Longing Hearts (Healing Hearts Book 2)

by Maxene Novak

  “Yeah,” Blake agreed. “Thanks. I better get started too.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Heather

  “So, you know how I told you I didn’t get to interview my new editor before HR hired him?” Lorie looked up from the paperwork she was completing when Heather spoke.

  “Yeah. Did they hire someone outrageous?”

  “I wouldn’t say that exactly.” Heather took a seat across from Lorie. She needed to be sitting to talk about Blake.

  “Well?” Lorie folded her arms in front of her on her desk. Heather knew her friend wasn’t much for having things dragged out. She’d never really caught on to the whole patience is a virtue belief.

  “It’s Blake.” When Lorie just stared at her like she had no clue why the name Blake was supposed to mean something, Heather figured she should elaborate. “High school Blake. Blake Martin. My Blake.”

  Heather watched as Lorie’s eyes grew wide. “Holy shit. Are you serious? I can’t believe he applied for a job under you without contacting you first.”

  “Honestly, I don’t think he put two and two together until he saw me.”

  Lorie rolled her eyes. “Sure he didn’t. He had your name, and your picture can be found online when researching Panda Publishing.”

  “I didn’t connect the dots prior to seeing him with just his name and résumé. Even if he did know it was me, it’s not like we have each other’s phone numbers these days. Besides, he shouldn’t have to ask permission to apply for a position he is qualified for just because we dated over a decade ago.”

  “But the way he left you…”

  Heather reached across the table and put her hand over Lorie’s. She could tell her friend was getting pissed for her. The way Lorie’s face grew red whenever someone pissed her off always gave her away. That and the fact that she had no filter and wasn’t afraid to tell anyone when she was pissed. “He didn’t leave me, Lorie. His parents sent him away. I can’t blame him for something he had no control over.”

  “He didn’t have to go.”

  “Then they would have disowned him. I would never want him to lose his parents over me. He would have grown to resent me over the loss of that relationship. I know what it’s like to live life without your parents in it. I didn’t want that for him.”

  Lorie’s eyes grew sad as she looked back at Heather, and she squeezed Heather’s hand. “I understand that, believe me I do. I wish your parents had been there for you the way you deserved, but I don’t think his situation really compares to yours.” Heather opened her mouth to argue, but Lorie stopped her. “However, if you have forgiven him then I can play nice too. Just know, if he does anything to hurt you again, I am not above beating a grown man’s ass.”

  Heather burst into laughter. Lorie always could lighten a mood. “I know you will, but that isn’t going to be an issue. We’re just working together. Besides, if the ring he was wearing is anything to go by, he’s married.”

  “Well, I’ll be here if any of that changes.”

  “I know you will.” Heather smiled at her friend and gave her hand a light squeeze before pulling hers back.

  Heather’s phone went off in her pocket, indicating a new email. She pulled it out to check the message in case it was work, and there was an email from none other than the man who’d been the topic of conversation that morning.

  “Work?” Lorie asked.

  Heather nodded a yes as she opened the message. “Well, he works fast,” she said.

  “What?”

  She looked up at Lorie. “I gave him a few short stories to edit and get back to me in a few days. He just sent me the first one already completed.”

  “Fast doesn’t always mean good,” Lorie pointed out.

  “That’s true, but looking at his letters of recommendation I would be shocked if his work isn’t superb.” Heather put her phone away. She would review his work later. This was her time with the kids. “Enough talk about my work. What do you need me to do around here today?”

  “Since it’s nice out, I thought we could take the kids out to the park.”

  “Great idea.” Heather smiled brightly. A day at the park with a couple of the kids from the children’s home was just what she needed. “I’ll pack lunches and we can leave as soon as you’re ready.”

  Lorie smiled and nodded before heading upstairs to get the kids ready. Heather smiled as she made a few sandwiches. It was going to be good day.

  Evan

  Accident by the Jamboree Park. Children involved. One female reported to have serious injuries.

