Clark Dempsey separated himself from a small group and approached her. “Hey, Angel.”
She made herself smile, although it was a stretch. “Hey, Clark.”
“I’m really sorry about this.”
“I am too, but thank you.” She glanced around for Cookie. He’d said he’d be right back. Impatience and worry gathered beneath her skin.
“You couldn’t have picked a better man.”
“What?” Distracted, she looked up at Clark. He gazed back with eyes both serious and gentle.
“Troy Lee. I knew he’d treat you right if you ever gave him the chance. Why do you think I started bringing him around the bar?”
Her lips parted in surprise and a small smile lit his face. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “You didn’t really think I was going to let you marry Jim’s selfish ass, did you? You deserved better.”
“Angel?” Cookie appeared at her side. “Come with me.”
With his hand at her back, he ushered her toward the nurse’s station. The frustration of being a pinball, slammed and pushed around by a cosmic whim, took hold. People kept moving her, taking her here and there, but never really giving her anything to hold on to.
Beyond the nurse’s desk lay a smaller waiting room. There, a handful of Troy Lee’s closest colleagues gathered, along with a woman with short blonde hair and two girls, whose shiny brown hair and vivid blue eyes echoed Troy Lee’s. The younger of the two girls, her face tearstained, clung to the woman’s arm.
Clad in wrinkled scrubs, Jay Mackey stepped in through the opposite door. “Mrs. Farr?”
The blonde nodded. “Yes.”
“I’m Dr. Mackey. I’m sorry you had to wait.” He focused in on her. “The first thing I want you to know is that Troy Lee is stable and we’re preparing to move him from the trauma center to a room.”
“Thank God.” Christine Farr laid a hand over her heart, the intense relief on her face mirroring that coursing through Angel.
“However, we still have several days ahead of us.” A cautionary note entered Dr. Mackey’s words. “Our main concern right now is the injuries to his torso. Impact with the steering wheel broke a section of his ribcage free, a condition we call flail chest, which causes unequal pressure in the pulmonary cavity. We’ve wired the ribs and they will heal on their own with time. We can treat the pressure problem through the use of a ventilator, although we’ll have to be vigilant, as prolonging the time spent on the ventilator can increase the chances of infection and injury to his lung tissue. The bleeding in his chest is controlled at this point, and the sonogram showed no bleeding in his abdomen, another positive.”
“So the bleeding from his mouth…that was from the chest injury?” Christine wrapped her arm around her daughter, who continued to cling to her. Her other daughter hovered near her shoulder.
Dr. Mackey shook his head. “Somewhat, but he sustained some facial injuries, mainly a nasal fracture and a blow to his jaw. Again, the positive is that there is no skull fracture. When you see him, though, he probably won’t look like himself because of the edema and contusions. He’s been in and out of consciousness, and he’s surprisingly alert when he’s awake. We won’t be using narcotic analgesics, but rather a nerve block, so that level of alertness should increase. However, he won’t be able to talk because of the ventilator.”
With a tremulous laugh, Christine rubbed her hand up and down her daughter’s arm. “Oh, he’ll find that totally frustrating, won’t he?”
The girl giggled shakily and turned her face into Christine’s neck. A smile touched Dr. Mackey’s normally serious visage. “I’ll send Lorraine to let you know as soon as he’s in a room. He can have visitors.” He glanced around at the small crowd. “But let’s restrict it to one or two of you at a time and keep it short. He’s going to tire easily.” He inclined his head at Christine. “I’ll be by on rounds later to check in on him. If you need anything before that, have the nurse page me.”
“Thank you.” As he exited and the others left with murmured goodbyes, Christine turned to Angel, her green eyes glowing beneath a sheen of tears. “You have to be his Angel. I am so very happy to finally meet you.” She stepped forward to wrap Angel in a tight hug. “I wish it were under different circumstances.”
“Me too.” Angel held on a moment, needing contact with this other woman who loved Troy Lee, and let go. She brushed disheveled hair from her face. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Her mouth trembling, Christine bracketed Angel’s cheeks. “Oh, you’re everything he said you were.”
