by Bobbie Cole
She pushed aside Julio’s hands and looked at the vest. If it’d been a car that had received hail damage, it’d have been totaled. There were dents all over it, and it looked as if two bullets had pierced the vest.
“Damn, that hurts!” Julio’s eyes were wild as he spoke, and the blood from his head wound kept gushing.
Charlie feared he’d pass out from blood loss. She cradled his head against her chest and screamed for help once more.
She peered through the residue of gunpowder and dust that had been kicked up during the raid, searching for Seth. She’d watched, horrified, as the car had sped toward him, and she’d seen Runnels go gunning for him and the boy, but she hadn’t seen who was wounded—she’d only heard the shots and flinched, wondering who’d been the victim.
“Seth!” She called his name several times, listening for a response, but he didn’t respond. “Seth, can you hear me?”
A member of the SWAT team approached. “The guy you looking for a tall guy wearing a light leather jacket and jeans?”
She didn’t know. Charlie blinked back tears and shook her head. Then she remembered. “Yes! Is he alright?”
The man’s face was grim. “He’s been shot.”
“What?” Charlie started to rise and almost dropped Julio’s head onto the cement floor.
The SWAT cop nodded. “If it makes you feel any better, looks like he killed the guy who was going for him—broke his neck.”
Julio grumbled. “I’ll live—go to him.”
Charlie wanted desperately to do just that, but the bleeding man in her arms was her partner. “Who is with him?” she asked the officer.
“One of the other guys. They’ve called for an ambulance—should be here any minute.” He looked at Julio. “Looks like there’ll be two passengers unless there’s an extra bus.”
Julio tried to sit up, only to have Charlie scold him soundly. “Get up and die, Julio.” Then she looked around, remembering. “Sam? Dad? You here?”
Her father’s voice hollered back.
“I knew it.” The tears she’d held back began to fall. “Old fart never listens to me. I told him to stay in the damned car.”
Julio chuckled then coughed, and blood came from his mouth. He wiped his lips with the back of a hand. “Sounds like someone else I know.”
“Charlene?” Sam sounded winded, like he’d been running. He holstered his .45 and knelt beside her. “Thank God you’re okay.”
“Seth’s been shot.” She choked on the words. Charlie pointed in the direction of the car. “I can’t see what’s happening from here.”
“I’ll have a look.” Sam patted her shoulder and frowned at Julio. “That had to hurt.”
Julio offered a weak smile. “Wore my vest, did everything right and still got shot. Go figure.”
“You’d have had to wear a Kevlar body condom to avoid getting hit in this mess,” Sam said. “Be right back.”
She knew only seconds had ticked by, but it seemed like an eternity before she heard the wail of sirens. By the sound of it, there were at least two more cop cars and two ambulances.
She remained with Julio until the paramedics knelt beside her, taking his vitals and asking her questions. As if by rote, she rattled off what she knew had happened, what she’d seen when giving him a quick examination—just the two bullet wounds, one that seemed minor, the other much more serious.
Then she flew across the garage to the vehicle where two other medics and Sam tended to Seth.
Her father held out a hand. “Before you climb into that van alongside him, hand ’em over. If I know you, you’re not leaving his side.”
Charlie handed him her keys, peering behind him to watch as the paramedics raced to usher Seth into the vehicle. “I gotta go. What about your truck?”
Sam motioned toward a television camera crew that had shown up. “I know one of the reporters. I’ll get him to drive your car back to your place.”
She nodded. “See you at the hospital?”
“Yep.” He kissed his daughter’s cheek. “He’s still breathing, you know. He’s unconscious, but his color’s not bad, so hang in there, baby girl. Try not to fret.”
Charlie felt more fragile than ever and gave him a ferocious hug, whispering. “Thanks, Sam.”
Sam’s chest heaved with a deep breath beneath her embrace. “So you’re not too mad at your old man for busting in like that?”
She shook her head. “I knew you couldn’t stay out of a gunfight. Never have, never will.” She punched him on the shoulders with her fists. “Even if it means risking your life and worrying your daughter into an early grave.”
