Bossman's List

by Ashlee Price

  “What is going on here?”

  “Get back, ma’am.”

  I tried to talk to the paramedic, but he brushed me off. Just then I realized who they were carting off on the stretcher. What had happened to Tyler? There was blood everywhere, and I wasn’t going to be put off by the EMT anymore.

  “This is one of my patients! What happened to him?”

  The young, overweight man finally really looked and me and then motioned to Tyler. “He was shot on the side of the building. A passerby saw him bleeding out in the street and called us. Lucky that they did or I don’t know if this man would still be alive.”

  It was too much information to process. The EMT asked me if I wanted to go with him. I hadn’t known it was an option, and it might have looked wrong, but I didn’t care. I was torn up about how I’d talked to him during our session. The idea that it would be the last time I talked to him occurred to me then, and I would have done anything to have another chance. I would say something better, tell him what his kiss and arms around me had actually meant to me.

  “Yes, I’ll ride with you if I can.”

  “Come on, then. We need to get him to the hospital right now. He’s losing a lot of blood, and I don’t know how much longer he can hold out.”

  He didn’t have to say anything else. I was climbing into the back of the van. I crouched down next to him as the man worked. I finally had to move away, but I hated the fact that I had to let go of his hand. It was like my lifeline to him, to knowing that he was going to be okay. I couldn’t imagine a scenario that ended any differently. It was the first time I’d prayed since I was a kid. I’d never wanted anything more than how badly I wanted Tyler to just be okay.

  My phone rang several times. Finally I had to answer it, just to get it to stop ringing.

  “Why didn’t you answer?”

  “I’m a little busy right now, Zane. You’re just going to have to wait on our meeting.”

  “You know what happens if you don’t do what I want.”

  I was too frustrated to deal with him, and at the moment I didn’t care about my career. I didn’t care that I was being blackmailed. All I had energy to worry about was the fact that Tyler was bleeding out in front of me. That was all that I was concerned with, and before I could get any more abuse from Zane, I hung up the phone and turned it off. I had enough to worry about without having to worry about him as well.

  While the call shook me up a little bit, I didn’t let it bother me too much. I would worry about Zane later. Everything that I’d been feeling for Tyler was coming to a head, and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if something happened to him. It reminded me of how dangerous the city was becoming and how uncertain life was in general.

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  The young EMT just kind of shook his head like he wasn’t sure one way or another. I wanted to shake him and make him give me details, but I knew that I couldn’t. “Just do what you can to help him. He’s important to a lot of people.” I didn’t say out loud that he was important to me and the very thought of being without him made it hard to breathe.

  ***

  “Doc?”

  I looked over at Tyler and was more than a little surprised to see his dark blue eyes looking back at me. I had wondered if I would ever see those eyes again. I wanted to cry, and as my vision blurred and I rubbed away the moisture, I knew that I wasn’t even able to stop myself. I was just so happy to see that he was okay.

  “What’s the matter, Doc?”

  He tried to get up and I stopped him. “Don’t get up. You’re going to rip the stitches. If having money wasn’t enough, I hear that a lot of women like scars. They are going to think that you’re bad ass.”

  Tyler moved his head to the side and looked at me kind of strangely. “You know, I think that’s the first time that I’ve ever heard you curse, Doc.”

  I kind of shrugged, not caring if I sounded like a sailor or not. There was nothing that I cared about more than making sure that Tyler was going to be okay. I’d gone through a whole range of emotions during the several hours that he was in surgery, but now I was able to relax. “Let me call the nurse to make sure that everything is okay.”

  “I wake up to you beside me. To me, that’s better than okay.”

  I sighed and leaned over his body to push the call button. I didn’t care how good he was feeling, they had just taken a bullet out of his chest. There was no answer on his wife’s cell. I’d been trying to call her for hours, but she never answered, so I was the one that had to talk to the doctor when he was finished with surgery. It had all depended on if he woke up and how coherent he was. They hadn’t given any promises, but Tyler was strong and he was going to pull through it.

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Because you were shot, Tyler, and I want to make sure that you’re okay. You can’t be moving around. There was a lot of damage and the doctor said that you were going to need some time to let it heal. If you don’t, you can hurt yourself worse.”

  He kind of scoffed at me, and again I had to push him gently back down to the bed.

  “I know that you aren’t going to believe me, so I’ll let the doctor tell you the same thing if it makes you feel any better.”

  The nurse wasn’t in the room but a minute before she was confirming what I’d already told him. Tyler was still cynical, but the doctor wasn’t far behind the nurse.

  “Well, it’s good to see you up.”

  “I’m not up. I want to get up, but I’m being told that I can’t.”

  “You sustained some serious injuries, Mr. Hudson. You don’t want to mess up what took me hours to put back together, do you?”

  Tyler shook his head and put it down a little like he was being properly admonished. I’d never seen him like that before, and once the nurse gave him something for the pain it wasn’t long before he was out again. The excitement had my heart racing, but when he was back to sleep, I was able to breathe again. The doctor told me that he was going to rest through the night. I told him I would be back in the morning.

