by Vivian Wood
The Embrace
Book Three of The Broken Slipper Trilogy
Vivian Wood
Contents
Author’s Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
About Vivian Wood
Author’s Copyright
Copyright Vivian Wood 2021
May not be replicated or reproduced in any manner without express and written permission from the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to author and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Rachael B, thank you so much for taking on this editing assignment from hell.
Patricia and Heidi — thank you for your wisdom!
This book almost didn’t happen because my brain didn’t want to cooperate… so thank you to all the readers that stuck with the series! And let’s all give a big fat middle finger to burnout!
Calum and Kaia have been really meaningful to me and I’m not quite sure how to let them go. Luckily, there are more stories to be told in the Broken Slipper world! I’ll see you then!
1
The whole world slows down mere seconds before Calum is shot.
My mouth is open as I yell at Crispin.
Calum begins raising his hands, trying to signal something to Crispin.
Crispin’s eyes have gone dark as he stares down the barrel of his shiny silver gun. There is a lot of commotion going on around him but Crispin is on an island of his own design.
The air crackles as he squeezes the trigger.
The sound of the gunshot rings through the air for several long seconds. The sheer loudness of it surprises me first. It takes me several seconds to swing my gaze to Calum.
Oh god.
God.
Calum has been hit.
The look on Calum’s darkly handsome face is one of surprise. Maybe he thought that Crispin wouldn’t actually shoot him.
For a moment, I can’t hear anything. My ears pop. My eyes are steadied on Calum, who is currently looking down at his own chest.
At the bullet hole that’s punched just to the right of the lapel of his tuxedo.
He twitches, staring at the hole.
When a dribble of his blood appears, I open my mouth, my eyes widening. My heart suddenly thunders loudly in my ears.
As Calum claps his hand over his wound, sound comes flooding back into the world. There are shouts as several men in tuxes tackle Crispin. Calum makes a wheezing sound as he begins to fall.
That’s what sets me in motion. I lunge toward him, shouting his name.
“Calum? Calum!”
By the time I reach him, he’s fallen sideways on the marble floor. His eyes are beginning to flicker closed.
“No!” I shout, my hands finding his lapels. “Calum… hold on. Hold on, we’ll get you help. Can you hear me?”
He gasps, his mouth opening like a fish’s. I move to rest his head on my thigh. I feel the sticky ooze of blood coming from his wound. Pressing my hand over it, I realize that I’m shaking like a leaf.
“911 is on the way!” someone shouts.
I bob my head, my fingers smoothing back the dark hair that’s near Calum’s face. I should talk to him; that’s what I always see people doing on television.
“Calum? You’re okay. You’ll be okay. You have to be.”
He wheezes again and his eyelids flutter.
“Can you hear me? I’m going to be right here. Okay?” My voice breaks on the last word. “I just found you, Calum. I’m not ready to let you go. Hold on for me. Just hold on…”
I can’t be sure, but I think he nods faintly. Cradling his head, I keep talking to him, ignoring the madness of the crowd around me. At one point a lady who is a doctor kneels down beside me and takes Calum’s pulse. She presses her hand over mine.
“Hold more pressure,” she says, her voice low. “That’s good…”
I don’t take my eyes off Calum’s face. He looks pale, which scares the hell out of me. “Calum, hang on. Okay? I need you to stay with me…”
That’s the moment when the paramedics arrive. “Ma’am? Could you tell us his name?”
I look up at the paramedics, two women in dark uniforms. “Calum.”
“How long has he been down?”
I blink. “I…”
Suddenly, Lucas is there. “About fifteen minutes.”
Both paramedics kneel beside me. One gentle pulls at my hand. “Move back, ma’am. We have it from here.”
“He was shot,” I tell the woman right beside me.
“Okay. Move back.”
My heart bangs against my ribs. “I am keeping pressure on his wound.”
“Ma’am, please move back,” the other paramedic says. “We can only help him if you move back and let us work.”
Lucas is right behind me, pulling my shoulders back with a gentle touch. I drop my hand and let Lucas pull me away from Calum.
True to her word, the paramedic quickly tears his tuxedo jacket and fancy white shirt stained with his blood away. His bare chest is a shock, his wound a bloody mess. She swipes Calum’s chest with an iodine pad and affixes some sort of dressing to the wound.
“Breath sounds are muffled on the left side,” the other paramedic says, leaning down to his chest with a stethoscope. “Got an IV in his arm and I’m running fluids. Ready to move him?”
Lucas squeezes me. “We should go to the hospital.” He looks at the paramedics. “Can you take him to Mount Sinai?”
