Embattled Minds (Military Romance) (Lost And Found Series)

by J. M. Madden

  They didn’t say much on the drive south to Colorado Springs, but then, they’d done it several times before. They walked into the doors of the hospital at five thirty, an hour and a half before the scheduled surgery. A chatty nurse checked him in and took his vitals, then parked him in the waiting room to wait for an escort.

  Zeke worried his thumbs back and forth over each other and fought the nausea in his stomach. This was surgery number thirteen. He should be used to baring himself for everybody to see by now, but it was still an effort to keep his ass parked in the chair.

  An orderly called out his name.

  Handing his cell phone to his buddy, he fought not to look at the display one more time. Ember had sent him an ‘I love you’ last night that made his heart stutter in his chest. “Her number is in there, but you can’t call her until I’m out of surgery.”

  Chad nodded and powered down the device, pocketing it along with his own. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry about anything, just keep breathing on that table. You get me?”

  He nodded and accepted a back pounding hug from his buddy. “I will.”

  “I’ll be in the recovery room when you get there.”

  The orderly waited patiently at the open steel doors. With a final nod, Zeke forced his boots in that direction.

  *****

  A smile spread her mouth as she saw Zeke’s number on the phone display. She dried her hand on the bar rag. “Hey, sexy man. I didn’t think you’d be able to call for a few days.”

  “Uh, Ember,” a man cleared his voice. “This is Chad.”

  A wave of fear trickled through her. “Chad. Why are you on Zeke’s phone? Is he okay?”

  “Well,” the other man hesitated. “Not exactly. We came down to Colorado Springs for surgery and it didn’t go exactly right.”

  “Surgery?” Her head swam. “I thought he was on a job somewhere.”

  His boss sighed at the other end of the line. “No, he told you that so that you wouldn’t worry. He was supposed to have reconstruction today, but something went wrong.”

  Her mind was reeling, and she dropped to her ass in a chair in the middle of the restaurant. “What?”

  He sighed again. “I think you should come down. We’re in Colorado Springs. I’m sending somebody to pick you up and drive you, okay? We’ve made arrangements for your son, but he needs a bag. Your ride will be there in an hour, okay? Are you listening?”

  She nodded. As if he could see.

  “If Zeke’s as important to you as I think, you need to come down.”

  “Of course he is,” she snapped. “I’ll be waiting.”

  She debated whether or not to even talk to Drew, but she had a feeling he would want to know. He cried a little bit, then gave her a big hug and told her to go take care of him. She talked to Erin for a few minutes and explained that he would be gone for a few days, but that she was passing along Erin’s info in case they needed her help.

  It felt surreal unlocking her apartment and looking for overnight bags in the mess of her closet. But she did. She packed enough for three nights, just in case. She packed extra clothes for Drew, knowing he tended to be messy.

  She changed out of her uniform and hopped in the shower for a super-quick rinse off. Shudders attacked her as she stood under the steaming water, but she didn’t allow them to consume her. She stepped out of the shower, toweled off and dressed over cold, damp skin. Taking a few precious minutes, she blew her hair dry, then dragged it into one thick braid to hang down her back.

  When the knock sounded on her apartment door, she was ready, bag in hand. Duncan Wilde himself stood on the other side, hip cocked against a cane. John Palmer sat in his wheelchair beside him. He rolled forward.

  “Shannon and I are going to take Drew if that’s okay with you. We have an extra bedroom and plenty of room.”

  Ember nodded, not hesitating for a moment. Drew would probably love staying with them. “Thank you.”

  The little boy was ecstatic and barely said goodbye to Ember as he went through the door, riding on John’s lap. Duncan looked at her, brows raised. “Are you ready?”

  Ember snatched up her own bag, slid on her coat and locked the door.

  It was a very quiet ride to Colorado Springs, broken only by the rhythmic thumping of the interstate beneath them. Afternoon traffic slowed them down, but only for a few minutes.

  “You knew, obviously, he was going in for surgery. Did everybody know?”

  Duncan shook his head. “Just his immediate supervisors.”

