by Dorie Graham
I’d rather spend a day being sick with you than spend another minute in this hell without you.
If only she could be sure she wouldn’t cause him any harm, she’d drop everything to rush to his side. Her stomach tightened at the thought of him facing the surgery. At least he had his family with him.
Stacey, Jack’s younger sister, was just sixteen when she started having problems. They did open-heart, but she didn’t make it.
A shiver of fear raced through Erin. What would she do if he didn’t make it?
What if being with you now is his best shot at fully recovering?
She pushed back her chair. What if he really needed her? Should she go to the hospital? “I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.”
Her frustration building, she grabbed her purse, then headed out the door. She at least had to find out how he was doing. She didn’t have to see him, but she could go to the hospital and wait for news along with the rest of them.
A cool gust hit her as she exited the building. A man waved to her as she crossed the street to her car. He moved nearer and a rush of recognition hit her. “Ryan!”
Smiling broadly, he rushed up to her, his eyes shining, the perfect picture of health. “Erin McClellan, you are a sight for sore eyes.”
“I could say the same for you.” She threw her arms around him and hugged him tight.
A sound of satisfaction rose from him and he held her close for a long moment before she pulled back smiling. His entire demeanor shone. Surely he’d have good news to report, as well, then she’d know it would probably be safe to visit Jack. “You look a whole lot better than the last time I saw you.”
He groaned and clutched his stomach. “The agony, the humiliation. What a way to impress a woman.”
“You didn’t need to impress me. You had already done that.”
“You certainly impressed the hell out of me. I’ve never experienced anything like that. I felt like I’d hit the lottery when I got your message.
“I would have called you sooner, but I’ve been out of town and didn’t check voice mail until I got back this morning,” he explained. “I was going to call you back, but I was right around the corner, so I figured I’d just pop over. Looks like I just caught you.”
“You did. I’m headed to the hospital to see a friend who’s having surgery. I called you to see how you’re doing.”
“Really?” His eyes brightened. “After what happened, I didn’t think you’d ever want anything to do with me. When I left your place that day I felt like a dog running off with my tail between my legs.
“Man, it was bad. I have never been sick like that,” he said. “Then I woke up that next morning and I had broken this major sweat and the puking and all that was gone like it had never happened.
“I felt…invincible. For days it was like I kept reliving how it was when we were, you know, getting it on. Really strange, but I couldn’t get you out of my mind and I felt like I was reborn or something. I sound like the biggest ass, but, Erin, that whole experience with you, even though those were some of the most wretched days of my life, it was also the coolest, the most spiritual time.” He laughed.
“Okay, I’m talking like a geek, but it’s the honest-to-God truth. And I wanted to call you months ago, but then I met this girl. We’re actually talking about hitching up. It’s incredible. I’ve never felt better about my life. She’s an angel, and I know this is going to sound strange, but I could never have gotten with her if I hadn’t been with you first and gone through all that.
“Sounds bizarre and I guess it is, but there you are. That’s how I’ve been.”
“I’m so glad to hear everything is going so well for you, Ryan. Thanks. I needed to hear that.”
He shrugged. “Is that all you need? I feel so indebted to you. If there’s anything else I can do for you, you call me and I’m here.”
“Thank you.” She went up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “You’ve made my day.”
He touched his cheek, his eyes wide. “You’ve got the magic. It’s all in your touch.”
She cocked her head and, for the first time in ages, laughter bubbled up inside her.
15
COMFORT, WARMTH AND LIGHT. Jack drifted in a place of peace. Something—a feeling—tugged at him, and he tried to focus on it, but it broke apart and dissipated like fog. He drifted again and the feeling—longing—pulled at him. He moved away from it, back into the peaceful oblivion of light and air, but the longing found him and filled him. Darkness surrounded him.
Need and want, aching want. He reached into the ether to fill the emptiness, reached for someone—a woman who wasn’t there. The memory of her shimmered before him, her form just beyond his grasp, her face and name eluding him. The ache became despair.
