Recalled

by Cambria Hebert

  “Dex!” I tried to call, but I got a mouth full of water that I had to spit out. “Dex!” I called again. This time my voice was stronger.

  Finally I caught sight of him. He was still in the same place he had been when I fell and I wondered why he was still standing there. It felt like I’d been fighting this water for hours.

  The rational part of me knew it probably had been only a minute, but when the water was this cold minutes might be all I had.

  I glanced at him again as I struggled to stay afloat, my arms straining under the weight of my layers, and he had the strangest look on his face. Almost like resolve. Almost like he was watching something he didn’t quite like but was still going to do nothing about it.

  I heard another jagged cracking sound and then Dex was gone—my only hope of survival swimming with the ice as well.

  In that moment my arms stopped cooperating and my thoughts became sluggish. It became harder and harder to stay afloat and I felt myself sinking… sinking down into the depths of a frozen world. A world where nothing would be warm again.

  Chapter Forty-One

  “Drown- To kill by submerging and suffocating in water or another liquid.”

  Dex

  I spent a lot of time in medical facilities these days. It seemed ironic that, since making a deal to essentially give me a life, I’ve done nothing but get into freak accidents and almost die.

  I was beginning to wonder about that…

  The door to my room opened and a man wearing a white coat came in. “Ah, you’re awake.”

  I nodded, pushing myself into a sitting position. I had about ten blankets piled on me so it took a minute.

  “Your body experienced an extreme cold shock. We estimate your time in the water at about four to five minutes. You were lucky to get out quickly and it likely saved your life. Your thinking may be unclear for the rest of the day, but that is normal. Sometimes after a shock like this your brain can be slow to work. That’s normal and no cause for alarm.”

  I nodded again, looking around the room and wondering where Piper was. Then I remembered letting go of her hand and watching her slide slowly back into the water…

  “How are you feeling?” the doctor asked. “Are you warm enough? Do you have feeling in your extremities?”

  I nodded. “I think so. I feel fine.”

  He proceeded to check my fingers and toes and check my core temperature. Everything looked good because he called the nurse to get me some forms to fill out before I could be released.

  “I want to see Piper,” I said before he could leave the room.

  “Of course,” the doctor replied. “I was just going to her room next. Give me a few moments and then you can see her. She’s right across the hall.”

  “She has her own room?” I asked, making sure I heard him right.

  The doctor nodded. “Your clothes are over there. The nurses had them dried for you.”

  I came so close to killing her. But as she was sliding back into the glacial water she moaned. She was awake. I couldn’t let her go back into that dark, lonely water. I couldn’t let it swallow her whole.

  I had been in there. I knew what it was like. How could I sentence her to a death as horrible as that? And so I grabbed her, I pulled her free, and then I raced down the mountain with her in my lap. She made no more sounds and her lips and face had long turned blue. From the dead weight of her body against mine, I truly thought she was dead.

  The last thing I remembered was waving down a patrol vehicle and them rushing to help. Then I passed out. When I asked to see Piper just now, I thought I’d be visiting the morgue. I thought I’d only be seeing her body.

  But she was alive.

  “How long have we been here?” I glanced around for the clock.

  “It’s late morning. You were here all night. Bringing the core temperature back to stable levels can take time. But you both look great.” He smiled. “You were very lucky.”

  I nodded as he let himself out the door. Funny, I hadn’t felt good that my job was finally complete. I hadn’t felt any kind of elation.

  I told myself that was because I’d been half frozen as well. I could hardly call G.R. and announce a job well done when I was ready to pass out.

  And knowing she was alive, I was disappointed. Wasn’t I?

  I threw off the fifty blankets and began dressing. Halfway through putting on my layers, the nurse brought in a million and one forms for me to fill out as well as my release papers. She looked alarmed when I told her I had no insurance. But when I slapped my credit card into her palm, she seemed a little less frazzled.

  “I’m taking care of the woman I was brought in with too,” I said, not overthinking my need to make sure Piper was taken care of.

  “Sir, are you sure?” the nurse began. “The bill…”

  “The card will go through. Don’t worry about it,” I snapped.

  That shut her up and she went on her way. I finished dressing and shoved my feet into a new pair of boots. They weren’t the ones I’d been wearing. I had no clue what happened to them. I had no clue where these came from, but I didn’t really care.

  I did, however, miss my glasses with their thick, black frames. Having blurry vision wasn’t fun. Because I could barely see the forms, I only filled out two and made sure to sign the release. Something told me they didn’t care about their records, only the payment.

