by Various
Chapter 18
Derek signed in at the third floor visitors’ desk and got a nifty badge with his picture on it. As he went up a floor to the IMCU, he kind of missed Reynolds’ presence. At first, he’d thought she was a pill, but she’d turned out to be all right. When he’d been with her at the hospital yesterday, he hadn’t had any doubts about belonging there, but oddly, without the uniformed, no-nonsense cop, he felt conspicuous and out of place, as if at any moment, security would spot him and usher him out.
Probably just nerves. And the fact that Camilla’s brother despised him. It had been a long time since he’d cared what another guy thought of him, but he found himself caring now. He wanted to get along with Cade. For Camilla’s benefit. But pulling it off would take a miracle.
He flashed his badge at the IMCU desk and asked for her room number.
“Four-twelve,” the receptionist said.
He waited a beat, expecting to have to answer questions or defend his existence, but the gray-haired woman in scrubs only smiled at him and pointed him down the hallway. No sign-in sheet or anything.
Industrial tan carpet and cool light from overhead fluorescents led him down the corridor of patient rooms. Handrails lined the walls, obscured here and there by a stray wheelchair or a hulking piece of medical equipment. Every twenty feet or so was a recessed bay with a computer monitor and keyboard where nurses could make their patient notes. He took advantage of the quiet and coached himself for the coming encounter.
Say you’re sorry. Ask her how much she remembers. Tell her you love her.
He got to room 412 and lifted his hand to knock on the closed door.
A muffled, “Right now, Cade. Give it back,” met his ears. The command was followed by a wounded cry.
His heart jumped into double-time. He shoved open the door in time to see a slender form in a hospital gown crumple to the floor.
Camilla!
He rushed to her, his knees hitting the linoleum. As he pulled her into his arms, a tall form crowded over them.
“Cams, shit.” He recognized Cade’s voice. “I’m so sorry.”
“Get a nurse,” Derek said through gritted teeth.
Camilla looked nothing like he remembered. Bandages wrapping her entire head replaced the auburn waves cascading around her shoulders. Bruises colored the left side of her face, and swelling hid her delicate bone structure. A line of stitches bisected her left eyebrow. Her lips were semi-recognizable. Their lush fullness struck a chord deep inside him, but they were bloodless and parted in a mask of pain. Her eyes, familiar and crisply blue, locked on his.
He had no idea what had happened, but it registered with the primal part of his brain that it had been Camilla’s voice he’d heard. Her cry. There was no one else in the room, so she must have been talking to Cade. This was her brother’s fault.
He bit back a curse, tamped down his rage. It wouldn’t do any good here. She was in trouble, and she needed him.
After Cade’s footsteps retreated at a run, he said, “Are you hurting anywhere?”
She touched his cheek and said, “Not anymore.” Then her eyes rolled back in her head and her body began shaking.
All hell broke loose. People in squeaky shoes came running. Carts were rolled in. Two people took Camilla from his arms and put her on the bed. A woman in a white coat was shouting at him, but he couldn’t tear his gaze from Camilla, shaking uncontrollably as gloved hands held her down. Helplessness tried to swallow him whole.
“What happened? Hey, you! What happened in here? What was the patient doing out of bed?” Fingers dug into his arm, making him look away from Camilla.
His mouth was dry, but he managed to say, “I don’t know. I just got here. Is she going to be okay?”
The woman in the white coat had short brown hair, and she looked pissed. “If you don’t have any helpful information, then you need to get out of here. Now. Before I call security. You too.” She pointed at Cade, who stood shaking his head in shock.
She’d said the magic word. Security. He wouldn’t let anything come between him and Camilla again. He didn’t think he could survive if he got thrown out of the hospital. And he didn’t fool himself into thinking he could do anything for her right now. He snagged Cade’s arm on his way and dragged him out of the room, leaving the experts to fix whatever the hell had gone wrong.