Grief welled up inside him, consuming him in its intensity. Pain radiated from his chest outward in a deep, dull ache that penetrated beyond his body, his mind, into his essence. He sought the blessed oblivion, but like the woman, it escaped him, and his thoughts took form. He surfaced into glimpses of memory.
For an instant her image cleared before him, her face radiant, her arms open to him. A sense of well-being flowed over him and her love, strong and powerful, filled him to overflowing.
He was complete.
Then she disappeared, and along with her, the peace and the love. He reached for her but touched only emptiness as the ache returned to his chest, pressing into him with an oppressive heaviness. Her face flashed before him one last time.
Erin.
“Jack? Honey, can you hear me? I think he’s coming to. Did you see he moved?” A woman’s voice, so familiar.
“He came out of the anesthesia okay earlier, but he’s still pretty sedated, but he is coming around. His pulse is steady and holding. His blood pressure’s not bad. Like I said, the surgery took a little longer than I’d anticipated, but overall he looks good. I’ll be back to check on him in a few hours.”
The doctor. That was his doctor. Dr…
“You want me to get you some coffee or something to drink?” a man’s voice said, again hauntingly familiar.
“No, I’m fine, Bobby.”
Bobby, his brother, and the woman was his mother. Jack struggled to open his eyes, but his eyelids had never felt this heavy. And he was so tired.
Erin.
He tried to say her name, but his mouth wouldn’t move as the fog again closed in around him.
“ERIN, WHY DON’T YOU GO home and get some rest?” Jack’s aunt Rose shuffled through a pile of magazines on a small side table in the hospital waiting room.
Erin yawned and looked at her watch. It was well past midnight. “I can’t leave. I want to be here when he wakes up.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be anytime tonight,” Bobby said as he drew near. “He started to come around just a little while ago, but he never really woke up all the way. The nurse said he’d probably sleep through the night.” He pursed his lips. “They’re going to keep him in ICU for a while. Even if he did wake up, you wouldn’t be able to see him.”
Rose stood and stretched. “Come on, Erin, I’ll walk you out. I know that sister of mine and she won’t leave his side. I need a good night’s sleep.” She turned to Bobby. “Are you coming?”
“I’ll hang out with Mom and Jack for a bit.” He turned to Erin. “We’ll call you tomorrow when he wakes up.”
Rose pulled her car keys from her bag and glanced questioningly at Erin. She stood slowly, her muscles aching from sitting so long. “Please tell Jack I’ll be waiting to hear from him,” she said to Bobby.
“I will. I promise. I’m sure you’ll be the first one he asks for.”
Erin shivered as she reached her car and waved good-night to Rose. She glanced at the hospital and a sense of unease filled her. She slid into the driver’s seat and gripped the wheel. Jack would be okay.
He had to be.
“YOU HAVEN’T SEEN HIM YET?” Nikki gazed at Tess, her eyes filled with con
cern.
They sat on Erin’s bed. Her normal bed in her normal room in her pitifully normal apartment. After two days of pacing the length of her living room and jumping every time her phone rang, she’d broken down when Nikki called to check on her and begged her to come over.
“He’s been in intensive care. Now it seems he’s developed an infection. He started running a fever yesterday.” Erin scrunched her pillow close to her chest. “I keep telling myself he’ll be fine, but I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I’m sick with worry.”
“Have you talked to Mason? Maybe he can give Jack’s cardiologist a call.”
“I’ve been staying off the phone. Bobby promised he’d call if there was any change in Jack’s condition.” She rocked, still holding the pillow. “I just can’t stand it. Another day of this and I think I might snap.”
“I’ll talk to Mason for you. Maybe he can write you a prescription for something to help you relax. You need to sleep, Erin. When Jack’s out of ICU, he’s going to need you.”
“He was so weak when I last saw him. He needed me and I left him.” Her throat burned. “I was so afraid I’d make him sick again. I couldn’t risk it.”
