Forever With You

by Laurelin Paige

  Jordan must have spotted me right away, because all of a sudden he was pulling me off David while a few of his men took over handling our captive. They got him up to his feet, and immediately began asking him all the questions I was planning to ask him, just not using quite the level of violence I wanted to see.

  “There’s a broken window and possible signs of a struggle,” Jordan told me, ever composed. “Some of the pieces of glass seem to have blood on them.”

  David Lindt was a dead man.

  I rushed at him, throwing him against a tree, my hands at his throat. While Jordan once again tried to pull me off, I squeezed until David’s face went red. Kept squeezing until it started to go blue. I intended to keep on squeezing until…

  My phone rang. An unexpected sound here; I hadn’t had a signal when we landed.

  I considered ignoring it. I was in the process of murdering a man with my bare hands, after all, but then, what if…?

  I dropped my hold on David, stepped back as he desperately gasped for air, and pulled my phone out of my pocket. It was a number I didn’t recognize. I pushed Accept.

  “Hudson, Hudson, is that you?” The call was faint and full of static, but it was Alayna’s voice. My darling, my precious.

  “Alayna! Where are you?” I walked around, trying to get better reception. I was missing some of her words.

  “Hudson, can you hear me?” she asked, apparently having as much trouble with the call as I was.

  “Don’t hang up! I’m here. I’m at the cabin. Tell me where to find you!”

  I didn’t seem to be getting through. “Hudson, I love you,” she said, as if I hadn’t said anything. “I’ve always loved you. Kiss the babies for me. Tell them...tell them I loved them...”

  “Alayna?” She didn’t respond. “Alayna, precious, talk to me! Alayna!”

  The call dropped. I’d lost her.

  I’d lost her and, with her, my whole world was lost too.

  21

  Alayna

  I was in pain. So much pain. Every breath I took was sharp, stabbing, blinding pain.

  Dizzily, I staggered through the wilderness, looking for bars on the phone, looking for a place where my repeated call to Hudson's cell would go through.

  And now I had finally gotten to him, finally heard his voice and told him the words I had to leave him with. I'd held out for this, fought against loss of consciousness so he would know before I went.

  "Let them know I loved them.”

  For the second time, I woke up not knowing where I was.

  This room was much brighter than the last one, everything white and sterile. There was a steady bleep-bleep-bleep sound that matched the blip on the heart monitor next to me. Oxygen flowed through a tube inserted at my nose, and another tube connected my wrists to an IV drip.

  I turned my head to look at the other side of me, and there was Hudson in a chair pulled up right next to the bed that I lay in, so close he'd fallen asleep leaning over on the mattress next to me.

  The bleep-bleep sped up, an audible pronouncement of my exhilaration at seeing him again, seeing his face, covered with scruff as though he hadn't shaved in a couple of days, his features worn and tired even as he dozed.

  I reached out to touch his prickly cheek with my fingertips, a movement that hurt more than it should have, and with my touch he jolted awake.

  His face broke into the most glorious smile I'd ever seen him give.

  "There you are," he said.

  Here I was. And I was surprised as anyone about it.

  "I thought I was dying," I told him sincerely.

  He chuckled. "Not dying," he assured me. "You have a concussion, a laceration on your thigh which has already been stitched up, a dislocated shoulder, which has been set back into place, cuts on both your hands and feet, and a cracked rib on your right side."

  “Oh.” It wasn’t a short list, but definitely none of it equated to death. “A cracked rib, huh? So that's why it hurts so much to breathe."

  His brow creased in concern, and he stroked my arm. "I'll have them give you more pain medicine."

  A wave of panic surged through me, and even though it was agony to do so, I grabbed on to him. "Hudson, don't leave me."

  He took my hand in his and held it tight. "It’s okay. I'm here. It's just a button we have to push." Still holding my hand, he used his other arm to stretch up to the panel attached to the side of the bed above me, and pushed the icon that said nurse.

  Yeah, I'd forgotten that's how you did things in hospitals.

  It felt like I might've forgotten a lot of things, actually, and now that he'd mentioned it, I realized my head was throbbing, a dull pain next to the one that seized my rib cage, but significant nonetheless. It was different than the headaches I’d had in the past, a haze that somehow also put pressure on the inside of my skull.

  For a few seconds, I tried to piece together the details from what I last remembered and what was happening now, but the effort was too great.

  "What happened?" I asked Hudson instead.

  "I was hoping you could tell me." He rubbed his thumb along my wrist soothingly. "David's been arrested. When we arrived at the log cabin, we found him, but not you. He insisted he didn’t know where you were, but then you called me. Do you remember that?"

  “I do.” I remembered the sweet, distant sound of his voice, and David’s cell phone pressed to my ear, how the connection of the call felt like a lighthouse in a bay of fog.

  Then I remembered before that, too. David. The cabin.

  "I'd convinced David to go to the store, thinking I could escape while he was gone," I told Hudson. "But I hadn't counted on him binding me up before he left. He used duct tape around my ankles and my wrists. I thought it was hopeless. I was sure I’d still be there when he got back and then I'd… then he'd…"

  The sickening words he'd said to me crept into my consciousness, washing me with recollected terror.

