A Heart for the Holidays

by Dana Volney

  “Hey.” Silver distributed the cups and took a seat near her friend. She’d expected to interrupt a conversation, but Lorelei and Henry were both on their phones.

  “I tried Maisy, but she’s not picking up. I’m sure she’d be here if she could.”

  “Thank you.” Silver crossed her leg toward her friend. “Any news?”

  “No. We haven’t heard anything.”

  “I tried to go see him, but they wouldn’t let me.” Henry pocketed his phone, leaning back in the semi-padded chair, resting his ankle over his knee.

  “He must still be unconscious then.” Her gaze dropped to the black liquid that was only making her stomach hurt worse.

  Henry’s phone buzzed and drew her attention from the caffeine that was allowing her mind to run too freely. Fisher should’ve been awake by now. The longer he was under, the worse the prognosis.

  “Excuse me.” Henry stood with eyebrows knitted together. “This is Hale,” he said as he hurried out of the area.

  “How are you doing?” Lorelei leaned in and nudged Silver with her shoulder.

  “We were fighting.” She took a deep breath. “I wish we hadn’t been fighting.”

  “It’s going to be okay.” Her friend squeezed her knee and gave her the best cheery nod and comforting smile she probably thought Silver would believe.

  Silver knew too much about what was at stake to be that optimistic. Not everything was going to be okay even if Fisher was, but her first priority was to make sure he was alive to make that choice.

  Henry rushed back into the room, grabbing Silver’s shoulder as he stopped in front of her.

  “They matched him with a heart.”

  “What?” Silver and Lorelei both stood. “Who did?”

  Adrenaline blurred her vision for a second. Fisher hadn’t been on the list upstairs. Unless his match hadn’t been in question. Then they wouldn’t have needed her assistance.

  “The people.” Henry held up his phone. “That transplant list. There was a car accident, and one of the people who died was a donor and a good match for Fisher.”

  “Oh my God.” Silver’s face heated, and she felt the tears well. “When?” She cleared her throat to speak at her normal volume. “When can they do it?”

  “They said that since Fisher can’t sign off, I have to. They’re already talking to the doctor.” Henry’s features were heavy, uncertainty clouding his eyes.

  “Are you going to sign?” she asked carefully as Lorelei wrapped her arm around her side and squeezed.

  Henry didn’t say anything. He just stared.

  “Henry. It’s not good that he still hasn’t regained consciousness. He needs that heart. I’ve seen his file. He won’t live long without it. Even shorter now.”

  “Do you know why he made the decision he did?”

  It was the one thing she’d set out to do when she showed up at CCH that day. “No.”

  “At his last doctor’s appointment, he was told that the chances a transplant would be successful were a little lower.”

  “Statistics and doctors can be wrong.” There were no guarantees, but physicians also needed the patient to believe they were going to pull through and get better. Mindset was always important. She could cold-cock the doctor who told Fisher his chances of rejection were a couple points lower.

  “Did he tell you about Maggie?”

  “Yes, she had a lung transplant, and acute rejection occurred.”

  “That’s a very doctorly way of saying she died. They’d finally been handed hope, and everything was going well, and then in an instant she was gone.”

  Silver nodded. She’d been attempting not to be crass. Or lose her tempter over the fact that Henry wasn’t chomping at the bit to get Fisher that heart. Hearts didn’t live outside of the body and stay viable for long. Minutes counted.

  “Nothing with transplants is guaranteed.” The color was draining from her face, her entire body, she just knew it. All hope she held, every little morsel, Henry was stomping on with his size-twelve loafers.

  What was up with his best friend? Shouldn’t he want to save Fisher the most?

  “I think he’s known he was going to die young for so long that he just stopped living. Actually living.” A smile crooked to one side of Henry’s face, causing a dimple. “That was until you showed up.”

