tiny,” he exclaimed. “I could put him in my pocket!”
“Want to hold him?” Coltrain asked, seeing a way to erase the terror from his eyes.
Garon looked at him, surprised. “Would they let me?”
Coltrain smiled. “Come on.”
THEY PUT A HOSPITAL gown on him, sat him in a rocking chair, and handed him the tiny little boy, wrapped in his blanket. A nurse showed him how to support the baby’s head and back.
Garon looked down at his child with a mixture of awe and fear. He was so small. All his reading hadn’t prepared him for the impact of fatherhood. He counted little fingers and toes, smoothed his hand over the baby’s tiny bald head. He saw Grace in the shape of the child’s eyes, and himself in the chin. His eyes grew misty as he thought of the days and weeks and months and years ahead. Please God, he thought, don’t let me have to raise him alone.
The baby moved. One tiny hand grasped Garon’s thumb and held on. The baby’s eyes didn’t open. He was curious about that, and asked. The nurse, beaming, told him that it took about three days for the baby to open his eyes and look around him. But he still wouldn’t be able to see much yet. Garon didn’t care. He looked down at his son with an expression that no artist in the world could have captured.
Watching through the window, Coltrain and Cash smiled indulgently at the sight.
“What a picture,” Coltrain said with a grin.
“Picture!” Cash took out his cell phone, turned it, looked through the eye and snapped several pictures of Garon holding the baby. “Something to show Grace,” he told Coltrain, “when she comes out of recovery.”
Coltrain nodded. He hoped that prediction was correct. He knew far more than he was going to tell Garon or his brother. That could wait until there was no longer any choice about it.
FOUR HOURS LATER, Dr. Franks went looking for Garon. He looked very tired.
“She’s holding her own,” he told Garon. “We’ll know within eight hours.”
“Know?” Garon moved closer. “Know what?”
The doctor drew in a long breath. Coltrain grimaced. Dr. Franks looked at Garon and said gently, “In eight hours, either she’ll wake up—or she won’t.”
It was the most terrifying thing anyone had ever said to him. He knew he must look like the walking dead as he gaped at the surgeon.
Coltrain laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Don’t give up now,” he said.
“I’ll go mad,” Garon said huskily. “Eight hours…!”
“We’re going to go to the motel. I booked a room,” Cash began.
“Leave the hospital, now? Are you out of your mind?” Garon raged.
“Only for a few minutes,” Cash promised, exchanging a covert glance with the two doctors over Garon’s shoulder. “Come on. Trust me.”
“You’ll call me, if there’s any change?” Garon asked Coltrain unsteadily.
“I promise,” the redheaded doctor agreed.
“I got you a room, too,” Cash told Coltrain. He handed him a key. “Don’t argue. I have friends you don’t want to have to meet.”
Coltrain chuckled. “Okay, then. Thanks. I’ll take advantage of it, in a few hours.”
“We’ll be right back,” Garon promised.
Cash didn’t say a word.
AN HOUR LATER, Garon was passed out on the sofa in the suite Cash had registered them into. It wasn’t quite fair, he knew, but his brother seemed to be on the verge of a coronary. Cash had filled him full of scotch whiskey and soda. Since Garon hardly ever took a drink, the combination of worry, exhaustion and alcohol had hit him hard. He went out like a light.
Cash wondered at the depth of the man’s feelings for his young wife. He hadn’t spoken a great deal about Grace in the past few months. They’d both come to the house for dinner a few times, and Tippy and Grace had become fast friends. Grace loved to hold their baby, little Tristina, whom they called “Tris,” and cuddle her. Garon had watched his wife with the little girl, and an expression of pure delight had radiated his normally taciturn features. Garon didn’t speak about Grace very much, but when he did, it was with pride. Perhaps he hadn’t known his own feelings until this tragedy unfolded. It was impossible not to know them now.
Six hours later, Garon awoke. He blinked, looking around the room. It was a hotel room. Why was he here? There was his brother, Cash, on the phone. He didn’t remember….
He sat straight up on the couch, horrified. “What time is it? Have you called the hospital? Grace…What about Grace?” he exclaimed.
Cash held up a hand, nodded, and said, “We’ll be right there.” He hung up, smiling. “Grace is out from under the anesthesia. She’s awake.”
