by Julia Kent
“We really can only wait? I have to just sit here with all my fears eating through my brain and wonder what’s wrong with Mike, and worry that Dylan doesn’t fall down the cliff or hurt himself in some other way? Is this a cosmic joke? We’re supposed to be panicking over not having enough chairs and discovering a missing button on my wedding dress, not freaking out about one of the grooms falling off a cliff!” Laura burst out, her last sentence nearly a shout.
The mom holding the toddler cocked and eyebrow and turned to her husband. “One of the grooms?” she whispered to him. He was reading a sports magazine and just shrugged.
“And yooooouuuuu,” Laura groaned, looking at Josie.
“What about me?”
“I ruined your wedding! One of my grooms ran off a cliff and the other one is out in the rain rescuing Mike Bournham and it’s my fault that you can’t marry your groom!”
“I’m really confused,” the mother of the toddler whispered to her husband, who was now clearly listening to Laura’s outburst.
Just as Josie went to open her mouth, Darla interrupted.
“Laura, how’re the babies?”
“What?”
“Why don’t you call Cyndi and check on your kids? This is a good time, before the doctors come out and talk to you about Mike. You’ll be too busy later,” she said kindly, offering up her own phone. “Go in that little phone booth area over there,” she added, pointing to a privacy booth, “and check in now.”
Laura frowned. “Good idea.” She stood and did exactly as Darla suggested, leaving Josie in awe.
“That was smooth.”
“I have good people skills sometimes.”
“Clearly. So why’d you get rid of her like that?”
“Because I just got a text from Alex. You did too. Group text. Mike Bournham’s coming in through the back entrance, and they’re rushing him to ICU.”
“What?” Josie scrambled for her phone and read the full text. “Seizure? Oh, God.” Tears filled her eyes. “Head wound through the dura to the bone? Plus a seizure?”
“I don’t need to be a nurse or a doctor to know that combination can’t be good,” Darla said quietly, squeezing Josie’s hand.
“And he was trying to rescue Mike.”
“Yep.”
The two sat in stunned silence.
“Fuck,” Josie muttered. “Laura’s going to feel even more guilt.”
“Why’s she taking it on so hard? It really wasn’t her fault.”
Josie sighed. “because this is Laura. It’s what she does. It’s how she’s made. She wants the world to be a better place, and for people to get along and be happy. She really did reach out to Mike’s parents and invite them to the wedding because she thought that it would make Mike happy, in the long run. No one could haven’t predicted this chain of events.”
“Right. No one could have predicted it. So none of this is her fault. It’s all random,” Darla said.
“Random.” Josie rolled the word around in her mouth. She went pensive, lapsing into quiet.
“You upset about the wedding?” Darla asked. “Mama and Marlene and everyone from Ohio came all the way out for this, and now...”
“No.” Josie didn’t have to think to find her answer. “No. Not upset. You’d think I would be, right? But no. Alex and I will get married. It doesn’t have to be tomorrow. The wedding is for our friends and family. The marriage is for us. I get the better end of the deal.”
Darla gave her a half smile. “Still can’t believe you’re getting married.”
“Because you’re amazed I found someone who will put up with me?”
“Well, that wasn’t what I meant, but yeah. That, too.” Darla chuckled. “I just never thought you’d settle down.”
“You didn’t?”
“I hoped. Just like I hoped I’d find the right guy someday.”
“You found two Mr. Rights.”
“I sure did. And you only needed one.”
They got a good giggle out of that.
Alex rushed into the waiting room, looking around frantically, setting Josie’s nerves all atwitter in the worst way possible. Alex wasn’t a frantic person, especially in a medical setting, and when he reached her and touched her shoulder, she could feel something pass between them that made her feel raw and vulnerable.
Made her realize he was raw and vulnerable, too.
“Mike? How is he?”
“They’ve got him up in radiology for a head scan, and they’re—”
“A head scan?” Laura squeaked, returning at just that moment. “What’s wrong with his head?”
