Bearing It All

by Vonnie Davis

  Anisa was about to die. Instead of her life flashing before her eyes, all the unachieved goals of her heart pulsed a brittle beat. No marriage to Ronan. No bearing him children. No helping him to heal from his da’s death. No growing old together, sleeping in each other’s arms.

  Her paralyzed throat refused to swallow, the saliva pooling in her mouth. Her vision narrowed to pinpoints. And the pain in her lungs…oh, God…the pain…

  The nurse, agent, whatever she was, leaned over her until they were nearly nose-to-nose. “The effects of the medicine will soon wear off. Consider it a warning.” She shook the bag. “If I don’t get those records you copied, the man who struggled to get up here to see you earlier today will die in the most painful way. So will other members of his family. Contact your CIA coworkers within twenty-four hours to arrange the extraction of you and the intel.”

  The agent turned on her heel and stormed out of Anisa’s room.

  Fear seized Anisa’s body and soul. The portable external drives wouldn’t be in those dirty clothes. How could they when she’d turned them over to Kendric? She had to tell someone she wasn’t the one in danger. It was her beloved Ronan.

  Chapter 17

  Nurse Jaimie and a medical assistant rushed into Anisa’s room. “Look! Someone’s unhooked her from the monitors. Who the bloody hell did that? No wonder the buzzers at the nurses’ station are going wild!” Both dashed to her side. “She’s in big trouble! Look at her!”

  I’m so cold. If only they’d pile on more blankets.

  Jaimie put the stethoscope into her ears and listened to Anisa’s heart. “I hear a beat. Weak. Slow. What could have happened? Did someone put the wrong medicine in her IV?” Jaimie removed the IV tubing from the stent. “Get those worthless cops in here. I’ve got questions.” She pulled a light from her pocket to examine Anisa’s retina response. The beams of bright light all but seared her eyes. If only she could speak.

  The nurse moved the monitors closer to the bed and began hooking the sensors back onto Anisa’s body. Blips and beeps came to life. “Honey, can ye hear me? Blink, if ye can.”

  Anisa slowly blinked. She was aware of what happened around her, but she was practically paralyzed. As soon as she could move, she would hug Jaimie. And cry. Yes, she was due a good cry and one of Ronan’s hugs. She had to see for herself if he was still okay.

  Jaimie prattled as she worked. “Everyone was helping other patients. There was a big car wreck on the main road with some major injuries, so nay one heard the beepers go off to yer room. Och, I feel terribly bad. Yer blood pressure is extremely low, heart rate dangerously weak, and ye canna move, can ye? What in the bloody hell coulda happened?” She glanced at the assistant. “Hon, call for bloodwork. Tell them it’s an emergency.”

  Jaimie pressed a palm to Anisa’s cheek. “Are ye warm enough? Blink once if ye need more blankets.” One blink and Jaimie was tugging blankets from the shelf of the closet.

  The two officers moved into Anisa’s line of vision. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind Jaimie was pissed when she rattled off some rapid-fire questions while spreading covers over Anisa.

  The smaller guard scratched his neck and blushed. “After the American and her baffies left, the only one who came in here was a nurse. Middle-aged. Dark hair. She left carrying a trash bag jammed full of something.”

  “And ye dinna find that odd? Ye dinna ask to see what was in it?” Jaimie huffed and planted her hands on her round hips while she glared. “Incompetent numpties.”

  You tell them, sister. They let someone hired by the CIA walk in here and try to kill me. If they were under my command, they’d be court-martialed.

  “There’s no need to get so all fired pissy, Ms. Blake. Granted, we’d never seen her on this floor before,” the taller guard added, “but she carried a narrow chrome tray with a hypodermic needle on it, same as other nurses. She wore black-framed glasses. Her black cardigan covered most of her ID badge.”

  “And isna part of yer job to check the badges of every hospital employee coming into this room?” Jaimie’s face was beet red. “I take me job seriously, unlike some people. Me patients are me primary duty. Also, I want this hospital on lockdown. One of ye better call security. If they have any questions, have them contact me, Jaimie Blake.”

  You go, Jaimie Blake, the blond live-wire in squeaky shoes. God, you’re my kind of woman. I’d like having you for a friend.