  “I want him to live, Henry.” Her voice started to shake, and she paused, regaining her composure. She wanted to make the decision. Give her the form, she’d sign it. It took all of her willpower not to scream, “Sign the damn paper and get Fisher that heart!” But she couldn’t make that decision. Henry knew him best. Fisher had given the decision to Henry. Not her.

  “If you truly believe that Fisher doesn’t want a heart,” she continued, “that he really is happy and at peace with his decision, then I’m not going to try to change your mind or get in your way.”

  chapter ELEVEN

  Fisher lay flat on the gurney as the nurses rolled it slowly. Silver reached for his hand and laced her fingers with his. She didn’t want to let go.

  He hadn’t regained consciousness yet, and the tests hadn’t shown anything concrete or a reason not to go ahead with the surgery.

  Henry had stared at her for what felt like an eternity before finally reaching out, taking the paperwork, and, without even reading it, signing by the X with a shiny fountain pen from his pocket. He handed the papers back to the doctor, nodded toward her, their gazes not meeting, and walked away. She hadn’t seen him again for thirty minutes. Not until Nurse Robert said they were ready for Fisher.

  They reached the double doors to the OR, which she’d passed through so many times before, but this time she wasn’t allowed. She was going to be relegated to the waiting room. Again. There was a possibility she could strong-arm her way in and watch in the corner. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t watch him be operated on and not be able to do it herself, not know that everything would be done properly.

  She was completely helpless.

  “Just a moment.” She found Nurse Robert’s eyes, and he stopped the gurney.

  She leaned down and whispered in Fisher’s ear, “You are a fighter. I know you want this heart. I know you want to live. You’re going to come out of this, and then we can argue if you still want to. I believe in you. I’m on team Fisher, and nothing is going to change that. Fight, Fisher, fight.” She kissed his cheek, gently untwined her hand from his, and wrapped her arms around her chest as he disappeared into the OR.

  • • •

  It had been five hours since she’d watched Fisher roll away. The surgery should’ve only lasted four. Why weren’t they back yet? She paced the row of windowed walls in the blasted waiting room, which she never wanted to see again.

  It was one in the morning, but the caffeine had wired her.

  She’d long since insisted that Lorelei go home. Henry had made a bed, a very uncomfortable-looking situation between three chairs, and had fallen asleep in what had to be an excruciating crouching position an hour ago. His back was going to regret that tomorrow. Or today, since it was past midnight.

  “Dr. Morgenstern.” A male voice stopped her in her tracks.

  “Dr. Isaacs. How did the transplant go?”

  “Really well. He just got out of recovery and has been put up in ICU.”

  Shuffling drew her attention over her shoulder. Henry had roused and high-tailed it over to them in record time, wiping a hand down his face.

  “We are going to monitor him closely, and we need to make sure he wakes up soon,” Dr. Isaacs said. “I’ll give him twelve hours before we start more tests and run some scans. His vitals were strong during the surgery.”

  “That’s a good sign.” Fisher’s new heart was beating strongly. She couldn’t help but smile.

  “It’s still too early to tell.”

  “I realize that.”

  “Can we see him?” Henry piped up.

  “Not yet. But later today I’ll approve him for visitors.”
/>   She pushed her shoulders back. “Dr. Isaacs, we’re going in there.”

  He started to protest then nodded and stepped aside. Make that two perks for being the hospital’s medical director.

  She pushed the elevator button for the third floor. Her and Henry rode in silence. She opened the door to Fisher’s semi-lit room, holding it open for Henry and hanging back.

  Fisher had been put in a single room right next to the nurse’s station in the ICU.

  Henry stood by Fisher’s bed, his back to her. She was the outsider. Fisher probably wouldn’t even want her there. If Henry knew the fury Fisher had displayed right before his trip to the hospital, he’d probably not let her stay.

  “The things you do to have a beer with your best friend.” Henry chuckled faintly and rocked back on his heels. Silence stretched as Henry looked over Fisher and the equipment he was hooked up to. “We all believe in you, man.” He patted Fisher’s shoulder and hung his head. “Keep me posted.” His gaze briefly met hers, and he was out the door.

