by Jess Dee
“Anything else?” Steve asked.
“He’s battered and bruised, with a few nasty scratches. Other than that” she shrugged, “nothing else.”
They sat in silence. There was nothing more to be said. Katie left her hand in Steve’s, taking whatever comfort she could from him.
Finally Steve spoke. “Can we see him?”
Dr. Lavine nodded. He’s in recovery at the moment. As soon as we transfer him to ICU, I’ll give you a shout.
It was only after the doctor left that Katie turned to Steve. Like her, tears streamed unchecked down his cheeks. Tyler had just suffered a closed head injury at a high velocity. Although his body might recover completely from the accident, there was a chance his brain would not.
Steve hesitated outside ICU. “You ready to go in?”
Katie shook her head. “No,” she said feebly.
Now she understood Tyler’s motivations to hide in London. He hadn’t wanted her to see him sick, to see him as a shadow of his former self. God help her, she didn’t want to see it either, but she was faced with the prospect right now. As much as she dreaded it, there was nothing that would take her away.
She would stay by Tyler’s side and help him fight this. She would support him. Just like she would have supported him if he’d developed Huntington’s.
She shoved her shoulders back. Stood a little straighter. “Yes,” she corrected. “Let’s go in.” She took a deep breath and pushed the door open, but she didn’t let go of Steve’s hand. She’d give Tyler everything she had, but she needed a little support of her own, and she wasn’t ashamed to ask for it.
Battered and bruised was a fair description of the man she loved.
The skin around his right eye was a light shade of purple. Leftover bruising from Steve’s wrath, she guessed. The skin below his eye was turning an angry blue, and a lump the size of a golf ball marked his forehead. Scratches and small cuts dotted his shoulders, and a bloodstained bandage covered a substantial part of the biceps on his right arm. His left arm, which rested on his stomach and chest, was sheathed from wrist to shoulder in a pristine white bandage.
He was attached to monitors and a drip, but at least he hadn’t been intubated or ventilated. That was an excellent sign.
She could have taken his chart and read it from cover to cover, or drilled the nurses and doctors about his condition, but right now all she wished to do was sit beside Tyler’s bed and watch him breathe.
If he could breathe, he was alive, and if he was alive, there was a chance he could recover. For now, it was all she had, and she held onto it for dear life.
Hours later, Katie finally found the strength to talk. Steve sat in a chair on the other side of the bed, his legs stretched in front of him, his elbow perched on the arm of the chair and his cheek resting on his hand. His eyes were glazed and his jaw was set. She sat beside the bed, holding Tyler’s right hand in both of hers.
“Fate can be so unbelievably cruel,” she said quietly.
“I’m sorry, Kate.” Steve looked at her, and not for the first time, she noticed that he didn’t seem so emotionally removed from her. “You only just got him back, and now this happens.”
Katie was momentarily startled, and then she realized her ex-fiancé had probably assumed that she and Tyler were living the fairytale happy ever after.
She gave him a tired, sad smile. “I never got him back, Steve. He was gone before I returned that night. He must have thought I’d chosen you. He left before I could tell him we split up.”
“I… Oh. Shit, Kate. I didn’t know.” His eyes filled with sympathy.
“You never phoned him? Tried to tell him we were through?”
Only about a thousand times. “I didn’t know where he was, and he must have dropped his mobile phone when he left, because I found it under my table the next morning.”
Steve shook his head, his face bewildered. “He loves you, babe.
There’s no way he’d walk out on you again.”
Katie’s eyes filled for about the millionth time that night. “But he did. I guess he assumed I wouldn’t leave you, so he left instead.”
Steve swore quietly. “He did it for us, didn’t he? He stepped aside so he wouldn’t interfere in our relationship anymore.” He gave her a hollow smile.
“I’d pinned him as the ultimate bastard, but in the end he wasn’t.
He came to get back what he thought was his, but when he realized, incorrectly, that he couldn’t have it, he bowed out. He acted like my friend, no matter how much he loves you.”
“Ironic, isn’t it? In the end you also bowed out so you wouldn’t interfere with my relationship with Tyler. You also acted like a friend.
I guess it doesn’t matter how angry you are with each other, you’re still each other’s best friend.”
Steve nodded. “And look at my best friend now.” For long moments they were silent, immersed in Tyler’s horror.
Then Steve spoke. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. The kind of deep introspection you do when you lie awake at night.”
Katie listened in silence. He was talking to her again, really talking.
Like he used to. As dreadful as the location of their discussion was, she felt a profound sense of gratitude.
He gave her a wry smile. “I haven’t slept lately, so I’ve had a lot of time to think.”
She gave him a wry smile back. God knew she could relate to that.
“I don’t want to leave the practice, Kate.”
Her heart tripped. “You don’t?”
“No. I love it there. I want to carry on working with you.”
She gave him a tentative smile. “I want that too. So much! B-but will you be able to? After everything I’ve put you through?”
Steve nodded. “I think it’s a good thing Ty came home when he did.
You and I make good friends, babe, but we were never supposed to be lovers.” He sighed, looked at Tyler, then looked at her. “Some things are meant to be. You and I weren’t.”