  Evan flipped the siren as his partner, Diane, radioed back that they were in route. He silently prayed that the kids were okay. Hurt or sick kids were always the hardest calls, and the ones that couldn’t be saved stayed with you forever.

  They were only five minutes out when the call came in. When they pulled up the first thing Evan noticed were the four small children clinging to a blonde woman near the wrecked vehicles. Even from inside the cab of the ambulance Evan could tell they were all crying and scared. Evan took in the wreck, which involved a mustang and a large van. From the looks of it, the mustang t-boned the driver of the van.

  Evan and Diane jumped out of the ambulance and hurried over to the blonde woman and children. “We’re fine,” she waved them off. “Please, you have to help her.” The blonde woman motioned to the van. “My friend was driving the van. I couldn’t get her out. The children. They can’t see her.”

  Tears were freely falling down the blonde woman’s face, and Evan knew she was trying hard to stay strong for the children who were clinging to her for comfort. “We’re going to help her,” Evan said in a calm tone. One of the first things he’d learned as a paramedic was to remain calm because people would feed off of his anxiety if he let it show. “Can you tell us her name?”

  “Heather. Her name’s Heather. Please, just help her.”

  Evan and Diane turned to the two clumps of metal mingled together. The mustang had hit the van hard enough to push it several feet from the initial point of impact. Evan walked up to the driver’s door. The glass was shattered so he spoke hoping that he could walk Heather through the extraction process and get her in the ambulance without frightening her more than she already was.

  “Heather. Heather, can you hear me?” He waited for a response but got nothing.

  Evan reached in through the window to check for a pulse. He held his breath until he made contact with Heather’s neck and felt her erratic heartbeat. It might not have been the healthiest of heartbeats, but at least her heart was beating. He intended to keep it that way.

  The sound of sirens and the screeching of tires as a fast-moving vehicle came to a stop had Evan looking up. Four firemen came racing from the truck, heading right for him. Before he could say anything he heard Diane calling out to them to pry the door open on the van. “Hurry up. We’ve got to get her out of there,” she told the approaching firemen.

  Evan backed up as they went to work removing the mangled door from the van. It felt like forever before one of the firemen stepped back, pulling the detached door with him. Evan and Diane quickly moved in, checking Heather’s vitals, and making sure it was safe to move her so they could get her into the ambulance. They stabilized her neck and cut off the seatbelt before carefully pulling her from the van and securing her on a spinal board before rolling the stretcher to the ambulance. Evan noticed then that another ambulance had arrived and paramedics were checking out the children and blonde woman, while police spoke to the man Evan could only assume had been the driver of the mustang. Other than being scared, the children all seemed to be okay for the most part. The woman in front of him on his stretcher was in bad shape, however. Head trauma was nothing to fool around with, and the fact that she had yet to wake up had him truly worried.

  After they got her into the back of the ambulance, Evan insisted on being the one to ride in the back with her to the hospital. He had to wake her. He didn’t know what it was, but something inside o
f him kept telling him that the woman in front of him was important, that he needed to make sure she was alright. It was probably just the knowledge that she’d been driving a van full of kids; kids who probably loved and needed her. That would be enough to make anyone fight for her to survive, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more about her.

  After hooking her up with some oxygen and fluids, Evan pushed her blood-soaked hair back from her face to get a closer look. He needed to find the source of the blood matting her hair and stop it. There were a number of shallow cuts from the glass shattering around her, but it was the deep gash running from just above her right eye into her hairline that had him concerned. Evan gently moved her hair trying to see how large the gash was. It was going to need stitches for sure, and if they didn't get to the hospital to have it dealt with soon there could be lasting repercussions. For now, he would get it cleaned up the best he could and try a compression to slow the bleeding.

  When Evan began applying solution to clean the wound, Heather's eyes flashed open and she cried out in pain. She started struggling, trying to get up and Evan had to grasp her upper arms to hold her still. "Heather, it's okay. You've been in an accident and we’re taking you to the hospital now."

