by Donna Alward
A single sob escaped. This morning Nate had told her he loved her and she’d told him that she wouldn’t love anyone the way she’d loved Tom. She’d cast him off and sent him into a dangerous situation believing she didn’t love him at all.
But she did. She loved him so much she refused to believe in a world where he didn’t exist.
“Maggie, for God’s sake, open the door!” Grant shouted now and for some reason the command jolted her to action and she turned the knob, pulling the door open. And saw the smear of blood on his shirt.
He took one look at her face and his own gentled. “You’re pale. Come sit down.”
She shook her head. “Just say it, Grant. Please, just say it and get it over with.”
His eyes were kind, so kind and she hated him for it.
“He’s not dead, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Her breath came out in a rush. “I think I’ll sit down now.”
She made it to the first chair on the veranda and her knees gave out.
Grant knelt before her, chafing the sides of her thighs with his hands. The connection gave her something to focus on.
“Thanks to you, and to Jen, we found a stash of drugs, money and weapons beneath the barn. And we were right in bringing him in, and none too soon. We found the cell. There were restraints. We’re checking it now for DNA evidence.”
The thought that it could have been Jen in there momentarily made Maggie’s heart stop.
“But that’s not all, Maggie. I’m just going to tell it to you straight, okay?” He squeezed her hand and met her gaze squarely. “I came alone because Nate was shot and he’s been taken to hospital.”
“How bad is it?” She pulled away, twisting her pale fingers together, trying to hold it together and absorb everything Grant was telling her. Trying not to panic. Trying not to act like her whole world was crumbling around her.
“He’s alive, but beyond that I really don’t know.”
Dread and fear froze her.
“I…” She halted; this was Grant whom she barely knew, yet she had to say it. “I turned him away this morning. I was wrong to do that, Grant.” Her words came out childlike and contrite.
“I can take you to the hospital. Grab what you need and I’ll wait.”
Maggie nodded dumbly. Her only thought now was seeing Nate and telling him she loved him before it was too late. He couldn’t leave her, not when the lie was there between them. Not before she had a chance to make it right. She got to her feet woodenly, stopping only to grab her purse and lock the door.
Grant opened the door to his cruiser and helped her inside. He got in the driver’s side and called something in on his radio before reversing and pulling out of the lane.
He didn’t spare speed and she was glad of it as they hit the main road. A call came back on the radio and Maggie tried to interpret it, but she couldn’t seem to make sense of the words.
Grant answered back. Then turned to Maggie.
“Nate’s stable for the moment, but they’re airlifting him to Edmonton.”
Maggie didn’t move; it was simply another layer of shock. He was ill enough that he had to be transferred to a bigger hospital. He had to hold on until she got there, he simply had to. Flashes hit behind her eyes, of arriving at the hospital and finding Tom in a coma. All the things she wanted to say to him were meaningless. And then he’d been gone.
Nate had to hold on. He had to.
“I’m going to take you there, Maggie. Pete’s in custody and not going anywhere. And odd as it seems…Nate’s my partner. We’ll go together.”
Maggie sat back in the seat, surprised when Grant turned on his lights but not the siren, taking the highway north to the capital city. She didn’t know what to say to him…her normal ability for small talk had evaporated.
But Grant suddenly seemed able to fill the gap.
“Maggie, I looked into what happened with Tom. It wasn’t as simple as him just being shot. And a thing like that…I can see how it would change a person. I know you got to the hospital too late. And the investigation was no picnic…especially on top of all the grief you must have been feeling.”
His clear eyes were unrelenting as he turned his head to look at her, like he could see her thoughts. The notion didn’t unsettle her now, not like it used to.
“It’s normal to be scared. And there are no guarantees. But…for what it’s worth…I think it would be a crying shame to walk away from something, from someone who loves you as much as Nate does because you were afraid. You’d miss out on something wonderful, don’t you think?”
