The Way We Wed

by Pat Warren

  Now he could feel her needs vibrate through her, drawing him in, as slick, damp skin slid over warm, moist skin. Her fingers curled around his as she changed from passive to frenzied. He held off the moment, watching her go up and up, until she became greedy and finally desperate. She moaned her demands and begged for release as he held her in check, increasing their pleasure by delaying the inevitable.

  From below there came the bawling of a forlorn calf and the slamming of a door, then horse’s hooves as a rider left the area, but they neither saw nor heard. Fingers twined, hearts pounding in sync, Jeff thrust deeply, then withdrew until she raised her hips to urge him back, then he thrust again. His eyes on hers, he emptied his mind of everything but this woman who filled his thoughts more thoroughly than anyone he’d ever known.

  There in the ranch’s hayloft that he’d coaxed her up to visit because he couldn’t wait for their usual evening rendezvous, he took her with a raging hunger he was very much afraid would never let him be. As he swallowed her cry of completion, Jeff wondered how he’d ever again manage to be without her….

  Chapter 8

  Now, staring down at Tish lying so very still on her hospital bed, Jeff was still wondering the same thing, how he could ever manage to live without her.

  Remembering their days and nights at Red Rock Ranch last year, Jeff thought that their time together had had almost a surreal quality to it. No question that it had been real, that it all had happened, yet in many ways, the time period was almost dreamlike.

  Which was why it had had to end, sooner or later, he supposed.

  Looking at Tish’s lovely, unlined face, so serene in her deep sleep in the ICU, he wondered if there’d ever be another time like that for them. When they could—

  Suddenly, a blipping noise began chiming from one of Tish’s machines. His heart thudding, he quickly checked them out and realized it was the one monitoring her breathing.

  Rushing out, he almost ran into Doris who’d already had the warning at her desk monitor. “Something’s wrong,” Jeff told her.

  “Yes, I know.” She hurried to check the instruments, then the patient whose breathing was now troubled. Tish’s chest was heaving and she appeared to be straining.

  “Do you want to call Dr. O’Neill?” Jeff asked, his concern building.

  Another nurse stepped into the cubicle and quickly assessed the situation. “I’ll call the attending, Doris,” she said.

  “Yes, please do.” Doris had her stethoscope on Tish’s chest, listening. The patient was obviously in distress, her face breaking out in a sweat.

  “Is there anything I can do?” Jeff asked, hating feeling so helpless.

  Doris spared him a quick glance. “Would you please step outside, Dr. Kirby? We’ll handle this.” She’d no sooner finished her request than a tall, dark-haired man wearing a white jacket walked in. Doris stepped back, giving him room. “Dr. Monroe, this is the patient’s husband, Dr. Kirby.”

  Monroe was in his fifties, Jeff guessed, slightly over-weight and wearing an expensive toupee. He moved right to Tish without another glance at Jeff. “Yes, please step outside until we’re finished.” He leaned down to the patient, listening with his stethoscope.

  Jeff didn’t want to leave. After all, it wasn’t as if he were the ordinary lay person. He was medically trained and—

  Doris touched his arm. “Please, sir. The waiting room is right through the double doors. I’ll come get you as soon as the crisis is over.”

  He struggled with his need to be with Tish and his desire to be cooperative with the medical staff, much as he’d want any patient’s relatives to be if he were in charge. Most reluctantly, he backed out of the cubicle and walked through the double doors.

  Two other people were in the small ICU waiting room, but Jeff didn’t spare them a glance. Concern wrinkled his brow as he began to pace, running through possibilities in his mind. Something related to her surgery? Her heart unable to handle the strain? A bomb fragment they hadn’t located previously now loose and floating, causing internal problems? Another lung collapse? A sudden blood pressure drop due to…due to what? He hadn’t been talking to her about anything upsetting, so she couldn’t have heard bad news.

  His mouth a grim line, Jeff marched back and forth. The damn television was on, the volume much too loud. What was wrong with people that they had to have entertainment every waking hour? This was a hospital, for God’s sake!