Sam held her away from him and bent to kiss her again, this time on the forehead. “And knowing you were in that garage—what do you think that was doing to me?”
The sobs she’d held back burst forth. “Damn it, Daddy. Why do we do this? Why this job, why us, why Seth?”
“Because somebody has to do it, and we’re participants, not observers, Charlie.” He chucked her under the chin. “Quit crying, or they’ll think you’re the one who’s been shot instead of your partner.”
She turned to see the medics wheeling Julio toward them on a gurney. One female EMT had a bag of fluids on an IV pole hooked up to him, and she was biting her lips.
When Charlie looked, she saw Julio flashing his pearly white teeth, flirting with the poor girl.
“That boy would have one foot in the grave and still make a pass at a pretty girl,” Sam commented.
“Let’s roll!” One of the EMTs tapped Charlie on the shoulder.
She released her father, climbed into the ambulance, and the door slammed behind her. As they sped toward the hospital, she took one last look at her father and waved, then focused her attention upon Seth.
Out of the corner of one eye, she saw a movement. Julio was trying to get her attention. She reached across the small space dividing them and squeezed the proffered hand.
His expression had changed from one of flirtation to pain, yet through his own discomfort, he was trying to reassure her. Charlie’s heart melted. She didn’t care if her partner saw her this vulnerable or not. She was worried about Seth, but extremely thankful Julio had been with her during the worst day of her career.
“How is he?” she asked the attending EMT.
The woman smiled. “If he’s well enough to make eyes at me like he’s been doing, he’ll pull through just fine and have a couple of battle scars to impress the girls.”
Charlie glanced back at Seth. She’d dared not look at him too intently before then, primarily because she didn’t want to fall apart. Now, however, she couldn’t have looked away. His pallor had changed, even during the past few minutes. He looked gaunt, and his lips had changed from pale pink to gray.
She glanced sharply at the machine monitoring him. His blood pressure was falling, and the machine started beeping.
The other EMT in the back of the van asked her to move away while he ripped open Seth’s shirt and reached for the defibrillator, all the while talking to the other attendant and speaking to Seth in quiet, even tones. “We’ve got a bleeder! Stay with me, man.”
Charlie gasped. The EMT’s next few words swam in her brain. Transfusion. Tremendous loss of blood. Seth was going into cardiac arrest—he could die right there in front of her, and she was unable to help him.
Her heart thundered in her chest, and she flinched with every movement the medic made. She closed her eyes momentarily, unable to watch. She could barely breathe. The man she loved was dying? How could this be?
The next few seconds were a never-ending nightmare, fraught with fear, laced with dread and intensified by the montage of scenes unfolding before her. Seth—smiling at her over dinner that first night. Seth—making love to her, holding her, reassuring her that he’d be back soon from Mexico. Then Seth as Mason, Mason as Seth, the two images blurring and smearing her soul’s canvas, coloring her world with shades of the unknown. Finally, just Seth, her lover, her friend, th
e one man to whom she could tell anything.
The piercing sounds of the machine as his heart stopped completely. Another sound, that of someone screaming—her. She opened her eyes and flew forward, shoving aside the shocked EMT, pounding Seth’s chest.
“No!” she raged, her hands flying everywhere, thumping his chest, slapping his face. “Seth, don’t you die on me, damn it! You do not have that right—you come back to me. Do you hear? Seth!”
Both EMTs grabbed her, one from behind, the other in front, and they ordered her aside, pushing her practically onto Julio’s lap to get her away from the listless man on the opposite gurney.
Suddenly a new sound, that of beeping, a weak but sure sign of life coming from the dying man she’d just whacked.
“What?” The male EMT leaned closer toward Seth, and he shushed everyone else in the van. “What did you say, sir?”
Charlie listened, breath caught in her throat. One word—repeated—she listened, disbelieving, then burst into giggles as Seth said it again, his voice barely a fractured whisper.