The paramedics don’t look up from where they are sliding a board beneath Calum’s body. “Mercy General is closer. We’ll take him there.”
I shiver as they raise the stretcher up and begin wheeling it out of the ballroom. Lucas puts a coat around my shoulders. It’s only then that I sweep my gaze over the remnants of the gala, the few stragglers and onlookers. Everyone has a concerned frown on their face.
They also seem to be avoiding eye contact with me.
“Come on,” Lucas says, tugging me toward the exit. “My car is parked downstairs.”
The ambulance doors are closing just as we exit the lobby. I allow Lucas to hustle me into the back of his limo. He tells the driver what is going on. We pull off with a screech of tires.
I start to cry, the seriousness of the situation just beginning to catch up to me. Lucas looks at me, gently patting my arm. “It’ll be okay. You’ll s
ee.”
A strangled laugh leaves my throat. “What? How can you say that? He was shot.”
Lucas gives me a careful smile. “Calum is a fighter. Trust me.”
A torrent of curses bubble to the surface of my mind. How can Lucas be so cool and controlled?
But I don’t say anything. I know that he’s just trying to help.
Instead, I lean forward and call to the driver. “Can you drive faster, please?”
Lucas’s warm fingers find my bare forearm. “Kaia, sit back and try to breathe.”
I shoot him a glare and cross my arms, looking away out of the window. The world rushes by in a blur, so fast that it’s hard to tell exactly where we are.
I try to calm myself down, but I’m too agitated. All I can think of is the way that Calum’s gaze went right to me when he was shot. The stumbling fall of his body when he went down, so surprised.
Lucas opens a panel on the side of the limo, pulling a bottle of water out. He produces a wad of tissues from god knows where. I watch him, my brain so overloaded that I can’t process anything new.
Lucas twists off the cap of the water bottle and offers me the tissues. I look at him, a puzzled expression on my face.
“Your hands,” he says.
I glance at my hands, only now seeing that they are stained with Calum’s dried blood. A sudden swell of nausea comes over me as I accept the water and the tissues, wiping at my palms.
The odor of Calum’s blood rises in the air, making the tight space that Lucas and I are shoved into almost unbearable. Lucas looks away out the window and leaves me to clean my hands of his brother’s blood.
By the time that we get to the hospital, I’m vibrating with the need to get out of the car. As soon as the limousine comes to a complete stop, I throw open the door.
“Kaia, wait—“ Lucas says.
But I’m already rushing headlong toward the sliding glass doors of the emergency room entrance. I pick up my full white skirts as I sprint inside to a busy information desk.
A nurse looks up at me, raising an eyebrow at my bloodstained dress.
“Do you need help?” she asks.
“Calum Fordham,” I shout. “He came in by ambulance and I need to be with him—“
The nurse holds up a hand, trying to calm me down while she types something into a computer. “Okay. Hold on…”
Behind me, Lucas arrives. I see him sweep his gaze around the waiting room to our left, his expression guarded.
The nurse clears her throat. “Are you family?”
I claw at Lucas’s arm. “He is.”
“I’m Calum’s brother,” Lucas supplies.
The nurse bobs her head. “Mr. Fordham was brought in twenty minutes ago. He was in critical condition when he arrived. Aside from the…” She pauses, looking at her screen. “Gunshot wound… he also has a collapsed lung. Mr. Fordham has been taken straight up to emergency surgery.”
I pale. “Emergency surgery?”
As I say the words, my eyes fill with tears.
She stands up, ushering us over to the waiting room. “Yes. He’s being taken care of by best thoracic surgeon in the state right now.”
I blink, a tear running down my face. Lucas puts his arm around my shoulders. “How long will my brother be in surgery for?”
The nurse shakes her head. “I have no idea. I’m not qualified to guess. But if you both will wait here, you’ll be the first ones to know about his condition. Okay?”
I turn and bury my face against Lucas’s arm. This can’t be happening.
Calum is the strongest man I know. For him to be hurt shakes the very foundation of everything I know to be true.
Lucas is far more practical than me. “We’ll need updates. How frequent can we get updates?”
The nurse gives him a cool little smile. “Like I said, I will let you know as soon as I know anything.’
Lucas glares at her. “Do you have any idea of who I am?”
The nurse turns on her heel and flounces away.
“Unbelievable,” Lucas mutters. After a moment, he sighs. “I should call the board. Will you be all right here for a few minutes?”
I nod, holding back a fresh round of tears. He gets up, reaching in his tuxedo jacket. And then I’m left all alone in the oddly quiet waiting room.