  Fisher’s five-o’clock shadow was officially a beard now, and she smiled as she scooted a chair up to his bedside. The man barely fit in the bed. The nurses had packed him with blankets and laid out his IV—her eyes trailed over the tubes to the machine. The doctor had been right—Fisher’s vitals were looking good, and that new heart of his was pumping like a champ.

  In the quiet, with only the two of them, she finally felt a shred of peace. She reached for his hand, wrapping it with her palms, and closed her eyes. She more imagined than actually smelled his scent. How she wished it was there.

  The tension in her back and neck started to dissolve into sleepiness. Finally, they were on the other side of the situation. Recovery. Fisher might see this part as the worst, but she didn’t. There was hope in healing.

  He’d come this far. He was going to make it the rest of the way. The couple of weeks he’d need to stay in the hospital to be monitored might make him feel better about rejection as well.

  Rejection wasn’t happening to Fisher.

  She leaned in, setting her elbows on the white sheets. “Merry Christmas,” she whispered, watching his chest rise and fall with a new heart. His new heart. Beat, baby, beat.

  “You’re the best present of all. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you who I was. After I met you, it all happened so quickly, and I didn’t want you to push me away. I didn’t want you to reject me because of my profession, to make meeting you about my job. I only wanted to enjoy you. And I did. I loved the time we spent together, and I’ll cherish it forever. No matter what happens.” She sniffled because saying things out loud, even to a man who wasn’t going to remember any of it when he woke up, was still hard and emotional and dammit, she really wanted him to wake up.

  “But you know what? When you wake up and I can finally look into your beautiful brown eyes again, I want you to pick me. I want you to see that your condition doesn’t define you. Or us. You, Fisher Tibbs, are an amazing man with a heart of gold who just got a second chance at life whether he wanted it or not. And I hope you choose to live it.”

  She sat with him, hearing the nurses changing shifts outside the door. She mindlessly talked about anything and everything she could think of in a low, soothing voice: the storm with nine inches of snow predicted; how Lorelei had the hots for Henry; how she was going to start looking at new jobs that would be fulfilling—the Red Cross was an organization she’d long admired, although she didn’t know what else she’d be good at—how she was going to have to make it up to her family for missing Christmas Eve dinner and that next year she hoped he was a part of that tradition.

  The last thing she remembered before drifting off as the sun rose in the clear blue sky was telling him she loved him.

  chapter TWELVE

  Pain hit him instantly. His eyes popped open, and he took in the space before moving a muscle. Mostly because his body ached.

  He was in the hospital. In a room. Hooked up to a bunch of stuff. His chest burned something horrible.

  There was a blond mess of hair on his arm.

  Silver.

  Her butt was planted in a gray chair, and one hand held his while the other rested on his arm, which also braced her head. He gingerly reached over and moved a few curls out of her face so he could have an unhindered view.

  Her lips weren’t glossy, her mascara was smeared, and her cheeks were bare. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

  He didn’t know why exactly he’d landed in the hospital, but she was there with him. Holding his hand. Falling asleep by his side.

  By the looks of it he hadn’t been out too long—she had on the same pants as when he’d gone to see her on Christmas Eve. Some holiday. Hopefully, she could salvage Christmas with her family.

  He took another breath but couldn’t make it a deep one. Why in the hell did his chest hurt so damn much? Not wanting to break the grasp Silver had on him, with his free hand, he shuffled around the gown he’d been dressed in and opened it up to see white gauze on his chest. He peeled back a side to find a long, red line stapled closed. It stopped about five inches from his belly button. It suspiciously looked a lot like his chest had been cracked open.

  His entire body tensed, and he tried like hell to remember anything since he’d gone over to Silver’s house pissed. He couldn’t.

  Somehow he’d had surgery. But for what?

  She’d never taken him off that list.

  He’d passed out and probably needed a heart.

  Then he’d received one.