“Nag, nag, nag.”
Chapter Thirteen
“One bullet tagged the fleshy party of his upper arm, another grazed his temple. He took two to the chest, and one pierced his lung, but we have him patched up.” The male nurse pointed a thumb over his shoulder toward Julio’s room. “He’s not going anywhere for a few days.”
Sam came to stand behind his daughter. “And Seth?”
One of the doctors entered their circle. “Are you the Vargases?” Once Charlie and Sam nodded, he continued. “Mr. Taggart signed the consent forms to discuss this with you and give you power of attorney. We have him scheduled for a series of MRIs. He has multiple abrasions and lacerations to his head, hands and hips, and a dislocated shoulder that has seen better days. We removed the bullet from his leg that nicked his femoral artery.” He frowned. “You know about the shunts, right?”
Charlie and Sam shook their heads.
“He’s agreed once he’s stable to let us relieve some of the pressure from his brain by inserting shunts.” The surgeon explained how they’d run tubes from Seth’s skull down to his stomach, where the fluid would be emptied. “Of course, they’ll have to be cleaned now and then, but he shouldn’t need replacements for a couple of years or more.”
When Charlie sobbed, the doctor patted her shoulder. “Your fiancé should be fine in a few weeks.”
“Oh, he’s not—we’re not—engaged.” Charlie recovered her shock at being mistaken for Seth’s bride-to-be long enough to respond.
The doctor looked perplexed. “He’s asking for you, you know?”
Charlie shook her head.
“Once the nurse leaves his room, you may go in,” the doctor told her. “Just don’t get him overly excited. He’s had a rough day.” He nodded curtly as he left to talk to another nurse at the center desk.
“Why do doctors always talk in understatements?” Sam complained. “Rough day? Not like he woke up, stubbed his toe and got a headache.”
Charlie pointed toward Seth’s glass-walled room, where she could clearly see Stone talking to Seth and the nurse writing something on a clipboard. “Why does he get to go in there, but I’m told to wait?”
“Maybe something to do with insurance?” Sam shrugged. “Does it matter? The man’s alive. That’s more than I can say for the guy whose neck he broke.” Sam chuckled. “Damn, I’d like to have seen that fight.”
“Daddy!”
Sam’s eyes widened. “Sorry, kid. Forgot I wasn’t talking to just any cop but the one that’s in love with him.”
Charlie waited impatiently for Stone to leave Seth’s room so she could visit. She glanced at her opaque reflection in the glass. She looked like she’d been through a war, clothes disheveled, face blotchy from crying, her hair standing out at all angles. Had she ever looked worse? She doubted it.
And Seth—dear, sweet man. He was as handsome as ever, even if he did have tubes running into him from all directions and that little plastic thingie in his nose so he could get oxygen.
Stone stepped aside, and Charlie saw Seth smile, and her throat ached from a lump she couldn’t manage to swallow, shutting off her air for a moment. She finally sobbed, the lump dissolved and she was able to breathe. Weakly, she pressed her face against the glass and looked through it longingly.
Soon the two men saw her. She stepped away from the glass and dabbed her eyes as a fresh onslaught of tears threatened to burst.
Stone motioned for her to come in, and to her surprise the man hugged her briefly. He didn’t say anything, but the look in his eyes made her wonder at what the two men had been discussing. Stone looked like he knew something she didn’t.
“Hey, you.” Seth’s voice wasn’t strong, but it was steady, almost cheerful. “I’ve missed you.”
Charlie walked tentatively toward the bed, his expression coaxing her forward until she was at his side. She took his hand in hers then bent and held it to her cheek. The damned tears she’d struggled to keep from him flowed freely.
Seth’s hand moved against her skin, and he stroked her face, wiping away the drops as they fell against his fingers. “Care to sit with me for a while?” he whispered.
Charlie dropped into the chair beside the bed, unable to speak. She was overcome with relief that he was alive. She didn’t care what he said as long as she could hear his voice, reassuring her that he was still with her.