  Ember felt so very hurt. Why on earth hadn’t he told her what was going on? She’d have been there right beside him the entire time. “Why didn’t he tell me?” She hated the touch of whine in her voice.

  Duncan shrugged, turning the wipers on to get rid of the few flakes falling. “I’m not sure. Maybe he didn’t think you could deal with it.”

  She frowned, offended. “Seriously?”

  Duncan sighed and shifted in his seat. “Seriously. A lot of people, mostly women, can’t deal with their significant others’ long-term care issues. This may be TMI, but my fiancee left me bedridden in the hospital years ago when I returned from Iraq. At the time, she thought I was going to be in a wheelchair the rest of my life.”

  Ember blinked, deflating. “Oh, wow. I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  He flashed her a smile. “It turned out okay. But you may want to cut Zeke some slack. He was already under a lot of stress about the surgery.”

  “What exactly did he go in for?”

  “Some reconstruction of his forehead area. Minimize some of the scarring.”

  She sat back in the seat, thoughts chasing through her head. If she pushed the hurt aside, she could understand his reasoning. Hell, they’d been together barely more than a week. She recounted the days, just to be sure, but it was true. It just felt like they’d been together longer. They’d traveled a lot of emotional ground in that time.

  Was she bothered by the thought of more surgeries down the road? Well, yes, but only because of the potential threat to his welfare, not because she didn’t want to be there with him.

  She loved him. It was that simple.

  Actually, she was irritated he’d gone and changed his face without telling her. She’d grown very fond of it over the past several weeks.

  When they parked at the hospital, she followed Duncan inside to the elevator bank. He seemed to know where he was going. “Were you here with him when he went in?”

  He shook his gray head. “No, Chad came down with him. He’s been in here before for the same thing several times, though, so I know where to go.” He glanced at her. “I need you to go along with what I say in a minute, okay?”

  Ember nodded, curious.

  The elevator took off. When the doors slid open, Duncan led her around to the right, through an automatic set of double doors, past a nurses’ station and then around another corner to a second nurses’ station. He stopped and smiled at the dark-haired woman behind the counter. “This is Ember Norton, Zeke Foster’s fiancee. Has there been any change in his condition?”

  The woman smiled and dug a chart from the pile in front of her. “The doctor is in there now if you want to step in.”

  Duncan wrapped his hand around her elbow and tugged. She was still dazed from the fiancee bit, but she got her feet untangled and moving.

  “I can’t take you in there without warning you that there will be a lot of stuff on him. Bandages, IV, I’m sure. Don’t freak.”

  She nodded, appreciating that he kept hold of her arm. “Okay.”

  He slowed at a door on the left, then pushed through, pulling her along with him. A man in a white coat blocked the doorway talking to Chad, and she couldn’t immediately see Zeke. She pushed past the obstruction, then stopped. Tears came to her eyes as she finally saw him.

  Stretching the length of the hospital bed, her big, strapping warrior was out cold. A clear oxygen mask was tight to the only part of his face not covered. From the jaw
up on the left side, his head was wrapped in a beige mask.

  She stepped to the side of his bed and reached for his hand, shocked at how cold his big fingers were. She wanted to lean down and kiss him, but there was nowhere she could touch without fearing she would hurt him. The back of his hand had a clear IV in it, and was taped up his forearm. There was an oximeter on one of his fingers to measure oxygen in his blood. He had a blood pressure cuff encircling his other arm.

  Ember looked to the doctor she’d pushed out of the way. “Is he okay?”

  The man didn’t seem put out in any way and smiled at her. “He is. In spite of his appearance. We had a few issues during surgery, but he seems to be recovering well.”

  Duncan leaned in, brows drawn. “What kind of issues?”

  The doctor shifted on his loafers and flipped open the chart in his hand. “Well, the resident responsible for one portion of the surgery nicked an artery, and we had a bit of a bleeding issue.”

  “I overheard one of the nurses talking and she said it was a lot of blood.” Chad had his arms crossed, and Ember was surprised to hear anger lacing his voice.

