by Jana Barkley
He leaned down to kiss her forehead then sat back to see if she was still with him.
She gave him a weak smile.
“He caught a duck,” she said, her voice not more than a whisper.
Hank smiled down at her, but terror filled his heart. He willed her to stay with him. “Where is it?” he forced himself to say calmly.
Sam gave him her best attempt at a grin and said, “I’m sitting on it.”
Hank leaned over and saw the carcass. She had managed to get it away from Gally and hid it the only way she could without a game vest on.
He looked at her with wonder.
“So, did I do well?” He knew she was referring to trading the falcon off the kill.
“Like a master falconer,” he said, feeling his throat constrict, but smiling down on her as tenderly as he could.
“You know, duck season ended two days ago…” Sam tried to laugh but ended up choking. She grasped at his shirt in a panic.
“I’ve got you!” he cried. Pulling her even more upright seemed to help her find air, and he wrapped his arms around her.
The spasm passed and she lay limp but awake in his arms as he rocked her there for many minutes.
His voice was rough, muffled in her hair. “You’re sick, Sam. This is what you had to tell me, isn’t it?”
He leaned her back, cradled in his arm so he could see if she had understood his question. She was so pale, so vulnerable, but she was awake and gazing at him with the same expression of affection that had made him give his heart to her. She tried to smile and reached up a shaky hand to touch his face, locking her eyes onto his. Her voice was gone, but her lips mouthed the words, “Love you.”
Sam’s eyes closed.
“Baby girl, wake up. Stay with me,” he pleaded. It was no use. She was too weak and had lost consciousness again.
He crushed her to his chest. “I love you, too, Sam. I love you, too.”
A stark realization hit home for him: she was dying in his arms. He lifted her, falcon and all, with an energy he didn’t know he had and anguish rising from his soul. As he stumbled up the crumbled trail, he realized for the first time how tiny and vulnerable she was.
“Stay put, mister,” Hank said to Gally when he tried to bate from the strange moving perch he was riding on. His voice pulled the tiercel’s attention back to him, and Gally settled down again on Sam’s midsection. They were almost to the top. He willed his body up and over the crumbling edge and came to kneel down on top of the landing, where Mary Kate was waiting.
“Mary Kate, I need your arm,” he yelled, and she ran up.
He lay Sam down on the ground, supporting her back against him. Grabbing a finger of her glove with one hand and the cuff end with his other, he slid glove and falcon off her arm in one smooth movement. Mary Kate knew what to do and slid her arm into Sam’s glove. She lifted Gally up and away.
“Here,” he called as he pulled Gally’s hood and gear out of his vest and tossed it to her. She jessed and hooded the falcon and then fished around in her pocket for her cell phone.
“Oh, God, I can’t believe this is happening,” she said, tears falling down her face. Hank could hear her speaking to the 911 dispatcher as she walked away from him toward the coast highway. They would see her better if she was closer to the road to flag them down when they came.
Hank wrapped his arms around Sam and tried to wake her up again. She was still breathing, but it was impossible to rouse her.
“Stay with me, baby,” he whispered over and over into her hair as he rocked her in his arms.
Only a few days ago, his world had exploded with new life because of the love he had discovered with this beautiful, passionate woman. To see Sam smile at him, knowing he was the one she wanted, had become his reason to live. Now, it was all slipping away, and he was powerless to stop it. He wanted to scream but pulled his energy in and wrapped it around her as she lay there in his arms. He willed her to take strength from him in any way she could.
The paramedics and ambulance arrived as the sun shone its last light on the western shore. Their flashing lights illuminated the night sky in a surreal show of color that made no impression on Hank’s numbed senses. When the EMTs had pulled the stretcher next to them, they almost had to pry his hands off her so they could lay her down on it. He stumbled after them as they took her to the ambulance and transferred her to the gurney.
Mary Kate and he stood nearby in dumb silence while they began to work on Sam.
Listening to her chest with a stethoscope, one of the men said, “Her lungs sound full of fluid.” After opening her mouth and checking, he added, “There’s no obstruction.”
The EMT closest to the ambulance door turned to Hank. “Was she injured? Did she fall?”
Hank shook his head no.
The other technician put an oxygen mask on Sam and began an IV. “There’s no sign of trauma to the body—wait a minute,” he said, pulling at the tail of her shirt to reveal a patch of blood. They had already removed her coat.
“What’s this?”
“It’s from the duck” Hank said, his voice thick and remote.
“Excuse me?”
“She’s a falconer,” Hank said with a tinge of ire, as if they should understand something so elemental to the rest of them. He pointed to Gally, now hooded on Mary Kate’s arm. “The falcon took a duck, and she got some of the blood on her clothes when she took him off his kill.”
The man raised dubious eyebrows and then turned back to confer with his partner.
“There’s no external injury here,” said the other EMT, shaking his head. “Whatever’s going on is all internal.”
He began to cut Sam’s shirt open with a pair of scissors, baring her chest and bra, and Hank fought the urge to yank his hands away.
“Wait a minute,” said the man, reaching above Sam’s left breast and palpating the area in a circular pattern. It was the same place Sam had been so self-conscious of the night they had almost made love to each other. “We’ve got a port-a-cath here.”
