He stretched his arms over his head and pushed into a sitting position. “This rental mattress is really comfortable.”
“It is. I almost fell asleep too. But the buyer will be here in half an hour.”
“We better make the bed, then.” He got dressed and helped Tina straighten the comforter before she walked him to the door.
“Do you want to come over after work tonight?” The hopeful look in her eyes tightened his chest. Thank God, he hadn’t scared her away.
He pulled her into a hug. “I would love that. I’ll be there around seven.”
She opened the door and brushed her lips to his. “Please drive safely.”
“Always.”
He waved goodbye as he got in his car and pulled out of the driveway. What the hell was he thinking telling her he loved her so soon? She’d been skittish about their relationship from the beginning, and if he’d used his brain, he would’ve waited for her to say it first. Instead, he’d let his damn emotions carry him away. He’d rushed into it, like he seemed to do with everything. If he’d jeopardized their relationship, he’d never forgive himself.
Way to go, man. He was such a jack ass. He knew better than to move too fast with her. If she started overthinking…Sweat beaded on his forehead just thinking about what she might do. A sudden heaviness formed in his head, and his jaw fell slack.
Oh shit. He barely had time to curse himself before his arms seized up and jerked the steering wheel hard to the right. He needed to stomp the brake, but his legs wouldn’t move. His entire body was paralyzed. He couldn’t even close his eyes as his car skidded off the road and plowed straight toward a pine tree. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as the front end of the car crumpled with the impact. His body jerked forward and then to the side. His head smashed into the window. The glass shattered, but the pain felt like his skull had shattered too.
Something thick and warm oozed down his face, but he couldn’t lift his arm to wipe it away. He couldn’t tell if he was upright or lying on his side. A vague awareness of being lifted from the car registered in his consciousness. Of lying on his back in the dirt. Sirens. Voices shouting. His vision tunneled. Darkness closed in around him.
Nothing.
Then a face appeared in front of him. A body formed. A woman stood before him, and she lifted her arm to him. He reached out to take her hand, but all she had was a stump.
* * *
Tina stayed on the second floor while the potential buyers ventured up to the third. What the hell was her problem? The man of her dreams told her he loved her, and all she could do was spout off some metaphysical crap she’d heard Allison say.
Why couldn’t she say the words? She certainly felt the feelings. She loved Trent. She could finally admit that to herself, but something about having to say it out loud had made her freeze. She was an idiot. As soon as she saw him again tonight, she’d say it. She’d be a fool not to.
“Is the owner planning to do anything about the third floor? It’s quite musty up there, and the door is broken.” The blonde woman held her husband’s arm as they descended the stairs.
Tina flashed her a tight-lipped smile. “I’m sure he’ll be willing to put a fresh coat of paint on the walls and move out the old rug.”
The woman looked at her husband. “I like this house.”
She seemed snooty. Not at all the type of person who deserved a home like this. Tina couldn’t read people’s energy the way Allison and Logan could, but something about the couple felt off. They didn’t belong here.
“One thing I should warn you about, though,” Tina said. “The neighbors are really loud. A group of college boys. A fraternity, I think.” She shrugged. “Something to consider.” That was a lie, but the snooty buyers didn’t need to know that.
The woman made a sour face and led her husband down the stairs. Tina showed them out and fell into a chair in the living room. Why did she love this house so much? What would the payments be on a mortgage for a place this big? If she could afford it, she could buy the damn thing herself, monsters and all. Board up the third floor and forget about the ghosts. Or maybe figure out why they were trapped there after all.
Then again, she intended to keep Trent in her life. And he wanted to get rid of the house, so she couldn’t very well buy it herself and expect him to be happy about it. She would have to let someone buy it, but it had to be the right family. It had to feel right first.
She sighed and rubbed a hand down her face. Trent was right. She needed to let this place go. Some time on a beach with Trent and his rockin’ body would be just the distraction she needed.