  "The kids! Lorie!" She was becoming frantic and Evan had to calm her down. Her increased adrenaline would only serve to speed up the blood loss from the wound on her head.

  "Lorie and the kids are alright," he assured her. "You were the only one injured. Now I need you to try to relax so I can take care of you."

  Heather's breathing slowly began to even out as she calmed down and Evan relaxed a bit. He grabbed some pads to compress her wound. He held them up in front of her so she could see. "You've got a gash on your forehead and I need to slow the bleeding. I'm going to apply pressure with these until we get to the hospital to keep your bleeding under control, but I want to warn you that it's going to hurt."

  Heather blinked and attempted to nod her head in agreement, and Evan put his free hand on her shoulder to stop her. "Try not to move."

  He placed the pads to the gash and applied steady pressure. He watched as Heather squeezed her eyes shut and tears rolled down the sides of her face, but she never cried out despite the pain he knew she was experiencing. She was tough.

  They arrived at the hospital a few minutes later and Diane quickly came around to the back of the ambulance to help Evan get Heather out and escorted into the hospital. Evan recited her stats and injuries to the doctors who met them at the ambulance bay as they rolled her to a room.

  "Hi Heather, I'm Dr. Lowry. Can you tell me your last name?"

  Evan was backing away from the bed after moving Heather from the stretcher when he heard her respond to the doctor's question, "Young."

  Evan stopped in his tracks and turned around to face the bed where Heather was being worked on.

  "Heather Young? Did she say her name is Heather Young?"

  Diane cocked an eyebrow and looked him over like he was crazy. "Yeah." Evan felt the blood drain from his face. Shit! This was Blake's Heather. Diane reached over and squeezed his shoulder. "Hey man, are you okay? You look like you just saw a ghost."

  Evan looked at his partner. In a way she was right. The way Blake had always talked about Heather it was almost like she'd been a ghost. But now she was here and she was hurt. He thought about the way he'd felt so driven to help her earlier. It was like his subconscious had recognized her and knew he had to save her for Blake. He didn't think his husband could survive losing her a second time; especially not in such a horrible and permanent way.

  Diane shook him. "Evan, what's going on? Say something."

  “I know her.”

  “Oh, shit.” Diane pulled him in for a hug. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

  Diane stepped back and Evan shook his head slightly and ran his hands through his hair, trying to clear his mind. “I mean, I know who she is. Blake works for her, and they, well they used to date a long time ago. I need to stay here. Make sure she’s okay.”

  “There isn’t anything else for us to do, Evan. You know Dr. Lowry will take good care of her.”

  “I know he will, but I just can’t leave knowing she’s here and hurt. I have to stay and make sure she’s fine. I have to be able to tell Blake that she’s fine, Diane.”

  Diane’s eyebrows drew together as she looked back at him. Evan knew he wasn’t making any sense. It wasn’t like he went around telling the world that his husband was still in love with his high school girlfriend, who also happened to be his new boss. Still, he wasn’t leaving until he knew for sure that she was going to be okay. “I have to stay with her, Diane. I know it sounds crazy, but I have to know she’s okay.”

  Diane silently stared at him for another minute then she nodded. “Alright. I’ll run back to the station and find someone to fill in for you. Tell Jones you’re sick or something.”

  “Thanks.” He gave Diane a quick hug before she turned to leave.

  Dr. Lowry looked up and noticed Evan still standing in the room after Diane left. “Need something, Evan?” he asked.

  “I’m going to wait around to make sure she’s okay.”

  “That really isn’t necessary, Evan. You know we’ll take good care of her. I’m sure there are other people who might need your assistance.”

  Evan paused for a minute. He knew Dr. Lowry was about to kick him out, and he didn’t need to end up with a complaint on his record. Especially not one from the Chief of Surgery. There was only one way Lowry was going to let him stay without making a big deal out of it. “She’s family, Steve.” Evan’s eyes met Dr. Lowry’s for a moment, and then the doctor nodded.