“I still have a job,” Seth said, struggling for air, measuring his words carefully. “Washington office told Bill—Stone—that I can have one of the desk jobs in the Houston office if I want it.” He paused before continuing. “What do you think?”
Charlie blinked, sniffed, found a tissue and blew her nose. “Whatever you want. You don’t need my permission.”
Seth cleared his throat. “Sorry. Hard to talk.” He smiled ruefully. “Don’t need you to validate my decision, but it’d be nice if…the woman I loved…was okay with it.”
She took a deep breath. The woman he loves? “Seth.” His name was a whisper on her lips.
“I love you, Charlie.” This time his voice was ragged with emotion.
Charlie grabbed both his hands and squeezed. “I love you, too. I don’t care if you can’t remember us—you know? The past.”
“Ah. But I can.” He returned the pressure she exerted on his hands. “Not everything, but most of it, I think, and I have you to help clear up what is fuzzy. It’s funny, but what’s there is at least solid. It’s a foundation for something, don’t you think?”
She wasn’t sure what he meant, but she nodded. “Sure.”
He chuckled. “You don’t have a clue what I mean, do you?”
Charlie shook her head slowly. Now wasn’t the time to play games with him. If she’d learned anything the past few days, it was that total honesty with him was more important than pretending.
“Maybe we’d better get your father in here,” he suggested.
“You want to speak to Sam?”
“Well, in a minute. He’s an old-fashioned guy. He might like it if I did this right and asked for his blessing.”
Charlie was dumbfounded. “What?”
“I can’t go on like this,” Seth explained. “Life is too short as it is, and I don’t want to spend another day without you in it, by my side. I don’t care if you work or not, if you’d rather wear a gun or a teddy to bed, if you talk about nothing but criminals or babies, sit on your butt eating chocolate and gaining weight, or if you’re out running down bad guys. I don’t want to live without you.”
Charlie burst into tears. “You’re proposing to me while you’re lying in a hospital bed?”
“I’d rather have been in front of you on bended knee, but I imagine you’ll have me in that position soon enough.” He winked.
It took a moment for Charlie to catch his suggestive meaning. “Ha. Okay. Just remember that while you’re down there…”
Seth guffawed then bent forward with a groan. “Ow. That
hurt. Don’t make me laugh.” He recovered then gave her a serious look. “Does that mean yes?”
“Of course it does!” Charlie rose to throw herself on top of him, mindful of his wounds and the oxygen tube. “I love you—I love you—I love you!” She kissed him on the lips, the cheeks, his eyelids and forehead.
They remained like that, holding hands and kissing one another, until it seemed Seth was having trouble breathing. Charlie moved away apologetically. She sniffed again and wiped her face, which was drenched with tears. “I’m a mess.”
“You’re beautiful.” His eyes shone with love.
“I don’t see how you can find me attractive,” Charlie confessed, not fishing for a compliment. “This has been the worst day of my life, and I show it.”
Seth sighed. “I’m feeling the pain killers they gave me right before you came in. Maybe it’s time we called Sam in here while I still have the strength to ask his permission to marry you.”
Charlie nodded and motioned for her father to join them. When Sam entered the room, she beamed. “Daddy, Seth wants to talk to you. And if you say no, I’ll kill you.”
“What are you looking at?” Charlie knew her tone was cranky, but she had the worst case of wedding day jitters she could imagine.
Julio put his hands in his tux pockets. “No offense, but I’ve never seen you in a dress.”
“So?” Now she was not only a sourpuss, but snappish.
“No dress means I’ve not seen your legs—I was beginning to think they were made of wood or titanium or something since you’ve always been such a hard ass.” Julio’s face reflected mild amusement.
Charlie stuck out her tongue. “You wouldn’t be looking at my legs now if I wasn’t bent over and didn’t have my head between them. I don’t want to ruin my gown. I’m ready to upchuck, and I haven’t eaten anything all morning. And here you are, standing in as my maid of honor, and all you can do is make jokes about my body?”