  “Not a lot,” the doctor held up a placating hand, “but a good amount. The arterial repair didn’t want to hold and we had to call in a vascular surgeon to transfuse him with a couple pints of blood.”

  “A couple?” Duncan’s dark eyes narrowed on the man. “How many exactly, Doctor?”

  The harried man looked down at the chart in his hand. “It looks like we needed three pints when all was said and done.”

  From the look on Chad and Duncan’s faces, that was a lot.

  “Is he okay now?” she asked, heart in her throat.

  The doctor nodded. “We were able to repair the artery and completed for now the repairs to the previous facial scarring we wanted to do. He’s right on track with his post-op recovery plan. As soon as he wakes up from the anesthesia, we’ll settle him in a room. Barring infection, he should be out of here within a few days.”

  The knot of tension in the middle of her chest eased a bit, and she took a deep breath. “When will he wake from the anesthesia?”

  The doctor gave her a look. “Well, technically, he should have been awake by now. He’s taking a little longer than normal. But, his body’s been through a lot of insults and shock trauma today, and sometimes the body and mind knows better than we do when to surface. Just press the nurse button when he opens his eyes.”

  The doctor made his escape then, and Duncan shut the door firmly behind him. “I have a feeling we aren’t hearing everything.”

  Chad nodded. “The nurse I heard said that it was pretty touch and go there for a while, and his bp had bottomed out.”

  “How much blood does the average person have in their body?” she asked.

  Chad and Duncan shared a look, as if they didn’t want to tell her.

  “Six or seven pints. Maybe eight for a guy Zeke’s size,” Duncan told her.

  Ember cringed at the thought that he had lost so much blood, from a tiny, misplaced slice.

  “Does this happen every time he comes in?”

  Chad shook his head. “Definitely not. Never had any problem like this before. I’ve been with him for two of these since he’s been with the agency.”

  Ember watched the even rise of his chest under the blue gown. It seemed steady. Watching his face, though, his eyelids didn’t even flicker. She ran her hand over his shoulder and the upper part of his chest, anxious to feel something.

  Chad shifted a chair closer to the bed for her. “You might as well have a seat. It’ll be a while.”

  Duncan left the room and when he returned a few minutes later, an orderly followed him in with two more chairs. The man positioned them then left.

  Ember shook her head at the ease with which Zeke’s boss got things done. “Does everybody do what you want them to do?”

  Chad laughed out loud as he settled into one of the chairs. “Yes, if they know what’s smart. Otherwise he’ll pout like a baby and glare daggers at you until it’s done.”

  Duncan raised a brow at Chad and shook his head. “Don’t you have a piece of taffy to chew or something?”

  The Texan unwrapped a piece of gum and tossed it in his mouth, grinning. He winked at Ember and leaned close. “Boss man thinks this’ll shut me up. You’d think he’d know by now.”

  Ember laughed, appreciating that they were trying to lighten the mood for her.

  They all three settled in to watch him breathe. About two hours after they got there, he groaned, then his eyes began to roll back and forth beneath his eyelids.

  Ember was at his side in an instant, leaning over the head of the bed to him.

  When his dark lashed lids lifted, she made sure she was the first thing he saw. “Hey, beautiful. Can you hear me?”

  He lifted the hand nearest to her and grabbed her forearm. Ember fumbled for the nurse’s button through her tears.

  As the hours passed into night and Zeke began to rouse more, she lost track of how many nurses and doctors trooped through the room, checking this and that. At one point they took off his oxygen mask and hung it on a hook behind the bed. He answered their questions in a painfully raspy voice.

  One sweet-faced nurse brought him a jug of ice water, but cautioned him to drink it a little at a time. As soon as she left, he reached for the jug. Ember grabbed it and held the straw to his lips, but pulled it away after a few swallows. “You better take it slow,” she cautioned.

  Zeke looked at her and smiled. “I thought you’d be pissed at me.”

  She couldn’t help but return his smile. “I am. But I’ll wait to rip into you.”

  He snorted and squeezed her hand.