“Mom.” The younger girl nudged Christine’s side.
With an indulgent expression, Christine drew her forward. “This is my daughter Ellis.”
“Hey.” Ellis wiggled her fingers in a wave and wiped tears from under her eyes, smearing heavy mascara. The angle of her chin was reminiscent of Troy Lee’s.
“And I’m Montgomery.” The other girl, a little taller, extended a hand as elegant as the lilt in her voice. “He is so in love with you.”
“Yes, he is.” Blinking against obvious tears, Christine stroked a palm down Montgomery’s hair. “I just talked to him this morning and he was so excited…oh, that reminds me.”
While she turned to dig in her voluminous fabric purse, Angel rubbed damp palms down her thighs. She was glad to meet them, but the day was telling on her, the stress and the worry and the lack of food leaving her edgy and nauseous. Her head spun, the world tilting off kilter.
“I’m probably stealing his thunder, but I don’t care.” Christine turned, trying to smile through a veil of moisture. Angel concentrated on breathing through her mouth, trying to ward off the weird waves of shadows at the edges of her vision. “He sent me all the way across Atlanta this morning to retrieve this and I know he planned to pick it up this weekend. He wanted you to have it and I don’t think I should wait to give it to you. You need it now.”
Needed it now? What was she talking about?
Christine pressed a small, soft square into her hand. Angel opened her fingers and stared down at the burgundy velvet ring box. Swallowing, she lifted her gaze to Christine’s and opened her mouth on a protest. Her ears buzzed.
“Mom…” Concern trembled in Montgomery’s voice and she edged toward Angel.
“Angel, are you all right?” Christine reached for her, hands warm on Angel’s suddenly clammy skin.
“I think so.” Clutching the box in one hand, Angel fumbled for the chair behind her. “I’m just lightheaded.”
“I can’t imagine why.” Christine sat beside her and smoothed the hair from her forehead. “You’ve had a horrid day, obviously, and then I spring that ring on you…that was thoughtless of me.”
“No, it wasn’t. It simply surprised me.” Feeling less like she was going to fall on her face, Angel rubbed her fingers across the plush box. She’d certainly never expected this. Now she was afraid to open it, wasn’t even sure she should. Shouldn’t she wait for Troy Lee to offer it to her?
“I wish they’d hurry.” Ellis spoke from the window that faced the hallway. She traced the edge of the blinds. “I want to see him.”
You and me both, honey. Angel glanced at the clock. Almost eight.
What was taking so long?
Chapter Eighteen
The pain had disappeared.
Troy Lee’s eyes snapped open. He stared at the same hospital ceiling that had drifted over him whenever he’d come to before. The ceiling was the same, but the overwhelming pain in his chest and face, the agony that had made him want to scream, but had drawn only broken whimpers from his throat, was simply gone.
It scared the hell out of him. He tried to swallow against the wash of panic and couldn’t. Voices hovered beyond the bed, and he tried to call out to them. Nothing emerged. He couldn’t use his throat.
Intense pressure remained, pushing in and out of his chest with each breath. Another sound leached into his consciousness, a rhythmic, sickeningly familiar hiss and click. The pan
ic detonated into full-fledged horror. A ventilator. The pain had gone and he was on a ventilator. The nauseating sense of rolling in the patrol car, the stomach-turning crunch of the steering wheel slamming into his chest blasted into his brain. Had he broken his back?
He tried to breathe through the fear and couldn’t, each inhale and exhale controlled by the hated machine. Not being in control of his own breathing was intolerable. He flexed a hand, grateful to find he could move, and reached for the tube invading his mouth.
“No, no, no.” Layla wrapped firm fingers around his wrist. “Leave that alone.”
Anger and alarm swirled into one entity within him, and he struggled free of her, going for the tube again. His elbow slammed into the IV rack, knocking it sideways. The intravenous tube tore loose from his hand, the stinging a sharp burn under his skin.
Thank God he could still feel something.
“Calm down.” Trying to subdue him, Layla tossed a glance over her shoulder. “You guys want to help me here?”