  Getting out of there, I looked up at the dark sky and said a prayer of thanks. It could have ended so differently. I was thankful that everything had worked out, but there was a nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach as I made my way to the bench on the corner to call a cab. Was anyone safe in this city anymore?

  Almost the moment that thought went through my mind, I heard a sound behind me. I wasn’t able to see who put their hand over my mouth from behind, but I could swear that I knew the smell that entered my nostrils right before I felt the prick of a needle on my neck.

  “You just couldn’t stay away, could you?”

  Chapter 4 – Maya

  I woke up and stretched. The light was too bright to open my eyes, but the movement beside me made me peek through one of the lids before closing it back up.

  “Good morning, baby.”

  I smiled at the man’s voice and kissed the lips that pressed against me. He was already so familiar that my body was trying to get more out of him then just a kiss. I was ready for more when I heard the vibration of my phone on the nightstand.

  “Why is the ringer off?”

  “That thing has been going off since about the time you passed out last night. I wanted to let you sleep.”

  It was a thoughtful thing to do, and since I was sure it was Tyler calling because he was angry, I didn’t think much of it. I let Dylan pull me into his web of desire for a time before I finally got up and turned the phone back on. It was a lot of missed calls from a number I didn’t recognize. Whoever it was had wanted to get a hold of me badly.

  Calling it back as I started to get dressed, I got a little panicky when I heard the voice tell me that it was the hospital. I didn’t know why they were calling me, but I had twenty missed calls. It would seem that whatever it was was important.

  I gave the nurse my name, but she didn’t know who had been calling me all night or why. I hung up with a sense of dread an
d searched the missed calls to see if there were any others that would give me a clue as to what was going on.

  There were a couple of missed calls from another number. When I dialed it a Dr. Loring answered the phone. When I told her my name, she explained who she was and that my husband was in the hospital. I didn’t ask her why she’d been with him in the hospital or anything else. I knew that I had to go to Tyler. He’d been shot, and whether our marriage was over or not, there were things that I had to do. I had to be there for my husband.

  I told Dylan what was going on, and he offered to drive me to the hospital.

  “I don’t think that would be a good idea, Dylan. I’ll call you in a little while when I find something out.”

  He was a little hurt, I think, but I knew that he was going to be okay. I wasn’t sure what was going on with Tyler, and the guilt of what I’d been doing instead of going with him was heavy on my shoulders. If I’d been there with him, maybe none of this would have happened. It was a long shot, but there was a chance…

  ***

  I breathed a big sigh of relief when I got into his room. He was hooked up to some machines, but his eyes were open and he was sitting up. I’d thought of so many scenarios in my mind of how he would be, and this was not one of them. Save for the bandages on his chest, it would have appeared that he was fine.

  “Maya, so good of you to show up.”

  His tone revealed nothing, and the guilt about Dylan had me walking towards him a little more slowly. I was too unsure to play the game of perfect marriage that I’d been keeping up for all these years.

  “I’m sorry. My phone died and…”

  Tyler waved his hands like it was not a big deal and stopped me launching into an excuse of why I was not there for his surgery. I should have been by his side, but instead I’d been with another man. That was unforgiveable in my eyes.

  “It’s fine, Maya. I know where you were, and I can’t say I blame you. I’ve been a shitty husband.”

  What did he mean he knew where I’d been? Did he know about Dylan? The thought made my heart race. Why was he not looking upset? He just looked at me and said the words like it was all so matter of fact. Maybe it was to him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I, Maya, but I guess I learned something waking up like this.”

  “What?” I didn’t think that I wanted to know, but he was the one lying in the hospital bed and I was the one who hadn’t been where I should have been. I was the one cheating this time, not him.

  “Life is too short to be unhappy. You’re unhappy and so am I. It’s time to do something for us.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Was he serious?

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know that you have the divorce papers. I saw them in the closet. I’m going to sign them for you. Take what you want. You know that I was going to take care of you for the rest of your life anyway. I don’t want to fight. I just want you to be happy.”

  “Where is this coming from?”

  He shrugged and told me that it was the first time he’d been able to think. When he asked me about Dylan, the whole thing seemed a little more surreal.

  “Why do you want to know about him?”

  “I just want to know that he’s going to take care of you, Maya. I still love you, even if I’m no good at showing it.”

  “He’s kind to me.”

  “Does he love you?”

  “He asked me to marry him last night.”

  Tyler had a bittersweet grin on his face. “You make a great wife.”

  I was floored. I just nodded my head like an idiot. This wasn’t the Tyler I’d been married to for so long. This was the one I’d met years ago, before everything got complicated.

  “I wish I’d made a better one for you.”

  “You did, Maya. It was me that didn’t see it.”

  Part 9: Pursue

  Tyler has just gotten out of the hospital after being shot, and he has only one thing on his mind. He has to find Dr. Camilla. She was there when he woke up after surgery, but she never visited during the three weeks that he was there recovering. Now that he’s out, all he can think about is finding her.