Alex shot her a confused, angry look that even made Josie take a step back. Mild-mannered and a little too chill most of the time, Alex wasn’t the kind of man to express that kind of fury.
“What are you talking about?” He softened as the words came out of his mouth, the change morphing his face as he spoke, until Josie saw the Alex she knew inhabit the Alex who had just taken over moments ago. “Ah—Mike. We have two Mikes here, and both are patients, and I’m sorry, Laura. I was talking about Bournham. He’s the one I was working on. He seized twice on the way here, and his condition is...well...”
Laura closed her eyes and swallowed, clearly struggling to stay calm.
“What about Mike Pine?” Josie asked him, keeping her voice as flat and neutral as possible.
“I don’t know. I didn’t get into that bay. I literally just came out of the ambulance and handed Bournham off to the team here.” Alex ran his hands up and down his coat, which Josie looked at with dawning horror. He was drenched, soaked completely through, his forearms bare and criss-crossed with little scrapes.
And covered with Bournham’s blood.
“What happened to you, Alex?” she gasped. He began to shiver. In any other setting she’d assume it was from the chill of being soaked, but she suspected something more was at play here.
“I—nothing. Mike and Mike are the ones who took the worst of it.”
“Get out of that wet coat,” she insisted. “We’ll ask for some dry scrubs or something for you.”
“Let me call Sandy and see if someone can deliver dry clothes,” Laura said helpfully, and Darla stood, following Laura, giving Josie a worried glance, eyes pinging between her and Alex.
Yeah, I’m worried about him, too, her return look said.
Darla nodded and turned away with Laura, rubbing her back and huddling with her. A wave of intense gratitude washed over Josie as she watched them, then turned to Alex, clucking like a hen.
“Get out of that coat,” she insisted, standing on tiptoes and reaching for the zipper, unzipping him and getting a minor puddle at her feet for her efforts. As Alex peeled off the coat, she nearly screamed, grinding her teeth together to hold back her reaction.
His right arm was half raw flesh, like something you’d find in a butcher’s display at the grocery store.
“What the hell happened to you? Your hands? Are they damaged?” A surgeon by trade, Alex’s hands were the first part of him that he worried about when hurt. Josie had learned to respond accordingly over the years.
“Hands are fine. That’s why the arms are so bad. I had gloves on for the hands, though I may have strained my flexor pollicis brevis.”
Josie knew what that was from nursing school. Thumb flexor muscle.
“What did you do to make this happen?”
“I pulled Dylan and Jeremy up the hill.”
“By yourself?”
He nodded. “They needed some help right at the end. Just when the boulder fell.”
“When the what?”
Blood began to bloom on the pink flesh. She saw gritty sand and flaps of pale surface skin poking in the redness.
“You need ER attention,” she declared.
“I’m fine,” he protested. “Just need some antiseptic and a good—”
“No, sir. No. You don’t get to do this again, Alex.”
“Do what?”
“Be a b
ad patient.”
“When have I ever been a bad patient?”
His habit of crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at her with an intimidating look was thwarted by pain as he yelped and held his raw arm away from his body.
She jumped up and tapped the tiny scar above one eye. “When you ran into a No Parking sign in front of my apartment one day while you were stalking me.”
“I wasn’t stalking you!”
“You were so stalking me.”
“I was mooning over you.” His voice went low, amusement infusing the space between them, taking his mind off his pain as his eyes met hers.
“You were?”
“You know that.”
“You had a funny way of showing it.”
“Let me make it up to you.”
“Yeah? How?”
“Give me the next fifty years or so.”
“It’ll take that long?”
“If I’m lucky.”
“You two gonna suck face right here in the waiting room, or can we get Alex some medical attention?” Darla asked, making Alex jump, startling Josie. Darla stood next to a very no-nonsense-looking nurse who frowned at Alex’s arm.
“I hear you’re a doctor?” she said. “I’m Margie. Let’s get that cleaned up and do some wound care.”
