by Raina Lynn
A subtle tensing of his body told her he wasn’t handling the unknown details well. Frankly, neither was she. Had there been more than a reconciliation on your agenda when you came home?
He grunted, accepting but far from satisfied. His gaze made a slow sweep of the ICU cubicle. He took in his broken arm and the assorted medical equipment as if they were what he expected, familiar even. Gradually, his attention focused on their joined hands, and the diamond ring she wore.
A slight smile warmed his face. “I remember this. We’re getting married again.”
The deep contentment in his voice set off alarms. “What I agreed to,” she said, “was that we’d talk about it.”
His eyes glittered. She’d known him long enough to recognize when he believed a subject was settled and no longer warranted discussion.
“We’ll talk, Garrett,” she said, stepping hard on her fluttering heart. “And now isn’t the time.”
He blinked slowly, as if humoring her. Despite his weakened condition, Garrett Hughes’s force of will was still impressive. “What day is it?”
Maggie almost told him the day of the week, but remembered something more relevant. “Well,” she said with a sigh, “if we were still married, today would be our seventeenth anniversary.”
“I lost a week?” he said, shaken. “I’d planned to propose today. But I guess...” He squeezed her hand. “Happy anniversary anyway, babe.”
She could practically see thoughts churning behind his penetrating gaze, and a dark sensation of entrapment crept over her. For Pete’s sake, the man can’t even move, and I’m running from him!
An uneasiness returned to his features, and his gaze settled determinedly on her face. “Can we talk about Rick now?”
Maggie tried not to flinch but did anyway.
“I need answers, Maggie.”
“Rick’s fine. He’ll be here later this afternoon.”
He searched her eyes for truth, and she let him. That kid’ll be here if I have to club him over the head.
Garrett dragged himself from sleep as Blake walked in, a stethoscope slung around his neck.
“Morning, big brother. You awake?”
“Unfortunately.” The painkillers made living tolerable, but the fuzzy-headed side effects left much to be desired. Much of yesterday was a blur, and he suspected entire chunks were missing. Maggie had said she would bring Rick by. Had she? Garrett searched his memory.
No, Rick had come down with the flu. His parents had been here, though. The memory of his mom’s joy-filled, tear-streaked face was vivid. Dad had seemed unusually quiet, but nothing to worry over. Maybe some of his coma memories weren’t all that reliable after all.
A tranquil sense of victory crept through him. He’d survived a plane crash—which he now remembered in detail—and Maggie had accepted his proposal. “I’ve got my family back, Blake. Would you be my best man again?”
Blake was too long in answering. “You got it, but we need to talk about your injuries first.”
Despite the relaxed inflection, the younger man’s body language radiated tension like a warning beacon. Moreover, he wore his best doctor face. Blake’s blue-collar background and laid-back attitude drove stuffier colleagues nuts, but right now Garrett saw no trace of anything less than the polished, medical professional. He knew his injuries were extensive. The news couldn’t be good, but he’d gotten through the worst and would easily handle whatever his brother was about to drop on him.
“Out with it, little brother. The broken arm and ribs already introduced themselves. So did my wrenched back. What else?”
Blake let his breath out slow. “How much have you tried to move around?”
Evasion? That’s not like you. Acid ribbons of dread burned their way through his veins. “Almost none. You medical wizards have me in restraints. Why? New ICU policy to keep patients from falling out of bed?”
For an olive-skinned man, Blake turned shockingly pale. “Not restraints exactly. You’re trussed up to keep your spine immobile.”
Garrett watched, patiently, intently, as Blake drew back the covers. The brace reminded him of a straitjacket without sleeves. “No wonder I couldn’t move.”
“Tell me when you feel something.” He pulled something pointed and shiny from his pocket and prodded at the bottoms of Garrett’s feet.