“No, of course you couldn’t, but now you know you really have the gift. Eventually when he recovers enough, you’ll be able to be with him again and you’ll know that there’s no better medicine.”
Erin brushed a stray tear from her cheek. “I’d like to believe that.”
“Even with all those testimonials you’re not ready to embrace the McClellan in you?”
“You mean the gift.” Erin shook her head. “It’s not so easy after all this time. I might not be able to deny I have it anymore, but accepting it might take me some time.”
She paused a long moment. “I don’t know how I feel about how Jack sought me out for my gift and how he never said a word about it. It really hurts, you know?”
“But it’s hard to blame him. Would you have done any different if you were him?”
“Maybe it’s good that I can’t see him right now,” Erin said.
Nikki nodded. “It all takes getting used to. I wasn’t all that thrilled when I learned about the gift. Your gift sends men running for the bathroom. Mine sent them running from my bed. I know how you feel. It took me a while to accept it, too.”
“It sounds crazy, given all that and that I’ve known him for such a short time, but the one thing I can’t deny is that I love him, Nikki. I love him with all my heart.”
“Then he should pull through just fine. He already has the best medicine of all.”
A SOFT RUSTLING SOUNDED in the darkness. Jack startled awake, straining to see in the dim light filtering through the window of his hospital room. The weight on his chest still pressed down on him, and the fatigue and fever plagued him. He squinted. A shape loomed from the shadows near the door.
“Bobby? Is that you?” he asked.
His brother moved into the patch of moonlight falling through the window. He motioned with his finger to his lips, then whispered, “I’ve smuggled you in a surprise. Thought this might boost your spirits.”
Erin stepped from the shadows. She stood for a moment, her hands clasped over her chest. “Hi, Jack.”
He turned his head, unease and regret filling him. “I’m a mess. I don’t want you to see me like this.”
“You look beautiful to me.” She moved beside him. Her cool hand touched his cheek.
“I’ll leave you two,” Bobby said, then slipped into the shadows. The door scraped and light fell around the opening as he exited, then the shadows again covered them.
Erin moved toward the head of the bed. “Should I turn on a light?”
“No. I like the dark.”
“Okay.” The bed rail made a soft squealing sound, then her weight shifted the mattress as she sat beside him. “I’ve been so worried about you.”
She had come to him. Where was the joy? The real-life woman of his dreams had come to him at long last, but the despair still yawned before him.
Her presence pained him. How could Bobby have brought her here when Jack was like this—half a man with no strength to even reach for her hand?
“I’ve been thinking about you,” he said. “All this time I’ve had to lie here and stare at the ceiling. I’ve been so selfish. That day in your shop, I should have told you right away how I’d tracked you down and why. Amanda had some friend of a friend of a friend or something and he knew a guy who knew one of your sisters.
“She’d healed him. Some lung problem, I think it was. There one minute, gone the next,” he said. “I couldn’t believe such things existed. Sexual healing. What a concept.”
He shook his head. “I’m some piece of work. I’m all busted up and broken inside. Have this bum valve. And what do I do? I decide to find myself a sexual healer to fix it for me.
“Only the healer I find doesn’t want anything to do with the old family gift. Does that stop me? Of course not. I sleep with her anyway. I sleep with her a lot, like some animal that can’t keep his dick in his pants. What kind of guy would do such a thing?”
“That isn’t how it was.”
“Wasn’t it? How can you care? How can you worry about me after I used you the way I did? And where did it land me?” A hoarse laugh tore from his throat.
“Jack, don’t. You’re not yourself.” Her voice trembled.
“How would you know? It’s not like we had many deep conversations while we were in the middle of screwing each other’s brains out. What do you really know about me? Not a whole hell of a lot.”
He was tired, so tired and sick of himself. She shouldn’t see him like this. He didn’t deserve her. He never had. “I’m so sorry, Erin. I should have stayed the hell away from you.”