“Troy Lee. Stop it.” Cookie placed gentle pressure on his shoulder, Calvert pinning the other just as gingerly. They looked down at him with pale, tense faces. “Just stop, okay? You’re gonna hurt yourself.”
He strained, without much success, against them, but managed to twist his wrist away from Layla before she could replace the IV line.
“Damn it,” she muttered. She laid a hand on his brow and held his head still. “Troy Lee, look at me. Look at me.”
His pulse beat under his skin. He could feel the panicked thumping throughout his body. He focused his gaze on the ceiling, seeking the midpoint, needing to breathe on his own.
“Look at me.” She gentled his forehead and finally he moved his gaze to hers, finding her dark eyes soft and soothing. “Listen. You have to be on the ventilator right now. You have fractures to your ribcage and we have to keep the pressure equalized.”
Hiss, click, pause. Hiss, click, pause. The wrong damn rhythm, everything out of his control.
“I need you to calm down and cooperate, or we’ll have to sedate you.” Layla continued to stroke his brow, her fingers firm and warm at his wrist. “You don’t want that, I know. Much better to be awake.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, a scream of frustration building, a scream he couldn’t release.
“Come on, Troy Lee, calm down.” Cookie’s hand circled over his shoulder. “Focus and get it together. They want to move you upstairs, and you’ve got people waiting to see you.”
Angel. He’d thought he’d heard her voice, once, when he’d come to while Mackey manipulated his chest and abdomen. His lids snapped up and he focused on Cookie’s steady gray eyes.
Calvert squeezed his other shoulder. “Let Layla put your IV back in and we’ll go upstairs with you.”
He blinked rapidly and stared up at the ceiling wavering before his eyes. He relaxed as much as his quivering muscles would allow. Slowly, Layla released him and within moments had the line restored to his hand.
“All right.” She smiled down at him. “How about we let these two push you upstairs?”
Like he had a say in or control over any of this.
The ceiling pattern—tile, tile, light, tile, tile, light—passed above him down a hall and into an elevator. Reality washed in and out, waves of drowsiness ending in a piercing moment of awareness soon washed back into overwhelming exhaustion. He’d been less tired after finishing a marathon.
“Here we go.” Layla’s voice pulled him from the lethargy and he opened his eyes to find himself in a cookie-cutter hospital room, although he couldn’t see much more than the ceiling and the hideous floral valance over the big windows. She left the rails in place but elevated him to a half-lying, half-sitting position and arranged his tubing out of the way. She patted his arm. “Dr. Mackey will be by on rounds shortly. I’m going to go get your family, okay?”
He hated her damn rhetorical questions. He couldn’t answer her. He closed his eyes, trying to block out the frustration. He wanted off the ventilator and out of this damn bed, and he wanted Angel, not necessarily in that order.
“We’re going to go and let you rest.” Cookie spoke somewhere over his left shoulder. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”
Troy Lee tried to nod and realized here was yet another form of communication denied to him. He lifted a finger in affirmation without opening his eyes.
Calvert made a small sound of amusement. “One finger for yes, two for no, huh?”
Troy Lee raised a different single-finger salute. Calvert chuckled and laid an easy hand on his shoulder. “You did good, Troy Lee. We couldn’t have asked for better.”
The acceptance and approval in that weary voice warmed him, but he really needed the warm-and-fuzzy of having Angel close. He held aloft an affirmative finger and moments later the door swished closed behind his colleagues. He would have sighed, but all he got was a hiss, click, pause. Hell, he couldn’t even grind his teeth.
This was going to be a bitch.
He dozed in fits, his muscles jittering and jerking him awake, the fatigue pulling him back under. A nurse appeared to adjust the ventilator and put him flat on his back again, a move that irritated the hell out of him. Finally, he drowsed once more.
“Oh, Mom.” Ellis’s tearful voice seeped into his consciousness. “He looks like when Dad…”
Her words trailed away. He opened his eyes, blinking, to find the room dimmer than when Layla, Cookie and Calvert had brought him up.