No sensation at all. A corner of his mind recoiled as Blake poked both calves and thighs. Reflexes were checked, then checked again, but Garrett’s legs remained as limp as those of a corpse. Needing reassurance, he tried to move them, but got nothing for his trouble. Blinding panic threatened to engulf him, but he flattened it. “What’s wrong with my legs?”
Blake covered him back up and sagged heavily into the chair. “You got slammed around pretty bad during the crash. The damage to internal organs was messy, but fixable.”
“Okay,” he said warily. “What wasn’t fixable?”
Blake’s face became masklike, a caricature of professional composure. Blood throbbed in Garrett’s ears, and terror-spawned adrenaline surged. Unwillingly, he looked down at the blanket-covered ridges that were his legs and feet, and he tried to flex his toes. Nothing.
Nothing!
He tried again, struggling for the slightest twitch.
Nothing!
A horror too deep for words screamed through his mind. “What won’t fix?”
Blake’s voice cracked. “Your spinal cord.”
The horror blackened, obliterating Garrett’s defenses, leaving no light to see, no air to breathe.
“The damage is low—third lumbar,” Blake added quickly. “That’s good. Bone fragments—”
“Quit dancing around!” he snapped, his voice harsh, fractured. “Bottom line.”
“Bottom line?” Blake echoed, equally shattered. “Right now, you’re paralyzed from the hips down. No one knows how much you’ll regain with therapy. In cases like yours, it’s a real crap shoot.”
A wholly inadequate groan of anguish ripped from Garrett’s soul. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes in a futile attempt to escape from the waking nightmare. He took a deep and brutally controlled breath. “Meaning you’re not expecting much.”
“I won’t lie to you. It’s...difficult. At this point, we can’t find any nerve response at all, but that could be due to swelling.” Blake gripped Garrett’s shoulder. “Give it time.”
Garrett swore softly. He wanted to rage at the top of his lungs, but the all-consuming shock left him without the breath.
“That’s not all of it, but that’s the worst.”
“What else?”
“Your right arm.”
He spared a defiant glare at his forearm strapped into a steel brace rather than a traditional cast. A fuzzy memory surfaced of Maggie massaging that arm. She had to have worked around the bars. She’d mentioned surgery. And surgery meant repairs. “What about it?”
Blake took a couple of shallow breaths before he continued. “Kelly’s got you scheduled for surgery tomorrow. The tendons should have been operated on that first day, but keeping you alive took priority over restoring function to your hand.”
“Restore?” How much of me have I lost? He forced his mind to remain calm, analytical, anything to keep the panic at bay.
Maggie rounded the corner into his cubicle. “Good morning,” she chirped. Her gaze darted from him to Blake and back again, and her happy smile froze.
She knows. She’s known all along.
His control shattered, leaving a black pit of uncertainty and self-doubt. He’d always been the strong one. Now, in the blink of an eye, his entire world had blown apart.
In a gesture beyond conscious will, he reached toward her with the one limb left to him that worked. Panicked indecision clouded her eyes. A memory returned of something he’d learned in the coma, the emotional price she’d paid for loving him. Now this.
“Maggie?” he whispered.
Tears dribbled onto her cheeks. Her indecision deepened, then vanished. An i
nstant later she crossed the room, and fell into his one-armed embrace. She was warm and real, and he devoured the long-craved need to hold her.
The next few minutes were a jumble of hard embraces and futile reassurances that he’d walk again. He wanted to believe, but instincts screamed that she and Blake were lying through their collective teeth, as frantic to convince themselves as they were him. The pit sucked him in deeper as more and more implications of Blake’s diagnosis rained down on him.
He needed an anchor to cling to until he had his emotions in check. But asking that of Maggie was too much. He broke their embrace and gently wiped away her tears, then his own. Unable to resist one last touch, he stroked her rich auburn hair and trailed a finger down her damp, porcelain cheeks.
“I’ll be okay,” he said, his voice not as steady as he would have preferred, “but right now I need time alone.”
The color leached from her face. “I don’t like that idea.”