He wandered to the cluster of armchairs and potted plants near the elevators, fell into a chair and held his head between his hands. Worry for Camilla had him sick to his stomach, and he shook with the effort not to pin Cade to the wall and demand answers.
After a couple of tense minutes, the IMCU doors hissed open and several staffers pushed a gurney past him toward a set of double doors marked Service Elevator. Camilla lay in the bed.
She was terribly still. He recognized the woman in the white coat. She was squeezing a bag over Camilla’s face, giving her oxygen.
He rocketed out of his chair. “Where are you taking her?”
The woman in the white coat glared at him. “To CAT scan.” She offered no more information as the gurney was wheeled through the doors, which sighed closed with a soft thump.
He stood staring after them. What the hell was happening? He couldn’t lose Camilla when he’d just found her. He pulled at his hair.
Not going to lose her. She’s strong. Persistent. She’d shown him over and over again during their nights together. She’d get through this.
“It’s my fault,” Cade said behind him.
Derek looked up to find Cade’s eyes hard as ice.
“She didn’t want me to read this.” He held up a crumpled piece of paper.
Derek recognized the note he’d put in with the flowers this morning and snatched the letter from Cade’s hand. “Can’t say I blame her. It wasn’t meant to end up exhibit A.”
So that was why Camilla had gotten out of bed. Shit. If he’d known it would lead to her getting hurt, he never would have written it. He’d wanted to reassure her that he remembered their time together. It had occurred to him she might not remember anything, and he would come off looking like an idiot, but the risk had been worth it. He hadn’t considered how crazy the letter would sound to anyone else. It was his heart on that page, exposed for Camilla alone. The violation of Cade’s reading it had a vise clamping around his lungs.
“Don’t worry,” Cade said. “She’s not going to sue. Congratulations. You manipulated her into caring. She refuses to take you to court for what she deserves. What the fuck, man? What’s with the crazy love shit in there? Are you nuts or something? Are you trying to mess with her head?”
Anger bubbled under his skin. A string of curses shoved at the backs of his teeth, but he swallowed them and mentally counted to ten. He’d decided to get a head start on the class by Googling anger management techniques. The counting thing had sounded cliche, but oddly, it seemed to be working. By the time he got to six, he no longer wanted to bury his fist in Cade’s male-model-perfect face, and by the time he reached ten, he’d regained the ability to focus on what was important here, or rather who. Camilla.
Cade didn’t matter. Derek shouldn’t have to defend his private note. He shouldn’t have to, but he would. Cade meant nothing to him, but he meant something to Camilla. And it made her look foolish to let her brother believe they were strangers.
“Did it occur to you your sister and I might have a history outside of the accident?” He managed to keep his volume civil, but Cade would understand from his tone he had questionable control of his anger.
Cade scoffed. “You saying you and Cami were involved?”
Before witnessing her reaction to him a few minutes ago, he might have hesitated. Not now. “Not were. Are.”
Cade grimaced with open disdain.
The urge to wipe that look off his face had his fists clenching so hard his fingernails dug into his palms. The note wilted in his sweaty grip.
“Yeah, right,” Cade spat. “You just happen to accidentally cut off your g
irlfriend on the highway. That’s likely.” His gaze became calculating. “Unless you had a fight or something, and you planned a little payback.”
“Watch it,” Derek warned. His voice had become a growl. Take it easy. Remember who’s important here. “It was an accident. One I caused because of a bad decision. I was being impatient and taking it out on the other drivers on the road. Your sister happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and trust me, I had no idea. If I knew then what I know now—”
Rage spun out toward Cade and in toward himself. A hurricane of anger threatened to rip him to pieces. He paused to bring himself under control and did a quick ten-count. “You have no idea how bad I wanted to mess myself up after I figured out it was Camilla who got hurt.”
Cade studied him, giving him an idea how it might feel to be cross-examined by the guy. For all Derek wanted to hate him, he’d bet Cade was a decent lawyer. And a decent brother. In some ways.