  I left the clipboard on the bed and went across the hall to Piper’s room. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, partially dressed in jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and socks. She had an oxygen mask up against her mouth and nose. I pushed down the funny feeling I got in my stomach as I shut the door behind me.

  “Are you having trouble breathing?” I asked.

  She pulled the mask down and shook her head. “I was when they brought me in. My lungs were too cold to breathe right. This is just warm, humidified oxygen they’ve been giving me to help bring up my body temperature. The doctor wanted me to take a few more breaths before releasing me, just to be on the safe side.”

  “How are you?” I asked, coming to stand beside her.

  “I’m fine,” she said, hooking the mask near the machine. “That was pretty scary.”

  Her voice dropped on the last part and something inside me squeezed. “Yeah. I didn’t realize we were on a lake. There was no sign.”

  She nodded. “The patrolman said it got pushed over by the snow and then buried.”

  “The patrolman?”

  She nodded again. “He came to visit me earlier this morning, to see if I was okay.”

  He hadn’t come to my room, which told me he wasn’t just worried about her health; he wanted to see her. Maybe cash in on the fact he saved her life…

  She was watching me so I nodded and stepped toward the chair on the other side of the room. I didn’t have any reason to feel jealous. If I wasn’t trying to kill her, I wouldn’t be spending this much time with her anyway. Besides, she wasn’t my type.

  And she’s too good for you, something whispered in the back of my mind.

  It was true. Even if I wasn’t trying to kill her, I still wouldn’t be good enough.

  “So, they said we could go. You feeling up to leaving?” I asked.

  “Yes, please. I go on vacation to get away from work and I end up in a clinic just like the one I was trying to get away from.” She shook her head and smiled.

  “Why aren’t you mad at me?” I blurted out.

  She stopped in the middle of pulling on her sweatshirt and looked at me. “Why would I be mad at you?”

  Because I stood there and debated if I should let you drown. Because the only reason I pulled you out was because I figured you would die on the way down the mountain.

  I didn’t say those thoughts out loud, though. Instead, I replied, “Because I was driving recklessly.”

  She finished pulling on her sweatshirt and pushed her feet into a pair of boots.

  “If it wasn’t for you, I probably would’ve d
ied. You saved my life.”

  I held back a wince. Thank God Charming and G.R. weren’t around to hear that. I’d probably be recalled on the spot. “I don’t think it was me. It was the patrolman.”

  “He did warm me and give me CPR,” she began.

  No, he just wanted to cop a feel. I thought bitterly as she continued.

  “But the doctor said the only reason we’re alive is because you pulled us out of the water so fast.”

  “I got lucky,” I mumbled, hoping she’d been so out of it she hadn’t seen who really pulled us out.

  “You can call it luck,” she said, “but I’m going to say it was your quick thinking.”

  I didn’t argue. If she wanted to believe I was the hero I wasn’t going to stop her. It only added to the trust between us so the next time I tried to kill her it would work.

  I was running out of chances.

  I was running out of time.

  “The cabin isn’t far from here. The nurse called someone from the rental place to give us a ride back there,” Piper said, not picking up my preoccupation.

  I nodded. “You need to drive home. I lost my glasses.”

  “We can stop and get some new ones,” she offered.

  “I have an extra pair at home.”

  “Oh. Good. Well, then, let’s get out of here,”

  Suddenly I wasn’t in a hurry to get home. Charming would be waiting and Grim would be wondering why he never got a call to come see the body.

  I had a very bad feeling it was going to be a very long day.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  “Suspicious - openly distrustful and unwilling to confide.”

  Piper

  Dex was being very quiet. Since we got in the car and headed back toward Fairbanks, he’d barely spoken two words. When I tried to talk he would just nod his head or turn up the radio. It’s like he couldn’t even look at me.

  Normally his silence wouldn’t bother me. Dex wasn’t really a talkative kind of guy. He didn’t talk just to talk, but this time his silence was different. It was sort of charged and uncomfortable.

  “Almost drowning was pretty scary, huh?” I said, not looking at him, keeping my eyes on the road. The way he acted earlier at the hospital, thinking I would be mad at him and mumbling his responses when I spoke, he probably thought I blamed him. What a horrible experience it was, and I think I got lucky. Lucky because I passed out; I couldn’t remember everything. But him… He was awake the whole time. He lived the entire horror of it.

  “It wasn’t fun,” he said, his voice low.

  I was shocked he actually replied at all so I wanted to keep the conversation going.

  “I told you I don’t blame you. You believe me, right?”