Maggie tried to swallow around the lump in her throat. He made it sound so easy. Nothing about loving Nate Griffith was easy. When she’d said she couldn’t love him like she had Tom, it hadn’t been a complete truth. She did love him and it scared her to death. She loved him so much that she couldn’t imagine losing him. That was what she’d meant and she’d deliberately let him draw his own conclusion as to her meaning.
“It can be damned lonely being a cop. Sometimes it’s family that keeps us grounded. Wives put up with a lot, but…”
He kept his eyes on the road, smoothly passing a tractor-trailer and moving back into the right lane again. “Sometimes having that anchor keeps us going.” He cleared his throat and looked back at her. “Think about it,” Grant concluded.
There were so many questions. She had the bed and breakfast and a daughter and nearly crippling fears about being involved with such a man.
How badly had he been hurt?
And how could she let him do this alone?
At the hospital, Grant sidestepped a news crew, which had already arrived. An officer being shot was news and Maggie had no desire to be captured on camera. As Grant snuck them through, Maggie stared at the TV crew openmouthed, the lingering sense of déjà vu pervading again. A nurse directed them to the Intensive Care Unit and from there to a waiting room outside the closed, quiet doors.
When the time came, Grant went in first. Maggie tried to straighten her hair, make herself look presentable. But Grant was back within a few minutes, unsmiling.
“He’s still unconscious.”
“I want to see him.”
Grant nodded. “The doctor says it’s all right. I’ll take you to him.”
Once inside Nate’s room, Maggie forgot all about Grant. Nate, her Nate, lay pale and prone on the bed. Tubes ran from his nose and more from his arm. His lashes were still on his gray cheeks, and as she watched, one finger twitched against the blanket.
But that was all.
“He lost a lot of blood,” a nurse whispered, padding into the room softly and deftly adding a bag to his IV stand. “It’s perfectly okay that he’s not awake.”
Maggie’s shoulders slumped as she pulled up a chair to the bed, as quietly as she could. “Thank you. Is it all right if I wait?”
“We usually only let visitors in for a few minutes.”
“I just want to sit with him. I don’t want him to wake up alone.”
The nurse looked at Maggie a long time, then at Grant, still in uniform, still with the stripe of dried blood.
“As long as you sit quietly.”
Maggie nodded.
Grant stepped forward. “I’m going to get us some coffee.”
She nodded dumbly; coffee was the last thing she wanted but didn’t have it in her to argue.
And then the room was quiet, except for the soft beep of a monitor.
She looked at Nate’s slumbering form. It was clear from the position and bandaging that the shot had hit his leg. A thousand questions flooded her brain…how bad was it, would he be permanently injured, did his head injury of yesterday affect his health now, did they get the bullet out, did it hit the artery…but all of them were subverted by a single thought: Please don’t leave me.
Grant brought coffee; stayed awhile, but in the end he had to return home. There was paperwork to be done and arrangements to be made now that Nate would not be transporting Hard
ing himself. With a promise to come back as soon as he could, Grant left and it was only the two of them. Maggie chafed Nate’s hand between hers.
“Hold on, Nate. Please hold on.”
The haze was white, then gray, and then blurry shapes came into focus.
Nate swallowed—his mouth was bone-dry—and realized that the beeping sound he heard wasn’t his alarm clock, but a monitor that was attached to somewhere on his body.
He was in the hospital, and in that moment, he remembered exactly what had happened. The sound of the shot and the explosion of pain, and he instinctively stiffened. Only tensing brought the pain back and he forced himself to relax.
And when he did, he realized there was a mop of dark hair on the bed beside his hip.
Maggie.
He turned his head a half inch and tried to whisper her name, but nothing came out. He sighed and lay his head back against the pillow, closing his eyes, marveling that she was there, sleeping on his hospital bed.
He was a marshal, he knew that. He also knew that never in his life had he felt as strong a connection as he did to Maggie. He loved her, and it was different than anything he’d experienced before. Nothing about Maggie was easy. Perhaps that was why she was so perfect for him.