Finally, Cade blew an agitated breath out his nose. “You’re wrong. I have more than an idea.” His gaze drifted to the service elevator doors.
Silence pressed the walls of the lobby until Derek said, “She’ll be okay. She’s a fighter.”
A look cut between them. They’d reached a tentative truce for now. The war was far from won, but this battle had come to a halt under the white flag of mutual concern.
He forced himself to sit down. Nothing he could do now, but wait for news of Camilla’s condition.
Cade sat a few chairs away, his eyes and thumbs glued to his smart phone.
The minutes crawled by with painful cruelty. When the clock edged toward four, the time he was supposed to pick Haley up from her mother’s house, he had to make a decision. Leave and be terrible company for Haley this evening, or call Deidre and do what he’d never done before, voluntarily give up one of his nights with his little girl.
Before he could decide, Cade looked up from his phone. “Heads up,” he said. “Our mother’s on her way. She just texted from the parking lot.”
Great. One more complication. He’d come clean to Cade, but he didn’t relish telling Camilla’s mother he was the one who had put her daughter in the hospital…and that he loved her. He’d have to tell her eventually, but now probably wasn’t the time for a moment of revelation worthy of reality TV. He stood to go.
“What are you going to tell her?” Derek asked.
“About you?”
He figured Cade wouldn’t go there for the same reason he was planning to get out of Dodge. “About what happened in there.”
Cade’s jaw went rigid.
Maybe it was shitty of him, but it gave him a little satisfaction to see the guy squirm.
Cade hissed a long, drawn out curse, and Derek’s satisfaction softened around the edges.
“Hey, whatever, man.” He spotted the exit sign a few paces behind where Cade sat. Presumably the door led to a stairwell—he didn’t want to run into Camilla’s mother in the elevator in case she recognized him from their brief interaction in the hall yesterday. He paused as he walked past Cade. “I don’t suppose you’d give me a call when you hear something.” It made his lungs tighten to have to ask Cade for a favor. But he pushed through the irritating sensation by remembering once more what was most important: Camilla.
The elevator made a soft bing. Not wanting to take a chance Camilla’s mother would step out and see him talking to Cade, he dropped the letter into Cade’s lap and slipped through the stairwell door. He hated to put the letter back in Cade’s hands, but his phone number was on it.
Cade hadn’t given him an answer, but maybe, just maybe he’d cut Derek a little slack.
Or, he thought as he pounded down the stairs, Cade might use the letter and a creative retelling of events to make sure he’d would never have a fighting chance where Camilla’s mother was concerned.
As he pulled out of Mercy Med’s parking lot, his stomach was in knots over Camilla, and he still hadn’t made up his mind whether he was up to entertaining Haley tonight. His truck knew the way to Deidre’s house, though, so that’s where he found himself a few minutes after four.
After angling his truck into the driveway, he spotted Haley in the shade of the front porch. She had on shorts and a purple t-shirt that matched her cast. She was lying on her stomach with a glass of lemonade at her elbow, and writing in a notebook. He’d been right; the cast wasn’t slowing her down one bit.
The sight of his Haley-girl, so carefree and cute, eased the pressure squeezing his lungs.
He might not be such bad company tonight, after all. But would Cade call when Camilla woke up? If hell froze over and he did, he wanted to be able to go to her at a moment’s notice. He’d been waiting too long to see her.
His lungs squeezed again.
“Hey, Dad!” Haley scrambled up and bounded over to greet him as he climbed down from his cab.
“Hey, kiddo!” He squeezed her in a long hug. “How’s the arm?”
“It’s sore, but I don’t like the pain meds. They make me sleepy.” She shrugged and ran up the porch steps yelling, “Hey, Mom! Dad’s here!”
She came back a minute later with her backpack stuffed to overflowing, ready to spend the weekend with her old dad. His heart smiled.
“Something wrong?” Haley asked. She stood in front of him with her head cocked. “You look—” Her brow furrowed. “Sad?” She made it a question.