  I shivered and shook my head. That wasn't important now. I'd escaped.

  "Then I remembered this thing that Gwen told me about yesterday," I continued. "This trick of getting out of duct tape that she'd seen at her sex club party last weekend."

  Hudson, who had listened patiently, interjected for the first time. "Sex club party?"

  I shot him a warning look. "Don't get any ideas."

  "I have absolutely zero interest," he promised. "Our sex life is adventurous enough."

  Even under the worst of circumstances, the man knew how to make me blush.

  "Anyway. The struggle was getting out of the room. David locked me in this loft at the top of the cabin. The door was not budging, no matter how many times I tried to slam my bodyweight against it. And all that was in the room was a cot and built-in desk and bookshelves. There was a stool too—that’s important. I rummaged through the drawers trying to find something to maybe pick the lock—not that I know how to pick a lock—and couldn’t find anything, but I did find he'd left his cell phone. It was locked so he’d probably thought I couldn’t get into it. But I figured out the password easily enough. Zero one zero two—my birthday. Turned out it didn’t matter if I had the password, because the phone wasn’t doing anything from that room. There was absolutely no reception. I tried over and over to make a call, and it wouldn't connect."

  Hudson continued to stroke my wrist, giving me all his attention, careful not to let on how upsetting my tale was to him, which was impressive. While he could be a very patient man, he wasn’t always patient where I was concerned.

  “That left the window. It was just glass in a frame, not the kind that opens, and it was high on the wall, but I had to figure a way to get out of it.”

  "So you used the stool to break it," he guessed.

  "I gave it away,” I feigned pouting. “Yes. I had to stand on the desk to get the right height, and throw the stool at the glass. It took a couple of tries but it finally hit in the right spot. I brushed out the glass pieces as best I could, then I hoisted myself up.” I lo
oked down at the bandages wrapping my palms. “That’s what cut up my hands.

  “I cut my leg then too, going through the window," I remembered suddenly. "But the biggest problem was the loft was so far off the ground that the fall was more than two stories. I hesitated. It was quite a fall, but then I went for it. I landed on my side and my whole right side blew up with pain. My shoulder, my side, my leg, all of it was throbbing agony. I swear, I almost passed out right then."

  "But you didn't," Hudson said, this part of my story evident.

  "No, I didn’t.” That was something I should be proud of, I realized. “I forced myself to get up and get away from the house. I knew we were deep enough in the woods that I wasn't going to be able to make it to town, especially in this condition, and I didn’t want to be near the roads in case David was the one who drove by and found me, but I thought if I could just get up the mountain enough to get reception on the phone, then I'd be able to call you, and you could come find me."

  I’d been in such a daze, stopping frequently to take breaks and try the phone. The pain coursing through my body had been blinding. My only focus had been climbing upward, guessing at the direction by the feel of the incline as I stumbled along. It had felt like a decade before I’d finally heard the phone ringing at my ear followed by Hudson’s voice.

  “I wasn’t sure if I really spoke to you or if it was some sort of dying mirage,” I admitted. “Though, seeing as how I wasn’t actually dying…”

  “You talked to me,” he confirmed. “You called, and when I heard you…”

  He choked up, a reaction I’d never seen from him before. His eyes had gotten teary on our wedding day and at the birth of each of the babies, but he’d never lost the ability to speak, and seeing him do so now made my heart squeeze and brought tears to my eyes.

  He cleared his throat, which only helped mildly. “Then when you were saying your goodbyes...I can’t tell you what that did to me, precious. I was destroyed.”

  “I know,” I said in a strangled voice. “Me too.”

  We sat for a few seconds, staring at each other, saying nothing. Processing what didn’t happen, but came so close to being a possibility.

  I was the one who finally broke the silence. “But you did find me. You traced the call?”

  He nodded. “Jordan called a medic up to meet us before we even knew where you were. Then the team separated to search the area the trace said you’d be in. You’d managed to get almost a mile away from the cabin, even barefoot and in misery. You were passed out and ragged, but very much alive, thank God. It was a miracle you made it as long as you did before your body succumbed to shock. The medic put your shoulder back in place right there and gave you some morphine, and then we flew you back here to the city.”

  “I sort of remember waking up for part of that,” I said, recalling the strange man who’d massaged my biceps and deltoids, trying to get them to relax so that my shoulder would pop in. I hadn’t been aware enough to realize what he’d been doing, but now that I was, it wasn’t at all like I’d seen doctors fix dislocated shoulders on TV.

  “You were in and out a lot until the morphine kicked in. You were out cold after that. I’m sure you needed it.”

  “That sounds about right.”

  The nurse arrived then to check my vitals and give me more meds. When he left, Hudson told me how he’d discovered it was David who had taken me, the long night he’d had with Celia, and how she’d been helpful in putting the pieces together. He also told me about Judith Cleary and her involvement.

  “I wish I’d been there when you told her off,” I grinned.

  He returned the smile. “I thought you’d appreciate that.”

  The morphine was kicking in, making me feel somber and sleepy. I was happy and grateful to have my husband by my side, but there was still a cloud lingering over me. I’d thought of David as a friend. How could he have done what he’d done to me? How could I not have seen it coming sooner? How would I ever be able to trust people after this? Would I ever feel truly safe?

