Your Forever Love (The Bennett Family #3)

by Layla Hagen

  “They brought him to San Francisco General Hospital. He broke several ribs, has a collapsed lung, and torn knee ligaments. They’re getting him ready for surgery.”

  “But a collapsed lung can usually be fixed bedside with a chest tube, and torn ligaments aren’t operated on an emergency basis.”

  “Yeah, but there’s been some significant injury to the lung.”

  It takes me a few seconds to pull myself together before I can speak again. “I’ll get there as fast as I can.”

  “I’ll pick you up in ten minutes. Don’t want you to be alone right now.”

  “Thank you.”

  I could have taken a cab, but I appreciate my brother’s foresight. Heart thundering in my chest, I gather my things and head outside the building. My pulse races to the point I fear I might throw up. In the few minutes I spend waiting for Max, I manage to scare myself into imagining the worst scenarios. I try to reason with myself. The injuries Max listed, while bad, are fixable. But my dad is not that young. A surgery at his age is no small thing.

  Max is pale when I climb into his car.

  “Any news?” I ask as soon as the car lurches forward.

  “No.” He sighs, frowning.

  “What is it?”

  “I should’ve stayed at the ranch with him.”

  “What?”

  “I went there last weekend to help out. He was overworking himself.”

  “You mean he was his usual self,” I say as calmly as I can, trying to soothe him. “Don’t blame yourself, okay? Dad’s stubborn. Even if you stayed there, you couldn’t keep him from doing whatever he wanted.”

  Max nods, but he doesn’t look quite convinced. We remain silent for the rest of the drive. I try to convince myself not to give in to panic and am almost successful. But when I walk into the hospital a while later, an avalanche of feelings hits me. I sway on my feet, suddenly more nauseous than before.

  Max eyes me with worry, and I somehow manage to give him an encouraging smile.

  Tears spring at the corners of my eyes as we step into an elevator. I wipe my tears away, hoping Max hasn’t seen anything. I can’t let this happen. I’ll cry later, when I’m alone. My family can’t see me like this. I have to pull myself together. The elevator doors open all too soon, and I force myself to put one foot in front of the other, urging myself to go on. The corridor seems to grow narrower with every step, closing in on me. My brother is behind me. I force myself to take deep breaths, but the opposite happens. The waiting room is completely white. Even the air smells white. Austere and stinging, a mix of medicine and alcohol that raises the hair at the nape of my neck. Bile rises up my throat as I try to shut off the smell. I hate hospitals.

  With each breath, less air reaches my lungs. I stop dead in my tracks when I see my family. The image before me is jarring. My mother sits on the first chair, her eyes vacant. Alice has an arm around her; the other one clutches the phone in her lap. Summer sits on the chair on Alice’s other side, hugging her knees to her chest, her nose red. My baby sister has cried. Daniel and Blake occupy two chairs on the other side of the room, sitting next to each other in silence. Sebastian and Logan are both at the far end of the corridor. Sebastian leans against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest, and Logan paces back and forth.

  Seeing them like this, all my fears come crashing down on me. Dad is in a surgery. My daddy.

  I don’t know where to start, whom to comfort first. Mom, who looks more lost than I’ve ever seen her, or Summer, whose fresh tears break my heart.

  I decide to find out more details first. Pulling myself together, I stride down the corridor, right to Sebastian.

  “How is Dad?”

  “In surgery,” he replies in a seemingly calm tone. To an outsider, this might be reassuring, but I know my brother. This is his alarm voice—trying to keep anyone else from panicking.

  “How long will it take?” A knot settles in my throat.

  “No idea,” Logan replies in a whisper, joining us. “Apparently, they’re not certain about the extent of the damage. Lung surgeries can take anywhere from one to six hours.”

  “There’s nothing we can do but wait,” Sebastian continues. I can tell by his voice that this frustrates him more than anything else. Sebastian isn’t one to sit by and wait. Neither is Logan.

  “Did anyone tell Christopher?” I ask.

  “I talked to him,” Max answers, appearing by my side. “He’s on his way from Hong Kong.”