“I’m fine.”
Margie shot Josie a look that made Josie grin.
“Margie’s right, Alex.”
“I’m a—” If he said doctor, he was about to become so not fine.
Margie and Josie raised their eyebrows, giving him an appraising look that said, Go ahead. Make my day.
“You’re a what?” Margie said, her eyes narrowing to brown triangles. She looked like so many of the fifty-something nurses Josie had worked with over the years, as if nursing made women look a certain way. Short, wavy, salt-n-pepper hair. No makeup. Clipped nails. Stethoscope around her neck, and gloves stuffed in every available pocket, including the breast pocket of her scrubs.
“I’m a...groom.”
“You two about to get married?” she asked Josie.
“Tomorrow.”
“Then you want to get out of here.”
Alex exhaled with relief. “Right.” He reached for his coat. Josie pulled it away.
Margie placed one unyielding hand on his back and began guiding him to the ER bays. “The sooner we do wound care, the sooner you can get back to your fiancée and go to your wedding. You part of the big campground to-do at Escape Shores?”
As the doors snapped shut behind them, Josie let out her laughter.
Leave it to a nurse to make Alex behave.
Josie suddenly found herself alone, Darla in the corner talking on the phone with someone, Laura nowhere to be seen. She took a deep breath and chugged her lukewarm coffee, grimacing when it was done. Cup in the trash, she looked around and wondered why people put such uncomfortable chairs in waiting rooms. They should outfit these areas with plush recliners and comfy bean bags instead of metal and barely-cushioned office chairs.
“Mike Pine? Mike Pine’s family?” said a voice, a young female doctor approaching, chart in hand.
Darla looked up sharply and got off the phone. “I’ll get Laura,” she told Josie, sprinting down the hall.
“I’m...I’m his family,” Josie said.
The doctor approached just as Laura ran into the room. “I’m his fiancée,” she sputtered, eyes wild. “How is he?”
“Hi. Dr. Druce,” said the young woman, who was shorter than Josie, if that was possible, and who looked like she was at the end of a very long shift. “Mr. Pine suffered a dislocated elbow, a broken wrist, what appears to be a series of muscle strains in his right leg, and a hard-to-count series of abrasions and contusions. We gave him nine stitches total, most along the right knee, and we—”
“What about his breathing? Did his lung collapse?” Laura interrupted.
“No lung collapse, but he does have two fractured ribs.”
“Oh, no,” Laura groaned. “Mike. Poor Mike.”
“Given that he was outside wearing a t-shirt and light shorts, and in the same position for so long before being rescued, we need to keep him here overnight. Just to evaluate and make sure pneumonia doesn’t set in. He’s coughing regularly, and we want to observe.”
“Of course. Can I see him now? Please?”
The doctor smiled and reached for Laura’s hand. “He’s been asking for you.”
Laura didn’t even try to hold back her tears. She gave Josie a ragged, haunting look, and then all Josie saw was Laura’s back, her soaked dress stuck to her ribs, hair clinging to her back like the wet fingers of desperation.
Chapter Twenty
Laura
The sight of her big giant of a man all stretched out on a hospital bed, underneath layers of thin cotton blankets, made her stop in the doorway and cling to the frame for a moment, her legs going weak. His eyes were closed and his face was red and swollen with small and large scrapes, the blood still so fresh the thin lines that cut his skin were swollen and angry. New scabs hadn’t even had the chance to form.
He looked like he was covered with tiny criss-crosses of scrapes, and for a guy who basically flew and then rolled a hundred times down a cliff, he looked better than you’d expect.
“Laura?” he asked.
Dr. Druce nodded, urging her forward, and she moved like she was walking on stilts, like a kid with strings and coffee cans, lurching and uncoordinated, her heart in a lonely cage as she let relief finally seep in.
He was going to be okay.
His hand was under the blanket, so she rested the edge of her butt on the bed and stroked his wet hair from his forehead. Mike smiled, a boyish grin making him look just enough like their little ones that she burst into a choking sob.
