By Your Side

by Candace Calvert

  Seth nodded. “Trust me, I’ve been there, friend. And now?”

  “Now I’m looking at things differently. I’m putting my trust where it belongs.” Fletcher glanced toward his well-worn Bible, brought in by his father early this morning. “And I’m trying to set things right.”

  “That’s why you asked Macy to come by?”

  “Yeah.” According to the hospital grapevine, she’d been out of state visiting her sister again. “I couldn’t leave things the way they ended with us and—”

  “Fletcher?” A tap on the door beyond the privacy curtain separating his bed from the door. Macy’s voice. “Right room?”

  “Yes . . . I’m here.” Fletcher’s mouth went dry.

  “I’ll be sending a prayer up,” Seth said quietly, rising from his chair. “I’ll check back later, too. Count on it.”

  “Thank you.”

  There was a murmured exchange of greetings at the doorway; then Macy peeked around the curtain. Her gaze flicked over Fletcher—wheelchair, injured leg extended—and her expression showed concern despite her polite smile.

  Fletcher reminded himself to breathe. “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  She was dressed in a faded denim skirt, green T-shirt, sandals . . . and a purple fiberglass cast. Rush. Fletcher’s gut tensed. He’d heard the story about the man’s arrest and about what he’d done to Macy. Sexual battery—he’d be looking at serious prison time. The assault was part of the reason Fletcher asked Macy to visit. To see how she was and to tell her how awful he felt. About everything.

  “I’m sorry, Fletcher,” she said, settling on the edge of the bed across from him. She tipped forward, met his gaze. “I hate that this happened to you. I was so scared when I heard you’d been shot. Everyone was. I wanted to come see you right away.” Macy shook her head, dark hair brushing her shoulders. “But after what happened with your mother and the viatical brochure . . .” Her eyes shone with sudden tears. “That’s a big part of why I said I’d come today. To apologize for what Elliot—”

  “No. You don’t have to take the blame for what that lying, twisted—” A curse rose, but Fletcher stopped himself. “You don’t need to apologize.”

  “I do.” Macy pressed the cast to her chest. “I should never have had any conversation with Elliot about your mother. I swear I never gave him confidential medical information. But even expressing my concern for her was a breach of privacy. Wrong. And you were right when you said those things about gambling with lives and betting against hope. About it being unfair and—”

  “Wait. Please,” Fletcher insisted as Macy made a clumsy attempt to wipe at a tear with her casted arm. “I had no right to accuse you and come off so . . . almighty self-righteous.” He shook his head. “‘Self-righteous street cop’—Rush’s wife had me pegged from the get-go.”

  “Fletcher . . . hey . . .”

  “No. She was right. Lying around with a bullet hole in my leg’s given me time to sort things out. I’ve been pulling the ‘unfair’ card for way too long. My sister’s death, my mom’s health, my relationships . . . Maybe even that I got stuck with a Maine coon.”

  “Who was supposed to be a hunting dog.” Macy offered a small smile.

  “Yeah, total smackdown on my idiot pride,” Fletcher admitted, grateful for his honest conversations with Seth. In the ICU and then again a few minutes ago. He was thankful, too, that the morphine had let him risk confiding his long-held and confusing feelings to Jessica. She’d been great about it. And not all that surprised apparently. “Of course you love me . . . and kept tryin’ to save me all those years. I stepped into your little sister’s Mary Janes. You are the brother I never had. That’s a double blessing. And a forever kind of love . . .” It had felt good to get it off his chest. Even better to finally understand that she was absolutely right. Fletcher would always love Jessica as a sister. And then he told her about Macy . . .

  “Somehow I made myself the judge of what’s fair,” Fletcher continued. “Maybe I even stopped believing that God had a better plan for my family . . . my life. You know?”

  “Yes.” Macy’s beautiful eyes held his. “I think I do.”

  Fletcher scraped his fingers through his hair, groaning at a bitter irony. “I just killed somebody whose mental illness kept him from trusting anyone. And I was the better man for insisting I could handle things all by myself? Like some kind of self-appointed . . . savior? Then when I couldn’t pull my sister out from under that car, be a match if my mother needs a transplant . . .” Fletcher’s voice almost cracked. “I blamed God for not giving the right answer to my prayers. Self-righteous doesn’t even cover it. I know that now.”