  “Okay. You can stay. But family waits outside.” He gestured to the door.

  As much as Evan didn’t want to leave the room, he knew that the doctor was right. Family was not allowed in the room while a trauma patient was being worked on. He walked back out of the room, but he didn’t go far. He stood outside the room, staring in through the window as the doctor and the nurses continued their work on Heather. He could see from there that she was still awake and responding to them when necessary, so he was going to take that as a good sign. He debated calling Blake to let him know what had happened, but decided against it until he had more information. No, he would call Blake once he knew for sure that Heather was alright.

  As soon as that thought was complete, alarm bells starting going off in the room and when Evan looked up, Dr. Lowry was calling out orders to the nurses, and soon they were ushering Heather out of the room. “What happened?”

  Dr. Lowry shouted back to Evan but he didn’t slow down. “Brain hemorrhage. We’re taking her to surgery.” They rolled Heather into an elevator and Evan tried to follow them inside, but he was stopped once again by the doctor. “I’m sorry but you cannot come to the surgical floor. We will keep you updated, I promise.”

  The elevator doors shut in Evan’s face and he stood there dumbfounded and clueless about what he should do. Rubbing his hands over his face in a poor attempt at clearing his head, he turned and headed back out to the waiting room. When he walked past the front desk he saw the blonde woman from the scene of the accident demanding the nurse tell her what was going on with Heather.

  “Ma’am,” he said as he approached her. When she first looked at him, Evan had to force himself not to take a step back. The woman looked like she was seconds away from ripping someone’s head off. He knew the second recognition took over and the woman’s features softened. “Why don’t we take a seat?” Evan gestured for the chairs in the nearby waiting room. “I’ll tell you everything I know.”

  “Yes. Thank you.” The woman made a point to look back at the nurse with one final glare before following Evan to take a seat. He couldn’t stop his smile at the woman’s persistence. Clearly, this was a woman who didn’t take any shit. She didn’t waste a second once they sat down giving him the Spanish Inquisition. “So? Where is she? Is Heather okay? Why won’t they le
t me see her?”

  Evan turned so his body was facing her and he took the woman’s hand between his to distract her from the game of twenty questions she’d jumped into. “Heather was responsive and talking when we arrived, but her stats dropped while the doctor and nurses were tending to her wounds and they had to rush her to surgery.”

  The woman gasped and pulled her hand from his to cover her mouth. Fresh tears ran down her face. “No…” Her voice quivered with the sorrow and anguish that was written all over her face.

  Evan pulled her into his arms and let her literally cry on his shoulder. “She’s going to be okay,” he told her. Then, even lower, he whispered more to himself than her, “She has to be.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Heather

  Heather’s eyes felt like they had weights fighting to hold them down. She could hear a man’s voice that she didn’t recognize. Was he? Yep. He was reading. Since all she could hear was the sound of his voice and some occasional beeping, she assumed he was reading to her. His voice was nice. It was deep and comforting, and he was reading one of her favorite books: To Kill a Mockingbird. She could easily become addicted to the sound of that voice, especially when it was reading literary art. She sighed in her head. A man after my own heart, she thought before laughing to herself. Then Blake’s face popped up in her mind and she stopped laughing. All her life anytime she thought about her heart or the possibility of loving another, Blake was always right there in the front of her mind and thoughts, blocking the way.

  Heather shook her head. Well, she thought to shake her head but nothing actually happened. She focused back on the beautiful voice reading to her and forced Blake from her mind. For now, she was going to pretend that the voice reading to her was that of someone who loved her. She could pretend she loved this man, this stranger, for at least as long as she was stuck in her own head. Laying there listening to that voice she felt herself smile. She couldn’t be sure, but it felt like the smile permeated the cloud she was under and actually shaped her lips. The sound of the man’s voice halted and she felt a hand wrap around her own.