  Jaimie unhooked and handed the IV bag to the medical assistant. “Rush this down to the lab and tell them I need it analyzed ASAP. Tell them I think someone tried to poison one of our patients. I want the results yesterday. Dinna let them dick ye around. It willna hurt to be a tad bossy. Och hell, be a pain in the arse bossy.”

  “Aye. Will do.” The assistant hurried out. “Fer once I get to give orders. I love it.”

  Jaimie whirled on the taller of the two guards and pointed, her long blond braid whipping over her shoulder. “Ye! Call Detective Matheson and tell him what happened. Tell him I have a patient that’s damn near paralyzed.” While she issued orders, she punched numbers into her own cellphone. “Dr. MacGuiness, Jaimie Blake calling. I need ye in room three-nineteen. I think someone tried to poison our patient. All she can do is blink her eyes. Pulse is verra weak. Blood pressure eighty over fifty-eight. Okay. Thank ye.”

  The door to Anisa’s room flew open and Effie ran in. “I knew it. I was weighed down by evil as soon as the elevator doors opened on this floor!” She pushed the guards out of her way and leaned over Anisa. Effie cupped her cool hands on Anisa’s face. “Can you open your mouth, Rose Petal? Just a little, baby.”

  With great effort, she parted her lips as much as she could and Effie inhaled Anisa’s breath. “Poison.” She took another whiff of Anisa’s breath. “I’m betting it’s from a rare frog found in Australia. Causes temporary paralyzation in small doses. Death in larger. Guards, if you’ll leave this room. I want only Jaimie here.”

  “Dinna ye dare forget to make those calls,” Jaimie reminded the guards as they all but ran into the corridor to escape her wrath.

  Effie looked at the nurse. “Darlin’, you took care of me when I was hurt. You heard me recite my morning rituals. You know what I am. I’m going to recite olden words of healing over Anisa. They won’t replace the medical expertise offered here in the hospital. They’ll just open the channels so healing can happen quicker.” Jaimie nodded and Effie held her hands about an inch from Anisa’s body. As they hovered over her from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet, Effie’s lips moved. Anisa made out a few of the words. Some rhymed. Some called upon healing witches for help. Some were spoken in languages she didn’t understand.

  Slowly, a tingling started at the soles of her feet and in her fingers. A few minutes later, she could swallow. Never had she understood what a blessing the simple act of swallowing could be.

  Jaimie watched the monitors. “Effie, her blood pressure is inching upward, so is her respiration. There’s even a slight tick in her heart rate. Whatever ye’re doing is helping her.”

  “I want you to call Earnan for me. Tell him where I am and to come quickly. Performing the duties of a shaman weakens me. The healing takes away my strength now that I’m aging.”

  The nurse hurried around the other side of the bed and slid the chair behind Effie, helping her onto it. “What can I get ye to help? A Coke? Orange juice? Water?”

  “Earnan. Just get me Earnan. He’ll hold my hand and talk to me until I feel stronger.”

  Anisa still couldn’t move her head, but her gaze took in Effie’s paleness and Jaimie’s expression of concern as she dialed a number. “Dr. Earnan. Effie needs ye. She said healing words over a patient in room three-nineteen and it weakened her. Okay, I’ll tell her. Aye. Aye, I will.” She slipped the phone back into her pocket. “He says to tell ye he’s on his way. Ye’re to have orange juice until he gets here and none of yer women’s libber stubbornness. Just drink the bloody stuff.”

  Effie pursed her lips.
“I’ll have apple juice and nothing else.” She glanced at Anisa and winked. “A woman needs to keep her man a tad off-balance. It makes him pay more attention.”

  The next half hour was a process of being poked and prodded by various medical personnel. On the good side, feeling was slowly coming back. Anisa could turn her head a little and move her feet slightly. Once…if…her speech returned, she had to reach Ronan to make sure he was okay and tell him what the strange woman told her after she tried to kill her.

  Creighton slouched in the chair by Ronan’s bed. “I thought of bringing little Rory Creighton in and taking pictures of his working ye over. The chubby bairn has some muscles on him already.”

  Ronan shifted in the bed, pain from his bullet injuries stinging and pulling. “Right about now he could probably hold me down. Nay problem. How’s me angel doing?”