He opened his mouth to deny it, but Haley, as usual, was one step ahead of him. She gasped. “It’s the woman with red hair, isn’t it?” She bounced on her toes. “Oh, tell me, tell me, tell me. Did you help her move on? Is she gone?”
Unease made his gut wriggle. He didn’t want to talk about Camilla with Haley. But he couldn’t exactly avoid it. Haley had seen her. Hell, Haley had even had a theory, Camilla was supposed to help him move past something— Maybe Haley had been right. Camilla had vanished from his room the moment he’d decided to turn himself in for the accident.
“Is who gone?” Deidre came out of the house wearing a trendy floral-print apron and wiping her hands on a dishtowel.
“Dad’s girlfriend,” Haley threw over her shoulder. Facing him, she mouthed in an exaggerated way, “I didn’t tell Mom she’s a ghost.”
He felt the blood drain from his face.
Deidre said, “Girlfriend, huh?”
He started shaking his head, not in denial, because he would never deny association with Camilla, but in shock that this conversation was happening.
“Haley mentioned you were seeing someone. Why didn’t you tell me? It’s about time.”
Her smile fell as she met his eyes. “Jesu—uh, wow, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. What’s going on?”
“Dad?” Haley was concerned now too. Great.
“Nothing. It’s nothing,” he said. To Haley, he said, “Hey, kiddo, mind if I have a talk with your mom?”
“Yeah, okay,” she said. “I’m going to look for my sparkly flip flops again,” she said as she ran back inside.
He watched her go then looked at Deidre.
“What’s up?” she said.
He scrubbed a hand down his face, not knowing where to start or even whether he should start at all. Maybe he should just get Haley into his truck and run for it. He and Deidre had a good conversation last night. He didn’t want to push his luck by trying for another.
“That bad, huh?” Her expression warmed with a knowing smile. For all their problems, she was probably the person who knew him best.
He blew out a breath, giving a brief smile of his own. At the very least, he owed her an explanation for his mood, or she might worry about Haley going off with him. “My…girlfriend, Camilla, she’s in the hospital.” Keep it simple, stupid. Just like with Cade.
“Oh no. Are you okay? How long have you been seeing this woman? Want to sit down?” She inclined her head to the porch swing, so he headed that way.
“We haven’t been together long,” he said, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “A
s for whether I’m okay, I think the jury’s out.” Mentioning a jury made him cringe. Camilla was in the hospital, maybe back in a coma. He had a court date barreling down on him next week. All his fault. He whispered a curse. “I’m a mess.”
When Deidre didn’t reply, he glanced at her. She studied him thoughtfully. “If your girlfriend is in the hospital, what are you doing here?”
The question took him off guard. “I’m always here on Friday afternoons—or at one of Haley’s games.”
She shook her head, a rueful smile quirking her lipsticked mouth. “Jeez, Derek. Did it ever occur to you to take a weekend off now and then?”
She had asked him on occasion if he minded giving up a weekend so she could take Haley on vacation or to visit extended family across-state, but he’d never asked before. It honestly hadn’t occurred to him. There was nothing he’d rather do than be with Haley…maybe until now.
“It doesn’t have to be an emergency for you to take a weekend off. Or a night, even. And it’s not a sin to want to be there for someone else.”
She was so damn perceptive it was creepy. “How do you do that?” he asked.
“Do what?”
“Know what I’m thinking?”
She snorted. “It’s all over your face. You’re worried about Camilla and you think Haley—or I—won’t understand you wanting to be with her right now.”
“I don’t want to lose time with Haley.”
“So you’ll make it up some night this week. Or you’ll take her on a trip to visit your parents and keep her for a long weekend. We’ll figure it out.”
Pressure released from his lungs. “Are you sure?”
“Of course. I don’t have anything going on tonight, and even if I did, it sounds like you have an emergency to deal with, and that comes first.”