Neither did he, but right now he couldn’t cope with anyone seeing him so completely unhinged, especially not the woman he loved and the brother who’d idolized him when they were kids.
Blake paced the floor, a doctor helpless to heal. Garrett quirked his lips into a crooked smile. “Time will tell, little brother.”
“Damn right. We’ve got four years worth of basketball games to catch up on.” Blake’s expression became fierce. “Rehab gets you by the end of the week.”
The door had barely closed behind them when Garrett yanked away the blankets and lifted his head to stare at his legs. Beyond assorted cuts and bruises, they stretched out before him looking unnervingly normal.
He tried to move. But it was as if they belonged to someone else. There was nothing, no feeling, no indication of life. He tried again. Failure followed failure, leaving only a simple black truth.
Paraplegia.
Wheelchairs.
An end to the life he’d known and the man he’d been.
Alone, with no brave front to keep up, he let go and let the grief do its work.
Blake eased himself and Maggie into a couple of chairs in the corridor. Maggie barely felt the stream of tears that flowed down her face and dripped onto her lap. Blake wrapped a long arm around her and pulled her against his shoulder.
“He needed me so badly just now.” She sobbed, her voice muffled against his shirt. “And all I could think about was running away. He knew it, too. I felt him pull back, trying to protect me. What kind of person does that make me!”
“A very human one, Mag.” He kissed the top of her head.
They held each other in silence, soaking up support. Eventually, she gave him a wordless kiss on the cheek.
Wearily, he propped both elbows on his knees and buried his head in his hands. “How is Rick’s ‘flu’?”
“Just ducky,” she replied bitterly. “This morning, he’s not threatening to run away, provided of course I don’t make him come to the hospital.”
“Do you want me to talk to him?”
Maggie sighed heavily and rubbed at her face as if she could wipe away reality as well as the tears. “Thanks, but you’ve got enough on your plate. I’ll figure something out.” She shuddered.
An alarm screamed. “Code blue in three!”
Maggie and Blake lurched to their feet. He pushed her back down. “Stay put.” He charged into Garrett’s room, a team of nurses at his heels. A moment later, he sauntered out, his expression wry. “He’s fine. He just tore off all the lead wires to the monitors.”
“He what?” she demanded, coming to her feet.
Blake made a calming motion with his hands. “I’d be happier if he’d left them alone another couple of days, but it’s okay.”
His attitude appalled her, but the voice of reason made itself heard. Garrett’s actions weren’t anything she hadn’t seen dozens of times. “He’s lashing out.”
“Exactly. Very normal. Very healthy.” Blake shuddered. “God, what an oxymoron.”
Chapter 4
Even a local anesthetic had been rough given the shape he was in, Garrett acknowledged, but the surgery on his arm had proceeded uneventfully. No one would know anything definitive until he’d had a lengthy shot at rehab. At least he was out of ICU and in a regular room in the neurology ward. The sanitary cubicle that was his new home sported a World War II-style gray- and black-tiled floor and drab off-white walls with matching privacy curtains. Its only redeeming qualities were the quiet and Maggie’s presence.
“Does Rick really have the flu?” he asked.
The awkward distress that flickered across her face confirmed his suspicions and reopened that whole line of worry. He sighed, leaned back into the pillow and stared at the ceiling.
“He hasn’t come once, not even while I was in a coma.”
Her tiny gulp hurt him. He didn’t like pinning her to the wall, but he had to learn what he was up against.
“You even remember who was here?” Her emerald eyes were huge. “How aware of your surroundings were you?”
If I answer that one, you’ll never stop running from me. “Level with me, babe. What kind of trouble is Rick in?”
She broke eye contact, her gaze darting around the room as if looking for a safe haven, but there was none.
“Spit it out,” he demanded.
“Garrett, he’s not in a good place right now, and—”
His deepest fears had swirled through his mind, taunting and whispering. “Is it the law?”
Stunned, Maggie sat down hard in the bedside chair. “Never!”
A knock on the open door drew their attention.
