Angel. One of the first words Jeannie had taught Sam in sign language. His pet name for her.
Sam didn’t understand the next word, although Manton repeated it several times, placing his hands palm to palm, then turning both hands over.
“What’s he saying about Jeannie?” Sam asked.
“He said, ‘Our angel is dying.’” Julian wiped tears from his eyes.
“No, she can’t be dying.” Sam gripped Julian’s thin arm. “I won’t let her die!”
J.T. grabbed Sam’s shoulder, turning Sam to face him. “The doctors don’t know what the hell is wrong. Like Dr. Howell said, she’s been unconscious for days. Her vital signs are growing steadily weaker. They’ve run every test imaginable on her. They can’t treat her, because they don’t know what’s wrong with her.”
“I know.” Sam tried to pull away from J.T., but his friend held him fast. “Dammit, I know what’s wrong with her. I killed her. In saving me, in healing me again and again just to keep me alive, she used up all her energy. She has nothing to build on. She’s depleted her life force.”
He realized that J.T. might think he’d gone mad, but he knew Julian and Manton would understand. He looked at Julian. “Tell him I’m right.”
“It’s possible that’s what happened.” Julian turned from them, burying his face in his hands as his body shook with sobs.
“She’s been drifting in and out of consciousness for the last hour,” J.T. said. “She keeps calling your name. Over and over.”
“Take me to her, J.T. Please.”
Sam Dundee never begged, never pleaded. But he was begging now.
Manton shook his head, stepping in front of Sam, signing furiously. Sam reached out, grasping Manton’s enormous hands, halting him.
“I know what you’re trying to tell me.” Sam patted Manton’s hands. “But if she’s dying, I can’t hurt her, can I? And she’s calling for me. I need to be with her.”
Manton nodded, agreeing with Sam.
Julian Howell, tears coating his face, his voice shaky, turned around and said, “Take him to her, Mr. Blackwood. She wants him with her. She loves him so.”
“He needs to be told before he goes to her,” J.T. said.
“Yes, of course he does,” Julian agreed.
Fear like nothing Sam had ever known invaded his mind and body, trapping the screaming rage inside him. “What haven’t you told me?”
J.T. closed his eyes momentarily, blew out his breath, then opened his eyes and looked directly at Sam. “She’s pregnant. Four or five weeks pregnant.”
Sam’s blood chilled. His nerves burned. His muscles knotted painfully. Jeannie was carrying his child. And they were both dying. Because of him. She had sacrificed herself and their child to save his life.
“No!” The word roared from his body like the cry of a dying animal, his pain more than he could bear.
Sam turned, balled his hands into fists and pounded the wall so hard his hands burst through the Sheetrock. Pulling out his hands, he squared his shoulders and faced J.T.
“Let’s go,” Sam said.
J.T. walked Sam down the hall to Jeannie’s room, Manton and Julian following. She rested on the pristine white sheets, her face devoid of color, her eyes closed. Dressed in a hospital gown, she lay perfectly still.
“I want to go in alone,” Sam said. “I can make it without any help.”
Sam entered her room, leaving the door behind him open. J.T., Manton and Julian hovered in the doorway. Sam walked slowly over to Jeannie and sat down in the chair beside her bed, then lifted her hand and pressed it against his lips.
“I’m here, angel. I’m right here with you,” he told her. “Come on, Jeannie, wake up.”
Her eyelids fluttered.
“That’s it, come on, wake up.” Standing, he clasped her hand to his heart.
She opened her eyes and looked at him. A faint smile curved her lips. “Sam.”
Holding her hand, he leaned down and kissed her lips, the touch feather-light. “You’ve got to fight, angel. You can’t let go. You have to live. What would I do without you?”
“You…you’re…all right?”
“I’m fine.” He rubbed the back of her fragile hand across his cheek. “You saved my life again.” Tears lodged in Sam’s throat.
“I love…you,” Jeannie whispered.
“Please, Jeannie, don’t die.” Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he lifted her into his arms, kissing her tenderly on her forehead and cheeks. “I don’t want to live without you.”
“The baby…she’s all right.” Jeannie brought Sam’s trembling hand down across her stomach. “We need you, Sam. Your little girl and I. You can save us.”
“How? Dear God, Jeannie, tell me how!”
“You know how…you know…” Her voice drifted away as she closed her eyes and sank once again into an unnatural sleep.
“I don’t know!” Sam shouted. “Tell me! I don’t know!”
He clasped her to him, holding her against his chest, stroking her back, whispering her name. Tears welled up in Sam’s eyes. A drop fell on his cheek. He swallowed hard. Another tear fell, then another, and another. Tears flooded his eyes, ran into his mouth, dripped off his chin.
Sam allowed his mind to delve into Jeannie’s, seeking a response when he telepathically called her name.
I’m here, Sam. Help me. Save me. Save our baby. Take care of us.
“How?” he asked aloud, then repeated the question silently. How?
You know how.
He held her close, strengthening their physical connection as he kept their mental link intact.