  “Okay,” I say, pulling myself together. “I’ll go buy supplies for everyone. Water, sandwiches—”

  “Nadine and Ava are taking care of it,” Sebastian interrupts.

  “Oh, great. That’s great. Then I’ll….” My voice fades as I point at the rest of our family, but I don’t need to spell out to my brothers what I want to do. Sebastian and I always could communicate with our eyes only, and Logan learned the language over the years. As the oldest trio, it’s our duty always to be there for our younger siblings. This time for Mom too, it seems.

  “Mom and Summer were at the ranch,” Max tells me. “They rode with him in the ambulance.”

  Which explains why both of them are more affected than the rest of us.

  Biting the inside of my cheek, I walk over to Summer and sit next to her. Without saying anything, my sister leans her head on my shoulder, still hugging her knees to her chest. A little sob escapes her mouth, and I hug her tightly with one arm like I did when she was a toddler and came seeking comfort. I often forget my sister is a grown woman, and this is one of those times. Now she’s just my sister, the family baby, and I can’t stand to hear her cry.

  “Dad will be okay. We have the best doctors here.” Even though I say this in a whisper, Alice, Blake, and Daniel look up at me. They all want to believe this.

  “Pippa,” Alice whispers, pointing to Mom. “Can you talk to her a bit? She hasn’t said one word since they’ve taken Da—” Her voice wavers. “Since the surgery started.”

  I nod, and Alice and I quickly trade places. Up close, my mom appears even more disheveled.

  “Mom,” I say softly, “do you want to take a walk with me outside?”

  Mom doesn’t reply, and Alice darts me a worried glance.

  “Mom?” I press. Ever so gently, she turns to me.

  “No. What if the doctor comes out and—”

  “The surgery will go on for another few hours. Come on. Let’s go out.”

  “Not outside,” Mom whispers. “It’s too far away.”

  “All right.”

  We go to the cafeteria on the sixth floor, and I leave her to sit at a table while I buy her a tea. In the short time it takes me to buy it, Mom’s stare becomes vacant again. I shove the hot tea in her hands and search for the right words to soothe her.

  “I’m afraid he will die,” she says unexpectedly. Her words whip my breath away. “I don’t know what I’ll do if he—”

  “Mom,” I interrupt, because I cannot bear to hear the word again. “Please don’t fall apart. You’re the strongest person I know.”

  A sob is her only answer.

  I hug her tightly. “Everything will be fine, Mom,” I say lamely, but I’m not sure what else to say. I can comfort my siblings, but Mom has always been my rock. Seeing her come apart like this, my own tears threaten to spill.

  I make her drink all the tea, and by the time her cup is empty, she looks more like herself. Looking up to me, she asks, “How are you, child?”

  Scared is what I want to say, but I’m afraid Mom will fall apart again. So instead I go with, “Optimistic. Dad’s a fighter. He’ll get through this and tell us he wants to fix the house himself in one week.”

  “I bet he will. I’ll give that stubborn old mule a piece of my mind when he comes out of the surgery.”

  I smile and Mom puts her hand over mine, squeezing it slightly.

  ***

  When we return to the others, Ava and Nadine have joined my siblings. I take the sandwich Nadine hands me an
d then sit next to Blake. A heaviness forms in my chest, and I hug my knees, mirroring Summer, hoping to quench the uneasy feeling. The wait is killing me.

  Thank God for Ava and Nadine. They run around, making sure everyone’s all right. After a while, though, there’s nothing more for them to do, so they wait too. Sebastian sits next to me with Ava on his other side, holding her hand.

  My eyes travel from their hands to my brother’s face, and his expression startles me. Sebastian is the master of the poker face. He’s so good at hiding his feelings that sometimes even I can’t read him. But right now, he’s let his guard down, and the emotion stretched on every line on his face is crystal clear—fear.

  “Pippa, I forgot to tell you,” Alice says about an hour later. “Your phone has been beeping while you were away with Mom.” She hands me my bag. I fish my phone out of it and find quite a few texts from Eric.