“Awake.” Garon shuddered. “She’s alive!”
“Yes. She isn’t responsive yet; she’s still pretty much under the anesthesia. But the doctors are cautiously optimistic. The new valve is working perfectly.”
Garon got to his feet and held his head. “Damn! What did you ladle into me?”
“Scotch whiskey, soda and a substance I’m not allowed to own or explain because it’s classified.” He grinned.
Garon couldn’t help a chuckle. His brother really was a devil. But he’d become a good friend, as well. He paused by Cash and clapped him on the shoulder with rough affection. “If you ever get in trouble and need anybody arrested, you can call me.”
“I’ll remember that. Let’s go.”
GARON WAS ALLOWED in to see Grace, but only for a couple of minutes. She was white as a sheet, but her breathing was steadier and the blip on the monitor was fairly regular. He brushed back her hair, loving the softness of it, the quiet beauty of her face.
As if she sensed his presence, her gray eyes opened and she looked at him, a little blankly.
“You’re going to be all right,” he said softly. “Very soon, I’m going to take you home.”
Her lips tugged into a faint smile before she closed her eyes and went back to sleep. Garon touched his finger to her dry lips, loving just the sight of her.
He went back out into the waiting room feeling more optimistic. The fear was still there, but he’d deal with it. He stopped when he saw six men surrounding Cash. They were colleagues from the San Antonio office, all except one—who was the former leader of their Hostage Rescue Unit. His heart felt lighter as they came to greet him, asking about Grace and offering help. He had to choke back overflowing emotion. He really did work with the best group in the world.
GRACE IMPROVED DAILY. They had her up and walking the day after surgery. It horrified Garon, but they insisted that this was what had to be done in order for her to recuperate and, more importantly, not develop a respiratory infection to go with the side effects of the surgery.
Garon walked her down to the nursery with painful slowness. He pushed the pole where her IVs hung. She held on to his arm and felt lighter than air, despite her ordeal.
They stopped at the nursery and the nurse held up little Tory for them to see. Garon didn’t know it, but Cash had snapped several photos of him holding the little boy and shown them to Grace. If she had any doubts about his feelings for his son, the photos erased them. Grace was fascinated by his love for the child.
“He looks like you,” Grace whispered, in tears as she saw her child for the first time. “He’s beautiful.”
“Like his mama,” he whispered, and bent to brush his mouth over her dry lips with breathless tenderness. “Thank you for risking so much to bring our son into the world.”
“You gave him to me,” she replied, her eyes full of softness.
He kissed her hair. “I’ve given you a hard time, Grace. I’m glad I’ll have the opportunity to make i
t up to you.”
She gave him a wry look. “Penance, is it?”
He smiled. “In spades.”
“That sounds interesting.”
He nibbled her lower lip. “When you’re back to yourself, in about two months or so, we’ll explore some sensual pathways together.”
His wicked tone amused her and she giggled like a girl. “You stop that,” she told him firmly. “Right now it’s all I can do to walk. They did split me right down the middle, you know, and I’m going to have even more scars now than I did to start with.”
He grinned. “I like your scars. They’re sexy.”
Her eyebrows arched. “Well!”
“We’ve got the whole world, Grace,” he added, glancing back into the window of the nursery, where their child lay sleeping. “The whole wide world.”
She smiled. “Yes.” And she slid her hand trustingly into his.
THEIR FIRST CHRISTMAS together was the most wondrous of Grace’s entire life. Garon went out and got a tree, brought it home and had several of the wives of his ranch hands decorate it for him. The result was a delightful triangle of color and light. The baby could focus now, and he seemed to find the lights fascinating. He lay in Grace’s arms, making baby sounds that fascinated both his parents.
“It’s just beautiful,” Grace remarked, smiling up at him. “It’s the nicest tree I’ve ever had.”
He nodded, eyeing it. “My dad wasn’t keen on celebrations, but our stepmother liked to decorate them. I never took to her. After dad found her out and divorced her, our housekeeper started making Christmas special for us. I’ve always loved Christmas trees.”
“Me, too,” Grace replied. “I had to fight Granny to put one up every year, but I got my way.”