  Aware that his thoughts were bordering on unreasonable, still he felt he had every right to be upset. But not to lash out, which was why he kept quiet as the two young people on the couch went into a giggling fit over the TV show.

  How could life be normal, even funny, when Tish was struggling to live?

  Afterward, Jeff couldn’t have said how long he paced the ICU waiting room like the proverbial caged lion. He knew it was close to half an hour though it seemed much longer before they let him back in. By that time, he was frazzled, worried beyond belief and highly annoyed, but, to his credit, he tried not to let them see.

  Dr. Monroe met him at the circular desk as he finished writing on Tish’s chart. “You were told earlier that your wife had a collapsed lung along with her other injuries, right?” he asked Jeff.

  “Yes, I believe so. Is that what caused her distress?”

  “Yes. We’ve removed the canula and put on an oxygen mask for now. She’ll be closely monitored and most likely it can be taken off in a couple of hours. I just want to make certain her oxygen level stays within range.” He removed his rimless glasses and put them in his shirt pocket. “Everything else is normal, Doctor.”

  Normal? Nothing was normal, Jeff thought. How could he call Tish’s condition normal? “Any sign she might be coming out of the coma soon?”

  The doctor’s round face broke into a sad smile. “I wish I could say yes, but we simply don’t know. There’s no activity to indicate an imminent change. You must know how these things go, Doctor. She could wake up an hour from now, or next week. Or not until Christmas. We have no way at this time to judge.”

  Well, that was helpful. He didn’t know why, but Jeff didn’t like this doctor. Still, he had no right to be ugly to him, to rail and lash out as he wanted to do. “Thank you, Doctor.” He turned and entered Tish’s cubicle.

  She lay there looking much the same, except for the oxygen mask enclosing her mouth and nose. Her face seemed a bit flushed, probably from her efforts to breathe. Her chest was moving gently with each breath, no longer heaving or struggling.

  Jeff took her hand in his. “You gave us a scare there, babe. But they say you’re all right now.”

  “Yes, she is,” Doris said from behind Jeff. “I’m sorry you were worried, but these things happen occasionally, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

  Jeff hadn’t heard her come in, moving as she did on those silent nurse’s shoes. He didn’t turn to look at her. “You don’t think we should notify Dr. O’Neill?” He was, after all, Tish’s doctor.

  “I’ve put a note in his box, though it’s no longer an emergency. When he gets it, he’ll come by. He’s due later on rounds anyway.” She paused, as if uncertain whether or not to speak. “Dr. Monroe is an excellent doctor,” she told Jeff, trying to sound reassuring, perhaps sensing Jeff’s attitude toward the attending physician.

  “I’m sure he is,” Jeff said, his eyes on Tish, his thumb caressing her hand.

  “Well, if you need anything, let me know.” As soundlessly as she’d entered, Doris left, closing the cubicle door.

  Wearily, Jeff moved the chair close beside the bed again and dropped into it. “Don’t do this again, babe. I can’t handle any more frights.” Leaning back, he scrubbed his face with an impatient hand. He was really losing it, giving warnings to a comatose patient.

  When, oh, when, was all this going to be over?

  Releasing a deep sigh, he dropped his head back and closed his eyes. He felt about as low as the day he’d proposed to Tish. How ludicrous that asking someone to marry you s
hould turn into such a sad event.

  He remembered all too well. It was on an evening two nights before they were both scheduled to leave Red Rock Ranch. Jeff was going back to his apartment in Los Angeles, his R and R over, to resume his hospital duties. Tish was supposed to return to her home to await her next SPEAR assignment.

  But Jeff had other plans, plans he intended to share with her that evening as they rendezvoused on their blanket at their favorite spot. With his eyes closed, he could picture the scene perfectly….

  It was later than usual, just past eight in the evening, already dark but the moon was high in the sky, almost directly overhead with no clouds visible. A perfect night for love, Jeff thought as he spread the blanket and sat down to wait.