“No, that’s not true.” Her hand again touched his face. The magic flowed from her almost instantly.
“Don’t touch me.” He jerked away. He didn’t deserve her touch.
“You’re burning up.”
Of course he was. He was in hell. He shouldn’t be here. Guilt consumed him. He should have died on that operating table.
The ache inside him grew, burning his throat, stinging his eyes. He turned from her as much as the damn IV and whatever other crap they had him hooked to would let him. His throat felt raw, his nerves on edge as if he might laugh or cry at any given moment.
He couldn’t bear another minute with her beside him. “Go. Please leave me.”
She hesitated, then her weight shifted. “Let me hold you.”
“No, don’t. Just leave me.” What would drive her from him? “I feel sick, like I might vomit again.”
“Should I get a nurse?” Distress filled her voice.
“Just…go. I don’t want you here.”
She was silent a long moment and when she spoke, her throat was tight, her words shaky as if she’d been crying. “Okay, I’ll go, but please call me when you’re ready to see me.”
He didn’t answer her, just lay there wrapped in misery. Her weight lifted off the bed. The bed rail made that faint squeal. A moment later the light appeared around the door.
Then all went dark and he was alone. Alone and wretched. It was all he deserved.
He shouldn’t have been the one to survive.
HONEY CAKES AND TEA WERE Aunt Sophie’s answer to every misery visited on mankind. Erin stared at the untouched plate her aunt had left on the patio table beside her. A chill passed through her. She zipped her sweat jacket closed.
Thanksgiving loomed just around the corner, but she could find little to be thankful for. Bobby’s latest reports said Jack was improving. His fever had abated but still lingered. She shivered. The temperature had dipped into the fifties, not too cold compared to what the rest of the country was experiencing, but she hadn’t been able to escape the cold that had filled her that night Bobby had snuck her into the ICU.
Just…go. I don’t want you here.
She blinked back the tears that stood ready to blur her vision. She
’d cried herself into a dreamless sleep that night, then woken feeling raw and exhausted. She’d been walking around in a daze ever since, ignoring work, letting her apartment go.
Her cell phone rang. She jumped as it vibrated in her pocket, then scrambled to answer it. “Erin McClellan.”
“Erin, it’s Bobby.”
His voice held a heaviness that couldn’t mean good news. “Bobby, what is it? How’s Jack?”
“His fever broke the other day. They moved him to a regular room. His blood count looks good. The infection has cleared. His vital signs are all stable.”
She let out her breath. “Thank God. Are they releasing him?”
“Sometime today. We’re taking him to Mom’s. She and Aunt Rose want to fuss over him while he recovers. I’ll check on them regularly and I’ll be only fifteen minutes away if they need me.”
“That’s great. I’m so glad he has all of you. When do you think I can see him?”
A long silence stretched across the line and her stomach tightened. Finally Bobby cleared his throat. “He doesn’t want to see you.”
“Oh.” The cold pressed to her bones. “I see.”
“He’s not himself, Erin. He’s…I don’t know, it’s like he’s given up, like he doesn’t want to be here anymore.”
Fear laced Bobby’s words. Aunt Sophie’s backyard blurred. Erin’s throat ached. She nodded, unable to speak.
“We’re not sure what to do with him. His doctor has recommended counseling, but Jack refuses.” Bobby said.
Oh, Jack. She closed her eyes. What could she do? Would accepting her gift help him? Not if he wouldn’t see her. “I’ll send my prayers.”
“Yeah, he needs them.”
“You hang in there, Bobby. Stand strong for all of them. If you need me for anything, please don’t hesitate to call. He’ll make it through this.” Desperation tinged her words.
“Thanks. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”
“Okay.” She hung up, then sat hugging herself, fighting back the tears.
Laughter sounded from around a corner. Maggie and Thomas strode into the yard, hand in hand, wrapped in a joy all their own. He stopped and pulled her to him, then he kissed her, burying his hand in her hair while she looped her arms around his neck and pressed her body close.