2
Without opening my eyes, I’m awake. I feel strange, like the entire world is wrapped in gauze or cotton wool. It sticks to everything and makes it very hard to open my eyes.
I shift ever so slightly in bed and then I’m smacked with pain.
A searing, ripping pain that radiates from my chest, just above my heart.
What is it from?
Balling up my face, I groan. I try to touch the spot that hurts without opening my eyes.
“Calum?”
It’s my brother’s voice. What is Lucas doing in my bedroom?
Opening my eyes is a monumental task. I peel them open and try to focus on the white walls that surround me. Lucas comes into view, hovering, looking concerned.
“What… what’s going on?” I croak. My throat is dry as a desert.
My shoulder throbs.
“Jesus,” Lucas says. “You fucking scared me, Calum.”
I squint at him, trying desperately to string thoughts together. I don’t recognize this room but clearly I’m in a hospital room.
The image of Kaia rushes to the surface. I struggle to sit up.
“Where’s Kaia?” I wonder. “What happened to my shoulder? It hurts.”
Lucas’s brow furrows. He reaches forward and presses me back against the bed. “You were shot, Calum. You’re in the hospital.”
I scrunch up one side of my face, reaching for a memory. All I get is a fuzzy flashback of Kaia’s tear strewn face.
“Where’s Kaia?” I demand.
He looks over his shoulder. “Here she comes.”
Kaia appears in the next moment, as if by magic. Her blonde hair is tousled and she is dressed in oversized hospital scrubs. She has enormous black circles under her eyes and looks as though she’s only recently been crying. She’s holding a Styrofoam cup, her eyes down as she heads through the doorway.
“Kaia,” I call to her.
Kaia looks up, her blue eyes widening. She drops her Styrofoam cup and launches herself toward me. “Calum! Oh god…”
The breath is knocked out of my lungs when Kaia buries herself against my uninjured shoulder. The feeling of comfort is instant, knowing that she’s safe and in my arms. My shoulder aches but I ignore that, leaning closer and pressing my face against her hair.
My heart thuds loudly in my chest. The feeling of holding her close is pure relief.
“I’m okay,” I murmur. “It’s going to be okay.”
She wipes at her eyes, pulling back and looking up at me. “I am so happy to see you awake and talking, Calum. I thought you were dead.” She sucks in a breath, her blue eyes hard on mine.
“Apparently I was shot?” I joke. “I can’t actually remember anything.”
Kaia scrunches up her nose. “Maybe it’s better that way.”
Lucas clears his throat. “The young dancer who shot you is in police custody.”
I nod. “That’s good.”
A sharp pain begins to shoot from my shoulder down my arm. I wince right as a young Black woman comes in wearing a long white doctor’s coat. Kaia blushes and climbs off of my bed, which makes me frown.
“Mr. Fordham, you’re up,” the doctor says, smiling. “I’m Dr. Smith. I was your surgeon. You were hit by a bullet, which collapsed your lung on its way out of your body.”
I flex my arm, sending shooting pain down to my fingertips. “I gathered as much.”
A rueful smile plays about Dr. Smith’s lips as she checks my chart. “Funny. Let’s check out your wound.” She lifts my arm and instructs me to move it back and forth. Then she purses her lips. “How is the pain?”
I shrug my uninjured shoulder. “Honestly? It feels like I got
hit by a speeding train.”
She nods, scribbling a note in my chart. “I’ll have the nurses give you something for that. The hospital administration has made it abundantly clear that you are a major donor. So if you have any questions, the nurse will page me to come answer them. Okay?”
My lips curl up. “Sure. Thanks.”
“This machine here adjusts your pain medication,” she says. She waves to an IV pump, demonstrating its use. “Give it a try.”
She hands me the button trigger and I squeeze it. The pump makes a noise. “Ah. Okay.”
“Be careful with that,” she warns. “That is straight morphine. So only use it when you really need it and don’t mind sleeping.”
“Ah. I want to be weaned off the pain medications and all the machines as soon as possible.” I cock my head, beginning to feel tired. “When will I be ready to leave?”
Dr. Smith frowns. “It would be best if you stayed with us for a few days. Two days, if you’re really ready to go.”
I squint at her. “Thank you, Dr…”
She flashes me a cautious smile, looking around at Kaia and Lucas. “Dr. Smith. I’ll be back in a few hours to check in on you.”
She starts to head out the door.
“I’ll be leaving tomorrow!” I call after her.
She shakes her head but doesn’t stop on her way out the door. I can’t help the yawn that bursts free from my throat.
Kaia looks at me with a sigh. “Are you feeling okay? Can I get you anything?”