“He’s awake,” Montgomery whispered. She leaned over him, brushing a kiss across his forehead. “Hello, Troy-boy.”
She sounded as shaky as Ellis. Remorse stabbed at him. They shouldn’t have to see this, not if it raised memories of their father’s death. He lifted a wobbly hand to touch a finger first to Montgomery’s cheek, then Ellis’s. She caught his wrist and pressed a kiss to his palm.
“Hello, my darling boy.” On his other side, Christine bent and pressed her cheek to his brow. Her loving caress fluttered along his jaw, where a mild soreness throbbed, and she pulled back to look down at him with soft, luminous eyes. “We’ve been so very worried about you.”
His gaze tracked from her face to his sisters. He loved them all, was glad to see them, but where was Angel?
Christine touched his face with gentle fingers. “You look tired. I’m going to take your sisters and get them something to eat, check into a hotel.” She directed a smile over her shoulder, toward his feet, beyond his range of vision. “That way the two of you can have a little time alone together. I’m sure you need it.”
After more kisses from his sisters, Christine ushered them out. His lids fell as he tried to gather what reserves he had left. There wasn’t much.
“Oh, Troy Lee.” Angel breathed the shaky words next to his ear, her cheek just touching his. She stroked his neck, his temple, as if he was made of the finest, most fragile glass. “I love you. I was so frightened…”
She was crying. He could hear it in her voice, feel the moisture of her tears on his skin. He fumbled for her hand. The frustration of enforced silence seared him again. He wanted to return those words of love, reassure her. She twined her fingers through his and rested her lips against his temple. Weariness swamped him, his lids too heavy to keep open.
She whispered something, but he only caught part of it, about realizing the only things that really mattered. He squeezed their hands together and fell into the waiting slumber.
A damp chill wrapped around the night air. Mark dragged in a lungful, hoping the cold would hit him with a charge of energy. It didn’t. He was wiped out, physically, mentally, emotionally.
He sank onto the one of the benches that dotted the covered area in front of the hospital and patted his chest pocket. Damn it, no gum. Wonder where he’d left that? Probably the same place his jacket was. At the station, maybe. He’d run by there and pick it up after he took Tick home. Elbows on his knees, he leaned forward and rested his face in his hands. Stupid, really, to be concerned about trivi
al stuff like gum and jackets and even giving Tick a ride.
Wasn’t like he didn’t have bigger things to worry about.
The electronic entrance doors swished open, and light footsteps clicked on the concrete. He didn’t lift his head.
“What are you doing out here?” Tori touched his nape. “It’s cold. Where’s your coat?”
He shrugged. She feathered her fingertips through his hair. Against his fingers, he squeezed his eyes shut. She straightened and skirted the bench to sit next to him. A well-placed elbow to his midsection nudged him back and she lifted his arm to curve around her. She curled into him and pillowed her head against his shoulder. He didn’t open his eyes. All he wanted was to wrap her up close and hold on for dear life, never let her go.
“This has been a horrific day.” Each word puffed warm breath against his neck. She squeezed his knee. “How are you holding up?”
An ironic half-chuckle worked its way up from his throat. Holding up? All he was doing was putting one foot in front of the other, trying to stay on his feet. It would help if the blows stopped coming, but he didn’t hold out much hope there.
She yawned. “What time is it?”
He rotated his wrist and studied his watch. Giving Keith Hickey his statement three different times had taken longer than he’d thought. “Just after ten.”
“Do you know what sounds good?” She laid her palm across his abdomen. The fluorescent light sparked fire off the diamond on her finger and his chest clenched. “Let’s go home and lie down together.” She lifted her head, trailing a knuckle along his jaw. Stubble rasped against her skin. “Don’t go home alone tonight, Mark. I think we need to be together.”
In the past week, since the recovery of Jenny’s remains, they’d spent their nights apart, in their respective apartments. He hadn’t wanted his nightmares and insomnia to disturb her. Hell, if he’d known what was coming, what he stood to lose…he’d have had her with him every night, storing away memories.
Fall Into Me: Hearts of the South Page 26