“Steve, please, you don’t have to say this.”
“Yes, I do. I spent the first night feeling dead sorry for myself.
Thinking I was the loser, but I’m not. It was bound to end soon anyway.
We both came into the engagement with baggage.” He sighed heavily.
“You can’t build a future with someone you’re not in love with if you know somewhere out there there’s someone you are in love with.”
Tyler. Katie looked at the man she loved, and felt the shock afresh as she took in his bandages, his sleeping form.
“And Pen.” He frowned. “I’m not over her. I just hadn’t focused on her for a while.” He frowned again. “Till Tyler came home.”
Katie smiled sorrowfully. “What a pair the two of us make. In love with other people and intent on marrying each other.”
“Tyler stopped us from making a mistake. We’d have gotten married for all the wrong reasons.”
“Maybe so, Steve, but I still would have been lucky to have you.”
“You’ll be luckier to have Tyler.” It wasn’t a self-deprecating comment.
Katie would be damned lucky to have Tyler. She’d be damned lucky if he escaped unharmed from his horrific injuries.
“What about Pen? If you still love her, are you going to do anything about it?”
Steve shrugged, looked tired. “Honestly? I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter what I feel about her. She made it abundantly clear that she didn’t want anything to do with me.”
“I’m sorry, Steve.”
“Me too, babe. I’m sorry for both of us.” He looked at Tyler, then closed his eyes and rested his head on the back of his chair. “I’m sorry for all of us.”
“We have to phone her,” Katie said. Pen didn’t know about the accident.
Steve nodded. “I know. I’ve been sitting here trying to work up the courage…”
“I’ll do it.” It was the least she could do for him.
&nbs
p; They exchanged a long look, and then Steve nodded. “Thank you.”
For the first time since she’d sat beside Tyler’s bed, Katie let go of his hand and reached for her phone. Steve sat silent and rigid as she made the call.
“She’s getting the first plane out,” Katie told him when she hung up.
He looked haunted. “Okay then.”
“I’ll fetch her from the airport?”
Steve nodded, and left the conversation at that.
Katie took Tyler’s hand again and kissed it. “How can destiny do this to him, Steve? He’s only just learned that he’s not going to die, and now he’s lying in a hospital bed fighting for his life. It’s so cruel.”
Steve frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“The Huntington’s result.” What else would she be talking about?
For the second time in twelve hours, Steve’s face lost its color.
“Did you say Huntington’s?”
Her stomach dropped. “You didn’t know.”
He shook his head, gaped at her.
“Steve” She stared at him in dismay. “I… I assumed Tyler told you last week.”
Idiot! Tyler would never have said anything about the Huntington’s.
Pen wouldn’t let Tyler discuss her situation with Katie. There was no way she’d ever let him talk to Steve about it.
Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit. What had she done? “Steve, God, I’m so sorry.”
He closed his mouth. Opened it again. Closed it, then said, “Their father?”
He’d turned a pale shade of green.
She nodded, identifying all too closely with him. “Their father.”
Steve stood, stumbled and grabbed the chair for support. He looked at her blindly. Looked at Tyler. Gawked at Tyler.
“Steve.” She rose too, but he stopped her by holding out his hand.
“Kate, you’ve got to give me a minute on this one. Please.” He lurched away from the bed. “I just need a minute.” Then he turned and staggered out of the small ICU cubicle.
She stared after him, wanting to go to him, but she didn’t. She knew how he felt. Bewildered and dazed. In need of space and time to assimilate the information. When he was ready, he’d come back. he’d ask questions. For now he needed to be alone.
She looked at Tyler, stricken. “Christ, Ty, I’m so sorry.” Could he hear her?
It didn’t matter. She’d screwed up royally and needed to apologize.
“I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t realize he didn’t know. I’m such an idiot.”
She felt nauseous. Poor Steve.
Poor Pen.
She took Tyler’s hand again. Poor Tyler, goddamn it.
How had everything gotten so completely screwed up? Steve was in shock. Pen was in hiding. Tyler was in hospital and she was in hell. How had everything gone from stable to disastrous in so short a time? Had there ever been any stability, or was it all just an illusion?
“Oh. I must have dozed off.” Katie lifted her head from next to Tyler’s hand and stretched her now-stiff back. “How long was I out?”
Steve was back, once again seated in the chair opposite hers. “A couple of hours. Maybe more.”
She nodded and looked at Tyler. No change. Katie took his hand and sat back in her chair.
“Are you okay?” she asked Steve. Some of the color had returned to his face, but it didn’t mask his pallor altogether.
“I’m getting there.” He didn’t look okay. “When did you find out?
About the Huntington’s?”
“Last week.”
“What about…?”
Steve couldn’t finish his question. He didn’t need to.
“He wouldn’t discuss Pen. Tyler told me that whatever she had or hadn’t done with regards to the disease was personal.”
Steve looked ill. He was quiet for a long, long time before asking, “that’s why Tyler left, isn’t it? He knew there was a chance he’d develop the disease, and he didn’t want us to know about it.” When she nodded, he swore.