  Macy slid down from the edge of the bed to kneel beside Fletcher’s wheelchair. Her heart ached at the raw honesty in his eyes. “I’ve made big mistakes too. With Elliot—” she expected Fletcher’s reaction and raised her hand to stop him from speaking—“but most of all by thinking I shouldn’t really count on anybody but myself. I don’t want to live like that anymore. And even if you’ve been beating yourself up about your doubts, it was you who got me thinking like this, Fletcher.”

  “Thinking about what?”

  “Trusting God.” She smiled at the look on his face. “It’s a learning curve like the Yosemite Mist Trail. But I’m determined to give it a go.”

  Fletcher took hold of her hand.

  “There’s a lot of things I want to catch you up on,” Macy explained. “About Elliot, that trust fund, my sister, and—” she wrinkled her nose—“the fact that I just dumped the dream house I was buying . . . and I could get sued. But if you’re not going to stick around, you probably don’t care about any of that.”

  “I’m going somewhere?”

  “Back to Houston. To convalesce and because things have changed with Jessica. It’s what I heard.”

  “Leave it to the hospital rumor mill.”

  Macy’s heart climbed to her throat. “Is it true . . . about Jessica?”

  “Yeah, things have changed for her.” Fletcher smiled. “She’s in love . . . with a youth pastor in Houston. Some ex-jock named Ben. Turns out he’s a decent guy.” His eyes held hers. “There’s nothing romantic between Jessica and me. Never was.”

  “So . . .” Relief made Macy’s voice quaver. “You’re staying here for a while—as planned?”

  “Yep.” He raised her hand to his lips. “But not exactly here, I hope.” He frowned. “Hospital gown, leg all bandaged, and my rear in this wheelchair. It’s awkward. Especially if, say . . .” Fletcher’s smile spread slowly. “I wanted to kiss you.”

  “Do you?”

  “From the second you walked through the door.”

  Macy’s face warmed. “I think we could . . .” She stood, stooped down again, then leaned in as he pushed up with his good leg, tried to meet her halfway, and—“Oops,” she said as she thumped Fletcher’s jaw with her cast. He laughed, reached for her.

  “Oh, hey . . .” Macy’s skin tingled. “Yes. That could definitely work.”

  “C’mere then,” Fletcher whispered, taking her face in his hands. He kissed the corner of her mouth. “Mmm. Yes. Medical miracle.”

  “I’m all about that,” she whispered back, slipping an arm around his neck. She chuckled as his lips nibbled the pulse spot under her jaw. Then quieted as his mouth found hers for a quick kiss . . . and a second, much longer one. She buried her fingers in his hair, kissing him back and—

  “Mr. Holt?” A disembodied voice beyond the curtain. “Ready for some physical therapy?”

  Macy laughed. Fletcher groaned. “One minute, ma’am.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Fletcher brushed Macy’s hair back. “Marmots, roommates, Labradoodles, therapists,” he protested, his voice a husky whisper. The blue eyes held hers. “Will you stick around?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Good. I’m going to find a thousand places we can be alone without the world crowding in.” His lips touched the tip of her nose. “Count on i
t.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  “Mr. Holt . . . ?”

  “Ready,” Fletcher called out to the therapist. “Bring on the crutches—I’ve got a thousand places I need to get to.”

  EPILOGUE

  LATE AUGUST, THE FOLLOWING SUMMER

  “Welcome to the top of the world!”

  The young and very sun-bronzed hiker greeted Fletcher as he clambered onto the granite summit, breathless and perspiring. The man raised his voice over the rush of the falls below, obviously eager to share his thrill. “Prepare to be blown away, my friend. First hike up the Mist Trail?”

  “Second,” Fletcher answered, reaching for his water bottle. “I crawled up here last June.” More than a year ago now . . . incredible. He slid his sunglasses to the top of his head, swept his gaze over the clumps of hikers spread across the summit.

  “That accent,” the hiker noted. “Southern?”

  “Houston.”

  The young man laughed. “Thick air there. No wonder you’re breathing hard. Hiking Yosemite by yourself?”

  “Nope. With a California native—half–mountain antelope.” Fletcher scanned the distance again. “She would have passed you a couple of minutes ago. Sooner if she wasn’t tired today. She’s tall, wearing black biking tights, a bright-pink shirt . . .”

  “Right. Yeah,” the hiker confirmed. “Gorgeous lady. Long black hair with this crazy-cool white stripe in it.”

  Fletcher laughed. “That would be my wife.”