  “You really got him, right?” I asked. “The police arrested him?”

  “Well, I almost choked him to death first, but yes. It was only your phone call that saved him from me. And after your call, when I thought you were...let’s just say Jordan managed to prevent me from being arrested as well.”

  That was another scene I would have liked to have witnessed.

  Still, I wasn’t completely reassured. “He won’t make bail or anything?”

  “No bail. I have friends in the court who promised to see to that.”

  It was what I’d needed to hear, yet the weight of everything still lingered. A tear spilled down my cheek. “I thought I’d never see you again,” I sniffed, sure I could turn this into a real sobfest if I didn’t contain myself.

  “Hey, hey.” Hudson climbed into the bed next to me and gingerly put his arm around me. “You’ll always see me again. You can’t get rid of me. I stick, remember?”

  I chuckled and immediately regretted it. Though it halted my tears, the laughing sent my side into spasming pain.

  When I’d recovered, I said, “I’m gone for one day, and you’re already stealing my lines.”

  “It was a day too long.” He kissed the top of my head. Quieter, he added, “Never leave me again. Promise.”

  I was getting tired. I rested my head on his chest and closed my eyes. “I’m not going anywhere,” I said, and drifted off to sleep.

  22

  Hudson

  They kept Alayna at the hospital overnight for observation, and the next day when they were ready to release her, I requested they keep her for one more night—just to be sure.

  They agreed. It's hard to argue with a man who offers to donate a quarter million dollars to your research foundation.

  The third day, I drove her home myself, no drivers, no bodyguards. I was tempted to give the security team orders to stay on maximum alert—after having lost her for even a moment, I only wanted to hunker down at home, keep her and hold tight to my precious family, ensure their safety through force of sheer will.

  But she herself had told me before she wasn't a princess in a tower.

  And even though I knew she would understand keeping a few extra bodyguards until our anxiety wore off, I thought maybe their presence was preventing us from getting to that point. Dismissing them meant we were past this. And we were past this, thank God.

  "You don't have to carry me," Alayna said, as I picked her up out of the passenger seat and brought her into my arms.

  I shut the door to the car with my hip. "Oh, Mrs. Pierce, but I do." I still felt so very responsible for not protecting her the way I should have, the way I’d promised I would, and to make it up to her I was determined to let her feel as little pain as possible. I'd insisted the hospital give her a localized anesthetic for her injured ribs, on top of the oral pain meds, and it only took a little bit of prodding to get them to wrap her torso for the ride home, significantly diminishing the agony of movement. I had to promise to remove it as soon as we got home, to encourage her to breathe deeply so she wouldn't contract pneumonia. And I would remove it.

  Just, maybe not immediately.

  I wanted to spare her every second of pain I could.

  I continued to carry her as we rode up the elevator and exited into our penthouse, where a room full of our loved ones was waiting to welcome her home. I sat her gently in an armchair in the living room, while Gwen and Mirabelle and Alayna's brother and all of our family and friends doted on her as she told the story of her horrific adventure. Mina gave her a hand-drawn card and a bouquet of paper flowers she'd made herself, then ran off to the playroom to run around with her cousins.

  I stood back, watching, keeping the twins from crawling all over their mother, in hopes that no one noticed how many times I teared up, so overwhelmed with gratitude. So much gratitude.

  After only a couple of hours, I shooed everyone out, declaring that Alayna needed her rest, and I carrie
d her into our bedroom, and tucked her into bed with a pain pill.

  I brought my laptop in to work at her bedside, but mostly, I watched her sleep, amazed that I could watch her sleep, that she was in my bed when I truly thought for a moment that she never would be again.

  How my world would have ended.

  She woke up later, and I served her dinner in our room. Then, after the children were bathed and in their pajamas, I let them all come in and gather around her—carefully. As a family, we watched Beauty and the Beast, the animated version, and it was wonderful. Even Holden watched occasionally, when he wasn't too busy walking the edge of the bed, from my side to Alayna’s, over and over again.

  Brett was content to lay in the crook of Alayna's arm on her uninjured side.

  Yes, kid, I'm glad she's back too, I thought.

  I may have watched them more than I did the show. Which frustrated Mina, who constantly asked, "Are you paying attention, Daddy?"

  "Of course," I said, because I was paying attention to the Beauty and the Beast story, the better one. The real one. The one where Alayna was my beauty, an intelligent lover of books who somehow healed this beast.

  I forced myself to take my time through tuck-in, though it was hard. I loved these moments with my children, loved being the last thing they saw at the end of the day. And I knew they needed a parent right now to reassure them and give them extra love and attention, even if they didn't understand what was going on. Children are much more aware than adults give them credit for—I'd learned in my few short years as a father.

  But I did want to get back to my wife. Every minute away from her right now was agony.

  "I'm surprised you're still awake," I said when I came back into the bedroom, and she was sitting there, propped up with a pillow against the headboard. Selfishly, I was glad she was. She had slept so much in the hospital, which was good because she needed the rest, but I also missed her. Missed talking to her.