“Bloody idiot. Didn’t he know we were the first people he should have turned to? The obvious people to help him through it, no matter what the outcome. What the fuck was he thinking? That we’d shun him for potentially having a disease?”
Katie guessed that while Steve spoke about only Tyler, his thoughts centered on Pen as well. “I don’t think that he saw it in the same light you do. He wanted the dignity of deteriorating where the people who loved him couldn’t watch it happen.” Oddly enough, presenting the details from Tyler’s perspective helped Katie to understand his motives a little better. Tyler had tried to spare Katie and Steve from the cruel fate of the disease. In a bizarre way, his reasoning almost made sense. Almost.
“He didn’t even know if he had the goddamn gene,” Steve stormed.
“He left without finding out first.”
“Would you want to know if you were in his position?”
“Yes, damn it. I would. So I could live my life to the fullest while there was still a chance to live it.”
“Tyler would disagree with you,” Katie said quietly. “For him it was easier to live without knowing. That way, he still had a fifty percent chance of living a full life. His future wasn’t yet cast in stone.”
Steve swore. “Christ, what a way to live.” His jaw clenched and unclenched.
“When did he have the test?”
“Just before he booked his ticket home.”
“And if the results had gone the other way, he wouldn’t have come home at all.” Steve first nodded his head, and then he shook it. “He did it because of us, didn’t he? He gave you up because he loved you, and then he found out you were going to marry his best friend.”
Katie nodded.
He clenched his jaw. “The fuckwit. If he’d never left, I never would have proposed to you. We’d never have been trapped in this vicious triangle.”
Katie suspected Steve tried to inject a little rage into his voice, but he failed miserably. He just sounded sad.
“It would have saved us all a lot of heartache,” she agreed.
“Hearing our news must have just about killed him.”
“He wasn’t happy.”
“Christ, he must have despised me. I took from him the one thing he loved more than anything.”
“You never took me from him,” Katie pointed out. “He left me.” Yep, Steve was right. Tyler was a fuckwit. He shouldn’t have gone away.
Ever. “Besides, he never despised you. Not for one minute. He understood. But he resented that another man was living the life he’d always wanted. The fact that you were the other man complicated matters a thousandfold. He didn’t want you to get hurt, but he didn’t want you to marry me either.”
“And yet when he thought you’d chosen me, he didn’t stay and fight.”
“I guess in the end, no matter how much he wanted to be with me, he would not destroy his friends lives.”
“I misjudged him.”
“No, you didn’t. You judged him with the information you had. You didn’t know all the facts.”
“I hit him. I actually punched the son of a bitch.”
“You were angry and you had good reason to be.”
“I was furious,” Steve corrected. “Was furious.” He seemed to run out of steam. “I’m not anymore. Now I just want him to wake the hell up and tell us this was some kind of sick joke.”
“Me too,” she whispered. “I just want him to be okay.”
Steve squared his shoulders and looked determined. “He will be, Kate. He has to be.”
Katie nodded as her throat clogged up again. She turned to Tyler.
“Did you hear that, Ty? You’re going to get better.” She choked on the last word.
“Please,” she whispered, “you have to get better.”
TWENTY
Over the course of the next forty-eight hours, Katie spent most of her time at the hospital. She organized for a locum to work at the practice, freeing u
p her and Steve’s time. She located a number for Tyler’s company in London and phoned to inform them of the accident.
Loath to leave his bedside, she returned home only to shower and change her clothes.
On the second day she left the hospital twice first to shower, and then to collect Tyler’s sister.
During the drive from the airport, Katie brought Penelope up to speed on the accident. Once back at ICU, she gave her some time alone with her brother.
She knew seeing him for the first time would be an emotional experience for Pen, and Katie respected her need for privacy.
A half an hour later, the two women sat quietly in the small, private ICU room, both their eyes and thoughts trained on the sedated man between them.
It was evening, and Katie didn’t expect any change in his condition.
“You broke his heart, you know,” Penelope said.
Katie’s stomach flipped. The subject had been hanging silently between them.
She wasn’t prepared for the candor of the statement. “Believe me when I tell you I never meant to,” she whispered.
“He loves you.” There was no accusation in her voice. “He was gutted when he first heard you you were getting married.” She hesitated. “But it just about killed him when he realized you weren’t going to call off the engagement.”
Katie nodded silently. Her stomach twisted into a thousand knots.
If there was any possible way she could fill Tyler in on the truth, any possible way of letting him know she and Steve had called it off, she’d do it. In a heartbeat. But Tyler was asleep. She could yell it from the rooftops, take an ad out in the Sydney Morning Herald or announce it on National Nine News, and it wouldn’t make a difference. Tyler wouldn’t hear it.
“I think it made him love you even more,” his sister said. “He was struck dumb by your loyalty to Steve.” Her voice caught on the name.
Katie would have laughed at the irony of her words, but she couldn’t. Her eyes welled again, and her throat was all clogged up. “I love him too,” she whispered. “I love him so much, and he doesn’t even know it.”
“He does. That’s why he was so flabbergasted by your decision.”
Katie had yet to tell Pen that she’d chosen Tyler. Before she could say anything, the door to Ty’s cubicle opened, and Steve stepped inside the room.