  *****

  Zeke didn’t know what he’d done in his life to garner such great friends. His gaze rested on Ember curled up in the chair beside him. And lovers.

  When he’d opened his eyes and seen her standing over him, he’d thought it was the anesthesia messing with his head. He’d told Chad not to bring her in until he came around, but his buddy had obviously decided otherwise. When Duncan told him about the near miss he’d had, he’d been shook, and understood.

  Complications during surgery were always a possibility, but nothing had ever happened before now. Figures, the one time it needed to go smoothly and it hadn’t.

  Shame had coated his stomach when he realized how bad he probably looked. Even though he couldn’t see it, he felt the beige compression mask cinched around his neck and head, and everything not compressed was probably swollen. He remembered seeing himself in the mirror the first time like this, and it hadn’t been pretty. Without it, though, his face felt like it was pulling apart. They gave him enough pain killer to take the edge off, but nothing completely took away the bone-deep ache.

  She hadn’t hesitated or flinched when she’d looked at him though, and the little flicker of hope that she could take this stuff flared a little brighter. Every time the doctors and nurses came in, she asked questions. Same stuff he’d asked through the years. Should it look like that? How long would it take to heal? How long did the stitches need to stay in? When could he resume normal activity?

  The one time she did break, just a little, was when they removed the pressure bandage and she realized they’d shaved him. He raised a hand to rub over the stubble and old scars on his head in embarrassment. Her brown eyes got big and she slapped a hand over her open mouth.

  “All that beautiful hair gone…”

  …and all the hideous scars revealed.

  The second part he heard screaming completely through his head. She hadn’t said it, but she might as well have.

  “…will make you look like a total bad-ass.”

  Zeke looked up at her with a frown, unsure he’d heard her correctly. “What?” he croaked.

  “As if six and a half feet of Marine wasn’t bad enough, now you have to look like an enforcer out of a movie or something.”

  Once again, it was like she’d just kicked his bou
ncy-red-dodgeball life on end and his reality had to shift to align with her reality. She didn’t mind the scars. Emotion tightened his throat. As chickenshit as it would sound, he needed to hear the words. “You really don’t mind them?”

  She squinted at him as if he were out of his mind. “Seriously? Hell, no. Although Drew may start calling you Humpty Dumpty with your egg cracked like that.”

  Barking out a laugh, he’d tugged her hand to his mouth for a kiss to her palm. When that wasn’t enough he forced her to lean over the side of the hospital bed so he could fold her into his arms.

  Ember stayed by his side through everything, even when the guys went back to work. When they changed his bandages, she peered around the nurses shoulders to watch them do it. When they got him up to walk the floor, she tagged along. It was comforting, although a little strange, that she was right there all the time. He’d never imagined he could have that kind of support from anybody.

  They talked about everything, from sports to guns to politics. The only thing they didn’t talk about was the fact that he didn’t tell her he was coming in here. It bugged him so much that two days after he woke he had to break the silence.

  “So, the anticipation is k-k-killing me.”

  Ember looked up from the book she held open before her. Zeke muted the flatscreen hanging on the wall across from him.

  “It’s been two days and you haven’t said a word.”

  She didn’t need any clarification. “Because I know I’m probably going to yell, and I don’t want to do that here.”

  “Well, can we talk about it without yelling?”

  She sighed and set her book to the side.

  “No, because I’ll probably cry.”

  Zeke sighed, feeling like shit, wishing she was close enough to touch. “I didn’t want you to worry.”

  “I know,” she said. “But don’t you think it was more traumatic for me to walk in here cold and see you like this? Or was that the test? To throw it all at me at once to see how I did?”

  Zeke cringed, because that kind of had been his reasoning. He’d expected her to bail—had always expected her to bail—so he’d stacked the deck in that direction. “I’m sorry. That was a b-b-bonehead move on my part. You’re right, though. What I go through is sh-shocking, and this isn’t the end of it. I have several more…s-s-surgeries before I think I’ll be able to walk out in public without feeling like a fr-reak. I wanted to be sure I could count on you before I fell any more in love.”