  Eric: Give me a call when you’re out of the office.

  Eric: You’re still working? You’re more of a workaholic than I am.

  Eric: Now I’m worried. Is everything all right?

  Eric: For Christ’s sake, write something back, or I’ll go to the police.

  There are two more messages from him, but I don’t read them, just type quickly. We’re all at the San Francisco General Hospital. Dad had an accident, and now he’s in a surgery. I’ll call you later.

  I put my phone back in my bag and resume holding my knees, rocking back and forth. A heavy silence falls over the group, interrupted only by Summer’s sobs. My own sobs are locked in my throat, and I refuse to let them out.

  If I can’t find any words to comfort my family, the least I can do is not break down in front of them.

  I don’t know how much time passes before I hear Alice saying, “Eric.”

  My head snaps up and I immediately rise from my chair, dashing to him.

  “What are you doing here?” I whisper.

  He takes my hands in his, pulling me a few feet away from the rest. “How’s your dad?”

  “We don’t know anything. He’s in surgery.”

  “How are you?” he asks.

  “Fine.” My voice breaks on the word, so I clamp my mouth shut. My hands start shaking in Eric’s grip.

  “I’m going to take Pippa downstairs. She needs some air,” he calls to the group. “Anyone need anything?”

  There’s a collective no, and the next thing I know, Eric leads me to the elevator, holding my hand. I’m too tired to question anything, and maybe stepping outside is a good idea after all. The knot in my throat threatens to suffocate me. We ride the elevator in silence and Eric slides closer to me, curling an arm around my waist, keeping it there as he walks me outside.

  The air is warm and heavy outside, but it soothes me. I take what feels like the first real breath in hours.

  “Better?” Eric asks.

  I nod.

  “Will you tell me now how you really are?” His eyes bore into mine, and the worry in them is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. I burst out crying. Ugly crying, with blubbering and everything.

  “I’m so scared,” I manage to say between sobs.

  Eric hugs me tightly, and I weep uncontrollably into his neck. “I’ve never been more afraid. I don’t want to be afraid.” I lose myself in his arms, drawing strength from his hug.

  “Shh, calm down, baby. It’s okay to be afraid. It’s okay to show it too. You don’t have to bottle things up.”

  Pulling myself out of his hug, I press the back of my palms on my lids, hoping to calm the tears.

  “Are my eyes red?” I ask Eric after I take my hands away.

  “Very. Your nose too.”

  “Oh, no.” I groan. “Everyone will see I cried.”

  “As they should.” He cups my face. “You don’t have to only show them your strong side, even though you’re the oldest sister.”

  “Hey,” I admonish. “I’m the people reader. Stop psychoanalyzing me.”

  “Why, because I’m right?” His mouth curves into my favorite grin. “From one people reader to another, let me tell you, reining everything in eventually wears you down. You have a big family. Let them comfort you too, Rudolph.” He kisses me straight on the tip of my nose.

  “You know the names of all the reindeer?” I tease.

  “The hazards of helping my daughter prepare for Christmas recital auditions. You have no idea about all the things I know. Now, let’s change the subject before my masculinity takes a hit.”

  I laugh, something I never imagined I’d be doing, given the circumstances.

  “Thank you for making me laugh,” I tell him. Now that I’ve put the ugly cry behind me, I can focus on Eric. He wears a dark blue suit with a white shirt underneath, oozing an amount of testosterone that should be illegal. But there are also signs of tiredness stretched all over his face, and yet, he still took the trouble to come here. “It means a lot to me that you stopped by.”

  “Stopping by? Oh, no, honey. I’m stayin’ here.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “You don’t have to stay,” I say stubbornly.

  “I want to. I’m here for you. Anything you need. You want to take care of everyone else, and I want to take care of you.”

  I shake my head, pulling myself straighter. “I don’t need anyone. I can take care of myself.”

  “I’m not asking for your permission. I want to be here for you, and I will be. No matter what you say, I’m not leaving.”

  “What about Julie?”

  “She’s asleep, and Ms. Blackwell is at the house with her.”