I love you, Jeannie, my angel. I love you. Please don’t leave me.
He felt her love invade his mind, conquer his heart and lay claim to his soul. Don’t let us go, Sam. Give us your strength. Take away our weakness.
“I’ll do anything to save you.” Clutching her in his arms, holding her weak, lifeless body against the strength of his, Sam trembled with sorrow, crying from the depths of his soul as he had never cried before in his life. Not even when he was a child and his mother died.
“Please. Please. She’s suffered so much for so many people. She gives and gives and asks nothing in return. She’s saved my life twice, and shown me the meaning of real love. I can’t live without her. If she dies, I die.”
J.T. touched Sam on the back. “Come on, Sam. Don’t do this. You aren’t helping her.”
Sam eased Jeannie down on the bed, stood up and turned to J.T. “I would give anything, even my soul, if I could do for her what she’s done for so many others. If I could just reach inside and take away her suffering, make her whole again, give her all my strength.”
“You’re asking for a miracle,” J.T. said.
“Yes, I know.” Sam shoved J.T. away. “I’m not leaving her. She believes I can save her and our baby.” Sam clamped his teeth together, choking on his pain, tears pouring down his face.
Sam fell to his knees beside Jeannie’s bed in a mirror image of her vigil at his side in the storm shelter on Le Bijou Bleu. He held her hand.
“I love you. Do you hear me, Jeannie? I love you.”
Manton and Julian entered the room and stood next to J.T., all three men standing by helplessly. Several nurses stood in the doorway, tears in their eyes.
“Just this once, angel, let someone hurt for you. Let me remove all that suffering inside you. I’m strong enough for both of us, and for our baby. Give me your pain, Jeannie. Do it for us. Do it for…our little girl.”
Sam felt the first faint glimmer of pain, a deep, emotional need, and a physical weakness so great that he cried aloud when Jeannie’s suffering began slowly draining from her body.
“That’s it, angel. Let it all go. Don’t be afraid. Our love is more powerful than anything. We can do this. Together.”
Her pain swirled around inside him, sharp and jagged, ripping him apart. He moaned in agony. Suddenly he felt her withdrawal.
“Don’t, angel.
You’ve suffered far more for me. Love me enough to give me your pain. Please.”
She returned to him, allowing him to take more of her suffering into his body and mind and heart. And when the deed was completed, Sam fell to the floor, unconscious, as his soul joined with Jeannie’s forever.
Slowly, Jeannie opened her eyes. “Don’t touch him. Leave him where he is,” she ordered the others.
She eased off the bed, dragging the sheet and blanket with her. She crawled over to Sam, lifting the sheet over them as she put her arms around him.
“Everyone, please leave,” she whispered. “He’s all right. He just needs rest.”
When the nurses tried to enter Jeannie’s room, J.T. demanded they leave. “I don’t think Jeannie and Sam need any medical assistance right now.”
“Mr. Blackwood is right,” Julian said. “Jeannie and Sam will be all right. The miracle of love has proven to be more powerful than medical science.” Julian gripped Manton’s arm, and guided him out the door. The room emptied quickly. J.T. closed the door when he stepped into the hallway.
Jeannie kissed the side of Sam’s face, then drew his head into her lap. Placing her hand over her stomach, she smiled, knowing their baby was safe.
Sam’s eyelids quivered, and then he opened his eyes slowly. “I’ll always take care of you.” Lifting his hand, he laid it over hers on her stomach. “Both of you.”
“Your love saved us,” Jeannie told him.
“Your love saved all three of us,” he said, then closed his eyes and drifted off into a restorative sleep. When his limp hand slipped off hers, she grasped it and laid it on her stomach.
“Everything is all right, sweetheart,” Jeannie told their unborn child. “Mommy and Daddy are here, and we love you as much as we love each other.”
EPILOGUE
THEY MARRIED A month later in the small Congregational church on Beach Boulevard. Sam was devastatingly handsome in a gray striped morning suit, and Jeannie angelically lovely in Miriam Howell’s ivory satin wedding gown. They honeymooned on Le Bijou Bleu, putting the horrors of Maynard Reeves’s madness behind them.
Seven months later, little Miss Samantha Dundee came howling into the world, after having made her mother and father suffer together through ten hours of labor. But once they held their daughter in their arms, they agreed that they just might give her a brother or sister in a few years.
After enduring the torment of the damned, Sam and Jeannie found heaven on earth. They loved deeply and completely, sharing every joy, every sorrow, every pleasure and every pain. He would forever be her elegant savage, and she his angel of mercy.
Sam didn’t take their happiness for granted. As he had once guarded Jeannie from a world gone mad, he now guarded Jeannie and Samantha, making it his mission in life to surround them with the shield of his loving protection.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7573-1
WITNESS
Copyright © 2010 by Harlequin Books S.A.
The publisher acknowledges the copyright holder of the individual works as follows:
DEFENDING HIS OWN
Copyright © 1995 by Beverly Beaver
GUARDING JEANNIE
Copyright © 1995 by Beverly Beaver
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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