Why in the world couldn’t she see that?
He sighed, knowing he couldn’t place one iota of blame on her. Not after today. Before today he could have insisted that he wouldn’t get hurt. He could have told her about all the cases he’d been on where he’d come out without a scratch.
But after today…there was no denying it. What he did had risks. And after the way her husband had died, hell, he couldn’t blame her for not taking that on again.
He moved a hand until it could touch the soft silk of her hair and he rubbed a few strands between his fingers. She had said this morning that she couldn’t love anyone as she’d loved her husband. But that wasn’t what had made him walk away.
He had sensed her desperation and panic, and he knew he couldn’t pressure her into taking the chance. It wasn’t fair to ask that of her, not after all she’d been through already. She’d already risked and lost everything. She’d fought him so hard this morning that he had known he couldn’t hurt her more than she’d already been hurt.
Yet here she was. Waiting for him in a hospital room. He couldn’t imagine how difficult this must be for her. He licked his lips.
“Maggie,” he managed this time, his voice a rough croak.
She lifted her head slowly, one cheek red from being pressed against the blanket, her hair untidy and she began to tuck it behind her ears by what he knew now was force of habit.
“Nate.”
As soon as she said his name, her eyes welled with tears and a few slid past her lashes and down her cheeks. To Nate, she’d never looked more beautiful. Her voice was soft and musical like he remembered. He’d heard it enough times in his head. Played it over and over like a favorite song, only he never tired of it.
He raised his hand, cupped her cheek and closed his eyes.
Home.
This was how it felt then. Everything he had known was missing came down to this very moment. Home wasn’t his place in Florida or the Haven or a place at all. It was Maggie. Maggie was the home he’d been looking for.
He looked at her tear-stained face, drawn with worry and anxiety and he knew he’d been wrong to propose. Every argument she’d put up had been justified but easily disputed. Until the end. Maggie would never intentionally hurt anyone, so for her to say what she had, told him exactly how frightened she was. As much as he loved her, he knew that her feelings for him only caused her pain. The kindest thing he could do is accept her words and let her go.
“What are you doing here?”
Maggie linked her fingers with his. “Grant brought me. You’re in Edmonton. You were shot.”
His eyes widened. She’d said the last without flinching at all.
“I remember. Pete?”
“Is in custody. Grant was here…he brought me…but he left several hours ago to look after things. He’s coming back in the morning.”
Nate nodded. “I’m sorry I worried you. I’ll be fine, though. You don’t have to stay.”
“Just try to get rid of me and see what happens.”
Nate’s mouth dropped open and for the first time, Maggie smiled.
It made him hope, even as pain shot from his leg into his gut. But hope was all he had, and he didn’t want to squander a second of it. “I’ll take you for as long as you’ll let me.”
“How does forever sound?”
Maggie laughed at the expression on his face. He hadn’t been expecting that. But she’d had a good long time to think, and cry, and worry, and pray. And every single time she came up with the same answer: Any time with Nate was better than no time at all.
He winced and she stood up, glancing at the IV bags. “I’ll call the nurse. You are nearly due for pain medication, I think.”
He stopped her. “No, not yet. They’ll put me to sleep. And right now I want to see you.”
Her body warmed. All day she’d had images of what he was doing and they blended with the memories of the night Tom was killed. And then her fears had come true. And with them, truth—she loved him. But she hadn’t known what to do with it.
Only hours spent at his bedside had shown her what was real, and right.
“Let me get you some water, at least,” Maggie chided. “You need fluids. The doctor said so.”
She wanted to kiss him but wasn’t sure if it was the right thing or not. In the end she waited so long she just smiled and scooted from the room.
She was coming back from the ice machine when she spied Jen, curled up in a chair in the waiting room.
“Honey?”