  “Eric—”

  “There’s no point arguing. I’m not leaving.”

  “You’re bossy.”

  “You have no idea.”

  He takes me in his arms again, and I allow his body heat and strength to soothe me. I revel in his tenderness and don’t argue anymore, because deep down, I want him here. I want him to stay, and that scares me because soon enough I’ll have to let him go.

  When we return upstairs, Sebastian tells me that nothing’s changed. But as Eric and I sit next to each other, holding hands for the next hours, I can’t help feeling that something has.

  The chief surgeon comes out at precisely one o’clock in the morning. He informs us that the surgery has gone well, and Dad will remain in ICU for tonight. They will move him to a regular room tomorrow. My dad is in stable condition, but they have to monitor him closely.

  “We expect him to recover well,” the doctor finishes in a tired voice. Almost in unison, the room breathes with relief.

  “Thank you,” Mom tells him while Alice and Summer hug her.

  “There is no reason for anyone to stay here. You’re not allowed to see him tonight anyway,” the doctor adds before leaving.

  Everyone, myself included, murmurs about how we aren’t leaving until Mom exclaims, “Nonsense. I’m his wife. I’ll stay here, in case there’s any news. One of you can stay, but no more. We can take turns keeping watch.”

  Sebastian and Logan protest, but I smile, glad that Mom returned to her normal self. In the end, Alice and Mom remain at the hospital, and they all but kick the rest of us out.

  “I’ll take you home,” Eric tells me.

  I smile, almost amused. “I came here with Max, but what if I had driven my own car?”

  He shrugs. “I wouldn’t let you drive.”

  “I change my stance. You’re not bossy. You’re a downright caveman, like my brothers.”

  “It wouldn’t be safe for you to drive. You’re too tired.”

  I don’t move, taking in his commanding body language, which contrasts so starkly with the tenderness in his eyes. As if reading the question in my mind, he steps in front of me, cradling my head between his hands.

  “I protect and take care of what is mine, and you’re mine, Pippa. Mine. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Pippa

  Eric pulls his car in front of my building a while
later, and I sigh. As if sensing my unease, he puts his hand over mine.

  “If you don’t want to be alone, tell me. I’ll come upstairs with you and sleep on your couch.”

  His eyes are hooded with desire, yet under it all is warmth and concern for me. “Why, you don’t think you’ll like my bed?” I tease.

  “I was trying to be a gentleman.”

  “Let’s go upstairs.”

  He nods, and the gesture unleashes a thick tension between us. Wordlessly, we exit the car and walk inside. Once we step into the elevator, the tension grows, intensifying with every breath, every stolen glance. As I unlock my door and push it open, the tension climbs to an unbearable high.

  Once inside, Eric places his hand on my shoulder. “Are you sure you want this?”

  “Where is he?” I pretend to search his pockets, first dipping my hands in the pockets of his pants, then those of his suit jacket.

  “Who?” he asks in bewilderment.

  “The caveman. Right now, I prefer him to the gentle guy.”

  “He’s right here, ready to strike. He’s always here.”

  The twinkle of mischief in his eyes is delicious. Eric is sweet and caring, but underneath that is a passionate and fierce man. I want all sides of him for as long as I can have him in my life.

  “But I warn you,” he continues, “your neighbors will know my name after tonight.”

  I shudder at the promise in his voice and tease, “Your first or last name?”

  “Both. And you, Pippa Bennett… You will forget your own name.”

  “Good.” I fist his shirt, drawing him closer to me. “That’s what I want. To forget everything.” Realizing how this might sound, I add, “I mean, I’m not planning to use you….”

  He caresses my hair. “You can use me all you want, darlin’. However and in whatever position you want.”

  “Don’t go all yoga on me.” I slap his shoulder playfully. “I want sex, not acrobatics.”

  “That was a straightforward command.”

  Taking his hand, I lead us to my bedroom and turn on the lamp on my nightstand. The smell of jasmine and honey fills the space from the incense I often use in this room. All my senses are on hyper alert.