Her phone rang, and she dug it out of her purse and checked the screen.
“Hey, Allie. What’s up?”
“Tina.” Her voice was thick with tears. “You need to come to the hospital. It’s Trent.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Her heart sprinting in her chest, Tina darted down the hospital hallway to room Five-C. She couldn’t stop her hands from shaking, and the sandwich she’d had for lunch threatened to make a reappearance with every step she took. Pausing at the doorway, she reached a trembling hand toward the knob and dragged in a ragged breath.
This could not be happening. She would open the door and find they were mistaken. Trent would not be lying unconscious on the bed. It would be someone else. It had to be.
She pushed open the door and stepped inside.
Her stomach tied in a knot.
Trent lay, bruised and bandaged, on the bed, half a dozen different contraptions humming, beeping, and dripping around him. He didn’t acknowledge her when she entered the room. Didn’t make a move to greet her as she rushed to the bedside and took his hand in hers.
“Trent?” She forced his name over the lump in her throat.
“He’s in a coma.”
Tina lifted her gaze to find Allison standing on the other side of the bed, her hands hovering above his head in her healing position. Logan sat in a chair in the corner, and he rose to his feet and stepped toward Allison.
Confusion clouded her thoughts. A coma? It wasn’t possible. Trent was a strong, capable, take-charge man. Stuff like this only happened to guys like him in the movies. This was real life…but this situation could not be real. Pressure built in the back of her eyes as she stared down at him. “How?”
“Our best guess is he had a sleep attack while driving,” Logan said. “Ran off the road and plowed into a tree.”
“He had just stopped by the house to surprise me. Is he…” Her bottom lip trembled, and her eyes stung. She couldn’t even ask the question. There was no question. “He’s going to wake up soon.” He would. He had to.
Allison wiped a tear from her cheek and dropped her arms to her sides. “He hit his head pretty hard. He has a concussion, but they can’t find anything else wrong with him. The doctors…” She inhaled deeply as Logan rubbed his hand across her back. “The doctor said if he was going to wake up, he should have done it by now.”
Tina sucked in a shallow breath as the heart rate monitor beeped a slow and steady rhythm. A clock on the wall ticked away the seconds, and the humming of the machines seemed to grow louder as she tried to grab on to one of the hundreds of thoughts racing through her head.
She clenched and released her fists and looked at her best friend. “You can save him, Allie. You have to.”
“I’m trying, but the energy block he had before has gotten denser and bigger. I’ve never encountered anything like it before.” She raised her eyebrows in a sympathetic look. “It’s okay to cry.”
Tina closed her eyes and released her breath. A flood of tears poured down her cheeks, and, for the first time in as long as she could remember, she didn’t fight the flow. She traced her fingers down Trent’s cheek and ran her thumb over his soft lips. Just a few hours ago, love had danced across those lips. And now he might never wake up.
“He shouldn’t have been driving.” She glared at Allison. “Why did you let him drive?”
Allison blinked. “Why did I let him drive? Tina, he seemed fine. He hadn’t had an episode in over a week.”
Nausea churned in her stomach. “But you knew he wasn’t fine. He still had that energy block in his head, didn’t he?”
“Yes, but lots of people have blocks.” Allison took a step back. “Are you blaming me for this?”
Her entire body trembled, and she clutched the bed rail to hold herself upright. “He was staying with you. You should have been taking care of him. You shouldn’t have let him drive.”
Allison’s mouth dropped open. “You let him drive too. This happened after he saw you.”
The truth in her words slammed into Tina’s chest like a sledgehammer. She had let him drive. She’d gotten onto him for doing it when he arrived, but she hadn’t tried to stop him when he left. She could have convinced him to wait. To stay with her until the last buyers left, so she could have driven him back to work. She could have prevented it. He would be sitting in his desk chair at the office right now if she would have thought to make him stay. “Oh, my God. This is my fault.”
