But the monitor, the damnable EKG monitor kept beeping and beeping until his skull reverberated with obnoxious noise. Disconnecting the thing would only result in a piercing death wail that would scramble every nurse on the floor. That was the last thing he needed. If he could just turn off the audible alarm switch—
He twisted against the pillows, swore under his breath. Even in the darkened room he could tell the monitor controls were out of his reach. A small cabinet lamp and light spraying through the open doorway provided the private room’s only illumination. Still, the monitor was only a few short feet away.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
It was driving him stark raving mad.
Panting with effort, Samuel eased back the covers, paused to catch his breath. Oxygen blew softly from a flexible tube positioned beneath his nostrils, gave him strength. Two steps, two flimsy little steps and he could silence the dratted machine, clear his groggy mind.
He shifted painfully, hung an ankle over the edge of the mattress.
“Going somewhere?”
The voice was familiar, but the crooked stance of a slender silhouette looming in the doorway was not. The shadowy figure dipped low on one side, as if leaning askew. Samuel squinted at it, felt the hairs on his nape prickle.
The figure shifted, chuckled, moved awkwardly into the room with a peculiar thunk-swish sound. “I told the floor nurse not to turn her back on you. She seemed to think you were sick enough to be docile.” Thunk-swish. “Even nurses are wrong once in a while.”
Shallow breath backed up in Samuel’s clogged lungs. He wheezed, fell back against the pillows, gasping.
“Easy, my man.” The voice softened. Samuel felt his dangling foot being eased back onto the mattress. “You’re not ready to run a marathon yet.” Thunk-swish, thunk-swish. A shadow fell across the lighted monitor, and the abominable beeping stopped. “That what you had in mind?” Another soft chuckle. “You always were an impatient sort.”
Samuel swallowed, licked his lips. “Drake.”
“You sound surprised.” He pulled a chair beside the bed, hooked a walking cane over the backrest. As he gingerly lowered himself into the chair, light from the cabinet lamp reflected from a ruffled shock of fiery hair, illuminated a pale, freckle-studded face.
Drake grimaced with the effort, then relaxed, gave the familiar crooked smile that haunted Samuel’s dreams. “I’m not a ghost. You can pinch me if you want. Of course, I’ll be forced to retaliate just like when we were kids, so it might be kind of difficult to explain how you got a black eye lying in a hospital bed—”
“You’re walking.”
He cocked his head. “I told you I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair.”
“After the surgery—” Samuel drew a tortured breath “—I heard the doctors. They said—”
“I know what they said.” Drake shifted, turned his entire upper torso, skewered Samuel with a look. “They were wrong. You just didn’t hang around long enough to figure that out.”
Samuel rolled face away to avoid his friend’s reproving stare. “Couldn’t face you.”
“Why?” The shock in Drake’s voice brought Samuel’s head back around. “What does any of this have to do with you?”
“What does—?” Samuel moistened his lips, sucked a wheezing breath. “My fault.”
“Your fault?” The chair scuffed as Drake stiffly changed position. “How in hell do you figure you’re responsible for the worst flood in two decades and a damned runaway log?”
“If I hadn’t...dropped the harness—” Samuel moaned, coughed, fell back panting.
A strong hand gripped his arm. “If you hadn’t dropped the harness that little girl would have died. You saved her life, Sam-man.”
Samuel’s lungs were on fire. “You saved mine.”
“So what? You’d have done the same.”
True enough, but beside the point.
“By the way,” Drake added cheerfully, “you owe me seventy-five bucks. I know the bet was only fifty, but when I went to collect, you’d already skipped out so the rest is for sheer aggravation. Better yet, make it an even hundred.”
The bet in question, whether or not Drake would be on his feet by Christmas, was made under duress and before the surgery which from Samuel’s perspective had crushed all hope that his friend would ever walk again.
But he was walking.