The other technician turned to them. “Do either of you know which hospital she goes to for her therapy?”
Hank was lost but saw Mary Kate shake her head and turn away. His suspicions were aroused again and he frowned at her.
“Where does she live?” asked the man, trying to pursue the information from another angle.
“I’m calling Mercy General,” called his coworker from inside the ambulance. “I need her name. They’ll have it on the chemotherapy log if she goes to the oncology center there.”
“Chemotherapy?” Hank stared at Mary Kate, who covered her face with her hand and nodded.
But chemotherapy meant cancer. The facts began to fall into place so fast he felt downright dizzy. A burning anger made him turn Mary Kate aside and force her to meet his eyes.
“And you knew?”
Her voice grew quiet as she spoke. “I found out by accident last Saturday night at the meet. She was going to tell you today.”
He stepped back, unsure of anything until his eyes fell on Sam again, lying so pale and helpless in the back of the ambulance. It pulled him back toward her.
“I need her name,” called the technician on the phone.
“Sam…Samantha Leyton,” said Hank, feeling possessive even of her name.
“Where are you taking her?” he asked with as much control as he could muster.
“They’ve got a Samantha Leyton on the roll at Mercy,” called the other technician from inside, and then he said into the phone, “We’re on our way.”
The EMTs rolled into action, securing Sam. They turned to Hank. “Are you riding with us?”
He wanted to, but there was Gally, and Chance was still out in the weathering pen. He was on the edge of exploding, his face dark with feeling over the revelations he’d received and how helpless he’d become. He shook his head no, looked at Mary Kate, and said simply, “The birds.” With new determination, he said, “I’ll meet you there.” He
took Gally onto his own glove and peeled Sam’s glove off Mary Kate’s hand before he took off with long strides.
Flicking: The flinging of food by a sick raptor, unable to eat and thrive
Chapter Forty-One
The lights in the ICU waiting room were dim, a marked relief from the glaring fluorescents and bright linoleum floors of the emergency room. The setting was quiet and intimate. With its couches and easy chairs, it resembled someone’s living room. The stillness helped ease Hank’s jangled nerves, which had been strung tight for hours.
He sat forward, his head in his hands, lost in all this unreality. When he’d arrived at Mercy’s ER, it had been like pulling teeth to get any information on Sam’s whereabouts or condition. He was stunned how someone who had become so accessible and necessary to him could be out of reach and his anxious inquiries pushed aside for more immediate concerns. There was nothing he could do to assuage the fear that any moment someone would come out and tell him she was gone.
A kind nurse in the ER had taken Hank aside, attempting to answer his questions about port-a-caths and cancer and possible causes for Sam’s condition when he’d found her. It helped, and she was the one to come and find him when they moved Sam to surgery.
The nurse explained Sam had pneumonia and they were inserting chest tubes to drain the fluid. She directed him to the waiting room outside of ICU, where Sam would be headed after the procedure. The woman had been a blessing and he thanked her.
Mary Kate still had not shown up. The little woman had managed to chase him down back at his place before he could take off. She’d told him to go and she would put Chance and the falcon away and lock up.
Finally, in this dim, lamplit room, he had found some space to let the whirl of his thoughts settle down so he could try to make some sense of what had happened.
He remembered back to those momentous Scottish Games where they’d all met Sam. The first time he had laid eyes on her was when that wretched bird had bound itself to her hand. He had been one of the first to leap over an exhibit table and reach around to support her from behind in case she passed out from the shock. Even then she had fascinated him, although he didn’t realize it at the time. As painful as the experience was, her expression had been more amazement than horror that day.
She hadn’t seemed sick then or at the mini-meet. Quite the opposite, she’d been fired up with ambition and a desire to get a bird on her glove. Hank had to smile at the memory, although his heart ached. There was an unspoken code amongst most longtime falconers: make the newcomers prove they really want it. For some, it meant not returning phone calls until the third or fourth time or taking them out on a hunt and trying to gross them out by making them gut a jackrabbit on their own. Looking back now, he had wanted to see how she would react in the presence of another goshawk after that nasty footing and whether it would be enough to make her reconsider. And it was why he’d taken her with Mike to see his goshawk in action. But then, as now, he was beginning to see Sam for what she was: fearless.
It had been during her visit to his place when he realized he was falling for her. He remembered the misunderstanding that had made her angry and the attractive flush coloring her face as she stood, hands on hips, trying not to explode at him. It was also the first time he’d sensed something lost in her eyes. She had tried to hide it, but looked as if she were adrift in something challenging her hold on life and in desperate need of a safe harbor.
As he had many times before, he thought back to the night in his motel room. It still overwhelmed him to remember what it had felt like to touch her skin and to feel the shape of her body through the sexy little black dress. His rush of desire to possess her was a kind of passion that was more than physical, and it was more than anything he’d felt for a woman. She had tried to cover up the port-a-cath back then, now he thought about it, and that had been the point at which she had pushed him away.