  Whether he wanted it or not. Apparently.

  Getting a new heart when he was out cold would’ve been a great-timed miracle.

  He squashed any hope rising in his gut. He didn’t know what happened. Maybe they decided a temporary pacemaker would do the trick, or he needed stents put in, or they had to do something else to his heart and crack his chest open in the process.

  He rubbed his thumb over Silver’s temple. Her skin was so soft. She looked like an angel.

  He sucked in air, and the radiating pain made him hold it in for a moment and release it slowly. He was going to have to remember that deep breathing was off the table for now.

  Silver started to move, rolling her head on his arm before squeezing his hand and letting go. Then rubbing his arm.

  He wanted to be relieved, happy, that she was here with him. But not knowing what had happened to him was keeping any joy at bay.

  Especially if it involved the whole heart transplant possibility that was against his direct wishes.

  “Please be awake,” Silver whispered into his arm, and his entire body heated with the need to hold her in his arms. Drag her up into the bed with him, pain be dammed.

  “Hey there.” His voice came out raspy; his entire mouth was dry.

  Her head shot up, her eyes wide. “You’re awake.” She grinned, pushed herself up, and kissed his cheek before sitting back down.

  “From what, is the question.” He raised his eyebrows. She knew what he was referring to. Pleasantries were nice and all, and he’d like more of her lips on his skin, but why exactly did he have a scar on his chest?

  She glanced down to the exposed bandage, every trace of her grin leaving her creamy, round face. He knew the answer before she spoke.

  “You were unconscious. Things weren’t looking good.” Her gaze met his, her blue eyes darker than normal. “They stabilized you and were running tests”—her shoulders slumped, and she shook her head—“but it wasn’t looking like things were going to get better. After a number of hours, a call came in that you were a good match for a heart available in the area. They needed to move quickly, and you were already here.” She paused, biting her plump bottom lip and scraping her teeth over the flesh. “And you needed that heart to survive.”

  He’d undergone a heart transplant. Without even knowing it.

  He’d also lived through the transplant. For now. He needed to talk to the doctor. Find out what chances of survival they were giving
him. Find out if there were any signs of rejection yet.

  He broke eye contact, looking out the bank of windows to the park they’d sat in only last week and watched it light up. Last week he’d known it might be his last Christmas. Now, he might have dozens of Christmases left. A smile twitched at the edges of his lips, but he squashed it.

  It’s all too good to be true.

  “How long ago?” he asked.

  She glanced at the clock on the wall. “You got out of surgery eight hours ago. It’s Christmas Day.”

  His life had completely changed in less than twenty-four hours.

  “Obviously you never did file my paperwork.” Dammit, he was an asshole, but what else could he do other than fall back on his original anger? Anger that didn’t pull at his gut or tighten his sore chest or weigh on him. No, it definitely wasn’t gone, but something had started to replace it, something that made his body twitchy and uneasy.

  “I did not.” Her chin jutted out, and she tucked her blond hair behind her ear. “And I wouldn’t change what I did.”

  “It’s not what I wanted.”

  She stood, taking her warmth with her. “This is a lot to take in, and you probably need more rest. The doctor will be making rounds soon, so he can answer any questions you have.”

  She grabbed her purse and jacket and headed for the door.

  “That’s it?” He tried to sit up but was hit with a wave of pain that forced him to rest back against the bed.

  She whirled around, red blotches climbing up her neck. “What’s it?”

  “You get me in here, wheel me into surgery, take my heart out, put a new one in, and that’s it. You’re just going to tell me that the doctor will be by soon?”

  “Well, I’m not going to sit here and argue with you. I am not sorry for any of those steps, except the one where you collapsed in my front yard and weren’t conscious to make the decision for yourself when your name came up.”

  “I had made a decision, and you chose to ignore it,” he gritted out. His heart rate was kicking up, and he wasn’t sure that was a good thing right now. Now that he had a new organ to protect and the future to think about.