Even as Samuel’s eyes stung with moist gratitude, he wondered if this was some kind of cruel dream. “I don’t understand. The doctors—” he paused, took several shallow breaths “—I heard them. Fractured spine, fused vertebrae.” Another pause, another shallow breath. “Disk damage, nerve damage, possible spinal—” pause, gasp “—cord separation.”
Drake nodded slowly. “All true. That’s why I get to wear this nifty back brace, and use this really cool cane. JoAnn’s kids think it’s pretty awesome. They call me their bionic buddy.”
“JoAnn?”
“JoAnn Martin, my physical therapist. She’s a sadistic beast who gets off on howls of agony and firmly believes the word can’t should be banned from the English language.” A telling flush stained Drake’s freckled cheeks. “We’re, ah, getting married in June. Want to be my best man? Assuming your lazy butt is out of bed by then.”
“Married?” Samuel was certain he’d misheard. “You?”
“Why not me?” Drake asked, seeming stung. “There’s uglier men in the world. Some walk even funnier than I do.”
“You always said—” Samuel bit off the thought.
Drake finished it for him. “I always said I was married to my job.” He shrugged, cast a sad glance into thin air. “Just because the job divorced me doesn’t mean my life has to come to a screeching halt. Stuff happens, y’know? It was an amicable parting, irreconcilable differences and all that rot. The guys gave me a party.” A twinge of pain crept into his voice. He coughed it away. “I’ve been accepted into medical school. I start next semester.”
Samuel was certifiably stunned. “A doctor?”
“Yeah.” Drake’s wistful gaze brightened into a silly, boyish grin. “The way I see it, we’ll still be a team, only you’ll be hauling ‘em in, and I’ll be sewing ’em up. Pretty cool, huh?”
The room spun, jiggled to a queasy stop. Samuel closed his eyes, said nothing.
Chair legs scraped the floor. Plastic creaked in relief. A familiar thunk-swish signaled that Drake was on the move. Leaving. He was leaving.
Suddenly panicked, Samuel swung his head around. “Wait.”
Drake’s torso revolved stiffly. “Why, to watch you lie there feeling sorry for yourself?”
The blood drained from Samuel’s face, icing his skin, fogging his focus. “What?”
Leaning on the cane, Drake shuffled around to face the bed. “You gave it up, Sam-man. Our hopes, our dreams, our plans for the future—everything that was snatched away from me, you just handed over without a whimper. You ran out on it. You ran out on me.”
“I—” Protest died on his lips. “I know.”
Drake regarded him thoughtfully. “You took leave from the department. Why?”
A bitter taste flooded Samuel’s mouth. How could he explain failure to a man who’d never known defeat, the debilitating fear of second-guessing oneself when mere seconds meant the difference between life and death? Drake Jackson was a mountain of confidence, of sheer grit and courageous determination. He could never understand the crippling doubt, the horrifying realization that one flawed choice could snuff out a life.
“Couldn’t do it anymore,” Samuel said simply.
“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”
Samuel shrugged. Semantics didn’t matter. “Either, both.”
The cane shifted. “So you just gave up.”
“Yes.” Samuel stared across the room, his gut twisted in knots. It sounded so cowardly when truncated to the marrow. So you just gave up. “I had to,” he murmured. “I had to.”
“Because you froze?”
His friend’s eyes were warm, understanding. “Captain told me what happened at the ravine. It wasn’t your fault, Sam.”
The nightmare formed in his mind. Twisted wreckage. Charred metal. A rappel rope too short. Panic. Indecision. A cry for help from the mangled car. Shouts of encouragement from his teammates up the hill. Samuel remembered his mind going blank. He’d struggled to remember department procedures, had known that if he broke them again, someone else could be injured, someone else could die.
He’d committed those procedures to memory, drawn upon them a thousand times. Then suddenly he hadn’t even been able to remember his own name. Above him, his teammates had shouted at him, but Samuel hadn’t been able to respond, hadn’t been able to recall the signals. He’d been ripped by indecision, paralyzed by fear.