  Tish had been tied up with the last riding lesson for the young tourist boy, Luke, the one she’d been teaching during the family’s stay at the Red Rock Ranch. He was going home tomorrow so she’d promised him extra time. Jeff had finished his chores and gone on ahead. As he stared up at the faraway stars, he rehearsed in his head what he planned to say to her. Several times, he edited his words until he heard Belladonna approaching.

  Rising, he went to meet her as Tish slipped off the mare. He leaned over to kiss her, then tied up her horse several trees over from where Domino stood pawing the ground, as restless as Jeff himself was.

  “Are you hungry?” Jeff asked as they both settled on the blanket and he opened the lid of their basket. “I had Elsa pack light because it’s kind of late for a big meal. Just cheese, crackers, fruit and—” with a flourish, he pulled out a bottle of chilled champagne “—and this.” He removed two fluted glasses as well.

  Tish’s eyes took on a suspicious light. “Are we celebrating something?”

  “That depends on you.” Jeff worked on uncorking the champagne and all the while, Tish was quiet. He wondered if she’d guessed what was coming or if she’d not given the possibility of their future together another thought after their last discussion. She’d confessed to being in love with him, but not anything beyond that.

  The cork popped and he lost only a small drizzle, then poured champagne into the two glasses she held. Setting the bottle back in the basket, Jeff took a glass and raised it. “To us,” he said.

  “To us,” she repeated, though her words were slow and hesitant. They each sipped in silence.

  He’d never been one to beat around the bush, so Jeff decided to come to the point. Taking her free hand in his, he gazed into her eyes. “Tish, you know that I love you.”

  A frown appeared on her face quickly, then disappeared as she took her hand back, as if fearful of what was coming. “Jeff, we’ve known each other less than two weeks.”

  “I don’t think time’s a factor. Some couples go together for years and finally discover they’re in love. Others, it takes a month, maybe a week. Sometimes only a moment. That’s how it was for me.” Refusing to let her withdraw, he took her hand again. “I fell in love with you that first day when I saw you on Belladonna.”

  He waited, but she said nothing, finding their two joined hands fascinating as she stared at them. Jeff felt a nervous flutter. In all the speeches he’d rehearsed, her unresponsiveness had never been a part of any of them. “Say something, anything.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say, Jeff.”

  “Best scenario? I want you to say you love me, too.”

  “I’ve told you that, but—”

  “And that you want to marry me.”

  She glanced up, looking as if she were truly caught off guard. “You’re asking me to marry you?”

  “Yes. Don’t tell me this comes as a total shock. We’ve been together constantly since that first evening. We’ve made love over and over. From the way you responded, I thought you felt the same as I do.” When she said nothing, he had to go on. “Surely you didn’t think we were having just an affair. Do I seem a cavalier sort of person to you, someone who’d make love to a woman, then kiss her goodbye and move on?”

  She looked away at the faraway mountains. “No, you don’t. Nor am I the type for casual affairs.”

  “Then, what’s the problem?”

  Tish let out a ragged sigh. “I care for you, Jeff, of course. But marriage? It’s not just the age thing, though that’s a bigger obstacle to me than you. It’s that we’re in totally different places in our lives and our careers. You’re just starting out, with two more years in residency to go, then finally you’ll be more active in SPEAR full-time. I’m in my prime now, constantly assigned into the thick of things. And I like it that way. I’m good at my work, proud of what I do.”

  “It never occurred to me to ask you to give up SPEAR.”

  She looked up then, seemingly anxious to make him understand. “We wouldn’t have much time together, you stuck in L.A. for several years yet, me traveling around the world most of the time.”

  “People in committed relationship, married people, find time to be together. All right, so we’d be separated some, but that would only make the time we had together all the better.” She didn’t look convinced.

  “There’s another factor here. Jeff, I know firsthand how dangerous life as an agent is and, as a medevac, you’ll also be in every trouble spot, working under fire, putting your life at risk to save others. What if…if we have children? And I want to have children. Naturally, that would mean I’d quit SPEAR. But could I bear to stay home with children whose father might never live to see them grow up?”