“I look that bad?”
“You look that good,” she said with a whimper. “I’m so sorry.”
His good hand rose up from under the covers, groping blindly for her. He kept his eyes closed and she clasped his hand. Cold. His fingers were icicles, and the shock made her stiffen. Mike was never cold.
“What happened out there?”
“Do I have to tell it again?” he rasped. Laura felt his hand warm in hers. She covered his with both of hers and began to rub slowly.
“No. You can just rest. I’ll hear the story later.”
He coughed and winced.
“Broken ribs feel about as shitty as you’d imagine,” Mike said.
Laura couldn’t speak. She felt the tears crest and roll, crest and roll, dropping onto the white cotton blanket, absorbed and disappearing as if they never happened at all.
She inhaled and exhaled, comforted by the sound of his breath, of knowing his heart was here, pumping blood throughout the man she never, ever wanted to hurt.
Yet had.
“I am so sorry, Mike. I never meant to do this to you.”
“So you were the one who gave me that big shove off the cliff?” He gave her a look. She knew it well. He was trying not to roll his eyes. Why did he look so much like Josie suddenly?
“I’m trying to apologize.”
“And I’m telling you that it’s not necessary. If anyone should apologize, it’s my parents.”
“Your parents?”
“They’re the ones who rudely showed up without ever replying to you.”
“But I’m the one who invited them without asking you.”
“That’s a separate issue, Laura.” He frowned. “I had a lot of time lying on that shore for hours, watching the sun fade, wondering how I was going to move and get back to you, Dylan, and the kids. What you did was borne of love.”
“Mike—”
“What my parents did came from a need to control.”
A shout down the hallway made them both look at the door.
“He’s my son and I’ll go visit him if I want to. You can’t stop me!” boomed a loud, older man’s voice.
“Case in point,” Mike muttered.
If he was upset, he didn’t show it. Laura’s body reacted to the bellowing before her mind could respond. Flushed with a calming anger that should have agitated her, she turned to the doorway, knowing exactly what she would see before he appeared.
And knowing damn well what she had to do next.
Mike ran away because his parents had appeared out of nowhere, exerting a kind of insidious control that made him feel like all he could do was get out—get away—to feel truly human.
Unable to flee, Mike was stuck in that bed, forced to face his parents.
But she’d be damned if that was about to happen.
“Where is my son?” Mike’s dad yelled as he lumbered in, Mary at his heels, the two of them followed by the shift nurse and the doctor who had just helped Laura into the room.
“You can’t just storm in here like this,” Dr. Druce announced, her voice all steel and authority.
“And you can’t—” Mike’s dad started to shout, but Laura cut him off, taking a long, deep breath to do it.
“Leave,” she said in a low voice, her lips wide and mouth opening with a primal movement that reminded her of childbirth, when she’d been coached to keep her voice low to preserve energy.
This was the voice her grandfather had taught her to use when training a puppy. High voices sound like packmates to small animals. And that high voice signals to animals that they don’t need to respect the animal at the end of it.
Big Mike’s eyes snapped away from Dr. Druce, burning into Laura’s face, but she held steady, moving her body between Mike’s parents and her partner, who gripped her hand and kept his eyes closed.
“Leave now.”
“I will not,” Mary said, her voice shrill.
“I’ll call security,” Dr. Druce said, giving Laura a look that said she had decision-making authority here.
“We’re his next of kin,” Big Mike said in a derisive tone.
“No,” said another man’s voice from the hallway. “You’re not.”
Dylan.
Laura’s face flooded with heat again, only this time it came with an impish grin, a wholly inappropriate reaction to the words she knew Dylan was about to unleash.
“What do you mean?” Big Mike growled.
“You. Are. Not. Mike’s. Next. Of. Kin,” Dylan said slowly, walking into the room like the head of a pack. “I am. I am his legal husband, and therefore, I am his next of kin.”