He’d failed at long-term relationships over the years because he could never quite feel into any of them the way he could with his hawks. Sam, too, could do that with raptors—and with him. He had realized this the night they hood-trained Chance together in that crazy, animated room; during that exchange, he had felt the companion to his soul. It had decided his heart on her.
She was such a contrast to Tasha, who was a narcissistic user, taking and taking until he no longer knew who he was or what he wanted. There had been no concern for his heart with that woman, ever. Then came Sam with so much concern for how her secret might hurt him she had held him away from her even when her eyes told him how much she wanted him. He sat back with a deep, shuddering sigh, staring at the grey ceiling tiles above him.
Why the hell had she been so afraid to tell him? He tortured himself with the question again and again. Finally he had to stand up and walk about the room because there was nowhere else to channel this energy threatening to make him explode.
She’d seen him angry in the beginning, and it had upset her. But surely his anger alone wouldn’t have been enough to keep her from opening up to him about her disease.
Another person entered the room, and he turned with anxious expectation. It was only Mary Kate; he couldn’t hide the disappointment from his eyes. He’d been hoping for a doctor or nurse, anyone with some information.
“Just me, Hank,” she said, hurt showing in her eyes.
He realized how short and insensitive he’d been to her because of his blind panic over losing Sam, and he felt like a heel.
“Come here,” he said, and put his arms around her. “I’m sorry, Mary Kate. You’ve been a good friend to both of us, and I’ve been a real shit.”
They both sat down. He filled her in on what little he knew, and then they sat in silence: there was nothing else to do but wait.
Hank broke the silence with a question. “Why was she afraid to tell me?”
She turned to him with compassion. “She was afraid you’d pull her permit and take Chance away.”
Hank colored but clamped down tight on his reaction.
“But she was also afraid you’d send her away. She hadn’t planned on this happening between you two, but it did. It killed her to think of hurting you. That’s why she asked me to come out today, to be there for you—not her. You and I are friends, and she didn’t want you to be alone if you sent her packing like you did Tasha.”
Hank leaned forward again, rubbing his face in his worn hands. The words felt like brutal punches to his gut, and he couldn’t say anything without risking an explosion.
Had he been that bad? Had she honestly thought he’d want to hurt her? His Sam with her scruples, who refused to make love to him without him knowing everything about her, would take his heart only on honest terms. No wonder she went searching for Gally on her own. She had wanted to tell him about her sickness today, even though she felt there was a risk of losing him. Yet she couldn’t do it if he’d lost his falcon. When he’d held her in his arms on the beach, her body so frail and with no strength or voice left, she had mouthed the words he’d been longing to hear from her but she hadn’t been able say until he knew her secret.
“She didn’t want to be another Tasha in your life,” said Mary Kate.
Hank sat up and shook his head. “There’s no way I’d ever see her like that.”
“Would you have taken her on as an apprentice if you had known?”
Hank stood and walked around the room for a moment, then shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know.” Would he have fallen in love with her? How could he not have?
The door to ICU opened, making Hank turn and Mary Kate rise to stand beside him. A doctor in a white coat peered into the room and stepped inside when he saw them.
“Are you here with Sam Leyton?” he asked.
They both nodded.
“Have either of you spoken with her son, Jason?”
Hank frowned and shook his head. He wanted information and now.
The doctor seemed to sense this and walked in, inviting them to sit down with him.
<
br /> He looked at Hank first, then at Mary Kate. “Are either of you family?”
Hank flushed in frustration and shook his head, but Mary Kate came to the rescue.
“We’re friends. We were with her when she collapsed.” Mary Kate gestured to Hank. “Hank’s her…” she paused for the right word, “boyfriend.”
Hank raised his face with an incredulous look, not at the reference to his relationship with Sam, but at the ridiculous juvenile nature of the word that seemed to be the only one fit to describe his connection to her.
The doctor smiled understanding. “You’re her partner.”
Hank nodded, giving Mary Kate a scowl.
The doctor read through the chart in his hand. “Only Jason is listed as an emergency contact and family member.” He checked with Hank to verify what they were telling him was so.
“We’re…new.” It was the only way Hank could think to clarify things.
The doctor nodded and smiled. “I’m Dr. Franco, Sam’s oncologist. She sees me to treat her cancer.
“I spoke with Jason a moment ago, and he’s on his way in from Chicago. He was on a trip to visit his father, but he should fly in sometime tomorrow morning.”
“How is she doing?” Hank asked, unable to stay silent any longer.
Dr. Franco folded his hands as he talked, leaning in as if to try to help them understand the situation.
“Her tests show the cancer is not spreading. That’s good news. It means the chemotherapy is working so far.”
He glanced up at Hank, and his expression told Hank the next part was the problem.
“She’s a very sick woman, right now. Chemo drugs can have side effects, predisposing a person to getting sick in other ways.”
“Like anemia?” Mary Kate asked.
“Exactly,” he said, giving her an understanding smile. “It can also decrease the body’s ability to fight off infection. You or I can get a common cold or the flu, and our bodies use certain blood cells to fight off the infection. If it’s a bacterial infection and not a viral one, taking antibiotics will also help fight the infection and work to make you well again.”