The old Samuel, the confident Samuel, had boasted instinctive, split-second decisions that had always been correct, always been successful. Always. Until the flood. Until Drake.
As he’d dangled over the mangled wreck in the ravine, instinct remained ominously silent, washed away in a flood of indecision, of fear, of self-doubt and shattered confidence. For the first time in his life Samuel hadn’t known what to do, so he’d done nothing. He’d hung there like a useless side of beef while his teammates made the decision for him, and pulled his shaking, cowardly carcass out of the ravine.
Samuel had known then that his career was over. He couldn’t be trusted, couldn’t trust himself. He’d frozen. He’d put lives at risk.
“It happens,” Drake said softly.
Samuel blinked, looked Drake in the eyes. “Not to me.”
“What makes you so special?” The question was issued kindly, with the edge of a smile old friends use with each other.
“I’m not.” The bedclothes vibrated, a nervous shuf fle of his own feet that he barely noticed. “People are.”
“What’s your point?” -
“People depended on me. I let them down.” He paused for breath, closed his eyes, whispered, “I let you down.”
For several minutes, Drake was silent. When he spoke again, his voice was tough, unyielding. “If that’s s how you feel, I guess we’ve got nothing more to talk about.”
With some effort Samuel focused his gaze, wishing he could say something, do something to erase the disappointment in his friend’s weary eyes. There was nothing. The past couldn’t be erased.
Drake stood. “I’ve got to go. Baloo’s in the car. He’s probably eaten half the upholstery by now.”
“‘Loo?” Samuel levered up on one elbow. “You’ve got ’Loo?”
“Apparently your lady friend didn’t want that lazy hound of yours ending up at a shelter. She insisted the pilot call the station to have someone meet the chopper. The station chief knew Baloo and I went way back, so he gave me a jingle.” Drake regarded him slyly. “Your friend seems to think a lot of your dog.”
“Ellie,” Samuel whispered, remembering her tearful smile, the men in suits hustling her into a sleek sedan. She’d sacrificed everything for him. He’d let her down, too.
“So,” Drake said. “How about it?”
“How about what?”
“Will you be my best man?”
Medication fogged Samuel’s brain, making him feel even more despondent, even more helpless and unworthy. “You could do better.”
Drake’s jaw tightened, his eyes flashed. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He limped to the doorway, then turned his torso for a final glance into the room. “By the way, since you don’t have anything better to do than rehash old news in your head, try thinking about how I got out of that damned river after the log hit.”
With that, Drake was gone, and a cold sweat coated Samuel’s brow. He didn’t want to think about the day of the flood, had pushed it out of his mind. If only he could push it out of his nightmares.
Try thinking about how I got out—
Samuel squeezed his eyes shut. No. He couldn’t control his nightmares, he could control conscious thought.
Try thinking—
He didn’t want to try, didn’t want to remember.
Try—
The memories rushed in, chaotic, terrifying. Boiling brown water, the reeking stench of mud. Dark eyes. A reaching hand. The sweeping current pulling him under as he clung to the drowning child. Drake’s face, calm and courageous. The debris raft bearing down on him. A cry drowned out as Drake sank beneath the tangle of deadly wood.
Samuel had dived under the raft. He remembered clutching Drake’s clothing, dragging him to the surface. His own lungs had been burning. Darkness clouded his eyes, but he’d refused to pass out, refused to lose consciousness. Clutching Drake in a death grip, Samuel had hung on until the rescue team converged to drag them both out of the churning flood.
The next thing Samuel remembered was lying on the bank, gasping for air. There were voices. “Turn him loose, Sam. We’ve got him. He’s safe now. Let go.”
They’d had to pry his fingers loose.
Images of the flooded river dissipated. Samuel was in a dark hospital room, bewildered and alone. Conscious memories of that horrific day were different than the distorted terror of slumber. His nightmares always ended when the log hit. It was as if life had suddenly ceased at that moment, the life he’d known, the life Drake had known. Samuel once believed nothing beyond that moment mattered.