“Ladies.” Logan pulled Allison toward Tina and wrapped his arms around both of them. “Don’t fight about this. We all could have tried a little harder to convince him not to drive. But the truth is, Trent’s a grown man who makes his own decisions. If he insisted on driving, there’s not a damn thing any of us could’ve done about it.”
Tina nodded and wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry, Allie.” It was everyone’s fault and no one’s at the same time. She looked at Trent lying motionless in the bed. Finding somewhere to place blame was a lot easier than dealing with the fact that the man she loved might never wake up.
“I’m sorry too,” Allison said.
“Where’s his family?”
“Snowed in,” Logan said. “A blizzard hit New York yesterday. Airport’s closed.”
“So we’re all he has.” She stepped from under Logan’s arm. “He told me he loved me.”
“Oh, sweetie.” Allison rested a hand on her shoulder.
“I didn’t say it back.” A sob bubbled up from her chest and lodged in her throat. “Now he might never know I really do.”
And it was all because she’d been too chicken to say the words. If he never woke up…If she never got the chance to tell him how she really felt…A fresh flood of tears streamed down her cheeks, and she covered her face with her hands.
“You can tell him now.” Allison walked her toward the bed. “Sometimes, people in comas are aware of everything going on around them.”
Logan nodded and wiped a tear from his cheek. “He’s probably heard every word we’ve said and wishes he could tell us all to shut the hell up.”
She picked up Trent’s hand and laced her fingers through his. “You think he can hear me?”
“It’s worth a try. We’ll give you a minute. Come on, Logan.” She tugged her fiancé out the door, and it shut behind them.
Tina sat on the edge of the bed and rested a hand on Trent’s chest. His heart beat slow and steady beneath his skin, and his ribcage rose and fell with each peaceful breath. He was only sleeping. This was just an extended bout of narcolepsy, and, any minute now, he would wake up and smile his adorable smile and pull her into his arms.
“I’m so sorry, Trent.” She put her other hand on his chest and smoothed the hospital gown down his stomach. “When you told me you loved me, I just…I froze. I’ve never experienced love before, and I didn’t know how to react at the time. Of course, now that it’s too late, I know exactly what I should have said.”
She scooted closer to him and brushed the hair back from his face. A line of pink marred the white bandage on his forehead. She let his hair fall back over it. “I should have said, ‘I love you too.’” Her stomach tightened, and more tears flowed from her eyes. “I do, Trent. I love you. I love you so much, sometimes it feels like I might drown. And it scares me to death to feel so strongly, but I’m done fighting it. I’m done holding back.”
She leaned forward, resting her head on his chest, clutching the sheet in her fist. “I love you. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted. All I’ll ever need. You’re the only man I’ll ever want, and if you would just wake up, I would tell you that I’m yours forever.”
She sobbed into his chest, her tears dampening his gown as she heaved in a ragged breath. “I’m sorry, Trent. I’m sorry for breaking up with you all those months ago. I’m sorry for playing hard-to-get and wasting so much time. So much time that we could have been happy together. If I’d known this was coming, I wouldn’t have wasted a single second. If I’d known this was coming, I would’ve told you I loved you from the start. Because, deep down, I’ve always known you were the one for me. I was just too scared and stubborn to admit it.”
She lifted her head and peered down at his face. Peaceful. Serene. She could imagine his lips curving into a smile. His strong arms holding her tight. But still he didn’t move. He breathed and his heart beat, but that wasn’t enough. “You’re supposed to wake up now. That’s how it always happens in the movies. I spilled my guts to you, and now you’re supposed to wrap your arms around me, tell me you heard every word, and we’ll live happily ever after.”
She pressed her lips to his. They were still warm, soft like she remembered them. But he didn’t respond. Not even the slightest movement to let her know he felt her presence. She ran her fingers over his lips and kissed him again. “Not even for true love’s kiss?”