  When he can’t get her on the phone, he goes to her office and asks around. No one has seen her in weeks. She’s supposedly taken some time off for her mental health, but it doesn’t feel right. Something is wrong, and he isn’t going to stop until he finds her.

  Nothing makes sense, until Tyler starts looking into the patient that she was seeing, Zane. The man has a criminal record a mile long, and Tyler has a feeling that Zane knows something about where Camilla is. He can’t prove it, but he’s sure that if he finds Zane, he’ll find Camilla.

  Chapter 1 – Tyler

  “I think you’re going to be okay, Tyler. Your recovery is going quite well, and I know that you’ve been dying for this day.”

  “I’m just ready to get back to it. I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  “Just make sure that you rest up. I don’t want you back in here because you’re doing too much.”

  I grinned and then winced a little. I was sure that I wasn’t going to be doing too much. I still hurt too much. Pain was a good reminder to slow down, and I was feeling it firsthand today. There was nothing that I wanted to do more than get out of the hospital, but the idea of what all was ahead of me was overwhelming.

  Signing off on the paperwork that he put in front of me, I grimaced at the bill and heard him chuckle. “Come on, you’re not worried about the price, are you?”

  “No, you guys saved my life. I would have paid more.”

  The doctor just shook his head. He’d seen and heard it all before. The weeks that I’d stayed in that bed were going to be a part of my life that I never forgot, but to him it was just another patient in his docket. I would never forget Dr. Franks, though. I knew that it was because of him that I was even here. He’d been with me from the very beginning, and if I was a more emotional man, I would have hugged him and thanked him properly. But I wasn’t, so I didn’t.

  “Thanks, Doc.”

  “No problem, Tyler. I’m just glad to see you doing better. There was a while when we didn’t know.”

  “I know. Me too. I feel like I got a whole new lease on life.”

  “Then don’t waste it.”

  I told him that I wouldn’t, and I didn’t plan to. Being in that bed for so long had given me a lot of time to think about everything that I was doing in my life. I wasn’t going to say that I liked what I’d learned, but I was thankful for the lesson. I’d been living a life that wasn’t my own. It didn’t have to do with Maya, though the marriage was a glaring failure, but so many other aspects. My job was something that my father had pushed me into, and even the car I drove was because Ivy had liked the way we looked in it. When I really started to think, I realized that I wanted to change everything.

  The driver was new. I’d lost a few of my staff while I was in the hospital. I knew that it was just the tip of the iceberg, and I absolutely dreaded the idea of going back to work to find out what needed to be fixed. I had no false hopes that everything had been running the way it was supposed to. There would be problems that had come up, and I was going to have to make sure that I was there to put the fires out.

  I took the phone out of my pocket and decided to call Camilla again. I’d been trying her since I woke up and she was gone from the hospital. I’d thought that she would come back, but she never had. Instead I’d spent time with my soon-to-be ex-wife and spent even more time thinking about the future. If the bullet had been a bit more to one side or the other, I might not be here. That weighed heavily on my head and cemented the idea that life was short.

  When she didn’t answer, I threw the phone to the floor. I’d called and called, left so many messages that I was sure I was going into stalker territory. She wasn’t answering and hadn’t even let it ring for some time. Now it just rung once and went right to voicemail. After a few minutes of stewing, I called her
cellphone one more time before I sighed loudly to myself.

  Rolling the divider screen down, I asked the driver to take me to her office. I didn’t know the address, and he didn’t know where I was talking about, so I had him drive around in the vicinity while I called my mother about it. I knew that she would have the address, and sure enough she did.

  “Are you okay, Tyler? I wanted to come get you, but I had to go to a meeting.”

  “It’s fine, really.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re out. Are you going to come by for dinner? Your father is going to be here.”

  “No, I don’t think that we’re going to have those dinners anymore. It was weird enough when we started them up again. You and dad aren’t together, and Maya and I are getting divorced.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She wants a divorce, and I agree with her. We’re unhappy and I’m sick of pretending. I don’t know how you and dad can stand each other after everything that you’ve been through. You won’t have to pretend to like each other anymore. It’s exhausting.”

  “Well, your father and I have always cared about each other. I know that we’ll never really be together again, but I liked the dinners. It helped me feel closer to you, and I really liked Maya. Are you sure that you can’t work it out?”

  “She’s getting married to another man, so I think that ship has sailed. It’s the right thing to do.”

  “What about you?”

  “I don’t know. There’s a woman that I think I’ve fallen for.”

  She was silent for a time, and I wondered what was going through her mind. I was usually so careful with my words, but that was another thing that was going to change. I just wasn’t going to do that anymore. I wasn’t going to sugarcoat anything for anyone anymore.

  “Well, you’re going to do what you want. At least now you’ve learned to follow your heart. I’ll be down there this evening, okay?”

  I wanted to tell her not to come, but she’d been a constant visitor, and that had made my hospital stay a little more tolerable. “I’ll see you later.”