  “Yeah,” he said, his voice almost sad. “Yeah, I believe you.” He still didn’t look at me when he spoke.

  I drove on in silence, not sure what else to say. If he knew I didn’t blame him and he knew that we were both okay, then why was he still acting so broody?

  My thoughts were swirling so much I almost didn’t hear what he said next. “Maybe you should.”

  I looked over at him. “What?”

  “Forget it.” He shook his head and stared out his window.

  “I won’t forget it. Why would you think I should blame you for something you had no control over?”

  “Because you almost died!” he yelled, his voice echoing through the quiet car.

  My hands tightened on the steering wheel. Was that what this was about? Was he this upset that I almost died?

  “But I didn’t,” I said quietly.

  “I thought you had. When we were on the mountain, I thought…”

  I felt a rush of emotion. I don’t know if it was from him or from me or a combination of us both, but it was intense and it filled the tiny space of the car and pressed in on me. Impulsively, I pulled the car over to the side of the highway, putting it in park but leaving the engine on.

  He didn’t react to the fact we were sitting along the road; he didn’t even look at me.

  I took a chance, turning toward him and reaching out, laying my hand on his arm. “Dex?” I whispered.

  He flinched.

  I pulled my hand away.

  “I didn’t die,” I said again. “I’m still here.”

  And then he was turning, his arms reaching, and I was pulled against him. He tucked my cheek in the crook of his neck and one arm wound around my back while the other pressed my head into his shoulder. I could hear the thundering of his heart; it sounded like a herd of wild horses running through an open field.

  “When the doctor said… when he said you were across the hall… I realized you weren’t dead and I… God help me, I was so relieved.”

  His chest rose and fell with his breath and with his emotion. He almost sounded ashamed that he felt relief.

  “It’s okay,” I told him, my voice muffled against his neck.

  “No,” he said. “It’s not.” Then he pulled me back, took my face in both hands, and penetrated me with his green stare. “I don’t know what to do.”

  His voice carried so much I didn’t understand. “Do about what?”

  “You.”

  I felt like we weren’t talking about almost drowning anymore. The conversation took a turn, but I had no idea where. I covered his hand with one of mine and whispered, “You don’t have to do anything about me.”

  His thumb stroked over my cheek and then slowly he pulled his hands away. My fingers curled around his and our hands rested on the center console between us.

  “We should probably get going,” he said.

  I could feel him withdrawing again.

  “Why are you acting this way?” I asked, desperately wanting to know, to pull him back.

  “You said it yourself,” he answered, untangling our fingers. “I’m like two different people sometimes. Maybe this is just a side you haven’t seen before.”

  I shook my head and looked at him for long moments, frustrated. Those few moments when I felt the wall between us slip away were gone; his guard was back up and he wasn’t going to let me in. I sighed and turned back to sit straight in the driver’s seat. After checking the mirrors for traffic I pulled back out onto the road. We didn’t speak any more, but this time I barely noticed the silence. I was too busy thinking.

  There was something going on that I didn’t know about.

  But what?

  I thought back to the man standing in the window at his townhouse and the feeling Dex was running away from something. Maybe now that we were going home, he was worried about whatever was waiting for him.

  But that still didn’t explain what just happened between us. He implied that whatever was going on had to do with me. He said he didn’t know what to do about me. He acted as if he were caught. Caught between something or someone and he didn’t know a way out.

  I glanced away from the road once more. He was staring out his window, watching the scenery pass. Both his hands were in his lap and his jaw was set.

  I wouldn’t get any more answers. Not today.

  But I would get them.

  He might not want to admit it, but there were feelings between us. Strong ones. But there was also more going on here. Something other than just feelings, and the farther I drove, the more suspicious I became.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  “Rule - An authoritative, prescribed direction for conduct, especially one of the regulations governing procedure in a legislative body or a regulation observed by the players in a game, sport, or contest.”

  Dex

  I knew Hobbs wouldn’t be home when I got there. As I pulled into the garage, I hoped Charming wouldn’t be either. I didn’t know what kind of car he drove, but there wasn’t one in the driveway so I took that as a good sign. He didn’t know when I was coming home so maybe he wouldn’t be here and maybe I’d get lucky and could avoid him the rest of the day. I knew eventually I would see him, and since I didn’t kill Piper, I knew there was probably goi
ng to be a fight between us.

  The first thing I did when I entered the townhouse was go upstairs and put on my spare pair of glasses. I breathed a sigh of relief when my vision cleared. Thankfully, the trip between my house and Piper’s hadn’t been too long and since I knew the roads, I didn’t have any problems.