Jen came awake instantly, standing up and tucking her hair in the same way her mother often did. “How’s Nate? Is he all right?”
Maggie nodded, going into the room and sitting down next to Jen. “He just woke up. He’s okay. In a lot of pain, but fine.”
Jen’s shoulders relaxed and Maggie’s brows pinched together.
“I didn’t expect to see you quite this soon. How long have you been here, waiting?”
“A few hours. Constable Simms called me at the dorm and told me what happened. Said maybe you’d like some company. But when I got here and peeked into Nate’s room, you were asleep. So I came out here to wait.” She reached over and took Maggie’s hand in hers. “How are you holding up?”
“Me?”
Jen nodded. “Yeah. You. This couldn’t have been easy for you, Mom. Not after Dad.”
Maggie wiped her lashes; how many times was she going to cry today anyway? “When did you grow up so fast?”
“I dunno.” Her old grin was back, impish. “Fast enough to see that you’re in love with him.”
Maggie’s head snapped back to stare at her daughter. Jen’s dark ponytail bobbed as she nodded her head. “You are. I knew when I came home there’d been something between you. You were different. And the way he held you last night…”
Maggie’s heart thumped hard as she looked into Jen’s eyes, ones so like her father’s.
“How would you feel about that?” She posed the question carefully.
“Dang, Mom, you’ve been alone too long. And Nate’s cool, you know? He’s one of the good guys.” Her cheeks pinked. “He took care of Pete, didn’t he?”
“Yes, yes, he did,” Maggie murmured.
“Well, then, I think you’d be a fool to let him get away.”
Maggie couldn’t help but laugh a little. “You do, do you?”
“I do. Now, do you think it’d be okay if I said hi to Nate and then went home? I have a nine-thirty class in the morning.”
“I think that would be fine.”
They went into the room together, Maggie holding the plastic cup of ice chips and Jen with her hands in her pockets. But when she saw Nate, she went over to the bed, leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Thank you,” sh
e said quietly. “Thank you for helping me. For helping us.” She threw a quick glance at her mother.
“You’re welcome,” he whispered, his voice too hoarse for anything stronger. “And we owe you, too, Jen. I’m proud of you.”
Jen squeezed his hand. “I’m going to leave you two alone, but I’ll come back after class tomorrow. Do you want anything? The only thing worse than dorm food is hospital food. I can sneak it in.”
Maggie swallowed thickly. It was so much like a family. Yet she’d turned Nate away just hours ago. Would he believe her now, when she was ready to tell the truth?
“Chocolate pudding,” he murmured. “I love chocolate pudding.”
Jen laughed. “Talk to you soon,” she said in farewell, before closing the door behind her, leaving them alone in the dim light.
He patted the bed beside him. “Come here,” he commanded, his voice still weak but warm.
She put the cup of chips on the table beside the bed and perched on the mattress gently, trying to disturb as little as possible.
He took her hand in his. The hospital band chafed at her a bit, but his other hand was connected to the IV.
“Let’s go back. Why don’t you tell me what you meant about the forever bit. Because this morning you were prepared to never see me again.”
It had hurt her to hurt him. And during the long day, waiting for news, she’d looked around her. What did she have at Mountain Haven? Nothing more than a list of excuses. A house, a home. A garden and a roof that needed repairs. She’d considered it her safe place but now knew she’d only been hiding.
She had a daughter who was already moving away, embarking on a new stage in her life. And what had Maggie done? She’d let her fears dictate her actions, letting her grief have control. She’d been so afraid of what might happen that she’d pushed away the one true thing.
Only Grant had shown up and had told her Nate was hurt, and none of it mattered anymore. Saying goodbye had done nothing to quell her feelings, or her worry. She knew in that moment that she wanted to stand by him through it, not pretend it didn’t exist.
“You left, and I waited. It was awful, not knowing. But not near as awful as seeing your blood on Grant’s uniform. Or hearing him say you’d been shot.”