“I’d shake your hand, son,” Patrick said jovially as he, Laverne and Blake strolled in, “but I think I’ll pass until your busted flipper mends.”
Maggie’s sigh of relief at getting off the hook didn’t go unnoticed.
“Thanks, Dad.” He cast a telling look at her that said the subject wasn’t closed, only interrupted. “I heard you’re not doing too well yourself right now. What’s up?”
From the corner of his eye, Garrett saw his mother tense.
Patrick’s gray brows shot up in surprise. “Not a thing. Fact is, I’ve been repairing your practice net.”
Puzzled, Garrett blinked. Practice net?
“The cord was rotted.” The older man frowned. “I can’t find the receipt or I’d take it back. We paid too much for that thing to put up with shoddy workmanship. You won’t get a scholarship if you can’t practice throwing the ol’ pigskin.”
Garrett felt his jaw sag as another section of his world spun out of control. The man standing before him looked like his father, sounded like him, but was, in truth, a shadow. His mother looked old, worn. Haggard lines had aged her beautiful face ten years since he’d been home last.
“So much has happened,” she whispered. Tears glistened in her soft brown eyes.
Speechless, he shot a look at Blake and Maggie, neither of whom seemed surprised by his father’s senility or his mother’s exhaustion. Was he the only one who hadn’t known? Guilt, grief and anger added themselves to the emotional soup that had taken up residence in his gut.
Laverne turned to Patrick and pasted on a brave smile. “Honey, let’s put the net away till next year.”
Patrick mulled that over as he appraised the cast on his son’s arm. “You’re probably right.” He brightened visibly, a caring parent’s attempt to soothe a child’s bitter disappointment. “Junior varsity is important, but not critical. You can still show them your stuff next year.”
The heartache on his mother’s face left Garrett no hope that he could be misinterpreting his father’s condition.
His original plan had been to get Maggie and Rick to move back east with him, but he scrapped that. His parents needed him, and he was going to be here.
A nagging voice whispered the word paraplegia, and he recoiled. What if he became just one more burden for his family to bear? Everything within him rebelled at the idea. I’m not spending the rest of my life in a
wheelchair. My family can’t afford it. No, I’m walking out of here.
Fear whispered its doubts. But what if you don’t?
Maggie sneaked out, a sense of purpose on her face. But he didn’t have the faintest idea what she was up to. It was just as well, he decided. The effort of maintaining a cheerful facade drained him. Frankly he no longer had the energy to pry Rick’s problems out of her. All he wanted was sleep.
Another hour dragged by before he and Blake were alone. Garrett felt a scowl tighten his face. A faint, rational voice said he was on the verge of doing something stupid, but the emotional overload was too strong to contain. “Why wasn’t I told about Dad?”
Exhausted himself, Blake bristled. “You were in a coma.”
“Dad’s senility started a week ago?” he snarled.
The younger man rose to the bait. “For the past three years you weren’t exactly easy to get hold of, big brother. Part of the time, we didn’t know if you were alive. Now you’re griping about a lack of medical updates?”
“That excuses how you underplayed everything when I asked about him? Whenever I talked to him on the phone I knew something was wrong, but you brushed it—”
“So shoot me at dawn! You were in deep cover and weren’t yourself—even on the phone. Talking to you was like talking to Mafia Central.” The anger drained away, and Blake’s voice softened. “I was afraid if I worried you, you’d lose your edge and get killed. I planned to tell you as soon as you started sounding like yourself again.”
The logic took the wind out of Garrett’s sails. Both men lapsed into a silence that hung thick in the room. “Sorry, Blake. Seeing him like that was a hard blow.”
“I can understand that. I’ve had time to adjust. You got hit all at once.” He shook his head and stared off at nothing. “He thinks I’m still dating Sue Murray.”
A slow tension filled the room, a tension caused by too many problems with too few solutions. Despite what you think, little brother, I will walk out of here. You’ve carried this alone long enough.