But it had mattered.
Because just as Drake had saved Samuel’s life, Samuel had also saved Drake’s. The knowledge didn’t really change anything. It wouldn’t spare Drake the agony he’d suffered, or return his lost career, but it did give Samuel some small measure of peace, a sense of purpose about his part in events played out that fateful day. That mattered. It mattered to Samuel.
Just as Drake had known it would.
The blonde studied her coolly. “You’re quite lovely. I can see why Stanton was attracted to you.”
Praying her terror didn’t show, Ellie stood in the polished foyer clutching her squirming son to her bosom. She said nothing, made no reply to the woman’s observation. Above her, a chandelier twinkled like a thousand crystal stars. Behind her, the stiff-suited men guarded the massive entry door like a pair of wool gray pit bulls.
Marjorie Mackenzie’s gaze dropped to the fussy bundle in Ellie’s arms. Her gaze softened, her red lips curved into a gentle smile. “He’s so beautiful. I knew he would be.” .
Ellie’s stomach twisted, tightened. “Why am I here?”
The woman’s mascaraed lashes fluttered to reveal an emerald gaze that was sharp and wily.
Ellie gave her chin no permission for the defiant lift, but felt it rise anyway. A curt nod of her head gestured toward the men at the door. “If these pinstriped goons had any legal authority, they’d have taken me straight to the police station. Since I’m clearly not under arrest, I insist you allow me to leave immediately or I’ll notify the police.”
The woman’s crimson smile twisted into a smirk. “You’re free to leave any time you like.”
Ellie licked her lips, pivoted around. The gray-suited men snapped to attention, and blocked the front door. She looked warily over her shoulder, saw that the woman’s smile had flattened.
“You may leave,” she said quietly. “Not the child.”
With those ominous words Ellie’s worst fears were realized, and her entire world collapsed.
Chapter Thirteen
Fear dripped like ice water down her spine.
Something was very wrong. In her haste to save Samuel, Ellie hadn’t focused on the details of how her own legal battle would evolve. Given the Mackenzie’s wealth and political power, she’d realized that she could, and probably would, lose physical custody of Daniel eventually, but had been too distraught to consider how or when that would occur.
Now she realize
d there was nothing legal going on here. She had no representation. These gray-suited men were not officers of the court. There was no judge, no child-welfare authorities, no social services’ reports, none of the official procedures as explained by the harried legal services aid with whom she’d conferred prior to her desperate escape.
This was not the court-sanctioned service of a custody order. It was a kidnapping.
Terrified, she pressed Daniel to her shoulder, turned on wobbling knees to face the men who had escorted her here. One of them seemed vaguely familiar, as if she’d glimpsed him in a public forum too generalized to recall. His sandy hair was professionally cut in the cleanly conservative style favored by politicians; emerald eyes, so like those of her ex-lover’s wife, shifted in silent communication with the blond woman to whom he bore striking resemblance.
As Ellie studied him, he shifted on nervous feet, mumbled something to which his more distinguished companion issued an amiable nod, then the green-eyed man hurried through the foyer, automatically sidestepping a lushly intrusive houseplant placed attractively but inappropriately close to the walkway. Emerging into a spacious living area, Ellie’s view of which was partially obstructed by the expansive curving staircase, the man was met by a well-dressed woman with huge, frightened eyes. The woman gazed at Ellie, bit her lip and might have spoken had the green-eyed man not grasped her elbow and hustled her away.
There was something peculiar about the couple. Rather, there was something peculiar about their presence here and their familiarity with the house itself. Ellie scanned what she could see of the living area, noted photographs arranged atop a baby grand piano beside a yawning bay window. Family photographs, with children and a dark-haired woman that looked very much like the woman who’d just been escorted away.
Ellie’s conclusion was as obvious as it was disheartening. This was not the Mackenzie home. Clearly, Stanton had gone to great lengths to ensure that she and Daniel would not be easily found.
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