She could barely breathe. The pain in her chest felt like it would split in two. A heaviness in the room pressed down on her. Suffocating. Drowning. “Please wake up. You can’t leave me. Not now. Not when I’m finally ready to love you.”
She stared at him, willing him to move. To smile. To open his eyes. Anything. “Damn it, Trent. Wake up. I need you.” She buried her face in his chest, gripping his gown like a lifeline. He was her lifeline. She might as well be a ghost trapped in the attic because her existence was meaningless without him. “Please, God. Don’t take him from me. I need this man.”
She tossed her head back toward the heavens and let out a raspy moan. “I need him. Do you hear me? He’s mine, and you can’t take him.”
Turning her gaze to Trent, she released her grip on his gown. “Please, God. I’ll do anything. I’ll take his place if you’ll let me.” She lowered her head to his chest, pressing her ear over his heart to listen to the promise of the rhythm. To fill the hollow ache in her chest with the sound of life…of hope…beating through his veins. “Please. He’s my everything. Don’t take him from me.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The sound of muffled voices pulled Tina into consciousness. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pounding in her head and swallowed the dryness from her throat. From the position she lay in, she definitely wasn’t in her bed, but it had to have been a dream. When she opened her eyes, she’d find herself drooling on her desk at the office. Anything would be better than the reality she refused to accept. She wasn’t at the hospital. Trent wasn’t in a coma.
She fluttered her lids open and blinked her eyes into focus. Harsh fluorescent lighting cast a sickly-green glow on the stark white walls. Her heart sank.
She was living a nightmare.
The vinyl recliner squeaked as she pushed into an upright position and worked out the cramp that had formed in her shoulder from keeping her arm on Trent’s bed all night. If he was even remotely aware of what went on around him, she wanted to be sure he knew he was never alone. She’d have squeezed into the bed with him and slept by his side if the nurses would’ve let her.
They’d tried to kick her out when visiting hours ended last night, saying only immediate family members were allowed to stay. Like hell, she would leave. With his family snowed in six hundred miles away, it hadn’t taken her long to convince them she wasn’t going anywhere. They’d have to knock her unconscious and drag her out before she’d leave him alone.
She stretched her arms over her head and nodded at Allison
and Logan, who stood at the foot of the bed. They both looked like they hadn’t slept all night, and Logan’s eyes were so tight with worry, Tina could only imagine the hell he must’ve put himself through last night. Logan’s OCD had gotten better in the time she’d known him, but he was by no means cured.
She stood and took Trent’s hand in hers. “Rough night?”
Logan half-smiled. “Probably no rougher than yours.”
“Every square inch of floor in our house has been swept, vacuumed, washed, and waxed.” Allison rubbed Logan’s back. “But we made it through. How are you?”
Tears pooled in her eyes, and she shook her head. There were no words. Nothing could describe the way the emptiness had sliced open her chest and torn out her heart.
“Oh, sweetie.” Allison pulled her into a hug. “I’m going to do everything I can to heal him. And I know the doctors are doing what they can too.”
“The doctors aren’t doing anything.” She pulled a tissue from a box and wiped her nose. “A nurse comes in every few hours and looks at the monitors, but that’s it.”
“He’s scheduled for another brain scan this morning,” Logan said.
“And you and I have some work to do,” Allison said.
“Work?”
“Your handless ghost friend visited me last night.”
Tina dropped into the chair and rubbed her forehead. “I swear I don’t know what she’s talking about. I’ve never seen that woman before. Not that I could recognize her if I had. Her face was so blurry and weird. All I can think is that Trent’s uncle trapped her there, like we talked about before.”
Allison shook her head. “She didn’t even mention being trapped this time. It’s hard for her to stretch so far from the room, and she only appeared to me for a few seconds. But she said you could help Trent.”
A spark of hope ignited in her chest, but confusion quickly squelched it. “How does she know about Trent?”
To Stop a Shadow (Spirit Chasers Book 2) Page 16