  “You actually talked her into leaving all this?” the young man asked, incredulous. “Moving to the flatlands?”

  “We’re back to California a lot—just closed on a condo near Tahoe. My wife heads up a studio for kids in Sacramento.”

  “Studio?”

  “Two, actually. One there and one in Houston. Part of the YMCA,” Fletcher explained, thinking of the shiny, child-high brass hardware she’d installed on the door leading into the Nonni’s Place location. Macy had named the studio in Houston after Fletcher’s sister. “Both are completely free of cost to underprivileged children. Dance classes.”

  “That’s cool. So like . . . ballet?”

  “And tap dancing.” Fletcher chuckled. “Plus, they’re hiring instructors for Christian martial arts. Macy likes the idea of a child finding confidence in both—she’s a ballet dancer and a kickboxer.” He slid his sunglasses back down. “Did you happen to see which way she went?”

  “Yeah.” The young man pointed. “Right over there. See?”

  “I do.”

  Fletcher’s heart pounded—nothing to do with thinner air or the hike up the Mist Trail. Seeing Macy, knowing she was his wife, always affected him that way. When he stopped by the Houston Grace ER during his patrol shift to see her, when they helped his parents unpack boxes and get resettled in Texas, when she sat beside him at church . . . and whenever the pale morning light offered his first glimpse of her beautiful face on the pillow next to him. My wife . . .

  Their marriage, four months ago, hadn’t seemed too fast to either of them. Maybe the traumas they’d survived the year before taught them life was fragile and time on this earth too uncertain. Maybe—though they’d never discussed it this way—his mother’s illness had added to their decision. But mostly, it had come down to a matter of trust. In the deep love they had for each other and in the plan God had for their lives. It was a foundation as solid as the granite under their feet right now.

  “Hey.” Macy smiled as her husband came close. She patted the space beside her. “Pull up a rock.”

  “You’re okay being seen with a ‘flatlander’—” Fletcher’s gaze swept the breathtaking vista as he sat—“way up here?”

  “Anywhere,” she told him, heart skittering as he brushed a kiss on her cheek. “And especially today.”

  “Yeah. Nothing finer than that view. Unless it’s my view following you on a trail. I figured that out on my first hike up here.” Fletcher grinned. “You’re right; it’s been a great trip—fast, but great. Though it’s too bad Taylor couldn’t make it up to Sacramento after all. I know you wanted to see her.”

  “Next time,” Macy told him, determined not to let one little disappointment cloud this special time with Fletcher. She’d waited, planned, hiked up that long trail, and—

  “You found a wireless connection?” he asked, pointing to the cell phone in her lap.

  “Didn’t try.” The diamond in Macy’s engagement ring sparkled as she tapped the screen. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. “I was looking at the photos we took at Sean and Leah’s. I can’t believe our niece has her first tooth. Of course Andi’s little guy has two now. And he’s maybe five pounds heavier. Hard to imagine they ever called him an elf. That’s a future linebacker if I ever saw one.” She was chattering; she knew that. Macy took a deep breath. “When we get home to Houston, I think we should make a dinner reservation. Maybe Danton’s—I’ve been craving their blackened catfish enchiladas.”

  Fletcher laughed. “Why am I not surprised by that?”

  Hang on . . . you will be.

  “Sure,” he told her, tucking a finger under her chin. He kissed her nose. “You got it, Mrs. Holt. Reservation for two at Danton’s.”

  “I think we should invite your parents.” She smiled at him, happiness besting the butterflies in a move worthy of martial arts.

  “Great idea. We can celebrate Mom’s first year in remission. And that Aunt Thena can hang on to her poetic bone marrow for now.” Fletcher nodded. “I’m on it. Reservation for four.”

  “Make it for five.” Happy tears filled Macy’s eyes. “It will be . . . five of us for dinner.”

  “Five?” Fletcher’s brows scrunched.

  “A double celebration,” Macy explained. “We’re having a baby, Fletcher.”

  “What?” His blue eyes widened. “You’re pregnant?”

  “Test at home, confirmed yesterday by my lab pals at Sacramento Hope.” Macy reached up, stroked her husband’s face. “We’re going to be a family.”

  “Macy . . .” Fletcher drew her into his arms, hugging her so close that she felt his heart beating against hers. “I love you. I can’t say it right. Except that I’m the happiest man in the world.”