  Jeff struggled with a growing frustration. “Look, Tish, we’re getting way ahead of ourselves here. East and Ally are married and—”

  “And she’s retired from the field and he runs Condor, a safe assignment.”

  He knew she had a valid point. “All right, bad example. But lots of men have dangerous jobs. Firemen, policemen, servicemen. And a civilian can be on his way home, step off a curb and get run over by a bus. There are no guarantees of a long, perfect life for any of us, Tish.”

  “Maybe not, but we don’t need to shorten the odds.”

  He dropped her hand, growing angry despite his best intentions. “So then, you plan never to marry, to have children, even though you just said you wanted them, because their father works in a risky environment? Are you waiting to meet some nice safe boring guy, someone you can be sure will be around to see your children grow up? All the while, loving me?”

  Almost roughly, he took hold of her shoulders. “Admit it. You care about me. You love me. Don’t you?”

  He could see the moisture gather in her eyes. “Yes, I do love you. But…”

  He dropped his hands. “If you really love someone, there are no buts. You work through the problems. You compromise. You take a chance, on that person, on a life together.” He speared her with his hot, angry gaze. “Or are you too afraid?”

  Jeff watched her struggle not to cry, blinking back tears begging to fall, her lower lip held tightly between her teeth so it wouldn’t quiver. Finally, she got up. “Yes,” she said softly, “I am afraid.” Hurriedly, as if she might change her mind if she lingered, Tish ran over to Belladonna, untied her and jumped into the saddle.

  In minutes, as Jeff sat watching, Tish was out of sight.

  He wanted to hit something really hard. He wanted to take back his words, rephrase them, try again.

  Rising, he slowly gathered up their picnic things and walked over to Domino. Climbing on, he decided he’d let Tish be tonight. He wouldn’t try to see her or talk to her. He’d let her sleep on it and by tomorrow, perhaps after thinking things over, she’d be in a better frame of mind.

  Starting back, Jeff decided that was the right thing to do.

  Only in the morning when he went down to breakfast, he learned that Tish had left Red Rock Ranch at 6:00 a.m.

  Her departure had rocked him to his very soul. He’d tried not to react when Slim told him the news, but he was sure the older man could read his expression and know how disappointed he was.

  Slim’s strong, weathered hand squeez
ed Jeff’s shoulder, conveying without words that he understood. They were in the dining room, standing off to the side where the ranch manager had led Jeff after spotting him as he entered.

  Jeff swallowed around a suddenly dry throat. “Did she say why she was leaving so early?” he asked, the need to know stronger than his desire for privacy.

  Slim shook his head. “Not a word to me. Naomi Star caught me when I came in for breakfast. She said Tish showed up at the front desk with her two bags, signed herself out and climbed into a cab she’d apparently arranged to pick her up.”

  Thrusting his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, Jeff struggled for control as he rocked on his booted feet. “I don’t suppose she left a note for me with Naomi.” It was more a statement than a question.

  “’Fraid not. When Naomi asked her when she’d be returning, Tish just shook her head and hurried outside.” Slim studied the young man’s face, debating how much to say. “Did you two have a quarrel? Naomi said Tish looked like she’d been crying.”

  Damn! Jeff ground his teeth, fluctuating between hurt and anger. “A quarrel? Not exactly. I asked her to marry me.”

  Slim’s eyes turned sympathetic. “I take it she turned you down.”

  Jeff’s laugh had a bitter edge. “She admitted she loved me, then left me high and dry.”

  Wearily, Slim nodded. “Women! I’ll never understand them.”

  Jeff sighed. “You’ve got that right.”

  “Maybe if you go after her, get her to talk…”

  “No!” Jeff let the anger race through him and it felt good. “I’m not crawling back to her, begging her for another chance. If she doesn’t want me, then fine. If she changes her mind, she’ll have to come to me.” With that, he turned on his heel and left the dining room, his shoulders square, his stride angry.