  Creighton’s eyes gleamed. “Little Roslyn? Can ye believe me wee sweet bairn smiled at me this morning? ’Course she’d just unloaded a pile of shite in her diaper first.” He shook his head. “How can so much stink come from one tiny bairn?” He sighed, his lips twitching. “I am one lucky man. A wife I live fer, two perfect bairns, and two brothers I can depend on fer anything.” He leaned forward and clasped his hand over Ronan’s forearm. “When I got the call from Kendric with the news about ye being shot and in the company of a French traitor, me heart nearly stopped.”

  Ronan’s eyes narrowed on his eldest brother. “Anisa is nay traitor. She saved me life.”

  “On that, ye’re right. I went over the evidence she gave Kendric. We were up almost all night comparing one file to another. It took us awhile to get the hang of their bookkeeping. The code they used. But everything she said was true. Kendric made some inquires on getting her political asylum here in Scotland.” His phone rang and he unhooked it from the belt of his worn jeans, glancing at the display. “Kendric, what’s up?”

  It was great seeing his brother beam as he bragged about his bairns. Ronan would have one of his own someday. Anisa had helped him work through the long-held pain of losing his da. They’d had many long talks at the cabin, healing conversations that would help him move into the future with a lighter heart.

  Creighton fell silent. His gaze snapped to Ronan.

  A chill snaked through Ronan’s system and his heartbeat stumbled over a mountain of fear. “Me woman?” Ronan yanked the blankets off and he hinged on a groan into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. “Tell me!”

  “Someone pretending to be a nurse walked into Anisa’s room and gave her something. They suspect poison.”

  “Who?” Ronan roared as he painfully stood, the fresh stitches pulling. Had it been someone from the CIA or ICAT or the French government? Were they trying to eliminate the only person who could reveal what treachery some of them had been up to?

  “I’ll get a wheelchair and we’ll be right there. Aye, I’m bringing Ronan along. Do ye think I could keep him away?” Creighton ended the call and focused on his brother. “Nay one kens who poisoned her yet—or with what. I’ll be right back with a chair.” He rushed into the corridor, returned almost immediately, and helped Ronan onto the seat, keeping a running dialogue as he pushed down the footpads. “Anisa’s nurse found her paralyzed and her systems shutting down. Thank God, she caught it in time and made swift, wise decisions.”

  “Paralyzed? But how? Were’na there guards outside her room?” Ronan pounded his knee with a fist. “Who and how, dammit?” His exclamation drained him. Me Beauty paralyzed? No, it canna be. When he spoke next, it was with dread more than anger. “Is…is she going to…to…” Bloody hell, I canna say it.

  “Kendric spoke of some slight improvement. I ken ye need to set yer eyes upon her. Find out the truth of what’s happened.” Creighton pushed the wheelchair toward the elevator, almost on a run. “Talk to her. Hold her hand. Tell her how much ye love her, no matter how many other people are in the room. ’Tis what I would do if it were Paisley. I canna imagine life without me woman. I ken ye well enough to tell ye have deep feelings for Anisa, and she makes no pretense of how she feels about ye.”

  Ronan leaned forward to press the button on the elevator and ignored the resulting discomfort from his movement as the doors swept open. What would he find when he got to his Beauty’s room? He concentrated on keeping his breathing regular. He wiped his sweaty palms on his gown. “She’s everything to me. I never thought I’d utter those words or mean them, but that woman is me heart.”

  “Whatever we need to do to help her, brother. I’ll move heaven and earth fer ye and her. Ye ken that.”

  “Aye. I do. Ye always have.”

  Creighton’s hand clasped Ronan’s shoulder as the door to the lift opened and Ronan reached back to pat it. While his brother rushed him toward her room, Brother Bear was practically hysterical.

  My Anisa! I will kill whoever hurt her. I will scratch him to shreds. She belongs to us. I need to hug her.

  “Creigh, I dinna ken if I can keep me bear under control. He loves Anisa like a mother or his best friend. He’s liable to shift. I’m nay strong enough to stop him, not in me weakened condition.”

  “I’ll have me bear try to reason with him. If he willna listen, I’ll clear the room so he can shift fer a few minutes.”

  “I willna have the energy to shift back. Not for several hours. The staff up here will go into shock. That’s why our kind is treated on the first floor.”

  Creighton whizzed the wheelchair around the corner into Anisa’s room. “I’ll see to it all, Ronan. Dinna fear.” Everyone scattered out of the way as he pushed Ronan next to Anisa.