  “That’s perfect,” she breathed against her husband’s ear. “And I love you too. So much.” Her eyes swept the view and she sighed. “I wanted to tell you about it here, at Yosemite, where everything started for us.”

  And where God was first . . . with a beautiful design for our lives.

  1

  LUCAS MARCHAL fully expected his grandmother to show no interest in her hospital dinner tray; her appetite had dwindled to almost nothing. But in his wildest dreams he didn’t imagine that her dour, no-nonsense nurse’s aide would lift the dish cover, scream, then stumble backward and fall to the floor.

  He bolted toward her to help, vaguely aware of other San Diego Hope rehab staff filing through the door.

  His grandmother’s roommate, chubby and childlike despite middle age, pitched forward in her bed to utter a lisping litany of concern. “Oh . . . my . . . goodnethh. Oh, my!”

  “Here.” Lucas offered a hand to the downed nurse’s aide. “Let me help you up, Mrs.—”

  “No need,” she sputtered, waving him and one of the other aides away. “I’m all right. Weak ankle. Lost my balance, that’s all. After I saw that . . . horrid thing.” Revulsion flickered across her age-lined face. “On your grandmother’s plate.”

  What?

  Lucas’s gaze darted to the remaining staff now gathering around his grandmother’s tray table. They stared like curious looky-loos at a crime scene. Lucas was all too familiar with that phenomenon, though as an evidence technician, he operated on the other side of the yellow police tape. He turned back to the nurse’s aide—Wanda Clay, according to her name badge—who’d managed to stand. “What’s wrong with my grandmother’s dinner plate?”

  “It was on the rice,” Wanda explained, gingerly testing her ankle
. It was hard to tell if her grimace was from an injury or from what she was struggling to explain. “Sitting there on the food, bold as brass.” She crossed her arms, tried to still a shudder. “Black, huge, with those awful legs. I haven’t seen one of those vile bugs since I left Florida.”

  A cockroach? On his grandmother’s food? It could snuff what little was left of her appetite—and his hope that she’d finally regain her strength.

  “It’s probably scurried away by now.” The nurse’s aide rubbed an elbow. “That’s what they do in the light. But I saw it, plain as can be. And you can bet I’ll be reporting it to—”

  “You mean this?” A young, bearded tech in blue scrubs pointed at the plate. Then made no attempt to hide his smirk. “Is this what freaked you out, Wanda?”

  “I wasn’t scared,” the woman denied, paling as she stared at the tray. “Startled maybe. Because no one expects to see—”

  “A black olive?” the tech crowed, pointing again. “Ooooh. Horrifying.”

  Someone else tittered. “Yep, that’s an olive—was an olive. Sort of cut up in pieces and stuck on the rice. A decoration, maybe?”

  “Oh, goody.” The roommate clapped her hands, expression morphing from concern to delight. “Can I see? Is it pretty? Can I have a party decoration too?”

  “Hey, Wanda,” the tech teased, “what form do we use to report an olive to—?”

  “I think that’s enough,” Lucas advised, raising his hands. “No harm, no foul. Okay?” He reminded himself that law enforcement saw its own share of clowning. But . . . “We have two ladies who need to eat.”

  “Yes, sir.” The technician nodded, his expression sheepish. “Just kidding around. I’ll get your grandma some fresh water.”

  “Thank you.” Lucas glanced toward Wanda. “You’re not hurt?”

  “Only a bump.” She rubbed her elbow again, lips pinching tight. “Some decoration.”

  “Yeah.”

  Lucas watched for a moment as Wanda helped the chattering roommate with her tray; then he glanced toward the window beyond—the hospital’s peaceful ocean view—before returning to his grandmother’s bedside. He slid his chair close, his heart heavy at the sight of her now. Asleep on her pillow and far too thin, with her stroke-damaged right arm lying useless across her chest. For the first time ever, Rosslyn Marchal actually appeared her age of seventy-six. So different from the strong, vibrant woman who’d essentially been his mother. A woman whose unbridled laughter turned heads in more than a few fancy restaurants, who shouldered a skeet rifle like she intended to stop a charging rhino. A still-lovely senior equally at home in a gown and diamonds for a charity event or wearing faded jeans and a sun hat to dig in her wildly beautiful garden high above the Pacific Ocean. She was an acclaimed painter, a deeply devoted believer. And a new widow. That inconsolable heartbreak had brought her to this point . . . of no return?