  Ronan’s gaze locked on hers. Reading fear and anxiety in her eyes, he slid one of his hands under hers and covered it with his other. “I’m here, luv. I will not leave ye until ye’ve recovered. Do ye ken what I’m saying?” She blinked once.

  The nurse stopped massaging Anisa’s legs. “If she blinks once, that’s equal to her saying ‘Aye.’ ”

  “Are ye the nurse who found her?” Ronan noticed Kendric watched the nurse while he talked on the phone, issuing orders to someone.

  “Aye, I am. Me name is Jaimie Blake. I moved here about a year ago from Glasgow.”

  “I’ll be forever grateful fer yer conscientiousness. I love this woman with all me heart.”

  A tear leaked from the corner of Anisa’s eye and he slowly stood to kiss it away. “Ye are me one true beloved. Dinna give up. Dinna leave me, sweetheart.”

  “Ro,” she whispered. “Love you.”

  Jaimie looked up from what she was doing. “Those are the first words she’s uttered. We’ll take joy in any progress.”

  Ronan turned Anisa’s wrist over and placed his lips to her palm. Progress. The woman he loved more than anything was making progress. They’d created a connection, the two of them. Aye, one lived for the other.

  “Creigh?” Ronan whispered.

  “Aye?”

  “Could ye use yer influence to have me bed moved up here? If someone slid Anisa’s bed toward the wall a little more, I think it’ll fit. I’m not leaving her.” Brother Bear settled a little when Ronan asked for the heavy bed. He knew what that meant—that he could come out later when the room was empty. Ronan had promised him he could shift when they were alone. Brother Bear had quieted down from his frantic pacing and worrying over his friend Anisa. Creigh clasped his shoulder. “Done.” He walked around Ronan’s wheelchair, bent, and kissed Anisa’s forehead. “Heal, me sister.” He glanced toward his brother. “I’ll step into the corridor and make a call to have yer things moved up here. My clearing-out will help give everyone more room to work. Dr. MacGuiness looks like he’s elbow-deep in people.”

  A man in a lab coat charged in, waving a folder. “Poison. There was poison in the solution remaining in her IV bag. The machine hasn’t identified it yet, but it’s something strange. Not yer garden variety poison, that’s fer sure.”

  Dr. MacGuiness reached for the report and laid it on his patient’s legs to study i
t. “This job is top priority in the lab. Do I make meself clear? Keep the gas chromatography and mass spectrometry machines working round the clock. Where the electron beam hits it in the mass spectrometer and causes it to break apart will help the technician watching the machine tell what type of poison it is.” He glanced at the lab technician and pushed up his horn-rimmed glasses. “I want someone who’s particular about his or her work assigned to the job.”

  “Have it checked for the Copper-backed Broodfrog from Australia. Although it might be a cocktail of poisons, I think the frog venom is the base,” Effie’s weakened voice sounded from the chair near Ronan.

  There was a snort from the man in the lab coat. “Excuse me, but what would ye ken about poisons?”

  Ronan glared at him. “Ye’d be surprised. Now write down the name of the frog. What was it again, Effie? An Australian Copper-backed Broodfrog?” She nodded, almost as if she were too weak to speak. “Write it down, man, before I engrave it to yer fecking forehead.” Ronan’s nerves were so bad he wanted to rip something apart. He’d have nay trouble starting with this smart-arsed lab rat.

  The lab worker pulled a pen from his pocket and jotted it down. “Ah…is this the Effie from America?”

  Ronan scowled at the simpleton. “Aye.” Gossip about Effie ranged from the witchy truth to bawdy rumors.

  The man from the lab, now in a hurry to be on his way, squeezed past Earnan as he charged in the doorway, pushing a wheelchair. His face wrinkled into a mask of worry as he barreled down on Effie. He cupped her face. “Ye overextended yerself again, didna ye, me Angel?” He shot a glance at the empty bottle of apple juice. “And ye just had to go against me orders about orange juice, ye beautiful, spirited hippie. Come on. Let me take ye home. I brought ye a wee chariot.” He reached fer her hand.

  “I want to watch over my Rose Petal.” Her lips took on a petulant quality and Earnan sighed.

  “Angel, ye can do just as much at home in bed, reciting the aulden words and checking yer volumes of protection spells. We dinna want to be in the way. Kiss her goodbye and I’ll take ye to Iverson Loch. I’ll start a fire in yer bedroom fireplace and rub yer shoulders fer ye until ye fall asleep.”